They’re Ugly

Apple’s new MacBook/MacBook Pro

Really. These things just look bad. I hated the nasty black bezel on the aluminum iMac, and I hate it on these. It hasn’t grown on me. They’re plain ugly, eschewing clean minimalism for a terrible retro throwback design. I mean, we’ve been here before. What’s next, Snow White?

Apple’s new Mac Mini

And why can’t they keep their stuff unified? The iMac and iPhone come out with the silver/black/gloss design, then the iPhone goes back to the MacBook style black/white, then they kill that design entirely. What are they smoking?

No Matte Screens

The only computer Apple sells with a matte screen is now the 17” MacBook Pro. I know that the mouth-breather faction just loves them some glossy, but they’re truly god-awful unusable crap. I’m sure they’re great if you’re sitting in your mom’s basement watching ST:TOS, but for those who need to use them outside an inky grotto, the gloss is a huge negative. Many people agree with me on this.

I mean, really. Look at this photo. It’s awful.

They’re Really Dumb

The Pro laptops have two graphics cards; one for when you’re plugged in and want to push as many polygons as possible, and one to conserve power when you’re on battery. Now, this sounds pretty cool, actually. It would be better if you had a single card that could just scale down, like modern CPU cores can, but it sounds pretty neat. Well, until you find out that to switch, you have to log out. Seriously. Log out? What is this, Windows? May as well require a reboot.

Let me ask you: when was the last time you logged out of your computer? Can you even remember? I never log out; it’s too big an interruption to my workflow. Macs have this slick sleep mode that lets you take them anywhere and never interrupts what you were doing. This breaks all of that, and I don’t even see the point of having a laptop that works that way. You may as well go buy an iMac to keep on your desk, since it’ll be faster to resume working there than log out and back in to your laptop.

For a company with a reputation of making things that Just Work™, this is a major screwup.

There’s no way I’m going to be sporting one of these things. I just hope my late 2007 MacBook Pro lasts until Uncle Steve’s recto-cranial inversion is reversed.

There’s an outfit called DVDstation that puts video distribution kiosks in stores and malls. As its name implies, you go to the DVDstation to pick out a movie and burn it on a DVD right there. Well, DVDstation just announced that you can plug your video-enabled iPod into their kiosk and download an HD movie in 90 seconds or less.

Now, this doesn’t indicate for sure, but it seems that the new iPod will play non-native resolution video. Still have to wait and see…

On another note, DVD Station seems to have a pretty good thing going. While everyone’s fighting over Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, they come in and deliver HD on an iPod. Smart move on their part.

At regular size and even in the little window embedded in iTunes, it looks crystal clear, with no noticeable or distracting artifacts even in fast moving scenes with lots of action. At double normal size, you will start seeing a few artifacts, comparable to the compression artifacts you’ll see when watching shows recorded on popular PVRs like TiVo and ReplayTV. Full-screen is much more like watching a VHS tape. Actually, it’s more like watching an old VHS tape that has been watched one too many times. … The episode weighs in at 198MBs.

Interesting. I wonder what codec they’re using. The file size seems a bit on the large side, since a good quality XviD encode of a 1 hour TV show usually runs 350mb at around 900kbps ABR. I’d expect 45 minutes of QVGA to weigh in around 150mb at 400kbps ABR. Maybe the audio is encoded at a higher quality? This guide to DVD-to-iPod ripping suggests using 48khz AAC @128kbps, which seems high to me – I’d go with 44.1khz 112kbps AAC, or 128kbps ABR MP3.

The episodes are protected by FairPlay, of course, so it’s kinda hard to see what’s really in there. I hope someone cracks that soon.

On a similar note, I fiddled with trying to get video into iTunes, and did not meet with success. The iPod is supposed to play MPEG-4, but perhaps it has to be rewrapped in a MOV instead of an AVI. This stuff has got to happen automagically for this to really take off.

