Tuesday, November 29, 2005

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (movie)


Alternative title:
雲のむこう、約束の場所 (Japanese)
Beyond the Clouds, The Promised Place
Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho (Japanese)
Summary: In an alternate timeline, Japan was divided after losing World War II: Hokkaido was annexed by "Union" while Honshu and other southern islands were under US sovereignty. A gigantic yet mysterious tower was constructed at Hokkaido and could be seen clearly from Aomori (the northernmost prefecture of Honshu) across Tsugaru Strait. In the summer of 1996, three 9th-graders had made a promise that one day they'll build an aircraft and unravel the tower's mystery, but their project was abandoned after the girl, Sayuri Sawatari, began experiencing sleeping sickness and transferred to Tokyo for better treatment. Three years later, Hiroki Fujisawa accidentally found out that Sayuri had been in coma since then, and he asked Takuya Shirakawa to help him finding a way to revive her. What they don't know yet is that Sayuri's unconsciousness is somehow linked with secrets of the tower and the world.
Shinkai does it again! But a little strangely. This one is as beautiful as "voices of a distant star" but the plot gets a little hard to follow. Time jumps around a bit in Shinkai's world, and it's a little much sometimes. Don't let this deter you though. Beautiful beautiful artwork here. 9 out of 10.
Anime News Network - The Place Promised in Our Early Days (movie)

Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)


Plot Outline: A lonely shoe salesman and an eccentric performance artist struggle to connect in this unique take on contemporary life.
Hooray for indie flavor film! I really loved this little gem. ahmagad. did I say that? Well it is good. 9 out of 10. Artsy without getting lame.
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)

Dark City (1998)


Plot Outline: A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.
Ok so i've seen this one a few times. Just watched the "Platinum" edition. Whatever. Kiefer Sutherland's weak accent still annoys the hell out of me. 4 out of 10. Tepid Sci-fi just doesn't do it for me anymore. Why did I watch it again? just wanted to make extra sure.
Dark City (1998)

GameSpy: Resident Evil 4


Six years have passed since Raccoon City was destroyed and the government has dismantled the Umbrella Corporation from the inside-out. But the terror is not over. Now a U.S. Agent, former Raccoon Police Officer Leon Kennedy has been dispatched on a mission to Europe to save the President's daughter from a "crazed organization" that bares a striking behavioral resemblance to creatures found in the Arklay Mountains. Is there a connection between these foes and the horrible nightmares from the past? Discover the answer for yourself in Resident Evil 4, the first truly three-dimensional installment of the series that was originally developed for the PS2, then cancelled and moved to GameCube, only to be moved back to the PlayStation 2 once again.

Let me just say this: I wish other game developers would take a few pointers from the resident team over at Capcom. This Game stands head and shoulders above the rest in it's genre. We all know how successful Resident Evil has been over the years, and it's because they keep reinventing themselves. I bought this title recently for thirty bucks and it played the pants off of any fifty-five dollar title in my whole collection, save Final Fantasy. 10 out of 10.
GameSpy: Resident Evil 4

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Turner Entertainment turns to holographic storage - Computerworld

The network plans to roll out the cutting-edge storage medium for fast restore-
News Story by Lucas Mearian
NOVEMBER 17, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Turner Entertainment Networks has its lenses focused on holographic storage for the future of storing and retrieving its movies, cartoons and commercial spots. The network giant has completed a test of the cutting-edge storage technology, which it said will soon move the company away from tape- and disk-based storage.

"The holographic disk promises to retail for $100, and by 2010, it will have capacity of 1.6TB each. That's pretty inexpensive," said Ron Tarasoff, vice president of broadcast technology and engineering at Turner Entertainment. "Even this first version can store 300GB per disk, and it has 160MB/sec. data throughput rates. That's burning. Then combine it with random access, and it's the best of all worlds."
More of this story at Computerworld

Subservient Donald

Ahhh, what? Subservient Donald is waiting for your commands. He is eager to please you. Do your worst.
Subservient Donald

Monday, November 21, 2005

Full Metal Panic (anime)


