“The IT Crowd” is a show from the isle of TV greatness, The United Kingdom. Based in a nameless, faceless company full of “beautiful people doing nothing and having affairs” we follow the problems and trials of two basement dwelling IT employees. Think of them as the two standard stereotypes of nerds. Slobby, junk food eating, lazy but smart nerd and lives at home and is dressed by his mother nerd. Toss in their “boss” who bluffs her way though her interview and we have a wonderful little show that every computer nerd will relate to. Go watch it.

Now here is the problem, the show is one season old. Six episodes. It’s a large hit in Briton and is making is way though the blog realm. You Tube has all the episodes and when you search for them they show up first, which wasn’t true last month. So, of course the big American TV companies are making their version. With beautiful people. They always use beautiful people. One could ask why don’t they just show the original over here. Well here is the problem. Americans are stupid. Or at least that is what the large TV companies think and bank on. We couldn’t possibly understand jokes that make reference to a culture that we know nothing about. We need homogenized TV. We have to watch what they choose and like it. They should be watching the problems the record industry is going though. Are we facing a future of being sued for not watching crap American TV?

Now here is the other side. If all content becomes user created (You Tube) will we have good shows? While watching some kid flail about with a large pole is entertaining for 30 seconds people will move on. Now granted 30 million people might watch it but how do you make a profit from that? Pop Ups? Also, at some point it’s going to be relegated to the recycle bin of life.

So where is TV headed? A combination of both? Interactive? Smell-O-Vision? Something we haven’t created yet? Or we could just go outside and play with an Aerobe.

-Lorkin-

This is just more proof that to be a great artist you have to have a finely honed ability to B.S. Granted the idea of a Christmas card featuring Mr. T would appeal to some. Sadly they are all sold out.

However, this has to be some of the weirdest “art” I have seen. I’m not sure though that many artists would take a commission to paint Rod Stewart as a clone trooper. So perhaps he has found a niche people will pay for. So head on over to his site. My favorite has to be “No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford”.
Paintings By Brandon Bird

-Lorkin-

Why am I more impressed with the CGI in Jurassic Park which is a 13 year old film than anything with CGI today? Because, Jurassic Park was afraid to use CGI. It was a new technology and they didn’t know how it was going to look. So they used it on far away shots and fast action shots. But anything up-close was still an animatronics model. CGI today is used front and center and movie watchers are expected to just gloss over the fact.

Case in point, Yoda is by far better as a muppet. The movements
of the puppet and the spoken lines mesh. You believe that he’s a cranky old hermit when he’s hitting R2-D2 with his cane and the infliction of the actors’ voice matches the actions. While CGI yoda can fly around and battle anything there is no connection to the character because there is nothing tangible. One of the reasons
CGI today is used improperly is the advent of entirely CGI
characters and environments. The reason this hinders most
movies is because your flesh and blood actors have nothing
to interact with. If you have seen any movie with a CGI character
inevitably you see the real actor focusing on the wrong part of the
CGI character.

Now the case can be made that CGI characters can be done well. Gollum in LOTR is a prime example. Except that was a real person overlaid with a CGI “skin”. There was someone there for the other actors to interact with. Someone who was also the voice and could match the movements with the lines. The entirely CGI set is another case of lack of interaction. The real actors look out of place because there is nothing there for them to react to. You have to have some element of tangibility.

My second issue with today’s CGI use is it all looks exactly the same. CGI dragons look the same, CGI people look uniformly horrible, CGI battles look to planned out and rigid, and CGI backgrounds always look shiny and flat.

CGI is perfect and thats the problem. Real people and places are never perfect. CGI should be reserved for adding little things and for far away shots and should always be mixed with something that’s actually there. The only time CGI should be heavily used is when the entire film is CGI. CGI is a tool for tweaking a movie not building one around your actors. Unfortunately, CGI will come into heavier and heavier use. As movies make less and less at the box office (we could site the fact that Hollywood is unoriginal and expects us to swallow the same movie over and over) CGI use will grow. CGI is cheaper. Basic economics dictates if your profits are declining you reduce costs or you up your price. Hollywood is doing both yet has forgotten one key point. If your product is of low quality it doesn’t matter how much you lower your costs or raise your prices you still won’t sell your product. So pop me some popcorn and put in Jurassic Park.

-Lorkin-

Now being the good nerd that I am I went out and bought the newest offering of “Weird Al” on the day it came out (which was a few days after I bought the “Weird Al” Show on DVD). Due to the media blitz that had occurred I had already heard two of the songs on the album (Three if you count “you’re pitiful” but that will be covered later). That might have set my expectations a little higher than they should have been but hey. So here is a song by song review on the new album

Track one – White and nerdy

The “Title” track and the lead off parody. Having heard the song already and seen the video it was nothing new. While a good song in its own right it seems a little to in the vein of “It’s all about the Pentiums”. The video was clever and you have to give credit for the cameo from Donny Osmond. If you haven’t seen the video it’s on youtube or on weird al’s myspace page. All in all it will be the most remembered song from the album

Track two – Pancreas

This is a style parody of the beach boys. Not that great. Credit for the squeezing in of obscure medical references. Generally gets skipped on the relisten.

