Spin is a really cool short film by Double Edge Films. Its about a DJ who can affect reality with his console. It's very creative and there isn't any dialogue so it's accessible to everyone! I won't say more cos there are some pretty cool twists in this little piece. I'm really impressed with the standard of filmmaking at show here- the editing in particular is sweet. Watch it here!
(via jay is)
Bruce Sterling is a Visionary. No, really. That's his actual job title. He's the Visionary-In-Residence at the Art Center College of Design at Pasadena, California. He's at the College for the whole of this year (except right now, cos he's here in Singapore!), teaching students about the future of design. Pretty exciting stuff.
Taken with my 7210 so it aint the highest quality. But that's Bruce Sterling there. :-)
Sterling (who, by the way, has an honorary Doctorate in Science!) gave a talk titled "From Cyberpunk to Industrial Design – Writing Science Fiction in the 21st century" on Saturday night as part of the Singapore Writer's Festival. Appropriately enough, it was held in the new National Library's Pod, a futuristic egg-shaped structure perched at the top of the Library building. Gorgeous view of the city from there, too.
But I digress. About the talk itself- it was quite awesome.
After one of the talk's organisers briefly introduced him (famous science fiction writer, etc), Sterling began by talking about his current work at the Art Center College of Design and how design has been a primary area of interest to him of late. He spoke a bit about business process reengineering and only half-jokingly said that instead of calling himself a science fiction writer, he now considered himself an artist who's main area of concern is the impact of technology on society.
He then spoke about a bit about science fiction. Specifically, he said there's an inherent conflict between the words "science" and "fiction," science being logical and based on falsifiable theories and fiction being a form of art dealing with human emotions and all that kinda jazz. According to him, design represents a third way of thinking, as design isn't quite science and its not really art either. Design's about, well, interface (he may not have used that precise word though). And he believes design can bridge the gap between science and fiction.
At this point of his talk he took out a designer object, a tube-shaped object that turned out to be a spectacles container with a twist. It had hinges on both sides, allowing him to open the case on one side, flip it around and close it on the other. Neat trick. But as Sterling showed, this wasn't good design. The obvious flaw was that if you flipped the case over while your spectacles were inside, they'd fall right out of the case. Also, his spectacles were too big to fit in the case. Finally, the case itself was pretty fragile. So it wasn't a particularly useful design. Just a good gimmick.
According to Sterling, good design centers around safety and utility- basically, good design is practical. Useful. He explained how rapid prototyping is the designer's secret weapon. Rapid prototyping is form of computer-aided manufacturing where an object is designed as a 3D model in a computer and then automatically constructed by 3D printers or similar such devices. Sterling said that design isn't a precise process. It's extremely hard to get a design right the first time. The beauty of rapid prototyping is that it allows designers to churn out physical model after physical model of their designs til they finally get it right.
Continuing with the design meme, Sterling talked about how working with designers for the past year or so has really changed his mindset. Sitting there at the talk listening to him, I could really feel his love for design. It's clearly something he cares deeply about. He's even trying to apply it to his fiction! His next novel may well fall into, or invent, the genre of design fiction. I doubt he'd be disappointed if it did.
Then he spoke about another topic that's close to his heart- sustainability. Taking a water bottle (a Voda water bottle, no less), he outlined it's life-cycle: from raw materials to factory to distribution to the consumer (him) and it's final destination, a land-fill. This, he said, isn't a sustainable system. If we keep throwing away all our consumer objects like we do now, there won't be enough land-fills on Earth to store all the waste. Clearly there's a need for a sustainable system.
The problem with sustainability as a concept, he said, is that it isn't a very attractive concept. Put in another way, it's not really sexy enough. The problem, said Sterling, is the word itself. It's a dead word. Not one that's likely to come up in a conversation. He gave an amusing example of a man coming home from work to say "Honey, this dinner was really sustainable!" Not gonna happen. His implication ws that the word sustainable seems to denote stagnation, a lack of progress.
But, Sterling continued, sustainability doesn't have to be about keeping things the same- it's about allowing society to continually make new mistakes, instead of repeating the same old ones again and again. No society had ever achieved that, he said, though scientific culture comes the closest- being a system where everything is refutable, offering the possibility of complete upheavals of accepted theory given new discoveries.
The key to understanding sustainability is time, he said. We need to stop thinking about permanence. The common science fiction concepts of utopias and apocalypses have to go. The first implies perfection, which in turn implies stagnation- nothing'll ever change in a perfect society. The second- well there won't be anyone left, will there? So no point thinking about it. Sterling said that we need to reconsider the way we think about the future. It's not a place we're going to reach one day- rather, it's a continual becoming. The future as a process.
