Claire's blog

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PLOT SUMMARY: A period comedy about an illegal radio station in the North Sea in the 1960s.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Corporations deliver radio more reliably than music-lovers.

PEOPLE: Starring Michael Hadley, Nick Frost (Ed from Shaun of The Dead, Mike Watt from Spaced, Hot Fuzz–funny guy), Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Count (the American DJ) (he’s also in The Invention Of Lying, Red Dragon, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, Twister), Bill Nighy as the main boss leader (he’s also in Astro Boy, is Viktor from the Underworld movies, Davy Jones from Pirates Of The Caribbean, Hot Fuzz, Slartibartfast from Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Philip from Shaun Of The Dead). Gavin, who reminds me of Jared Larouche of Chemlab, is played by Rhys Ifans (Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, The Informers, Hannibal Rising), Jack Davenport as Mike Twatt (Norrington from Pirates Of The Caribbean). The ASSHOLE of a British official — the one who caused all this to happen — is played by Kenneth Branagh (Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart in the Harry Potter movies, How To Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog). Eleanor – the 17 hour bride – was played by January Jones, who was in Full Frontal and American Pie 3 (American Wedding), and apparently is in Mad Men. A few people in this were in the British sitcom The I.T. Crowd.

Marianne is played by Talulah Riley, who was in both St. Trinian’s remake movies. Gemma Arterton from St. Trinian’s 1-2 and Clash Of The Titans (what, does she only do remakes?) was in this too. Katherine Parkinson was in the St. Trinian’s movies too. At least one of these characters probably played the visiting lesbian; I can’t tell these hot girls apart.

QUIRKS: Loosely based on Radio Caroline, a popular pirate radio ship with a similar history and style

VISUALS: Shiply shippiness.

SOUNDTRACK: It’s about pirate radio, so of course the soundtrack is HUUUUUGE.

MORALS: Uh, there was a moral? Other than “freedom rules!”, and “you can’t fight city hall”, this movie wasn’t really full of a lot of morals.

POLITICS: Fuck the government! They criminalize behavior simply because they don’t like it! Pirate radio wasn’t really hurting anyone! It’s a victimless crime! If you go into international waters, you should be able to do what the fuck you want! Half of Britain listened to pirate radio back then, because the official radio wasn’t giving people what they want. WE WANT THE AIRWAVES.

And oh, by the way, this is what extended territorial waters from 3 miles to 12 miles. Not wanting radio in those 9 miles. The government wanting to control people who are free. It has nothing to do with a reasonable distance from the country; 3 miles was fine from the British inception until 1967. Fuck unnecessary government control.

Of course, there are international laws too. And yeah, it’s not about people being able to use the airwaves. We must have order, of course. Order, defined by someone else.

Also note that in reality, the guy who shut the station down was a leftwing Labour government Postmaster General, not a rightwing reactionary. It says something about politics and the liberal mindset: You have to depict assholes as rightwing, or people don’t get it. In fact, leftwing leaders take away plenty of freedom too. False dichotomy politics are what trick us all.

Pictures of real life Radio Caroline ship after Maritime Broadcasting Offenses act: HERE.

GOOD STUFF: Plenty of drugs, and, for a boat full of men, plenty of sex too (women visited).

BAD STUFF: Very long – the British release is 2 hrs, 15 minutes. Honestly, it felt like it was a rushed edit. I bet there’s a 4-hour workprint out there somewhere.

Also, you could call the end very sappy.

CONCLUSION: A pretty fun pirate-radio-on-a-ship party/comedy movie, with a sappy dramatic ending. Governments hate freedom, and this movie loosely documents a ton of real events related to the criminalization of pirate radio. You can draw a lot of direct parallels between the way corporations and countries fight Bittorrent and P2P software today, to the way they fought pirate radio in the past. You do something without government oversight, you are free. Governments hate free people.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3.8/5 stars. IMDB: 7.4/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.5/10, Netflix: 3.5/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.6/5 stars).

RECOMMENDATION: If you’re going to watch this, MAKE SURE TO WATCH THE BRITISH RELEASE. Yeah it’s longer. It’s realer, too.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Can’t really think of any! That’s a good sign.

MOVIE QUOTE:

Simon: I believe the technical term is a *fuckload* of boats!

