Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet - Bill Schneier's blog is a constant source of important material to think about - one of the best additions to my RSS feeds ever... Rating: 5 of 5
Mud (2013) - Love and death in the south, I enjoyed the gritty realism of some of the places and scenes and the story surprised me a little, but somehow wanted a little 'more' than a violent action showdown at the end... Rating: 3 of 5
Black Cat, White Cat (1998) - This has good ratings and I was looking forward to it, but I just utterly failed to get into the movie at all! Rating: 1 of 5
Reprise (2008) - An artfully told story of two friends with some originality to the presentation, perhaps a bit bleak at times (not a fun/happy mood film for sure), but quite interesting. Rating: 4 of 5
The Silence (2010) - A good mystery with a interesting set of characters, and an uncomfortably real ending without a lot of satisfaction. Rating: 3 of 5
Spirit of the Marathon (2007) - Alison and I had watched this years ago, it seemed more impressive the first time - these days we are so much more aware of the ultra-distance trail races that the marathon just doesn't seem like the same gold standard of human endurance this film portrays (music is a bit over the top too...). Rating: 2 of 5
Elysium (2013) - After the rather incredible District 9 I was hoping for a great film from Neill Blomkamp - this is far from the worst science fiction movie I have ever seen and there are some cool looking scenes and effects, but overall this felt much more like just a standard Hollywood action film. Rating: 2 of 5
Point Blank (2010) - Slightly fascinating long chase/action scenes, not the worst action movie ever and it avoids becoming a terrible cheesy Hollywood action movie but... Rating: 2 of 5
Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, Book 3) by Dan Simmons - I really loved the two books before Endymion - Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion - so I was excited to read the next book. But I just couldn't finish it - after reading about the characters jumping thru I'm not sure how many worlds I just couldn't take the thought of yet another - I kept thinking I would pick this book back up again but maybe not... Rating: 2 of 5 (pretty personal rating here - certainly the first two books are genius)
Winners of the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest 2013 - Towards the end of the month I realized there had been very few images from the month that were stuck in my head - and then I found this amazing article that shows the Winners of the 2013 Red Bull Illume Photo Contest (note that I linked The Atlantic article because the presentation of the photos was better than I found on the contest website). Lots of incredible shots! Fascinated that this is produced by Red Bull - not the first time I have found myself linking to something they fund/sponsor/produce. Rating: 4 of 5
Tom Ormand - There are some great images here that captured my imagination - many of these remind me of really great science fiction. Rating: 4 of 5
Published elsewhere this month:
cmiles-outside - I did quite a bit of work in the first half of the month continuing to tweak formats, add pictures, work on descriptions, add links and create new pages! Excited about this, hoping to make some more good changes before the end of the year!
Salomon Sense Mantra - Summit Hut YouTube Channel - Not really taking a deep dive into the world of video, but doing the filming/editing/presentation for these short/simple clips is a learning experience - fun!
CM