Firewall

Finally watched the movie Firewall this weekend thanks to Netflix, and was rather disappointed that rather than a detailed history of the firewall in networking, it was a rather lame and by-the-books thriller starring Harrison Ford. The ending, to save you the bother of watching it, is a fight scene between Ford, playing a senior computer security specialist, and Paul Bettany, playing a ruthless kidnapper. And the geek wins. That's not very realistic.

However, what was worth watching was the DVD extras, in the form of an interview between the film's director and star. Someone has kindly put this up on youtube, with japanese subtitles.

Part one
Part two

It's fascinating viewing, not least because you get the impression that Ford holds Loncraine in complete disdain, and finds the whole experience incredibly irritating. Unless that's all part of their camaraderie. What do you think?

At first, I felt bad for a while

"...a This Morning item on kaftans was accompanied by Lily Allen song Smile, which features the lyric "...but you were fucking that girl next door"."

It's the kaftans that make it.

Tired of Mika Brzezinski

I don't know about you, but I'm just about fed up with the media's constant coverage of Mika Brzezinski. Who is this person, and why is news about her actions so important to my life? Sure, her family is important for something or other, but I don't see why I need to be constantly bombarded with information about her.

If she was a person of genuine import, then maybe it would be worth reporting on. But, as far as I can tell, she's not even a proper newsreader, but rather a comedy prop on an irreverent morning show that was created to fill the void created by Don Imus' departure. If she was a real news reporter then perhaps her actions would have had impact, but instead she's just an actor in a zoo format morning show where the entourage is presumably encouraged to act up. Would this be worth mentioning if Jon Stewart or Colbert had done the same thing?

"Get that shit off the air!"

I'm a big fan of any TV show that is so bad that it manages to get itself Cancelled After One Episode. But I was more interested to learn about a program that was cancelled during its first episode. Under the unpromising title of Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos which was so bad that the owner of the network called up the station production crew in the middle of the show and screamed 'Get That Shit off the Air'. And so they did.