The Count: Not mine, sir. I’m an American citizen and I don’t give a hootenanny God damn about your nitpicking limey laws. I intend to broadcast from this ship 24 hours a day until the day I die. And then for a couple days after that.

Gavin Cavanagh: Here’s a rather long record. I hope I’m here at the end of it.

Gavin Cavanagh: Are you doing something dirty? Are you doing something your parents don’t know about? Are you breaking the law? Are you breaking the rules?

The Count: You know, a few months ago, I made a terrible mistake. I realized something, and instead of crushing the thought the moment it came I… I let it hang on, and now I know it to be true. And I’m afraid it’s stuck in my head forever. These are the best days of our lives. It’s a terrible thing to know, but I know it. (more…)

YOUTUBE: Preload Entire YouTube Videos By Disabling Dash Playback

YouTube Center. Wow. I wish I’d known about this months ago.

I hate the new YouTube playback.

Plus there are a ton of other options, like disabling peoples’ stupid annotations from popping up on their YouTube videos.

I immediately went through every menu, read about every option that wasn’t obvious, set every option on every page, and exported my settings for backup. I want this to be forever. :)

LINK URL: http://lifehacker.com/preload-entire-youtube-videos-by-disabling-dash-playbac-1186454034

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Well-sourced list of 252 examples of lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc.

Wow.

I’m not going to pretend to have read all this (got about 50 in so far), but the onus to read this list is really on the people who are still making excuses to defend our current jackass of a president.

LINK URL: https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-252/

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] One of the lowest-rated movies we have ever decided to watch. People sure hate sexual deviancy!

PLOT SUMMARY: Here’s a summary. It doesn’t quite capture what this movie’s about, but it’s certainly an informative summary.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Perverts can only fall in love with other perverts.

PEOPLE: Written, directed, and starring newcomer Brad T. Gottfred.

QUIRKS: VERY VERY VERY quirky. Indie feel. Very sexual, but much more about the psychological aspect, rather than being pornographic. Did this movie even show boobs? (A: Yes, but not memorably so.)

It’s listed as a drama, but in fact, it’s kind of a dark comedy.

VISUALS: The animated sequences were interesting, and reminded me a bit of the 2 John Cusack films (One Crazy Summer, Better Off Dead) that broke into animation a lot. The animation was deliberately simple: Stick figures. They depict the book he is writing — a box about stick figures having sex a lot, and then looking for a portal into the 3-dimensional books. But on a grander scale, the book that he is writing is a metaphor for the events of the movie itself, as is his neighbor Theodore who lost his dog, also named Theodore.

There’s a lot of orgy scenes [compared to most movies] during the beginning, but hardly at all in the 2nd half.

MORALS: The moral was interesting, as part of it was about how couples should indulge each other in their crazy sex fantasies — kind of a progressive message compared to most movies about alternative sex. Usually, in film, anyone who has alternative sex ends up with their life completely ruined. It just comes off as Jesus-influenced bullshit. It’s nice to see something more realistic for once.

GOOD STUFF: Even the dad turns out [highlight for spoilers]→ to not be a douche. (Not as much of a douche, anyway.) That was nice.

NEUTRAL STUFF: Uh, wow. The post-credits scene throws a monkey wrench into things and really opens up some questions and makes you wonder if maybe he’ll get those orgies too. Or was that just another fantasy? :) Or was his lesbian roommate never real in the first place? Just someone to have orgy fantasies about? It makes the movie more confusing, yet better. The scene is separate for a reason–you don’t have to consider it to be as important as the rest of the movie :) But wow, way to throw a total monkey wrench into things. Very interesting.

BAD STUFF: Definitely a bit low budget compared to what comes out of Hollywood; this is an Indie film to be sure.

It also had an odd religious angle, which is an automatic negative. However, this angle wasn’t intolerable as such things are in most movies. It actually added heart. It actually wasn’t really a bad thing, other than me being against spirituality. But that’s mostly because spirituality is 99% bullshit — This movie actually had some good spirituality in it, something that fits in the other 1%. Still intangible and pointless, but of greater depth of meaning than most movies that have a spiritual angle.

