Year: 2004

Palme D’Or for Fahrenheit 9/11

Michael Moore

Disclaimer: It’s all over the news, but I’ll repeat it so that I have a handy link to come back later on. :)

Filmmaker and writer Michael Moore, mostly known for his documentary “Bowling for Colombine“, has received a Palme D’Or award – one of the highest filmmaking awards, at 57th Cannes Film Festival for his new documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11“. This new film is strogly anti-Bush. In fact, it is so strong that it was censored and forbidden for distribution in USA.

Here are few links on the subject:

Slashdot announcement with lots of comments and links to other resources
Michael Moore’s web site
Anti Michael Moore’s web site
Anti anti Michael Moore’s web site…oops. Just an article

My position on this issue: I’ve seen “Bowling for Colombine” several times, I liked it a lot, and I will buy the DVD one day. It made me want to see Moore’s other films and read his books, but I haven’t got a chance to do so yet. I am eagerly awating “Fahrenheit 9/11” to come to a screen/TV/display near me. :)

Programmers’ talk

There is an interesting discussion at Perlmonks about how programmers pronounce their code. There are links to other nodes. Aparently, some people do even use the chess notation.

I myself cannot think of anything special about my pronounce of code symbols except for using “star” for “asterisk” (*).

Political Compass

My political compass Here is a site that provides a survey which can help you to find out your political preferences. Politics is not by any means my strong side, so I was rather interested to see who am I (or rather who they think I am).

There are 6 parts to the survey with questions on subjects varying from sex and religion to politics and economy. Overall it is quick and easy to follow with a couple of words to look up in the dictionary. :)

My results are – slightly more left, then right (Economic Left/Right: -0.75) and a lot more libertarian then authoritarian (Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.87). Explantions are available from the site. They also show survey results for some public figures (those figures didn’t take the survey, but were analyzed based on their words and actions). There is also a list of suggested reading by those who have similar ideas to yours or by those who have contrasting ideas to yours.

Blues Brothers 2000

They were showing the “Blues Brothers 2000” on TV today. I’ve tuned in a bit late, but I’ve seen this movie before in the cinema.

It’s a really nice action comedy with a lot of music in. It has this ol’times rock-n-roll atmosphere to it, but I guess it’s the same thing with all good music – from jazz to punk rock. :)

One special thing which sets this movie from all the rest is the combination of hippy kind musicians doing lots of driving. There are plenty of cars, car crashes, car chases, and car tricks in this movie with the best one being car parking.

This is one good movie to watch once in a while and it is also surely worth having in the home DVD collection.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

For the fifth time or so we’ve watched “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” today on DVD at Hazard’s place. This is an absolute classic and a must see for everyone. I bet it will be funny watching it for the millionth time too. :)

My favourite places are the arguing with French soldiers in the castle (“…you English pig-dogs…”), giving instructions to the guards (“…do not let anyone leave this room…”), and the song about the brave Sir Robin (“…and he is not afraid to die in many naughty ways…”). These are thought just slightly ahead of many others. Great movie! :)