30 Nov 2005

snapshot

last night i watched Dan Pita's latest movie - "Femeia visurilor".

29 Nov 2005

for photoshop masters


i consider this to be an inspirational site. it's got photography, photoshop, text, multimedia and lots of contests. i think it's worth a look.

28 Nov 2005

inside the Christmas shopping mind

an article of statistical insights for the holiday marketing season here.



and here is a musical combination of sex and graphism. :))

"Gray skies are just clouds passing over"


I don't believe in the famous credo of popculture - "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".
Wikipedia's definition for Failure: in general refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective. It may be viewed as the opposite of success.

I do not believe in failure. Unless understood as a state in which a person chooses to stop his/her development due to God knows what kind of bad circumstance. Maybe, but just maybe, the consequent result between what a person has become in fact and what that person would have been capable of becoming might be called failure. But i do not believe in failure. George Bernard Shaw once said that "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing." I consider this to be so true. Just like Oscar Wilde, i name these mistakes "experience". Which is far more important, at least to me, than a warm way of living, in the shadow of fear of failure. Than routine, confort, conformism and compromise, which are all side effects or, better said, direct severe consequences of this fear of failure. Edison, whom i admired a lot when i was a child, due to a book about his life that i've read, said it beautifully: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Is this optimism? I am not an optimistic person. I am, however, a lucid person. Lucky enough to realise my rationality. People get so little wisdom by always doing everything by the book. It's not in vain that a brilliant coach like Vince Lombardi kept saying that "Winners never quit and quitters never win".

We are not supposed to live depending on other people's views. We are not supposed to spend our lives trying to please one person or another. We are not supposed to listen blindly to some other person's system of values. Cause we should have the power to judge for ourselves. We are supposed to live our lives. To make the best of our lives. Not to make the best of our lives serve somebody else's interests. For fear of not being fired, mocked, yelled at, renegated etc.

I liked "Elizabethtown" for Cameron Crowe's capacity to stand for these observations. And to use a very pleasant story for a frame. A story which has some romance, some drama, some comedy and a lot of music and journey beauty. "Always do what you are afraid to do", as Emerson invited us. Moreover, he went on saying: "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them." So, be brave! Surrender in front of crazy impulses which you know might inspire you, might widen your creativity, might enlighten you and add up to your experience. Realise how lucky you are to have what you have. See beyond what you were prepared to see. Admit and, most important, ackowledge that "what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us" ( :)) yes, i do like Emerson a lot, for God knows what reason and yes, i know he hated quotes, but well now...). Admire people who deserve it; learn from them, stay close to them. Don't make them say, as Claire does at one point in the movie that they are "impossible to forget, hard to remember" for you. Invent, scatter joy, take people you meet as people who know some things you don't and learn from each. Each might surprise you. Dare. "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."(Anatole France). Change and exchange. Places, views, attitudes. Don't victimize yourself. Laugh when you do it anyway. "It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper." (Errol Flynn) . So ignore them. Prove yourself differently and only care about this. Look around and observe. Treasure deadlines. Observe, observe, observe. Imagine. I read comments on "Elizabethtown" by people for whom the "1 billion dollars story" was totally unrealistic and this was enough for them to hate the movie and accuse the director of lacking credibility. Wake up, people! It was a story; and everything is possible in stories. Remember that from your childhood. Take a deep breath. Take a trip. Transform it into a journey. And remember, "it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees" (Dolores Ibarruri).

bad strategy, bad...

full of meat vegetal salamis?

26 Nov 2005

saturday cartoons

Quite a forceful start of weekend with the morning version of "Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit". The movie was undoubtedly enjoyable, but what i appreciated the most was the audience, almost entirely formed of adorable children accompanied by parents or grandparents. I was just thinking that their giggles and original and fresh commentaries and interpretations were far more creative than the visions i had starting from this movie and that really made me laugh. I simply love to get in touch with all sorts of sources of fresh ideas. Especially since the movie had a particular sense of taking care of details, and it's amazing how children spot these details and try to make entire theories out of them. I kept on laughing and saying to myself: "now this is strategy" :)).
And i also watched a totally funny short starring my favourite Madagascar characters - the penguins. The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper should be turned into a long movie, if you ask me, cause those characters have just so much potential.

