PalmerEldritchKz

2006-11-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

Today, I've read that new technologies helped to know a little bit more about Hitler. The new technology invented by scientists can read from lips from any angle. Scientists analyzed olf footage with Hitler. It was made by Eva Braun, the wife of one of the greatest evil persons ever to live on Earth. Most of the footage is shot on the mountain resort Berghof, where Hitler loved to spend his time. This footage was found by US Strategic Service in the cellars of Berghof. Now we can see another side of Hitler. It seems that he was very "funny" guy, who loves to make jokes on people. He is saying that he loves cinema and one of his favorite characters is Mickey Mouse (!!!). On the footage we can see Hitler flirting with Eva Braun, criticizing Himmler and Goering and talking to the children. The following quotes are taken from UK newspaper Telegraph site. He says to Eva Braun: "I understand you didn't like the movie last night. I know what you want. You want Gone with the Wind." He even flirts with Eva: "What are you filming an old man for? I should be filming you." He says to one boy: "You be a brave boy. You will be a fine soldier one day." Hitler made very interesting remark on Goering, saying: "I looked at him across the dining table and then I knew that what they say was true, that pigs eat the flesh of their own." I think it is very interesting because now we have an opportunity to understand the personalities of different important historical persons, who were filmed in silent movies.

2006-11-23T21:33:00.000-08:00

There is one song out there that captivates by its lyrics which I honestly don't get fully. It is a song Mad World by Gary Jules. First time I've heard that song in the end of Donnie Darko movie (which is actually in my personal top ten movies of all time). The song is so simple and so magical at one time. I guess it was one of the reasons why Richard Kelly (director and screenwriter of Donnie Darko) chose to put this song in the end of his phenomenal movie. The lyrics of this song are the following:

1) All around me a familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

Chorus: And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world

2) Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Meant to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

I don't know how to explain my attitude to this song. I simply love it. Taken into consideration that I think of myself as close to Donnie Darko (instead i'm not schizophrenic, and I'm not chosen one to save universe of collapsing because of wormhole caused by the accident happened in another universe... and so on). It is very sad moment in the end of movie when Donnie turns time up on itself, knowing it will lead to his death, but it will save his family and the girl he loved with all his heart. And the song Mad World probably was a perfect choice for a song in the end. Sometimes, the song that you heard only once in your life can stay with you for many years. And, after watching Donnie Darko I couldn't forget the song. And I must admit I still captivated by this song.

2006-11-23T21:23:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday I went to the cinema to watch Casino Royale, the new installment to James Bond series. I guess that I should go back in time a little bit in order to explain my feelings after that screening. Ar first I should note that I'm not a James Bond fan at all. Honestly, I hate this hero (now I should say I hated) because... well I can't explain why. I can't watch James Bond movies because to me they seem stupid. Even the movies with Sean Connery. So, when I heard that Daniel Craig will play James Bond in 21st Bond movie I was shocked. Guy with blonde hair and blue eyes, not very handsome (as previous Bonds) seemed like a parody on Bond. Angry fans even organized a site against Craig's participation in the movie. Almost everyone was talking bad about him. But when Casino Royale came out all of that was forgotten. It is very rare occasion when film critics all around the world are amazed with action flick. But this is that very rare occasion. On rottentomatoes, where all reviews of all prominent film critics of USA are collected, it turned out to be 95% for the movie. It is nearly ideal! On the imdb, the most famous film site on Internet there is a chart of top 250 greatest movies of all-time. The good thing about that chart (and what makes this chart the most popular in the world) is that it changes everytime. You can give a vote from 1 to 10 for every movie, TV series, documentaries. And the average rate of Casino Royale is 8.3 (for the 23 of November)and it was on 229 spot in that chart. And I must say that it trully deserves this spot. Phenomenally well done movie with great casting (Yes, I must admit I was one of those who criticized decision of taking Daniel Craig for the James Bond role, but it turned out that he suits this role almost perfectly), great acting, great script, and most importantly great directing. I give this movie 10 out of 10.

