Issue 20 / November 2009 / Warez-bb.org
STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD Special Interview with the admin team
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Ten must have browser addons for Mozilla Firefox A World of Words 500 Days of Summer
G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra Nov 2009 Issue 20
www.magazine.warez-bb.org
Inglourious Basterds
The Scene
CONTENTS ISSUE 20 | NOVEMBER 2009
General
04. Administrator Interview 11. The Warez-BB Development Team 14. A World of Words Part 4 16. The Life of a Pirate 18. Piracy 19. Splash Zones 20. The Path, the Windowsill and You 21. Under the Sky... 22. Food Crisis 23. Flying Thoughts
Movies & Music 24. Fall Movie Preview 33. 9 Review 34. (500) Days of Summer Review 36. Inglourious Basterds Review 38. District 9 Review 40. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Review 43. Gig Reviews
Tech
44. It’s Only Rock N’ Roll 46. Ten Must Have Browser Addons for Mozilla Firefox
2 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
Contents
The Scene
EDITORIAL ISSUE 20 | NOVEMBER 2009
Editor ENIGMA Co-Editor .:Nvidia:. Writers Team Leader Waltereegho Artists Team Leader KieronDSFX Proofreaders Team Leader Daniel.Blaze Writers Team Assistant Shifty Dramamine feenzie Artists Team Assistant Leroy44 Labonova Proofreaders Team Assistant Yawn. Writers spiderman120988 3NT3RCLYRO kartnite Net-mate Sp33|)|)3v!lX Artists Herinjo Soumyadeep surferdud3 RED.PANTHER grafreak MrTambourineMan Quality Assurance Team Snow.Flake MX1CAN Agent Of Chaos Sammyy .Speirs Euphorix Tokkie Magazine Team Compiler Yawn. Cover Design KieronDSFX
Editorial
Hello everybody, We’re happy to announce the 2nd anniversary release of theSCENE magazine. A big thanks and cheers goes to all leaders, writers, artists and proofreaders for organizing and successfully completing this milestone issue - I am honored to receive my teammates relentless support and loyalty for every success our team has achieved. This issue features a range of interesting topics about piracy, warez and an insight about our developers team. Also included are admin interviews. You’ll also see the usual range of movie and music reviews and tech topics in this issue. We believe that this edition of theSCENE has content for everyone. Here’s hoping to yet another anniversary release. Enjoy folks, ENIGMA
WAREZ-BB.ORG \ theSCENE \ 3
Admin interview Warez-BB.org theSCENE, Issue 20 Year: 2009 Reporters: waltereegho & Yawn Layout by waltereegho
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Administrator interview
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adies and gentlemen, welcome. For this issue of theSCENE, we took the elevator to the highest level in our Warez-BB headquarters: the Admin room. We got out of the lift just in time to see PC and ENIGMA give Coolyou a wedgie in the hallway. PC was wearing his favorite pink shirt and purple tie, ENIGMA was dressed as a circus clown and Coolyou was still in his pajamas, or what was left of them. Thrill was nowhere to be seen. Amused, we watched the spectacle, when suddenly PC uttered a high-pitched scream and ran off, in his left hand something that looked like a spatula. ENIGMA and Coolyou stared at each other for a second, then Coolyou whispered shocked: “The pancakes!”. In a split second, Coolyou and ENIGMA jumped up and ran off in the same direction as PC, Coolyou holding his pajama pants up with his hands. “PEECEEEEE, Waaaiiittt for uuuuus!”, ENIGMA’s panicking scream echoed on the walls. We quickly packed our gear and followed them. They didn’t seem to have noticed us at all. When we entered the kitchen (where we found our admins, munching pancakes with an intensely satisfied look on their faces), PC jumped up, stared at us for a second and them mumbled “Dear croissant, I forgot about the interview”. “You spilled the syrup”, Coolyou whined. 30 minutes later. We’re sitting on a comfortable couch in a very modern looking room. Coolyou and ENIGMA have taken the chairs opposite to us. Both are wearing a black tuxedo, though Coolyou is wearing his inside out. “Look at you”, complains PC, who just entered the room. “That is what you get for being hasty”. He quickly strokes over his perfectly combed hair, adjusts his purple tie and wipes an imaginary speck of dust from his left shoulder. “Shall we begin?”
