Rich Juzwiak's glasses. A critique.

So the video is here, the start is set to 1:27.

The following is a list of which glasses I liked the most on Rich Juzwiak, the writer at Gawker.

All in all I counted 19 different pairs.

Disclaimer: I'm gay, too, so all this is meant from my rather reserved (and maybe conservative) perspective of (gay) fashion.

So, if anyone gets to read this, I hope ye won't feel offended, 'cuz I meant to have fun with this :>

And, so, here goes...

1. Light ones. The colours match, but proportions seem wrong;
2. Best light frames;
3. (Black with thickish frames) Best in a dark-lit club or intellectual event;
4. (red ones) Too fabulous;
5. (golden ones) - kinda fabulous, but not in a good way;
6. < This one is the favourite, for some reason, but they're pink, too. Only that the pink colour there is not so in your face. So, if the frame colour were slightly different...
7. Blue - too fabulous, too 1970's;
8. Black ones with white edges - Too Apple. "I want to hide myself."
9. (light frames) Too fabulous and outdated;
10. Black shades. This must have something to do with retrofuturism, but I somehow like it. "I hide myself, but I still want to see you."
11. Police Cruiser shades. The most form-fitting, except that it accentuates the nose the most (sorry, Rich, I like you the most when you're not wearing spectacles (;
12. Dark ones. It's warm and light outside. Yuppie style;
13. Square shades. I like those. 1980's (retro)futurism. Still accentuates the nose.
14. Black shades. Fabulous, 1979 going on 1982. I don't know, which way, though.
15. Red, again. Too fabulous.
    
16. Dark shades. I don't know.


17. Dorky, Gotham style. Maybe if you meet The Dark Knight one day...


18. 1970's, def. Southern states;


19. Big black ones. The Fly. Jeff Goldblum.

What went wrong with Star Trek: Nemesis

This is in reply to a post on IMDb's Stuart Baird forum thread regarding what his input was to "Star Trek: Nemesis". The advantage to this post here is that threads on IMDb get sometimes deleted as a matter of cleanup, and I can also edit this one here for further comment.

It is soon almost ten years since the film was released, well past the 2009 "Star Trek" movie directed by J.J. Abrams, and I am making my review only now.

The post herein lists some of the things I thought went wrong with making Star Trek: Nemesis and contains an opinion about the stuff that I would have made.

Indeed, it is yet another and one of many posts that list the things that were and went wrong with Nemesis. Many people, of course, do vouch to be the expert storymaker and director after a flop, yet hindsight also gives us the opportunity not to repeat the mistakes and do things better.

So, for starters, I noted a poster there was actally correct in terms of who actually ran the show, and I made a conclusion:

All in all, it was a confluence of bad calls and decisions:

* John Logan is an awesome team writer. With him doing a solo job on Nemesis, the studio should have assigned someone to take a critical look at the script before it was put into production.

The Reman storyline was ok, though fairly one-sided, as it is. I would have never allowed such a terrible name as "Shinzon". Pieces of "B4" on another planet was also a great idea, but I would have certainly scrapped the car chase for better VFX, and perhaps given the non-space-faring planet a greater role in the dispute over Scimitar the ship and weapon of mass destruction.

* Tom Hardy is a really nice actor and played his bit with vengeance. I can't really see how the appearance of his face is in any way similar to that of Patrick Stewart. Hardy also has really luscious lips :-9

* Stuart Baird is an accomplished film editor, but his directorial effort is something right out of "An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn".

The more I thought of it, the more I realized that the Nemesis directing situation was almost exactly out of Burn Hollywood, where an editor by trade becomes the director (I admit I haven't seen Burn Hollywood properly, but I'm sure the situation described has happened aplenty in this industry) and is hostage to the whims of the producer, in addition getting into conflict with the actors and everyone else involved. btw, Burn, Hollywood has Whoopi Goldberg in it <:

And one more thing: "Skyfall" has John Logan as one of the writers and Stuart Baird as the editor. Skyfall has raked in a gross of almost $800 million dollars worldwide.

I believe the TNG cast still deserves another movie, one that has a polished script for starters, and preferably with Denise Crosby in it as the wily Sela. But the clock is ticking.