2006-11-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

Kino.one.kz. - in a last couple of months became my favorite site. The main purpose of this site to give an information about the showtimes of the movies. This site has easy navigation bar. You can sort out screenings by cinema, where it is shown; by time of screening; by the movie that you want to watch and the day when you want to go to cinema. But my favorite thing about that site is the competitions which they organize. Competition for Star Cinema multiplex tickets consists of 25 stills from the different movies and tips to these stills. And you need to write the answers in order to win tickets. Competition to Promenade cinema and Quadro Auto Cinema consists of 10 to 20 stills with multiple choice. Of course, it is easier to answer when you have four variants than without them, but these tip-question competitions are more interesting. I can boast that I mostly give right answers to competitions. But the thing is that there are many people who give right answers but limited number of tickets, so organizers use program which randomly choose winners for every competition. That's why I won only four times. However organizers of this site don't limit themselves with these competitions. They also organize parties, where everyone who loves cinema can come and win prizes, have good conversation and good time. After these parties most of the usual visitors of that site know me. Because I'm winning nearly every competition at those parties. I've won mp3-player (which unfortunately broke after a couple of days), many tickets to cinema and DVDs. I'm looking forward to the party which will be organized near Christmas, because the main prize of that party is The Golden Ticket. The Golden Ticket gives right to go to every cinema of Otau Cinema chain for two persons for a year. I think it will be very interesting event.

2006-11-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

How will the development of new technologies affect movie industry? I think that newspaper and magazine industry is slowly dying, and will not be able to continue its existence in the way it is now. The music industry is suffering from internet piracy. The movie industry is also suffering from piracy. Today you can download a movie from the Internet a few days after its premiere. And sometimes they are available even before its theatrical release. But the quality of this pirate movies is not good. It is not good enough to make people leave movie theatres. But the technologies are improving, the cost of Internet usage is going down. So, in the next few years people can prefer to download the movie of good quality from Internet for low price (even for free) than to pay more to attend cinema. Some would argue that film companies can force theatres to decrease price for ticket, but, in my opinion, this is not a good strategy. Both cinemas and film companies will just go bankrupt. I've read somewhere that such a genius director as James Cameron argued that film companies in order to survive should invent technology that can not be copied or seen on TV or computer screens. He proposed 3-D technologies, which should be improved so that movies can only be watched in cinemas with special equipment. In my opinion, this is the only way to survive for film industry to survive. The other side of this problem is that in near future certain people will be able to make their own movies on their computers. I, of course, refer to movies made with help of 3-D programs. I can remember the movie "Simone" starring brilliant Al Pacino. The movie was about unsuccessful director, who by accident met genius scientist who invented such a computer program, that could generate a human-like character. So he just shot scenes and other actors, and after it he just added Simone (it stands for Simulation One)on computer. And Simone became phenomenaly popular, and people didn't know that she was a computer program. Who knows, maybe it become a reality in future. Maybe directors will use such computer-generated programs instead of actors and actresses, who always cost money, create problems and not doing what directors want them to do.

2006-11-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

The Future has come. Or, in some sense, it is already here. Who would have imagined 60 years ago, let's say internet, mobile communication, TV with 1000 channels, films with such a great computer graphics that you can't see the difference with real world, and stuff like that. Probably, only best of science fiction authors. I must confess, I'm a huge sci-fi fan, and I've read so many books that half of them I can't remember. Who are my favorite authors? Well, I can list all of the classics: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Alfred van Vogt, Ray Bradbury, Clifford Saimac, Robert Sheckley, Harry Harrison, Roger Zelazny, Philip Farmer. I love everything that they wrote, and I think they were some kind of a genius people to imagine the world of future (or they were great at plagiarism, who knows), and they were certainly genius at creating interesting stories and great characters. But there are two authors, who have succeded such a great writers, they are Philip Dick and Francis Carsack. Philip Dick, in my opinion, one of the ten greatest authors of all-time. And not only in sci-fi, but in literature as a whole. He had very interesting life: some thought that he was a drug addict, some thought that he was crazy, some thought that he was a genius. The truth is that all of that is true. His genius/crazy imagination supported by metamphetamines created the worlds, situations and characters so strange and so genius/crazy that from the first book I've read, he immediately became my favorite writer. There is another situation with Francis Carsack. I, actually, read only four of his novels (comparing to 20-something of P. Dick) but I fell in love with them so much, that I re-read all of them many times.

