July 22nd, 2008, 6 Comments »
I’ve got a longer post pending on last weekend’s activities, but in the meantime I wanted to share this photo with you. It depicts the first time in twenty years (excepting a couple of guided experiences in Morocco and Costa Rica) that I’ve gone camping. You really need to view the large version to appreciate the expression on my face:
July 22nd, 2008, 11 Comments »
Yesterday I saw The Dark Knight. And I’ve gotta tell you, I was disappointed. Maybe I’d believed the hype (note to self: always heed the advice of Flavor Flav), maybe it was the creepy promise of Heath Ledger’s penultimate film, or maybe it was my affection for Christian Bale and director Christopher Nolan’s previous films (in particular, The Prestige). Regardless, the film didn’t deliver.
It’s a murky, manic movie with a cast of thousands. It’s at least twenty minutes too long, and yet never spends enough time with the right scenes. This is partially due to its remarkable roster of characters. Among the supporting roles with speaking parts are a ridiculous hierarchy of bureaucrats–assistant district attorney, district attorney, Jim Gordon, police commissioner and mayor–and a precinct’s worth of cops. It’s also because of a needless sub-plot involving D.A. Harvey Dent, which only distracts from the film’s central inertia.
Heath Ledger is extraordinary as The Joker, and you should see the movie to see his performance. He’s a jangly-limbed rag doll, capable of anything and slave to his own mad whims. He makes Jack Nicholson’s Joker from the 1986 Batman look, well, like Alfred.
Unfortunately, we don’t see enough of Ledger. And that’s where I was most disappointed. I’d hoped that the film would be a much more intimate examination of the conflicted relationship between these two outcasts who live beyond the law. That is, more like Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke (though clearly that was an influence).
Instead, we got a big-ass superhero movie. The stunts were impressive, though totally muddled. Nolan could take lessons on directing action scenes from, say, Doug Lyman or Martin Scorsese. David Edelstein puts it well in his New York Magazine review:
Nolan appears to have no clue how to stage or shoot action. He got away with the chopped-up fights in Batman Begins because his hero was a barely glimpsed ninja, coming at villains from all angles in stroboscopic flashes. There are more variables here, which means more opportunities to say “What the f— just happened?” I defy you to make spatial sense of the early scene in which Batman battles faux Batmen, gangsters, and the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy in a cameo that comes to nothing). If you can, move on to Level 2, diagramming the “Bat-tank versus Joker-truck versus cop car” chase. Then, finally, take the Ultimate Challenge: following the climax with Batman, the Joker, more faux Batmen, decoy hostages dressed as clowns, a SWAT team, and Morgan Freeman’s Lucius with some kind of sonar monitoring gizmo that tracks all the parties on video screens.
Speaking of Scorsese, compare The Dark Knight to The Departed. Both are crime epics full of violence and betrayal, yet Nolan’s work pales in comparison. Not only does Scorsese handle the large cast effortlessly, but you always have a clear grip on what’s going on in the action sequences.
In short, The Dark Knight is an average superhero movie with one extraordinary performance. It wasn’t awful, but it sure wasn’t the masterpiece I hoped for.
On an unrelated note, the movie was preceded by a teaser trailer for Terminator 4. Christian Bale is perfectly cast as an adult, robot-slaying John Connor. I really hope this film redeems the franchise after the dreck that was Terminator 3.
July 22nd, 2008, 5 Comments »
Barry at Search Engine Land reports a new discovery in Google Maps today: walking directions.
Earlier this month, I reported that Google Maps was testing walking directions on a small subset of users. This morning, I noticed that Google Maps now is offering walking directions for all Google Maps users.
For example, conduct a search for 200 Madison Ave to 200 Lexington Ave and you will see the option to take “Walking” directions, as opposed to driving directions.
Hmm…I’m underwhelmed. Compare the route from my old Vancouver apartment to Science World. Here are the driving directions, and here are the walking instructions. The only difference seems to be that the walking directions ignore one-way streets. In truth, shouldn’t the walking directions ought to run along the waterfront? Of course, that route would be longer than the prescribed one, but walkers (more than drivers, I suspect) don’t necessarily want the most direct route from point A to B.
Maybe Google needs to crowd-source this problem to optimize the walking routes?