Alternate dialogue between Weaver and Tector

Warning: Here be spoilers of some sort regarding the episode "Death March" from "Falling Skies". I wanted to write this as a comment on IMDb in a forum post, but then started having doubts about its policy on publishing fan fiction on its forums, so moved my ideas here.

I found it very disrespectful of Weaver to push Tector like that and so blatantly play on the feelings of a person who's driving a large truck. If I were Tector, I would have asked Weaver if he wanted to take over driving, or I would have stopped the truck and gone to the back just to avoid Weaver asking questions, but maybe that's just me.

I guess Tector couldn't stop driving, because they were low on fuel anyway, and there was no immediate reason to stop driving and unnecessarily spend fuel on slowing down and then later going on again. Weaver, of course, was using the situation. I think then I would have given Weaver "Don't push it. Sir."

We don't really know what was Weaver's reason to start pushing so hard on Tector. One reason could have just been the plain lack of manpower, and perhaps he wanted to find out if Tector has more in him than he has so far let know. Maybe it's that he's looking for someone who would in the future be able to command just in case something happens to Weaver himself.

So here I'm playing around with an alternate exchange between Weaver and Tector:

(Not exactly spoilers, but hey, I had like two options of how this would go, so here's one... I considered adding a Southern accent to Weaver, but might have fumbled it, 'cuz I can't distinct Black Southern and White Southern in writing. And it all may be a cliche of my own, so beware)

Option #1

- T: "Don't push it. Sir."
Here, Weaver would pause to process the Sir, as it alludes to Tector deferring to his command. Weaver now knows that Tector is alot more trustworthy, but realizes that Tector said as much just to avoid Weaver pushing him.

And after a while,
W: So you were a soldier?
Tector is silent and avoids eye contact.

Weaver realizes that his assumptions have been correct, but doesn't feel they've been completely confirmed to stop asking. Out of boredom, and to try to pull more out from Tector, Weaver would start talking about himself, maybe about some ambush he experienced, and some similar stuff, about the deaths, and such and such.

Tector, who is not really as stupid as he lets on, would pre-empt this by cutting off Weaver's speech:

- T: Don't tell me about some ambush, and that you lost people and that you regret it, and that you wished you were the one to go...

Tector's breathing has become heavier, while Weaver stops, realizing he hit one of Tector's sweet spots. Weaver is silent, while Tector tries to keep his calm.

But,
Weaver then explains his realization that what keeps him going are all the people there behind him, which he then calls responsibility, "Ya know?"

- T: I know. I know what it's like to be in a battlefield. And what it's like to lose your mates.
- W: I just wanted to know.
- T: I don't think I want you to know. Yet.

This at least is a second confirmation to Weaver that Tector has had advanced military training of some sort. This would make Weaver want to know more about Tector, but he knows he has to tread gently.

- W: What if somethin' happened to me again?

This makes Tector think.

- T: Tom can take over.
- W: He was on the alien ship.
- T: What, you distrust him now?
- W: No!
- T: Hal?
- W[with doubt]: He's a good boy, but he ain't got long-term experience.
Tector pauses a bit, and then, almost non-chalantly:
- T: Well, Pope's a good shot.
- W: Pope?! Pope's a firebrand! Yer too good to know it yerself!

[A pause ensues.]

Here I thought Tector would start opening up by explaining his two tours of duties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But not the ambush.

- W: So you are a soldier?
Tector tells his rank and where/who he was stationed with.


I relized that the second dialogue option would be even more intersting:

Option #2

- T: "Don't push it!"

Here, Weaver learns that there might be soft spot in Tector.

- W: Ya know, I've been thinkin' about givin' it all up, too.
- T: Oh yea, tell me abot it! [said dismissively]

Weaver takes it as if Tector is challenging Weaver to humour Tector, so Weaver (perhaps out of feeling insulted about it) starts blathering about his experience of loss from his past military experience and into the post-invasion times; all the while progressing into more and more desolate and macabre descriptions, whilst Tector becomes at first slowly, and then more visibly distraught. As Weaver continues without at first actually looking at Tector, we see Tector breathing more heavily and wiping his left cheek onto the left jacket arm (assuming Weaver doesn't notice from that angle, or intentionally doesn't pay attention), while Weaver goes on and on [insert somewhere Weaver's wish to give it all up and a death wish, too] until Tector audibly sniffs, crying his eyes red while trying to drive a truck, which starts veering off-course. Noticing this, Weaver stops his blather, realizing he's taken it much too far, and helps guide the driver's wheel that Tector somehow holds to turn the truck's course straight.

