Overworked And Underpaid
We all heard by now that the situation in Hollywood is not very good at the moment. A lot of Visual Effects artists are overworked and underpaid resulting in some atrocious CGI like in The Flash 2023. Studios even considering replacing those overworked and underpaid VFX artists with AI technology. Because it can make better images and complain less about its conditions at work.
The Danger Of Good Intentions
Paternalism - a world view that states that sometimes forcing a person against their freedom, if for their own good, is acceptable. A good example is the collapsing bridge thought experiment. A bridge is about to collapse and you know it for certain. You advertise this fact so people will not go onto the bridge. You put signs. You tell people about it. But somebody still walks toward the bridge with what looks like an intention to cross it anyway. You show that person the signs. No response. You yell at the person "The bridge is about to collapse!". No response either. You realize that the person probably doesn't even speak English. Is it okay to force this person, to reduce his freedom, and force him out of the bridge?
Challengers
I was skeptical of Luca Guadagnino's films like Call Me By Your Name until I saw them. It felt like Luca is making high brow dramas that are designed solely as tear-squeezers that appeal to contemporary politics. But then I saw his movies. From Call Me By Your Name to instant horror classics like Bones And All he proved time and time again that he is truly great. His movies are insanely visceral emotional roller-coasters that are not afraid to be sincere, while every other movie these days cannot take anything seriously. But then came a trailer of Luca Guadagnino making a movie about Tennis.
Moria's Race
An adventure of a little girl ( Moria ) that is so obsessed with racing that she throws her caution out of a fast racing car's window.
Speed Racer
This had to be done finally! One of the biggest inspirations for Moria's Race, one of my favorite childhood movies, one of the best action films ever and perhaps one of the most colorful films: Speed Racer by the Wachowskis.
Is Agenda Bad For Discussion
The studio was full of people and the host was mentally preparing for the cameras to go live. The cameras started rolling which filled the room with tension. And the producers behind the cameras started counting the count-down. The host touched his tie in a nervous manner, to make sure that it sits nicely. The countdown went - "5 - 4 - 3 - ..." - from that point on, the producers counted only with their fingers, to avoid accidentally being heard counting on the broadcast itself. They showed 2, then 1 and then pointed to the host, which meant that it's the time to start.
Is BeamNG Drive a Free Software Game
Once upon the time, I remember feeling utterly unpleasant toward playing racing games where cars did not break. I thought that GTA games, for example, were far more realistic because making mistakes and crashing into something is going to break the car and therefor you have to drive more carefully. Yes I was a strange kid. But I did enjoy games such as Flat Out where the objective is to crash your car as much as possible. I think I liked games that simulate reality, rather then those that are just made for fun. You could imagine how excited I was when I saw videos of this new racing game that came out at about 2013 called BeamNG Drive. A game where cars don't just swap body shapes with pre-modeled deformations. But a game that simulates the destruction fully. Using soft body physics. I didn't play it. At first my computer was way too slow and there was no GNU / Linux support. Then the game became paid. Then I changed from being a mere "Linux user" to being a "GNU / Linux user", which meant that this game is not good for my freedom. But is it though?
Drive
It is very strange to me that this is the first time I review anything by Nicolas Winding Refn here. I love this director and his style a lot. The movie Drive is perhaps the best introduction to him that you could ever get. It is his fastest paced movie ( apart from maybe Bronson ). He likes to be very slow. Drive is paced more or less like a normal film. That is why, if you want to start getting yourself into Nicolas Winging Refn I would recommend starting from Drive.
The Blender Artists Censorship Situation
Blender Artists is a website for blender users to discuss and share blender-related things. Blender is a program to model 3D models and do various other graphics related things. The program is very good and I like it. But the Blender Artists website is the kind of awful place where I don't want to be. Until recently I had an account there but I requested multiple times to delete it ( since the settings do not have this option ). The moderators were fighting with me over deleting of my stuff. They claim if I delete my posts I will ruin the "flow of things" or whatever the hell. So it turned out to be a very complex manual process to delete everything myself. The funny thing is, it all started because they were the once deleting my stuff without me wanting it to be deleted. And now they are fighting to keep me on the platform. What the actual fuck?
School Shootings: More Or Less Guns
It seems like United States of America has a unique problem related to guns. I certainly don't remember being taught at school in Israel or earlier in Ukraine about how to survive a potential gun shooting by a rouge student or other kind of terrible person. Here in Israel they do point us to the direction of a bomb shelter. So we would know where to run when a siren is heard. But that's about it.
How They Made Freedom Illegal
Freedom is illegal. There is not a single country in the world that is 100% Free. And it is not a mistake. If a country is 100% Free the government has no control. And therefor why bother trying at the elections. Right? We all are somewhat familiar with the tactics of how governments make sure that their countries are not free. They use the same 2 boogiemen every time:
Breaking The Waves
Lars Von Trier is an interesting filmmaker. He directs mostly very depressing movies that are very hard to watch. Breaking The Waves is an interesting case study in his filmography because on some weird level this is one of the rare examples of a Lars Von Trier film with a happy ending. Even though you could perhaps argue that the ending is nowhere near happy at all.
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
During the making of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Steven Spielberg was already kind of a big man in Hollywood. But from the other side he was still young. Technically speaking this was his third theatrical film. He did work for television from the late 60s. At that time he already directed a number of feature length TV movies. One of them was the famous Duel. And then he did only 2 theatrical pictures: the 1972's The Sugarland Express and the 1974's Jaws. And now there is this movie.
Babylon
I would say that Babylon, the 2022 film directed by Damien Chazelle is Damien Chazelle's 1941. I wrote an article describing how 1941 is the ultimate Steven Spielberg movie and how there is a certain type of over the top insanity you can expect from a good filmmaker going completely unhinged. 1941 wasn't received well. People in the cinema were reportedly closing their ears from the shier amount of loud explosions that happened in the movie. Babylon is the lowest rated movie from Damien Chazelle. But it doesn't mean that the movie is dull, or badly made. Both 1941 and Babylon are explosive insanity-fests showcasing the ability of a good director to maintain focus in an absolute chaos. Both films are incredibly well directed. There are complex shots and interesting cuts all through out. But perhaps they had injected so much energy into the movies that the movies overdosed the audience. And therefor received worse reviews.
Crazy Stupid Love
I decided to give myself somewhat of a Ryan Gosling marathon, after re-watching Drive the other day. I gave myself a challenge though. I didn't want to watch the stuff I already like. I didn't want "Only God Forgives" ( which I will review soon ). I didn't want "Blade Runner 2049". I wanted something else. Something that I personally would not select normally. And therefor I put Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Coercion
Sometimes a program might give you impossible choices were it is impossible to say no to something terrible. This kind of Coercion is a malicious functionality.
Addons For SuperTuxKart
There is this game called SuperTuxKart that I didn't develop. But which is among the best Free Software games out there. And they have a way to make and publish addons. This is a list of addons that I made for SuperTuxKart.
Nope
I was avoiding Nope for a few reasons. One of them was because people kept saying that it is very disturbing. It has a scene which I thought was to traumatize me. Now that I actually saw the film I can tell you that Jordan Peele, the director of Nope is not Lars Von Trier and therefor the scene is not actually that bad. To be quite frank, it seems like shooting that scene the way Lars Von Trier would have done it probably goes against the message of the movie.
