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3 years later, Linux still a no-go

2009-11-02T08:53:00.003-05:00

About three years ago I made a rant about Linux, how it wasn't ready from prime time and may never be. In three years, things have changed, but that truth remains.

I got very excited by Ubuntu Karmic Koala, especially the netbook remix (UNR) which I thought was not only a good option for my own netbook, but probably a great option for my parents, who are struggling with the tiny icons and the cluttered, badly disorganized Vista/XP start menu. The desktop paradigm shift, turning it into a pertinently categorized giant menu instead of the typical waste of space, is I think a stroke of genius for non-tech people.

I decided to push forward and refurbish one of my old-but-not-so-old desktop with Ubuntu UNR and try to migrate my parents, mainly my dad, over to it. They have the most basic needs computer users can have. Browse the web, email, IM and crunch numbers in OpenOffice Calc.

So I brought the computer over for a full day of training and migration. Taught my dad about the cloud, set him up with a gmail account so he could now use IMAP instead of POP with both his current Vista laptop and new UNR desktop. Installed dropbox so he could work on his OpenOffice documents on both PCs as well. The idea was to keep his options opened.

Most of this may sound rather mundane and basic for the tech-savvy, but teaching those rather new concepts to people in that age group is a serious and somewhat debilitating experience. Nevertheless I was rather pleased with the results.

On a sidenote, I found out to my dismay that for some reason half of his spreadsheet weren't made with OpenOffice (which I had installed on his Vista machine a while back) but with Works (Ugh!) so I had a conversion job to do (openoffice doesn't open works spreadsheets). That added about an hour to the whole process.

Near the end of the day I noticed he was comparing his on-screen spreadsheets with the printed copies, to see if I had done my conversion job properly. That reminded me that we hadn't plugged in the printer yet. I told him we should take care of that now.

He started to look for his drivers CD and I just said "No need for that, just plug it in". He didn't believe me "You need a CD to install a printer" he retorted. At that point I was showing a sort of arrogant smirk, because I knew that when he would plug in the printer and it would work right away, he would be so impressed.

The printer was a kind of mid-inkjet-era standard, default, run of the mill Lexmark z816. The kind that's on sale every other week. I couldn't possibly imagine that such a printer wouldn't be supported by default. And yet printing on this device was absolutely above and beyond what Canonical's new operation system could deliver.

Googling this problem revealed dozens and dozens of forum posts of people with the same printer and problem, and little solutions outside getting a new printer. A few people mentioned a long and horrible series of command-line operations, package download, conversions and so forth. These posts were followed by a rather high percentage of people saying it didn't work, or it worked with one version of Ubuntu but not another. That was the end of that.

Conclusions : "Congratulations Dad, after a day of hard work you now have, cluttering your apartment, this giant useless brick thing that can't do shit for you. I know you hate Vista, but guess what? VISTA PRINTS".

Few words could describe the rage and disappointment I felt after basically throwing away a vacation day down the garbage. Linux being a free and volunteer-type rig, it's hard to be mad at them for failing to support this printer. I think the printer industry may very well be guilty here. Guilty of requiring so many specific drivers for such a basic task.

I am disappointed that once again, the little OS that could, didn't.

Fantasia 2009 : Love Exposure

2009-07-13T08:53:00.011-04:00

It's hard to summarize Love Exposure in a few words. Yu, the son of an uptight catholic priest (who became a priest after the untimely death of Yu's mother) slowly and painfully rebels against his father (and his own good nature) by committing increasingly sinful acts. Being rather good-natured but motivated to commit sin, he stops at the highest level of perversion he can reach : Stealthily taking pictures of women's panties. This leads him to meet Yoko, with whom he falls in love. In his quest to fulfil a promise to his departed mother, he becomes caught in a whirlwind of characters, from his father, to his father's new fling Saori, the mean-spirited gang leader chick Koike, the mysterious cult members of Church Zero, and Yoko, which despite being the woman of his dream, has a passionate hatred of all men.

The length of that movie almost led me to skip it, and what a mistake it would have been. Love Exposure touches pretty much every kind of love you can imagine : Parental love, religious love, romantic love, friendship, sibling love and so on. But instead of dealing with it in the usual western aseptic way, it takes the exact opposite path. With deception, rape, incest and abuse of many forms taking centre stage, Love Exposure plunges its hand in the vilest forms of them all. But from perfect ugliness, can perfect beauty emerge?

The treatment, as is often the case with Japanese cinema, goes from deadly serious to slapstick comedy to moments of pure spiritual awakening, this truly is a four hour roller-coaster ride of emotions. The execution is fantastic, the cast is perfect, the music is generally excellent (the use of Ravel's Bolero in the first act is rather appropriate for a movie that will go on for another three hours). I was either laughing, fighting tears, wincing, or sitting there with my jaw dropped practially the whole time.

