Perhaps I Should Have Done Some Weeding This Summer

(September 25, 2017)

War, Comics, Commerce

(September 25, 2017)

“Literary” comics are sometimes more faddy than “genre” comics. Whenever there’s a comic that breaks through to the general public and becomes a hit, it seems like all the major publishers call all available agents and put in an order of whatever genre somebody else had a hit with. After Fun Home (by Alison Bechdel) … Continue reading War, Comics, Commerce

WFC Samoa: O le tulafale

(September 23, 2017)

I thought I had only physical films left, but here’s another Amazon video find. The other three remaining films are still stuck in the mail somewhere. Bordelinx seems to have possibly lost a bunch of my packages, and aren’t responsing to any queries. *sigh* I must admit that I found this film rather befuddling. There’s … Continue reading WFC Samoa: O le tulafale

WFC Greenland: Inuk

(September 22, 2017)

Gah! This DVD only has German subtitles. Two of them! Some of the dialogue is in Danish, though, and I can kinda sorta almost read German, so I decided to go for it anyway. I’m shocked at how much German I’m able to parse. Movies from Greenland have a tendency to focus on the more … Continue reading WFC Greenland: Inuk

WFC Andorra: Devil Kiss

(September 22, 2017)

There are apparently several films that are from Andorra (and not Spanish films with an Andorran co-production credit), but this is not one of them. Because they’re impossible to find. This is one of those 70s Spanish horror/sex films, probably made for the international market since it’s dubbed into English. I googled it, and apparently … Continue reading WFC Andorra: Devil Kiss

Wiping

(September 17, 2017)

I’m making an effort to tidy up the upstairs Storage Locker of Doom.  It’s been accruing stuff for a decade and is now officially full. Amongst the general effluvia is a succession of discarded storage solutions (i.e., external disks and RAID systems), and there’s nothing sadder than a 512GB USB2 disk from 2007.  So I’m … Continue reading Wiping

WFC Cyprus: μικρο εγκλημα

(September 15, 2017)

This is a lighthearted comedy about a junior policeman in a small village that just can’t get any respect, but starts investigating a mysterious death anyway. It’s fun! Good actors, beautiful scenery, and it’s inventive despite pursuing pretty well-known tropes. The many, many different ways he imagined that the death had taken place are very … Continue reading WFC Cyprus: μικρο εγκλημα

Responsive Comics

(September 13, 2017)

The other month I was staring at the Diamonds Previews interface that I hacked up last year. Its main purpose is to allow me (and anybody else) to go through the monthly listings rapidly, without all that clicking and stuff. I was wondering: Has CSS Flexbox technology progressed to the point where the interface could … Continue reading Responsive Comics

New Music

(September 11, 2017)

Music I’ve bought this month.

Bookshelf Porn

(September 10, 2017)

I enjoy those shelf porn posts that pop up from time to time (“Ooo! Books! Comics! Avarice!”) so I thought I’d do one, too, since I just got this fabulous bookcase and is just about finished sorting stuff out to put in it. But first I had to rip out the baseboard so that the … Continue reading Bookshelf Porn

WFC Uzbekistan: The Keeper

(September 9, 2017)

Uzbekistan looks very modern. I found this short on Youtube. Oy vey. I did like the fake “paused” shots, so: The Keeper. Otabek Djuraev. 2013. Uzbekistan. Grape + Sage Holiday Kompot Cocktail 12 parts red grapes 4 parts water 2 parts sage leaves 1 part honey champagne Cut the grapes and sage leaves. Put the … Continue reading WFC Uzbekistan: The Keeper

WFC Western Sahara: Life is Waiting: Referendum and Resistance in Western Sahara

(September 9, 2017)

I found this documentary on Amazon Prime. It’s a very… modern… documentary. That is, a typical cut lasts for about a second, and it’s filmed with very shaky shakycam, and the soundtrack is cacophonous. Get off my lawn! But it manages to convey a lot (a lot!) of information about Western Sahara, a country that … Continue reading WFC Western Sahara: Life is Waiting: Referendum and Resistance in Western Sahara

WFC Tanzania: People of the Forest

(September 9, 2017)

This is a film about chimpanzees in Tanzania. (Which I’ve learned has the stress on the middle “a” from watching other films from around this area in Africa. Tanzaaania.) It’s one of those very old-fashioned ones where you have a narrator that explains what all the animals are thinking and feeling, and there’s a narrative … Continue reading WFC Tanzania: People of the Forest

WFC Tuvalu: ThuleTuvalu

(September 9, 2017)

This Amazon Prime find is made by a Swiss director, but it’s about Greenland and Tuvalu, juxtaposing the effect of climate change on the two places. It’s a very good good documentary, managing to tell most of the story through the voices of the affected people. No talking heads constantly intercutting the footage with serious … Continue reading WFC Tuvalu: ThuleTuvalu

WFC Benin: Africa Paradis

(September 8, 2017)

“avec toi” I found this sci-fi film on Youtube. It didn’t have English subtitles, but I noticed that Youtube now provides “auto-captioning” for select films. In addition, they also have machine translations of these captions, so I went for it. I think the conclusion, after rolling on the floor, laughing, for an hour and a … Continue reading WFC Benin: Africa Paradis