25 Nov 2005

Correcting people



funny concept :))

remember to play after every storm

the sentence i used as a title for this post belongs to Mattie Stepanek, a young boy who died last year, after a life of disease and suffering, caused by a rare form of muscular dystrophy. However, Mattie was an incredible public speaker and writer. He wrote poetry since he was three years old. He has had five books published and some of them were on the bestsellers list of the New York Times. He was introduced to me by Claudiu, who had watched him in a Larry King show. And i immediately started to appreciate his great power and wisdom, amazing for his age. I chose to post one of his poems, and accompany it with a "navajo pride" flute chant, taken from an extraordinary indian flute music cd that i received as a gift and enjoyed these days. I just thought it would fit here.

FOR OUR WORLD
We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment.
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment.
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment.
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice.
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment.
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.




Powered by Castpost

dirt-related


why is there so much dust on my office phone ?!?!!

24 Nov 2005

brown sugar room - first part



some music

this was supposed to be associated with a previous post on the magic of sadness. i have a special feeling when i listen to this song and all the such. and it's sort of my inspiration theme song these days :).

Powered by Castpost

a day full of technology


hmmm... i started enjoying using all sorts of technological bits in order to use as many online possiblities as i can. that's what the multimedia experience is all about, isn't it? it's so great to know that even though you might never see or hear certain people, you can still communicate with them, stay in touch, learn from them and so on. Yahoo! mail and Forbes associated in order to launch The E-mail Time Capsule, a service which allows you to write yourself a mail and delivers it back to you in 1, 3, 5 or even 20 years time. Arthur C. Clarke comments upon joining the planetary conversation. Here you can find my Flickr Photo Album. My Castpost multimedia blog is gonna help me keep my favourite audio and video pieces organized, and that also means the possiblity to keep my favourite ads in one place. And you can even add the Official Bush Countdown Clock to your website :))! So i'm gonna keep on using more and more :))...cause it's all about experiencing and learning and having fun while doing it !!!
my favourite Seat commercial of all times. as well as an opportunity to test my castpost facilities :)).

Powered by Castpost

Indian creative surprise

a nice "creative" surprise from India - this is how the blog of an Indian art director looks like.

22 Nov 2005

guerilla innovation

and another hot spot: Guerilla Innovation is a really cool tool for anybody looking for technocultural trends, research and creative intervention. Or for unconventional strategies, such as Google Will Eat Itself, a project which can be summed up like this: "Each time someone clicks one of the Google text-ads, GWEI receives a micropayment, which will be invested in Google shares. In other words: Google will slowly be bought via its own advertisement-system!"
Links from this site will take you in all sorts of weird places, such as "Hack this site!" - and the same says it all - or to Sign Language - a collection of photos containing humorous, bizarre, and or confusing signs from around the world - or to Complex Net Art Diagram. Well, they're so many!!! All you need is time to surf...

in love with my job

i discovered a very good, pertinent and up-to-date Romanian advertising blog, which proved to be a fantastic opportunity to find out about other great advertising sites, among which that of the Advertising Educational Foundation, which offers even whole chapters of valuable advertising books. On the other hand, going from link to link, i came across The Museum of Bad Art, which should be visited by anybody claiming to be an artist :)).

anyway, i need to go out - i want to go to an ice circus show and to go visit the exotic fish exhibition, and start digging for other cosy cafes to spend my time. until then, i should say i watched "The butterfly effect" last night, which resembles "Donnie Darko" a lot, with the exception that Donnie Darko is far better. However, it's not bad to keep in mind the chaos theory: "It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world."

Association of Road Traffic Victims

Headline: "One out of ten road traffic victims is a pedestrian."
Agency: Ogilvy Netherlands

21 Nov 2005

thoughts to be ignored

gooosshh...how cute!!! the latest polar bears Coca-Cola ad, together with other latest Christmas ads here. and Burger King icon used in streaptease viral video here.

The magic of sadness
People around me are boring. Not because they don’t have the potential to be interesting, but because they choose to be boring. Unlike today’s regular people, there is enough spirit in me to discover magic. People so much lack spirit nowadays; almost as if the magic of moments has become a taboo. Beauty still exists, waiting to be explored, but people do not seem willing at all to let themselves overwhelmed by what could be called power of living, of feeling. They’re afraid not to be mocked, or taken as fools if they do it; they’re too responsible to do it, in a world in which exams, school, studies, work demand being serious and responsible. There’s too little left for experiencing in the name of the spirit within. Why invest in feelings when you can just have sex, and that’s pure unconditional pleasure; why invest in feelings when you can just hang out, without having to be there for anyone who’s in pain or at a bad time? Why invest in fulfilling relationships when you can just have everything on a conventional basis? Why think about time for yourself when you have to think your time according to the company’s interests? Why think about improving yourself spiritually when seeing something more or less spectacular doesn’t show and doesn’t have the immediate effect of a college course or of a training?