Sterling then described three ways of achieving sustainability, the way he saw it. The first was to make everything bio-degradable. Which was what humans did prior to industrialization as they didn't know how to make artificial materials. Even so, he said, there remains pollution from ancient times in the form of stone artifacts. He gave us the example of archeologists cutting their hands on prehistoric flint weapons made by hominids. I think what he was getting at with that example is that it's kind of impossible to make EVERYTHING bio-degradable. Heh. Some of the objects we leave behind'll make archeologists of the future blow up. Hopefully those objects won't last that long.
The second way of reaching sustainability was to build monuments. What Sterling meant by this was objects that are very long-lasting. However, he said, this isn't really feasible because no society wants to use the same old stuff forever. How many people want to use their great-grandmothers furniture?
The third way, the one that Sterling's really interested in, is to digitally track EVERYTHING- all consumer objects, anyway. Using RFID and similar technologies, track objects throughout their life-cycles and then fold them back into the production stream when they've reached the end of their usefulness. Sterling says the individual technologies needed to create such a system exist today- digital tracking, searching, databases, etc. They've just never been integrated in this way yet. In the scenario that he was positing, every object would have it's own story, so to speak. You could find out it's complete history from its factory origins to its movements across the world to when it finally reached you. According to him, the possibilities for such a system are innumerable but also almost unimaginable as it's something completely NEW. This is something that could only happen at this current stage of human history as only now do we have the required skills and technologies.
It's a bit of a complicated notion, this. Hard to see how it'd work as a system. And of course, rife with possibilities for abuse (loss of privacys just the tip of the iceberg). But at the same time, it's tremendously exciting. Especially when Bruce Sterling's the one talking about it. He's got a real gift for communicating his vision, that man. But it's a testament to how much of a brain-bender this idea is that Sterling's spent the last 3 years trying to write a novel about it but has so far been unable to do so.
Sterling predicts that this system of digitally tracked objects will result in a breakdown between the real world and the virtual world (spoken like a true cyber-punk, huzzah!). Every significant object will be linked to something virtual. Imagine, he said, a water bottle with a full history, discussion boards, blogs and other web resources dedicated to it. What an incredible idea! It'd be nothing less than a complete revolution in consumer-product relationships if it happens, thats for sure. By the way, if you're interested in learning more about these exciting ideas of Sterling's, read this transcript of his August 2004 talk at SIGGRAPH. It's a very very good read as long as you don't mind plowing through some slightly technical concepts.
Going back to the topic of The Future, Sterling said that it'll either be unimaginable (propelled by technologies like the above) or unthinkable (we'll all be wiped out by nuclear war- yep, sounds pretty unthinkable to me). He also predicts that almost all of today's pressing problems will be solved purely by accident, as by-products of technological advances of the future.
He finished off by mentioning his blog, which is kind of his own rapid prototyping process. He posts snippets of interesting news about technology and culture and the like.
Following the talk, there was a Question and Answer session. I made some notes of the more interesting questions and answers. I didn't take down the exact questions so I'm just paraphrasing em.
The first person to ask a question was a bit kiasu- he asked 3! Very good questions, though. His first was: How, in a "trackable society," do you track insubstantial objects (like oil spills or gases)?
Sterling's answer was to use sensors. He gave the example of using sensors in bathrooms to detect foreign substances in your body when you shower. Like, if your sensors detect hydrazine (airplane fuel) in your body, you could call up your friends and ask if the've got hydrazine in them too and go online and try to find out where it came from, if there's been a leak in some plane somewhere or something like that. He also gave the example that cars could have sensors to detect emissions from other cars on the road.
The man's second question was about the issue of biodegradability in tracking devices.
Sterling said that silicon, typically used for such devices today, can't biodegrade as it's basically glass. So either a) recycle it after it's been used in a product, b) embed it inside the product it's being used to track, or c) use organic semiconductors that are biodegradable- something like digital ink with transmitters in it that can be sprayed onto the surface of an object. Apparently, there are at least 2 companies that are working on this technology today.
The man's third question was about the difficulty of assigning unique names to mass-manufactured, identical objects.
Sterling's answer was that this was basically a taxonomy problem, a problem of naming. If you've got a thousand models of the Toyota Prius on the roads, what's your specific car's unique name? Grey Toyota Prius? Grey Toyota Prius with modified engine? How about unique names for the parts in the car? Sterling's suspicion is that there won't be a perfect solution. Instead information will be highly mutable. Different people will use different naming schemes (sounds kind of like how tagging works in Internet bookmark systems like del.icio.us). He gave the example of a government automobile body- they'd be more interested in the movements of cars and legal matters and so on. An auto enthusiast site, on the other hand, would be more interested in performance, mod parts and so on. So the two organisations would use different terminologies but they might cross-reference each other for shared information.
The second person to pose a question asked about the issue of privacy.
