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When watching Blade Runner you should try not to compare the movie with the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? That’s a book written by the best science fiction writer of all time, Philip K. Dick. The mechanical pets are absent but there is a monologue discussing the absence of real animals in the future in the movie. I agree that the ending is quite different but this is necessary because of the different time and character development.

It should be pointed out that Blade Runner features fine casting, good special effects and has a complex storyline and premise. All these aspects of the movie justice to Dock’s writing style and genius mind.

Rachel played by the stunning Hollywood actress Sean Young fits perfectly in her stoic replicant/human role. Another famous actor taking part in the movie is Harrison Ford who with his smoky voice is a hunter seeking out the hiding replicants. The interesting role of Pris, a replicant ballerina, is played by Daryll Hannah. With amazing make up and costuming she gives a special touch to the movie.

The soundtrack of the film couldn’t be better, it is utterly scintillating. It is a wonderful compilation of wailing wet sounds of the sax, drums and consistently expresses in Blues and Jazz which are romantic and surreal. This soundtrack relieves the epic, daunting and depressing bleakness of the reality of the future, just as the famous author Philip K. Dick has depicted it.

The movie is frequently categorized in the cyberpunk genre-set. The main reason for this is because the action takes place in 2019 Los Angelis. There are cyber technology of cloning, hyped-up surveillance tools, and advanced investigative strategies. The latter are carried out by the Harrison Ford character, blade Runner Deckard.
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What were you doing November 16 and 17, 1981? The chances are pretty good that you, along with 30 million other viewers, were watching Luke and Laura’s wedding on the ABC soap “General Hospital.”

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the legendary courtship and marriage of daytime’s most beloved couple, SOAPnet is celebrating Luke and Laura with special programming during the month of November, including a marathon featuring the famous wedding episodes.

On Friday, November 24 from 7 pm to 12 midnight, the network will air the famous nuptials during a special marathon, along with a one-hour special hosted by the actors who brought those characters to life, Anthony Geary and Genie Francis.
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A popular television show that fires up preschoolers’ imaginations-inspired by youngsters’ love of dinosaurs-will now have them roaring with delight with toys based on the show’s delightful dino characters.

Based on the best-selling books by British author Ian Whybrow and illustrator Adrian Reynolds, “Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs” features a 5-year-old boy who makes the best discovery ever. In his Nana’s attic, he finds a dusty and old but magical blue bucket in which he meets his new best friends-six toy dinosaurs with the power to take him on adventures into their world: Dino World.

The dinosaurs each have distinct personalities. Taury the Tyrannosaurus Rex is brave, enthusiastic and very funny; Trike the Triceratops is the follower in the group, always ready to jump into any situation, usually without thinking; Pterence the Pterodactyl is the youngest of the group and is always trying to prove that he is just as capable as the older dinosaurs; Patsy the Apatosaurus is kind and considerate and revels in silly antics; Sid the Scelidosaurus is the scholar of the group and the one Harry turns to for information; and Steggy the Stegosaurus is everybody’s friend, but he’s a bit of a worrier and not the brightest dino in the bucket.
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Movies are one of society’s commonalities. Consider that the great film you checked out last week was also seen by people in the next town, the next state and, thanks to Netflix, across the country.

But how much do you remember about celluloid heroes and their cinematic exploits? Check out these trivia tidbits to see if you’re ready for a seat on the couch:

1) On what Elmore Leonard novel was the Quentin Tarantino film “Jackie Brown” based?

a. “Rum Punch”; b. “The Switch”; c. “Split Images”; d. “Freaky Deaky.”

2) Who was the youngest actor (or actress) ever nominated for a competitive Academy Award?

a. Shirley Temple; b. Anna Paquin; c. Justin Henry; d. Tatum O’Neal.

3) Who is the only actress to be a “Bond girl” twice?

a. Kim Basinger; b. Tanya Roberts; c. Honor Blackman; d. Maud Adams.

4) What Oscar-winning actor started his career with bit roles in “The Graduate” and “Valley of the Dolls”?

a. Michael Douglas; b. Morgan Freeman; c. Richard Dreyfuss; d. Jack Palance.

5) What 1970s classic gave us the immortal line, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”?

a. “Taxi Driver”; b. “Network”; c. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”; d. “Chinatown.”

6) What now-iconic film role was offered to Frank Sinatra (who pulled out due to a hand injury), John Wayne (who turned it down) and Paul Newman (who suggested the actor who ultimately played the role)?
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The main character Jack the Narrator, played by Edward Norton, is schizophrenic and has multiple personalities. The film starts at the ending of the movie and goes back in the main character’s memory about three years before the present moment in the film. The indirect-subjective point of view is used because it gets the viewer close to the action but does not allow them to take part in it. Once Norton’s character realizes that he has multiple personalities the director uses more objective points of views. The movie does have some director interpretive points of views.

