Daring Fireball interviews an exclusive insider source on Zune (no longer online: comingzune.com), Microsoft’s iPod/iTunes clone/killer.
Cut the cord with Apple’s new wireless Mightly Mouse (no longer online: apple.com/mightymouse).
Monopoly goes plastic, baby. I guess product placement and cross-brand synergy are also “moving with the times.” (guest submission from Dave)
Details on the Lost Comic-Con panel, basically one giant surreal tease, crashed by a fictional character (no longer online: rachelblake.com). (guest submission from Not-a-Clone Andrea)
Big Blue Ball, a near-mythical Peter Gabriel album in the works since 1992, is finally nearing completion.
Attention DJs (or at least folks who like to play with GarageBand): remix “Shock the Monkey” and win a… um, some electronic thingie. (no longer online: realworldremixed.com)
Peter writes about the label and the studio in The Independent:”The first release on Real World was Passion – the soundtrack for the film The Last Temptation of Christ. It was also the first time I had recorded with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and perhaps the most extraordinary sessions to this day were when we were in the attic studio, which had a raised balcony at the back. The Indian violinist L Shankar stood up on the balcony and Nusrat was standing just behind the desk on the main floor. I think everyone had hairs standing on the backs of their necks as the music started. Both of them took the melody and made it their own. It was like tennis when you think the rally can’t get any better but each player raises their game and it just goes up and up. Amazingly emotional: it was India and Pakistan working together for a film about Christ”
At the time of Live 8, Peter Gabriel righly pointed out no one had asked hardly any non-western musicians to participate. Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling, a new live album culled from the Live 8 event put together by Gabriel and Youssou N’Dour.
Hopefully the The Dork Report isn’t in danger of becoming The Hoff Report, but… The Hoff on Broadway! (guest submission from The Halk) (no longer online: celebrityweek.com/news/show_news.asp?id=712)
Kottke highlights an Independent cover graphic that briliantly illustrates international reaction to the war.
Nutjob UN Ambassador John Bolton performs some pretty brutal calculus on the relative worth of Lebanese vs. Israeli citizens’ lives. What a bastard.
Everything about Rhino Records’ new Digital Store seems great: out-of-print albums that would otherwise be unavailable, a huge catalog of music videos, and hand-picked discounted mini-compilations. But they commit some of the biggest music sins of digital music sales (some of which are admittedly just the pet peeves of a music snob):
alphabetizing solo artists by their first names, and any band whose name begins with “The” under “T”
supports only the extremely unpopular Windows Media DRM, excluding Linux, Macs, iPods, etc.
no reviews, credits, liner notes, or even original release dates
An astonishing case of a feral child recovered in Ukraine (no longer online: telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/07/17/ftdog17.xml) is the ultimate test of the nature vs. nurture issue: (spotted on Boing Boing): “Experts agree that unless a child learns to speak by the age of five, the brain misses its window of opportunity to acquire language, a defining characteristic of being human.”
The most craptacular lyrics (no longer online: thephoenix.com/article_ektid14634.aspx) of all time, with a strong showing by 70s prog groups on page 2. Nice! (guest submission from Andrea. A-N-D-R-E-A! Ding ding dang ding ding ding don ding don dang!)
Wikipedia is far broader than I had imagined… and I had imagined it pretty broad. There are whole entries for bad prog rock (no longer online) albums (hi, Tales From Topographic Oceans!) and even particular songs, including Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready.”
New Line Cinema partners with Zenescope Entertainment to create comic books based on Final Destination (no longer online: zenescope.com/bookpages/final01.htm) and Se7en (no longer online: zenescope.com/images/bookart/se7engluttony.jpg). Watch the Se7encomic book trailer (no longer online: zenescope.com/7trailer.wmv), with motion graphics type set in… dear god… Arial. (spotted on Comic Book Resources)
J.J. Abrams, creator of my crack (no longer online: lost-tv.com), cashes in (no longer online: eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,19513,00.html).
This will not be interesting to anybody who’s never heard of Grant Morrison, but whoa, this is a crazy weird pairing if I ever heard of one. (no longer online: comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7900)
Hey Onion, say it ain’t so! (guest submission from Free Agent Andrea)
Our love is like a katamari. Except for the days when your distant & disapproving father/king rains hellfire down on you for failing him. (guest submission from Dave)
Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., the second Doctor Who feature film, follows Dr. Who & The Daleks by one short year, and clearly betrays where the public’s interest lay at the time by ditching any mention of Dr. Who in the title. The first film largely disregarded the TV show’s premise and continuity, and the sequel similarly plays fast and loose with its own predecessor. Dr. Who has yet another young female relative, a niece named Louise? Why does she call her uncle “Doctor”? Did Barbara elope with that twit Ian?