First of all, thank you for participating in this interview. We don’t get a chance like this every day since you admins are busy people. Now, let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way. Who are you? Coolyou: My alias is Coolyou. My role here is to run the backend of our community. This means running updates on software (eg. lighttpd, MySQL, etc.) and on other bells and whistles that keep things churning. PC: My board’s nickname is PC, I am the administrator in charge of the financial, legal and structural aspects of the community. In other words, I am handling all the money matters and issues related to our legitimacy. I am also managing the structures of the board, which are the sections, rules, groups and external activities organized around the Warez-BB.org identity. ENIGMA: I’m ENIGMA from Warez-
BB. I’m part of the site’s four member admin team and the editor of theSCENE magazine. I manage the mod team, examine people and forum needs to perform scalable script design, development and integration to improve overall quality of service and user experience. When and how did you become an admin, and how did you end up on Warez-BB in the first place? Coolyou: I was once a normal member. Back in the good old days, we had a system to automatically upgrade members to VIP when we reached 500 posts; however I left before the automatic system promoted me and only to come back months later to realize I had become a part of that special group of people. I was very happy at the time and thanked everyone for it. Soon I was promoted to a Moderator and after that a Super Mod. My promotion to Admin status was because a Russian guy named ReVan hacked into WBB. The site was in a bad shape and our scripter CC
was not available to fix the situation so I stepped up to the plate to recover things. It was from that day onwards that I spent my days working on the backend. PC: Just like any active member I started at Warez-BB to share things I believe were worth being shared, giving feedback to other sharers as well as starting posting around the general sections. Then an administrator in charge of the staff management at that period, HOT TUNA, noticed my management and leadership skills as well as my strong but productive personality and got me in the team after drawing my portrait to other staff members. For a few weeks I focused on the VIP & Donators section which I gave some pulse by moderating and injecting some ideas into its organization, later followed by an amazing community effort from some moderators (especially twncam & BioDuo) and a couple of VIPs at that time (Mandrake, G-boy, Twist, etc.). When this task had been successfully complet-
ed, I decided to give Warez-BB some more amplitude by setting up an IRC channel and an online radio with various community partners such as JiMBO and Parasite. A few months later, at a time where our donations got closed and our first legal issues raised, Coolyou appointed me administrator in order to handle the financial and legal aspect of the community. As soon as I got appointed I developed an advertising scheme to cover our infrastructural costs. I also developed a network of legal advisers to publish our official terms of service & privacy policy and draw our legal boundaries. Months after months I got more and more involved into the inner structures of the community: the forum rules, the sections, the groups (Development Team creation) etc. Nowadays my work consists of handling the finances of the board, managing our legal procedures, drawing our “perspective schemes” toward community and board development; also called “development trends”. I have also a growing responsibility of public relations officer. ENIGMA: A friend recommended Warez-BB. I registered to grab some elearning content that I needed. A few months after I registered , I started being active and participated a bit at helpdesk and quickly joined one of the most sophisticated teams in Warez-BB – The press team. Later, I joined the developers team and helped with team projects and also designed System Requirement Specifications for team projects. Concomitantly, I received the first JOTM, was soon made Editor of the magazine, promoted as a moderator, became a member of WarezBB IRC network admin team and managed multiple simultaneous roles. I have been the Editor of theSCENE magazine for a little over one and a half years. I helped press team make a change to InDesign technology and created the workflow that is used for the production of our online magazine – the endeavors were realized through support from chicodelperreo, Daniel.Blaze and Dark Elite at that time. This improved overall magazine quality and reduced deployment size. This made content more accessible to our membership and instantly tripled our magazine’s reach. At present, the magazine team has had one of the most stable,
