It contains films and TV series from this past year, as well as a few things that are a bit older, and a brief description of them.  I got thinking of it when a friend visited yesterday and we got talking about videos and I started mentioning some of the stuff I had watched last year he might be interested in.

The main common thread is that these are all things I watched (or re-watched) in 2011 and enjoyed, and think that other people might enjoy too.  If it contains things you’ve never heard of, then those are the first things you’ll want to try out.

So here’s the list, in alphabetical order:

*****

Black Mirror:
Genre: Sc-Fi
Format: Short TV series (3 episodes)
Origin: BBC/UK
Year: 2011

Each episode is a stand alone story.  The basic premise is that each one represents a future based on current tech trends, if we allow things to go just a little bit “off”.

These are extremely well written, very smart “Big Idea” science fiction stories written and produced by Charlie Brooker.  If you know who Charlie Brooker is, then I really don’t need to say much more.  He’s probably the smartest Sci-Fi/TV Fiction writer in the UK right now.  Sooner or later, he’s going to make the jump to the big screen and then everyone will know his name.

*****

Contagion:
Genre: Sci-Fi/Pandemic Pron
Format: Movie
Origin: Big Budget U.S. Theater Release
Year: 2011

You might have heard this one referenced, it was a popular media subject when it came out.  The premise is pretty stock – new pandemic contagion causes panic, lots of people die, the U.S. saves the world (again). Blah-blah-blah.

But it’s fairly well done.  The science and theory in it hold water.  The actions of the government and individuals make sense.  It has a good a-list cast who give their parts some depth.  Much smarter, overall, than your average American blockbuster.

*****

Death Valley:
Genre: Zombie Horror Comedy
Format: Weekly 1/2 hour TV series (12 episodes)
Origin: MTV
Year: 2011

It’s a “what if” zombies/vampires/werewolves etc we real, and instead of society collapsing, the LAPD just formed a special unit to deal with it, and LA just keeps rolling along, only marginally weirder than it already is.

Humor level is college frat-boy.  Think Reno 911 meets zombies and you’ll be pretty close.  Dumb, but fun, and not a lot of commitment to watch.  Got bupkus for ratings and was cancelled after the first season.

*****

Defendor:
Genre: Action/Super Hero(ish)
Format: Movie
Origin: Mid-budget U.S. Theater Release
Year: 2009

You’ve probably heard of this one, might have even watched it.  Basic premise is “what if some Asperger dude starts wearing a costume and wandering around pretending to be a super hero.  Injuries ensue.”

Stars Woody Harrelson, and it’s fairly dark.  Well written, good movie.  Came and went from the theaters in minutes.  Don’t expect to be uplifted by this movie, although I wouldn’t call it depressing either.  Woody brought his A-Game to this one, and I think it was just a little too offbeat to succeed in the theaters.

*****

Game of Thrones:
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Weekly 1 hour TV series (10 episodes)
Origin: HBO
Year: 2011

Awesome.  Just….  Awesome.  This is serious Fantasy done right, with good budgets, great acting, a good base story to work from (based on a series of novels by George RR Martin).

WARNING:  It’s only just getting going when the season ends, and you’ll have to wait until the summer of 2012  for Season 2 to start.

*****

Margin Call:
Genre: Drama
Format: Movie
Origin: Mid-Budget U.S. Theater Release
Year: 2011

Smart little drama about a smaller brokerage outfit on the eve of the 2008 collapse.  Ensemble cast of A-Listers.  Essentially a “24 hours in the life of a brokerage house” with the onset of the 2008 collapse as the story driver.  Remarkably light on the moralizing, no one is presented as particularly evil – maybe a bit slimy and self preserving, but not evil.

Got rave reviews from all 10 people who saw it in the theater.  Did poorly at the box office, probably because by the time it came out, everyone was sick of hearing about the banking/stock collapse of 2008.  Combined that with intelligent writing (never a good sign for commercial success), and a lack of violence/guns/explosions (almost mandatory for a film to make money in the U.S. nowadays), and it just didn’t have anything for the marketers to promote.

*****

No Heroics:
Genre: Comedy/Super Hero
Format: 1/2 hour TV series (6 episodes)
Origin: ITV2/UK
Year: 2008

One of my greatest annoyances with the UK TV scene in general is that they’ll run a quirky little show like this for a 6 episode season, and regardless of the ratings and critical reviews (which were both very good in this case), simply forget to ever get around to making a second season.

Follows the lives of B-List superheroes, who’s powers aren’t that great, and who mostly can’t even afford their own cars so have to take public transport or cabs to get to crime scenes.  Mostly centered around a superhero hangout pub, with tons of “in” jokes for comic book superhero fans (which were mostly lost on me because I never got into comic books).  Funny even without knowing the in jokes.