As an indication of the power of this movie, one of the more beautifully erotic moment was met with a theater that was awe and silence-stricken rather than ready to scream "Yeah" or "Alright!" as is often the case with the Fantasia crowd (even in serious movies, unfortunately). Something worth noting, Love Exposure is completely nudity-free. A strange contrast from the subject matter.

The movie, however, isn't perfect. Although the first two hours just zoom by like an arrow, the remaining two have a few pacing issues, minutes here and there where points that were already made, clearly, are remade. Perhaps an iron fist with a perfect sense of timing could've trimmed this to a somewhat better 3 hours experience.

Still, you shouldn't let the length, or anything else really, stand between you and this movie. Through this four hour path of destruction, and reconstruction, at least a thing or two you hold sacred will be damaged.

For the subtitled trailer : Click here!

Resurrecting the archive... again

2009-04-06T19:50:00.003-04:00

There's been a few sales of the OSP Complete Archive CD-ROM on cafepress. But this is the information age, and the CD-ROM may not be the optimal way of distribution anymore. The OSP Complete Archive just went digital! visit http://christianboutin.com/osparchive and click on "BUY NOW", you'll have a choice to get all those older games for 5.99$ instead of 14.95$ for the CD-ROM. Also, the first 100 customers to type in the coupon code WALL-32RF-BRTK will get 1$ off, how cool is that?

Fantasia : Repo : The Genetic Opera, Sasori, Hunting Grounds and Going by the Book

2008-07-23T21:37:00.002-04:00

This year's final movie block averages the lowest of all the movie blocks I've seen this year. In fact, before sitting through one of these films, I could have proclaimed "Best Fantasia Ever", in the sense that I had seen absolutely no dud. Oh well, here's the rundown.

Repo is very interesting film, with an awesome rock/opera soundtrack. Although musically strong, the writing was only average. The universe is very imaginative and interesting, the visuals are artsy and sharp. The cast is great. Overall a good film.

I have no doubt that porting a manga series to the big screen is a very difficult task. Some succeed, and then there's Sasori. Disconnected, trying desperately to fit too much material in the time it has, suffering from intense pacing problems, Sasori is an unfortunate example of how not to adapt a manga to the big screen. It's unfortunate though, because many of the fight scenes are spectacular and very well done. Many characters are interesting, and I would have liked to see their story better told. Sometimes '70s sexploitation, sometimes intense action flick, Sasori keeps looking for itself and just doesn't succeed.

After enduring through last year's Recon 2022, I was apprehensive of Hunting Grounds, the DIY Quebec-Science-Fiction-Post-Apocalyptic-Zombie movie. But it was just too hard to resist. Hunting Grounds is one of those DIY movie that you can be proud of for many reasons. First : the special effects including green screen effects are well executed. Second : This is a movie that doesn't pretend to be American or doesn't take the "so generic a setting that it could be american" like many indie films try to do (to maximize profits, no doubt). This one openly takes place in Quebec city and the Saguenay region, the characters are part french, part english (with reverse subtitles, a nice touch). So that's a pretty good approach. Unfortunately, it suffers from two of the greatest plagues that often strike DIY movies : Bad sound and less-than-adequate acting. Despite those flaws, the movie is still competent in direction and editing to warrant kudos.

Going by the Book, this year's last movie (for me) is one of those gems that just makes you laugh all the way through, although it has a few creepy moments. It has stylish direction, excellent casting and acting throughout. With enough clever shots to have you wonder if it will remain a comedy throughout, or if you will face a darker ending. Going by the Book has a couple of inconsistencies, but is overall hilrarious and an excellent movie. I highly recommend.

Fantasia : L Change the World, Chanbara Beauty, Roborock and Be a Man! Samurai School.

2008-07-13T20:46:00.003-04:00

Not a single bad choice this year it would seem.

L : Change the World wasn't as good as either of the Death Note movies, but Ken'ichi Matsuyama once again so brilliantly portrays the misfit genius L that he makes it all worthwhile. Fans of the anime will also see a broader use of the universe of Death Note, namely the Wammy's House and its members. It's good, but not great.

Chanbara Beauty is what you would expect. Attractive women kicking ass against the zombie hordes. What's not to like? The darkness in which the movie often takes place originally led me to believe there was something wrong with the projector, but it wasn't the case. Fortunately, a big chunk of the movie takes place during the day, which helps the audience appreciate the visuals. The final battle has a very anime-esque side to it which I haven't seen that much before.

Roborock is extremely cool and stylish. It suffers from a few pacing issue, abusive use of flashbacks and a slight lack of focus, or at least misplaced focus. Still, it's overall one of the better Fantasia movies I've seen this year.

Tak Sakaguchi was on hand, as cool as ever, to show us Be a Man! Samurai School. Tak is well known (Death Trance, Battlefield Baseball, Shinobi, many others) and he was really beyond cool, showing up in costume and performing planned action choregraphies on stage. The movie itself was machist, hilarious and full of pretty solid action. Though the first half, where the students are at school, was definately better than the second half, in which they have to fight for survival.

