VanRamblings will be taking a well-deserved break (at least, we think so) from posting regular features, news of the world, and such, to attend the glorious, magnificent, awe-inspiring, musically transcendent, and just generally joyful and peaceful 27th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival.
Upon entering the grounds, adjacent to Jericho Beach (this is the view at sunset), we’ll locate a space in front of the main stage and await the arrival of the performers, including tonight: the Warsaw Village Band, Janis Ian, and renowned Québec cellist Jorane, among a host of others.
Posting will be sporadic on VanRamblings over the Folk Festival weekend, but will return with regular features on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!
Summer DVD: Sex, Death, Fighting and Really Cool Gadgets
All and all, a sterling week for new DVDs at your favourite ‘video’ store.
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We begin this week with one of the least seen but most ambitious and exciting movies of the year. Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers understands the power of sex and film to set off evocative fantasy, incite danger and transform the spirit. Affecting, twisted, and seriously erotic, the film — set in the incendiary, revolutionary Paris of spring 1968 — tells the story of three cinephiles who shut the door of their Paris apartment and barely leave it, creating an emotional and sexual psychodrama as the world outside beckons, threatens and influences their interaction. A passionate tribute to the cinema’s contribution to the great 60s cultural fusion, as well as a melancholy reminder of just how far it’s fallen from that heady era of its highest idealism, The Dreamers is VanRamblings’ DVD ‘pick of the week’.
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Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscar ceremony, Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions is, all at once, heartfelt, elegiac, surprising and pungently funny. A follow-up to Arcand’s triumphant 1986 groundbreaker, The Decline of the American Empire, the new film takes us inside a sombre reunion of friends and family around the hospital bed of an unapologetic and dying philanderer (Rémy Girard), as it transforms into a moving exploration of what it means to live and to die. The rapprochement between Rémy and his estranged daughter (who we see only on video) is the single most moving cinematic sequence I’ve seen on film this year, in a DVD that is, otherwise, occasionally uneven in tone — although always sharp-witted, engaging and marvelously humane.
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If both of the DVDs above fall into the category of ‘good for you’ (and they are good, whatever the case), then the trashy delights of Against The Ropes can only be seen as guilty pleasure material, barely better than TV fare but, heck, the movie stars the always engaging Meg Ryan (here playing a feisty fight promoter), the woefully underutilized Omar Epps and Charles S. Dutton, who also directs this flim-flam fairy tale. Still and all, bathos and formulaic script aside, this character driven movie connects from time to time — which is a great deal more than you can say about many films — and, as such, against your better judgement, you’ll probably end up enjoying this story.
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And for the tweens this week, Frankie Muniz is back as a junior James Bond in Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London , a kid-flick trifle that thanks to an engaging, if relatively unknown cast, lots of cool gadgets, and everything a 6-year-old spy would hope to find in a kiddie-espionage flick (with just a twinge of romance), ought to engage its intended audience.
CTV Fall 2004 Television Schedule: Fewer Repeats, Big Deal
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Welcome to Week Two of the Canadian fall television schedule. Last Wednesday, VanRamblings presented the CBC fall TV schedule.
This week, it’s CTV’s turn.
Promising fewer ‘repeats’ for the coming 2004-2005 television schedule, Bell Globemedia’s CTV network says – just like Fox TV in the U.S. – it will offer new, original programming 52 weeks of the year, not just this fall.
“More titles, less repeats,” pledges Susanne Boyce, CTV programming president. “Canadians have long demonstrated to us that if we build it, they will come.” CTV also laid claim to being No. 1 in Canadian prime time and vowed to further widen the gap between itself and its main competitors, Global (by far the worst website for any Canadian TV network), CHUM (Vancouver’s Citytv website, cuz the parent site is godawful) and the CBC.
Among the programme choices this autumn and winter are new additions to the import crime drama franchises, CSI and Law & Order; Rob Lowe’s new series, Dr. Vegas; and the much-praised sex-and-the-suburbs prime-time soap, Desperate Housewives. In the reality department there’s the British import Wife Swap; as well as The Benefactor, a $1 million giveaway programme, based on the 1950s anthology series, The Millionaire.
CTV also announced its fall daytime lineup, including the Vancouver produced Vicky Gabereau, long thought to be on the chopping block.
Recurring dramas and sitcoms include The Eleventh Hour, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Corner Gas, as well the HBO import The Sopranos, CSI and CSI Miami (plus the new CSI: New York with Gary Sinise), The O.C., According to Jim, The West Wing, ER, Third Watch, Cold Case,Joan of Arcadia and American Idol (and Canadian Idol, of course).
New For Fall Prime-Time
Some of the new prime-time series that CTV’s unveiled:
- CSI: NY: Gary Sinise and Melina Kanakaredes star in this second spinoff of the ‘crime scene investigation’ franchise.
- Dr. Vegas: Rob Lowe is the in-house doc at a high-end Vegas casino. Co-stars Joe Pantoliano.
- Desperate Housewives: Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Teri Hatcher star in this take on modern marriage.