If you save somebody's life, you owe him for good

i read "B 24 FUN" each week with an immense pleasure. i like the design of the magazine, the ads, and, most important, the articles. it was one of these articles (and more precisely, the article's motto) that made me realise the possiblity of me being wrong in a certain issue about which i was quite sure. therefore, i'm gonna try to post a translation of the article.

"A hero of the new times - Florin Iaru
One day, the administrator comes to me and says:
"Mr Iaru, we have a problem...I think that your neighbour is dead. Nobody has seen him in three days"
"Let's break the door!"
"It's armoured, cause he's afraid of thieves"
"Does it smell?"
"No, it doesn't smell"
"Then he's not dead, let's call the police"
"Under what reasons?"
"And what do you suggest?"
"Let's look on the balcony. Maybe we can see something! I think he's dead. Wait till he starts to stink, then the show begins! Unless..."
And he gazes straight at me.
"What if...do you happen to have a rope?" And he gazes at me again. "Or some furniture girth."
"Sir, i don't have any girths!"
"But i do!"
"And do you want to go down from my place to the second floor?"
"Who, me? No way! But you could...come on, you're quite thin. We'll get you over the balcony!"
My son strated to scream:
"Daddy, don't jump from the balcony!"
The other neighbours, watching from behind the door, hurried in.
"There! Now! Hang on! Pull! Look, what a big cat! How do you untie this? Get out of our way, kid, we're not playing in here! They tied me like a salami and got me up."
"It's breaaaaking!"
"It isn't breaking, cause i checked it, it can hold two like you!" They got me down. I looked shyly over the kitchen's window, over the living room's window.
"I don't see anything!"
"Break the damn window!"
I followed the orders. And it was only then that i saw the old man, under the table. He could hardly breathe. The rest was easy. I opened the armoured door, and started boasting: i had saved a human being! The satisfaction didn't last long. The second day, i flooded him and when he came back from the hospital, he had me paint his house."

The motto which caught my attention was "If you save somebody's life, you owe him for good."

To jump from one to another, the tagline of David Cronenberg's "A history of violence" is "Tom Stall had the perfect life... until he became a hero." The movie seemed interesting enough for me, maybe due to some subjective implications. Anyway, for an hour and a half thriller, it did its job with style, showing Hollywoodian violence from a totally different and intriguing enough perspective.

Also watched during the weekend: "Shrek II" and, yes :)), "Dennis the Menace strikes again!".

18 Nov 2005

simply beautiful

"The Cirque du Soleil story is about a group of people who wanted nothing more than the freedom to dream a dream. Beginning with a young man from Montreal called Guy Laliberte, it's the tale of individuals who have come forward at special moments in time to make that dream come true, and share it with the world..."

news worth mentioning

many things to say today...and no mood for writing. however, one particular advertising campaign in Belgium is worth being mentioned here. practically, the concept is "selling a product with one-second TV ads" and, as the article presented by AdAge says, TV may be the most heavily used medium around but this campaign demonstrates that it’s still possible to create a buzz.
the second thing which attracted my opinion is this article, claiming that "the cult classic The Prisoner is set to return almost 40 years after it first hit TV screens". as a total fan of the series, i have to say that i would somehow be thrilled for this news to be true, although i think that the initial spark of the series would vanish and Patrick McGoohan's performance can hardly be equalled. BBC News seem to cofirm the rumour here, so all we have to do now is wait!
on the other hand, i watched "Le Roi Danse" last night.

17 Nov 2005

you have the right to remain anonymous

very interesting listing of the bloggers' rights here, as well as the possibility to join a foundation preoccupied by this.

16 Nov 2005

bad movie of the week

Flightplan is a really bad movie. quite a disappoitment, since i had quite a good impression about Jodie Foster; however, i really fail to understand why a good actress would agree to play a part in such a movie. full of clishes, of ridiculously faked melodramatic moments, boring periods in expectation of plot turns, this movie simply seems to be a collage of various Hollywood symbols used along time in such productions, lacking originality and the capacity of being at least thrilling. its only achievement seems to be that it really really wastes the viewer's time. oh...and another thing: planes are very complicated devices :))

a book is a mysterious object, and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen

since i brought Paul Auster up anyway, i was quite pleased to discover this Guardian article annpuncing his new book, "The Brooklyn Follies".

