Friday, March 16, 2007

Cate Blanchett Joins Indiana Jones 4!

Source: The Hollywood Reporter



Cate Blanchett (Babel, Lord of the Rings, Elizabeth) has signed on to star in the fourth installment of the "Indiana Jones" adventures. With David Koepp's screenplay shrouded in secrecy, it is unclear what character Blanchett will play.

Harrison Ford already has boarded the project, which will be produced by Lucasfilm and directed by Steven Spielberg.

Shooting will begin in June in Los Angeles and at undisclosed locations around the world. Paramount Pictures will release Indiana Jones 4 day-and-date around the world on May 22, 2008.

Frank Marshall is producing, with George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy executive producing.

NOTA: Sin duda esta nota periodísitica cae fácilmente en la categoría WTF?!* Realmente no tengo IDEA qué pueda hacer un arqueólogo a sus 62 años, pero esta adición al elenco definitivamente me llamó la atención. Puede ser porque le gustó el dinero que le ofrecieron, porque es fanática de Ford, Spielberg, Lucas, Koepp o de Indiana Jones en general, o igual simplemente le nació. Sea la razón que fuere, no deja de sorprenderme que ésta actriz de renombre haya aceptado participar en el resucitamiento de esta franquicia. Ahora estaré MÁS al pendiente de esta película que antes. Claro, eso no le quita el WTF?!
Pero equis, es lo de menos, lo chido es que:
The Man with the hat is BACK!


(* WTF es la abreviación de la exclamación gringa "What The F$&@?!", la cual podría traducirse como "¡¿Qué qué QUÉ?! Me fascinó encontrar en un diccionario on-line que lo definia como:
"The universal interrogative particle.")

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Why Darth Vader Is the Hands-Down Most Fearsome Movie Villain of All Time...Ever !!!

By David Johnson
(from: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/starwarstrilogy.php)

There is no question. No debate. No alternative. Darth Vader is unequivocally the silver screen's greatest bad-ass mofo. Forget for a moment that the supreme vision of galactic evil used to be a whiny little puke with a bowl cut. Just watch the dude traipse through the Holy Trilogy as the unholiest of bastards, leaving death, destruction, and one heck of a dysfunctional family in his wake and tell me this guy isn't untouchable in the world of movie villains.

Look at the evidence. How bad-ass is he? Darth Vader is so bad-ass…

1. He will walk straight into the sites of ferocious battles, just minutes after they've been settled. Be it Hoth or Princess Leia's ship, the guy is not afraid to get his hands dirty and bat clean-up.

2. He'll kill more Imperial officers in one morning than Luke did with his exhaust port torpedo bullseye.

3. He can wear a cape and still inspire fear and dread.

4. He can alter a deal multiple times on Billy Dee Williams.

5. His personal starship is the size of Nebraska.

6. Besides that crusty governor who evaporated in a ball of fire, he takes orders only from The Emperor, who, by the way, can shoot lightning out of his fingertips.

7. He'll slice off his son's right arm, throw appliances at him, then watch him plummet down a giant hole, all while undiplomatically breaking some big family news.

8. The guy will leap into a TIE fighter himself and enter the heat of interstellar battle, flanked by only a couple of pilots, who, as the records show, have an excellent chance of flying into each other.

9. He'll lay the attitude on Boba Fett, knowing the guy has a rope he can shoot from his wrist at any moment.

10. Blaster bolts are impervious to his palms.

11. His son won't talk back to him, even after the hundredth time he's been lectured about "destiny" and "Obi-Wan's failure, which is complete by the way."

12. He sounds like James Earl Jones.

13. He'll listen to his master yak on and on about his son taking his place, and how his son should kill him, and how he's a punk-ass bitch for not eviscerating him with a lightsaber, and still wait until Luke is almost deep-fried before realizing that the evil thing is not all it's cracked up to be.

14. He's unopposed to forcefully probing a 19-year-old girl.

15. He lives in what appears to be a snow globe or an oversized Easter egg.

16. He's losing his hair, and he's okay with that, thank you.

17. He is responsible for the wholesale slaughter of the Jedi order, which we know for a fact included small children.

18. He opts for murder by "slow, horrible, mystical asphyxiation" versus a quick thrust of the lightsaber or laser blast to the forehead.

19. Did I mention he has a cape? Well, he does.

20. His chest-mounted life support computer also doubles as an electronic day planner.

Tarea de Lógica

"No es personal, es sólo negocios."
(Dicho por varios personajes en la película de "The Godfather")

Esta frase parece provenir de las doctrinas que sostienen que el ámbito moral se restringe a la vida privada y que no se debe aplicar al asunto relacionado con los negocios, esta es la manera de pensar hoy en día en los negocios, y aquí no pretendo discutir si se da o no. Es un HECHO que se da, eso está fuera de discusión. Simplemente declaro que ésta frase es una falacia un más de un aspecto y que trae consecuencias negativas al ser humano.