Questions which remain unanswered:

• Will it play DivX/XviD files as-is, or will they have to be converted? Specs say it plays MPEG-4 (DivX and XviD are MPEG-4 encoders), so I think it will. And it seems silly; the original iPod played existing MP3 files, so I don’t see why this should be any different.
• Will it play video larger than 320×240? Probably. I’d hate to have to reencode everything to 320×240. And it’s a pretty bad resolution for viewing with TV out.
• Will it play video smaller than 320×240? I.e. widescreen video at 320×173.
• Will it have issues with QPEL and/or GMC-encoded files? Hate to see that happen. I hope it just works.

Yesterday, though, I found this player: the LG LDA-511. I did some research, and bought one. It was a bit spendy at $170, but it’s worth every penny. It has played everything I have thrown at it with no problem at all, it can be made region-free (tested with Delicatessen Region 2 DVD), it converts PAL, reads seven different flash memory cards, and on and on and on. I’m very pleased; now I have to get another to replace the Memorex in my bedroom.

The film is a dramatization of the revolutionary uprising on the Potemkin, which happened in 1905. That’s really all that needs to be said about the story; the characters are one-dimensional, and treated as so much scenery.

The technical accomplishments, on the other hand, are remarkable. The film has a frantic rhythm, cutting back and forth far more than was the norm for the time. Though the camera doesn’t move, the frames are dense, beautifully composed, and full of motion. The shots of the crew members visualizing themselves hanging from the masts of the ship are amazing.

The film has the look of German Expressionism throughout. In particular, the shots of the ship’s guns stretching into the sky, and the people flowing like water under the arches of a bridge bring to mind the work of Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau.

This is, at heart, an action film, and is in many ways the forerunner of the Hollywood blockbuster. It’s quick, wildly entertaining, guttural, and relies on slick visuals instead of complex story lines.

Except this approach was daring and new in The Battleship Potemkin, and it shows.

So says the policeman that Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) files a complaint with after his bicycle is stolen. But to Antonio, it’s not just a bicycle. It’s the difference between life and death, or at least a means of living and poverty.

Set in post-WWII Italy, “The Bicycle Thief” (literal translation: “Bicycle Thieves”) is a dark film, reminiscent of American Film Noir. After a long period of unemployment, Antonio gets a job posting flyers for Rita Hayworth films. The job requires that he own a bicycle. The only problem is that he pawned his bicycle some time prior to feed his wife, son, and baby. He pawns his wife’s dowry sheets to get his bicycle back. The man at the pawn shop takes his sheets, and files them away near the top of a massive set of shelves, all full of sheets. The camera moves back, revealing an entire room (3 stories high, at least) full of sheets, all pawned by people for whom eating is more important than sleeping comfortably.

Antonio gets his bicycle back, and goes to work. He drops his young son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola), off at a gas station on the way, where he works. All is going well on his first day, until the bicycle is stolen by a young man and his accomplice.

Antonio enlists the help of his friends and son to track down his missing bicycle. They look in the markets, and scour the streets, all to no avail. Shot after shot pans past innumerable bicycles and parts as they look. The sheer number of bicycles on the streets of Rome is dizzying, and this is emphasized in virtually every shot of the film.

Antonio eventually tracks down the thief. A policeman is called, and they search the thief’s room, but find nothing. Because of the lack of evidence, Antonio is forced to let him go. As he leaves, the thief’s neighbors heckle and threaten him.

Faced with no alternative, Antonio confronts a moral dilemma: should he continue searching, or steal a bicycle himself? He chooses the latter. While he has his flaws, he’s not a hardened criminal like the man who stole his bike. He’s caught, but his victim lets him go after seeing Bruno. Thus Antonio becomes the eponymous thief.

Antonio is not a good father, and he realizes this at the end of the film. Bruno is mindful of others, while Antonio is prone to thoughtless outburts. Bruno loves him anyway, with the unconditional love of a child.

De Sica displays a preternatural flair for the camera, with dynamic camera moves and angles. He echoes some of the style of early Hitchcock, while foreshadowing Kubrick’s use of tracking. In particular, the shot of Bruno as he watches his father (towards the end of the film) is astounding.