Fantasia : Disciplines of the 36th Chamber, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge and Sukiyaki Western Django

2008-07-11T15:59:00.002-04:00

Wow! I notice my last blog post is almost a year old and about Fantasia. It's as though there isn't much else to report! Truth is, I'm extremely busy with Tales of the USCA, and keep that blog well-fed.

This year's fantasia won't get detailed reviews on this blog. Just quick notes, and here are the reports for week 1:

Disciplines of the 36th chamber : This year's Shaw Brothers movie. One of the better ones, but certainly not as good as Heroes of the East.

Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge : My own personal favorite so far, and probably my favorite romantic comedy of all times, with Shaun of the Dead. But the coming-of-age aspect of it makes it a bit better I think. I loved it.

Sukiyaki Western Django : My main gripe with the movie is with the decision to shoot it in english. It's always weird to listen to people who don't appear to know what the hell they're talking about. But that was required in order to stick in all the classic spaghetti western quotes in there. Overall a pretty decent film with interesting characters. Takashi Miike is awesome.

There you have it folks. Week two coming soon...

Fantasia : Postal

2007-07-24T22:25:00.001-04:00

Here he was, the most hated video game to films director Uwe Boll, presenting his latest film Postal. I have been lucky enough to never have been exposed to his work, having only seen the trailer of Alone in the Dark, to which I screamed an endless array of insult at the screen for it not being a period piece. But that's another story. Postal is probably the kind of film that Uwe Boll should've been making all along, instead of films based on serious games like Alone in the Dark or Dungeon Siege.

Postal, the game, is just meant to be a provocative pointless excuse for a first person shooter. Postal, the movie, tries to be a bit more. Think of it as South Park live-action, an often made comparison. It's dirty, scat-filled, afraid of nothing, but underneath it hides a rather clever and honest political commentary.

Postal was a resounding success with the crowd, yours truly included. I wouldn't go as far as to say that "the world needs movies like that", but I will say it is one hell of a ride, and it does a good job of exposing a lot of the hypocrisy and stupidity that rules this world. And no matter show hard to shock you think you are, there will probably be a point in this movie where you will have to look away, shake your head, or just walk off.

7.5/10 with a butt-factor of 1.5 (9/10)

Fantasia : DJ XL5 Kaleidoscopic Zappin' Party

2007-07-21T18:38:00.001-04:00

It was my first year going to XL5's party. A strange mix of locally and internationally made shorts such as Internet-available classic Dr. Tran and the world-premiere episode 13 of Tom et ses Chums. The show is preceded, and sometimes interrupted, by '70s and '80s trailers of soft-porn and violent B-movies. It's tough to describe the show except that it's like a crappy TV evening with a group of friends. The shows are uneven (from excellent to crappy) but the experience is made better by fan participation. I'm not sure I'm in love with the concept, but it was an entertaining 2 hours anyway. I should note the always awesome Daniel Walther was in some of those clips, which made them awesome. For some strange reason, I left the party wanting to smell underwear, hyped about some Asian kid's next action movie, and browsing adult sites for Poutine Anale. 6.5/10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Fantasia : Recon 2022

2007-07-21T17:53:00.000-04:00

I will be exceptionally harsh on Recon 2022, the locally-made sci-fi epic story starring a group of elite space marines on their quest to help the fledging human race overcome their terrible enemies, the Ma'hars. Producer/Director Christian Viel was on-hand to present his movie, and in his opening speech he told the audience "Not to think about it too much", as it's just a "fucking space marine movie". Fair enough.

I can forgive a lot of things about this movie. I can forgive the fact that although their enemies are supposed to be Ma'hars and Greys, they are barely in the movie (the bad guys are mostly humans/mercenary cyborgs). I can forgive the many cheesy CG shots that are the landmark of low-budget movies. These factors are due to budget constraints. Unfortunately, director Viel seems to be unaware of very basic concepts in cinema such as ?the reaction shot?. It would seem the script or storyboard of that movie must have parts like "Film people shooting randomly for 20 seconds. Then the bad guy falls for no apparent reason". This kind of filming constitutes the bulk of the action scenes. One particularly bad example of this is when an enemy cyborg is shot dead, as it falls down it fires one final missile at the good guys. Where did that missile go? We'll never know. It doesn't hit nor does it misses, it just disappears. The movie is filled with moments like this. That doesn't have anything to do with budget constraints, it's sloppy planning, and amateurish execution.

I was more lenient on the first one because I believe first shots can be given a break. But by now the cost in time and money of CG shots should be known, and it's better to have 15 well-made CG shots than 45 duck-taped inconsistent shots. However, not all is lost. Characters are generally better-defined and more interesting than in Recon 2020, and the script's quality is also better, with some funny moments and clever dialogs. But overall it's very disappointing, especially considering the insane amount of work involved in all those CG shots.