self-sustaining structures in Warez-BB and is largely supported by skilled team leaders and assistants whose indispensable assistance makes the magazine release possible. As a moderator, I helped my team tackle challenges including personal digital security, forum security and helped create a framework for tackling malicious content and hacked user accounts in our forums. As the forum grew, I received an opportunity from coolyou to plan and code features into our forum, to make site management and moderation tasks easier. When HOT TUNA parted the admin team, I was invited and appointed as admin by the joint support of Coolyou , PC, Thrill and requested to perform script development and team management activities. I’m glad that I have had the chance to work with teammates who were more talented and intelligent. I’m glad that I found several friends in Warez-BB, helped people when I could and played a little part in Warez-BB development – Every success was possible only through a lot of teamwork, support of many talented friends and passive/direct learning through other teams/teammates. “I’m glad that I found several friends in Warez-BB, helped people when I could and played a little part in Warez-BB development” I received the first JOTM, was made Editor of the magazine, promoted as moderator and became a member of the WarezBB IRC network admin team. I’m glad that I have had the chance to work with teammates who were more talented and intelligent. I’m glad that I found several friends in Warez-BB, helped people when I could and played a little part in WarezBB development – Every success was possible only through a lot of teamwork, support of many talented friends and passive/direct learning through other teams/ teammates. What is your motivation? Why did you accept such a responsibility, and what keeps you going? Coolyou: I have always loved our site and I am always honored to serve this responsibility.
PC: It will undeniably sound odd to put it that way, but my main motivation is the community spirit that had been drafted out by the original operators of the board and that has been kept alive by their successors including myself. I also have a long experience in the “warez scene” and I have always appreciated the way WarezBB shows itself as a more intellectual, legitimate and cultural face of the often deprived “warez” community. I have also to confess that Warez-BB gives me a valuable source of contacts for any purpose, personal or professional, as any community member is able to enjoy it to his or her own scale. ENIGMA: It’s not easy to find a position where you have a chance to help people, make new friends, put a smile on somebody’s face, gain knowledge, experience and be happy every instance you do something good. I believe that my role provides this opportunity and is more satisfying than most jobs that I’m aware of. There are currently four admins, each with very different talents and a very different character. How do you share the workload? What are your responsibilities as an admin? Coolyou: Currently, our 4 Admins share different and sometimes the same responsibilities. My main responsibility is to manage the servers and scripts in the backend. This means applying updates to the servers when they come out so I must monitor sites for these releases. This also means making everything run as efficiently as possible and as automated as possible. We have a lot of scripts that are custom made to make sure everything plays nice. An example is making sure avatars are always in sync between the main and image servers. ENIGMA: We all have our special skills, but we also understand overall responsibilities and are supported by a talented and dependable staff. This offers us the synergy to handle site management together. We do not restrict ourselves to specific tasks as admins and help where we can – I consider the position an opportunity and responsibility to make more people content. In addition to my admin roles (mentioned earlier), I help moderate, reply to messages , present ideas and contribute my share to team decisions.
