pop-culture for the people

Film has the power to make us feel and think.  There are many fantastic moments since the dawn of film.  Here’s my top 5 moments in film.  At least the ones I can think of at the moment!

Please note: There are SPOILERS aplenty in this article so if you haven’t seen these movies beware!

5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

The ending.  Close tie with the ending (similar in many respects) of Fight Club.

How do you end one of the most interesting black comedy political satire films?  Blow up the world!  Nuclear mutually assured destruction paired with Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again”; it’s a thing of beauty.  The ending was mirrored closely with the ending of Fight Club though with a very different meaning and way of getting there.

Fun Fact: Slim Pickens was not told this film was to be a satire.  He was instructed to play his character straight.

4. Bladerunner (1982)

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Okay this scene is towards the end of the film and it’s the end of a confrontation between the main antagonist Roy Batty, a “replicant” (a cyborg of sorts) and the protagonist Deckard who’s job it is to hunt rogue replicants.  The replicants have a built in life span and Roy knows his expiration date is about up.  Like humans he wants to understand why they must die and does everything he can to forestall the inevitable.  Ultimately he realizes the futility and accepts his fate.

It’s a surprisingly touching moment for science fiction movie scene between a cop and a robot.  It’s about realizing your mortality and knowing that your memories and life experience will die with you.  Perhaps if Roy spent some of his time writing a therapeutic autobiography instead of staring at interstellar construction yards he wouldn’t have spent the last moments of his life killing people.

3. A Trip To The Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune) (1902)

About halfway into the film when the astronauts land on the moon.  It’s a great scene and one of the most memorable in early film as it is a creative mix of special effects and science fiction with a true narrative (albeit simple).  Watch below or download it here.

Fun Facts: If you were watching MTV during the 90’s you will find this film familiar as the Smashing Pumpkins recreated it for their Tonight, Tonight video.

For those interested in absurdism you might be interested to know that it is also one of the first examples of ‘pataphysics in film.

2. THIS IS CINERAMA (1952)

The Atom Smasher roller coaster scene.  Now I’m not old enough to have seen the roller coaster scene when it first came out but I’ve heard from several people who did that it was breathtaking.  I’ve seen the scene for myself in a clip on the Blu-Ray of How The West Was Won on my big screen TV at home.  It’s an exciting thrill ride on a roller coaster.  If you can imagine watching a screen that is three full size movie theatre screens wide you can start to imagine the experience.

Cinerama was a brand new experience to most movie goers when it debuted in 1952.  In the same way IMAX changed the way films are made and projected Cinerama used three massive synchronized cameras aligned to create a widescreen view of the film.  It was incredibly expensive to make films (as well as project them) so there weren’t many made in the early 3 camera process.  A later process was developed that used a single camera (and single theatre projector) that brought the cost down.

Film started in a square picture format, closer to standard definition television.  Today we take for granted the widescreen format of movies.  Even our televisions are now widescreen (with the transition to widescreen HDTV).  So the next time you are bragging to your friends about your new widescreen home theatre setup thank Cinerama for popularizing the idea of widescreen.

This Is Cinerama was not a particularly great film in that there really isn’t a story, it is essentially a technology demo.  It did however change the way films are made and viewed forever.  Unfortunately the film is not available on home video nor film for that matter.  It was left in legal limbo and it is unknown what will happen to it.  You can see parts of the film and get an idea of the process from the How The West Was Won Blu-Ray though.

Fun Facts: The craze of -orama names like Bowlorama, Discorama etc. were all the result of the popularity of Cinerama.

The Atom Smasher roller coaster was located at Rockaways’ Playland in Queens, NY.  It was torn down in the 80’s and a housing development sits there now.

1. What’s Up Tiger Lily? (1966)

“Woody, would you explain the plot to the audience?”

Okay this is my favorite moment in film history and it’s a great but silly one.  It was during the height of the cold war.  The first four Bond movies had recently been released and spy thrillers were massive box office smashes.  What’s Up Tiger Lily? started as a sloppy Japanese Bond knockoff Woody Allen bought the rights to and redubbed and reedited into a spy film spoof.

We’ve been introduced to our hero, Phil Moscowitz who finds himself in the middle of a plot to steal the recipe for the world’s greatest egg salad from a gangster.  Cut throughout the film are crazy song and dance numbers by the Lovin’ Spoonful.  No, I’m not making this up.  It’s just as weird and wonderful as it sounds.  Then in the middle of the film the movie breaks to an interview with Woody Allen.  The interviewer asks Woody Allen if he would explain just what the hell is going on here.  Woody then simply says, “NO”.  The movie immediately continues its sillyness.

This moment is great because Woody recognizes the insanity but instead of hitting the audience with a sledgehammer of plot he simply says, “figure it out your own damn self”.  How many times do you get frustrated when someone watches a movie and later complains they didn’t get it?  “Star Wars was confusing, I didn’t get it.  Explain to me what happened?”.  NO.

Fun Facts:  Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (and RiffTrax) is in many ways a direct result of this film.

A year later Woody Allen would join a group of comedy heavyweights to help write the original film Casino Royale, a Bond spoof.  Though that film does actually use and name the character James Bond it exists somewhere outside of the realm of Bond canon.

HAVE YOUR OWN TOP MOMENTS IN FILM?  Let us know in the comments!