Sterling recommended the book Spychips by Katherine Albrecth for more information about privacy issues today. He did say that things are going to get very very scary for the forseeable future. Governments and malicious organisations will be able to use information from things like RFID tags to track people. BUT all this information will also available to everyone, so that evens things out a bit. HE also said that privacy is just one area affected by these new technologies- the ramifications are much more far-reaching than just that (I got the impression he's getting a bit tired about people just focusing on the privacy issue).
Yet another person asked a question about the science fiction concept of the Singularity- a future time where technological change will outpace people's ability to understand it, resulting in a society completely incomprehensible to people living before the time of the Singularity.
Sterling answered that he had actually given a seminar on the topic for the Long Now Foundation (the MP3s available here). He said he doesn't believe the original concept as put forward by Verner Vinge is very useful- however, he does believe the world of a hundred years from now will be as incomprehensible to the people of today as the world of today would be to people living in the 19th century.
OK that's pretty much all I got. I'll post up some of my own ideas on the talk later.
Well, I live in the CBD and do all my shopping in the City Hall, Bugis and Orchard Road areas and in general, service at all those places is pretty darned excellent nowadays.
Why, just 2 days ago I went with a friend of mine to Funan Centre so he could buy a new router cos his old one's just given up the ghost lately. Actually it's my old Linksys BEFW11S4 that I gave him after I got a free router from Starhub for upgrading my MaxOnline plan (BTW: Boys and girls- don't buy Linksys routers. Every one I've used has given me no end of headaches). Anyway, we reached there quite late at 8:30pm and most of the shops were already closed. But we found a shop on the 5th floor that was still open and lucky for us they sold networking equipment! We went in and I asked the guy at the shop- knowledgable looking guy in his 40s or so- which wireless router he'd recommend to us.
There was a number of different models on the shelves there but he took one of the shelf right away and showed it to us- twas the Netgear WGR614. It's quite an attractively designed router with an Apple-inspired white color scheme and nice rounded corners. But more importantly, it was one of the cheaper models at S$75.00 and it came with a 3-years warranty! Our salesguy confirmed that a lot of people had problems with Linksys routers but he claimed that so far, he hadn't heard of any problems with the Netgear one. Well, one could be cynical and say that of course he'd say that- he's trying to sell that model! But he also had Linksys routers in his store so I doubt he was just giving us a load of bull to make a sale.
So like, he was really informative and explained the differences between the model he recommended and the more expensive models and why he thought this one was the best buy. In the end it was his the combination of his testimony, the sweet price, the 3-year warranty (compared to a mere year for Linksys) and a nice little PC World recommendation stamp on the router's box that sold me on the router so I told my friend to go ahead and buy it. So far he hasn't had any problems with it. And if he does- got 3 year warranty what!
If not for that salesdude recommending us the Netgear router, I think we'd probably have ended up going for yet another Linkys router- despite their suckiness, we didn't know of any better routers (D-Link ones are even worse). And you know what, he was so nice that he listened to my sob-story about my own router- it crashes once a week for no apparent reason and I have to turn my modem and router off and back on again to get it to work- told me to download new firmware and even offered to help me upgrade my routers firmware if I couldn't do it myself. Like, for free! Coolness.
This is an exciting and unusual development. I usually just scan the frontpage but I don't usually read the whole paper- see, I get most of my world news on the net. But this does make me a bit (or very) backwards when it comes to local news. But I'm trying to catch up now- especially cos following the latest news and trends is highly important for 2 modules I'm taking at university this semester- Theories of Communications and New Media and Principles of Marketing.
So anyway, there's a story on the front page about how the government's starting a new Customer Centric Initiative (CCI) to improve service in Singapore, starting with the retail sector. Well I kind of expected something like this after what my Marketing tutor told me on Monday (I blogged about it a couple posts down). Of course, it's a jolly good idea. Who doesn't want better service?
Over in the home section there's a big 2-page spotlight on some big companies participating in the CCI. There's also a couple of interesting anecdotes about good customer service here by Mr Lim Swee Say, deputy secretary-general of the labour movement here (Wow I didn't know there was one! Wonder what they do?).
There's a big section on haze today. It's quite sad how poor farmers in Sumatra have no choice but to clear land by slash-and-burn methods. The Indonesian government really should help them out by providing some kind of alternative. It's a real shame that we had to see a repeat of what happened in 1997. Thankfully Singapore wasn't affected this time becos of wind directions and yadda yadda... but we might not be so lucky next time.
British humour is pretty awesome. And so are pirates. So it comes as no surprise that this old BBC radio sketch titled Pirate Training Day from the BBC Million Pound Radio Show is incredibly hilarious. Listen to this and you'll be on the floor in stitches, rolling around while laughing like a maniac. Please don't listen to this at school or work. ;-)
In other related pirate news, Talk Like A Pirate Day is coming soon- September 19th! Arr!
