Zoostorm

Got my new PC working fine, so far... but yesterday was an epic migraine by teatime.

New PC hardware

Windows 7 home premium (x64-bit system)

Bemused to note: a 32-bit system is called x86, but a 64-bit is x64. Such clever confusion! 

Intel i3 CPU @ 3.3GHz  

1 TB hard drive

8GB RAM

Blu-ray player + DVD RW

Everything runs through the HDMI cable from 1Gb NVIDIA graphics card to a new  Samsung 21.5 inch widescreen (1920 x 1080 p) monitor.

I'm still using M$ Office 2003 Pro.

All of my usual and old-favoutite software (like Paint Shop Pro 5) from previous desktop (Win XP) has installed without any problems.

The only thing I found was incompatible with x64 was a Casper 5 back-up maker, but I don't think it's necessary on this machine.

Anyway, this is very fast indeed, compared to the old XP desktop or my Vista laptop. If only my slow broadband connection had the speed to match this machine, I'd probably be doing the happy dance.

Ironic chancellor

I woke up with all this rattling around in my headache, so it’s as much a satirical rant as political commentary.

Why this man is a fool -->

Shark-boy

Campaigners for the separation of church and state often miss the point. It’s not just the encumbrance of traditional religions, and lobbying by modern cults, that hinder social progress; it’s also the many and varied, but all misguided, attempts to manage economies on national or global scales. Economics is simply another belief system, not a practical science. Consequently, there is no good news on political fronts, and I doubt there will be, unless the people demand/ enforce some radical social changes.    

Ministers in government can trace their jobs back to positions in the imperial system.The current Chancellor of the Exchequer probably thinks his job can be traced back to a royal treasurer for kings and queens, but he’s actually a modern version of the court jester. In popular mythology, King Canute became his own ‘fool’ when he seemed to believe that his royal blood granted him some kind of magical authority over the waves. Since tides are prompted by the Moon, what ‘delusional’ Canute really needed was anti-gravity technology.

That famous misquote: ‘the business of America is business’ no longer holds true, in any sense, because America itself seems no longer to be a nation, it’s just a business. Now, it's just too late to be an optimist.

Meanwhile, some notes for a hopeless manifesto:

For the 21st century, government needs inspired leaders not jobsworth managers. Of the currently elected officials, none are capable to solving the problems of a corrupted economic system. The political tools might well already exist, but the will to use them is not there. We need a new political system, and a social contract with a global reach. Something based on secular principles of a ‘united world’, not just a United Nations. Is it any wonder the dream of utopia (as process not destination) is lost?

Wild beasts

On the Mississippi delta, there’s a post–Katrina disaster area where levees are so broken that “everything beautiful is gone.” Indie hit Beasts Of The Southern Wild is a picture maintaining legends of a noble primitivism that glorifies political and cultural stagnation. This is Sundance bait with a deeply romanticised ‘plot’ of irrational nonsense. It presents us with a defiant sensibility so keen to stress the importance of feelings, as if logical thought holds no sway or relevance, that overdose on folksy hippie sentimentality seems a likely response to its worst moments of backwoods charm, all seemingly inspired by the worst pretensions of magical realism.

Helicopters pass overhead, appearing as far away as comets, and no more in touch with the plight of the protagonists below their flight path. If taken on face value, this has some marvellous fantasy images but it has all been created in the service of third world survivalism without hope of progress. Being content with less is portrayed here as hardly one step above blissful ignorance. Living in squalid flooded slums with nothing at all worth having is not the ultimate in spiritual freedom, despite this movie’s exploration of bohemian dreams. A compassionate humanity in a perfect kind of balance with feral nature must be far more than just a commune of scavengers (or tribal ‘beasts’), southern or otherwise.

New monsters

Monster movies used to be taken seriously, whether creature antagonists were oversized beasts, farfetched chimeras, or weird fantasy chosen from legend to menace the present day. Even in comedy–action treatments of the subgenre, like Tremors, there may well be a strong element of disgust (such as body horror). 

