Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Oh, and Rich, you do think Nelson Mandela also somehow "asked" for crap like this?
FFS, pardon me for not being entirely shocked at the idea that a man in his mid-90's might not be in the best of health - but where's the legitimate public interest in violating his medical privacy. Yeah, I know he's an "icon" blah blah blah but where's the legitimate public interest in staking out the hosptial bed of a man who left public office thirteen years ago? Really?
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Hard News: Looking at Leveson, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
And pretty much always has been. So if your point is they should just get over themselves and put up with the paparazzi then, maybe.
Quite - you know what, you many not like an unelected hereditary monarch who has to meet a religious qualification being New Zealand's head of state. I don't. But my republicanism doesn't extend to the idea that a woman sunbaking topless on private property should just STFU and accept that being stalked and perved on is the quid pro quo for those nice loaners from Alexander McQueen and the digs in Kensington Palace. The way some folks were carrying on, you'd think she was doing nude cartwheels around Trafalgar Square at lunch time. She wasn't/
Oh, and I also happen to believe everyone is entitled to medical privacy, Rich. You. Me. Nelson Mandela. Kate Middleton Windsor. EVERYONE.
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Field Theory: The Force will be with…, in reply to BenWilson,
But I totally agree on Blade Runner. It really stands the test of time. I saw it only last week and thought it hadn’t aged at all.
What happened to Blade Runner was a cinematic version of the old joke about the Velvet Underground and Nico. It tanked in 1982, but everyone who saw it went off and drew comic books, directed music videos and made more movies where the future was cluttered, wet and the neon was the only thing that (kinda) worked.
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Hard News: Looking at Leveson, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Press freedom is all well and good but, to date, it has primarily been freedom to distort, to create false alarms and moral panics, to manipulate politicians, to serve the venal interests of bastards like Murdoch. I am all for reigning in such 'freedoms'.
So, would you like those 'freedoms' reigned in by the same House of Commons that sued to prevent their expenses being released without heavy redaction? I think there's plenty of ordure to go around Fleet Street, but let's also remember the Daily Telegraph, and its source, could have faced criminal prosecution for publishing that information.
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Hard News: Environmental league tables…, in reply to Nathaniel Wilson,
This isn't to say it isn't worth striving to improve things. Just that we should be focused on what we're doing on a local level, and not how we compare to Burundi or whereever.
Wouldn't argue with that, but it also helps if we're having an informed debate off good data -- and fully aware of the limitations and black holes involved. I don't know about anyone else, but I tend not to make good decisions off bad or partial information.
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Hard News: The Velvet Underground Etc., in reply to Russell Brown,
Cale was such a curmudgeon
Then again, who wouldn't get a little cranky at the umpty billionth question about a band you left forty five years ago and that git Lou Reed. :)
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Field Theory: The Force will be with…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The Danish went the other way with Dogme and let the “stripped-down” concept influence their whole culture.
I still stand by my contention that Von Trier is a nasty little misogynistic troll whose shtick hit its expiry date well before Dogme came along. Like most artistic manifestos, it's interesting to read about but the actual films? Not so much.
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Star Wars effectively brought to an end the golden era of early-1970s personal filmmaking and focused the industry on big-budget special-effects blockbusters
Oh, Mister Ebert... I know this is heresy in certain circles but what ended "the golden era of early-1970s personal filmmaking" was a metric fuckton of really shitty, self-indulgent film-making nobody wanted to see.
And, hey, someone really liked Revenge of The Sith:
No one has closed the gap between art and technology more successfully than George Lucas. In his epochal six-film Star Wars saga, he fused ancient hero legends from East and West with futuristic science fiction and created characters who have entered the dream lives of millions. He constructed a vast, original, self-referential mythology like that of James Macpherson's pseudo-Celtic Ossian poems, which swept Europe in the late 18th century, or the Angria and Gondal story cycle spun by the Brontë children in their isolation in the Yorkshire moors. Lucas was a digital visionary who prophesied and helped shape a host of advances, such as computer-generated imagery; computerized film editing, sound mixing, and virtual set design; high-definition cinematography; fiber-optic transmission of dailies; digital movie duplication and distribution; theater and home-entertainment stereo surround sound; and refinements in video-game graphics, interactivity, and music.
So there.
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Hard News: Judging the judges, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Politicians do tend to be somewhat more moderate in their public discourse regarding specific sentencing instances
I would respond to that with "up to a point, Lord Copper". I would suggest some politicians are remarkably (and unwisely) intemperate in their attacks on the judiciary, but I guess it's always an easy score to shit on people who can't (and shouldn't) return fire.
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Should we be careful what we wish for when the independence of judges is challenged?
Yes, we really should. And isn't it ironic how it never seems to be a two way street: When judges express even the mildest criticism of media reporting it's an unacceptable assault on press freedom etc.
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