The iPad: Uh-huh, Sure.....

As you maybe can tell, I am less than impressed with Apple's new tablet, called (rather disingeniously) the iPad.

So The Onion did this really awesome satire bit, "Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet", in which Jobs frantically glues 9 iPods to a cafeteria tray and slaps a bit of masking tape on the whole thing.  Unfortunately, that seems pretty close to reality here.  The iPad is basically an iPod touch, except with a huge screen.  The only thing that's new is the iBooks app . . . and hey, if I want to read books on the go, I'd rather have an actual eReader, like the nook.

So is it cool?  Very.  Are some people going to absolutely love it?  Heck yeah.  Am I one of them?  Eh, no.  I'll go for an iPod+Droid+nook combo any day.

Advertising Fail

Uh, I have no clue what this billboard for Caprica is supposed to be saying.

It's almost something that belongs on PhotoshopDisasters, but it's not really the retoucher's fault, it's the art director's fault.  I'll admit that I'm commenting without having seen the pilot, but really now.  Apart from the over-use of the Eve imagery and the blatant inappropriateness of having a girl who's supposed to be, what, sixteen, posing nude?  Granted, the actress is twentysomething, but still.  One thing is for sure, Caprica is going to be nothing like it's parent series, Battlestar Galactica.  Wheres that was all about the darkness, the fight for life, Caprica is about . . . well, I'm not exactly sure, from the poster.  The funny thing is, although I know perfectly well what the series is about, the poster tells nothing.  There's none of the high-tech glitzyness that's supposed to define human society at this time evident.  I dig the color scheme . . . the brushed chrome and gray are awesome . . . but, what does it have to do with anything?  The poor girl looks like a vampire.  The contrast is nice, I love the font, but otherwise, this poster is a complete fail.  The future of humanity begins with a choice?  Sure it does.  A choice for horrid art direction!

Women Who are Positively Portrayed in the Media

So.  Either I'm being whiny and sleep deprived (entirely possible), or this list is my rebuttal against the entire concept of the Women's Studies class (also totally possible).

From The X-Files

• Dana Scully
• Margaret Scully
• Teena Mulder
• Marita Covarrubias
• Monica Reyes
• Dakota Whitney

From Babylon 5

• Susan Ivanova
• Talia Winters
• Delenn
• Lyta Alexander
• Elizabeth Lochley
• Na'Toth

From CSI and CSI: Miami

• Sara Sidle
• Catherine Willows
• Terri Miller
• Sofia Curtis
• Calleigh Duquesne
• Wendy Simms
• Natalia Boa Vista
• Alexx Woods

From Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• Buffy Summers
• Willow Rosenberg
• Faith
• Kendra
• Jenny Calendar
• Cordelia Chase

From Warehouse 13

• Myka Bering
• Claudia Donovan
• Leena
• Mrs. Irene Frederic

From Fringe

• Olivia Dunham
• Nina Sharp
• Astrid Farnsworth
• Amy Jessup

From Roswell

• Liz Parker
• Maria de Luca
• Isabel Evans

From NCIS

• Abby Sciuto
• Caitlin Todd
• Ziva David

From Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU

• Olivia Benson
• Alexandra Cabot
• Abbie Carmichael
• Elizabeth Donnelly
• Casey Novak
• Jill Hennessey
• Serena Southerlyn
• Connie Rubirosa
• Alexandra Borgia
• Claire Kincaid
• Monique Jefferies
• Kim Greylek
• Melinda Warner

From Battlestar Galactica

• Laura Roslin
• Tory Foster
• Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
• Anastasia Dualla
• D'Anna Beirs / The Rest of the Threes
• Sharon Agathon / The Rest of the Eights
• Gina Inviere/ The Rest of the Sixes
• Helena Cain
• Kendra Shaw
• Margaret "Racetrack" Edmonson
• Diana "Hardball" Seelix
• Louanne "Kat" Katraine
• Erin Matthias
• Jean Barolay

From Stargate (SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe)

• Samantha Carter
• Janet Frasier
• Vala Mal Doran
• Elizabeth Weir
• Teyla Emmagen
• Kate Heightmeyer
• Jennifer Keller
• Laura Cadman
• Katie Brown
• Chaya
• Helia
• Alicia Vega
• Camille Wray
• Tamara Johansen
• Jeannie Miller

Some of them are evil, sure, but they're all strong, complex characters who would never let men make them feel bad about themselves.

4ND 50 1!F3 607 PWND 8Y 5¢!-F! 4ND ¢0P 5#0W5. 1337!!!!!!!
(^^it's leetspeak.  figure it out :P^^)

Watch Out World, Anya's Bored!

Semester break = time for me to catch up on all those wallpapers I promised people for Christmas and then never got around to.  Ahem.