Do these responsibilities reflect your skills in real life? What sector do you work in? Coolyou: Yes these skills reflect what I do in real life. I work with a lot of servers and manage networks. These skills are used widely in the datacenter and collocation industry. PC: First of all, to answer properly to this question I think it is relevant to draw a kind of autobiography. I grew up in a wealthy and educated family, which allowed me to quickly access computers back in the 80’s. “I had the opportunity to spend more time online, on various projects, including Warez-BB “ I did some engineering studies in France followed by an MBA in London. Not knowing what to do and probably lacking of entrepreneurial sense at that time, I did some “active finances” studies which allowed me to enter as a trader in an important firm. With my engineering background, I specialized in the energy market, around the Euro-Russian-Asian trade axis. During these years I gained a valuable sense of money and finances; but the growing constraints of the job got me to resign in late 2007. At that time I had the opportunity to spend more time online, on various projects, including Warez-BB. I got myself unemployed but financially sustainable. Over the past two years I have been able to actively involve myself into this amazing community. Months spending and money coming to lack, I had to get myself back to the professional world. With the networks accessed via my previous job, I had the opportunity to integrate an important investment firm as a lobbyist, which allows me to have various kinds of playgrounds: political, legal, financial & social. That’s how I started to learn more about law, about politics, about sociology. I’m now beginning to be published among a few papers and to give some lectures in Universities. That said, I believe it can be easy to retrace some analogies between my real life and my online activity here on Warez-BB. ENIGMA: Yes, I have worked in IT and fulfilled responsibilities. How important is Warez-BB to you? Is it just a sidekick, one of the many things you
do, or does it play a major role in your life? Coolyou: WBB is very important to me. I spend a large portion of my free time on this project and at times when we’re under attack, I can dedicate my whole day towards it. In the worst case, I have spent 20 hours a day fixing WBB and getting a few hours of sleep for two weeks straight. PC: Personally, Warez-BB stands like a first political and legal fight. There is obviously a large global support and a growing activity. It’s a real pleasure to be able to do some research for it and contribute as much as I can. I am active daily on WarezBB, exchanging messages and e-mails through it or through the responsibility I am given to. Nowadays I don’t really need to access warez, but I am always in depth of myself a strong and active rebel, part of that wicked tribe who believes culture should be free of access for its basic fundamentals. That’s a demagogic and simple way to resume what’s warez really is, but I believe it speaks fairly for itself. ENIGMA: Warez-BB management is very important to me and there have been days when I have worked more than 20 hours for the site. However, working for the site is one of the many things I enjoy doing and I ensure that a fair amount of time is allocated to necessary tasks. Can you tell us something about how the administrator team of warez-BB evolved? Coolyou: The Warez-BB Admin team has evolved in many ways. I cannot comment on when Grizzly and paPus were Admins, but the roles and responsibilities that each hold since my appointment have changed drastically. Every time a new Admin is appointed roles shift and change – we always pick out the best to do the job. ENIGMA: Evolution is generally a process that is contingent on external and internal factors. The Warez-BB admin team, like any other admin team, is sophisticated and is governed by logic. The team and its individuals learn through experience and carry the wisdom forward to meet new scenarios. What are the best parts of being an admin? And on the other hand, what are the downsides? Coolyou: I think it’s a very honorable role being an Admin. I don’t know any who
abuse their roles for their own personal benefit; we’re all doing this for free and for our community. The downside to it is that it can be very demanding sometimes if delegation is not done right. “In the worst case, I have spent 20 hours a day fixing WBB and getting a few hours of sleep for two weeks straight “ Of course, above all else, there are many challenging and hard decisions that must be made. I can assure you that we don’t like to do it either, and I can spend weeks, if not months thinking about certain issues. PC: This question, in one part, has pretty much the same substance as one of the previous ones. I believe the best parts of being an administrator here at Warez-BB are the impacts it has on your everyday life. As for the downsides, they can be of many forms. The most disturbing one is of course being contacted via private message for basic things that can be answered with a quick search. Things like “how can I be a moderator?”, “how can I donate?”, “how can I advertise?”, “how can I get my username changed?” and so on. But we are working on a solution