Wednesday, January 16, 2013
BEST AUTORESPONDER
<a href="http://daddydanimal.com/the-unofficial-list-wire-video-course/">The "Unofficial" List Wire Video Course</a>
Thursday, February 9, 2012
How to answer the question "Am I Obese?"
If you would like the answers to the question "Am I obese?" this is the website to make that determination.
http://onlywire.com/r/69970936Thursday, January 12, 2012
How to answer the question "Am I Obese?"
If you would like to know how to answer the question Am I Obese this is the website to get that answer
http://onlywire.com/r/66494360Sunday, January 8, 2012
Am I Obese
If you would like to determine the answer to the question "Am I obese?" the site to find that answer is at www.amiobese.org
http://www.amiobese.orgFriday, May 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The Adjustment Bureau
The Adjustment Bureau Is Compelling
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt deliver up a taut sci-fi treat
by
I'm pleased to report that The Adjustment Bureau, part Truman Show, part The Game, features legitimate tension throughout. It's also relatively high concept, as it was adapted from a Philip K. Dick short story, he of Scanner Darkly and Total Recall, and The Minority Report. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt carry the majority of the emotional baggage, and they do so with professionalism. A solid concept, well executed, that requires us to think a bit? Win!
The themes of The Adjustment Bureau are twofold. The most prominent is the idea there's a master plan in place, controlled by a higher power, who sends agents to shape and mold reality as needed. Your alarm not going off? It might be the bureau sending you an adjustment. Miss your bus? It could be the world getting back on track. The higher force behind all of this is known by the agents as "The Chairman," and humans very rarely gain awareness of said Chairman. Matt Damon, who plays an up-and-coming songressman running for senator in the great state of New York, does become aware of the agents, and his life unravels from there. You can imagine how disconcerting it would be to peer behind the curtain of a higher power, and Damon vacillates between disbelief and misery. Compounding the issue is that the agents of this 'power" have decided he's not to follow up on a lady acquaintance he's just made (Emily Blunt), instead telling him to forget about it and let her go. Naturally, he can't emotionally comply.
The second theme of The Adjustment Bureau is buried a bit underneath the surface, but it's there, and it's the idea of the effect a soulmate has on motivation. Are those who yearn the most, the ones who can't find happiness, the very same people who keep pushing themselves past all reason to achieve greatness? Does drive come from the desire, and not the attainment, of love? Damon is forced to confront this idea head on, as his political career hangs in the balance, to be largely determined by his romantic choices.
The most enjoyable aspect of the film is that we're allowed, as an audience, to discover and consider this world organically. Who are these mysterious and powerful agents? What the heck is the master plan? Should Damon go with his heart or his intellect, especially given his odds against an omniscient force? The Adjustment Bureau has you pondering the angles throughout, and it's a credit to newly minted director George Nolfi that he never lets his foot off the gas pedal. The momentum of the film sustains it, and the lack of effects, 3-D, and other gimmicky items gives The Adjustment Bureau a gravitas that's missing in most March releases.
Grade: B+
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt deliver up a taut sci-fi treat
by
I'm pleased to report that The Adjustment Bureau, part Truman Show, part The Game, features legitimate tension throughout. It's also relatively high concept, as it was adapted from a Philip K. Dick short story, he of Scanner Darkly and Total Recall, and The Minority Report. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt carry the majority of the emotional baggage, and they do so with professionalism. A solid concept, well executed, that requires us to think a bit? Win!
The themes of The Adjustment Bureau are twofold. The most prominent is the idea there's a master plan in place, controlled by a higher power, who sends agents to shape and mold reality as needed. Your alarm not going off? It might be the bureau sending you an adjustment. Miss your bus? It could be the world getting back on track. The higher force behind all of this is known by the agents as "The Chairman," and humans very rarely gain awareness of said Chairman. Matt Damon, who plays an up-and-coming songressman running for senator in the great state of New York, does become aware of the agents, and his life unravels from there. You can imagine how disconcerting it would be to peer behind the curtain of a higher power, and Damon vacillates between disbelief and misery. Compounding the issue is that the agents of this 'power" have decided he's not to follow up on a lady acquaintance he's just made (Emily Blunt), instead telling him to forget about it and let her go. Naturally, he can't emotionally comply.
