May 16/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Half Life 2 E3 videos Be sure to check her out Since picking up video projects as a hobby I've had less and less time for gaming (and really, who wants to stay indoors working on a PC when it's beautiful outside) but the footage I've seen of the upcoming Half Life sequel as shown during the E3 showcase just blows me away. The physics, the affectable environment, the 'human' character modelling, and the overall graphics improvements are a major step in PC gaming. See some of this video here >> Doom 3 Trailer Also, trying to keep pace is the next one from id software, Doom 3, which has an enjoyable trailer here on Clipstream >> Dwindling middle class and corrupt elites spawn terrorism in Saudi Arabia This LA Times article describes Saudi society as one where the gaps between the extremely wealthy ruling class and the bitterly poor are so great that groups like al Qaida have very little trouble provoking acts of terrorism against those they see as causing this inequity. It begins with a description of a recent trip by King Fahd where he brought along 50 Mercedes. Read it here >>

	May 15/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Saddam and Uday go to the movies This is a really funny / scary story about a translator for a Baghdad TV station whose prime role was to translate Hollywood movies for Saddam and his psycho son, Uday. Read it in the Boston Globe >>

	May 13/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	"Returning" completed Another completed DVDA challenge A week and more late and I've finished "Returning", my submission to the DVDA continuous shot challenge posted by R/Kain. You can read my own criticisms in my post here. I'm mostly satisfied with the effort but I wouldn't want to adhere to the 'continuous shot' requirement so strictly in the future at the cost of a better composition. The good things: the setting, Dylan's steadi-shooting, Adri's performance. Elements I would improve would be the overall length of it (the path was too long) and my voice over. Anyway, thanks to everyone involved: Adri, Dylan, Cory, and Keith Gillard. Click here to see the Quicktime version (right click and save as - 26mbs) | Click here to see the streaming Clipstream version.

	May 12/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Japanese horror: Ringu, Kairo, Audition, Kwaidan Disturbing imagery, rather than gore and special effects are distinguishing features of Japanese horror Like a lot of cineastes I've been indulging in the past couple years in Japanese horror. I'm actually behind the times. After all, in the time I've been searching out for the so-called 'cult favourites', Hollywood has already embraced the influence of the atmospheric chillers from Japan and has remade one of them - "The Ring". I don't have a lot to add to what has already been said in the many critiques of the submissions of Nakata Hideo, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takashi Miike, among others. Their common thread really is a grounding in imagery, rather than in gore. What they come from are classic ghost stories that rely on the slow creeping realization of a impending horror rather than in a chase. You can see some of the source in the classic Kwaidan, the elegiac trilogy of medieval ghost stories; slow-paced but enticing the viewer into watching every bit of the frame for the horrible truth.   The other common thread is in digging up the past. There is the obvious link to ghost stories Audition: Fatal Attraction will seem so boring after you see this one again. In the Ringu, which I saw last night, the protagonists are searching for psychological experimenters who may have created a tape that somehow kills the viewers after a week. Like Ringu, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo (eng. Cure) examines old archives, video and film archives that point to illegal or long buried experimentation. In an older form of the ghost story, searchers look through dusty books or manuscripts. In the new Japanese horror, the protagonists scan video frame by frame to search for a clue to the present-day haunting. Takashi Miike's Audition is one of the more grisly but also more pleasurable of these films I've seen. Pleasurable, in the way that it evokes a reaction from the audience. This is a film that had me shouting at the screen: "no no no!" and had my friend Jeff squirming in his seat. Audition starts out very traditionally. A widower sets up an audition of actresses as a pretense to finding a new wife. That in itself makes it one of the more accessible of these films, however, when the protagonist gets more than he bargains for, anyone who was drawn in by the maudlin aspect of the romance will be floored by the incredible ending.

	May 11/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	British government's IRA mole and executioner Gerry Adams worked beside a spy for 30 years This is an amazing story that is every shadow government, British cloak and dagger story made life. One of the IRA's most feared executioners was actually a British agent codenamed 'Stakeknife' who was involved in up to 40 assassinations in order to protect his cover and pass intelligence to the British for 30 years. Ironically, 'Stakeknife's' job was to roust out IRA members suspected of being spies and kill them. At the same time the agent was also tasked to kill policemen and Loyalists. Not only is this revelation damaging to the IRA as an organization, it also reveals the British effort against the IRA to be beyond the pale.  Read the Sunday Herald article here >> U.S. weapons inspectors leave Iraq having found nothing The Washington Post reports that the American team responsible for searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is disbanding and returning home after being so far frustrated in their search for proof that Saddam had been preparing for war with chemical and biological weapons. Read about it here >> Previous blog here >>