I’ve been following the TippingPoint Pwn2Own contest for the last couple of years.  Last year a researcher from ISE named Charlie Miller used an exploit in a Perl library included in WebKit, the base code for Apple’s Safari browser and won a cash price for his effort.  In the press it was claimed he “hacked Safari in mere seconds”.  In truth it took a lot more time than that to devise the exploit and only seconds to execute it.

This year he did it again with another preplanned exploit which he says he discovered while researching last years bug.  Again he won a cash prize of $10,000.  And again it was claimed that Safari is exploited in seconds.

In an interview with ZDNet he said: “I never give up free bugs. I have a new campaign. It’s called NO MORE FREE BUGS. Vulnerabilities have a market value so it makes no sense to work hard to find a bug, write an exploit and then give it away,” Miller told ZDNet. “Apple pays people to do the same job so we know there’s value to this work.”

I have a major problem with his philosophy and feel this is a dangerous precedent to set and a bastardization of the goals of security in the fist place.  I feel he has an obligation to inform Apple and not dangle a dollar amount for the how-to.

Sure he should be paid for his time and effort which is why he works at a security firm.  This contest is basically bonus money and about bragging rights.  Sitting on a bug puts the safety of other users at risk.  But he is basically demanding bribe money for bugs. Who is to say he wouldn’t give up his research to the highest bidder? I’m sure there are blackhat groups like those in Russia and China that would pay handsomely for some juicy exploits like this.

Yes there is a long history of security firms hiring hackers and there have been many questions of whether that is a good idea.  But security firms should take notice of this philosophy and not employee those who engage in this kind of behavior. It’s bad form for his employer and makes the security industry as a whole look bad by proxy. Would you hire a security company that employees hackers who blackmail for bugs to work on your systems?  If we hired his firm while I was working IT at a large New York bank I would advised my boss to make sure he’s not on our project (and perhaps hire an entirely different firm altogether).

I’ve been in a discussion with other users about this.  There seems to be a split in viewpoint, one side saying he should let Apple and the WebKit developers know about this exploit for the betterment of everyone (for free).  The other side feels this is purely about capitalism and he has no moral or ethical obligation to tell anyone.

Some have likened it to seeing a crack in a bridge that might fail.  Are you obligated to inform someone of the problem?  What if Dan Kaminsky demanded $1 million (Dr. Evil laugh) to divulge details on the DNS BIND problem?  People would be after his head and his career would be over.  This isn’t about capitalism vs. communism as some have suggested.  It is about right and wrong.  Charlie Miller is on the wrong side of this equation.

-Hollywood

I’ve been a user of Twitter for some time now and I’ve come to an unfortunate conclusion.  Unless you are Britney Spears Twitter is mostly useless.

Twitter is currently the most popular of a series of micro-blogging and social networking services.  What you get when you sign up for your free account is the ability to send and receive short (140 character long) messages to and from your list of “friends”.  You can “follow” other people, meaning you will receive any messages they post.  In essence it is a web version of SMS text messaging on your cell phone (and in fact can direct messages to cell phones).

Twitter first gained a lot of popularity amongst tech-heads and has since gotten a lot of press from big name tech journalists who have touted its use.  Most of these tech journalists have used the service as a secondary method of drumming up interest in their stories.  Interestingly the service has seen a shift in interest to more mainstream media and even many big name celebrities from the initial technorati as it has grown.  Yes even Britney Spears has a Twitter account.  Many big name corporations like Comcast and Carls, Jr. are exploring the use of the Twitterverse as an alternative method of communicating with their customers.  Twitter is now so mainstream it is being mentioned on the evening news and as I write this very sentence Jon Stewart just mentioned “tweeting” on the Daily Show.  Big name Twitterers even compare their stats to see who has the most followers, a sort of nerdy pissing contest.

Those who think they are getting closer to celebrity Twitterer need to realize that, like television, it is a one way street, a cheap communication channel for them to reach (advertise) to their fans.  Just don’t expect much.  Most of the big name Twitter users simply aren’t listening to your tweets.  Unless you have a number of friends who use the service you are likely writing short messages into a black hole.

For most people there isn’t much of a reason for anyone else to read your tweets unless you are a content producer of some kind.  Face it, nobody but close family is interested in what you just ate or that you are at home petting your dog.  You would be better served by sending a text message on your phone to your friends or use a service like Facebook instead (which most of your friends probably are using anyway).

Currently there is a deluge of good blogging and social networking services.  Twitter, like Facebook, has discovered that the two often go hand in hand.  This is probably part of the reason why Facebook is currently interested in purchasing Twitter.  The problem with so many choices right now is that people are likely to pick one and stick with it unless a majority of their friends leave.  It is simply too much effort for most people to use more than one service at a time.  This is why you saw a mass exodus of Livejournal to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and Twitter.  But Twitter is (currently) too limited in its capabilities when compared to Facebook.  Twitter is like Facebook in that it has all the same features except the useful ones like hosting photos and videos, and creating and being part of groups.  If sharing information is the point of social networks then Twitter is the stingiest of the bunch.  Perhaps thats why celebrities and corporations like it so much.

I have strong doubts about the long term future of Twitter in its current form.  Though it is still receiving rounds of venture capitol funding it hasn’t made a single dime making any money right now nor has it announced any business plans.  I fear that once the venture capitolists realize there isn’t a business plan at all they will pull their money out.  Twitter’s popularity will ultimately being its downfall as bandwidth and server costs will quickly swallow their remaining funds.

UPDATE: This cartoon perfectly sums up my feelings about Twitter.

-Hollywood