"Only a person who really felt compelled to do it would shut himself up in a room every day," Auster says. "When I think about the alternatives - how beautiful life can be, how interesting - I think it's a crazy way to live your life."

Beckett was a writer Auster felt he had to break free from. "You have the sense, when you read Beckett for the first time, that he reinvented the novel, and at the same time made it impossible for anyone to write a novel again. And I was in a sense crushed by him. It took me a while to get out from under the burden of Beckett. And not only him, but of other writers as well. When you're young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound. So I had my Henry Miller period, my Thomas Pynchon period. It kept changing. What am I saying? Who am I?"

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do

last night i watched "The exorcism of Emily Rose". these days, i feel like i could go on watching movies forever, cause being at the cinema allows me to think about a lot of things and feel somehow protected while doing it, sheltered somewhere far from the madding crowd. anyway, leaving aside my thoughts of agony :)), some details about the movie.
Scott Derrickson's movie is more or less based on the true story of a German young girl, Anneliese Michel, who was believed to be possessed by a demon and consequently subjected to several exorcisms by Fathers Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz, later accused of negligent manslaughter. The whole story of the controversial 'Klingenberg Case' can be read here or here. This story is important, since it can be considered another interesting episode in the conflict between Church and Law. and who's right after all? if the state is right, then the poor girl was the victim of overreacting old sick practices comning from the Church or from some deranged priests, who overestimated a medical condition perfectly curable thorugh the wonders of science. if the Church is right, then Anneliese was the victim of a demonic possession, whose memory and family were stained by modern conventionalism and justice, by the assumption that nothing lies beyond facts and science.
coming back to the movie, i must admit i found it rather disturbing. i was thinking once again that i truly believe ignorance to be people's greatest sin, greatest error, greatest mistake. i like this quote from Bruno Jasienski: "Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exists because of their silent consent." i think people would gain so much more if they considered possibilities, as the people in the jury are invited in the movie. if they didn't reduce everything to facts, cause facts only are capable to grant guarantees. the funny thing is that my experience taught me to respect and consider possibilities and to accept that the absurd is the most probable possibility. after all, "There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions." (Charles P. Steinmetz)

15 Nov 2005

14 Nov 2005

time destroys almost everything



i won't comment upon "Chicken Little" directly. In exchange i will present some thoughts that passed my mind while watching it.
"There is no use trying, said Alice, one can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When i was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes i've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
it's not that i particularly like Lewis Carroll; nor that i particularly like Alice's adventures in Wonderland, but i do think that if people spent half an hour a day believing in impossible things, they'd start believing in their capacity to do something about them. it was Walt Disney who said that "if you can dream it, you can do it". and maybe then, people would start focusing more on essence than on shape. cause they'd gain goals for the creatives in them. for the parts in them which weren't killed by bureacracy and corporatist shits and social duties and all that. Occam said that what can be explained in fewer sentences is pointlessly explained in more sentences.


on the other hand, i'm still under the influence of "Elle est des notres", so...speaking about photos, here is some splendid photography from Edo Kars. and i remembered a little body-copy from a Club Med advert, which said something like cameras are not about photos, but about a means to stop time and retain moments of life, as time goes by. as simple as that sounds, i found some attraction in that. after all, Club Med is "the antidote for civilization"...

also watched during the weekend: Narco and Brice de Nice.

13 Nov 2005

Dieu est pour moi un tic nerveux qui reste de mes origines

I do not know why this particular line drew my attention. And then i remembered. Cause i’ve always liked lines which sound differently from the ordinary. And which sound confessional.
Elle est des notres” looks differently from the ordinary. It’s all about the shots. So static. Giving me the impression of photographical precision. The story seemed developed by one of those very few photographers who are artists beyond the shadow of any doubt. And most frames seemed to be photographs presented by the director to the public. Long enough for the spectators to picture the story. The feelings. The torments. The twists of fate. I sometimes even had the impression that the movie was meant as a demonstration of the everlasting “picture is worth a thousand words” sentence. But was not. Even though this worked as a secondary effect.
So what was the movie all about? Given the title, about people and places. According to some voices in the audience, about a manic-depressive woman. According to the person with whom I watched it, it was all about a lesson of life in a nutshell.
So, it’s about a potentially manic-depressive woman who doesn’t fit in places and between people, her clinical, open-to-study experience providing a perfect start for an analysis of every life. A woman who suffers intensely and traumatically. A cold-blooded killer, who shows no remorse or intention to launch her guilt. A liar who tricks everybody into believing in her. A professional whose results always recommended her. And who is just one of us.
"And, in the end, it simply isn't worth
Your while to try and clean your life away.
You can't. For, everything you do or say
Is there, forever. It leaves evidence.
In fact it's really only common sense;
There's no such thing as nothing, not at all.
It may be really very, very small
But it's still there. In fact I think I'd guess
That "no" does not exist. There's only "yes"."

