Ruffled Thoughts

Well, right now BBC World is airing some interviews about p2p and piracy so I’d like to state my point of view on this matter. I’ll be honest and frankly: it happens that I download some illegal material off the net. But. But I will never watch or buy a pirated movie, especially low quality ones. Watching a movie -even the ugliest one- in such a way it’s simply an idiot thing. I personally know people that spend 8 € for a really bad copy of a DVD (ie. a direct “rip” done at the cinema with really poor audio and video). These are a pain in the ass for the cinema industry and for the pure viewing pleasure. Right know I have more than 150 legally bought DVDs. I try to spend my money wisely because DVDs aren’t cheap at all and I’d like top quality of course (just read some previous posts). For minor or missed movies a DVD rental it’s a good choice. The big screen (and I mean it) is the only choice if the movie really attracts me (and, in these years, it’s often a disappointment).

But.

But I’m not the mainstream guy so if a movie has some connections with previous ones (for example The island) I’d like to see also its ancestors. And where I can find them ? I’m in Italy and, believe me, there are no savvy-blockbusters stores only real ones where if a movie is more that 10 years old it’s dead (in fact I may want to watch not a blockbuster movie but a B one or even worst). So I download it from the net.
I will never download Star Wars Ep. III in a bad version (screener or similar) just to avoid paying the theater, I’d prefer to wait and rent the DVD (I’ve got a pretty good home theater system that gives some satisfactions).

In my case everything could be solved with an iTunes-like online movie store with a good choice of titles (not only the biggest ones) of course not DRM-driven and that works even with Linux (thanks DVD Jon).

Just think of the IMDB with a button “watch it now for X €” (maybe a matroska encoded file with subtitles and AC-3). Awesome.

Next stop: talk about anime…

Just few minutes ago I added an APC UPS to my little server.
So I’ll have to configure upsd and a little bit of extras to use this new piece of hardware.
I hope my girlfriend will forgive me for this extra-time that I have to spend sitting at the computer and not with her

Thanks to the “DVD Jon” blog I saw the HD trailer of The Island. And yesterday evening I saw the movie. Let’s say that it’s not history (like most of the movies nowadays) but it gets 6 out ot 10 so it’s worth seeing for a trouble-free evening.
The plot isn’t original and, of course, I agree with the IMDB forum where it points out that at least 3 movies came before TI and not bad movies: THX 1138, Logan’s run and The Clonus Horror (not viewed so far). Of course it pays watching also The Matrix but… who hasn’t ?
Maybe the main dislike of the movie is that it’s aimed at entertaining people and not THINK about the real problem of using clones to heal our wounds (in Italy we recently had a referendum also on this).
This reminds me of the main difference between the original Planet of the Apes versus the sad remake (and what about the Rollerball duo ? the original one is a little bit slow and could be better directed at the end but it’s way ahead).

I just read today that Zach Braff (J.D. in Scrubs) will play the main character of The last kiss, remake of Muccino’s masterpiece L’ultimo bacio. Check out Zach’s blog.
I hope they don’t screw things up: there’s obviously some lack of ideas in Hollywood if a remake is made after only 4 years since the original one.
Now I’ll have to watch Garden state too… BTW: Kevin Smith is Zach’s friend so I hope that Zach is at least as good as Kevin in filming…

I did it. I played with Gallery2 again and I decided to put some effort to integrate it with WP. It seems to work.
Let’s put an image here, a panorama view of the Pointe du Raz: