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A Spill to Rival the Gulf Coast | The Atlantic Wire.

Frank Frazetta passed away today. He was an absolutely amazing science fiction/fantasy illustrator. He drew covers for comic books and novels, movie posters, and a movie here and there. Read more about him at Wikipedia.

I just watched an amazing YouTube clip featuring a bunch of the scene cuts/takes from “Inglourious Basterds”. Geraldine Brezca is the 2nd assistant camera person and is known as Tarantino’s “Camera Angel”. I’m not sure how exactly she got that title, but I don’t care, she deserves it.

Hilarious right?

I had no idea such a small role in the movie making process could be so hilarious and insightful with scene names and abbreviations. I tried to find out more about Geraldine but unfortunately there isn’t too much out there. Great stuff.

Via Cinematical.

Southpark recently aired the 200th episode, which featured a highly controversial story in which the founder of Islam, Muhammed, is touted around town in a bear suit during a super-hero hostage crisis. The episode was somewhat well received (I loved it) but it was just the beginning of a two-parter.

Unfortunately, the creators of the show, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, were both targeted the day after by a radical Muslim website (covered here by Entertainment Weekly). The group, revolutionmuslim.com, stated, ”They will probably end up like Theo van Gogh”. Theo van Gogh was the political cartoonist and murder victim after he published a controversial depiction of Muhammed.

The big issue here though is that the 201st episode that Comedy Central aired was heavily, heavily, edited. It was so heavily edited that the effect of the show was pretty much neutralized. Every time the word Muhammed was uttered, it was bleeped. To top it off the end of the show, which often features a monologue that attempts to teach a funnily hashed together morale message, was entirely bleeped out. There was about 30 seconds of a constant beep when Kyle started to explain the message of the show. Then, another 15 seconds from Santa Claus. Then, another 15 seconds from Jesus.

For a show like South Park there is no bigger a news story than it being censored by its very own network. Trey Parker and Matt Stone subsequently made a special announcement:

In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.

I hope, really hope, that they succeed in finding a way to air episode 201. Rumor has it that the message that Kyle, Santa Claus, and Jesus convey at the end of the episode essentially covers exactly what Comedy Central did to South Park. Oh the irony. THE IRONY!

I know that this is a controversial topic, and that there are valid points to both sides of the issue, but I think that Comedy Central should have aired the entire episode. South Park is controversial. They push buttons. Occasionally they offend. That doesn’t mean they should be censured. There is no basic human right to always be free from offense. I wish Comedy Central would come forward and explain their reasons as I am sure there is some logic to it, despite my feelings.

It’s true…

Surprisingly enough, all of my Netflix posts have been the most popular on my blog… including leading incoming Google search results. As a result, I felt this follow-up was prudent for the people that keep searching for “netflix friends gone” and “netflix remove friends”.

It was more than a month ago, on March 4th, that Netflix announced their new movie details page. Nearly 2 weeks later, VP of Product Management Todd Yellin finally addressed the nearly 700 comments (200 more had been deleted) that were critical of the new pages lack of the Friends and Lists features. In that update, Todd confirmed that Netflix was doing away with their social networking features to focus on other projects, such as increasing the quantity of streaming devices as well as the quality of the streaming experience. That blog post has over 800 comments and that number is still growing.

Early on I was very critical of Netflix’s decision. I still am. Frankly, a product oriented website such as Netflix has a wealth of potential in front of them if they would choose to fully implement good social network features. Despite that growing trend across almost all product oriented websites, Netflix is still silent after their initial announcement about the removal of friends.

Since that time, Netflix has announced streaming for the Wii, the iPhone, and the iPad, as well as the first version of Subtitles for streams (currently on 100 titles, most of which are Lost). Netflix has not been forthcoming as to when the rest of the friends functionality will be removed, but frankly, it doesn’t matter. The movie details redesign severely crippled the friends functionality to begin with, so I’m surprised they didn’t pull it all then.

As reported in this news post on HackingNetflix, there are a number of users that are removing their reviews from the site in protest of the friends removal. These users have been replacing their reviews with text that reads:

Dear reader, Until March 12th 2010 this was an actual real review. Because the new design that NetfIix has implemented for movie detail pages removed information about what our friends rated movies, as well as top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes, I’ve decided to move my reviews elsewhere. I see no reason to supply NetfIix with free content when NetfIix does not support its users. To see my reviews click on my profile picture to the left and follow the link there to the NetfIix Community. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I’ll happily bring my reviews back, but until then, this note will take its place. I apologize for the inconvenience, dear reader, and hope you’ll forgive this non-review.

