Trumpy Productions Critical Nonsense

this is not for you

2006-03-19T01:10:40+01:00

Tdaxp, one day I will require you to spam all of your friends with a message about my site attaining #1 position in google search of a national news story about Elisabet Sunde. The reason I will do this is that the more sites link it, the higher it goes.
And on that day, you must agree. And you will tell people that they need not pass this on.
In the meantime,
<a href="http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/03/04/elisabet-sunde-slut-bitch-criminal-contact-information.html#c690446">Tdaxp on a sexual predator</a>

Confessions of A Bibliophiliac - Top 10 of 2005

2006-01-04T05:00:00+01:00

Hi,
I'm Biz and I'll be submitting book reviews on a fairly regular basis on tdaxp. These won't all be new books, just books that I happen to read and enjoy. I'm making this first post on tdaxp my year in review for the best books I read in 2005.

10. Amber & Ashes - Margaret Weis
This book isn't what I normally read, but I couldn't help but like it. I loved the Dragonlance series when I was younger and this book made me want to get back into the series again. It helps that it was written by Margaret Weis, one of the three Dragonlance authors that doesn't just write random weird crap.

9. The Best Recipes in the World - Mark Bittman
This was the best cookbook that I read all year. As the title states, these are the best recipes from all over the world in a form that makes them accessible. It mainly focuses on Italian and Asian cuisines, with a bit of French thrown in for good measure. Lots of helpful sections on varients of cooking methods that are aided by a world perspective.

8. The Agony and the Ecstasy - Irving Stone
I read this at the beginning of the year and although it was a bit of a struggle, I'm very happy that I got through it. The movie starring Charlton Heston and Rex Morgan didn't do this book any justice. This is a biographical novel of the artist Michelangelo, fictionalized but still exhaustively researched. The rich world of the 15th century portrayed by the author also helped me understand the Medici family that I had seen referenced in other texts. I really enjoyed this book.

7. Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home - Rupert Sheldrake
A camera crew recorded a dog that had a proclivity for waiting for his owner going about his daily business of scratching and sleeping and at the same time they had a seperate camera crew following his owner. At a random time it was communicated to the owner by a third party that it was time to go home. At the exact moment she was told this, the dog perked up his ears and went to wait for her in his usual place at the window. No one in the home with the dog had any way of knowing when the owner was coming home.

6. Made in America - Bill Bryson
An Informal History of the English Language in the United States
I read a lot of Brysons work this summer and this was the best. As a lover of books, I'm also a lover of language and this gives a history of the English language as it evolved in the United States. This side of the Atlantic has contributed more than "asshat" and "light skinded" to the way we speak.

5. Global Brain - Howard Bloom
The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Blooms followup to The Lucifer Principle is just as insightful. Howard Bloom has to be the hardest working writer in the science field. All of his books are researched like crazy. The bibliography of this book was about 40 pages long and filled with journals and books in several different languages. The thesis in this book is that the idea of a global culture isn't new, but something that has been in the works since the dawn of time. Excellent stuff.

4. 1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus - Charles C. Mann
In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety One the Indians had lots of fun, In Hundred and Ninety Two Columbus gave them smallpox flu. This unexpected history of the Americas before Columbus uses archaeological, biological, and linguistics evidence to support theories that have never been previously collected. I love this type of book.

3. A Feast For Crows - George RR Martin
I love epic fantasy books. If it weren't for this series I would be saying that I used to love them. The epic fantasy genre is big business. All you have to do is hook people on the first book and you've hooked them for life. Jordan, Goodkind, and Martin are the giants of this genre and only with Martin do I enjoy the series more and more with every book. This book is actually half of what was intended to be the 4th volume. The final draft of Crows was 1800 pages in length, so it was issued as two volumes, with the second to be released in 2006. I can't wait.

2. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
In keeping this short, this book is everything tdaxp says it is. It is the smartest book that I've read in a very long time.

1. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham
This book was first published in 1915 and I think it is the "On the Road" of its time. It's simply about a man coming of age in the late 1800s and realizing that he doesn't have to grow up to be a rich asshole like all of the other 'gentlemen' of his time. The protaganist is very easy to identify with, and I liked him immediately, despite his faults, of which there are many. This writer also wrote "The Razors Edge" which was made into the best Bill Murray movie ever. Maybe it's the fact that I live with a bohemian hippie chick, but I love this stuff.