And speaking of Japanese schoolgirls... Wait, was I? Whatever. If you like your anime filled with schoolgirls, giant robots, and sexual innuendo without any payoff (100% fluff-core) LOOK NO FURTHER! Full metal panic brings these three favorite elements of anime together into one great series. Heh. That is, of course, assuming you like that kind of stuff. 7.5 out of 10, because it actually is quite funny.
Full Metal Panic

Stacy


Ahmagad. I pride myself on loving that which turns the stomachs of most. Stacy however, wasn't even worth watching. Crap video quality horror. Don't even waste your time. I made it through about ten minutes before i just turned it off. Folks, whole cranberry sauce does not look like gore. no matter how much of it you use. It really ruins the effect when you can see the whole cranberries floating around. Ooooh! cranberry filled zombie schoolgirls!! aaaah! spooooky! Please. 2 out of 10, but only because zombie schoolgirls is a decent concept...kind of.
Stacy DVD

Midnight Cowboy (1969)


Classic. Many of you have probably already seen this fine film. A look at NYC in 1969. The film's cinematography, the costuming, the themes, all ring of the Warhol era. It's fun to watch Jon Voight and see all his facial features reborn in his superstar daughter, Angelina Jolie. Glassy eyes and wet cough adorn the young Dustin Hoffman as "Rizzo the Ratso", a sickly city dweller.
If you were beginning to wonder what kind of films get a 10 rating, this is one of the few and the proud. 10 out of 10 from EtherFreak.

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Saturday, November 19, 2005

small, useless update.

Very busy with client's websites, and my own. sorry for the lack of updates. Good good stuff coming soon. promise.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

EtherFreak is moving!

Please make note of the address change. Etherfreak has moved to it's own domain! Find the same idle blather that you're used to at etherfreak.com
Plus new content and design! hooray!

Monday, November 14, 2005

Phone (2002)


Soon after Ji-won gets a new cell phone, her friend's young daughter, Yeong-ju, puts it to her ear and immediately begins screaming in terror... Directed by Byeong-ki Ahn.
Korean spooky flick. ahhh, pretty stale material. The beginning seemed promising but it quickly made room for "plot" by getting rid of all the fun stuff. 5.5 out of 10, but still worth watching (barely).
Phone (2002)

Jisatsu saakuru (2002) - Suicide Circle / Suicide Club


"Suicide Circle (aka Suicide Club, aka Jisatsu Sakuru, aka Jisatsu Club) was without a doubt one of the most eagerly-awaited post-Ring 'New Wave of Japanese horror' films of 2002. Opening with a notorious sequence concerning an exceptionally bloody mass suicide of 54 schoolgirls under a Tokyo-bound train at Shinjuku station, the film has been much talked-about, analysed and discussed, not merely as an effective piece of horror entertainment, but as a deeply biting, scathing and scary commentary on the state of Japanese contemporary society. It's not an immediately accessible film, by any stretch of the imagination: the heavy complexity of the themes only appear through repeated viewings. And Suicide Club is a genuinely creepy, disturbing movie with some truly poignant moments that easily stands up to repeated viewings.

Both directed and written by Sion Sono, a man whose usual field of filmic work is the gay pornography industry, and starring two heavyweight and extremely well-respected actors (Ryo Ishibashi and Masatoshi Nagase) Suicide Circle is an odd, totally unique and unmissable addition to the field. It's also strangely only rated R-15, despite its multiple and gruesomely gory depictions of the nastiest kinds of suicide possible. Drawing influences both from the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's masterpieces of modern horror cinema such as Kaïro and Cure, and during one particularly bizarre sequence, from the Japanese equivalent of MTV and from his own directorial background, Sion Sono has created a terrifying, sinister and downright apocalyptic vision of where the country's shaky post-boom future is taking the people." - Mandi Apple 2003
Great! Funny, Sick, Witty. Contemporary stuff. Love it. 9 out of 10.
Jisatsu saakuru (2002)

Kyua "Cure" (1997)

The Power Of Suggestion.
A wave of gruesome murders is sweeping Tokyo. The only connection is a bloody "X" carved into the neck of each of the victims...
Very non-traditional murder mystery flick. Sucks you in and goes to very dark, dark places. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa worked overtime on this one to create the mood and space that made this a great film. 8 out of ten.
Kyua (1997)