Side by side with lower-budgeted feature-length titles such as Maurice Devereaux's End of the Line and last year's The Descendant by Philippe Spurrell, this independent film is left far behind. 3/10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Fantasia : The Rug Cop

2007-07-21T17:51:00.000-04:00

After last year's almost too-hilarious Executive Koala, one could only realistically expect something not quite as funny with the toupet-throwing antics of The Rug Cop. In that case, wrong would be one's expectations. Not only is the Rug Cop funnier than Executive Koala, but it barely contains a few moments in which I wasn't laughing out loud. It helped a lot that the crowd was really into it, cheering on our rug-throwing hero. This is the most fun I've had at Fantasia since Bubba Ho-Tep. 9.5/10 with a butt factor of only .5 (laughter helps the pain).

Fantasia : Death Note and Death Note : The Last Name

2007-07-21T17:49:00.000-04:00

Death Note is based on a manga and anime, and it shows. Some shots feel like they were taken straight out of a comic book. The characters are over-the-top, but always interesting. One character in particular, "L" truly steals the show as a sweets-eating boy-genius. The design of the Gods of Death are awesome. The first movie is the best and ends with one of the most awesome cliffhanger I've ever seen. The second seems to loose it's footing at first, but comes back at the end with a few clever twists, although a couple of those involves the characters being much smarter than they could and knowing much more than they could. 7/10 with a butt-factor of 1 for Death Note, 6/10 with a butt-factor of 1.5 for Death Note : The Last Name.

Fantasia : Jade Warrior, EXTE : Hair Extension and End of the Line

2007-07-14T13:04:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my annual Fantasia review. As always I will be giving straight-up "last paragraph-only" reviews of the movies I see at Fantasia. Only 11 movies this year, down from last year's 26. My butt just can't handle the Hall's seats anymore, for any extended periods of time anyway. So I went with a reasonable 11. I will still put in my butt-factor, which is the penalty given based on the pain in my butt. For example, if a movie score 6/10 with a butt-factor of 1, it means the actual score of the movie probably would've been 7/10 if I hadn't been distracted by the pain.

I usually attend the opening night movie, but this year I was on vacation, so for me Fantasia opened with the Finnish/Chinese movie Jade Warrior. Jade Warrior's premise is interesting, to say the least. An ancient artifact from feudal China is discovered in Finland by Finnish researchers. The movie switches back and from between modern-day Finland and ancient China. Much less action than I anticipated and a rather slow pace made this a rather average movie, despite the original premise. The cast is good, the cinematography is good but nothing special. It is much more about characters and their internal struggles, than about kung-fu. Although you do get some form of white-dudes kung-fu action. 6/10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Moving on to EXTE : Hair Extension with the stunning Chiaki Kuriyama. This one is both hilarious and scary as only the Japanese can do. Treated with the utmost seriousness at times, and extreme silliness at others, it is bound to left most westerners scratching their heads. Fortunately for the director, who was present for the screening, the Fantasia crowd got it, and laughed their asses out at all the right parts. The finale had me practically in tears. Did I mention the presence of the ever-gorgeous Chiaki Kuriyama? The bad guy is also awesome/ridiculous. 8 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Moving on to the End of the Line for the End of this Entry. When a film is a Canadian production, I will always be more prone to go see it, even if it looks and feels like somewhat generic. I was very pleased at last year's The Descendant, but I enjoyed End of the Line even more. It's effective, scary, and has an unusually attractive cast that are also better than the genre's standards, performance-wise. Thumbs up for on-hand director
Maurice Devereaux and everyone involved. A few cheap scares that takes away some points, but real ones and a great story that puts this score up to 7.5, with a butt-factor of 1.

Vote, and don't vote like a retard

2007-03-24T14:37:00.000-04:00

In two days is the provincial election. As always not a lot is at stake, and at the same time, with every election no matter the level, everything is at stake. You might be tempted not to vote. Don't take the easy way out. Get off your butt and go to the polls. Every elections we have a chance to show the powers that be what we think of them. There is only one good way to vote, visit the parties' websites, read their platform, and pick what YOU think makes the most sense. Most people add tons of strategic layers on top of that very basic electoral concept. I like party B, but I'll vote for party C otherwise party A will win and thus I'll have wasted my vote. This kind of thinking is highly unhealthy and plays no small role in the lack of progress our country and province go through. It also benefits the corrupt old parties and the money-backed far-right newcomer. The media, through polls, dictate the line the people must follow, and the people vote for those parties that get the most exposure.

Let's do something revolutionary and actually vote for the party we find the best. Don't vote like a retard.

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-23T16:57:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays to anyone passing by. Merry Christmas and take care of yourself!

Cheers!

Bumping off the Linux rant

2006-10-24T18:46:00.000-04:00

Just bumping off my last Linux rant. Shortly after that rant I pulled Xubuntu off the computer and went back to good old reliable but slow Ubuntu. So far so good. I didn't try to mess with automatix or what not. I managed to install and run Azureus with the latest Sun Java (that was a major pain in the ass) and aMule. Not too bad. I'm looking a bit into freespire. It looks as easy as Ubuntu but doesn't delve into the "completely free" rhetoric that will, eventually, drag Ubuntu down in the mud. A perfect quote I read about freespire : "People want a computer that works, not a computer that makes them work." So far Linux and Ubuntu has done more of the latter than of the former. Let's see this thing unfold. One thing for sure, Linux is part of my network now, for better and for worst.