Rob Vision's 2005 Best Of

2005-12-30T09:10:00+01:00

Starting off this Top 10 list of 2005, I must preface it with the disturbing news that I didn't see half the films on most critics' lists (Broken Flowers, Cinderella Man, etc). That's pretty typical, but it's especially bad this year. Ah well, consider this the semi-mainstream Top 10 list of 2005. After taking a look back over the year I realized how weak the year was in my opinion.

I find my final list unbalanced. It's got some films I wouldn't normally have on my top list, but I didn't see much that out did those films. Or maybe I'm just forgetting something I loved this year. Either way, here we go.

10. Serenity- Okay, this is a very Rob specific pick. It's the film that Joss Whedon got to make to continue his 'Firefly' story, since the show was killed. The show is mad brilliant and the movie does it justice. As a stand alone it's good too. I know, because I saw it before seeing the TV show. Unique sci-fi with memorable characters. Captain Reynolds is better than Han Solo.

9. Wedding Crashers- Maybe this will fall off my list on a second viewing but for now, it holds a place. Many people said '40 Year Old Virgin' was better. Nope. The charm of these guys can't be matched. I laughed from moment one, which is just people talking at a table.

8. Jarhead- A great movie that I didn't take anything from. I appreciate the craft more than the actual film. I had no complaints but I forgot about the film after seeing it. Well crafted but a bit empty.

7. 39 Pounds of Love- This hip little documentary is about a guy in his early 30s (I can't remember the age) that weighs 39 pounds. He has a disease that keeps him from growing. It's hard to describe. He has a small, skinny body, but a normal sized head. His muscles are nearly non-existent. The story follows him and his loved ones on a road trip to confront the doctor that told him he wouldn't last until 6 years old. He travels to the US and treks across it in an RV. This film is hilarious because the main guy has an awesome sense of humor, despite his problem. It's well constructed so you laugh and cry.

6. The Devil's Miner- This is probably one of the best documentaries I've seen. It's about this 12(?) year old kid in Bolivia who works in the mines and supports his mom, brother and sister. It's a shocking film that kept my attention the whole way through, despite my lack of interest in the synopsis. Well crafted and a unique subject carry this up on my list.

5. Ordinary Heroes- I hadn't heard of this one until DVD. Sigorney Weaver is a mom in a broken home. It sounds generic but I can't really describe it. This one is all about the characters. They are unique and real. One of the best scripts I've seen on film in a long time.

4. King Kong- I had a special bond with this film since I followed the web log videos through it's entire production. It's simply amazing as a spectacle film. It won't make you smarter but it will entertain the pants off of you for 3 hours. On a repeat viewing it held up well.

3. Crash- Again, didn't catch this until DVD. This is on most critics' list. Probably because it's so damn good. An all-star cast and a thought provoking story, shot really well. A 2nd viewing might move a little slow, but it's top notch. And.. and... independent (basically).

2. Sin City- My boy, Rodriguez. This is one of the most beautiful films to date. He pioneered a style, and all to be true to source material. This film is great, stylish fun, and Rodriguez broke boundaries doing it. Aside from the look, he quit the guild to have Frank Miller be co-director, and had Tarantino come in as a guest director for a scene. Parts 2 and 3 are on the way because he can shoot them so fast. He's just waiting on Miller.

1. Batman Begins- Call me a dork, but this film is the bat's pajamas. The best interpretation of Batman on-screen, plus a story motivated in reality. Seeing the Bat-Signal have a real original is the perfect example. It wasn't a random decision, "Hey let's shine a bat in the sky." It came from somewhere. All that plus it was adequately dark, and the film was shot beautifully. The only thing Chris Nolan doesn't know how to shoot is a fight sequence. That said, it doesn't matter since this film was about the story.

I really didn't want to put 'Batman' as number 1, but nothing I remember can top it. I really wanted 'Rent' to blow me out of the water so it could be on the list. It was good but nothing compared to the Broadway production. If I hadn't seen it on Broadway I'd think it wasn't so great. One more thing... 'Revenge of the Sith'.... yyyeah. Maybe next time George.

