Author: Mark

Yesterday I had time to watch only one movie, but it was a good one. Yesterday I watched Inside Deep Throat which is a documentary on the super famous porn movie, Deep Throat. I watched Deep Throat back in 1992 and I liked it, not because it meant anything deep to me or that it was the best porn movie I had ever watched, back in 1992 I think Deep Throat was the ONLY porn movie I had watched. I didn’t find out about the importance of Deep Throat until much much later and after watching the documentary yesterday I can’t wait to rewatch the original movie again. Here is the plot summary of the documentary from IMDB:

It was filmed in 6 days for 25 thousand dollars. The government didn’t want you to see it. It was banned in 23 states. It has grossed over 600 million dollars. And it is the most profitable film in motion picture history. More than 30 years after Deep Throat’s provocative debut, this documentary examines the legacy that the most profitable film of all-time left on society.

Unlike Born Into Brothels, this was not some average boring documentary. Inside Deep Throat is a really well produced movie and its visually very funky. It was also hilarious to watch. I never imagined the people behind the movie had such a great of sense of humor, everyone from the producer to the actors to the production guys. I also never knew how great the impact of Deep Throat was on society until I watched this movie. It really shook up allot of things back then. And then they also talk about how the mobsters were involved with the movie and how they were profiting from it and burning down theaters that weren’t paying them half of the profits. The movie is just loaded with so much information and its all presented in such a cool way. I also wouldn’t call this documentary a porn. Yes there are a couple of quick shots from the movie but they are not trying to turn you on or anything. The quick scenes are just to give you a glimpse of what Deep Throat was.

For those of you living abroad definitely watch this documentary, even if you haven’t watched the original Deep Throat before. For those of you living in Kuwait you can download the documentary from any torrent site like TorrentSpy and ThePirateBay.

The Eminem Apple ad that was played for the first time during the Apple event a few days ago was pulled. Want to know why? Check this.

This is what Psyop did awhile back [Link]
This is the ad Apple did [Link]

Notice the similarities? Maybe Apple should rework the color scheme atleast.

A friend of mine is selling his 2GB black nano for KD70. Its not brand new, it has been slightly used for 1 week with the plastic cover still on so no scratches or anything. If interested leave a comment below.

DSL prices in Kuwait have gone down recently. Both Qualitynet and Fasttelco have double the bandwidth. It started off as an offer but it seems they have decided to keep this permanently. This is how much 512KB will cost you in Kuwait

Fasttelco
512kb down / 128kb up
1yr Subscription Price: KD360 ($1232)

Qualitynet
512kb down / 256kb up
1yr Subscription Price: KD380 ($1300)

Both providers are reliable, I use both of them, one at home and one at work. Sometimes a site could be blocked by Qualitynet and not by Fasttelco, and sometimes its the other way around, they mostly come out even. So if you are new in Kuwait and looking for a decent connection, get a 512kb DSL connection, the 256kb is too slow, and the 1MB too expensive, 512kb comes in nicely at around KD30 a month.

Have you watched American History X? Remember the scene where Edward Norton tells the black guy to bite the curb? Well this video is similar to that except this video is real. [Video 592KB]

The Skeleton Key
I watched two movies again yesterday. Seems this 2 movie a day thing will continue till the end of Ramadan. The first movie I watched was The Business and the second movie was The Skeleton Key. I will start talking about The Skeleton Key first since it was the crappiest of the two. The movie was just not scary enough. I mean the name of the movie is actually scarier then the actual movie. Here is the movies plot summary from IMDB:

A young woman helping care for an invalid in New Orleans finds herself caught in the middle of morbid going-ons centered around a group of Hoodoo (Not Voodoo, it’s different. Hoodoo is an old African American magic that only works if you believe in it.) practitioners.

The movie starts off slow and as I said it wasn’t scary at all. The ending of the movie was the best part but to get to the ending you have to sit through the whole movie which isn’t worth it. So if you want me to save two hours of your life and tell you what happens in the end just send me an email.

The Business
The other movie I watched, The Business, now thats a cool movie. I wasn’t expecting it to be any good since I hadn’t heard of the director nor the actors but decided to take the plunge and watch it. Here is the plot summary:

Set in the Thatcher era with the cool sounds of the 80’s, THE BUSINESS is an action packed gangster flick set in Spain’s sun drenched Costa Del crime. Frankie (Danny Dyer), is on the run from the high-rise’s of South London to a new life in Malaga with nothing but a tin stuffed full of cash. Having no idea that this delivery of cash to super-suave playboy and ex-con, Charlie (Tamer Hassan), will change his life forever, he soon becomes one of the gang, and finds himself drawn into a flamboyant and violent world of organized crime.

