This BSG video set to the Beastie Boys track, Sabotage has already gone viral. But to really appreciate its brilliance, you need to compare the original Spike Jonze video and the mashup.

Genius.

I stand here naked before you. Judge me, you bitch.

I can see how John Krasinski’s debut feature can come across as shallow and pretentious to some. It’s ambitious and slightly uneven but it’s also one of the most honest interpretations of the male psyche I’ve seen in a long time. The thing about cinema is that while it can convey emotions, it’s also severely limited by the director’s aesthetic. And that’s why this film works; because technically, it’s a lot like Before Sunset or even, Tape. Frames are sparse and apart from the characters, little else fills the screen.

Julianne Nicholson’s character, reeling from a breakup, decides to study the effect of the feminist movement on men, or so she says. She sets up interviews with various men and they open up about relationships, women and sex. Do men really know what today’s women want? The film is funny, repulsive and mostly, insightful. A friend of mine referred to it as ‘Vagina Monologues for Men – Penis Monologues’, which when you think about it, is quite accurate. One scene that really stood out was that of a college professor reflecting on 21 years of being married. After an awkward pause, he muses, “Is it shallow? Does it sound shallow? Or do you think the truth behind this kind of thing will always sound kind of shallow? Everybody’s real reasons?”

Granted, the film is an exercise in vanity and it does have an inherently convoluted logic but I loved it and intend on seeking out and reading more of David Wallace Foster’s works.

PS: Ben Gibbard, from Death Cab for Cutie appears in the film.

“The loss of religious faith is a slow and fragile process, like the raising of continents,” writes Darwin to his wife. That one line from the film resonates greatly with my personal philosophy and  is perhaps one of the few reasons I enjoyed this rather ponderous study of Darwin’s struggle with faith and evidence.

The more I think about the film, the more glaring the flaws seem. The film seems conflicted about what caused Darwin’s inability to complete his treatise, On the Origin of Species – the death of his daughter or his accommodationist views on Christianity.

Creationists have long argued, albeit with no documented evidence that Darwin recanted on his death bed. Creation, based on the book, Annie’s Box by Randal Keynes dispels the myth and portrays Darwin as a man with strong convictions even if he occasionally questioned them.

Face it, Avatar was never really going to live up to the hype.

Granted, James Cameron’s return to screen is every bit a visual spectacle as they say; Pandora is unlike anything we’ve ever been subjected to especially in 3D. The environments are lush and Pandora’s inhabitants are stunningly rendered. Visually, the film is brilliant and deserves every bit of praise it gets.

Sadly, the script is overwrought with cliches bordering on heavy handedness. It would’ve been enough if it were simply an allegory for civilizations and their misplaced sense of entitlement. Turns out, it’s also about the environment. Thankfully, the last 40 minutes made up for all the preachiness.

It’s interesting that Cameron never strays from the basics – there’s the three-act narrative, James Horner’s pounding orchestral score and a voice-over. For all the technical wizardry involved, Avatar is a very conventional film and a very good one at that.

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

And then he smiles, coming up with what he sees as his killer argument. “When I see Western journalists criticise us – don’t you realise you’re shooting yourself in the foot? The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn’t oil, it’s hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying – I want to go to Dubai. We’re very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don’t have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn’t gloat at our demise. You should be very worried…. Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path.”

Very often, we tend to ignore the correlation between economics and religion.

© 2009 Punnen Syriac

Stephen Fry makes an especially brilliant case against the so called ‘force for good’. Nod along or throw stuff at your computer but this is what good television is all about.

Go watch. Now.

So, I’ve been using the Apple Magic Mouse for over a week now. And yes, like everything else that Apple comes out with, the design is pure genius. Very minimalist. At first glance, it looks like it’s carved out of a slab of marble.

I love the iPod Touch’s capacitive screen and I like that the trackpad for the MacBook Pro is very configurable. The touch interface for the Magic Mouse is as good if not better but the mouse tends to move when you do the two-finger side swipe. It’s slightly irritating but not something that can’t be gotten used to. Also, no pinch zoom. It tethers quite easily too and remained connected even when I took the mouse to the toilet. Yeah, don’t ask.

The one huge caveat is the price- I had to pay AUD 99 for it. Not cool.