movies – Page 3 – Paweł Gościcki

The best actor according to imdb

… is …

To those who do not know him (shame on you; shame on me coz as of lately I did not know him either), it’s Fred Astaire. Now why do I say that according to imdb he is the best all-time actor? The answer is very simple – look closely at the provided link – especially at its last part: nm0000001. He was the first actor to be added to the imdb database when it was being created. This cannot be just pure coincidence!

PS: Unfortunately, the first added movie (with 0000001 index) is some 1894′ 1 minute short called Carmencita (1894) and it’s not widely known.

WP Movie Ratings v1.3 released!

This release is mostly a bugfix one, as there are no major features. Only fixes for some nasty bugs and features that did not make it into the 1.2. And so the WP Movie Ratings wordpress plugin made it to the version 1.3. The most important fix is a much extended css file, that makes the plugin look good with most popular WordPress themes. Tested with Almost Spring, Blix, Connections, Green Marinée, Pool, K2, Laila and, of course, the immortal Kubrick.

Other notable changes include:

added reviews when in page mode.
added pingerati.net pinging when adding/changing movie rating.
you can now edit the title of the movie.
added sorting options in page mode (sort by title, rating, view date).

Go ahead, download it now or go to this project’s page.

Btw: Does any of you use the included bookmarklet to rate the movies?

6th Era Nowe Horyzonty Film Festival ‘2006

Era Nowe Horyzonty Film Festival is over. 11 days in the cinema have passed quicker than one could imagine. Two years ago I wrote a summary report (in Polish) of the 4th edition of the festival, which took place in Cieszyn. This year’s edition, the 6th, took place in Wrocław. Over 100,000 viewers, 675 showings, 522 movies out of which 120 had its first-night showing. 5 screenings a day in 14 cinema halls at the same time (sometimes it was very hard to choose the best available movie to watch).

So was it all worth it? Hell, yeah. I’ve had one of the greatest vacations in my life. It was the third film festival that I’ve attended and it was surely the best. Mainly because of the great titles that Roman Gutek (the organizer) managed to show to us (lots of titles were from the recently ended Cannes Film Festival).

Here are some of my personal statistics: 49 watched movies (5 out of 18 in the main competition, including La Sagrada Familia which has won by popular vote) which gives the average of 4,45 movies per day (that includes the first day that had only one screening of Volver). Most of the time I was able to watch 5 movies a day. I’ve spent about 1050 zł (circa 330$) on the whole festival (including accreditation, accommodation, meals, etc.).

The best movies of the festival (TOP 10):

The worst movies of the festival (TOP 5):

See you there next year!

WP Movie Ratings v1.2 released!

It’s been less than three weeks since the v1.1 release and I have managed to prepare a significant upgrade to the WP Movie Ratings wordpress plugin. Here is the direct download link. Remember to follow the upgrade instructions when upgrading.

Significant changes include:

you can now edit and delete your movie ratings.
added option to customize the dialogue title for movie ratings box via WordPress options panel.
added option to display movie ratings using 5 stars instead of 10.
ability to set custom date the film was watched on (instead of assuming the current date) and display movie ratings based on this date instead of id.
fixed plugin activation problems on Windows machines (no more of those errors: WordPress database error: [Table 'wordpress.wp_movie_ratings' doesn't exist]).
added separate page listing all movies (just create a new wordpress page and add this tag there: [[wp_movie_ratings_page]]).

WP Movie Ratings v1.1 released!

This is mostly a bugfix release as it does not include any revolutionary features (they are planned for 1.2 and 1.5 versions). It is now available for download. Remember to follow the upgrade instructions when upgrading from 1.0 or 1.0.1.

Notable changes include:

sidebar mode, where movie ratings are on a separate line, so the box can be as thin as 170px for star ratings (images) and 100px for text ratings.
renamed HTTPRequest class to WP_HTTP_Request to avoid conflicts with other HTTPRequest classes from other plugins.
new options panel which lets you set different display options (like the aforementioned sidebar mode).
option to display movie ratings using just text as an alternative to the images with stars.
fixed CSS problems with Internet Explorer (now works properly even with IE 5.0).
css inclusion moved to <head> so that the generated pages that include the output from this plugin can now be XHTML compliant.
removed nested SQL queries so that the plugin now works with older versions of MySQL.

WP Movie Ratings plugin page.

V for Vendetta poster

Only after it had ended I have realized that there is actually no Keanu Reeves in the newest Wachowski brothers movie. I was hundred per cent sure that he acts in it! At first I thought that V is him and his voice is just distorted (and that he will finally remove his mask). After one hour had passed I have begun to think that he might be just another hero or a villain that will appear in the second half of the movie. None of that has happened. I mean, just look at the poster below. Doesn’t he she look very much alike Neo from The Matrix (especially while looking from a distance)?

What’s important, though, is that Keanu Reeves acts in another new Sci-Fi movie called A Scanner Darkly directed by Richard Linklater. Can’t wait to see this one!

WP Movie Ratings v1.0 released!

Finally, just as promised, WP Movie Ratings – a wordpress plugin which lets you rate movies with just 1 click (using Firefox bookmarklet) has been released. It took me about three months to have everything polished (hReview implementation, code comments, documentation, pictures) and made ready for public consumption. Version 1.0 is available for download. Installation instructions, screenshots, faq and other important information is located on a separate page dedicated to this project.

The code is open source and has been released under the GNU GPL license.

Powerful quote from a powerful movie

Some trust fund prosecutor, got off-message at Yale, thinks he’s gonna run this up the flagpole, make a name for himself, maybe get elected some two-bit, no-name congressman from nowhere, with the result that Russia or China can suddenly start having, at our expense, all the advantages we enjoy here. No, I tell you. No, sir. “But, Danny, these are sovereign nations.” Sovereign nations. What is a sovereign nation, but a collective of greed run by one individual? “But, Danny, they’re codified by the U.N. charter!” Legitimized gangsterism on a global basis that has no more validity than an agreement between the Crips and the Bloods! Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain’t nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That’s Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win.

The above quote comes from Syriana. It’s one of the many very controversial (yet true, at least to some degree) quotes from this terrific movie. Definitely a must see for anyone interested in the Peak Oil.

Crazy Frog – Popcorn Video

Crazy Frog - Popcorn video

Continuing the tradition of hosting the Crazy Frog videos, below is the WMV file of the “Popcorn video”. The quality is not so great as the original video, but it’s still good enough to be watchable. On top of that, Crazy Frog has his penis in its place, which means that it must be some uncensored European version:

Crazy Frog – Popcorn video (16 MB)

As a bonus, there’s also a 23 seconds long popcorn video teaser (released a few months ago), featuring Crazy DJ Frog. Although called teaser, I did not find anything in common with those two videos. Here it goes:

Crazy DJ Frog – Popcorn video teaser (1 MB)

Enjoy!

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.