As the summer is just around the corner, I’ve decided to buy me self a pair of new shiny shoes. Ain’t they beautiful? Yes, indeed they are!
Ryłko Nikbut Nexx 582
Now I know that this is only one shoe, but I believe you can imagine the other one ;)
Month: March 2006
Introducing movie ratings
Those who know me are also familiar with my love for movies. That’s why I’ve decided that it would be great to write a web application, that would let me easily rate them. That includes, but is not limited to: AJAX, automated title fetching from imdb and a firefox bookmarklet. Original inspiration came from Kottke. He had this kind of system on his blog for as long as I can remember (besides the sole idea, I might have also stolen those star images, I’m not quite sure now, though). It took me a little while before this project came to realization. Implementing it as a WordPress plugin seemed like the best idea. This way I can share my movie ratings with the whole wide world. And so I have finally dealt with my procrastination and simply wrote it. You can see the result just below the first note on the front page. In the foreseeable future I plan on releasing this plugin to the public (GPL). There are still some things I need to implement (RSS feed, for one). Although, if there’s any demand (at all), I might release it sooner rather than later.
UPDATE: WP Movie Ratings has been released as a WordPress plugin.
Google ban lifted
For the past two or three months this blog has been sandboxed by Google. Searching for terms, which usually put my page high in the results lists, yielded my blog at the very end. Googling for my own name became disgraceful. I was last on the list!
I believe it might have had something to do with my Google Ads. While experimenting with them, I might have overcrowded my page, so ads to content ratio became too high. Although it doesn’t make much sense for Google to ban me for using their own ads, yet I still believe it to be quite possible. Conspiracy theory in its fullest.
However, it’s all in the past now. Sandbox is lifted. My AWStats are showing me a 8x-10x increase in traffic coming from Google in the last 24 hours and my page is back at the top for few essential queries. All of that makes me a very happy person.
2006 Oscars
I was very pleased to hear this morning that Crash managed to snatch Oscar in the most prestigious category – Best Motion Picture of the Year. After all, it was the second best movie of 2005 (in my opinion). Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain yet, so I cannot say whether it’s good or bad that this movie has received only one Oscars in major category – Best Achievement in Directing (snatching the other two in Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score). I’ve heard a lot about Philip Seymour Hoffman performance in Copote, so I suspect it’s a well deserved award. Too bad I haven’t seen that one either.
The most undeserved Oscar this year went to Reese Witherspoon. Just like Nicole Kidman got hers for not looking like Nicole Kidman in The Hours, Reese Witherspoon got her for having a voice not like her (very annoying southern accent). Her performance in Walk the Line was just good, nothing out of the ordinary.
Surprisingly, Memoirs of a Geisha, which I reviewed just yesterday managed to grab three Oscars (same number as both Crash and King Kong) in the following categories: Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design.
Some deserved their awards, others did not. Was it controversial? Hardly. All in all, Oscars this year were just like any other year.
Review: Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances.
She sings. She entertains you, whatever you want.
The rest is shadows. The rest is secret.
Supposedly Geishas are not prostitutes, but how do you call selling your virginity for 15,000 Yen? I’d say it’s prostitution in one of its purest forms. But, apparently, there is a difference between the two. It’s subtle, sometimes blurred, but it would be a grave insult to call Geisha a prostitute. Are they or are they not? That is the question you have to answer for yourself. Maybe watching this movie will help. Maybe.
Geisha are not courtesans, and we’re not wives.
We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another
secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word
Geisha means artist, and to be a Geisha is
to be judged as a moving work of art.
Sad truth is, American movies about Japan are much better than the Japanese ones. Such was the case with The Last Samurai, and so it is with Memoirs of a Geisha. Hollywood has mastered to perfection the art of entertainment. This one is a perfect example to support this thesis. Easy to follow story with lots of twist and turns, stunning visuals, memorable music, sweet ending and the most fitted cast you could imagine. Divinely gorgeous Zhang Ziyi, devilishly beautiful Gong Li and deadly handsome Ken Watanabe. What more could one ask for? It’s not me complaining that the movie is sometimes far off from the historical truth (The Last Samurai, once again). I mean, it’s entertainment. The sole meaning of this word is to have a good time and I, personally, had a really great time.
The only flaw I could name in Memoirs of a Geisha is the use of English as a main movie language with occasional Japanese terms here and there. Other than that, it is, yes, breathtaking from the very first scene till the end.
Rating: 9/10