*****

Orcs:
Genre: Fantasy (duh – just look at the title) / commedy
Format: Movie
Origin: U.S. Low budget, limted release, B-Movie schlocker
Year: 2011

B-Movie schlocker that was just kind of fun.  You have to be in the mood for a b-movie schlocker or this just isn’t going to work for you.

The production quality is better than I would expect from a movie with a non-existent budget, a PR team so weak it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry or it’s own website, just an “official” Facebook Page, and a viewership so small Rotten Tomatoes hasn’t even gotten around to giving it a meta-critic score yet.

From the Facebook page:

From deep under the mountain, a horde of ancient warriors has been unleashed. They prey on human fear. They live to kill. They are coming. And they won’t stop until we’re all dead.. ORCS! The ultimate Orcs movie is coming soon.

*****

Sherlock:
Genre: Mystery
Format: TV Series
Origin: BBC/UK
Year: 2011

Only 3 episodes in season 1, plus an un-aired pilot.  Watch the real episodes before you watch the pilot (if you can even find it).

Nice re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes set in modern times.  All around great little British gem of solid acting and writing, with good production values.

Best part?  It got picked up for a second set of 3 episodes to be aired January this year.

*****

Super:
Genre: Action/Superhero
Format: Movie
Origin: U.S. Mid Budget
Year: 2010

This is another one that came and went from the theater in seconds, mostly because I don’t think people got it.

Like Defendor, it features a non-super-powered guy who sets out to become a superhero, injuries ensue.  Different take on it, though.  The guy who becomes a superhero is fully aware of how nuts it is, he just has a very specific motivation for doing it.

Neither uplifting or depressing, it’s one of those movies you watch and just kind of say “Huh” at the end of it, but in a good way.

*****

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen:
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Movie
Origin: U.S./UK Big Budget Theatrical Release
Year: 1988

This is what happens when Terry Gilliam (Monty Python, Brazil) decides to make a “kids” movie.  You’ve probably already seen it, but it’s worth watching again.  I watch it every couple of years and it never gets old.

Delightfully quirky, and even though it’s billed as a kids movie, it’s actually quite adult.

*****

The Princess Bride:
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Movie
Origin: U.S. Big Budget Theatrical Release
Year: 1987

You’ve seen it, you love it.  Watch it again and love it all over again.  This is another of those films that I watch every couple of years and fall in love with all over again.

*****

The Troll Hunter:
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Movie
Origin: Norway – Theatrical Release – Subtitled
Year: 2010

Bill in most of the world as “Dark Fantasy” – it was actually considered comedy fantasy in Norway when initially released.  Makes you wonder about Norwegian humor.

This is an incredibly tough movie to describe.  The best I can come up with is somewhat like The Blair Witch Project, only the student film makers come across a weird hermit dude who wanders around the Norwegian wilds tracking and occasionally hunting Trolls.

The effects are quite good, with a few “gotcha” moments, with a cameo by the Norwegian Prime Minister at the end of the movie.

This ended up on a lot of hardcore film buffs “Best Of” and “Must See” lists since it was released on BluRay this year, and for good reasons.  There’s a ton of stuff in here that you just wouldn’t see in a normal western production, and it’s a very fun watch.

*****

Wizards:
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Movie (animation)
Origin: U.S. Theatrical Release
Year: 1977

Another movie I watch every few years to bask in its greatness.  Only this time the movie is on the obscure side.

I have to admit that I’ve been on a mission over the past few decades to get everyone I know to watch this movie.  Its a Ralph Bakshi animation when he was at the top of his game, and had the money and freedom to do what he wanted – within a few years of this movie, his career spiraled into oblivion during some epic booze and drug fueled battles with the studios.

This is not a kids animated fantasy movie, although Ralph figured it was.  Of course, we’re talking about a guy who made the world’s first x-rated full length animated movie (Fritz the Cat).

The art and animation in this movie are amazing, all hand done cels mixed with rotoscoping and some other techniques.  Everyone I know who went to art college is in awe of this movie for the artwork.  Everyone I know who was into fantasy or played RPG’s as a kid is in awe of it for its story and obvious faith to the genre.  Hard core movie buffs love it because it’s such a stand-alone unique, wonderful little movie.

And having said that, there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll hate it.  It’s just one of those movies that you either love or hate, with very little ground in the middle.

Now Walt and Jesse are really the leads.  But one of the characters you gotta love is Saul Goodman, the world’s greatest lawyer (warning – the preceding link leads to an intentionally bad website).  As Jesse explained to Walt: “When it gets really bad, what you want is a criminal lawyer, and that’s this guy.”

But this is a damn funny video.

A few weeks back a friend and I got to talking about old movies we loved when we were kids. Eventually, the conversation turned to Conan the Barbarian, which I have in my video collection. One thing led to another, and I decided to do a bit of guerrilla theatre in my backyard. Here’s the email I sent to a couple of friends:

Subject: Exercising your inner barbarian…

Hi everyone:

Saturday night we’re going to be doing a Conan night at my place.
The plan:

Light up the fire pit and scorch some red meat, then as soon as it gets dark, watch Conan (the original) on the big screen in my back yard. What could possibly go wrong?