- The Benefactor: Billionaire businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wants to give away US$1 million to a complete stranger.
- Wife Swap: Two families get a chance to witness what it’s like to live someone else’s life as their matriarchs trade places for 10 days.
- Instant Star: Can contest winner and feisty SK8RGRL Jude Harrison, 15, cope in this new glam world?
- Robson Arms: This anthology series about the denizens of a Vancouver apartment building is finally in production.
- Athens: O.C. creator Josh Schwarz turns his attentionto the intertwined lives and loves of the fictional New England community of Athens.
- Commando Nanny: Likely to be one of the first series to be cancelled this fall, this comedy, based on Mark Burnett’s experiences as an ex-army commando who gets a job as a nanny in Beverly Hills, stars Gerald McRaney.
- Law and Order: Trial By Jury: Mid-season replacement. Another entry in producer Dick Wolf’s Law and Order crime drama franchise, this time focusing on the courtroom, à la Perry Mason.
- Kevin Hill: Taye Diggs stars in drama about a bachelor entertainment lawyer in New York City.
- Medium: Mid-season replacement. Allison (Patricia Arquette) sees dead people and hears them constantly, too. She soon finds her ‘gift’ can change destinies and provide justice for those who no longer have a voice. Executive-produced by Glenn Gordon Caron (Moonlighting) and Frasier’s Kelsey Grammar.
Here’s a list of all CTV shows, A-Z.
For the major U.S. networks fall television schedules, click on the following direct VanRamblings’ links: ABC, NBC, the WB, Fox, and CBS.
Tech Tuesday: Windows XP’s New Update Facility, and More …
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For several months now, VanRamblings has been writing about the imminent release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Window Media Player required). Now, we can report officially — thanks to a tip from Michael — that Microsoft has confirmed Windows XP SP2 will arrive in August. Arguably, Microsoft’s biggest service pack yet, and the company’s most important security project since the Trustworthy Computing initiative, there are those who feel SP 2 will cause chaos in the computing world.
Scot Finnie explores the positives and pitfalls associated with XP 2.
All things said, Windows XP Service Pack 2 is a mandatory download, and as such it is important that you know as much about SP 2 as possible in order that you might avoid, as far as one can plan for these things, problems related to its release. With this in mind, have a look at the next item, and the accompanying article by Fred Langa. VanRamblings particularly appreciates the pop-up graphics that accompany the article below, which provide visual insight into the new Windows Update facility.
The Promise — And Problems — Of The New Windows Update
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A new version of Windows Update is about to début. It first appeared as part of the beta pre-release versions of Windows Service Pack 2 for XP. The new Update process (comprising both the new Windows Update site and a new software applet, titled Windows Security Center) has different defaults and behaves differently from the Update you’re probably used to.
Next month, the final form of this software will be offered to you as a normal Windows Update for XP and Windows 2000. You might want to take a look at the preview, in Fred Langa’s expansive Information Week article, for the full story. Not only does Fred provide the information you’ll need to adjust to the new Windows Update facility, he provides graphical pop-up screens, which take you through the new update process.
Test Your Popup Blocker
Auditmypc.com has released a page that will hammer your browser with every conceivable method of popup window and rate your popup-blocking software. On VanRamblings’ PC, Internet Explorer’s Google Toolbar received a Very Good rating with a score of 85, while the default popup settings in VanRamblings’ Mozilla received an Almost Perfect! rating with a score of 95. This is a good tool if you want to test the efficacy of your blocker, or gain insight into the methods used by popup companies.
In Tech News This Week
Associated Press writer Sam Cage reports that the United Nations is aiming to bring the modern day epidemic of junk mail (spam) to an end. Spam and anti-spam protection cost computer users some $25 billion last year, according to the UN, so they’re organizing a global anti-spam campaign.
Despite privacy concerns, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school, which is to say, that they’ll be attaching RFID chips to kids’ schoolbags, name tags or clothing in one Wakayama prefecture school. Denmark’s Legoland introduced a similar scheme last month to stop young children going astray.
Question of the Week
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I had to reformat my hard drive, and I cannot find a code for Microsoft Word 2000. I have documentation for only Dell software and Windows XP. The Windows XP product key was located on a tag on the bottom of my Dell, but it doesn’t work for MS Word 2000. What do I do in order to install my Word 2000? Any help would be greatly appreciated. — Submitted by: Bob Whitecrow, Estevan, Saskatchewan
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Software keys are much like keys to a car: a car key will work in only one particular car, so it can’t be shared. The same can be said for a software key. Dell should supply them with a phone call, but also beware that you can’t install Dell’s Office 2000 software on a machine other than what Dell sold you. Supplied Dell software is proprietary.
For most computer users a good rule of thumb would be: when you first receive your PC and all of the attendant software, take a wide-tip permanent marking pen, and write the product key for each piece of software you’ve had installed, right onto the software programme CD. Once this task has been completed, take extra special care to store all of the CDs you received with your PC in a secure location, preferably in one of those pocket CD organizers, available at most retail computer stores.
You know the old saying, “an ounce of prevention, is worth a … ”