So I was sitting in the break room today, eating lunch, reading the Calendar section of the paper and came across a review of Away From Her, the film I had blogged about a couple of weeks ago. Then I said to myself, "Jason, wait a second, if you're reading a review of this movie in the Sentinel today, then that means it must be coming out this weekend somewhere in town." To my happy surprise, it is. It will be playing this week (and I would assume at the very least one more week) at the Regal in Winter Park.
As I wrote before, this is a gem of a movie and if you want a little detour from the cacophony of all the summer blockbusters, I highly recommend this film.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Week #4
Yeah, so I was going to do this whole write-up on Web 2.0 and what's been going on in my brain as I tried to wrap my head around what it all means, but I couldn't get my thoughts together and so I'm just going to talk about some of the websites I looked at as it pertained to the eXplore assignments. (But keep an eye out for my feelings on this subject in later posts!)
On SEOmoz, I clicked on all three sites that won awards under the "Events" category. What I like about the first two, Upcoming and Eventful, were that they -- through the magic of television -- already knew that I was looking up their site from Florida, so they already had events listed for the area. The #3 website in the category did not do this so I feel it necessary to not list them here!
I'm also a list freak so I thought the "Lists and Polls" category would be fun, but sadly they were not so much. Listdump seemed the best, but I wasn't crazy about its layout or even the depth of things it had to offer. Oh well.
I wasn't too surprised about the presence of OCLS in MySpace or Youtube as I -- and others here have mentioned -- know how much our system is in tune and up-to-date with these kinds of technologies and reaching out to our communities through it.
All-in-all I think there's so much out there to look through that it's almost impossible to make sense of it. But I guess that's the point of this course: to point us in the right direction and give us the tools to make use of it how we may.
On SEOmoz, I clicked on all three sites that won awards under the "Events" category. What I like about the first two, Upcoming and Eventful, were that they -- through the magic of television -- already knew that I was looking up their site from Florida, so they already had events listed for the area. The #3 website in the category did not do this so I feel it necessary to not list them here!
I'm also a list freak so I thought the "Lists and Polls" category would be fun, but sadly they were not so much. Listdump seemed the best, but I wasn't crazy about its layout or even the depth of things it had to offer. Oh well.
I wasn't too surprised about the presence of OCLS in MySpace or Youtube as I -- and others here have mentioned -- know how much our system is in tune and up-to-date with these kinds of technologies and reaching out to our communities through it.
All-in-all I think there's so much out there to look through that it's almost impossible to make sense of it. But I guess that's the point of this course: to point us in the right direction and give us the tools to make use of it how we may.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Week #3
I certainly found this week's assignment slightly more difficult than last week's. I have some experience using RSS feeds and looking up Wikipedia, but never really utilized it as a resource. Even still today, I simply do searches on Yahoo to look things up on the web. I don't even use Google but sparingly.
I'm not completely sold on Grokker, but I definitely like the Map view layout. I looked up film as a general search and there were too many listings to go through, so I decided to be a little more specific. I typed in "French New Wave" and, still, I came up with a ton of results. In these cases, especially, I think the Map view is particularly helpful and easier to maneuver than just the listings you find in either Yahoo or Google.
I found some neat sites on Bloglines and I added a feed from Cinematical, a nice movie site I had never run across before. (Think of the site as an Aint-it-cool-news.com, except good.)
I have to say, though, Yahoo Pipes completely kicked my butt. The tutorial seemed straightforward, but when I did it, it didn't seem to work to my satisfaction. I was a bit confused as to its purpose and how to use it. I will definitely try again, but I came home from this particular Adventure empty-handed.
I'm not completely sold on Grokker, but I definitely like the Map view layout. I looked up film as a general search and there were too many listings to go through, so I decided to be a little more specific. I typed in "French New Wave" and, still, I came up with a ton of results. In these cases, especially, I think the Map view is particularly helpful and easier to maneuver than just the listings you find in either Yahoo or Google.
I found some neat sites on Bloglines and I added a feed from Cinematical, a nice movie site I had never run across before. (Think of the site as an Aint-it-cool-news.com, except good.)
I have to say, though, Yahoo Pipes completely kicked my butt. The tutorial seemed straightforward, but when I did it, it didn't seem to work to my satisfaction. I was a bit confused as to its purpose and how to use it. I will definitely try again, but I came home from this particular Adventure empty-handed.
Friday, May 4, 2007
And the winner is...
So J from Sampsynposium guessed the source of my blog name correctly. Congratulations!! You win many things; among them, nothing. It is Woody Allen's 1977 multi-Oscar winning film Annie Hall. Click on the video and watch for yourself:
dunkin' dirky
So what's worse: being the main source of blame for having your 67-regular-season-win basketball team get bounced out of the first round of the playoffs or being the guy everyone associates for being David Hasselhoff's most famous fan?
The answer: being both those guys.
The answer: being both those guys.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
The sun's not yellow, it's chicken
Okay, so Spider-Man 3 comes out this week. Then Shrek the Third two after that. Then the next installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. The summer blockbuster season will soon be in full swing. It can sometimes be hard to weed through all the muck while the studios overload our senses with these franchise pictures. (Not that I have anything in particular against these three series, but you get my point.)