(This is actually a dangerous situation in another sense, as here Weaver could lose Tector's emotional trust.)

Weaver is silent and keeps his left hand on the wheel of the truck, as Tector tries to regain composure so as to be able to drive the truck on his own.

Weaver just says:
- W: I'm very sorry.
- T: No you're not.

Weaver is very angry (because he did feel really sorry for Tector, knowing that he had experienced a traumatic event before the invasion), but doesn't show it. Weaver eventually becomes really sad himself, looking down, and then forward, but without all the water.

After a minute or so silence:
- W: So you were a soldier?
- T: I was.
- W: Something happened, right?
- T: Yeah. Lots of things.

Weaver finally, but much more shortly, explains his past feelings of despair and then his rationale for going on, and the case for responsibility for the people behind his back.

Tector then says that he knows, like he understands, and starts telling how he was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, his rank and which group he was deployed with, and about the ambush. Some moisture exits Tector's eyes again, but he maintains composure.

Weaver finally pats Tector on the shoulder:
- W: I honestly didn't know.
- T: I didn't want you to know.
- W [looking at Tector]: We really need people like you.

Here's a pause, to let Tector calm down completely.

- Weaver: So you are a soldier?
- Tector [who is now more determined and looking at Weaver for a moment]:

Yes, Sir, I am.

Weaver feels moved. Maybe he'd say something cliche, like
- W: It is an honor to have you with us.

Tector, though begins explaining his doubts, that his initial plan was only going to take the 2nd Mass to Charleston, until he suddently stops the truck because of the broken bridge.
[spoilers end here]

Soldier and Outlander

This is in reply to one or more posts in an IMDb forum concerning themselves with intricacies surrounding Outlander (2008), an indie science fiction film.

First off, I didn't know Outlander was an indie science fiction movie.
The indie factor alone is worth alot.

What is most interesting, perhaps, is, that Outlander has a greater IMDb score with 6.3/10 points (from 23,768 votes), than the rather similarly themed Soldier, with just 5.6/10 points and 19,190 votes, despite Soldier being ten years older than Outlander.

Soldier's Rotten Tomatoes score is only 10%, while Outlander has 38%.

Both are box office flops with these numbers:
• Soldier: budget U.S. $75 mil/$15,000,000~ gross worldwide;
• Outlander: budget $47 mil/$6,192,098 worldwide gross.

Unfortunately, Outlander's budget-to-return ratio lesser :(

Nevertheless, I wonder if Outlander has made a greater impact, given the greater number of votes for Outlander for a three-year period and Soldier over a thirteen-year period (or is it because of a greater number of Internet users?), because I think Jim Caviezel still made a really good performance there. I mean, the film is nice for Caviezel alone :)

"Super 8" movie review

Well, I hope this will be short enough
Warning: Here be spoilers

Ten, maybe fifteen years ago I would have liked this flick very much and just as much would have been very tempted to retell the story of the movie.
What a difference doubling my years of life then actually makes.

Over many years, I actually went to watch a movie in a movie theathre, over many years with a friend, and over many years with a friend whom I haven't been to pictures with since 2003.

Turned out that instead of a sci-fi action-drama which had kids in it, it was a kiddie-movie with sci-fi action and some drama, too. A very good kiddie-movie. If I were a kid, I am sure I would have really loved this film.

Cinematically, JJ Abrams has done very good work on "Super 8", echoing both of Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T." After all, Spielberg's name was plastered all over the posters of "Super 8". Michael Giacchino does well with the score and his musical style is recognisable (see "Star Trek" (2009)).

The great stuff

• The train crash is the best train crash I've ever seen.
• SFX concepts of the alien ship are really out of this world. I mean, I've never had any idea a ship could be built like that.
• The late 1970's now refer to a time that eventually might be long forgotten well into our own future, but the film somehow manages to document a way of life and an America that back then was still a dreamable place to be in.

(One omission of the Summer 1979 events is the re-entry of Skylab, news of which was huge in America.)

The interesting and thought-provoking stuff

The most intriguing parts I found appeared to be the most insignificant ones.