11 Nov 2005

"I seemed to come from nowhere"

i'm sorry to find out only today, but thank God i found out soon enough anyway. John Fowles dies on Saturday, November 5th, at 79. Either announced as "John Fowles, British Author of Ambiguous Endings, Dies at 79" in The New York Times, or as "Reclusive novelist John Fowles dies at 79 " in The Guardian, his death is more than worth being taken into consideration. I wonder how he would have liked people to take the news of his death...personally, i will add some "Mantissa" and "Collector" quotes and thoughts in my novel; novel which is doing great, by the way :)).

classic shorts

"The Book of Illusions", written in 2002 by Paul Auster, is a sad book. If i were asked to characterize it in only one word, then this word would just be "sad". If you get involved when reading it, you finish it with a deadly feeling of helplessness. Why does everything go to waste? No, i mean it: why does everything go to waste? But that's another story.
David Zimmer is a university professor, who falls into a routine of depression and isolation as a result of his family getting killed in a plane crash. Nothing seemed to be able to get him out of his at least psychologically suicidal estate, when all of a sudden, he reencounters his first moment of smiling and laughter: he watches one of the silent comedies of Hector Mann, a comedian missing for years. Which is more than enought to provide him a purpose to survive, a goal to fight for. I won't go on with considerations on this book, nor will i supply any links, cause it's quite a painful subject for me :).
But this was meant as an introduction to the fact that last night i watched four Jacques Tati shorts, within the same French movie fest. Jacques Tati was originally a mime, and i think this meant a lot for his later career as a comic and filmmaker. I cannot comment upon his style until watching his long movies as well, but what i was going to say was that i can understand how the style of that type of shorts could make somebody giggle, no matter in how bad a mood.
They're based on visual silly gags coupled with an elaborate soundtrack rather than on dialogue, but the natural acting of the actors, the simplicity and expressiveness that they show can create such an entertaining and light atmosphere. You laugh, but not because you catch i don't know what sexual gag, which is anyway connected to some frustrations or tabus or samples of perverted thinking. You just laugh cause they make you feel good. They seem to me like they'e respecting the laws of experiential marketing :)).
I watched "Gai dimanche" and i was quite proud in the austerian manner, cause this short is Tati's first movie, for which apparently there only remained a very used 16 mm copy at "Les Films de Mon Oncle". And last night's broadcast was due to a VHS tape obtained through the amability of "Les Films de Mon Oncle".
The second one was "L'ecole des facteurs", followed by "Soigne ton gauche" and by "Forza Bastia".

10 Nov 2005

other remedies for total boredom

a little fun for those who enjoy cute silly flash games here.

make poverty history

These beautiful videos made me visit "Make poverty history". And since i just watched "va, vis et deviens" last night, i thought it would be right to dedicate a post to this.

9 Nov 2005

live and let live, never forget, but forgive

Very few movies manage to impress me the way "Va, vis et deviens" (which i watched tonight) managed to. I wasn't in the mood for a drama tonight, nor did the movie plot appeal to my mood this evening, but ever since i saw its title some months ago, i knew i should watch this movie. And the truth is that i didn't get bored for a second, and i left the cinema with tears in my eyes. Maybe because i'm in a melodramatic state. Or maybe because the movie made me think life and feelings differently for two hours and a half. It reminded me the fact that i have to go and visit places and meet people and try to understand cultures. It reminded me how great old people can be, how relaxing and special is the amazing experience of talking to and learning from those who are wise indeed. Wise because tradition and the school of life taught them more than we could ever experience, living in our cities, busy with our work and studies. It reminded me the power of caring desperately about someone. The intensity of desperate caresses, as some Maiden lyrics say. The tragedy of fighting to survive. The tragedy of having survived and fighting for an identity. For acceptance. The drama of incapacity of action, due to lack of means. While watching it, i caught myself thinking about how people get overwhelmed by such unimpotant issues...how they waste the possibilities of life...how they simply miss people for whom being there for them is more important than simply being themselves...and people are so ungrateful while taking everything for granted. The impact of the images created with the help of beautiful performances was doubled by a music which always followed closely the intensity of developments.
The director seemed flawless to me in portraying each character, each culture, each situation, each drama, each feeling. Made "The death of mr. Lazarescu" seem like a bad joke, a piece of amateur shit.