Yet another linux rant.

2006-09-17T11:01:00.000-04:00

I've had it with that muthafucking Linux on that muthafucking computer. Linux may be a great command-line OS (like DOS used to be with my great ancestors painted cave walls) but it is absolutely abysmal as a desktop GUI os. Case in point. I have 1 Linux box. It's a Xubuntu box. Its purpose is one fold : Serve as a place for all my downloaded crap. It has 1 hard drive for the OS, and one shared hard-drive, called Q. No matter what computer I use on my network, I download crap on this drive so it can be accessed by all the other computers. The system itself runs TWO applications : aMule and Azureus. Those download various podcasts and p2p files and the like. The computer does NOTHING ELSE. I don't install ANYTHING else on it, in fact I rarely ever use it except for the very very rare, occasional firefox browsing whenever my other computers are off and I need to find something out quickly.

This computer runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's never off. Once in a while, it will get abysmally slow. Fair enough, windows does the same thing. So I reboot it and everything is fine.

Every so often, when I boot it, it will only see half of my Q drive, the other half is just missing. For no reason at all. First few time I panicked, rebooted, and the other half was there. So it became part of the process. Reboot/verify/be happy.

Today it was running slow as it often does. I reboot it, and lo and behold, the Xfce title bar is gone, the task bar below is gone. Both Azureus and aMule run in the upper-left corner of the screen with no menu bar and no way to move them around or close them. Now if that had happened after I downloaded and/or installed a bunch of suspicious applications or some bullshit I would've blamed them, or myself.

Thing is, this computer DOES NOTHING, it just needs to BOOT for crying out loud. Is it really too much to ask that it doesn't break itself just by being plugged in the wall? I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be if I actually USED the damn thing.

Maybe replacing Ubuntu with Xubuntu was one of the greatest mistakes in my Linux life. Perhaps this underground branch of the Ubuntu core is just not well developed and supported. But since it was an older, slower machine it sounded like a good idea at the time. All I know is that I will toss out several hours of my life, trying to get this do-nothing computer to do it's nothing again. Oh well.

Fantasia : Conclusions

2006-07-26T19:10:00.000-04:00

And so ends another Fantasia festival. 26 movies is a new record for me, from here that number can only go down. I cannot say I enjoyed this year's edition as much as the previous one. The main reason being the terrible seats at the Hall Theater, which led me to create my new "butt-factor" rating modifier for every movie I've seen. It's bad enough that the seats were terrible, but what makes bad really worst is that we were told last years that new seats were on the way, and that was not the case.

Now that my butt, and my brains, have had a chance to heal, I've devised my new rules for Fantasia.

1) Buy 10 movie tickets at most at the beginning of the festival. Buy the others halfway through if you feel you can handle more. Aim for probable sold-outs and must-see at the beginning.

2) Double-features are good, because you wait in line only once for two movies, but they're a real butt-killer. Make sure you put at least a day off between double-features, to allow time to recover.

3) Favor weekday movies to weekend movies. (I'm already downtown during the weekdays. Solves parking and transportation problems).

4) No more late-night Japanese soft-porn. In fact, no more late-night soft-porn. In fact, no more late-night or soft-porn. Porn is meant to be watched at home anyway, and for two years in a row I didn't really enjoy the soft-porn movies presented. So that's done. Exceptions might need to be made for late-night non-porn must-sees. But they should be exceptions.

5) Favor weird and funny over traditional and serious. As such, movies like The Bittersweet Life, Typhoon and Seven Swords would be sacrificed for the likes of Executive Koala, Funky Forest and Tokyo Zombie. Not always the right choice, I liked Typhoon better than Funky Forest, but it's generally better.

6) Check for alternate ways to see a movie before buying a ticket. For example, and The Descent and Bon Cop, Bad Cop, will both get standard theatrical releases soon. Death Trance is already out on DVD. It's useless to wreck your butt seeing them at Fantasia.

Fantasia : The Great Yokai War, Executive Koala, The Five Venoms, Re-cycle and Zombie Self-Defense Force

2006-07-23T14:09:00.000-04:00

The last Fantasia weekend was filled with a great bunch of movies. Here are my reviews, in even more express form than usual.