CONCLUSION: I found this to be quirky, oddly comedic, and even a tiny bit spiritual in a way that isn’t as annoying as 99% of film spirituality. It’s almost a coming of age film masked by a backdrop of INCREDIBLE QUIRKINESS [including sexual quirkiness, and animated stick figure interludes] and surrealism. Most people didn’t like this, and I think they’re dead wrong here. This was a great movie.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7.4/10 (a high 7).
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 2.5/10! 2.5! WOW THAT’S LOW!. For Netflix: 2.1/5 stars (still pretty low). Apparently most people actually don’t like this movie!

RECOMMENDATION: If sexual deviancy and indie quirkiness doesn’t put you off, you might like this. If sexual psychology interests you, even better. Most people didn’t like this, and I think they’re FUCKED. Or maybe not getting fucked enough :) Or maybe having too much vanilla sex…

SIMILAR MOVIES: The movie Splendor subtly reminds me of this film, what with non-standard sexuality being embraced. The movie Control Alt Delete reminds me of this film even more, what with someone’s abnormal sexual fetishes at odds with their quest for a romantic soulmate [highlight for spoilers]→ who, as it turns out, is also sexually “deviant” as well (in both movies).
(more…)

BIG BROTHER: The Surveillance Speech: A Low Point in Barack Obama’s Presidency – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic

And yet, there are many who still think Obama is a good president because he’s better than McCain would have been.  

That’s kind of like saying vomit is a good food because it’s better than eating feces.

This is a nice deconstruction of Obama’s bullshit, which half the country seems to swallow hook, line, and sinker.

Obama has taken away as much civil liberty as Bush at this point, if not more.

Great job.

LINK URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-surveillance-speech-a-low-point-in-barack-obamas-presidency/278565/

CARTOONS: What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love, and BronyCon?

City Paper had a featured article on BronyCon. It kinda sheds light and explains things and is generally a well-written, well thought out article.

LINK URL: http://citypaper.com/news/what-8217-s-so-funny-8216-bout-peace-love-and-bronycon-1.1532075

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ That kid sure likes to die a lot.

PEOPLE: Astro Boy played by Freddie Highmore (Charlie in the 2005 Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Jared in The Spiderwick Chronicles, even a voice in The Golden Compass). Other celebrity voices include Nicholas Cage, Kristen Bell, Samuel L. Jackson, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland (Heaven Help Us, Lord Of War), Eugene Levy, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy (Rufus in Harry Potter movies, Quentin in The Boat That Rocked, Viktor in Underworld 2, Davy Jones in Pirates Of The Caribbean, Hot Fuzz, Slartibartfast in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Philip in Shaun of The Dead), Elle Fanning (Daisy Age 7 from Benjamin Button), Alan Tudyk (Wash the pilot from Firefly & Serenity, Jack from Knocked Up, Simon from Death At A Funeral 2007, I,Robot, Dodgeball:A True Underdog Story, Ice Age).

QUIRKS: Juvenile origin story of Astroy Boy.

VISUALS: CGI. The cgi style with round heads was kinda juvenile, too. Not very creative-looking.

WILHELM SCREAM: Yup!!! Heard it!!!

MORALS: Don’t be such a dick to your children.

POLITICS: Environmentalism, definitely.

BAD STUFF: They didn’t explain some things, like how the girl got down to the surface level in the first place. The story itself was kind of simple-minded, so kids could understand it or something. It’s definitely rushed; the movie is somewhere between 1.0 and 1.5 hours. To truly tell this story right, and in a way that would earn it a better rating, this story would need to be 1.75 to 2.5 hours.

Oh, and also, it’s apparently lowbrow ignorant liberal propaganda, haha. How dare they use red for destructive energy! Someone call George Lucas and tell him his lightsaber colors were lowbrow liberal propaganda!

Some people complained that Astro Boy was older. We know nothing about Astro Boy, so this did not affect our experience.

CONCLUSION: Definitely aimed more at kids than adults, but this still was less predictable than expected. It wasn’t as formulaic as it could have been, which is good.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. Which places this in the bottom 2 of the 10 animated movies I’ve watched this year, but it still wasn’t by any means bad.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3.6/5 stars (a low 4). IMDB: 8/10.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 6.4/10, Netflix: 3.7/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.7/5 stars–exactly the same for once).

RECOMMENDATION: If you don’t mind kiddie action, and like animation, the story is worth checking out.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Not a movie, but the TV series Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot is quite similar to this. This movie definitely has elements of Wall-E and Pinnochio.

MOVIE QUOTE: Astro Boy: What? I got machine guns… in my butt? (more…)