a little bit of everything

okay, so here i go...due to some nasty moments, i didn't quite stay up to date with my blog, which isn't quite nice. it seems that i'm starting to lose my patience to write once more and this is the last thing that i want.
well...as i was saying, there is a very challenging French movie fest these days in here. i haven't been able to attend as many movies as i would have liked, because of the horrid mood that i've been driven into, but, however, i think i should at least mention those that i watched.
"Doo Wop" was the second i've gone to see. The daily Paris walks of a young dreamy and ambitious guy, Ziggy, whose main concerns are love, friends, money, the funk group whose producer he is.
I've also watched "La Pianiste", winner of Grand Prix, Best Actor and Best Actress in Cannes Film Festival 2001, and based on the Nobel Prize winner's book Elfriede Jelinek. Unfortunately, i do not have time now to write a sort of a review of this movie, or, as i usually do, some personal considerations inspired by watching this movie. But, as soon as i also read the book, cause i have to admit that, ashamed as this gets me, i didn not read it, i promise to write :).

Leaving aside French movies, i've also watched "Metallica: some kind of monster". I couldn't help it: the curiosity was too big. And i have to say i loved it. I have this good friend who probably is a real genius. He certainly keeps on claiming that, and i have to say that i sort of agree with that. He writes a lot, he argues a lot, and he masters logics and concepts :D. He is of course totally into philosophy and he reminds me of the way i used to analyse things myself until last year. Or until i met Claudiu, God only knows :)). Yesterday, he sent me his review on "Saw II", movie which i discussed earlier in one of my posts. It was funny, cause he was so totally against it, and he made such a rational comprehensive analysis of the movie, that i kept on reading and laughing, having in mind his attitude towards me, if i told him i how much i enjoyed not only "Saw", but also the Metallica documentary :)). There aren't any rational reasons for me liking it. The camera follows the band between 2001 and 2003, when the band was on the edge of breaking and they even had to hire a therapist and pay him $40000 a month to be at their disposal at any time. Even so, James, the vocalist, goes to rehab and the future of their project involving a new album becomes more than uncertain. After he gets out of rehab, the band reunites, but they have to cope with James' schedule, which means a rock band following a 12-16 daily schedule, as funny as that sounds. They fight prides, they fight misunderstanings of all kinds, they go beyond respecting their families, they get tired, psychollogically used and abused, they get nervous, they get angry, they seek for publicity and PR, they seek peace and silence, they get into war against Napster, attracting negative reactions from their fans, they divide and get back together, they get scared, they get uncertain, they get confident, they get sick, but, most important, they get over everything. And they play great music.

And last night...i watched "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride"...and i simply loved it!! Personally, i thought of it as the best animation since the good old days of Disney's classics. The voice of Johnny Depp makes Victor's character totally special, the songs are all cute and beautifully performed, the piano moments add flavour to the atmosphere, which is already greatly constructed by colours and shades similar to those used in "Les triplettes de Belleville"...and the story is, despite some apparently sick twists and turns, a non-conformist fairy tale. But a fairy tale. How couldn't have i loved it?

Le Monde announces Lars von Trier's new movie Manderlay. And that's a little something for my job :)).

Dylan Hunt says "it's never easy". But have a nice day, you all!

8 Nov 2005

KFC PREPARES BIRD-FLU FEAR PLAN

here is an interesting article on how KFC deals with the bird-flu problem.

6 Nov 2005

5x2

"5x2" is the first movie i got the chance to watch within the French movie fest which takes place here these days. The first observation that i have to stress upon is that the movie is French, which explains a lot.
The plot can be summarized in just a few words. The movie presents five scenes, five moments taken from the life of an ordinary couple. In reversed order. Hollywood has accustomed us with the magic of love, the triumph of the feeling, the special turn of situation when a couple formed of two people meant to be together makes its statement and so on. In 5x2, we also have the magic of the moment. Gilles has been involved with Valerie for 4 years. And they're now on vacation in a romantic place. Marion goes to the same place alone, because her friend has cancelled a trip to Senegal in the last moment. Gilles and Marion discover each other in the most classical romantic manner possible. They're ordinary people. And they seem to be made for each other. But no, this is not the perfect ending of yet another movie romance. It's just the ending of the movie. In fact, it's just the beginning of a romance which failed dramatically. Chronologically speaking, what follows is a fairy-tale wedding, when Marion is either raped or just fucked by an American guy. Then, the birth of the child. When Marion is in extreme pain, while Gilles simply fails to be by her side. Although he later phones to express his regrets and love. The third moment - a dinner with the gay brother of Gilles and his theoretical boyfriend. We listen to a story of cheating - we don't know if it's true or not, we just listen to it. About an orgy, which Gilles was part of in front of Marion's eyes. And then, the last scene of a post-divorce sex moment, which might easily be taken for an anal rape. Yes, divorce. Cause that's how the movie introduces the couple: when they're signing the divorce papers, then going backwards through the moments that i've already mentioned. In such a way, that in the ed, when the magic moment of encounters is enlightened, i assume that the only thought that passes through the viewer's brain is "where did they go wrong?"...