Track three – Canadian Idiot

Parody of “American Idiot” by Green Day. The lyrics are kind of hard to hear but once you get them its not that great. Very standard “Weird Al”. Take a popular song, toss in some insults to someone, and pepper in multiple “Weird Al” vocals. Gets skipped on the replay.

Track four – I’ll Sue Ya

Style parody of current hard metal. One of the better songs on the album.

Track five – Polkarama

The polka…..not the best one he’s done

Track six – Virus Alert

Style parody of early David Bowie / early brit rock. This will get stuck in your head. Musically and lyrically the song is great. Tied with white and nerdy for best song.

Track seven – Confessions Part III

Interesting parody idea. Gets kind of old though. Good the first time or two but not much relisten.

Track eight – Weasel Stomping Day

Think seriously disturbed Disney song. The video is almost too much to watch. It was done by the Robot Chicken people and was shown as part of an episode. The video is also on the disk.

Track nine – Close But No Cigar

If you don’t know who Cake is then this one will go over your head. It’s a style parody but pokes fun at Cake. Lyrically it’s not too shabby. High relisten level.

Track ten – Do I Creep You Out

Parody of Taylor Hicks “Do I Make You Proud”. I really think this song was just created to draw in the American idol crowd. Not my favorite.

Track eleven – Trapped in a Drive-Thru

Longest “Weird Al” song ever. But, it doesn’t seem that long. Poking fun at both the “show your soft side” gangster rap songs and drive thru’s everywhere. Good song but you most likely will not listen to it that much.

Track twelve – Don’t Download This Song

Part of the media blitz for the album this song was put up for download on “Weird Al’s” myspace. Clever little song in the 80′s save the world power ballad style peppered with a hefty handful of pop culture references that makes for a good song. However, replay level is going to be low on this one.

The Album in general was fairly weak. A few good songs but nothing like the “weird al” albums of the nineties. The disk itself though is a pain. It’s a dual disk, which for those not in the know is one side CD and one side DVD, which has trouble playing in every CD and DVD drive I own. Except for the old 12x Creative DVD drive in my computer. (Why is it the most archaic piece of equipment always works) While it allowed me to get the songs out to my iPod it doesn’t allow for the best feature of the disk. 5.1 surround sound. The little bits I can hear sound great and the album was mixed in surround so it’s not just the same thing in all the speakers. Sounded great…… worked like crap. Now this could just be my gear (although I would think Sony would be a mainstay in terms of compatibility) but it seems to be a common issue with the album. My other beef is of the touted 7 videos for this album 5 are flash animated junk. Although one is animated by John Kricfalusi of “Ren and Stimpy” fame. The best video, “White and Nerdy” isn’t even on the disk. You do get the robot chicken video which is ok. Overall, I am a bit let down by this album. It comes across as something Al was contractually obligated to put out. Add in the fact that the best song of the album wasn’t even released on the album (“Your pitiful” was cut because the record labels started having a ego contest, follow the link to find out more) and it almost becomes not worth the money (remember your paying more on this one because its dual disk). I hope there are more “Weird Al” Albums but this one isn’t ever going to be at the top of the catalog.

-Lorkin-

So, when you think of a movie in a movie theater you think “blockbuster” “must see” “pile of crap”. The current day movie is what comes to mind. Tickets are $8 and rising and snacks require a signature in blood. Now take a step back. Think of a simpler time when movies where not just something you went to when you were bored or brainwashed but a true event. That’s what the CAPA summer movie series is all about.

The lovely wife and I received two free tickets to the CAPA movie series from Time Warner because they felt bad about their customer service sucking. Not being one to turn down free I wandered over to CAPA’s site and saw that they were playing “Roman Holiday”. While in no means a current hit it’s a great movie from an era of Hollywood that had original ideas. Toss in the fact that the movie is shown in the Ohio Theater (and the tickets are free) makes it an ideal Sunday afternoon outing.

Driving on down to the Ohio Theater we parked at City Center Mall for a dollar and walked through the mall to arrive 15 minutes early. As we turned the corner we saw on the marquee the title and stars of our chosen movie surrounded by the mass of light bulbs that only a theater built 1920′s can handle. Out front was the old fashioned ticket booth with only one window (gasp). Inside were ushers on every door handing out a program. A program for a movie?!?!? Inside the theater proper were the sounds of the theater organ. I don’t think you can ever fully appreciate what movie going used to be unless you have heard a theater organ. After a very enjoyable 15 minutes of “mood music” the movie promptly started at 2:00 without any ads or previews. An hour into our film came the intermission.

Now intermission is a thing that has passed into urban legend and myth. Everyone knows there used to be such a thing but you’ve never seen one. This, my friends was a proper intermission complete with another round of organ music. In the lounge area were your standard concessions (minus actual freshly popped popcorn. Theirs was the fancy kind in the single serving bag) plus the addition of wines and other such adult beverages. Exactly 15 minutes later everyone was back in their seats for the conclusion.

Exactly 45 minutes later the film was done and we were treated to another rousing selection on the theater organ. All I can say is this is a movie done right. If you have never been to the CAPA Summer movie series you don’t know what you’re missing. With tickets normally $3.50 and snacks at reasonable theater prices you can’t beat the total movie package. Toss in the organ and the feel of a movie done right and you’ll be back for more.

-Lorkin-