Primero, según la R.A.E. negocio es: "Aquello que es objeto o materia de una ocupación lucrativa o de interés." El ocupado en el lucro es siempre una persona (o conjunto de personas), y el interés siempre es de una persona o grupo de personas. Es imposible desprender de los negocios el punto de vista personal, por el simple hecho de que todo inicia y recae finalmente en personas.

Segundo, no existen "personas morales"
que no dependan de personas físicas, se les llama personas morales simplemente porque representan el interés de varias personas, no porque éste sea algo externo impuesto; más bien, es un ente jurídico creado por estos con la intención de poder expresar más adecuadamente sus intereses personales. Y dicho sea de paso, éstas personas morales son susceptibles de cambiar de opinión (o como le decimos los abogados, cambiar sus objetos, fines y cláusulas constitutivas), pero esos cambios de opinión no vienen de la nada ni de la "persona moral" sino de personas físicas específicas que son los que precisamente hacen esos cambios, y cuando lo hacen son para atender reclamos y sugerencias de las personas físicas que tienen voz y voto en dichas organizaciones.

Tercero, desde el punto de vista psicológico, los negocios se originan de un deseo interno muy personal e íntimo de los individuos que la constituyen. Toda empresa, por más lucrativa, comercial o industrial que sea, tiene sus inicios en un deseo proveniente de uno o varios empresarios que por razones que probablemente ellos no puedan explicar del todo (o no quieran explicar porque son de índole todavía más personal) se dan a la tarea de poner un negocio.

Cuarto, si se quiere responder diciendo que a lo que se refiere la frase es que la manera de realizar los negocios "requiere" de no apegarse a las reglas morales que atañen a la persona, la respuesta es que si se descuidan esas reglas morales o no se respetan o simplemente se ignoren, el resultado será entonces que el negocio, acabará de manera directa o indirecta dañando a personas. Provocar el cierre de negocios competidores. dejar gente sin trabajo nada más para aumentar ganancias, contaminar nada más porque las leyes no lo impiden, tratar mal a los empleados, quitarles beneficios, traen consecuencias y todas ellas repercuten en su persona. Dirán que fue sólo por "razón de negocios" pero el efecto es terminantemente personal.

Esta falacia pues, es aquella que rige ahora nuestra manera de hacer negocios. Es cierto que algunas empresas están empezando a cultivar hábitos que contrarrestan esta tendencia. Sin embargo hay mucho por hacer.

Renunciar al aspecto personal de los negocios es simplemente decir que "no es personal para mí" y así hacer un lado totalmente a la otra persona, cuando probablemente para el otro fue bastante personal. Es como tomar la frase que Dios dijo en el Génesis de que "te ganarás el pan con el sudor de tu frente" y cambiarlo para decir "ganaré mi pan con el sudor de mi prójimo."

(BIBLIOGRAFIA: Diálogo entre Tom Hanks y Meg Ryan en la película: "You've Got Mail", 1998, Warner Home Video).

U2's new U218 Singles cd review.

Instead of focusing on the compilation, which has been discussed more thoroughly in other reviews, I'm gonna focus on one song of this album in particular: Where The Streets Have No Name.

This is an open question to the band:
U2, why, oh WHY do you insist on mutilating this song?!?!
This is the concert staple everyone hopes and pines for when we go to the live shows. When we pay our ticket, or at least when I do, I even have the absurd fantasy of trying to guess which song is gonna precede Where The Streets Have No Name (All I Want Is You is my favorite so far - Live From Slane Castle is worth the price for those two songs joined together alone!!!)

And once the song starts in any of your concerts (that I know of at least), you play it in its ENTIRETY!!! The organ at the beginning give the song its spiritual edge. The ending with Edge's guitar is SUPREME and ESSENTIAL to the song, the last notes of it complete the song with a poignancy rarely found in any song ever written. Why do you persist to cut the song in your compilation cds to fit cd-single-radio-friendly standards imposed by the 'establishment'?!?!?!

And don't give me the usual: "Its because we wanted to put more songs into the cd", that doesn't work. How can you say that when you didn't even the include "The Fly" (which, by the way is the second time U2 does that; and NO, including it in the British version of the 1990-200 hits does NOT count!)

OK, so maybe this cd is geared towards newcomers or casual fans of U2, but its really not since it includes 2 brand-new songs (one of which can ONLY be bought on cd through this compilation, the way is by iTunes, which my country doesn't have), and if the answer to that is: "Bah! The completists will buy everything anyways", then guess what, I'm a completist and I feel INSULTED. Maybe its just me, but there it is.

Why three stars then? 'Cause this cd IS good, but because of the omition of a complete and remastered version of Where The Streets Have No Name I take two whole stars.

I hope someday U2 gives us AT LEAST a brand new, remastered version of The Joshua Tree. Something like Def Leppard's latest Hysteria remaster, with all the b-sides associated with it, great liner notes, and all in 2 cds.

One can hope.

Cheers!