4 Nov 2005

T R




My passion for cartoons and animations is, hopefully, understandable. They're too cute not to get to me, and i get crazy when i see such things...ones of the few things that always manage to make me feel better. Maybe cause half of my brain will always stay young. Very young :)). Today i'll introduce Tweety Planet, a great collection of Tweety pics, which i came across while visiting Top Tweety Sites. At least i'm not alone in my madness...As seen in the great Tweety Friends project, a comprehensive and funny site.

3 Nov 2005

Indulgente? - Teodor BACONSKY, in Dilema Veche

De la Celsus la Nietzsche, creştinismul a tot fost criticat pentru tolerarea proştilor şi a infamilor. E drept că Evanghelia cuprinde pasaje curent interpretate în acest sens: sîntem fraţi, răul îi locuieşte pe unii, adică vine din altă parte... Dar tot Evanghelia cuprinde şi texte de semn contrar: Iisus în Templu! Furie şi lovituri de bici! Eu cred că adevărul are, precum briliantul, multiple faţete. Eşti creştin? Ai datoria să ierţi. Numai că proştii şi infamii nu se lasă, cel mai adesea, absolviţi. Dacă prostia traduce misterul fărădelegii, infamia e destinul prostului însurat cu fudulia funcţiei nemeritate, a carierei gonflabile (care nu s-a ciocnit, încă, de acul revelator). Prostia şi infamia sînt fapte sociale grave. Ne poluează bucuria de a trăi laolaltă. Ne intoxică dreptul la aer curat. Iată (inter alia) de ce detest patologia stîngismului radical: nu doar pentru că e pervers nerealistă, ci pentru că minte interesat, lăsînd larg deschisă calea spre infamie a proştilor agresivi.
Aş prefera să evit răstălmăcirea. Prostul nu e totuna cu acela pe care se întîmplă să-l depăşeşti intelectual. Infamul nu e acela care-şi permite să comită, impenitent, dublul maleficiilor pentru care tu, ca om întreg, te-ai acuza îndoit. Prostul adevărat e falsul inteligent. Iar infamul veritabil e orice ins care săvîrşeşte răul, convins că e îndreptăţit să o facă sau că e mereu nedreptăţit dacă nu o face.
Nutresc toată compasiunea pentru cei săraci cu duhul, dat fiind că sărăcia cu duhul implică fie umilitatea obiectivă, fie smerenia asumată. E admirabil să vezi un om slab de minte, care te priveşte dinăuntrul conştiinţei că nu poate mai mult. La fel, îi trec cu vederea pe răutăcioşii minori, care strică din neatenţie, din frivolitate ori din neştiinţă tot ceea ce ar putea lesne menaja, fie că e vorba despre sensibilitatea altora sau de obligaţiile lor profesionale. Nu-i pot însă accepta pe proştii cu parapon, iremediabil complexaţi, veninoşi & mîndri de propria mediocritate. Luaţi un idiot şi comandaţi-i orice: va executa ordinul, simţind însă momentul cînd trece frontiera dintre bine şi rău. Acestei supuneri uluite de teamă i se opune lipsa discernămîntului în cazul prostului cu pretenţii, care-şi justifică infamia prin iluzia sălcie că nu primeşte niciodată îndeajuns.
Creştinismul ca bombonică fondantă este, prin urmare, pură escrocherie. Dumnezeu este iubire, da. Însă e şi dreptate. O dimensiune o presupune pe cealaltă. Nu există iubire nedreaptă şi dreptate care suprimă dreptul la redempţiune. Cu singura condiţie ca subiectul să colaboreze. Or prostul infam, despre care scriu aici, e incapabil să se chestioneze. De cîte ori vrea să iubească, se iubeşte doar pe sine, pînă la oroarea narcisismului anonim. Şi de cîte ori caută dreptatea, şi-o atribuie dinainte, socotind bunul-simţ ca pe un duşman al "valorii" lui alienate.
Nici egalitarismul politiceşte corect, nici "evanghelismul" ipocrit n-au temeiuri pentru a salva, împotriva ei înseşi, prostia infamă. Cele două strategii de comunicare se înşeală şi vor să ne înşele, susţinînd că prostia e inocentă, aşa cum infamia e inodoră. Eroare. Prostia e rebutul invidios al umanităţii decăzute. Iar infamia pute de-ţi mută nasul din loc. A le încadra ideologic, într-o pseudo-perspectivă de asimilare colectivă, e un gest sinucigaş.
Din astfel de motive pledez, pînă la a mă lăsa învinovăţit de "extremism", pentru meritocraţie. Pentru o societate care nu admite ca proştii infami să-i determine ritmul. Îngăduinţa celor deştepţi şi "pietatea" sufletelor gingaşe păcătuiesc deopotrivă atunci cînd se "amuză" sau se "înduioşează" ori de cîte ori prostul infam - altminteri capabil de flaterii şi manevre ariviste - accede la o poziţie inadecvată. Azi aşa, mîine aşa, ne-am trezit captivi în coşmarul mitocăniei care face legea.
Socrate a fost un sfînt ante litteram: asaltat de proşti (pe care s-a căznit să-i înţelepţească) şi de infami (pe care i-a dispreţuit suveran), a băut, liniştit, cucuta. Se săturase să-i mai vadă, să-i mai audă şi să-i mai îndure. E sigur că Iisus Hristos s-ar fi înţeles de minune cu un asemenea ucenic.

