Electric Shadow

Translating Jodorowsky's Thoughts on "The Hobbit"

Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain) has seen The Hobbit, and he's tweeting about it in Spanish. I have a towering respect for him as an artist and truth-teller.

Here are select tweets as translated very roughly and quickly by yours truly:

I just finished watching "El Hobbit" : a movie only for male children, not girls. In this long saga there is only one woman for a few minutes, an untouchable Queen.
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The Hobbit is a single male elf accompanied by male dwarves. How can we make movies where women do not exist?
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The Queen in El Hobbit [Galadriel] is a symbol of an unapproachable, immaculate mother like the church presents the Virgin Mary. Misogynist hypocrisy.
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Males of all sizes that gorge on food and break bones, this is not a homosexual world. It is a world of male brutes.
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In reply to someone:
@nomesigaoiga ¿did you like it? // very nice landscapes, amazing special effects, attractive monsters, slow and vacant conversations.
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UPDATE: A new favorite tweet...

You have convinced me: women are evil, the proof is that the Pope doesn't have one. And a Hobbit is not a Dwarf, it is an office worker with big ears.
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Another, where The Truth comes out:

I confess that they paid me to give Hobbit some publicity. Now I leave you because I have to go get drunk with a dwarf. Gut bai.
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Follow the incomparable genius @Jodorowsky

The Defenders Ends in November at #12

Multiversity Comics caught something in an interview in USA Today:

She-Hulk has a pedigree with the team since she has been a member of the Fantastic Four, plus she’d be Ben’s pick because she’s “the one person he knew he could never lick,” says Fraction, who writes Red She-Hulk in Defenders, which ends its run at issue 12 in November.

This is a shame, as I felt the book was getting a good footing, and the team dynamic could work in the ongoing and broader-than-ever Marvel U.

HOBBIT in 48fps only in Select Screenings

Variety has the exclusive on this news:

According to source familiar with Warner's release plans for Peter Jackson's first "Hobbit," the HFR version will go out to only select locations, perhaps not even into all major cities.

People who have seen much of the film in 48 frames-per-second 3D tell Variety the picture now looks vastly better than the test footage shown this April at CinemaCon, which had not yet undergone post-production polishing and got a mixed reception from exhibitors.

I don't think this choice is unwise in the least. It definitely looks quite different from what literally everyone is used to. I'm still very hopeful and optimistic. There are those who said that talkies, color, and 70mm weren't cinematic.

Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll hate it. Can't wait to see.

Movie Producer Says We Must "Tear Down These Walls"

Keith Calder has produced an indie CG animated movie (Battle for Terra), a documentary directed by Morgan Spurlock (POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold), and some fantastic indies (Thunder Soul and The Wackness among others). He's a very smart guy and happens to also be a friend.

He took Patton Oswalt's Just For Laughs keynote address to heart and penned a piece about breaking down the barriers between fans and content:

In the entertainment business, we’re living in very interesting times. There’s a wave of momentum pushing forward a powerful new relationship between artist and fan.

I could not agree more. I discussed this very subject on the pilot of my new show Screen Time, coming soon on 5by5. I think I've found my second guest.

Proper Sourcing: Tom Hardy, Rapper

I'm relatively sure that the internet could sustain a blog entirely composed of tracking original writing theft, since it's so common and badly covered up. Here's a nice, fresh example.

My friend and former coworker Devin Faraci at Badass Digest found a video of Tom Hardy rapping the old-fashioned way: actual work. Hardy had a record deal in his teens. Check out his post for the interesting and unique story.

Then take a look at this douchebag on The Insider who magically came across the exact same video the same day.

Call him out, internet, and see what happens. He's @JarettSays on Twitter.

(UPDATE: Now Gawker has repurposed it. And so the internet cookie crumbles...)

TNG Blu Audio Bugs

I should have known that I wasn't nuts when I thought that there was something off in the sound mix on this thing.

According to The Digital Bits, CBS is now aware there's an audio mastering bug that affects seven episodes on the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 Blu-ray set. The 7.1 tracks bleed audio from the center channel into the Front Left and Frot Right channels. The affected episodes are Encounter at Farpoint, Hide and Q, The Big Goodbye, Datalore, 11001001, and Too Short a Season.

I thought it was just flawed source.

Apple Doubles Down on Security

Stan Schroeder reports the developing acquisition story for Mashable (keep checking them for updates):

AuthenTec‘s line of products includes smart fingerprint sensors for PCs, smartphones and other products as well as identity management software for individuals and businesses. The company’s clients include HP, LG, Cisco, Motorola, Nokia and others.

This is an acquisition of a scale much larger than simply plugging in-app purchase holes. As a major, multifaceted platform company, they need to own some security talent just like they needed semiconductor talent a few years ago. If we don't continue to trust them with all our credit cards, then they lose one of their biggest advantages.

He also notes that one of AuthenTec's bigger clients is Samsung. Hm.