WFC Saint Kitts and Nevis: New Year Parade Day St. Kitts SugarMas 2016

(September 8, 2017)

This is a… documentary… on Youtube… OK, I’m so ashamed of myself! This is a random clip from Youtube! There’s supposed to be one single real film from St. Kitts and or Nevis, but it’s nowhere to be found on the interwebs! Or Amazon! Or Netflix! Or anywhere! Anyway, looks like they had fun. All … Continue reading WFC Saint Kitts and Nevis: New Year Parade Day St. Kitts SugarMas 2016

WFC Djibouti: Men in the Arena

(September 8, 2017)

Was this what 45 was thinking of? Yes! Djibouti! This is more of an American/Somali film than a Djibouti (that’s a word), but there is some Djiboutian (that’s a word) interest… because of the… football… It’s about a football team. I mean, I’m not the right person to say whether a football documentary is a … Continue reading WFC Djibouti: Men in the Arena

WFC Turkmenistan: Alexander’s Lost World

(September 8, 2017)

This is an Australian documentary that can be found on Youtube, but it’s kinda sorta from Turkmenistan. Finding genuine Turkmen films proved rather challenging. As documentaries go, it’s… OK. It’s nice and HD, so plenty of vistaey vistas. There’s a lot of speculation based on how things “must” have been, and isn’t very convincing, really. … Continue reading WFC Turkmenistan: Alexander’s Lost World

WFC Mauritius: La rencontre

(September 4, 2017)

This is a stylishly shot but rather trivial short about … I guess, insanity and drugs (tl;ds: Don’t Do Drugs). It’s kinda fun, although it goes out of its way to explain all the mysteries it sets up in way too much detail. And it’s not on Youtube, but on Viddsee (sic), which sounds totally … Continue reading WFC Mauritius: La rencontre

Editing Movie Posters From Emacs

(September 3, 2017)

I was waiting for some people to drop by yesterday to pick up a sofa, and I started thinking about how nice it would be to pull down movie posters automatically and perhaps put some text or border or something on them. Instead of sensibly looking for an API for this kind of stuff, I … Continue reading Editing Movie Posters From Emacs

WFC Bahamas: Not | Gay

(September 2, 2017)

This is an anthology film, and only one of the four shorts included are from Bahamas. They’re all kinda interesting and quirky. The Bahamian (that’s definitely a word) one is perhaps the quirkiest one: It’s about a guy with an OCD cleaning obsession. It is, unfortunately, the most indifferently filmed one. Hm… I guess I’ll … Continue reading WFC Bahamas: Not | Gay

WFC Gambia: The Exchange: Six Faces of the Gambia

(September 2, 2017)

This documentary can be found on Youtube. I mean imdb(!?). It explicitly says at the beginning that it’s not going to focus on poverty, but is going to show us some interesting people from the Gambia who are doing interesting stuff. And then it does. It’s not very exciting as a film: The cinematography and … Continue reading WFC Gambia: The Exchange: Six Faces of the Gambia

WFC Dominica: Nom Tèw

(September 2, 2017)

This short can be found on Youtube. It’s about a guy who lives in the forest, and we follow him around while he’s gathering food and making food and gathering more food. I quite enjoyed this at the start, but then it started getting a bit fetishistic… Especially the somewhat unmotivated switched between normal speed … Continue reading WFC Dominica: Nom Tèw

WFC Palau: Micronesia: Palau District

(September 2, 2017)

This documentary short can be found on Youtube. It’s a very straightforward film: There’s a narrator who explains everything we’re seeing. Very 50s. Or 60s? But it’s likeable. It includes many scenes of everyday life; people fishing and sowing and just being people, which is enjoyable to watch. And this films marks the halfway point … Continue reading WFC Palau: Micronesia: Palau District

WFC Timor-Leste: A Guerra da Beatriz

(September 1, 2017)

I found this film on Youtube, and it’s kinda very very artifacty. This film tells the story about East Timor’s struggle for liberation (from the Indonesians, synchronicitily (that’s a word) enough) through the eyes of the titular Beatriz. The actors who play the central characters are pretty good, but there’s a lot of stiff acting … Continue reading WFC Timor-Leste: A Guerra da Beatriz

WFC Maldives: Rhymes With Shove

(September 1, 2017)

Sometimes this blog series is so frustrating. There’s a lot of proper films made in the Maldives (for a country of its size), but none of these are available anywhere and/or subtitled in English. So I’m left with this short which can be found on Youtube. “You listen to way too much Neil Young. And … Continue reading WFC Maldives: Rhymes With Shove

WFC Indonesia: Headshot

(September 1, 2017)

Ultraviolence! Kung fu! Amnesia! Drugs! More ultraviolence! They must have had a massive ketchup budget. This is an accomplished and interesting action movie. Nice actors, too. But it somehow lost me after a while and I started thinking about other things. Like looking up Indonesia on the map. Man, that’s a lot of islands. If … Continue reading WFC Indonesia: Headshot