We’ll have the pit fired up by 5pm-ish, and the movie probably around 10. Bring your own slab of flesh for cooking.

I’ll be headed to the farmer’s market to pick up steaks early in the afternoon, so if you want to join, just let me know.

Thanks out to Pat for loaning the projector for the evening. I promise to have at least one computer working to hook up to it.

- John

It actually went off pretty smooth. I took some pics of the lead up to the showing, by which time it was too dark for the camera to be effective, so, sorry, no pics of the movie being shown.

First: The fire pit in full blaze. The computer in the background would later be hooked up to the projector, but at this point, it was just kickin’ out some MP3s.

Next: A sampling of some grilled flesh. Mostly steaks, and a chicken breast. All the meat was grilled over the fire pit.

A typical plate of food. That’s a fine looking hunk of steak.

Everyone getting down to business:

My wife laughing at a joke I missed while I fiddled with the camera:

The Projection Rig all hooked up. Someone commented it looked kinda white-trashy. Personally, I prefer to think of it as hackerific. The sawhorses with a tabletop are to give the projector enough height to shoot over the heads of the audience.

And finally, the screen set up in front of the garage. I used an old school “silver coat” screen. They stopped making them in the late 70s, but man, do they produce a nice imaging surface.

The screen looks white in that image, but that’s a result of the flash. In person, it looks opaque grey. The reflectivity on that thing is just amazing. Nowadays, you can get similar “High Contrast” screens, but I just don’t find they produce as good an image.

Everyone had a ball, and my neighbours from both sides even joined in for the movie portion. I learned a couple of things about outdoor theatre doing this, and there’s a few tweaks I have in mind for the next time I do this sort of thing. Probably sometime in the fall when it gets dark earlier (around 9 pm-ish). We actually didn’t get the movie going until 10:30, because we had to wait that long for it to get dark.

This video actually was taken on three different occasions over the past couple of weeks since I posted the last video. This time, we take out some monitors.

As a result of viewer feedback from the last video, we shot a couple of specific sequences.

First, we made use of the forklift, based on an e-mailed request from a friend – there you go Danny, are you happy now? No? Oh, that’s right. You’re a Doom Cookie. Happy isn’t your thing.

Second, because some mamby-pamby was upset about us wrecking a Sun Ultra 10 (read the comments on YouTube from the first video), we made a point of taking out a Sun Ultra 60 this time.

Without any further ado – here’s some Dead Tech Destruction Pron:

(Sorry gang. Can’t explain, but had to
take the videos offline.)

So, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here, but I changed jobs yet again a couple of months ago. I’m working at a “Technology Re-Marketing Company” now. Basically, we collect old, surplus tech from large companies, refurbish and sell what we can, the rest we sell to recyclers for various rates depending on the scrap value of the components.

Friday was a “slack” day, and we got a little bored. So a co-worker and I pulled out my digi-cam and got creative. Here’s the video:

I dunno, maybe it’s just because after over 2 years of working nights and now I suddenly find myself dealing with rush hour traffic again, but I really, really, want one of these. God bless the US military industrial complex for coming up with newer and better ways to off each other. (err, I hope you get the sarcasm intended from that last sentence).

Anyway, cue the video:

I’ve only ever been to Vegas once, and really, it’s not my kind of town. I spent exactly one night on “the strip,” then a week crashing around in the desert with a friend and his 4×4. We’d make a game of getting “lost” in the desert, then eventually we’d just pull the truck over on some suitable spot and wait for the sun to set. After sunset, we’d just aim towards the big pink glow over the horizon and work our way back to town.

Looking back, it probably wasn’t that smart a game. Vehicle breakdowns aside, there’s a few military reserves around Vegas that would have gotten annoyed if we’d “accidentaly” driven into them.

Anyway. Vegas may be the tackiest city on earth, but they sure do know how to blow up a building.

I’ve been following the trials and tribulations of the One Laptop Per Child project for some time now. It’s a really neat idea cooked up by some of the hardcore propeller heads over at MIT.

It’s a highly noble venture. Basically, it boils down to creating a durable little laptop that can be produced cheaply (somewhere around $100), and then ship a kazillion of these things to the third world, so that children in developing nations get a chance to join the weird wired world.

Now, I’d just about kill to lay my hands on one of these things, but until last month, no one outside the development team even knew what the final product was going to look like. But in February, they shipped 2500 prototypes to various software and hardware teams participating in the project, and as a result, pictures started to trickle out.

Håkon Wium Lie, the CTO of Opera Software (makers of a damn fine browser), promptly grabbed his and jetted off to the US to show it off to the geeks over at Wired Magazine. One of them grabbed his camera to make the following video.

I gotta get me one of those things. Mesh networking? Hell, even my laptop doesn’t do that.