AppleTV versus XBOX360

Todd Bishop for Geek Week:

Apple sold 1.3 million Apple TV devices during the June quarter, an increase of 170 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

He also notes that Microsoft "only" sold 1.1 million XBOX 360 units during that quarter. The thing is, the XBOX 360 is six years old and near the end of its lifespan. If the point is to look at relative platform strength, a more interesting comparison would be the installed base of "hockey puck" AppleTV units versus active XBOX Live accounts.

DIABLO 3's "Story" Sucks

Brilliant screenwriter and techie John August puts it best:

Every once in a while, your character chimes in, but it’s generally to say, “I’ll do it!”

The decisions have been made and you’re sent off to do/get/kill whatever they’ve decided upon.

I finished Diablo 3 many weeks ago, and I have barely felt the urge to pick it back up since. In fact, it was difficult to finish because I felt so completely uninvested in the actual quest. Despite what some may believe, level grinding and stat-rolling does not constitute a quest.

MANOS: The Game on 26 July

Ben Solovey, a college pal of mine, has been HD remastering the legendarily terrible Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) for nearly a year now. He somehow managed to get his hands on the original camera negative at an auction. Since it's in the public domain, there's nothing preventing Ben from doing what he's doing. Take a look at his site to see the painstaking effort he's making to get this thing done.

Manos is a movie immortalized by its lambasting in a 1993 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Shot in West Texas on a shoestring budget, it is a horror movie from a legendary era in genre film. Even though it may not be any good, it is an important part of independent cinema history.

For a couple of months now, I've been aware of a British indie developer making an 8-bit style touch game adaptation of the movie. Thanks to a post on Mashable, we now know it has an iOS release date. Expect a review from me at some point.

OUYA Adds Ethernet, Hardware Design Chief

Matt Helgeson at Game Informer reports:

The update introduces Muffi Ghadiali, a key member of the hardware design team, and announces an important change to the hardware design.

The OUYA is a Kickstarter-backed Android OS game console that is very aggressively set for a March 2013 release at a $99 price point.

Their initial goal was $950k. With 21 days left, they're now at over $5 million, with 40,000 backers.

Yet another box to connect to your TV. What does it fully replace and make redundant, or is it a box in search of a free HDMI port?

Rotten Dark Knights of Fandom

Regarding fan outrage taking the form of death threats and other violence here's Devin Faraci, reporting at Badass Digest yesterday:

Rotten Tomatoes was forced to go to tweet a reminder that any commenters who broke their basic terms of service (which I'm sure include things like 'Don't make death threats') would be banned from the site. That they would feel the need to do this only hours after the first negative reviews hit shows the force of the onslaught. There are thousands of hate comments still standing, with many having been deleted by a surely overworked moderator.

Since originally posting, he's issued an update that Rotten Tomatoes has disabled commenting in advance of instituting a Facebook-backed, anti-anonymity system.

It's terrible that fandom has devolved into this sort of statistic-obsession, rather than the fandom-positive nature it once had.

Amazon Optimal Prime

I'd missed this. Farhad Manjoo, reporting last week at Slate:

If Amazon can send me stuff overnight for free without a distribution center nearby, it’s not hard to guess what it can do once it has lots of warehouses within driving distance of my house. Instead of surprising me by getting something to me the next day, I suspect that, over the next few years, next-day service will become its default shipping method on most of its items. Meanwhile it will offer same-day service as a cheap upgrade. For $5 extra, you can have that laptop waiting for you when you get home from work. Wouldn’t you take that deal?

As hard as it was for me to find Blu-rays today in a city as cine-centric as Austin...this would be the death knell. I don't know that I would drive across town if I could have it at my door tomorrow morning.

"Ask Christopher Nolan if he would mind if you text during the opening weekend of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES"

The Wrap's Chris Davison wrote an idiotic editorial encouraging cinema chains to create texting-friendly shows. The National Association of Theater Owners email blasted it to its entire membership, including my friend and Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League. He wrote an open letter in response:

The only answer to this debate is taking a hard line.  Texting and talking can not be allowed in movie theaters.  Our spaces are sacred spaces for movie fans.  Chris Davison, you are wrong.  NATO, you should add commentary to Davison's article before blasting to the entire membership.  You do this for the trend in shrinking VOD/theatrical windows.  To me, the leniency towards talking and texting is a greater threat to our industry.

The crux of the argument is in that closer. Ruining the theatrical experience for more people by endorsing bad behavior encourages less return business, period.

Faraci Wins Minor Victory

The Blu-ray of Clash of the Titans (2010) just arrived on my doorstep. A glance at the back cover reveals that it includes an alternate ending where Perseus confronts Zeus on Mount Olympus. It's a far cry from the radically different cut that Devin Faraci refers to in this article, but it's a glimpse, if nothing else. I, for one, wish they'd included more of Danny Huston as Poseidon. [CORRECTION: it seems there are some deleted scenes in there that I missed on first glance.]