2006-11-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

While reading the thread started on imdb for the "National Treasure 2" movie, I've found an interesting link. But, I will talk about it a little bit later. First, I want to talk about my love for "National Treasure" movie. When it came out in 2004, I just fell in love with it. And I didn't listen to critics who slammed this movie. Yes, of course, I noticed a lot of mistakes in it (for example, gunpowder hardly can explode after 200 (or 300) years spent under the water.), but I didn't gave a lot of attention for these goofs. Because, for me it was just a pure action and nothing more. And it served this purpose brilliantly. It was fun from beginning till the end. I was searching for phenomenal treasures, stealing The Declaration of Independence to look for the invisible map on its back, findind special glasses to see invisible map, and, finally, finding treasure with Nicholas Cage and Diane Kruger. So, when I heard of sequel to this movie, I immediately went to imdb message board. "National Treasure 2" will be about the assasination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and 18 lost pages from the diary of one mason. And, I guess it also will be a very good action flick. And as I said in the beginning I found very interesting link on of the threads. People were discussing the famous coincidences between John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. And one of them gave a link to one site, where these coincidences were deliberated. I guess its very interesting to read. (And, I guess Dan Brown can write another bestseller on it, connecting these assasinations to some secret organizations, which is his strong part; however his writing skills are not so good as his fantasy). The author (or authors) of this article explained all of the coincidences pretty well. Finally, there is a good quote: "So what are we to make of all this? ...Our tendency to seek out patterns wherever we can stems from our desire to make sense of our world; to maintain a feeling that our universe is orderly and can be understood". Despite the fact that all coincidences were explained, they are still very fun to read.

2006-11-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

I was truly captivated by "The Departed" movie for a couple of days. It doesn't happen to me everytime, actually, this is my usual reaction for a masterpiece. Honestly, I don't like Martin Scorsese's films, for the reasons that I can't understand. I watched his "Taxi Driver", which is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever, but to me it was a really bad movie. The directing of Scorsese was awful to me, and the script was actually weak. I watched "The Gangs of New York" and "Aviator" (his last works, before "The Departed"), and they didn't strike me too. But "The Departed" was just IT for me. Clever script, fast-paced action, top-notch acting from Jack-3 Oscars-Nicholson, Leonardo-I'm acting better and better since Titanic-Di Caprio, Matt-Ben Affleck's buddy-Damon and powerful support from Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg and Vera Farmiga. I gave this movie 10 out of 10. But, again, there was something in Martin Scorsese's directing that distracted me a little bit, and, again I didn't understand what it was exactly. So, when I coincidentally, found a great comment from David Bordwell, I was kind of happy. A lot of critics and film specialists fell in love with "The Departed", but not David Bordwell. He doubts the importance of "return to the tone of "GoodFellas and Mean Streets". He says: "We’ve seen a lot of this before. Again guys cuss a lot and make sexist jokes. (The first ten minutes have three references to menstruation, none complimentary.) Again confrontations and whackings are underscored by boomer rock tunes. And again the camera swaggers." David Bordwell points that Martin Scorsese again, as in "Aviator", uses the same technique. "In this style, conversation scenes feature very little movement of actors around the set. Performers sit or stand and deliver their lines in isolated shots (singles) or over-the-shoulder (OTS) setups. The visual stasis is compensated for by lots of cutting, camera movements, and tight close-ups." David Bordwell argues that editing is not a strong part of Martin Scorsese's movies. "Look at any conversation scene, particularly the OTS passages, and you’ll see blatant mismatches of position, eyeline, and gesture. Spoons, hands, and cigarettes jump around spasmodically. In The Departed, Alec Baldwin somehow loses his beer can in a reverse shot, and in the swanky restaurant, it’s hard to determine if there are one or two of those towering chocolate desserts on the table." Finally, Bordwell says: "I’d love to join the applause that welcomes Scorsese back, but for these and other reasons I have to sit on my hands." But then I found out that on Jim Emerson's blog there was a big discussion on this Bordwell's entry. It was very interesting to read. Now I understand what distracts me in Martin Scorsese's movies far more better. In the end, I want to add that after reading this critical article, I didn't change my subjective grade for the film; it's still 10 out of 10. And I still consider this movie one of three masterpieces that came out this year. (The other two are: "V for Vendetta" and "Children of Men", and, plus, I wait for two other movies, that I think will be masterpieces too: "The Prestige" and "The Fountain".)