(via Boing Boing)
Whoa. This article about how sea anemone armies conduct terrotorial battles in tide-pools is extremely cool. Here's an excerpt:
"When the tide is out, the polyps are contracted and quiet. As the tide covers the colonies, "scouts" move out into the border to look for empty space to occupy. Larger, well-armed "warriors" inflate their stinging arms and swing them around. Towards the center of the colony, poorly armed "reproductive" anemones stay out of the fray and conduct the clone's business of breeding.
When anemones from opposing colonies come in contact, they usually fight. But after about 20 or 30 minutes of battle the clones settle down to a truce until the next high tide.
It's not just polyps along the border between two clones that clash. Polyps three or four rows away from the front will reach over their comrades to engage in fights, Grosberg said."
WHOA! Large-scale anemone battles with scouts and warriors! ANEMONE WARRIORS! Wow, even the meekest-looking creatures in the animal kingdom can be pretty bad-ass. If I didn't know better, I'd think the article was describing a battle in a really avant-garde new Real-Time Strategy game.
(via Boing Boing)
(via BoingBoing)
UK-based ISP Playlouder MSP has struck a deal with SONY BMG that will allow it's users to download any song in the record label's catalog for free as well as file-share their own music collection with other users of the ISP. Well it's about bloody time someone finally figured out a solution that makes both the consumers and producers of music happy. Bravo!
Meanwhile, back here in Singapore, the RIAS got the police to arrest 3 people for sharing their music collections on the net. Under Singapore's new anti-piracy laws, these 3 barbarous blackguards can face up to 5 years jail time or a S$10,000 fine. Oh and I just found out apparently these guys received prior warnings before finally getting busted. Well in that case the RIAS's tactics aren't really all that hardline. Just a bit over the top... Anyway I bet these guys won't get full sentences. After all, the main purpose of these arrests is really to create examples out of these guys, right? But really, what were they doing sharing their music online on IRC? It's not like they're earning money from it!
Well, it's kind of ironic that these 2 events happen within a week of each other. Seeing as how they represent two almost diametrically opposite ways of dealing with the problem of Internet music piracy, and the underlying problem of the traditional means of music distribution, CDs, being displaced by newer and more efficient means of distribution in the form of P2P networks on the net.
So we see one party co-opting the new distribution systems, legalizing and limiting their use while the other fights to keep the old system viable. Only history will really tell but right now I think its reasonably safe to say the future of music distribution is online. And the bottom-line for the RIAS is that they don't want to lose music sales to piracy. So I think they're better off implementing a similar system to what Playlouder MSP has done rather than keep trying to scare people off P2P systems by arresting a few every now and then. P2P's not going away anytime soon and you can't get it rid of it. So they've gotta find a better way to deal with it.
Note: I edited this post extensively cos well... terrorist jokes aren't funny anymore and besides, no matter how miffed I am at not being able to rip my new CDs to my hard disk because of weird copy protection schemes (though that's kind of a moot point here as it's illegal to rip songs from your CDs onto your hard disk!) ranting about the issue isn't going to change much. Though wow, ripping songs is illegal? Weird. Thats one law I bet is never going to get enforced. C'mon, if people can't convert their CDs to MP3s, Creative Zen MP3 player sales will plummet! Sure die, leh.
I found this interesting article about the poor level of service in Singapore. Hmmm... my Marketing (I'm taking an intro to Marketing module at school this semester) tutor was talking about the same thing this week. Her opinion was that most people in service industries in Singapore don't really care about customer service because they don't really have to. Their jobs aren't on the line. I think that's an interesting point. I mean, if your customers are buying stuff from you no matter how rude you are, why bother to be polite? My tutor, who's originally from Hong Kong but has now settled down here, told us that service in Hong Kong industry has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years because the economy was so terrible a few years ago that businesses were compelled to improve their level of service to woo back customers. So does that mean Singapore needs a similar retail crisis for an improvement in service to happen? Well, I don't think so. For one thing, the governments a lot more hands-on here than there. According to my tutor, the Singapore government has already sent some people over to Hong Kong to take a look at how things are being done there now and how they managed to improve their level of customer service.
To be fair, service in Singapore isn't all that bad. You can find stores where the staff are friendly and don't act as if they'd rather you left their store, real fast. But then again, there are some stores where the staff look at you as if they hate you, just for existing. But its up to us consumers to lay our feet down and say No to Bad Service. Why bother buying stuff from a store where the people who are supposed to serve you act like you just murdered their grandfather? I don't. Last year, I bought my PC from a different store at Sim Lim than the one I was originally going to buy it from. I paid about $50 more. But I just couldn't stand the service at the first shop so I let my money do the talking and gave them the cold shoulder. See, if we consumers let shops with bad service know what they're doing wrong by depriving them of sales, then they'll be forced to think long and hard about what they're doing wrong and CHANGE.