July 21st, 2008, No Comments »
On a CBC podcast last week, I heard about Solar Taxi. This Swiss dude named Louis Palmer is, with the help of academics and experts, driving a solar-powered vehicle around the world:
On 3 July 2007 I set off on my first journey around the world with a solar powered vehicle. Admittedly, as a regular citizen I cannot change the world but I can demonstrate to the world just how dire the global climate situation has become and how many sophisticated solutions to lower the greenhouse gases already exist, which bring with them many other advantages. So that we can have a better world and a more secure future. The solar taxi should rekindle hope and a zest for life, set an example to counteract resignation and stimulate reflection. And show that every single one of us can take a step towards preserving our planet.
Check out his route. Thus far he’s gone 34,644 km, with a goal of over 50,000.
He sounded really charming on the CBC, and his great videos bear that charm out:
July 21st, 2008, 6 Comments »
AdHack is running a new assignment on Rogers and the iPhone:
Rogers has been criticized for its underwhelming advertising. When the iPhone was announced they had nothing on their website until a teaser appeared. AdHack member Brendan Wilson though the teaser was “lame.” Doesn’t a great device deserve better? We think we can do better. Yeah  we know you can do better!
We call this challenge Assignment #9: Create the iPhone ad that Rogers should have used to launch and promote the iPhone in Canada. You can praise it, you can hate on it. The choice is yours. Remember to tag your submission with “Assignment #9″ when you upload!
Here’s what I came up with:
It references the fact that Rogers promised an early bird breakfast to those standing in line. But Travis says “the only food was granola bars at about 10 or 11 a.m., but only enough for about one bar for every three people”.
Thus far, I’m quite happy with my iPhone. I’ve never had a GPS-enabled device before, and I find identifying my location kind of existentially thrilling. The UI is everything people say it is, and I can certainly type on it way faster than I could text on my old phone. I haven’t really discovered any must-have apps yet. I just read about AirMe, which may become my Flickr uploader of choice.
Complaints? I want a one-tap (the iPhone term for ‘click’) means of returning to the audio I was playing from elsewhere in the UI, or from when the device is in sleep mode. More importantly, the battery life is kind of pitiful. If you’re using data functions on the phone, you pretty much have to plug it in every day. I can live with that, but it’s not really satisfactory.
UPDATE: Rob from Techvibes asked me to pimp his Ad Hack commission.
July 18th, 2008, 11 Comments »
A couple of Winnipegers are visiting us this weekend. We discussed going for Slurpees, and they unveiled their vast knowledge base of all things Slurpable. Apparently Slurpees are very popular, because it has been the Slurpee Capital of the World for nine years running:
“It’s nostalgic at this point,” said regional market manager of 7-Eleven Canada, Inc., Dale Shaw. “This is probably the only place in the world where it’s a four-season beverage.” Slurpees have been a Winnipeg staple for generations, he said.
Shaw said the best-performing store in the city is at Pembina Highway and Killarney Avenue. “For the province, it’s Steinbach,” he said. The best-selling Slurpee flavours are G-Shock Gatorade and Slurpaccino.
Really? Gatorade and Slurpaccino? That feels like new-flavour marketing to me–those are the flavours I avoid like a the semi-solid plague.
Apparently Alex Perez made a documentary about the phenomenon back in 2006. You can watch a couple of video clips on the film’s site.
July 17th, 2008, 12 Comments »
I’ve been meaning to write a few posts about my new hometown of Victoria, but other more worldly things keep coming up. There’s a bizarre retail phenomenon in downtown Victoria that deserves mention. On Johnston Street, a busy shopping street in the centre of town, there are three comic book shops within a block of each other. In fact, two of them are next door to each other. Check it out:
I was reminded of this unlikely confluence while in Legends Comics and Books buying the final issue of Y: The Last Man (a truly superb series). I should have asked the guy behind the counter what the deal was (maybe somebody owns more than one of the shops?). I’ll do so the next time I’m down on Johnson Street.
I know there’s some retail theory about assembling a group of similar shops, and a tide that raises all boats. But this doesn’t feel sustainable. Still, if I remember correctly, there have been three shops on Johnson for years. Weird, eh?
Incidentally, there’s a City of Victoria-backed effort to rebrand a few blocks of Johnson Street with the heinous epithet ‘LoJo’. It feels like an awful, desperate attempt to associate that area with the SoHo’s of New York and London.
Informal neighbourhood names shouldn’t come from City Hall–they should be devised by the people in the neighbourhood. Maybe that’s what happened here, but I’d never heard the term before I saw it on a silly banner on a lamppost.
July 17th, 2008, 7 Comments »
Down the street from our apartment in Victoria, there’s a hilariously dangerous rope swing rigged up in the front yard of a house:
It seems like an invitation for disaster, doesn’t it?
This, incidentally, is the first photo I took with the camera on my new iPhone.