The Great Yokai War is a children's epic. It's from Takashi Miike and it is an absolute delight to watch. Great character and creature design, awesome mechanical design. In this story a young child is destined to save Tokyo, the capital of all anger, from an army of mechanical monsters created by combining trashed, but still functional, items with the souls of the Yokai. Chiaki Kuriyama (of Kill Bill fame) proves in this movie that no matter how ridiculous her outfit or hairdo, the camera still loves her, and so do I. Acting is usually good but fails at times. The ending really doesn't make much sense, but it's beautiful. 8 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Moving on to Executive Koala, the movie that had me laughing out loud long after it was done. Part Perfect Blue, part romantic comedy, it is important to note that although the main character is a Koala, he could've been human without affecting the scenario. The result however would have been less than stellar. Seeing someone bad tripping and going insane is something that can be seen in any other movie. But a Koala? Instant entertainment. 8.0 with a butt-factor of 1.

The Five Venoms is ranks as the second best Shaw Brothers movie I've seen. Finishing after last year's hilarious Heroes of the East but before the others. It's a Shaw Brothers movie. It's old and it's mostly good for the cheese factor. 6.0 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.

The sold-out Re-cycle featured lots genuinely scary moments. While seeking inspiration for her next best-seller, an author is propelled into a nightmarish world made up of all the things, and people, she threw away in her life. Old acquaintances, old toys, old secrets. All are there to torment her. Visually impressive, good acting, but a bit too predictable. 4.5 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 3.

Zombie Self-Defense Force would be my last Fantasia movie this year. Not exactly the best way to end the festival, this movie is a weird DIY zombie flick. Beginning with a strong anti-Bush, anti-American imperialism and yet pro-Japanese imperialism (Japan saved south-east Asian from occidental imperialism during World War II. Right.) Moving on to the movie itself. Lots of cheesy gore. Reminiscent of Bad Taste or Dead Alive, ZSDF lacks a good plot, good special effects and good acting. Like Dead Alive, it has a few good quotes and is entertaining for the gore and cheese factor. It has a pretty funny zombie fetus, which gives this movie a few extra points. 4.5 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 0.5.

Fantasia : Typhoon and The Order of One

2006-07-23T14:07:00.000-04:00

Typhoon is what happens when you take a James Bond or Tom Clancy story and use human beings as characters instead of one-dimentional cliches. That is what Typhoon is about, and although it is by no means a chef d'oeuvres, it works. One interesting note, the movie is actually shot in several languages including Korean (it is a Korean film), Chinese, Thai and Russian. And not just one or two sentences to look cool like any U.S.-made spy flick, but entire dialogs. So if you're into spy movies or political thrillers, look it up. It's worth it. 7.0 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 0.5.

Those who've seen Sinners and Saints two years ago at Fantasia will no doubt recognize the cast of The Order of One. And although the former had genuine funny moments and kickass fight scenes, it had a messy storyline with an artificial, pasted-on ending that didn't make sense. I can only congratulate this dedicated team of DIY Canadians for pulling off a movie that is better in every way. The Order of One isn't just appealing because of the cheese factor, but actually has a decent storyline, good dialogs and even better fight scenes than it's predecessor. Shot like an old kung-fu movie of the '70s, it even has cartoon bubbles naming every major kung-fu maneuver before it happens. Great stuff. 7.5 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 0.5.

Fantasia : The Descendant and Reincarnation

2006-07-23T13:37:00.000-04:00

Philippe Spurrell and most of the cast of The Descendant were on hand to present their solid DIY movie. To say I went to see this movie reluctantly is an understatement. The trailer did nothing for me. But I was going to see Reincarnation later on, so what was I to do between work and that? I went. And I enjoyed it, quite a lot. Those who have seen Saint-Martyr des Damnes or David Lynch's Twin Peaks will recognize the premise : Strange events lead a regular city boy to a typical quiet,peacefull little village... which hides a terrible secret. The population of that village, who areapparentlyy nice and friendly, are pretty much all whack-jobs and psychos bent on preventing city boy from exposing their secret. So far, so good. There are a few things that set The Descendant apart though, not the least of which is the fact that it is based on actual event and does have a cultural and historical purpose. Where both Twin Peaks and St-Martyr suffered from an horribly confused storyline that seemed to be headed in every possible direction at the same time, The Descendant is actually very focused. It doesn't have the awesome writing of Twin Peaks nor the production quality of St-Martyr. This is pure DIY, very little budget and it shows. Virtually no special effect shots. I always said that if you're going to do a DIY movie, make it a comedy. People are much more prone to forgive the cheese factor in comedies than in serious drama. The Descendant is an exception to this theory. I give it a 7 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 0.5.

Reincarnation is from Ju-On director Takashi Shimizu. Strange events appear to haunt the set of a movie whose goal is to recreate a gruesome series of murders. Could it be that the souls of those who died have come back to play their part, again? Much less scary than Ju-On, Reincarnation aims for the same kind of atmosphere. Didn't leave much of an impression on me, and did absolutely nothing to hinder my attempts to sleep later on, which both Ju-On movies managed to do so well. 3.0 out of 10 with a record butt-factor of 3.