I'm a bit duh when it comes to things like festivals here in Singapore but when my sister told me that Cory Doctorow (my current favourite writer!) is coming to the Singapore Writer's Festival, I sat up and took notice. So this festival... looks pretty cool, actually. Not only will Cory Doctorow be there, so will Bruce Sterling- one of my all-time fave science fiction authors. The mind reels. The idea of getting to see these two literary luminaries in person boggles my mind. I've never actually met any of my heroes... Well there's a first time for everything. Now if they'd gotten Neal Stephenson to come down too it'd be a 3rd strike and I'd be out... cold (gah... what a horrible mixing of metaphors I have attempted).
I think I'll attend all the free talks on Science Fiction / Fantasy as well as the talks on Writings in Cyberspace. Kinda the obvious choice for a blogger I figure. Plus I guess I should really try n be part of the big Singapore blogging community. I only actually read Mr Brown n Mr Miyagi's blogs... but I could make more of an effort to see what else is out there that's cool.
Oh yeah, back to the fest. The talks on Graphic Novels should be interesting. I'm crazy about comics after all. Tho sadly I have no idea who the speakers are for those talks.
All in all, the coming week should be damn interesting.
This interactive flash movie shows you. This is soooooo cool! I've always loved LEGO blocks and it's a real eye-opener to see the manufacturing process at the factory- from molding all the way to shipping! And the factory shown in the flash movie is totally futuristic and pretty awesome. It looks like the whole process is completely automated (complete with ROBOTS!) and it really looks like something out of the movie Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (which I saw last week- full review forthcoming. Short version: Yummy!).
Dragons and Death Eaters, Mad-Eyed Moody, a carriage pulled by winged horses, sinister mermaids, a grand ball and and of course, the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It's all in here, folks. And it's all good.
Download it and watch it here!
(via Aint It Cool News)
It's been 3 years since t.A.T.u's debut album, 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane, which I thought was rather excellent. Sure it was dumb pop music. But it was supremely catchy dumb pop music. Pure candy. And then they disappeared...
Only to resurface in 2005- with a new manager, and a hella cool video for their new single "All About Us" which you can dowonload here. Mind you this is the uncensored version- not for it's PG-rated fully-clothed sex scene (not between the girls, ha) but for a rather shocking NC-16 (usin Singaporean ratings lah :P) scene of sudden violence. 
The video's skillfully directed by James Cox (Wonderland) and the song's pretty great too. It's the kind of disposable pop candy you can listen to over and over and not get sick of. Or it could be just me. ;-)
So unless you have a chronic allergic reaction to pop music (or are easily disturbed by violence), download it and watch it now!
(found via Pop Justice)
via twitchfilm.
The sequel to one of my favourite movies of 2004, Kung Fu Hustle, is gonna start filming in Shanghai this September! Oh joy. I loved Stephen Chow's 2001 movie Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle was one of the few movies that had me grinning and laughing for almost the entire duration of the movie so I really can't wait for his next film.
Nextwave #1 cover
Warren Ellis, writer of such awesome series as Transmetropolitan, The Authority, Planetary and Global Frequency and lately, Ultimate Fantastic Four, is writing a new book for Marvel. It's described best by the man himself on his blog as "A Marvel comic about pirate superheroes on an American jihad against terrorist product-testing, by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen." He reveals more info about the series in an interview with comics news site Newsarama.
You can find a larger version of the issue 1 cover, a poster as well as character art and info here. The poster, apparently unused, is rather brilliant. This is one to watch out for, people.
I love comics. They represent a unique combination of visual and written storytelling that when done right are simply a delight to read.
Needless to say, I read a lot of comics. I only read English ones (we get Japanese and Chinese comics in Singapore but I don't read either language) so I get my friendly local comics shop to order em in from the USA- especially since popular ones sell out so quickly. There's a new shipment of comics in every Thursday which means I usually have new comics to read every week. So I'm gonna start reviewin em. I'll start with the floppies (single issues) I got this week (a few of these are from the previous week- I didn't go to the shop so I got em late). These are the comics I'll be reviewing:
Hip Flask: Mystery City
Pigtale #3- Dark Neon Rain
Intimates #10
Silent Dragon #1
Y: The Last Man #36
Gotham Central #34
The Losers #26
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #3
Hip Flask: Mystery City
This is the 3rd Hip Flask single by artist Jose Ladronn and writer Richard Starkings. I wouldn't normally pay attention to a book that makes me wait this long between issues (the first one came out in 2002 and the second in 2003!), but Ladronn's art is nothing short of amazing and makes the book absolutely worth the wait. This is the most gorgeous comic being created today bar none. Ladronn combines imaginative designs with beautifully detailed artwork and the result is breath-taking.