Robvision - King Kong

2005-12-28T04:56:24+01:00

I have followed the progress of 'King Kong' for over a year now, watching
every single video blog posted at kongisking.net. So I felt a special connection walking into the theater last night. I was concerned because it was just going to be a 3 hour movie I've seen before, but I had faith in Peter Jackson's elf magic.

My faith was well-founded. I was hooked from the opening credits. The tone of the film was very important, they nailed it. There's a classic film feel to it, without the cheesiness that comes with older films. I thought the pacing might be rough at 3 hours, but even seeing the 11pm show, I didn't doze off once. This film had me by the nuts.

There were many scenes that had me gasping at the screen because they were so intense. The dinosaur scenes are long but done so well that I was tensed up the whole time. Jackson knows how to wow a crowd. There's a scene with T-Rex's and hanging vines where I could feel myself waving my hands around like Parker, worried for the characters' lives. It amazes me how well so much green screen cuts together. It looks like an editors nightmare. I have a discerning eye and was impressed. Over half this film is green screen but it's awesome. George Lucas just puts stupid things in. Peter Jackson creates a believable reality through special effects. WETA is proving themselves as a contender for ILM. WETA also uses miniatures mixed in with their digital effects, so that sells it a lot more too.

There were only a handful of moments when I saw digital people moving awkwardly, but that was usually in a wide shot where you're not supposed to be focused on one person. And the Kong model is top notch. I felt him as a character from the get go. Way better looking than the latest Yoda, whose face looks like a video game cutscreen.

Besides the special effects, this film also brings so much character to the classic story. You were left assuming a lot in the original and everyone felt hollow. This update gives everybody something to work with. And the acting made me hapy too. I'm sure I wasn't the only one concerned with Jack Black taking a serious role. He rocks the part though, proving himself. And Naomi Watts seems to have mastered the wide-eyed empathy look, beautiful and sad every time she does it. I hated her in the web logs but couldn't help loving her in the film.

All the money and hard work shows up on screen. Jackson lost 70 pounds shooting this film. In each web log you can see his face getting thinner and thinner as he wears himself down. Jackson, you're hardcore man. Rock and roll.

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

2005-12-28T04:50:53+01:00

Steven D. Levitt

Imagine a book that helped half the world make more sense. This really isn't that book. But it does answer questions that some of us have sitting around half-formed in the back of our minds. Like "Can I axe why you named Shaniqua?" and "Why is my kid suddenly smart?"
Freakonomics takes on these questions and others very similar and much better worded. Levitt is a very young economist that has been taking the older economic community by storm. He doesn't have a theme to his work, he just sits down with a stack of numbers and people shut the fuck up and listen.
The section of this book that stood out for me most dealt with abortion. Levitt states, and then backs up, that Roe vs. Wade was Americas most effective piece of crime prevention legislature. About 15 years after the legalization of abortion the nation had a huge drop in crime, about 76%. The states that had the highest rates of abortion had the largest drops in crime.
This is the type of subject material dealt with in this book. It's not pretty, and it's not politically correct, but it is mind boggling. I actually plan on reading this book over again, and will read anything that Levitt writes from here on out. This book is fantastic.

The Planets
by Dava Sobel

The first thing that hit me about this book was the enormous sense of relief that I had because I had borrowed it from the library. This book clocks in at an amazingly expensive $25 for about 270 pages of sparse writing. Each page hold only about 2 1/2 paragraphs on average. I would be more understanding if there were some color illustrations, or some maps, or something to justify the extra cost, but it seems the printing price was driven up only to make the page number and footer on each page show up in light blue. Bah. I notice now that Amazon has knocked the price down to only $12.47, which is a little more reasonable.
Each planet in this book, and also the moon, is given its own chapter with its own style. Venus is filled with poetry, Uranus is written about in a letter, and Earth has some dumb shit stuff that isn't really needed. This book isn't meant to be an informative piece of science writing. I kept needing to remind myself of this as I was reading it because a good portion of it is a repeat for anyone with an even passing knowledge of how planets were named, discovered, or thought about.
Sobel is best known for her book 'Longitude' which had rave reviews and I have never read. If given enough good of a review by someone I knew, I might read it. But this book just seemed like too much of a waste of time.

Next update: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman; Something From the Nightside by Simon Green; Dhalgren by Samuel Delany