The first thing that grabbed my attention in the movie was the cinematography. Every shot in the first 30 minutes of the movie was just gorgeous. The colors, the angles the situations, it starts off as a very beautiful artsy movie but then after 30 minutes the movie starts looking normal. I don’t know if they were pushed with time or something but the first 30 minutes looks allot different then the rest of the movie. The story is pretty cool, the movie never felt slow or boring, there was no nudity or excess violence yet the movie was still entertaining to watch and by the time you get to the end of movie you get really attached to the main characters. So between these two movies I watched, I would definitely recommend The Business.

This is todays B-Side. I shot it on my way out of McDonalds. I love the colors and I would have put it as picture of the day but Nat thinks I already have too many McDonalds related pictures. Sucks.

Via Kottke, here is a link to pictures on flickr taken by putting the camera in long exposure mode and then tossing it up in the air. [Link]

Wait till the page loads, then click and hold on the left or right side of the image whilst the image rotates. [Link]

Waterworld
Yesterday I watched Waterworld and A History of Violence. I watched Waterworld before but I felt like watching it again since I remember I had really liked it the first time I watched it. When Waterworld first came out I don’t think there was any movie like it, or at least I don’t remember knowing of one. Waterworld was the first movie I watched were the whole world had been destroyed because of a natural disaster. Now there are other movies like that for example The Day After Tomorrow. The thing is with new movies they really love showing earth devastated, in Waterworld we have just one small brief scene where you actually see whats left of the cities and you barely see anything. Thats because Waterworld came out a decade ago and they didn’t have the technology we have today to computer render vast cities destroyed and buried below the ocean. When Waterworld came out it was the most expensive movie ever made coming in at over $200 million and I am sure if they redid the movie today it would cost just a small fraction of that.

A History of Violence
Anyway the second movie I watched I was really looking forward to because it was directed by David Cronenberg. The movie is called A History of Violence and stars Viggo Mortensen who previously played the role of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings series and Lucifer in The Prophecy. Here is the plot summary from IMDB:

Based on the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, A History of Violence is the tale of Tom Stall. Tom is a loving family man and well-respected citizen of a small Indiana town. But when two savage criminals show up at his diner, Tom is forced to take action and thwart the robbery attempt. Suddenly heralded as a hero who took the courage to stand up to crime, people look up to Tom as a man of high moral regard. But all that media attention has the likes of mobsters showing up at his doorstep, charging that Tom is someone else they’ve been looking for. Is it a case of mistaken identity or does Tom have a history that no one knows about? Either way, someone’s about to find out if there’s a history of violence.

So I watched the movie and I have to say, this is the most “normal” movie directed by Cronenberg. Its not a bad movie, I mean I did enjoy it but it was really missing Cronenbergs signatures. There wasn’t any excess sex, violence or graphic scenes. There wasn’t a twisted story or even a weird ending! I was disappointed of course but at least I got to see Maria Bello (Coyote Ugly, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, ER) nude in one scene.

10 Biggest Party Animals in Hollywood poll, compiled by American magazine In Touch.

1. Tara Reid
2. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
3. Paris Hilton
4. Avril Lavigne
5. Wilmer Valderrama
6. Colin Farrell
7. Jessica Simpson
8. Jamie Foxx
9. Lindsay Lohan
10. Owen Wilson

Video taken in Baghdad showing a car explosion. Fucking freaky. [Link]

[via]

Yesterday PowerPage redesigned their website. I think I liked the older design better. [Link]

Daring Fireball has posted some interesting observations from yesterdays Apple event. The most interesting ones to me are:

– The new iPods do not support FireWire
– The itunes video downloads are low-res 320×240
– Video playback battery life sucks. 2hrs for 30gb, 3hrs for 60

Here is the full list. [Link]

One thing I would like to add here. When I got my first iPod it came with a case, remote control and a power adapter. The new iPods don’t come with either and that really sucks.

I don’t know if I will be posting much this weekend so here are some links to keep you busy:

https://del.icio.us/popular/
https://waxy.org/links/
https://kottke.org/remainder/
https://engadget.com/
https://metafilter.com/
https://feeds.mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com/