• The Three Mile Island nuclear accident lent me to belive that the young protagonist Joe's mother died in that accident, and not in the steel mill, and Joe's young lady-friend Alice's (Elle Fanning) father was the one who failed to attend the shift at the time, which proved fatal to Joe's mother.
  
  The release of the movie in Summer of 2011 is somehow coincidental, after the Fukushima nuclear accidents in Japan, which began on March 11, 2011. Coincidentally, March 11 is a very loaded date for me since 2004 (the Madrid train bombings) and now even more since this year (2011). In 1979, the Chernobyl nuclear accident hadn't happened yet.
• Of course, 1979 wasn't exactly a crisis year in terms of the economy, despite the 1979 oil crisis, for example. It's also before the Savings and Loan crisis of early 1980's really came to be about. Maybe when one progresses into adulthood and reaches news-reading age, then in some ways, crises are always there, around the world; some are closer to home, some are less. So 1979 had its crises, but they weren't of the scale of now.
  
  In light of which is today (as of July 2011) regarded as the Great Recession, the film reminds well into its start for people to be compassionate, generous, and giving; sort of attempting to show that it's still a good thing™ to have these qualities, ways and means permitting. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" also touches up on the recession.
  
  Breakdown (intentional or not) of the Nuclear Family and single parenting are referred to at least twice; My half-educated guess is that most actual series and films from around the era (1975-1985) wouldn't ever have any of that in the main cast line-up and storylines.
• The movie is good in tackling other difficult subjects, like imprisonment, maltreatment and mistreatment of foreigners (the alien being a substitute for the purposes of storytelling) who are regarded as low-lives, despite their sentience or even intelligence. Think Guantánamo. How would someone have to cope with the after-effects of gross mistreatment upon eventual release, what is the subsequent reaction and what should it ideally be (? — in the mind of a moviemaker and viewers who mostly tend to agree), or what can be the motives for aggressive behaviour and how to reduce chances of vengeance or any reoccurrence of it?
  
  This JJ Abrams film is the one where he very well manages in picture terms to explain all of the above to a young mind. Star Trek now seems like an 85% attempt at this, being a very engaging sci-fi action movie and all.
• The solution presented is not forgiveness, but departure and detachment. Current policy in world politics seems to desire this to be preferred behaviour, given that sincere forgiveness cannot be easy in the first place. The film suggests that perhaps it's expressions of compassion and dignity in the act of release that might prevent vengeance, or reoccurrence of it. Who knows. Has it been tested and proven already?
  
  Any political power wishes, and, in various degrees usually gets departure and separation of its prisoners from said power upon release, physically at least. Yet mental departure and detachment (letting go) is never easy. Most action flicks have not delved into this.
  
  In a "fish out of sea" situation, departure and detachment might be the first reactions anyway, especially if survival is the primary consideration. Sometimes, compassion and dignity are the first and best steps into repairing very bad relations, methinks, or at least help in stopping violence. A cease-fire, then: "...But you can live!". Well, the movie gets that right.
  
  Remembrance, on the other hand, is special:
  Would it be too difficult to explain all of that to adolescents?

• Kid acting kudos go to Joel Courtney (Joe) and Riley Griffiths ("Production value!!11!!!").
• Special kudos to Kyle Chandler and Elle Fanning.
• You won't notice David Gallagher from Seventh Heaven.

If you want to see what the times were back were then 30 years ago, or just reminisce of the times back then, then see all of this for yourself in the movie or from an optical disk once that comes out.

Yet, if a young mind might wish to ruminate over above topics in the bulleted list, I'd suggest watching a documentary or reading the Geneva conventions...

The fate of Phlox

Disclaimer: All characters and their names property of CBS Paramount, but here I'd like to offer what else I had in mind for Phlox, because someone objected to my ideas of having Phlox killed off. Everything is fictitious and non-canon.

This was in reply to this post in an IMDb thread.

Oh yes, Trip I would have kept for certain, and Mayweather and a couple for Maco-s, too :> — to at first exercise the art of neuropressue ^_^
And I know Archer didn't look all that bad either... compared to an average American his age.

Then an IMDb user's objection to my wishes about killing Phlox off...

Okay, then Phlox should have lost some of his syrupy positiveness, become gradually and irreparably crazy because of the Delphic Expanse (T'Pol was spared) and then placed in a psychiatric institution as a response...