2006-10-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

New Information Technologies and its effect on journalism.

"Every generation creates its own journalism"
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, "The Elements of Journalism"

Today, there is no doubt that journalism is changing because of new information technologies. It is still unclear whether it is changing for good or bad, but there are some positive changes that can be seen. In this essay I will try to analyze changes in journalism caused by new technologies with the help of four articles that I found on the Internet. Probably, I can think of web-journalism and blogging as journalism of my generation. Today, in the era of tight control of freedom of the speech from governments in many of developing countries, blogs can be the only way for people to express their opinion. Rebecca MacKinnon in article "New Technology, New Media: Better Journalism?" stated that internet is neutral technology, thus, "it can be used for great good, great evil, and great frivolity". Rebecca MacKinnon adds that changes in journalism caused by internet does not necessarily mean improvement. In other article "How technology will change journalism" by Dorian Benkoil, I found very interesting list of emerging trends in news business. List includes convenience, manipulability, portability, ubiquitous collection, ubiquitous dissemination, ease of use and legal/rights issues. I think that this list pretty much sums it up. Dorian Benkoil raised a couple of other very interesting issues. For example, probability of distribution of information from everywhere to anywhere by nearly everyone; and that "the journalism of the future will require supreme specialization by some, and extreme generalization by others who will have to report and package news so that it can be consumed."
Some people think that journalism, in a true sense of this word, is slowly dying. But, Rich Gordon is certainly not one of them. In his article "Online opportunities make journalism’s future bright, despite gloomy feelings" he argued that "when we look back on the early years of the 21st century, we will recognize it as a period of exploding opportunity for journalists and the start of an exciting new era for journalism". New era of a new journalism for a new generation. I can, again, go back to a quote about each generation creating new journalism. People read less now, and it is true not only about newspapers and magazines, but also about books. However, according to Rich Gordon, "declining audiences and financial returns for newspapers and television news do not necessarily translate into worsening prospects for journalism, nor into a more poorly informed society."
Gordon also speaks about three capabilities of Internet that can make online journalism very important. He argues that talented people get an opportunity to share their ideas, Internet gives a chance for people to communicate with each other, and RSS feeds can help everyone to sort out information that they need.
Steve Bryant in his article "Syndicate this! Linking old media to new" talks about a new tendency in the world of newspapers: syndicate of blogs of large newspapers. Also he, while answering back to comment to his article, mentioned great quote from Fitzgerald: "Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and don't. The other half is composed of people who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." I hope that this quote will not have anything in common with the future of blogging and online journalism.

2006-10-08T23:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Anel, actually I didn't get, what contradictions are you talking about, but, nevertheless, thanks for a good comment. It's obvious that you devoted some of your time to do a research.

"I didn’t get, why you think that “credibility and plausibility” could be
disadvantages in blogging or journalism or in other things?"

Well, uh, hmm, I actually didn't get why you didn't get it. I wrote the following:

"Blogging has some disadvantage, it is credibility and plausibility."