Dark Days - 2000


"Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice." - Summary written by jhailey.
Personally, I thought this documentary was just so-so. I wanted so much more from the film, knowing already about the supposed massive populations that dwell beneath the city of New York. I wanted to see more people, more living spaces and routines, more lives. I'm giving this a 6 out of 10, mostly because I know it could have been so much more.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Tin foil hats are/aren’t dangerous


Well, we’ve got some bad bad news for the paranoid (isn’t it always?): that snazzy collection of tin foil hats you keep for those rare events that draw you from the relative safety of your bunker in Idaho and into the dangerous outdoors, they aren’t doing much good protecting you from the deathly radiation that permeates the air. In fact, according to some wiz kid at MIT with a $250,000 network analyzer, that tin cap of yours actually tends to amplify certain frequencies that are reserved by the FCC for government use only, meaning their mind control rays have the most effect on the very people who go to the furthest trouble to protect themselves from such trickery. Oh what a world. The researcher theorizes that the government started this whole helmet craze in the first place, but we’re betting this kid knows where his scholarship money came from, and was commissioned for this phony report to get your guard down. Who you gonna believe? - Slashdot

Damnit! I took mine off while reading the story! Damnit! That's just what they wanted me to do! Agh!

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Rest of the Planet Gets World of Warcraft


Blizzard, which already has most of the planet’s players in a game-induced thrall, announced that they are expanding World of Warcraft to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, home of the type of players who literally play massive games until they drop dead at their computers.

The open beta hit a peak of 140,000 simultaneous players with more than 800,000 signed up for the beta. Worldwide the game has more than 4.5 million gamers.

World of Warcraft is starting to get a little too "snowcrash" for me. I'm just really glad I don't play/live it.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

EtherFreak and RSS

If you use an RSS agent and want to add EtherFreak to your content, use:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Etherfreak
or:
http://etherfreak.blogspot.com/atom.xml
if you use atom.

If you don't know what RSS is, don't worry about it.
I'll be adding this information permanently to the sidebar as soon as I feel like it.

Haute tension (2003)


Tagline: Hearts will bleed.
Plot Outline: "Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on holiday at Alexa's parent's country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway."
The NetFlix synopsis said something about a "twisty turny plot of terror." Bah. The movie started off great, and continued on very nicely until the one, terrible plot "twist". I won't ruin this otherwise great slasher flick by spoiling it, but man... I wanted to throw something. So, I'm giving the first part of the film, all but the last ten minutes a 7.5. the last ten minutes should have been left on the cutting room floor. Let me not forget to say this in glowing praise, though. The sound was superb.
Haute tension (2003)

Friday, November 04, 2005

InsanelyTwisted.com - Shadow Puppets!


Here is the first series of interstitials featuring "Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets" created for Nickelodeon's 2005 "Halloween Shriekin Weekend". These are the "Director's Cuts" and are not necessarily the ones shown on the network.
InsanelyTwisted.com

SHEBAM ! POW ! BLOP ! WIZZ !


Is that Brigitte Bardot? Yes. Quite. Musique Video Comic Strip from 1967.SHEBAM ! POW ! BLOP ! WIZZ !
And, Just in case you don't know who she is...Brigitte Bardot Biography / Gallery

Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Dark Water) (2002)


I haven't seen the Jennifer what'sherface Hollywood remake of this great film, but I'm so sure it can't be even close to touching the original. Now, it is a bit like Ringu, but i'm still ok with that. Still spooky. Suspense done right, even if it was totally predictable.
Honogurai mizu no soko kara (2002)

An Eye For Annai


Burstofbeaden.com says: "This film was done by me (Jonathan Klassen) and Dan Rodrigues in our third year at Sheridan College's Classical Animation Program. Everything is hand drawn and animated. We coloured the animation digitally, and the backgrounds are a mix of traditional and digital. I played the recorder for the soundtrack, and the jazz music near the middle is from Louis Armstrong's "Jeepers Creepers". The whole film comes in at just under 5 minutes long, and we're pretty darn proud of it. Tell your friends."
Think Samurai Jack...ish.
An Eye For Annai
Also Check out Burst of Beaden