The Dark Knight.  Batman.  For 'Drea :)

Alice (The SyFy Miniseries).  Alice.  For Toria :)

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.  Greg Sanders.  For Marina :)

Battlestar Galactica.  Laura Roslin & Tory Foster.  For Laura :)

Mad Men.  Don Draper.  For Ashley :)

So . . . I know everyone whom I've dedicated these to have seen them already, but I thought I'd post them here so you all could see a wider sampling of my artwork.   As always, full-size versions and detailed explanations of the thought processes behind all of these can be found at my website: http://www.anyaprynn.com/artwork.html.

"The Young Victoria" Movie Review

I admit, The Young Victoria is not my usual fare, as far as movies go.  On the rare occasions I do watch period movies, they're usually more along the lines of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, with enough war and court intrigue to keep me occupied for the two hour long movie.  The Young Victoria, on the other hand, seems more like a movie my unimaginative history teacher from last year would show.

Regardless, I found it an okay movie.  It wasn't great, it wasn't awful.  It didn't bore me to death, but I'd never watch it again.  It earns points for historical accuracy, the beautiful settings, and the performance of the ever-awesome Miranda Richardson, who I have mildly idolized ever since I saw her in The Phantom of the Opera and The Hours.  What it loses points for: its utter forgettability.

The sets/locations are absolutely fabulous.  They really capture the the grandeur of British royal palaces. The wide expanses, especially in the outdoor and coronation scenes, are used to great effect in wide angle shots to capture the all-encompassing nature of the monarchy, and how lost Victoria is in it.  Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it :P

The directing is, I'm sad to say, unimaginative for nearly the whole movie.  It feels almost like a documentary, which is not helped by the fact that it breaks two of my golden rules for movies, namely, no text on screen, and no narration.  There's the rare movie where narration works, but I have not yet found the movie where you can throw text up on screen and have it not look preachy or immature.  The one element of the presentation that I really enjoyed was how so many of the important events (King William's death, Victoria's pregnancy) are shown, without words.  So many directors fail at "show, don't tell", Jean-Marc Vallee doesn't.

The acting is solid but not amazing.  Miranda Richardson and Mark Strong, as the Duchess of Kent and Sir James Conroy, respectively, steal much of the show.  Emily Blunt is a passionate, intelligent young queen, but her performance just . . . it didn't have any real "spark" for me.  And the guy who played Albert was just plain boring.  Maybe it's the writing that bugged me -- the film focused a lot on Victoria's personal life, and less than I would have liked on her actual reign.

Overall, The Young Victoria is a good movie for someone who just wants to see a nice, pretty accurate historical romance/drama (the love story is a bit sweet at times . . . but way overly sweet at others).  But for me, it was just a bit bland.

Photojournaling Our Way Thru LA, Part 2

No school means you can generally find me and Ashley downtown, and semester break is no exception.  We took the red line down from school again, this time (thankfully) with more knowledge of our cameras (ie, not spending 15 minutes trying to change Ash's film, and not thinking that 1/2000 of a second shutter speed actually works).

We were planning on going to the courthouse and sitting in on some trials, but, for various reasons, that didn't quite work out.  So we ended up just hanging out at the food court in the Los Angeles Mall, talking about school, politics, life . . . .We got some very strange looks from the lawyer-type people who were sitting a few tables over, although we probably deserved most of them.  Ashley for speculating that the government could overhear our conversation because our cell phones were on, me for my (rather long and loud) rant about why exactly Prop 8 is unconstitutional, backed with direct quotes from my pocket constitution.  I really, really want to know what they were thinking . . .

Since I didn't have a dance lesson this time, we got to stay downtown a bit longer, so I got night photographs!  None of them using flash, all of them using different apertures and shutter speeds.  Although some of them (specifically the ones with 4 or 8 second shutter lapses) did come out quite blurry because I didn't have a tripod and my hands are notoriously unsteady.

Some People Shouldn't be Allowed to Talk

Well, that's not true.  Everyone should be allowed to talk, we have a right to freedom of speech, and I cherish that right.  It applies to everyone, no questions.

On the other hand, just because you can talk, it doesn't mean you should.  And it for sure doesn't mean you should be allowed to broadcast your opinions to the world.

Take Pat Robertson.  He says that the earthquake in Haiti was caused by the Haitians themselves, because they made a pact with the devil to throw out the French.  That is so disgusting on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin.  He's dismissing the Haitian's religion, promoting colonization, ignoring the fact that things called natural disasters exist, and are called natural disasters for a reason, and he's implying that 50,000 people deserved to die.  Excuse me.  I take issue with that.  You should be praying for those people, donating money to help them, promoting relief efforts.  I didn't think it was possible for Robertson to offend me any more . . . he did.  I am glad, at least, to see that the White House is responding to this, with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs calling his remarks "utterly stupid".  Because, guess what, they are!