In the absence of such an institution casually floating in space just in Enterprise's merry way, he'd despondently stay stuck in the brig, rarely smile, and crazy-tell interesting medical things in the fashion of Pythia (the Oracle of Delphi) for Silik to desipher (because Silik alone perhaps doesn't know everything about medicine, but has to improvise and maybe work together with T'Pol).

Silik's attempts in interpreting Phlox would at the beginning be like subtly goading Phlox into a worse state, perhaps until Silik realizes that this conduct of his really was not a good thing, but then it's far too late and the exchange would devolve into something resembling an Andorian inquisition (see Shran interrogating Soval). I am sure Silik would otherwise enjoy Phlox's condition, if not for the nasty exercise of trying to extract knowledge impossibly trapped somehere in Phox's degenerate brain. I wouldn't want in Archer's place to risk T'Pol doing a mind-meld.

The smiles of a Phlox like this would be reserved for something really devious in order to thwart Silik (despite his somehow good intentions towards Enterprise crew) and lead Silik astray, much to the chagrin of Silik and eventually the people at ENT, who would then be forced to make the 'hard' decision of completely ignoring Phlox and finally returning him to his three wives on Denobula to work something out of the impossible condition he has so inevitably succumbed to; Well, as much as each of them wives cares enough to please. — After all, each of Phlox's wives has up to three other husbands anyway, and each husband of those vies for their attention, too.

For Phlox to have endless terror instead of a terrible end is something I'd much enjoy watching. Of course, John Billingsley would have a field day with a scenario like that, but then there'd have to be equally great material for John Fleck, too.

Sulnis Silik

This I replublished as a comment (which was intended as such) in a thread on IMDb

I'm going to add myself as a huge fan of Stargate Universe, too ^_^

Well now, in chronological order, the non-Star Trek series I've followed and which still remain my favourite (with marks):

* Earth 2 +++
* "Roswell" +++
* Farscape ++++
* "Battlestar Galactica" reimagined +++
* Stargate Universe ++++

TV show I'm willing to consider:
* "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles" (I've seen a few episodes and the series had lots of potential, but it was axed)

TV series I liked back in the day:
* "Babylon 5"
* "Time Trax" and
* "TimeCop" (both shows very similar in concept) — don't ask me why, but there was a particular night about ten or even more years ago when a Nazi-themed episode of "TimeCop" aired on one channel and later that night another channel featured the "Philadelphia Experiment II" film (the plot of which is very, very reminiscent of ENT's "Storm Front," Parts I & II). I must have seen this one a decade or more ago on German TV.

wrt "Enterprise", I'm going to add that I've gone through a marathon of a number of episodes and now seem to have greater appreciation of it, despite the continuity flaws and all.

With the exception of Jolene Blalock, none of the primary characters are very astounding or particularly deep, so I'd add that the storylines, vfx and guest actors add the most spice, especially Jeffrey Combs as Shran and John Fleck, who most fabulously played Silik.

What I would have done to the cast: Phlox should have been killed off or reassigned to Cold Station 12 in Season 1/Season 2, somehow replaced by Silik to "play doctor". Silik could have been disowned by his very own Suliban Cabal, for example. Unfortunately, he was put to the very top of the Cabal food chain, so there wasn't anyone to replace him, but I'm sure Future Guy could have made necessary arrangements to the past to affect Silik's life in as punishment for some infraction...

So, in any absence of a good doctor in uncharted territories, the deliciously bad-@$$ Silik could have then slowly gained the Enterprise crew's trust, but still stay sneaky and cause surprises and trouble, yet remaining too essential for the crew to be replaceable by any Federation-approved doctor.

Silik's unfamiliarity with the Hippocratic Oath could have added another layer of drama; his expert knowledge in very many things Milky Way Galaxy could have given an addition to suspense and provided a different dimension of knowledge compared to T'Pol's Vulcan-sanitized view.

The only caveat that I see with Silik's appearance is whether there was such colour makeup paint at the time for Silik's apperance that wouldn't adversely affect an actor's internal organs the way it happened to Virginia Hey in Farscape.