The second theme of The Adjustment Bureau is buried a bit underneath the surface, but it's there, and it's the idea of the effect a soulmate has on motivation. Are those who yearn the most, the ones who can't find happiness, the very same people who keep pushing themselves past all reason to achieve greatness? Does drive come from the desire, and not the attainment, of love? Damon is forced to confront this idea head on, as his political career hangs in the balance, to be largely determined by his romantic choices.
The most enjoyable aspect of the film is that we're allowed, as an audience, to discover and consider this world organically. Who are these mysterious and powerful agents? What the heck is the master plan? Should Damon go with his heart or his intellect, especially given his odds against an omniscient force? The Adjustment Bureau has you pondering the angles throughout, and it's a credit to newly minted director George Nolfi that he never lets his foot off the gas pedal. The momentum of the film sustains it, and the lack of effects, 3-D, and other gimmicky items gives The Adjustment Bureau a gravitas that's missing in most March releases.
Grade: B+
Justin Bieber: Never Say Never
The new Justin Bieber film is slick but it never asks if the Macaulay Culkin of pop music can survive the hype
By Chris Tookey
Created 10:43 PM on 17th February 2011 Rating:
However lengthy or short-lived his career may turn out to be, Justin Bieber is sure to go down in history as the first YouTube-created pop star.
The encouraging aspect of this musical documentary is that it proves the 16-year-old Canadian does have the talent to go with his precocious self-confidence.
Everyone involved in this feature-length promotion of the Bieber brand seems to have been briefed to say things along the lines of, as one of them puts it, he’s ‘just a regular kid who had a dream’. But this is the exact opposite of the truth.
His voice is exceptionally strong, he’s a freakishly competent guitarist, drummer and pianist, he can hold the stage like an old pro, and he can dance well enough to lead the kind of routines performed by Madonna and Michael Jackson.
The film is a slickly packaged, deliberately superficial summary of Justin’s career so far, illustrated with everything from baby pictures to his striking first efforts on YouTube.
It’s centred on heavily edited 3D concert footage — about half an hour’s worth — of his sellout performance to screaming fans at Madison Square Garden. The nearest thing to suspense comes when he starts losing his voice just days before the event. Will Justin be well enough to go on?
The tension is hardly unbearable, since the film up to then has been interspersed with clips of him performing at the event.
The premise — that Justin has earned his superstar status through years of dedication, overcoming obstacles that would have defeated a person with less determination — is so hilariously untrue that it borders on self-parody.
He has been turned extremely quickly into a commercial product by some extremely canny businessmen, one of whom — the Island producer Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid — inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag when he describes Bieber as the ‘Macaulay Culkin of the music industry’.
Culkin, the child-star of Home Alone, is nowadays best known for his convictions for drug abuse, and for taking his parents to court to gain control of the money he earned as a child star. Let’s hope Justin has cleaner habits and — despite coming from a broken home — more reliable parents.
The film is as cheerfully one-sided as a party political broadcast.
There’s no chance for any ‘unbelieber’ to question why a white, suburban Canadian child has adopted the dress sense and speech patterns of a black, urban rapper, or whether it is sensible to put a youth with a largely untrained voice through a punishing 84-date tour.
His entourage is portrayed equally uncritically, as devoted friends, fans and surrogate parents, who like nothing better than distributing free tickets to those who can’t afford to watch the prodigy live.
The film shows Justin’s voice is remarkable for his age, but derivative of Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears. And the songs he writes have nothing new to say: they’re not pop songs with the staying power of the great compositions of, say, Carole King or Neil Sedaka, both teenage prodigies themselves.
The most disturbing aspect of the film is that it shows Bieber has never known
I know he was turned down by a few record companies, but that doesn’t compare with the toughening up that goes with touring venues where the public won’t listen. All that is invaluable experience for later on, when — as will inevitably happen — his career goes into decline and the girls now swearing undying love have moved on to someone new or just grown up.
Unlike them, I’m old enough to remember dozens of his predecessors, such as Seventies heart-throb Leif Garrett, now best known for his spectacular history of drug abuse and arrests by the police.
The Bieber film is also strongly reminiscent of Lonely Boy, a 1962 documentary about an even earlier teen sensation, Paul Anka, whose first hit, Diana (the first record I ever bought, at the age of seven), contained what I now recognise to be the crassest chat-up line of all time: ‘I’m so young and you’re so old / This, my darling, I’ve been told.’
