Monday, February 25, 2008

Knee-Jerk Review: "Be Kind Rewind"

I really, really wanted to love this movie. Everything it stands for and wants to be meant so much to me. But, ultimately, the film fails to follow through on the promise of being a scathing indictment of everything wrong with films today and stops just short of being a testament to how movies should be made. Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie. It's just not great or as good as I had hoped.
Being Micheal Gondry's most mainstream movie, by far, means some parts of the film feel forced and ungenuine. It should do pretty well at the box office, with funny performances from Jack Black and Mos Def to draw people in, but I was hoping it would instill in people a desire to stop taking in so much of the slop they are fed and search out movies, and art in general, with real creativity and honesty at their heart.
'Be Kind Rewind' delivers some solid laughs and is a heartwarming tale about the power of community and creativity.

Rating: 6 fingers.

Coming Soon

I'm reinvigorated and have decided to dust off the cobwebs, pull the ripcord to stop the freefall, and get The Spectrum going again.

Here's a little of what you will begin to see very soon:

*Knee-Jerk Reviews: Quick reaction to an album, movie, book, etc. Complete coincidence that it is written by a jerk. I'm going to go through my cd and dvd collections and put one of these for everything I've got. I go to the movie theater a lot, so you'll be seeing knee-jerk's of the latest releases often.

*Full Reviews: A more substantial and critical look at movies, music, events, books, etc.

*Note* I rate things I'm review with my hands. This means everything is on a 10 point, or 'finger' scale.

*Links: Cool things I've found around the web. You'll that I post a lot of stuff found on digg.com

That's a little taste of what you'll be seeing here at The Spectrum. I'll also chime in with some original articles and random other stuff every now and then.

Later...


fyi, The Spectrum is run by "KNIGHT OF DAY ENTERTAINMENT".

Monday, February 18, 2008

Oregon panhandlers make $300/day

A police survey says panhandlers outside Wal-Mart in Coos Bay can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much.

read more | digg story

'Chaos Theory' Movie Trailer with Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds stars as a man whose structured life begins to come unraveled in the dark comedy 'Chaos Theory.' Looks interesting, and Ryan Reynolds is always funny.

read more | digg story

Building a Life on $25 and a Gym Bag

Great story of a college graduate leaving his comfortable life for one of poverty. His goal was to go from having $25 and a gym bag to having a furnished apartment and $2,500 saved up.

read more | digg story

Flash on iPhone: It's coming

Hopefully, this means it's coming for the iPod Touch as well.

"Well, we’ve just got word from a reliable source that Flash support is on it’s way to the iPhone, and it should be coming very, very soon. Speculating a bit further on our own, we are guessing that it would be pretty convenient for Flash support to be introduced alongside the iPhone SDK, wouldn’t you say?"

read more | digg story

Apple Tv Review: Apple TV 2.0 Review

Gizmodo Review of the Apple TV 2.0 Update"Ever since our Apple TV 1.0 review decided that Apple's thrust into the living room wasn't pantsworthy, we've been waiting for them to step up and make a revision that was. Apple TV 2.0 is their answer."

read more | digg story

The 5 Craziest Con Artists Of All Time

Yeah, they've screwed over thousands of innocent people, but they showed a lot of courage pulling it off! Five of the craziest con artists to ever live.

read more | digg story

Florida Deputies Dump Quadriplegic Man From Wheelchair

This is just wrong! It's hard to imagine any reason as to why this needed to happen.A veteran Florida sheriff's deputy is in hot water after she was caught on video dumping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair while he was being booked.

read more | digg story

Wi-Fi wants to be free

The best news here is that Starbuck's is rolling out free wifi! You get two free hours a day, then you have to pay. Sounds fair to me. It is also great news that the trend is going towards free wifi. Let wifi be free!!!A kind of "tipping point" was reached this week, and now -- instead of being rented for a fee -- Wi-Fi will increasingly be given away to motivate customers to buy other goods and services. Wi-Fi is now just like the free toaster that banks used to hand out for opening a new account.

read more | digg story

20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life

Great stuff rom ZenHabits.net. 20 valuable lessons in life for college students or anyone starting out. You might ignore them anyway, but at least you've been warned.

read more | digg story