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Just watched it. I could write a review, but I get the odd feeling that someone else has done it better already.

To be fair, he has switched to direct-to-DVD movies. They have standards to keep, you know.

(via Digg)

C’MON VALVE! IT’S BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE THE LAST TIME YOU SAID IT WAS GONNA TAKE SIX MONTHS! NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME ANOTHER SIX MONTHS.

At long last, have you no decency?

This is the Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner for this year. I can’t wait for this movie, which means I’ll probably regret saying this.

Most people liked where they grew up–they had sort of a love-hate relationship with their background, their High School, everything around them. I love São Paulo. I really do.

But I’m not coming back anytime soon. Sorry, dad.

This movie tries to piece apart everything that is dirty and rotten about Brazil. “Some steal with guns, some steal with pens” says the hooded Nietzsche. Whether you’re Jader Barbalho (a man endowed by birth with a super-villain name), or Fernando Dutra Pinto, you are, by nature, Brazilian. Having a school which probably contains familial representatives of 1/3 of the GDP across from the city’s largest favela, is inherently Brazilian. Having a president be impeached for corruption and then elected senator 14 years later is inherently Brazilian. Parliamentarians electing a Speaker of House whose sole proposal was to raise their salaries is inherently Brazilian.

Every time I feel like coming back, all I need to do is turn on the news.

But then, I remember. I also remember that an entire stadium messing around in the opening ceremony of the Pan-American games is inherently Brazilian. Electing this guy as the third highest-voted congressman just so congress would “have to put up with him”, is inherently Brazilian. And the “aw shucks” demeanor I see from every single peasant, is inherently Brazilian.

So in a country of contradictions, Manda Bala is certain to focus on everything we hate about it. Here’s to hoping it helps me figure out what it is I can’t leave behind.

After becoming a newly-minted private pilot, my obsession now is getting into gliding (or “soaring”). Gliding is, at its heart, the epitome of flight, in my opinion: sustaining yourself in the air with nothing more than some fiber glass and some engineering brilliance.

Did you SEE that prop coming out of the nose? This is the most elegant plane I have ever seen. Many people try to make “motorgliders” or gliders with engines. Most of them look ugly–they’re mostly high-wing planes, have a huge propeller in the front and look nothing like that beautiful, sleek glider. I’ve even seen gliders with wooden props that come up from behind the cockpit. This does it better. A lot better. And it’s got a retractable gear.

Garage-friendly.

This is by far the most beautiful, elegant solution to the glider problem I’ve ever seen. This plane has a 50:1 glide ration (50 feet forward for every 1 feet lost in altitude). Compare this to a Cessna’s 7:1. Even competition gliders tend to hover at around 33:1.

Slices and dices.

So, a sleek-looking self-powered two-seat glider, with a 50:1 ratio, turbocharged engine and retractable propeller. Unbelievable… Anything else?

Yes actually–it’s got a solar panel on top. Damn treehuggers…

Stephen Fry turned 50 on Friday. The BBC rightfully dedicated two nights of programming to celebrating his achievement. To the man whose brain is the size of a planet, and has a wit to match it, happy birthday!

“1/5 of Americans can’t find the US on a World Map. Miss Teen South Carolina, why do you think that is?”

I love how she tries to revert back to that stereotypical “help the needy” answer but fails miserably.

John Oliver saying:

The following program contains an accent which you would hear much more if you didn’t throw our tea in the Boston Harbor. To understand what everybody’s talking about, turn on closed captioning.

Lovely.

The BBC has a long tradition of made-for-TV spy thrillers. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and its sequel Smiley’s People, both with Sir Alec Guiness in the main role, are probably the definitive adaptations of tradecraft-based spy thrillers. Also worthy of mention is 2003’s Cambridge Spies. I just finished what seems to be the American response to it: The Company by TNT. The response came some 28 years after Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It seems they didn’t have enough time.

While it’s always nice to see Alfred Molina, this is, in short, a 6-hour ham-handed parable about the history of the CIA. In the best tradition of American TV, it is one long formula: the idealist (Chris O’Donnell), the “weary warrior” (Alfred Molina), the “disillusioned” (Rory Cochrane). Honestly, the only good character development is that we see the first honest portrayal of one of the most important cold warriors: James Jesus Angleton (Michael Keaton).

But let’s keep the formula going: the two main characters fall in love, and then lose their love (in O’Donnell’s case, in two separate episodes). There’s a horrible, absolutely horrible denouement at the end with people literally asking “what was it all for”. The temerity boils over with the following exchange:

“Which side were we really on?”
“The winning side”

I have to admit I started cracking up. I felt bad.

The fundamental issue is that “The Company” tries to do two things which violate the sacredness of spy thrillers.

Firstly, It tries to appeal to a broader audience. John le Carré writes for people who read John le Carré. To borrow a term from business, he focuses on his “core competency”; the espionage chess, and puts everything else aside. The Company tries to add in romance, a colorful character (Molina’s), some over-dramatic confrontation climax and a political-correctness which is borderline sickening. There is no mention of the CIA’s less-popular involvement in Chile, Iran, Nicaragua, etc. The chess game is secondary: it’s a lever for a character conflict between three school buddies.

Secondly, it mixes historical fact with fiction–poorly. The program tries to use three friends’ involvement in the spy world as a ringside seat to the CIA’s historical events. At the risk of kicking the bucket, it feels like a bad version of Forrest Gump. You walk out of the Bay of Pigs feeling slighted–with no greater understanding of what happened. The depiction of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, is one long episode of Chris O’Donnell chasing Natasha McElhone around. There’s no real historical insight into tradecraft or even key events such as Anatoliy Golitsyn’s defection or anything else–events which have good dramatic value, but don’t really fit into the Gump formula as they drew it.

But overall, it’s a good attempt. And I always get a chuckle out of seeing Alfred Molina saying things like “commie bastard”.

Yes, this is a cover of Latino’s (the Brazilian Kevin Federline) cover of Moldovan pop senstation O-Zone’s “Dragostea din tei“.

KibeLoco said it best:

E viva a inclusão digital!

(via Kibeloco)