This film reminds me of Kurosawa’s “Stray Dog (野良犬),” which was released the next year. Both are set in the post-WWII era of an Axis country, and both involve a character who has an item essential to his job stolen. “The Bicycle Thief” is the better of the two films, in my opinion. It adds a depth of character that “Stray Dog” lacks, and is an insightful look into postwar Italian life.

Simon J (Jeremy Sisto) is a programmer, and presumably a good one, though he’s too distracted to concentrate on his job. Strange things are happening to him. Already stressed, his mind seems to invent even more upsetting things.

He receives a package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. It’s empty. He sees people following him, and wonders what his neighbors are up to. He drinks a lot of milk, and the cashier at the store is genuinely disturbing.

Simon asks him, “Is someone following me?”

“Yeah,” the cashier flatly responds.

His neighbors are a genuinely weird bunch, as is the landlord. The neighbor next door to Simon makes grainy pornography, while the man across the hall is creating artificial intelligence in a grotesque robotic head. The landlord films everything in the building, while the maintenance man raves about bizarre conspiracy theories.

Simon continues to recieve empty packages. He buys a padlock and security system, accuses his neighbors and landlord, and still they keep coming. His computer seems to be having problems, and keeps crashing, while his deadlines loom and his bosses get angrier.

This film comes on strong, sucking you into it’s world. It lands somewhere in between Brazil, Naked Lunch, 1984, Delicatessen, The Matrix, and Hitchcock noir. The directors pull this off with aplomb, submerging the film in over-saturated yellows and greens. But it left me frustrated.

The story is absolutely engrossing, until the final act, when it seems to fall apart. It comes off anticlimactic and preachy, which is unfortunate since the tension has been deftly built for over an hour.

The DVD is plagued by technical problems. It wouldn’t play on my PC because of an authoring error, and around 0:33:00, it skipped horribly on my regular DVD player. I examined the disc, and it didn’t appear to be scratched, so I can only assume it was a duplication error. Additionally, the title was changed for the DVD, which necessitated changing part of the title sequence. This was done in video instead of on film (despite it only being 2 seconds long), which means that the entire film is mastered as a 29.97fps hard-interlaced video format, and you see interlacing artifacts.

I felt cheated at the end, because it seemed like such a cop-out. Who would make something this good, and give it an ending that bad? I do recommend that you watch this film, but just skip the end and make up your own. It’s likely to be more plausible, and will certainly be more satisfying.

This is a film is truly remarkable. It takes place in only three locations: a brief scene in the courtroom, two brief scenes outside the court. The rest of the film takes place in the jury room, and follows the debate of a jury on a murder trial. The story is entirely character-driven, no small feat for a film with fifteen primary characters.

Even though two primary characters (the witnesses for the prosecution) get no screen time, and the accused only gets a brief, silent shot, the characters are just as filled-out as the rest. This is quite a feat, and subtly echos the structure of “Rashômon (羅生門).” We’re told about several different versions of the events, both from the points of view of the witnesses, then the reexamination of their stories by the jurors.

Most of the jurors assume that the boy is guilty. The judge seems disinterested, even bored as he tells them to come to a verdict. The jurors shoot guilty glances at the accused boy as they shuffle out of the courtroom.

But one juror isn’t so sure. “There’s always one,” laughs another.

Detail by detail, the lone juror tears apart the case, convincing one juror after another that the boy might be innocent. He repeatedly states that he isn’t sure if he’s innocent or not, but that he thinks there’s room for doubt.

It’s a fascinating story about the difference a single man can make. While it initially comes of as fairly typical Hollywood fare of the era, the story has a much darker undercurrent. Mr. Lumet seems to be warning us that trusting people who have an agenda is dangerous, that complacency can be deadly, that people in positions to choose life or death don’t take their responsibilities seriously, and a condemnation of the herd mentality.

I wonder what he thinks about our country’s political situation today.