Editing Movie Posters From Emacs

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 wondered whether I could just quickly alter the imbd.el library, since it already had some imdb parsing functionality, and I have all films tagged with imdb IDs.

The short answer is “no, that can’t be done without insane hacks”, and the longer answer is, “I did it anyway”.

The imdb website uses a Javascript thing to display a “carousel” of images, and parsing Javascript with regexps and stuff isn’t something that can be recommended.

But it works right now, and will probably break when imdb does the smallest possible change to their code, but hey, whatevs.

To alter the images (as an example, I’ve added that red border with the wrong date up there). I wrote a teensy little library that just creates an SVG image, plonks the poster JPG into the SVG and then adds the border and text.  Composing images like this via SVG in Emacs is incredibly easy, especially since you can “live edit” the images by altering the SVG programmatically.

And then the couch people finally arrived.

WFC Bahamas: Not | Gay

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 throw the die based on all the films on this DVD; not just the Bahamian one.

Not Gay. Jean-Baptiste Erreca/Kareem Mortimer/Scott Boswell/Tony Wei. 2008. Bahamas.

FroCo

  • 1 part lemon juice
  • 6 parts coconut water
  • 3 parts dark rum
  • brown sugar cubes

Muddle sugar cubes with lemon juice in a shaker. Add the other ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into an ice-filled glass. Garnish with a lemon slice and some shredded coconut.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.

WFC Gambia: The Exchange: Six Faces of the Gambia

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 editing is very workmanlike, but it’s still kinda interesting.

The Exchange: Six Faces of the Gambia. Mathew Welsh. 2009. Gambia.

Wonjo Cocktail

  • hibiscus flowers
  • sugar
  • whiskey

Make sweetened hibiscus tea and allow to cool. Shake tea and whiskey with ice and strain into an ice-filled glass.

This may not be a genuine Gambian recipe: I found it on a discussion page where they were talking about hibiscus drinks from all over the world. But the hibiscus thing should definitely be Gambian.

It’s really tasty. I’ve done a lot of hibiscus-based drinks from Africa, but this may be the both easiest and smoothest one.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.

WFC Dominica: Nom Tèw

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 and half speed.

Man of the Soil. Pierre Deschamps . 2009. Dominica.

Dominica

Rosalie Bay Resort’s Bell Coconut Cocktail

  • 2 parts coconut rum
  • 4 parts coconut water
  • 2 parts coconut cream
  • nutmeg

Blend the liquids with ice in a blender. Pour into a cocktail glass and grate nutmeg over.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.

WFC Palau: Micronesia: Palau District

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 in this blog series!

Just kidding.

There’s now less than 10% left. So few cocktails left; so many liqueurs in the cabinet.

A Paluan Documentary. Gary Schlosser. 1950s?. Palau.

Luau Coconut

  • 1 part simple syrup
  • 1 part light rum
  • 1 part dark rum
  • 1 part canned unsweetened coconut milk
  • 2 parts fresh coconut water
  • a dash of lime juice

Shake with ice. Pour into a glass (without straining) and garnish with a lime slice and a maraschino cherry.

This isn’t really from Palau, but it from… that… area. OK, so I cheated! Palauans: Put more cocktail recipes on the net.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.