This was a movie review until NetfIix decided to remove friend features. Since NetfIix seems to place no value on its most active members, I’m no longer going to be an active member. The new design that they have implemented for movie detail pages removed friends’ ratings, top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I’ll start writing reviews again. Until then, I am no longer going to give them free content and I’ve decided to move my reviews elsewhere. If you are reading this, please call NetfIix and ask them to give us our community features back. I apologize for this non-review.

Under normal circumstances I might have reviewed this DVD, but when NF implemented the new DVD page detail design they removed friends’ ratings, top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes. That made it harder for me and others to find movies we’ll like. If you are reading this, please call NetfIix and ask them to give us the community features back. I apologize for this non-review.

According to the poll on that same page, 72% of 6,200 responses say that ‘Friends is a big part of my Netflix experience’.

I have reduced my Netflix subscription down to one-at-a-time. I have also used a GreaseMonkey script to retrieve all of my Netflix ratings so that I have a personal history of them. I still expect to be Netflix free in the next couple of months. At this point, I still have a very bad taste in my mouth over how the feature was removed, how long it took them to address it, the tone in which it was addressed, and just the fact that the feature is gone itself. The feature being missing pretty much removes the usefulness I had found out of Netflix.

I hope that Netflix has seen a drop in their queue counts, subscribers, reviews, and active users. I really do hope that. And as a result, I hope they change their mind and bring friends back.

*Netflix image courtesy of Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar

The recent eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, the massive volcano in Iceland, has caused major disruptions all across Europe, with airport ramifications as far away as LAX. Despite the negative impact of a massive new cloud of ash over Europe, there have been some pretty astounding pictures over the last several days.

Despite that, nothing has been made over the numerous sightings of bizarre objects in the ash clouds. Here are some of the more obvious ones that I’ve found.

Rush Limbaugh

Despite his own claims, Obama isn’t responsible for the eruption. He is.

A Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick

Eyjafjallajokull didn’t erupt because of an increase in geothermal pressure and build-up in liquid-hot magma. It erupted because Chuck Norris whispered sweet nothings into its ear.

Kesha… Ke$sha? Kecashha?

This may explain the stench of Cheetos and garbage in the air.

Bearsharktopus

Early Norse settlers worshiped a god named Loki, who often took the form of a Bearsharktopus. Perhaps it’s appearance in ash clouds is more common than we had previous suspected.

John Locke

This explains EVERYTHING. Spoiler Alert.

Last night I attended the LA Galaxy’s victory over Real Salt Lake, last year’s winner of the MLS cup. The Galaxy won 2-1 with more goals from Edson Buddle, the guy that has scored at least once every single game, and often times twice. He’s off to a ridiculous start.

Being a season ticket holder is pretty exciting stuff. This was our fourth visit to the stadium. I know the best spot to park in the season ticket parking lot. I know all the ins and outs of the Home Depot Center. And those two second row seats along the sideline close to the goal are all mine.

I then woke up this morning expecting to watch Arsenal steamroll all over Wigan in the premier league. Unfortunately for this die hard gunner, they failed miserably. Despite leading 2-0 in the 80th minute, the Gunners quickly gave away all three points after Wigan amazingly scored 3 goals in 11 minutes. It would seem as though Arsenal must chalk up another trophy-less season to troublesome long-term injuries.

I’m glad to be getting into a second soccer team, seriously, so that I have multiple chances for excitement. Arsenal has been troubling over the last two games while the Galaxy has been dominating. Although the quality in play between the two isn’t equal, the passion and the drive is still there. And besides, Donovan can now easily be considered an EPL quality player.

I am working on winding down my Netflix subscription due to their woefully inadequate product management department. This is a very heavy and important decision that I’ve come to, but I feel a certain obligation at this point to follow through on how I feel.

Wordpress 3.0 needs to hurry up and come out so I can start managing all these blogs in one place!

Philips Cinema has been releasing some pretty interesting short films in some sort of project space they are calling ‘Parallel Lines’. I just finished watching one called The Gift. which I think deserves your attention below.

The only issue with it is that it is embedded in a fact Philips TV, the kind that displays colored light behind it, so the picture is reduced. However, this is great marketing, as you can really see what the lights-behind-the-tv is all about.

I suggest you go full-screen and as high-quality you can.

Original can be found on YouTube.

Yeah, you heard that right. These aren’t regular raptors. These raptors are the real deal.

That is all.