Otherwise, the screenplay is loosely based on the original 1964 TV serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth, starring William Hartnell. It follows the original farily closely, especially in the early seqences showing a war-ravaged London and the iconic image (well, to Brits, anyway) of a Dalek rising out of the Thames (actually better realized in the original – here they cut away from a Dalek head poking out of the water and back to it fully emerged).
It’s just barely slightly better in terms of action and spectacle (the Dalek flying saucer isn’t half-bad, considering), but nevertheless just as mind-numbingly stupid. Let’s start with the title. Why is it set in the future? Everyone’s dressed in 1960s clothing, with contemporary rifles and cars. If there’s nothing to be gained, it might as well be set in present day. Plus it would be that much more of an exciting thought for kids to to imagine an invasion might happen today rather than next century.
Curious that the Doctor and the Daleks both barely feature in the poster for their own movie
Look out, Robo-men! Why did the Robo-men take off their helmets and suddenly become human again when the Doctor simply orders them to attack the Daleks? And why do they scream like little kids? Why do the Daleks have fire hydrant guns? Why do the Daleks only take male prisoners? What do they do with the women?
Of course, there’s also the music. After another set of pointless psychedlic opening titles, a sequence depicting a bank robbery is set to… Beethoven? WTF? After that we get a generic lighthearted score, determinedly whimsical even when Dr. Who discovers a corpse. Incidentally, this Doctor is badass. Crossing the countryside on foot, a Robo-Man orders him to halt. The Doctor shoots him and turns right back to the map. “As I was saying…”
And finally, why did the Daleks invade England? The “magnetic influence of the North and South Poles” is located under Watford, of course!
The Observer picks the 50 Most Influential Albums. Mind, “influential” is not necessarily the same as “best,” or even “most successful.” It’s not surprising The Beatles are represented by Sgt. Pepper’s, Pink Floyd by Dark Side of the Moon, and Miles Davis by Kind of Blue. However, the music snob in me wants to argue with Radiohead’s The Bends (certainly good, but isn’t OK Computer practically sublime?), Massive Attack’s Blue Lines (dated to my ears, while their subsequent Protection was a quantum leap and truly defined the trip-hop genre), and Talking Head’s Fear of Music (surely eclipsed by Remain in Light, one of the most adventurous albums ever made by a rock/pop band). Also, I feel compelled to point out that although they are utterly and completely correct for identifying Eno’s Discreet Music for its massive influence (another album that defined a genre), it’s wrong to say it influenced Bowie’s Low and Heroes; Eno co-wrote and co-produced those albums! (guest submission from Andrea)
Planning on going before the camera? Pre-censor yourself with Ironic Sans pre-pixelated t-shirts (no longer online: cafepress.com/ironicsans).
Nifty music community site Last.fm gets a glossy redesign. The Last.fm item in my sidebar isn’t accurate as it doesn’t include my iPod, only what I listen to on my computer.
Full of suspenseful set-pieces involving assassination, The Matador is a genre film on the surface. It’s actually more of a character piece about one man about to pay the price for a lifetime of being a pathological loner (paradoxically, while indulging his lusts in every other way imaginable), and another grasping at his last chance to save both his professional and family lives.
Pierce Brosnin lets it rip as Julian Noble, a sleezebag assassin with a Magnum P.I. mustache. Interestingly, he frequently boasts of his bisexuality, but we only see him having sex onscreen with women. The is-he-or-isn’t-he ambiguity actually comes into play regarding an imporant plot point resolved near the very end of the film. Even better, the plot informs character, which is something of a rarity.
Hope Davis‘ character defies cliche by enjoying a genuinely sexual relationship with her husband, but is also more openly seduced (in a platonic manner) by the exotic allure of an assassin. Perhaps Julian has lost any James Bond-like sexual allure he may have had, but discovers he can make people like him by simply revealing what he does for a living.
Disappointingly, the movie ends rather cheesily, with Julian finding some humanity deep inside his depravity.