And what of the story? Well, the first 2 books in this series were exercises in world-building- creating the setting and circumstances of the story and introducing the main players in it. This latest installment in the Hip Flask saga begins the story proper. It takes the cyberpunk formula of 30% science fiction to 70% noir and adds about 5% humour to even things out (yeah that adds up to 105% :p)- it's a good mix. And the fact that I can still remember the story and characters of Hip Flask even a year after I read the last installment says something about the writing, I think. Overall, I say this is one of the better science fiction books (including prose fiction) to come out in recent years and I'm really looking forward to the rest of this story... even if it arrives 2 years from now!
Take a look at preview pages from Hip Flask: Mystery City here!
Verdict: Awesome.
Pigtale #3- Dark Neon Rain
This latest issue in Ovi Nedelcu's acclaimed debut comic does not disappoint at all. No sirree. Ovi's artwork lives up to the high standards he set in the books previous issues- his black and white, animation-inspired linework is some of the freshest, coolest art in comics today. His drawings have a sense of movement and energy about them- like the images are going to come right out of the page to cartoon life! The book would be awesome even if the art was the only thing it had going for it, but oh glee- it has a great story too!
Our hero in this book is an amateur private eye named Boston Booth. In the best tradition of comics, he's just a nice, normal guy who just can't get a break. And of course, runs smack-bang into the middle of an adventure. An adventure involving a talking pig named Clyde and his megalomaniacal stepbrother, a wolf named Taxx who wants to take over the city with an army of animal underlings. Oh and he needs a socket device that's embedded in Clyde's head to do this.
In the latest episode of Boston and Clyde's adventures, we see Taxx's crazy take-over-the-city plan coming into shape, we learn a bit more about the mystery of the device in Clyde's head, Boston's relationship with his would-be love interest, Carmen, takes a step forward and we get a wonderful comic moment with Boston's grandma. Not much action, but the cliffhanger in the end promises a compelling 4th issue with the first big confrontation between Boston and Taxx. Yep, it's all good.
Take a look at preview pages from all 3 issues of Pigtale here at the official site.
Verdict: Sweet.
Intimates #10
Argh! Another issue not drawn by Gieseppe Camuncilo, the excellent artist who drew the first 8 issues of this comic. What gives? Scott Iwahashi's a good penciller too but Camuncilo's artwork really defined this series for me. Plus I just read that issue 12 will be the last one... Another Joe Casey comic bites the dust. Sheesh.
This issue's a bit of a letdown after the excellent issue 8 and issue 9, which had some really crazy-cool science fiction ideas in it, despite the sudden shift in art. It's still good enough that I'll follow the series to it's untimely end but if Casey doesn't regain some of the energy and spirit of his previous issues, well.. .way to end off with a whimper and not a bang!
Verdict: Meh...
Silent Dragon #1
Wheee! It's a new series by my favourite action comics writer, Andy Diggle! It's pencilled by Leinil Francis Yu- I haven't seen his work before but he makes this book look real impressive. His linework is sharp, angular and distinctive, his designs are cool and most importantly for an action comic the layouts flow well. Together with inker Gerry Alanguilan and colorist Dave Stewart, he brings Silent Dragon's futuristic vision of Japan to life.
This first issue is pure setup- the storyline's composed out of elements that seem a bit cliche but the comic ends off in a real interesting way that leaves a lot of unanswered questions in the air. I've no doubt, given Andy's track record, that he'll take the story in an interesting, unexpected direction by the next issue.
There's a 6-page PDF preview of the comic available here. Check out the awesome robot samurai on the last page!
Verdict: Kick-Ass.
Y: The Last Man #36
Y: The Last Man is one of the most popular titles in DC Comic's Vertigo line, and with good reason. The series took a high-concept premise- a mysterious plague kills all males on the planet save one!- and grounded it with realistic characters, witty dialogue, wry social commentary and fast-paced plots with cliff-hanger after cliff-hanger.
It was recently revealed that the series is going to run until issue 60 so we're just over halfway through the storyline. And we finally, finally get an entire issue dedicated to the main character Yorick's girlfriend, Beth, who's stranded in Australia and has been oft-mentioned and seldom shown. Beth has been captured by an Aborigine tribe and most of this issue takes place as she goes through a series of dreams under the influence of some hallucinogens fed to her by a witch doctor woman.
We learn some interesting things about Yorick and Beth's relationship in the past and Beth learns through her vision that Yorick is still alive. Well she could just write it off as merely a dream but somehow I doubt that's the direction the story'll take.
It's another great issue in an great series and it looks like the story's gonna go in some interesting directions as Yorick and his companions (absent from this issue but no big loss- they'll be front and centre in the next one) are soon to reach Australia themselves, after spending the bulk of the series on a road trip across the USA.
For a taster of the series, you can read the entire 1st issue of Y: The Last Man in PDF form here.
Verdict: Goodness.