Fantasia : Vampire Cop Ricky, iDol, Sukeban Boy and Negadon

2006-07-18T18:02:00.000-04:00

Vampire Cop Ricky is, much like Frostbite, a vampire-themed comedy, but this one is even more light-hearted than the Swedish gorefest of Frostbite. Ricky is a... well... who's Ricky really? Truth is, nobody in that movie is named Ricky. Nobody. The plot is rather thin, as expected in those kinds of movies. Fly stings Dracula, turns into badass fly-vampire hybrid. Badass fly gets to Korean and bites out hero. Our hero turns into a vampire. Actually, a were-vampire who can only turn into his vampire-self when he gets a hard-on. That leads to some pretty funny moments. Actually, there are very funny moments spread throughout the movie. Unfortunately, those are too few and far between. And there's a reason for it too, the movie is 2 hours long. A little editing could've done wonders for this movie. 6 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Next were 3 short films. The iDol, Sukeban Boy and Negadon.

After The iDol, the only thing I could think about is : "Where can I buy an Alien Kun?". Made by American Director Norman England but shot entirely in Japan, The iDol is a weird, surrealist look at how one toy can change the lives of many. The story is nice, feel-good and the actors are all good. 6.8 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.2.

After Sukeban Boy, the only thing I could think about is : "What the fuck?". Indeed, what the hell was that? It's from Go Nagai? The same Go Nagai who brought us Cutie Honey and fucking Grendizer? This one blows them all, and your brains, to hell. It has cubed the sexploitation of Cutie Honey. Senseless violence, and a little child molestation of a boy by his father to complete the mix. And it's all done in a very hippy, cheerful tone that just makes your mind go blank. What kind of crack did he shove up his butt to come up with that? Impossible to tell. The result is sometimes entertaining, often shocking and often brain-numbing. Can't give this more than 4 out of 4.7, with a butt-factor of 1.3.

Those who walked out during Sukeban Boy, and I know a few, missed out on the very sober, technically flawless Negadon. A rather short homage to monster movies such as Godzilla. It has all the elements of monster movies, but is kept short as to not become boring (I usually get bored quite fast with monster movies). Touching story, very well executed CGI, of which it is completely made out of. I still don't like monster movies, but if you're going to see just one in your life, see this one. At least it will only take half an hour! 6.1 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.4.

Fantasia : Hell, Shinobi and The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

2006-07-16T09:10:00.000-04:00

Saturday was a butt-killing triple feature starting with Hell.

Hell is a Thai movie. Much like Necromancer, it is very serious and very violent. 7 people die in a car crash and end up in hell. But this hell is similar to most government bureaucracies : It is chaotic, confused, and prone to very basic errors like, for example, putting people in hell who aren't dead yet. Visually, Hell resembles the original Conan the Barbarian movie, dirty but beautiful. The characters all have their sins to pay for, and as expressed in the movie alcoholism yields a bigger punishment than theft. Somehow the way hell is organized is very disturbing. Not because of the endless scenes of torture the inhabitants endures, that's the whole point of hell if you believe in that sort of thing. What disturbs me the most is how disorganized it is, how easy it is to escape or hide, and how surprisingly, despite all of this, our seven hero appear to be the first ever to make such attempts. Good but not great. 5.5 with a butt-factor of 0.5.

Moving on to Shinobi. Shinobi's story may be standard fare, but that's where "standard" ends. Visually, the movie is stunningly beautiful and smells of high-budget, high-quality cinematography. The story, as I said, is traditional : Romeo and Juliet combined with Ninjas. Which is as good an idea on-screen as it is on paper. To settle a war between two villages, 5 shinobis from each village are send on a battle to kill each-other. Once all the members of one village are dead, the others will be able to gain an enormous amount of power in determining the next Shogun. The problem is, the leaders of both gangs of shinobis are lovers who are tragically made to fight one-another. As is most often the case, just a tiny bit of rational would save a tremendous amount of suffering. But that would make for a pretty boring movie now would it? And boring, along with ugly and uninspired, are traits this movie does not have. The design of the 10 shinobis is awesome, they all have their own special powers, from breathing out a poisoning clouds of mist to being unable to die. The story, albeit standard, is not without it's twists. And at the risk of repeating myself, what sets this movie apart the most is the production value and awesome imagery. 9.0 out of 10, with a butt-factor of 0.5. If you see one martial arts movie this year...

Concluding with the final part of this threesome, the soft-porn political commentary that is The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. It all sounded awesome on paper. Softcore pornography combined with philosophical and political commentary. The premise is as twisted as it is imaginative. Average horny tutor Sachiko is accidentally caught in the crossfire of a shady deal gone wrong, and is shot in the head. Strangely, that bullet doesn't kill her. Instead it turned her into a genius who is obsessed with and has an apparently infinite capability of learning. She starts studying great philosophers such as Descartes and modern political commentators like Noam Chomsky. And she can't stop discussing deep philosophical and political matters, even during intercourse. Which is just added value for a fellow male teacher, a concept similar to the famous massage parlor scene in Le D�clin de l'Empire Am�ricain* (The Decline of the American Empire). You see, she may have become a genius, but she is no less horny than before. The plot twists when she finds a cloned finger of George W. Bush in her purse, and even starts seeing the evil president in dreams and fantasies. What is the purpose of that finger? Watch and see. However let me warn that although it all may sound awesome on paper, watching it isn't. The sex scenes areplentifull and as graphic as softcore pornography can get. As with mostJapanesee sex movies there is at least one and probably two cases of rape (the point at which one third of the theater audience leaves). At least there aren't as many as in last year's Stop the Bitch Campaign, which had only that. Most of the sex scenes are so weird that they don't get to be very exciting, despite the beauty of the lead actress. There are a few funny moments, and you can't help but admire the premise. Overall though, it was pretty disappointing. 3.5 out of 10 with a butt-factor or 1.