2011. Eurovisiooni lauluvõistluse I vooru lemmikud ja tulemused

Esinemisjärjekord								Hinne		Igast märkmed
				1.		Poola		...
				2.		Norra		~		"haba haba"
				3.		Albaania		++
				4.		Armeenia		~		"boom boom"
				5.		Türgi		...
finaal		+		6.		Serbia		++++		/super retro ja estraad
finaal				7.		Venemaa		...		/vaherepliike vihkan, muidu oleks saanud hinnata
finaal				8.		Šveits		++		/aeglane
finaal		+		9.		Gruusia		+++		/väga elav
finaal		+		10.		Soome		++++		"Da-da-dam" :>
				11.		Malta		+		(shimeil :)
				12.		San Marino		+++
				13.		Horvaatia		++
finaal		+		14.		Island		+++		/1 pluss oli musi eest ^_^
finaal		+		15.		Ungari		+++		/geihümn
		+		16.		Portugal		+++		/for creativity
bööö, sai finaali!				17.		Leedu		+		/nõrk, nõrk, nõrk
finaal		+		18.		Aserbaidžaan		++++

The blame game: SGA fans against SGU

Why some SGA fans didn't give a chance to SGU

The GateWorld forum rules have it over there, that posters cannot trash-talk other posters and fans, so it's best to opinionate about bad fans here. Admittedly, I am a huge "Stargate Universe" fan and therefore offer my opinion on the whole situation. Once I had finished writing on this topic, I realised that apart from unproductive blame games, it's better to know what went wrong and how to fix it and to look forward to how to keep SGU going.

There is a raft of "Stargate: Atlantis" (SGA) fans that hated and still hate "Stargate Universe" (SGU) from the outset, because "their baby" (SGA), which never was theirs in the first place, was cancelled.

The better strategy would have been to have two of the same shows cohabiting, with the option for SGA to conclude timing-wise the way "Star Trek: The Next Generation" did after the introduction of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine".

Only that all SGA stories had been explored and any new episode would have been a rehash of anything from before, including, but not limited to the realm of 11 seasons of "Stargate SG-1" and other science fiction shows.

The bitch and moan about "coulda, woulda, shoulda" is nevertheless pointless in here, because SGU is so good that I wouldn't want to change anything in the many a chain of events, where, for example, decisions were made for casting and who does the theme tune and the score and who would be the writers.

Reasons for SGA fans' hate/anger because of cancellation:

• SGA fans felt as disenfranchised as a junkie would feel himself in rehab; In short, they were having terrible withdrawal symptoms.
• Are some SGA fans psychotic/sociopathic devoid of remorse and empathy? Yes.
  Why, you may ask? — They were willing to give low ratings to SGU as a matter of payback and in order to get a "Stargate: Atlantis" movie or some continuation of that cheesy show. — While at the same time not keeping in mind the health of the whole Stargate franchise. In these times, no less.
  Devoid of remorse and empathy? Well, the "Sister Act" question and the article linked below explain that people devoid of such emotions are willing to do anything to get what they want. Unwillingness to consider a quality TV show by expressing opinion against it in bad faith are not legally punishable. Nevertheless, it is morally reprehensible: like bad-mouthing licorice and the people who really like it. That candy is also dark.
  

  
  There is a popular, oversimplified and over-applied urban-mystery-type questionnaire consisting of just one question that pertains to detecting psychopaths and sociopaths. If anyone reads this, then you might probably know what the question is about; only that it was debunked.

  
  While licorice candy is a type of food and may be produced by different confectioneries, "Stargate Universe" is a single tv show and neither is it an open source project (which may survive on the whims of enough willing developers and users) and is therefore dependent on viewership, along with viewer response to advertisements, ratings (Nielsen boxes+DVRs+IPTV solutions) and cable subscriptions.
   
• Are U.S. viewers really this bad? I hope not. But subscribers to SyFy, a cable channel which as of recently has further committed itself to airing wrestling shows?? What about admirers of science fiction in general? Or is it just about bullets, bombs, and boobs? Or just the number of young people not willing to watch TV at a predetermined time? SyFy's moving SGU to Tuesdays from Fridays was detrimental to SGU, but not to the new wrestling show.

More Ideas for SGU's Future

What I hope and pray for, is to see the continuation of Stargate Universe both as a TV show and a franchise.