With that in mind, I think I'd take time here to talk about some smaller films. Ones that I screened about a month ago at the 16th Annual Florida Film Festival (FFF). I probably would've written about some of these movies sooner, but alas, I didn't have my own blog. I won't elaborate too much on each film, but just give a general overview to some of my personal highlights during that week-and-a-half.
As is often the case at FFF, the shorts programs fuel more excitement than most of the features--and the Animated Shorts program this year was particularly inspired. My personal favorite though was Golden Age by Aaron Augenblick. These were a compilation of behind-the-scenes "newsreels" revealing the lives of once-famous, but now-fallen cartoon characters. You can actually see each side-splitting segment here.
Two other films I enjoyed were the Irish film, Speed Dating, and a quirky romantic comedy from New Zealand called Eagle vs. Shark. But, for me, the real gem of the 16 screenings I attended at the festival was Sarah Polley's Away From Her. Polley is probably best known for her work in mostly independent fare such as The Sweet Hereafter, The Claim, and My Life Without Me, although she has appeared in bigger films such as the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead.
With such a background in independent film, you might figure Polley's directorial debut to go in the all-too-typical direction of the edgy, angst-ridden twenty-somethings trying to find themselves--just the kind of pretentious, film-festival artsy junk really bad independent cinema can turn into. But her first film is much like the characters she has been known to play: thoughtful, introspective, and unsentimental. Adapted from an Alice Munro short story, Away From Her deals with the separation of a husband and wife as she is institutionalized with Alzheimer's. The couple are played by Gordon Pinsent and the great Julie Christie. Olympia Dukakis also does nice work as a wife of another Alzheimer's patient who befriends Christie's character in the nursing home.
There is none of the overwrought drama so often found in bigger Hollywood films, no big fake emotional scenes. Also none of the show-offy, first-film director tricks. Just an honest exploration of what age and disease does to two people who have been in love for decades and a great showcase for the still vibrant Christie.
The movie opens in limited release on May 4th, the same day as Spider-Man 3. Polley sarcastically said in EW that she intends her film to wipe the floor with Spidey. Good luck with that!
(Chances are the film won't open here, but our library has a number of smaller, independent films that once screened at FFF and nowhere else in town, so keep an eye out for it in a few months.)
P.S. Anybody else attend the festival and see anything good?
With that in mind, I think I'd take time here to talk about some smaller films. Ones that I screened about a month ago at the 16th Annual Florida Film Festival (FFF). I probably would've written about some of these movies sooner, but alas, I didn't have my own blog. I won't elaborate too much on each film, but just give a general overview to some of my personal highlights during that week-and-a-half.
As is often the case at FFF, the shorts programs fuel more excitement than most of the features--and the Animated Shorts program this year was particularly inspired. My personal favorite though was Golden Age by Aaron Augenblick. These were a compilation of behind-the-scenes "newsreels" revealing the lives of once-famous, but now-fallen cartoon characters. You can actually see each side-splitting segment here.
Two other films I enjoyed were the Irish film, Speed Dating, and a quirky romantic comedy from New Zealand called Eagle vs. Shark. But, for me, the real gem of the 16 screenings I attended at the festival was Sarah Polley's Away From Her. Polley is probably best known for her work in mostly independent fare such as The Sweet Hereafter, The Claim, and My Life Without Me, although she has appeared in bigger films such as the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead.
With such a background in independent film, you might figure Polley's directorial debut to go in the all-too-typical direction of the edgy, angst-ridden twenty-somethings trying to find themselves--just the kind of pretentious, film-festival artsy junk really bad independent cinema can turn into. But her first film is much like the characters she has been known to play: thoughtful, introspective, and unsentimental. Adapted from an Alice Munro short story, Away From Her deals with the separation of a husband and wife as she is institutionalized with Alzheimer's. The couple are played by Gordon Pinsent and the great Julie Christie. Olympia Dukakis also does nice work as a wife of another Alzheimer's patient who befriends Christie's character in the nursing home.
There is none of the overwrought drama so often found in bigger Hollywood films, no big fake emotional scenes. Also none of the show-offy, first-film director tricks. Just an honest exploration of what age and disease does to two people who have been in love for decades and a great showcase for the still vibrant Christie.
The movie opens in limited release on May 4th, the same day as Spider-Man 3. Polley sarcastically said in EW that she intends her film to wipe the floor with Spidey. Good luck with that!
(Chances are the film won't open here, but our library has a number of smaller, independent films that once screened at FFF and nowhere else in town, so keep an eye out for it in a few months.)
P.S. Anybody else attend the festival and see anything good?
Friday, April 27, 2007
One of the many few
My name is Jason and this is my new OCLS blog. You will read this blog. I will write this blog. You will laugh at the humor and cry at the tragedy. I hope you tune in for future posts. I have never had a blog before. I hope these sentences don't seem choppy.
BTW, I will give 5 completely useless and imaginary bonus points and an all-expense paid trip to anywhere in the U.S. to anybody who can name the movie my blog name is quoting.** Hurry up, first reponse wins!
**(all-expense paid trip not included)
BTW, I will give 5 completely useless and imaginary bonus points and an all-expense paid trip to anywhere in the U.S. to anybody who can name the movie my blog name is quoting.** Hurry up, first reponse wins!
**(all-expense paid trip not included)
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