Nightwatch and Daywatch

Posted by Psygnal on 11.05. at 16:36 A few years back, in the depths of 2004, a movie came out of Russia called "Nochnoy dozor" or "Night Watch" - It became something of a cult classic. The movie depicts an unstable truce between the forces of Light and Darkness... as people with various supernatural powers become vampires or shapeshifters, etc... and are carefully balanced by the fear of all out world-ending war. It's an odd movie, made differently to what you might expect in the West, and drawing on myths and legends that the West may not be quite so familiar with. However, it worked. It was a great movie, and begged for a sequel. It got one... and I watched it a few days ago. The first question most people have on their minds when it comes down to sequels is "Is it going to be any good" - I can answer this with a qualified "Yes". The movie was more confusing. I had to spend a little time trying to figure out what was happening... and they'd certainly decided to step up the budget more than a little. Unfortunately, this seemed to be an excuse to throw in some special effects for the sake of it. A car driving up the side of a building, simply to get the attention of a particular character, was just silly. However, acting and directing was also very patchy. The bad guys had no real sense of menace. Zabulon, the leader of the "Dark Others" could almost have been someone's grandfather in some scenes. However, there were areas where this movie shined. Some of the scenes at the end worked very well indeed.... and as a whole, the two of them go together quite well. (Spoiler - highlight to read) The devastated Moscow was rather well realised, even if it wasn't made even remotely clear how this devastation occurred. Putting some of the effects budget into clarifying this, rather than driving cars up walls might have been beneficial, and could have improved the movie no end. (/Spoiler) I'd recommend you watch the first one again before watching Day Watch, if it's been a while, because Day Watch references Night Watch quite a bit. On the whole... it's worth watching, but not as good as the first movie. It does ultimately wrap things up satisfactorily. Night Watch and Day Watch on Amazon Psyg' (0) Comments

Donnie Darko Sequel

Posted by Psygnal on 11.05. at 16:06 Yes, it's being planned. With a $10 million budget (more than double the budget of the original) a company called Velvet Octopuss is making a sequel to Donnie Darko. It's based around the travels of his sister (who will be played by the same actress) as she forms part of a road trip. She has visions... and the whole thing kicks off again. The writer is different, alas.. a fellow named Chris Fisher, whose previous credits include NIGHTSTALKER and RAMPAGE: THE HILL SIDE STRANGER MURDERS is going to be writing the script. This does not bode particularly well. Darko was a weird movie, but it leapt to cult success because it was well written and had a reasonable amount of depth. It turned up just as people were clamouring for a squirrely plot full of twists and turns... and the acting wasn't bad. Given the pedigree of the new writer, I'm not so sure this isn't much more than a straight-to-video dollar grab that's based purely on the success of the original. Donnie Darko on Amazon Psyg' (0) Comments

Blizzard wants Copyright laws changed.

Posted by Psygnal on 11.05. at 15:35 Cheating is bad, but does cheating infringe on a video game publisher’s copyright? World of Warcraft-maker Blizzard, a subsidiary of Vivendi, is trying to argue in court that it does. If this argument succeeds, it could change the way all software copyrights operate in the eyes of the law. Link to Article Source Blizzard is currently wrangling in court with MDY, a small company that makes a software bot called Glider that helps WoW players with tedious aspects of character leveling. While it is pretty clear that the MDY software helps users cheat, and even violates the contract Blizzard makes players accept before playing (known as the End User License Agreement), Blizzard goes a step further and says that violating the agreement violates the WoW copyright since players, after accepting the EULA, automatically create a copy of the game in their computer RAM. If the courts agree, and MDY and its customers are found guilty of copyright infringement, Blizzard could reap statutory damages at the rate of $750 per infringement. The company says about 25,000 copies of MDY’s Glider software have been sold. A variety of organizations are chiming in with briefs to convince the courts that if they accept Blizzard’s argument, it will imply that all media companies with End User License Agreements (software companies, music labels, and movie studios) can prevent the existence of all interoperable software in court. One of these groups, called Public Knowledge, writes that if Blizzard’s argument wins in court, it would prevent any company from selling used media, such as CDs and video game discs. Blizzard is focused on winning its case against MDY and stopping the WoW cheaters, but it is unclear if the company has fully evaluated the way its argument could change the law for all copyright-holders. The argument hinges on some unusual legal logic: Blizzard’s EULA allows users who accept the agreement to make a copy of the game in their RAM, but people who accept but violate the agreement and still make a copy of the game in their RAM are copyright infringers. However, all software when run copy and utilize data in system memory, and buyers of any kind of software already have the implicit right to make a copy of the software in their RAM. This is an issue of a copyrights and owner’s rights. Blizzard doesn’t want to treat Wow players are game-owners, but rather as license-holders. Blizzard might have trouble in court with this part, since in past legal issues with video games, courts have treated players as owners. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge imply that rather than pursuing the argument that these cheaters are copyright infringers, they should stick to a simple contract violation suit. However, contract violations don’t come with built in statutory damages, and would win less money from Blizzard. (0) Comments

Personality Transplants.

Posted by Psygnal on 11.05. at 15:10 Quote: Personality Transplants: Cheryl Johnson, 37, described to London's Daily Telegraph in March the many ways in which her personality suddenly changed following a new kidney that she received from a deceased, 59-year-old man. Some researchers believe in such a "cellular memory phenomenon," but it is unclear whether, for example, Johnson's recent abandonment of trashy reading in favor of Dostoevsky and Jane Austen would qualify. [Daily Telegraph (London), 3-16-08] Sonny Graham of Hilton Head, S.C., committed suicide in April after having spent 13 years with the transplanted heart of suicide victim Terry Cottle. The cellular implication is somewhat less likely, though, because Graham's widow was the same woman who was married to Cottle at the time of his suicide. [IslandPacket.com (Hilton Head), 4-5-08] What do you think? Is there any scientific basis for people's personalities changing to be more like those of their donors? I personally can't think of one, but this is certainly reported enough to make me wonder if someone, somewhere, is looking into it a bit more thoroughly. Psyg' (2) Comments

Sobriety
Posted by Psygnal on 09.05. at 21:46 This will likely make no sense to someone who's not a Futurama fan. Psyg' (1) Comment