My ideas (which I am sure I have written about before) for The Powers That Be:

• Before and until anything is clear about which television network is to pick up the show, MGM should make and promote a full-feature theatrical movie with the same actors and the same creative cast. The motion picture, if production is quick enough, could be released after Season II concludes on SyFy.
• Crazy idea: Why not market episodes as movies shown in pictures theatres? You could extend them to be at least 60 minutes long, for example, and the movie market is worldwide and not dependent on revenue from television advertisers (I don't mind product placement that is smart). Make sure to release in different countries near-simultaneously.
• Some forum posters have talked budget cuts, which I think are wrong. If cuts still happen, then it's best to reduce the number of episodes and not compromise on actors, the creative cast and production values, all of which affect series quality to a good degree.
• I much appreciate musical montages, so do keep these.
• If you haven't done that yet, publish an SGU soundtrack compilation both in CD and digital formats and maybe as an add-on in DVD sets (they're not cheap anyway, so value has to be added).
• In addition to current and very good musical selections, I'd like to hear music in SGU by some of the following acts: One EskimO/Kristian Leontiou, Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor, Frontline Assembly/Delerium (who are in Vancouver, btw), Linkin Park, Sarah McLachlan, maybe even 30 Seconds to Mars and Kanye West. All these musical acts and projects have large and/or dedicated fanbases: having a never-before-released song in some episodes of the show is likely to bring in new viewers (make sure to create positive buzz/tweet beforehand).

Sell Stargate Universe to another channel?

I recently posted this to GateWorld, but getting it here in my blog is just faster. I slightly edited the text for less ambiguity and better grammar.

On causes and effects

1. I read some of the possible factors for cancellation by SyFy and one of them was timing, where a four-month delay throughout the winter is bad for an arc-based show, because new and casual viewers could quickly lose interest, which is why ABC kept airing "Lost" without much interruption. I belive that the choice to move the series to Tuesdays was a bad move (schoolkids are busy doing homework, other people working inside a week, while Fridays are freer).

2. The other problem is in marketing the show: First-viewing rights went to Anglo-Saxon countries (U.S., then Canada, then UK and Australia) and then some other country's channel got the episodes later or that channel wasn't quite interested: people in that country already had the episodes online (by any means): iTunes does not extend to enough useful territories, Hulu is only U.S.-based and did anyone consider having the episodes up on VEVO (an ad-supported YouTube project)?

The trick is in timing: Some very successful movies (The Matrix series came to mind) are screened near-simultaneously worldwide to avoid losses in second and third countries, because by the time a movie screens there, people in those might have already seen the material outside the movie theatre and may thus stay away from there.

Crazy idea #1: is for MGM to produce a quality SGU episode and launch it as a movie, worldwide (with nearly the same production budget). And many episodes back-to-back that way. I know it hasn't been done before.

Crazy idea #2: In trying to continue SGU on another channel, a collection of interested TV networks from around the world (I first thought Europe, where Atlantis was very popular, but then there's Australia, NZ, Japan, and maybe some friendly Latin-American countries) could create a collective financing pool to help produce SGU with the current producers keeping the creative freedom and all those channels could then near-simultaneously air the episodes. This would off-set the need to get individual episodes by ambiguous means. Now, how to get the channels interested in product and project, is another matter.

In addition, good DVD marketing could also help.

Farscape had the Library project and the Military/Navy project — donate VHS's (at the time) and DVD's to libraries and military/navy outposts. We could do the same and even more.

(This was my first post on GateWorld)

Kuidas eesti keel kirillitsas välja näeb

Ehk et mida Eesti graffitil maailmale öelda on :-)

Sama pilt Picasawebis ja otsingu järgi kõige varasema kuupäevaga siin.

Ja muuseas, kes on autor??

Slashdot fun: Witty science

How we discover exoplanets

For more on Wikipedia, read on.

What the years do to people

Here's an edited and complemented posting, which I first wrote as a reply to a forum posting I originally made on an IMDb forum:

Only that he was about 25 while playing an 18-year-old (the film was released on 15.03.1991 and Grieco was born 23.03.1965), but this might have been a running gag about how much older actors play teens. The movie was funny, but not necessarily because of Richard Grieco.

To provide some context, then I am gay, too.

I should say that I kinda fail to see anything hot in him, despite his above-average looks at that time (I had to Google to see what he was like back then :-).