Why I think so? Well, it's obvious, because if someone or something is not credible and plausible, then you can't believe them. And if you don't believe to what you read, then what's the point in wasting your time for reading. That's why I think that blogs has this disadvantage, comparing to journalism. You believe to what you read in newspapers or watch on TV because you assume that these professionals won't lie to you. But, in blogging, how can you believe to information posted on blog?

And, also, you say that you completely disagree with me:

"Finally, I complitely disagree that the blogging will “deprive” journalism as a
source of information."

Why? You didn't explain why you think so. If you want, I can write an entry where I will explain why I think that blogging will deprive journalism as a source of information.

2006-10-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

It's me and Eric Roberts!

2006-10-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

Kazakhstan-Poland 0:1. Well, probably, few years ago I would have said that it is a great result for Kazakhstan. But, after watching the game on Saturday, I would rather say that I'm disappointed with the result. Our team still lacks some relevant skills, for example: playing with their heads (And I mean both meanings); passing for distance longer than 20 meters; running faster than Estonian people think (I'm just joking:) ; play in defense better than people with disabilities and, most importantly, score goals not just by accident. Despite mentioned flaws, our team played on the same level (if not better) as Polish players. Unfortunately, one stupid mistake ruined everything. We had our own chances, but due to the fact that both of our forwards' legs are left (it probably explains why they can't run faster)we missed 100% opportunities to score. But analyzing how we played, let's say, 2-3 years before (I don't want to reminisce what was before, because it causes only tears) I can say that there is a quite good progress. Our footballers learnt how to keep the ball, how to pass without losing ball, make good combinations and cause a tension near the opponents' goalpost. Honestly, I was shocked by how good our team played. Our new manager Arno Pijpers did an enormous job teaching our players the basics of football. And he is different from our previous managers in term that he has no biases. He invites really the best players in our championship. I think that the best player in our team is definitely Nurbol Jumaskaliev. It was plain to see that he is best out there for a last 3-4 years, but he became a captain and leader of our team only under the new manager. There are a number of other talented players, such as Eduard Sergienko, Kayrat Utabaev and Nikita Khokhlov. And, in my opinion, if we will continue in a same way, we will be playing at the World Champs in the next 10 years.P.S. At the 11 of October our team will play against Finland. Who knows, probably we will be able to surprise everyone in Europe and win them?

2006-10-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

By the occasion, I was able to work for "Eurasia" International Film Festival. I started out in Guest Service as main assistant. My duties were to write invitations for different producers, filmmakers, distributors and festival organizers. Sometimes it involved making phone calls. It was a pretty easy job, and I had a lot of spare time to surf the net, play computer games or just listen to music. But the real work started one week before the beginning of festival. Everyone were running, shouting at each other and making mistakes.
For the period of festival my job has changed.Now, I was responsible for sitting in hotel "Ankara" 24/7. If our guests wanted to go somewhere, I was responsible for giving them car. Of course, I wasn't doing this job on my own (probably I would have committed suicide after first day), but I was helping to heads of our "headquarter" in hotel. However, I was able to attend some events, such as Opening ceremony, VIP-dinner at A-Club, Birthday party of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa at "Grand" ballroom in "Ankara" hotel, Closing ceremony and ceremonial dinner (I'm calling them dinners, however all of them were held at 8:00 PM or later) at Issyk restaurant. I've made a number of photographs with Eric Roberts, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and couple of kazakh stars. There were a lot of funny moments concerning organization (which , actually, wasn't as good as it should have been), but I won't write about them, because of professional solidarity. Probably, later I will be able to put some of the photographs (or maybe couple of stories) to my blog. But for now, this is all I wanted to say. Stay tuned!

2006-09-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Madina, in your entry “Is Blog good journalism or not?” you listed qualities that good journalism should have. They are: “Believable, informative, readable, credible and well designed.” You came to a conclusion that blog is good journalism; because it meets the criteria you have listed. But, I don’t think that most of the blogs meet your criteria. I don’t even think that most bloggers concerned with criteria.
1. There are very few blogs that have believable information.
2. Not many of them informative.
3. The grammar of most of the bloggers (most of them are 15-25 years old) is pure. And many of them write very informal (sometimes using abusive language).
4. Credible and believable are the synonyms?
5. And, I guess, very few of bloggers are concerned with design of their blogs.