Or Rush Limbaugh.  He, at least, is not blaming the Haitians for their tragedy.  But he's matching Robertson in stupidity, by saying that Obama is using US relief efforts as a way to boost his credibility with the black community in the US.  'Scuse me?  What happened to caring for your neighbor, and, um, the obligation to help people?  I mean, Limbaugh is very Christian, right?  Doesn't the Bible have very specific things to say about loving your neighbor?  And doesn't "helping your poverty-stricken neighbors recover from a devastating earthquake" qualify as "loving"?

And then, when somebody actually points out what a hypocritical, lying, jerk he's being, he responds with . . . well, some unrepeatable sentiments.  Watch here: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201001140046.  I got exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds into the video before wanting to strangle him, and about 2 and a half minutes before I nearly cried at how simply horrific, disgusting, and completely un-defendable his statements are.  Really.  I don't care if you don't like the president, no one in their right mind would turn a humanitarian tragedy into a political game.  Except, apparently, Rush Limbaugh.  Way to make the world hate you.

By the way, it's also a good idea to check out some of the other videos on that page.  And I know that Media Matters is a very liberal website, but keep in mind that there is no commentary on these videos.  It's simply exactly what Limbaugh/Robertson said: their words from their mouths.

Kudos to Senator Claire McCaskill for posting this on her Twitter, that's where I found it :)

"Sherlock Holmes" Movie Review

I feel like all I've been writing lately is movie reviews, but watching movies is pretty much what I've been spending my winter break doing (besides the mandatory schoolwork, of course).

But anyway.  So Sherlock Holmes wasn't really what I expected . . . but it was pretty good!  Bottom line, it's an action movie, not a mystery movie.  Which is okay (I actually really like action/adventure movies, especially when they have a lot of humor thrown it), but I also don't think it really did the great detective justice.

Let me say that I am in love with the art department.  From sets to props to the closing credits, this film had me completely convinced I was chasing around London with Holmes.  His room was spot-on -- reminds me a lot of my room, actually, except with more explosives.  The location filming is probably this film's strongest point, especially on in the cathedral in the opening and the inadvertently hilarious accidental launching of a steamboat on the Thames.  The ending credits are hands-down the most awesome I have ever seen . . . remember how Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban did their ending credits with the Maurader's Map?  Well, this is kind of like that.  I'm not going to describe them, that would ruin the surprise, but . . . the whole film was worth it just for that.

Music.  Hans Zimmer is like a god . . . his scores make any movie better (he did the score for Angels & Demons too, just FYI.  It also features the Dubliner's version of "The Rocky Road to Dublin", giving parts of the film a very ordinary-man-on-the-street feel.  Sometimes the music takes away from the story, sometimes it overwhelms the story, and sometimes . . . it just fits the story beautifully, like here.

Casting.  Robert Downey Jr. is actually a very good actor, which surprised me . . . I hadn't seen any other movies of his, but I've had enough movie-going experience to say that the guys most girls my age swoon over can't act to save their lives.  This is an exception :).  While I loved loved loved Irene Adler's character, I can't help but think Rachel McAdams was . . . miscast, I suppose.  She's a good actress, but she's too . . . modern?  bland?  I dunno.  Something.  Jude Law was a great foil for Holmes, Mark Strong was a creepy evil Lord Blackwood.  While he was over-the-top, that fault lies with the writers.

Now, to the plot.  Probably the weakest part of the whole movie, IMHO.  The story is overblown, interesting parts are played down, and the occasional moments of inventive directing are weighed down by the less than spectatular writing.  There's plenty of funny moments, notably any scene involving Homes's dog, and the whole steamboat-launching thing; unfortunately, those moments are too often lost in the rest of the jumble.  The boxing scene, for one, makes me roll my eyes in annoyance, and if Blackwood was any more a stereotypical villain, he would . . . um, help me out here guys, I can't think of anything!  Anyway, I wish they'd focus more on the magic and detective work, rather than have Holmes go around punching people and accidentally blowing stuff up.  We need more scenes like the one in the midget's workshop.

On the plus side, Sherlock Holmes has one of the best opening sequences I've seen in a long time.  Dark, suspenseful, and making full use of a variety of camera angles (crane shots = <3).  I also really liked director Guy Rithcie's glimpses into Homes's brain during the fight scenes, breaking down each of his moves in slow motion before he finally explodes into action.  It shows a bit of Holmes' intelligence that isn't always on display.

Overall, I recommend it.  It's harmless fun, a summer movie with too little CGI and romance to actually be a summer movie, and a winter movie with too big of a budget and too much humor to actually be a winter movie.  Go watch it, you'll like it!  (If you can ignore the fact that the last 30 minutes are doing nothing but screaming "SEQUAL!" in your ear with a megaphone or two :P).