to fix that and we will soon publish some simple FAQs, probably before this article gets published. ENIGMA: In my opinion, the responsibility to help and learn from people is the best opportunity provided by the admin role. However, it is depressing and frustrating when I do not have the time/skill or the right answers necessary to help people. The admin role attracts attention and I need to sacrifice time and deal with interruptions; however, people generally mean well. Could you tell us some of the everyday chores you do, and some of the most common problems you face? Coolyou: Every day, I reply to all of my PMs and make sure that those are sorted before I move onto checking the messages left from our Admin team and Mod team. I then spend time replying to each one of them – they can be at times, very lengthy. Some of the conversations we have can get to the point where it is so long, those who didn’t participate with the discussion from the beginning may find them-
selves spending an hour or two catching up on what has been said. Afterwards I move onto making sure that our servers are in check and we perform any updates if needed. Nothing is the same every day, there is always different things waiting for us to do. PC: On a daily basis, I would say 30% of daily private messages round-up (I read and answer every PM I receive as much as I can) – 30% of daily copyright notices and a fairly 40% of “networks management”. I will explain what the latter is,is; the networks management is the fact of constantly keeping contacts with important intermediaries such as the advertising agencies or the law firms. On the top of that, I am constantly thinking day and night about the further possible evolution of our community – per instance what could the Development Team or other administrators code to improve our board experience? ENIGMA: I answer my PMs, speak with staff, read forum comments sections to identify user needs. I note ideas and create a prioritized list of things I intend to do. I try my best to plan and complete the task during free time. The main issues I usually face involve implementing technical solutions. Luckily, there are dependable people around when help is needed and they help find the right answers. Do you think being an admin is a rewarding position? Coolyou: Experience is totally safe - the worst that can happen is that we come out of it unchanged. With that in mind, I can safely say I come out of it a better person than I did logging on. PC: It is undeniably a rewarding position, and although it can be discussed that it is not completely the case I won’t elaborate the negative aspects, as they have already been briefly approached with one of the previous questions. Ultimately being an administrator confers me some notoriety among the members. I can more easily get in touch with some of them for personal issues. They will pay more attention to my little problems and that’s a real value that no one else can enjoy. ENIGMA: Yes. Like every role, the admin role offers interesting challenges,
learning opportunities and is a satisfactory experience. It has certainly had a positive impact on my life and the way I do things outside the internet. Administrating a board of this magnitude is a demanding task that requires a lot of knowledge and in return offers a great gain in experience. Would you ever consider mentioning your current position on your curriculum, or do you think that the positive aspects are overshadowed by the fact that the board you are running is, in fact, a pirate boat? Coolyou: I don’t think that I need to mention the experience I have gained from being an Admin on my CV. My actions show who I am and I’m able to convey these things rather well in interviews. PC: I wish there could be a day where I could valuably display this experience in my public curriculum and tell my entourage about it. Unfortunately and politically it is incorrect at the moment, but we’re working on it. ENIGMA: At present, this could be difficult. Unlike other networks used for information delivery, boards like Warez-BB are fairly new. “the admin role offers interesting challenges, learning opportunities and is a satisfactory experience “ We depend on contributors to provide access to information to members. Hence, any change in the answer will depend entirely on Warez-BB’s evolution and perception of stakeholders in future. Like a Dutch proverb says: “high trees catch lots of wind”. What do you do to protect your online identity? Do your relatives know about your position? (and do they support it?) PC: As I implicitly mentioned it in my previous answer, nobody around me really knows about Warez-BB. Only my wife and some really close persons do. We have never really discussed it and it may be a good topic for a further dinner, but usually my entourage is wide-minded so they must have things to say for and against it. Yet I can tell you something, we all agree that the processes and ethics involved in the industry are disgusting and will undeniably have to change to become fairer