When watching the movie, I only passingly noticed him as the lead there, where the best-performing actor was actually Linda Hunt. Thereafter, I often confused Hunt with Mindy Sterling, who played Frau Fabrissina, a cohort of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers movies. Granted, Hunt's Ilsa Grunt and Sterling's Frau Fabrissina were both very similar characters and I think that Fabrissina may have in part been modelled after Ilsa Grunt: both characters are evil, diminutive, authoritarian and murderous women who are not in their first youth anymore and who have or have had an affair with the main antagonist.

In Estonia, "If Looks Could Kill" (will be referenced below as ILCK) was never seen in cinemas, with the reason being that the film was released in 1991, which was the year when Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union (the first widely seen and distributed Hollywood flicks were "Home Alone" and "Hot Shots" or "Hot Shots 2").

Instead, ILCK had a few airings on TV many-many years after 1991 (2000-ish and later), when I wasn't young enough anymore to see what was it in Grieco that charmed the generation before me.

When searching for pictures of Grieco in Google Images (using "Richard Grieco" with quotes for the exact phrase search), I stumbled upon a blog called "My New Plaid Pants" with a post ("The Hall of Hubba-Bubba", dated April 5, 2007) praising the various famous male physiques of the era (mostly 1980's and very-very early 1990's). There, one of the images near the top was the Diet Coke Guy, or Lucky Vanous (who I think was much hotter than Grieco). Since I had then just seen from my Google image search what Grieco looks nowadays, I was intrigued to see what Lucky Vanous looks now...

Despite both having had different fates (Grieco evidently continued acting; yet while Vanous (born 1961) became instantly famous, he struggled as an actor, so a few years back he opened a successful healthy fast food restaurant in L.A.), it is my judgment that Vanous now looks much-much cuter than Grieco:

• 1996 look
• Hottest Restaurant in LA
  The page links to a large large image with a long URL, so I only referred to a blog article: Find the image with this description next to it: "Gordon Naccarato, Lucky Vanous, Mariel Schneider", then click on it for a 1600x1200-res original.
  
• http://luckydevils-la.com/news
  The page features a more-or-less viewport-wide image of Vanous.


• Some images on flickr

Other Lucky Vanous information:
• People Magazine: Lucky Vanous
• Canyon News 11.2009 article
• Getting Lucky in the New Year - Lucky Vanous a pop culture icon
• Lucky Vanous: career pursuits and life lessons.
• Blogger posting (just one)

From then-and-now comparisons of Grieco, I thought that his face does not look as natural than it did in his youth or in 12-year-old basketball images on his IMDb profile's gallery page, when his face appeared more natural.

Massive Attack, "Unfinished Symphony"

Tegemist on muusika ja videoga, mis 1991. aastast. Video filmiti katkematu ülesvõttena ning see oli tõenäoliselt esimene omataoline videote seas. Teos näitab inglise lauljatari Shara Nelsonit kõndimas mööda Los Angelese West Pico puiesteed ja laulmas, pööramata suurt tähelepanu ümbritsevale reaalsusele tänaval.

Seda videot polnud ma algselt sellel ajal näinud, kuid kui nägin, siis soovisin, et oleksin seda juba 1991. aastal näinud.

Sest laul koos muusikaga on omamoodi ajastudokument, mis näitas tükikest tõelisest Ameerikast, mis on oluliselt rohkemat kui see, mis klantspildil või massidele suunatud filmidest peale paistab. Kui ma kunagi tahaksin näidata kellelegi midagi, mis näitab Ameerikat, siis antud video oleks kogumiku üks osa.

Kompilatsioonis oleks veel järgmised filmid: "25th Hour", "Memento", "Brokeback Mountain", "Good Night and Good Luck" jpt. Võib-olla lisan veel midagi hiljem.

17.07.: Päris hiljutine kommentaar videole (inglise keeles)

19.06.2009. suri Jonny Dollar, kodanikunimega Jonathan Peter Sharp (s. 20.02.1964), kes oli loo ja Massive Attacki tollase albumi "Blue Lines" produtsent. Ta tegi veel suurepärast tööd ka Kylie Minogue' "Confide In Me" loo kallal, Gabrielle'i lugu "Rise" ning Neneh Cherry looming. Dollar suri vähki ja oli 45 aastat vana.