Gotham Central #34
Gotham Central, which focuses on the detectives of Gotham City Police Department's Homicide Division, is the best of all the Batman titles DC's publishing these days, and this, part two of the four-part "Dead Robin" storyline, is no different. Written by both Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker (who is sadly leaving DC's shores to write for Marvel), this latest storyline asks a really interesting question- what happens if the police find the body of a dead superhero?
The superhero in question here is Robin, Batman's sidekick. In the previous issue, the Gotham City Police Department found the dead body of a kid dressed up as Robin. Of course, nobody knows his real identity. So they're forced to assume that it was the real one, eventhough there's no way to tell. Batman showed up at the end of the issue and got shot by one of the police officers- who happens to bear a grudge against him for failing to prevent her partner's death earlier in the series.
Of course, Batman doesn't go down that easy. At the beginning of this issue, he gets up, punches said police officer in the face, steals her gun and runs away with it (Batman's a bit of an asshole in the DC universe these days). Later in the issue, the Teen Titans (a slightly more grown-up version than that shown in the Cartoon Network series) show up to answer a couple of questions down at the police headquarters. With their bright costumes, they're really out of place in Gotham Central's grim n gritty vision of Gotham City and this is used to great comic effect in a couple sequences. At the same time, we get to see the GCPD detectives trying to get to the bottom of the case, which is cool since the police procedural aspect of this series is one of it's biggest strengths.
Verdict: Rockin'
The Losers #26
The Losers has been one of my favourite action comics since it first came out in 2003. This latest issue begins it's penultimate storyline: Unamerica. The regular artist, Jock, who'se angular, stylised art was a big part of the appeal of this title, is taking a break (happily, he'll be back for the final storyline, "Endgame", which begins with issue 29) but Colin Wilson (who drew Point Blank, the fantastic prequel to Ed Brubaker's Sleeper) does a good enough job in his stead. This issue does a lot of things- we finally learn what Max's big plans are (and boy are they BIG!), one of the Losers is captured by Max's men and, well... it's basically all building up to something BIG. I can't say much as at this stage in the story everything's a spoiler just I'll just say this- The Losers is Big Action Comics, the way they should be done. DC and Marvel superhero writers should take note.
Rating: 9 out of 10.
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #3
Ah, what great days these are when I can expect at least 2 comics by my favourite author, Grant Morrison, every month. His Seven Soldiers project is the most insanely ambitious superhero epic I've had the pleasure to read and Zatanna #3 is the first issue that really firmly ties in with another one of the Seven Soldiers titles, namely, Shining Knight. Zatanna and her assistant Misty run straight into the aftermath of what we saw in the last issue of Shining Knight, where they learn some disturbing things indeed. Like the Losers, there's not much I can say here that won't spoil the story.
There's an interesting commentary going on here about the nature of stories and ideas and how they never really die, and I expect these things will become quite important in the overall storyline of Seven Soldiers as the series progresses. We've almost reached the halfway mark of this series and the disparate storylines of the different series are starting to come together. If Grant Morrison can keep up this level of fantastic storytelling til the end of this series, he'll have created one of the most remarkable epics in comics history.
Verdict: Coolness.
Tsui Hark's Seven Swords is an insane, glorious movie. The first in a planned series of six (or seven) movies, it's original cut was four hours long- trimmed down to two and a half hours for the theatrical version. It's a total superhero origin story- except it just might be more ambitious than that. It's also Tsui Hark's answer to the recent art wuxia movies- Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger and Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Hero in particular. It's very old-school and at the same time it's trying to do very new things for the Wuxia genre. Is it a success? Partly. Like I said, it's a little bit insane, but it's also glorious. And a little bit too short.
Too short? Two and a half hours, too short? This despite the fact that there were some (many?) in the cinema who thought it was too LONG? Indeed, I suspect the guy sitting next to me during the show fell asleep at some parts. Well, frankly I don't give a damn. This isn't a movie for everyone. It's certainly not what everyone expected Tsui Hark to make- another Once Upon A Time In China or Zu Warriors (the old one). This isn't that movie, folks. This is something completely different.
The movie's far from perfect- in it's current state, it's missing a lot of characterisation (we learn little about the backgrounds of most of our seven heroes) and what character bits that remain are rendered slightly incoherent and a bit clunky as a result. I'm dying to see the four hour version of the film myself as I think it might solve a few (or a lot) of the pacing problems the film has and smoothen out the character development.
But even in it's current state, as a superhero origin kinda film, it fulfills it's basic purpose- to setup the further adventures of our heroes. The film is based on the very first chapter of Liang Yusheng's novel, Seven Swords of Mount Heaven, and Tsui Hark intends to adapt the whole novel in the planned series. As such, this isn't and can't be the meat of the story. The real purpose of this film is to make enough money so that he can make the sequels and I fully expect them to be better than this movie in the same way that say Spider-Man 2 improved on the original in every single way. And guess what, he's already got the go-ahead for at least one more. Mission accomplished.
