Ians Ramblings Ian's ramblings, daily, ish

WordPress FTP Logindaten falsch

Just incase you are getting this error message when submitting a post and get confused by the drama queens such as http://wordpress.org/support/topic/352761 you should just check your recently installed plugins.

In my case it was the "Really static" plugin which basically writes your postings out as flat HTML. It is a fairly dirty little plugin, but a great idea, it may be fine once it is totally set up, basically just don't have it activated unless you have it all set up correctly.

Raising Victor Vargas

I know this posting is effectively out of date at the time of writing, but I only just discovered this exceptional film.

If you have't already seen it, it is basically a 'slice of life' drama / romance based in the lower east side of Manhattan in New York City against the backdrop of the Hispanic community and the glowing orange sun of summer.

Raising Victor Vargas

Incredibly intriguing and captivating, I found it impossible to turn away once I began to watch. I am usually one of the harshest critic0,s but to me this film was just brilliant, strange as this may sound I could almost smell the air and feel the textures of the locations.

From a cinematographic I thought there was great use of light and texture. From the orange glow of the summer light, down to the plastic wrapped couch all had a distinct air of realism to me.

From a character perspective I thought the notion of Victor Vargas as almost the glue that connects the story was quite inspired, each of the other members of the family having a more complete background simply caused greater intrigue in the main character himself.

Beyond that, having known someone just like the grandmother and having been on the receiving end of just such a situation, I can say the situation felt particularly realistic. The awkwardness, the accent, the cooking and even down to the comments made felt so authentic to me.

I think this film worked for me because I began to watch it with no expectations and found it completely immersing and brought back memories of teenage emotion, well worth a watch.

Ian’s Short Film Roundup

Another little posting about films, in advance I do realise I am a very harsh critic on films and have no actual knowledge about films but here goes anyway

I watched both "Drag me to hell" and "Layer Cake" this weekend. Starting with Layer Cake I thought over-all it was great, totally believable performance from Daniel Craig and better in terms of the smoothness of the stories twists and turns and complexity than both 'Lock Stock' and 'Snatch'.

Layer Cake

The only thing that bothered me after a while is that it seemed to basically be the exact same story as Carlito's Way, even with the appearance of a Benny Blanco style character who eventually even goes on to carry out the exact same final role.

As for "Drag me to hell" well its yet another gross out waste of film really. It's tedious in parts and overly vile in others, with poor acting throughout particularly the performances of Alison Lohman and David Paymer and carried barely by the performances of Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao and Justin Long.

Drag me to hell

I think the only reason it isn't languishing in the 5 star region on IMDB is because it is an attempted return to 70s / 80s style horror. I should also say at certain points it's cringingly grinding and slow and obvious actually prompting me to want to fast forward through the bits I had already out-thought to get to the next bit of mild interest, particularly the dinner scene and the scene where the button is dropped in the car.

Ah well at least one out of two is not too bad really. At least I got the chance to chill out today while it snowed heavily outside watching "Three men in another boat" far more civilised and amusing and relaxing.