Archive for March, 2009

FAKIN’

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Pierre Morel's Taken is an anachronism, a thriller George W. Bush might have enjoyed. Or, as Critic After Dark Noel Vera says, more to the point, it's something Dick Cheney might have chortled over, reminiscing of better times, if they had remained in power. One can imagine Pierre Morel's Taken (2008) ...

HOLLYWOOD’S NEW CENSORS

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Vicious colonial wars and political, economic and environmental corruption cry out for a place on the big screen. Yet, try to name one recent film that has dealt with these, honestly and powerfully, let alone satirically. By veteran foreign affairs commentator and filmmaker John Pilger. When I returned from the war ...

CAPITALISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS VICTIMS

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Americans are subjected to acts of 'terrorism' whose final human toll will make September 11 look like a tea party. The perpetrators of this terror are all homegrown; they were trained not in the mountains of Afghanistan but at Harvard, Yale and Stanford; the bankers, executives and legislators who preyed ...

WHAT IF NO ONE WANTS TO SHARE YOUR MUSIC?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

In the eyes of many artists and record labels, being heavily pirated is just about the worse thing that could happen. But what if there was a worse fate, one where people don't feel the desire to pirate your music at all? What if you make your music available for ...

FRANKLY, VANGUARD, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Or how to put a career on hold for 30 years without missing a beat. The Bob Frank interview by Bill Glahn. This article was published in BigO #202 (October 2002). Bob Frank should be in the Guinness World Book of Records. Not for any exorbitant amount of records sold. Hell, ...

RAJA PETRA: NO APOLOGIES FOR STANDING FIRM

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

For his support of "outsted" Perak state minister Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin and speaking out against the Perak sultan, Malaysian blogger (and royalty) Raja Petra Kamarudin thinks that his family might even disown him as he prepares to exile himself from the state of Selangor. Editor's note: In an unprecedented ...

A GROPE IN THE DARK

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Unlike many other men who hanker after girls in school uniform, in Keisuke Yoshidaa's Raw Summer (2006), the boorish Yutaka Mishima does not live out his fetish and his obsession with prostitutes who cater to his tastes. Instead, he stalks schoolgirl Sora Aoi. Stephen Tan reviews. Office worker Yutaka Mishima lives ...

NEWSPAPERS AND THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Nowadays it looks as if anyone with an internet account is a blogger and a potential journalist or reporter, generating views and news. If that's the case, internet consultant Clay Shirky asks: what does the future hold for traditional newspapers? Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of ...

PIRATE BAY: EPIC WIN PREDICTION

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

It's been two weeks since the Pirate Bay trial came to an end - at least for now. While the judge reviews the arguments presented by both sides, Ernesto of TorrentFreak caught up with Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde to look forward to the decision and review the tumultuous events of ...

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

You think you know her but you don't. That's because Grace Quek's porn persona, Annabel Chong, is not just a "piece of meat" who set a world record in 1995 when she had sex with 251 men. Grace's quest is a re-definition of female sexuality, where women can be the ...