As I mentioned before, I think of this as Tsui Hark's answer to Art Wuxia. And what's his answer to Art Wuxia? A rather rude symbol in the form of a particular finger outstretched in their general direction. And very specifically in the direction of Hero. Whereas those movies emphasised grace and beauty in motion during their fight scenes and thus were filmed in long takes, this movie's fight scenes are brutal and bloody with limbs flying and blood spurting. The fight scenes are composed of short, fast cuts. They're a little bit jerky, in fact. A bit Ridley Scott, you might say. Sort of like the Gladiator of Wuxia movies, as far as the combat goes. Also a little bit Lord of The Rings- complete with a big siege scene. Except in this case it's not a large fortress that's besieged but a small village (curiously full of martial arts practicioners) that doesn't really hold out for very long in the face of the attack.
Oh and what about Hero? Well, Hero was an extended dialouge between a would be assassin and the Emperor of China and ended with the assassin deciding not to kill the Emperor for the greater good of the country. Very patriotic and all. Seven Swords, on the other hand, has an Emperor (who we don't see by the way- he's saved for future installments) who has issued an edict banning all martial arts in order to quell the seeds of rebellion. He does this by giving monetary rewards for each head of a martial artist that's brought to him- sans body. He allows armies of psychotic madmen to roam the countryside, killing entire villages that harbour martial artists- women and children and all- and then pays them for their heads... even the childrens', though the villains do mention that the Capital isn't too happy about the children bit. Not unhappy enough to stop the wholesale slaughter they're indulging in, though...
The heroes, after dispatching one of these psychotic madmen along with his army (in a final showdown that has some very awesome battle sequences- including a swordfight in a cramped corridor that has the combatants climbing up and down the walls while carving out deep ridges into the walls with their swords as they swing at each other- decide to head to the Capital in order to "talk" to the Emperor and "convince" him to reconsider his edict.
Given the fact that these are seven swordsmen of uncommon skill who've just killed an entire army, I think it's safe to say that they're not just talkin about friendly negotiations here. I'd go so far as to say they're probably going to be using extreme prejudice once they actually make it to the Capital in it. Basically, I think they're very likely going to try and terrorize the Emperor into submission or possibly just kill him.
If that doesn't say F-U to Hero, I don't know what does. Don't get me wrong, I thought Hero was brilliant as were the other Art Wuxia movies, but Tsui Hark's anti-establishment tone here jives better with me than Hero's patriotic one (though Hero's message isn't really as mindlessly patriotic as some may assume it to be).
And what about the look and sound of the movie? The keyword for the look is gritty. Dark red blood on grey-brown sand. There's some gorgeous cinematography here- wide open vistas and all. But mostly with the gritty. Especially for the battle sequences.
The costume and weapon designs are very cool. The Seven Swordsmen are kinda humbly dressed, but the villains are really visually distinctive. The twelve generals of the main villain wear elaborate costumes and face paint that give them a truly menacing appearance. They look like something out a manga, in fact. Plus each of them carries a unique weapon- all of them brutal and seemingly designed to cause as much pain and destruction as possible. A word about the main villain, Fire-Wind (Villains always get the coolest names in Wuxia movies!). He's played by Sun Hong-Lei from Zhang Yimou's The Road Home in a delightfully over the top performance, and he's irredeemably evil. He lives like a king and needs all the money he can get to support his lavish lifestyle. That's all the motivation he needs to carry out all the pillaging and slaughtering that he does during the movie. He'd fit right in with Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan. Oh and he's even got a wicked-cool evil laugh!
Needless to say, the Seven Swords themselves are very cool. Each of them is unique and creatively designed and lend themselves to really interesting battle sequences. If you've seen the trailer (if you haven't check it out here- just scroll down til you see the post called "The Final Seven Swords Trailer") then you know what each does- except for the Transience sword which is only fully shown in the final battle.
The sound effects are done really well too. In particular, the humming noise that the Dragon sword makes whenever it's unsheathed convincingly conveys it's great power. The music- not so good, unfortunately. Composer Kenji Kawaii has turned in a bit of an underwhelming score here. Nothing very notable. It's neither very bad nor very good. I'd prefer something a little more epic- like the trailer music which is totally absent from the film.
Overall, I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10. It's got a bit too many problems to rate higher than that, but its far from the abject failure that many are claiming it to be. But I can live with that. I'm really looking forward to watching the uncut version- which will hopefully be out on DVD before the end of the year. I think of what I've seen as a preview of that version of the film... and if it lives up to my expectations, it's gonna be a 9/10 kinda movie at least.
For the past 2 weeks I've been working on a website and I finally put it up today: zestgames.com. It's a gaming blog where I'll be posting news, reviews and previews on games as well as my thoughts on the gaming scene here in Singapore. So everything I have to say about games is gonna go there.
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