Both films are about young Canadians blessed with precocious musical talent, both intercut concert footage with biographical material, and in both the child star invites a sobbing female fan on stage to be ‘personally’ serenaded.
Anka used to sing Put Your Head On My Shoulder; Bieber sings One Less Lonely Girl.
Most fans of Bieber won’t have heard of Anka, but he went on to have a lengthy if chequered career and wrote at least one masterpiece, the hilariously self-aggrandising lyric for My Way.
By Chris Tookey
Created 10:43 PM on 17th February 2011 Rating:
However lengthy or short-lived his career may turn out to be, Justin Bieber is sure to go down in history as the first YouTube-created pop star.
The encouraging aspect of this musical documentary is that it proves the 16-year-old Canadian does have the talent to go with his precocious self-confidence.
Everyone involved in this feature-length promotion of the Bieber brand seems to have been briefed to say things along the lines of, as one of them puts it, he’s ‘just a regular kid who had a dream’. But this is the exact opposite of the truth.
His voice is exceptionally strong, he’s a freakishly competent guitarist, drummer and pianist, he can hold the stage like an old pro, and he can dance well enough to lead the kind of routines performed by Madonna and Michael Jackson.
The film is a slickly packaged, deliberately superficial summary of Justin’s career so far, illustrated with everything from baby pictures to his striking first efforts on YouTube.
It’s centred on heavily edited 3D concert footage — about half an hour’s worth — of his sellout performance to screaming fans at Madison Square Garden. The nearest thing to suspense comes when he starts losing his voice just days before the event. Will Justin be well enough to go on?
The tension is hardly unbearable, since the film up to then has been interspersed with clips of him performing at the event.
The premise — that Justin has earned his superstar status through years of dedication, overcoming obstacles that would have defeated a person with less determination — is so hilariously untrue that it borders on self-parody.
He has been turned extremely quickly into a commercial product by some extremely canny businessmen, one of whom — the Island producer Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid — inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag when he describes Bieber as the ‘Macaulay Culkin of the music industry’.
Culkin, the child-star of Home Alone, is nowadays best known for his convictions for drug abuse, and for taking his parents to court to gain control of the money he earned as a child star. Let’s hope Justin has cleaner habits and — despite coming from a broken home — more reliable parents.
The film is as cheerfully one-sided as a party political broadcast.
There’s no chance for any ‘unbelieber’ to question why a white, suburban Canadian child has adopted the dress sense and speech patterns of a black, urban rapper, or whether it is sensible to put a youth with a largely untrained voice through a punishing 84-date tour.
His entourage is portrayed equally uncritically, as devoted friends, fans and surrogate parents, who like nothing better than distributing free tickets to those who can’t afford to watch the prodigy live.
The film shows Justin’s voice is remarkable for his age, but derivative of Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears. And the songs he writes have nothing new to say: they’re not pop songs with the staying power of the great compositions of, say, Carole King or Neil Sedaka, both teenage prodigies themselves.
The most disturbing aspect of the film is that it shows Bieber has never known
I know he was turned down by a few record companies, but that doesn’t compare with the toughening up that goes with touring venues where the public won’t listen. All that is invaluable experience for later on, when — as will inevitably happen — his career goes into decline and the girls now swearing undying love have moved on to someone new or just grown up.
Unlike them, I’m old enough to remember dozens of his predecessors, such as Seventies heart-throb Leif Garrett, now best known for his spectacular history of drug abuse and arrests by the police.
The Bieber film is also strongly reminiscent of Lonely Boy, a 1962 documentary about an even earlier teen sensation, Paul Anka, whose first hit, Diana (the first record I ever bought, at the age of seven), contained what I now recognise to be the crassest chat-up line of all time: ‘I’m so young and you’re so old / This, my darling, I’ve been told.’
Both films are about young Canadians blessed with precocious musical talent, both intercut concert footage with biographical material, and in both the child star invites a sobbing female fan on stage to be ‘personally’ serenaded.
Anka used to sing Put Your Head On My Shoulder; Bieber sings One Less Lonely Girl.
Most fans of Bieber won’t have heard of Anka, but he went on to have a lengthy if chequered career and wrote at least one masterpiece, the hilariously self-aggrandising lyric for My Way.
Let’s hope Bieber finds his own way, avoids being ripped off by too many of his hangers-on, remains on speaking terms with at least one of his parents — and lasts even half as long as Mr Anka.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)