another truism

A study conducted by Cornell University indicates that when we look back over our lives we regret actions and risks not taken far more than the mistakes – even the big ones – that we made. In a study of several hundred people of varying age groups, Thomas Gilovich, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Cornell, found that when we make decisions to do things and they go badly, we suffer intense pain, but for a brief period of time. “Then we begin to adapt to the situation,” he explains. “But when we don’t take the risk, we suffer the pain of inaction, and the regret is much longer lasting.” The most common regrets? The study showed that mother was right: number one was not getting a good education, following closely by not “seizing the moment,” whether in romance or career. Perhaps we should all adopt the Nike slogan: Just do it.

emotional moment to be ignored


i read Lautreamont's "Chants de Maldoror" some time ago, and at the time i thought i wouldn't forget the following phrase. Of course i did, therefore i decided to post it here, just in case :) :"C'est pourquoi, en présence de ta supériorité, je te donnerais tout mon amour (et nul ne sait la quantité d'amour que contiennent mes aspirations vers le beau), si tu ne me faisais douloureusement penser à mes semblables, qui forment avec toi le plus ironique contraste, l'antithèse la plus bouffonne que l'on ait jamais vue dans la création". Well, this was for Claudiu. But Lautreamont deserves to be mentioned anyway.

2 Nov 2005

it's write time!

You know why this National Novel Writing Month is really great? I think the explanation is provided by Chris Baty, the Californian freelance writer who started this global writing fest which has grown from 21 participants in 1999 to over 42,000 last year, all trying to meet the 50,000-word finish line by midnight on the last day of the month and make it onto the NaNoWriMo roll of honour. He says: "It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: you will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down".

1 Nov 2005

Life In A Glass House

Henry John Heinz, the founder of the Heinz empire believed that "To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success". I am not sure why, but these words came into my mind when i read the introduction to a Guardian article on cartoonist Chris Ware (who, by the way, shares my birthday :) ). The article, entitled "The art of melancholy" presents Chris Ware as an although cartoonist realistic person, willing to use the art of his cartoons in order to present real life more likely than some fairy tales. His latest book, The Acme Novelty Library, is “stupendous” according to Matt Groening, while Chip Kidd, author of "Batman Collected" declares "Listen, I’ve been collecting and reading comics for over a quarter of a century, and I can tell you that nothing this meticulous, this thoughtful, has been done in this medium for a long, long time, if ever. ACME is a brilliant, gorgeous, groundbreaking achievement.”

In the mean time, another thingy that drew my attention, cause i found it somewhat funny is Quentin Tarantino's REPUBLIC DOGS , a funny sketch for the ones familiar with Tarantino's work and Plato's Republic.

And since last night i watched "Finding Nemo" again, for some reason i think it's cute to post a quote i particularly like in the movie: "Sharks: [reciting] I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food."