2006-09-24T03:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Diana, in your entry “The threat of online journalism” you said that “the main question that is left for discussion on this blog is this - "is it justified to allow create blogs for those who may not be eligible for that?". I wanted to ask you a question: how, in your opinion, someone can ban a person who is not “eligible” from writing in his (her) blog? I guess it’s very difficult technically.
And the other question is: who is capable of defining - who is “eligible” and who is not? Every person has own vision of the world and own perception of things happening in it. So, in my opinion, no one can argue that he (she) has perfect vision and perception of the world, thus no one should judge other person only because they have different opinions.

2006-09-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

For many years there has been an argument about whether blogging is journalism. Even today scholars can not come to consensus. Also, there is another question: which one of them is more important, valuable and interesting? Some think that blogging is not so different from journalist, because they have some similarities. For example: both should consist of facts and should be objective (be based on facts rather than be subjective). That’s why I think in some cases blogging can be as good as journalism. Blogging has some disadvantage, it is credibility and plausibility. But blogging also has a great advantage over journalism, which is interactivity and accessibility. A guy named Thomas Crampton made a great list of differences between blogs and journalism. Several people made very good comments on it. I mostly agree with the list because all the points that he had included are intelligent. Some conservative journalists are still prejudiced against blogging. But some media companies (TV, Radio, magazines and newspapers) eventually started their own blogs. I guess that this step will be prolific for them, because blogs are the next phase of evolution of intercommunication. Some scholars refer to blogs as “echo chamber”. Famous blogger Jeff Jarvis and New York Times executive editor Bill Keller held a discussion on blogging. John Allsopp, Tom Atlee, Henry Copeland and Dirk Knemeyer made their comments on the topic, and they are very interesting. In my opinion, blogging will deprive journalism as a source of information. There are many intelligent, talented people throughout the world that probably don’t want to connect their life with journalism, but have a capability to write very good stories in their spare time. Even today, there are situations where bloggers are the only source of information. For example, during war in Iraq, tsunami in Asia and other occurrences, there were times when there weren’t any journalist to make a report on something. That’s when many of news agencies were dependent to bloggers. And I think, despite a number of flaws, blogging has more opportunities to evolve and has a better future than journalism.

2006-09-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Blogging in Kazakhstan.

Few years ago, no one in Kazakhstan heard anything about weblogs. Even now only a small amount of kazakhstani Internet users have their own blog. Probably, people underestimate the importance and power of blogging. Most of my friends think that only computer geeks or absolutely shy people, who are afraid of saying anything publicly, run a blog. But they don’t see all possibilities of the weblog. For example: interactivity-people, that don’t know you and whom you might not know either, can share their opinions with you. They can leave a comment, where can agree or disagree with what you wrote, or they can give a good advice to you.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard about neweurasia.net. This site promotes weblogging in Kazakhstan, which is very good in my opinion. In our country there is not much of freedom of the press or opinion, so the only way to share your ideas with other people (except running oppositional newspaper, which, probably will lead you to jail or death) is to run a weblog, say somewhere on livejournal.com or blogger.com, because, government can’t close your weblog or find you. And for us, for young generation, for the future of Kazakhstan it is very important to communicate, even through Internet.

Kazakhstan is developing very fast, and it is vital for the future of the country to acquire new technologies. The future of the world is in rapidly changing technologies. And if country doesn’t want to be left behind it should train young specialists. New generation is the Internet generation. Today even little children are capable of using Internet for chatting, mailing and playing games. And I hope that my kids will be born into a free society without boundaries. Where freedom of the speech is not something metaphysical, where it is something real. But today, if we want to intercommunicate freely we should use all opportunities that we have. Blogging is only one of great opportunities that Internet offers us.