Well, I have found it. That elusive keystone to all things latent in my childhood, that will bring balance to my life. It's name is The Flight of Dragons !
When I was little (perhaps aged 4-9) Bentley and I used to watch this animated movie all the time...this movie about four wizard brothers which commanded not only the four elements, but also dragons of complementary colors. A story about science versus magic. Other than these vague details, I could only remember a few pictures in my mind and that the wizard brothers convened in a floating stone temple in the sky (they got there via dragon, of course). Well, I have been trying to firstly figure out what movie I was trying to remember so earnestly, secondly to obtain that movie. I am not exaggerating when I say that this movie has been in my mind for nearly three years. But, only a faint memory until yesterday! After two devoted hours of imdb searches, message board requests, & random website browsing, I found it yesterday. THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS, released in 1982, and includes the voice of John Ritter.
Apparently it is out of print in VHS, and a DVD version was never made, so I found a used copy online...only 8-14 days until all of my young-childhood neuroses and repressed angst can spring forth and celebrate alongside me while we watch the best animated movie ever. In order to get ready, I found a 8 minute clip of the opening of the movie on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LudfQsviuw4
The whole movie is actually up in installments, but I must hold out. It will be better that way. More tantric. gehhhh.
Does anyone else know this movie? Please!? Has this entry sparked anyone's memory? Please someone comment.
---> BTW, "Gorbash" is the name of the green wizard's (Carolinus's) dragon. Also the music to this movie is epic. confirmed.
04 June 2007
03 June 2007
My Drivers Don't Need Updating! -- On Conspiracy
That Scottish bloke John Buchan said that "Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences." A fairly dystopian thought, John, but you do make a point.
Yesterday I watched A Scanner Darkly -- the movie based on Philip K. Dick's novel from the 70s about government plots, a new addictive drug (Substance D), and ultimate paranoia. It was pretty good--not mind blowing--but a well-made movie. It uses digital rotoscoping, which essentially is going back and drawing/cartooning over the lines of real film shots to give the final appearance of a shifting and dream-like visual experience. It is the same stylistic mode of Waking Life.
Anyway, the movie involves this Substance D pill that 20% of the population is addicted to, and as the plot unravels we learn that it is created from an organic compound of a small blue flower. In response to the addictive problems, the goverment has contracted the services of a rehab clinic, which takes brain-dead ex-addicts and gets them to not only beat withdrawl, but also to supply labor. The final revelation is when the main character is assigned to farm work and he realizes that the rehab company is commiting ultimate irony -- they are using the zombie-like ex-addicts to secretly farm the very same blue flower that makes the Substance D drug that got them there in the first place.
So, it's really quite a tangle of spying, misidentity, and paranoia. And, all today, I have been researching laptops to purchase before I begin graduate school, and a parallel struck me. For all the laptop notebooks, you have options for anti-virus software. Software that offers updates as often as three times a day!! In order to keep up with all the viruses and bugs being created. This is nuts. Who is creating these havoc-bringing digital demons? Why must anti-virus software be so expensive?
I propose that the Anti-Virus Software companies (McAfee, Norton, &c.) are subsidizing themselves, in a way. They have a side-team of people working to create these little bugs, just so you have to pay extra for their software to stop the damned things. Three updates a day makes little sense unless you consider this covert cohort scheming away so that the corporate software retains its worth. It is a sort of self-subsidizing master-plan. I know your secrets!
Does anyone read this blog anymore?
Yesterday I watched A Scanner Darkly -- the movie based on Philip K. Dick's novel from the 70s about government plots, a new addictive drug (Substance D), and ultimate paranoia. It was pretty good--not mind blowing--but a well-made movie. It uses digital rotoscoping, which essentially is going back and drawing/cartooning over the lines of real film shots to give the final appearance of a shifting and dream-like visual experience. It is the same stylistic mode of Waking Life.
Anyway,
So, it's really quite a tangle of spying, misidentity, and paranoia. And, all today, I have been researching laptops to purchase before I begin graduate school, and a parallel struck me. For all the laptop notebooks, you have options for anti-virus software. Software that offers updates as often as three times a day!! In order to keep up with all the viruses and bugs being created. This is nuts. Who is creating these havoc-bringing digital demons? Why must anti-virus software be so expensive?
I propose that the Anti-Virus Software companies (McAfee, Norton, &c.) are subsidizing themselves, in a way. They have a side-team of people working to create these little bugs, just so you have to pay extra for their software to stop the damned things. Three updates a day makes little sense unless you consider this covert cohort scheming away so that the corporate software retains its worth. It is a sort of self-subsidizing master-plan. I know your secrets!
Does anyone read this blog anymore?
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