One way to almost certainly ensure grimly sombre reactions from viewers is to put children in peril, but Irish flick Grabbers fails to strengthen its appeal with any coldly fiendish moments. It succumbs to complete irreverence and plays out as a pub night siege, with a bunch of stereotypically characters pitted against a Lovecraftian yet frivolously weak invader.

Directed by Jon Wright (Tormented), its efficiently cartoonish presentation means there is no overt sense of dread, in spite of some grotesque imagery for the aliens. Grabbers can be fun, if watched as lightweight cross–genre fare, but it remains only modestly successful as a throwaway monsterama sitcom; something like Father Ted meets Slither.

 

Nowadays, of course, slithering up from the downmarket regions of parodic threats to humankind, an overabundance of straight absurdity has emerged, and the trend for silly mutant hybrids like Sharktopus continues in Jim Wynorski’s utterly farcical Piranhaconda. 

This is a tepid actioner, where a crew making a tacky horror movie on location in Hawaii are violently interrupted by a ‘real’ terror: part snake, part fish, all CGI. There is a pair of them and they do not get along. Gangsters act out a routine kidnapping sideshow to keep guest star Michael Madsen amused, so his heroic professor won’t simply collect his paycheque and wander off, muttering about a regrettable downturn for his career in genre pictures. 

Of course, this is not actually a ‘proper’ movie; it is just the punch–line for a childish joke: what is huge, and yellow and black, and swallows human prey whole - leaving only a red mist of arterial spray? It is a fairly typical example of the low–budget art of trash movies, today, and simply an accessory (and could or should be a free gift), when you buy beer and popcorn.

 

Lens flare

Since when did lens flare become trendy for cinematography in blockbuster movies?   

Enterprise... oh, shiny!

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot was the first big screen movie that overused lens flare for its live-action scenes aboard the Enterprise, and the constantly over-lit and blurry images proved to be so irritating it spoiled the whole movie. It did not present us with a brighter future, or some kind of spontaneous and organic creativity, it only looked far too amateurish to be taken seriously. 

Vulcan death rays

Abrams continued his apparent fascination with the visual noise of lens flare in the supposedly down-to-earth adventure Super 8, and it resulted in a terribly annoying train wreck of a movie. His malign influence on TV series Fringe is also noticeable, with a detrimental effect on the camera work.

Super 8 train wreck

Len Wiseman’s Total Recall is another remake that abuses viewers’ eyesight with its ridiculous glare from both on– and off–screen lighting. Many scenes are rendered all but unwatchable by streaks of whiteness that obscure details, and negate any sense of space within the frame. 

Total mood-lighting failure

Is it stylish? I certainly don’t think so. Babylon 5 used lens flare so that computer-generated scenes of the orbiting habitat, and varied starships, might appear as if they were filmed with actual cameras. It made a kind of sense… at the time. It could be perceived as a clever visual, even if it was not always artistically valid in frequent repetition. A similar conceit was used for many of those digitally created space battles in the BSG remake. Other movies troubled by a migraine blaze of lens flare include Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.

Blazing Transformers

CGI aside, lens flare is (of course) caused in actual cameras by light bouncing around inside the lens itself. The solution used by professional camera experts is to fit a hood on the lens. With recent big screen offerings that mess up clear views of expensive set designs, while also mistaking jittery handheld camera movement for real atmosphere, you might wonder if there is a shortage of lens hoods in Hollywood. I hope this stupid fad is over soon, but Abrams sequel Star Trek 2 is due soon, so I fear the worst is yet to come, and it’s been announced that Abrams will direct a new Star Wars feature.

Star Trek 2 - into the light!

Ultimately, lens flare is invalid as a subjective style or first–person–cinema technique simply because our eyes do not work like camera lenses. This futuristic dazzle for the look of sci-fi movies is so bright that we may have to squint to see anything at all.