*Although the concept of this film is seen in part in Le D�clin de l'Empire Am�ricain, I am in no way comparing both movies. That one being a masterpiece and this one being, well, sucky. Just thought I'd get that out of the way.

Fantasia : A Chinese Tall Story and Frostbiten

2006-07-14T15:43:00.000-04:00

Both movies I saw on Thursday exceeded my expectations, and both for the same reason. I was expecting, in both the case of A Chinese Tall Story and Frostbiten, movies that would take themselves very seriously. I was pleasantly surprised.

A Chinese Tall Story wasn't the pompous, confused mess I was expecting it to be. Instead we are presented with a clear, easy to follow story, well-defined characters and a slew of often cheesy but always entertaining CG shots. And those CG shots don't pretend to be anything but. In one instance in particular you see a ton of explosions, and then the explosions freeze and the camera spins around, matrix-style. Well that spin reveals, in fact places emphasis on, an age-old CG trick of pasting 2D explosions facing the camera to increase render efficiency. As the camera turns you clearly see that the explosions are flat. They don't care. Neither do I. The tone is light-hearted and comedic, despite the epic nature of the tale. The design is imaginative. It may try to go everywhere at once, flirting with fantasy, science-fiction and epic battles, but it does so in style and without ever becoming confused. This movie has been a charm to discover, and I highly recommend it. 8.5 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 0.5.

Moving on to Frostbiten. Again my expectations were that this would be scary and serious. It was mostly wacky and didn't take itself seriously at all. Frostbiten could be described as a mix of Argento's Demons and Meet the Parents. Put one vampire in a room of druken carefree teenagers and you quickly end up with a room of druken carefree vampires. And also nothing ruins your first meeting of the in-laws like slowly turning into a vampire during dinner. The latter is especially funny. One particularly clever twist, as the movie takes place in northern Sweden, nighttime actually lasts several months, making this the ideal playground for vampires. Funny, clever, gore is on the average side of average, and it's not that scary. But I don't believe it was meant to be. 7 out of 10 with a butt-factor of 1.

Fantasia : SARS Wars and Necromancer

2006-07-14T15:36:00.000-04:00

Wednesday was a Thai double-feature.

The Thai have been turning out pretty good comedies in the last few years. The Bodyguard and Heaven's Seven to name a few. SARS Wars may not be the best, but it's still pretty solid entertainment and has a good share of hilarious moments. Always self-referencing, often crude but always funny, SARS Wars gets a 7 out of 10. With a butt factor of 0.5.

However, when it comes to drama, they still have some way to go. Or maybe it is I who no longer have much fun watching those kinds of movies. Necromancer takes itself very seriously, and as such would have needed more polish. The gore factor is rather high, but overall it's not that good a film. 4.5 out of 10. With a butt-factor of 1.

Fantasia : Funky Forest

2006-07-10T10:53:00.000-04:00

Those who've read past reviews know that I am usually quite fond of what I like to call Japanese Insanity. Survive Style 5+ ranked second best movie of last year's festival, after the equally crazy Karaoke Terror (which gets absolutely no love at all and is impossible to find). I absolutely adored Tokyo Zonbi and I really enjoyed FLCL or Excel Saga.

Herein comes Funky Forest. How to describe it? Take FLCL. Remove the good music. Make it live-action. Make it individual, disconnected sketches. Remove any thread that would hold them together. In the end you don't have much to stand on, and you'll stand on it for more than 2 and a half hours.

Funky Forest isn't without it's moment. "The Home Room !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" sketches are quite funny. The Guitar Hero is made good by the presence of the always charismatic Tadanobu Asano (of Tokyo Zonbi, Survive Style 5+ and Ichi the Killer). But a lot of this stuff is just plain gross and "imaginative, just for the sake of being imaginative". Many of the dance numbers are just plain boring and not that well executed (that's supposed to be the point, but still). Not even some of the cutest girls in the world (which I believe this movie has) can save it from being a disorganized unpleasant mush. Oh and the final, deafening sketch is only made to confirm the mistake you've made of going to see this film.

Based on the cheers and laughter coming from the audience, some would say that my review is lower than it should. But I would say that these people are insane. 4 out of 10 with a butt factor of 0.5.