Cinematic composition is important to Fight Club as it is to all movies. The methods the director uses to draw attention to the objects of greatest significance are extreme close-ups and arrangement of people. The director mostly used the extreme close-ups for inanimate objects and the arrangement of people for Jack the Narrator and Tyler. Also to create the illusion of three-dimensionality the director used change of focal planes. The director would often have the camera focused on an action in the background then he would change the focus of the camera to an object or person in the foreground. This shows movement from one person to the other without moving the camera or the persons. This also shows a connection between two people or objects.
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We have noticed along the highways and byways that, while we used to see an occasional trooper or local police officer waiting around the next curve with his radar alert for speed infractions, we now spot the cagy gentlemen nearly every time we drive for even a few miles. Alert to the high price of tickets and annoyed because we think being stopped, unless one is recklessly speeding, is an invasion of privacy, a new defensive principle popped into our watchful consciousness that we thought we’d share with you.

Forget the days when you used to push the speed limit and think, “If I’m lucky, I won’t get spotted by the cops.” The new way to think is, “I better stay pretty close to the speed limit, maybe push it by three to five miles an hour at most, because the question isn’t if the cops are there, tucked in somewhere around a bend. It’s where are they?”

And how fast will you be going when you forget for a moment to worry about them and, understandably enough, concentrate on your driving or your love life? And you know that moment is just the one during which you’ll round a curve and see one of the disguised fundraisers with his pulsed-radar gun pointed right at your convicted vehicle.

Of course, you’ll feel your heart give you a life-shortening thump and, if you happened to have strayed even a tad above the limits we just suggested, you’ll be looking in your rearview mirror to see if the car with the flashing bubble gum machine on top in racing after you. And there you’ll be, once Read the rest of this entry »

Just when George Bush was winning a victory in the Senate for the right to handle terrorists in a moderately terrifying way, it looks as if he can expect slower help from Swift, the Belgian banking consortium known as the letterhead-heavy Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.

The banking group was reprimanded by Belgium’s privacy protection commission for aiding the US counterterrorism effort by providing confidential data about money transfers.

The commission’s report stated, “It has to be seen as a gross miscalculation by Swift that it has, for years, secretly and systematically transferred massive amounts of personal data for surveillance without effective and clear legal basis and independent controls in line with Belgian and European law.”

On a swifter note, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, who presented the report, admitted that sharing such information is essential to curbing terrorism. He sounded more intent that European privacy rules would be respected, saying, “Swift finds itself in a conflicting position between American and European law. But it should have received stronger guarantees of privacy protection based on European standards — not by American standards, which are not as strong.”

While Swift dismissed criticism, maintaining it had assurances the data would be used only in regard to the investigation of terrorism, the CEO, Leonard Schrank, essentially threw up his arms, noting, “We need an agreement between the E.U. and the U.S. that recognizes the global threat of terrorism but has a comfort level for those seeking to guarantee data protection. We are caught between complying with the U.S. and European rules, and it’s a train wreck. But what we have done saves lives in the U.S. and Europe and we must not lose sight of that.”
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One would think that the number of American lives that have been sacrificed or maimed and the enormity of American treasure that has been expended in Iraq would elicit some degree of gratitude among Iraqis. But a new poll, which was done for the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes, proves that it’s hard to be grateful when you could be blown up or otherwise assassinated at any moment.

Here are a few absences of gratitude that the Bush administration now has to stare at:

71% of Iraqis who responded to the survey agreed that “they would like the Iraqi government to ask for U.S.-led forces to be withdrawn from Iraq within a year or less.”

“37% would like U.S.-led forces to be withdrawn ‘within six months.’”

“Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents.”

“If the U.S. made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government.”
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We were sitting here trying, as usual, to figure out how today’s America, saddled with the burdens of inadvertent empire, could conduct itself in the world so Americans are happy about how we’re doing and the rest of the world might actually either approve or have a hard time disapproving of our behavior. We finally hit on an answer that’s so moronic we knew right away it has real potential.

We behave as if we’re the American Umpire, that is, we call the balls and strikes in the global games based on the principle we’ve all grown up with, can understand, and most of the world even admires: fair play.

And, being the ump, we expect the players to respond with good sportsmanship, no matter which way the calls go.

Needless to say, part of this easily understandable and highly commendable modus operandi requires us to call the balls and strikes fairly on ourselves, too, even when Uncle Sam strikes out.

Of course, you can advance more intellectual principles by which we should conduct ourselves as the world’s super-duper power. But we think behaving as if we’re the American Umpire is the principle that most Americans can understand and be proud to be part of and that can lead to conduct on the part of the USA that encourages other nations to cheer us on.
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Throughout the process of teaching our children about personal finance, parents have the opportunity to learn even more about saving money than the children. To protect yourself from the erosion of your wallet that usually takes place, taking it from pleasantly plump to Twiggy-like, you must be aware of the techniques and learn to counter them. Let me provide you with some tips:

#1 Watch for the offer by your teenagers to run errands at the store for you. This is a ruse. They will take your $20, buy your milk and bread, and before it’s in the fridge, they are out the door with the rest of your change - for their convenience.

#2 The “throw them off the scent” maneuver. Check for items thrown in your shopping cart (Get suspicious when they offer to go shopping with you.) that cost $2.50 plus tax, and you are thrown one bill and a lot of pennies along with a question like, “When is the best time to go all the way.” Don’t let it register any surprise. You have gone over that topic enough times and they are banking on your parental concern. After four or five years of this technique, I put a stop to it - immediately! Read the rest of this entry »