and more sustainable for everyone. For further information I am pointing your readers to an excellent article written by someone who has been working in this industry, it fairly reflects many of the bad habits this industry has. ENIGMA: I do a few things to protect myself. I have no issues managing the site so long as Warez-BB is judged legal where it’s located. Assuming that Warez-BB takes up most of your online time, do you participate in any other Internet activities? Coolyou: I’ve had many offers to write on online blogs and news sites, but I focus most of my time on WBB. I’m currently running no other projects. PC: I am doing a lot of things online. I run a few “start-ups” that provide some services online. I am also doing a lot of research for both my professional and academic involvement. Ultimately, chatting with friends and contacts through IM and VoIP. I also have Facebook and Twitter profiles; I am pretty much fond of new technologies around the IT sector. ITs (i.e. Information Technologies) have always been an important part of my life – my growing roots are much related to the growing developments of ITs in the 1980’s and 90’s. ENIGMA: Yes, I actively participate in a few other forums. Let’s talk about you for a moment, Coolyou. If warez-BB was the Matrix, you’d be the white-bearded architect (see that as a compliment). Without Coolyou, Warez-BB wouldn’t exist. Do you see yourself as a replaceable part of the system, or would our pirate boat sink without you? Coolyou: Firstly thanks for the compliment. I have in the past worried that any sudden departure will cause havoc on our forum. I have already seen the effects of what happens when someone such as myself leaves the community, and I’m glad to say that a lot has been learned from that experience. “Our bandwidth usage is huge, [...] estimates range from about 2TB to 4TB per month “ There are currently many who have the skills to run our forum in lieu of me, and
I’m happy that we have been able to identify those. If you think you’re one of them, I would begin by joining the Dev team. Is the admin team based on democratic equality, or do you, as the factual owner of this board, have the last word in any decision? Coolyou: We have a hybrid between both. I value the opinions of my teams and a vote is casted but ultimately I do have the final say on it. This is usually not required since I trust their judgment and their ability to think on their feet, so this is not needed most of the time. Can you tell us something about the technical side of warez-BB? Coolyou: Our main server is a powerful Xeon quad core chip with 8GB of DDR2 RAM. It has the ability to upgrade to 16GB when we need it. Our HDD is a 10K RPM drive with a number of 7200RPM drives that do random tasks such as managing the search, storing backups. Our bandwidth usage is huge, there is no set number since it is too big to calculate, however estimates range from about 2TB to 4TB per month. Our infrastructure is split between two networks. We have our static files hosted in France while our main database and load balancing servers are hosted in HK. Do you have some big plans for the future? People are wondering when the board will be upgraded to phpBB3… is that still a far-faraway scenario? Coolyou: Yes, we do have plans to upgrade to phpBB3. I’m aware that I made an announcement a while ago (it must have been a year already) about us not sitting still when it came to phpBB3. Truth be told, the number of modifications we have made to our current phpBB2 release is so out of line with what phpBB3 has to offer that we will need to port much of our code over. This is the major roadblock to upgrading to phpBB3. There are plans to redesign the template - FiSubice. The current FiSubice for phpBB3 is just ugly. There are no solid plans how this is done, but this will probably be the first thing that we will do to develop for phpBB3.
So… what’s up with your avatar? Coolyou: My Avatar is of a snowman up in the hills. It was actually photos that I got from my phone, of which initially were uploaded into our avatar gallery (now removed). Today, it is considered to be my signature – you don’t know how many complain whenever I change it. Something funny I’d like to add. Before the snowman, I had a good looking girl as my Av. During that time, I had two or three people propose to me before they found out I was a dude. :P PC, your turn to stand in the limelight for a moment. Tell us, what did you have for breakfast today? PC: A croissant and a glass of milk, still unchanged since early times. Yet the quality of the croissant literary changed from what it used to be, no matter where you live :-) In ancient times, Warez-BB used to accept donations. Why are they closed now? Will they ever be open again, or are the advertisements on the forum generating enough money to cover the server costs? PC: The advertising revenues generate enough to cover all of our infrastructural costs and sometimes bring some extra to develop even more. The reason why we can no longer accept any donations is really simple. Our legal status in Hong Kong cannot permit us to accept any kind of donation, but we’re working on it. You’re the man behind Wadio, a free internet radio that is closely linked to Warez-BB. Can you tell us a bit about this project? PC: Wadio is an online radio that broadcasts music and shows with licenses all around the world. The station is being managed by an active and motivated lineup of assistants: cireland, Garf, kevthedude & rikerdonegal. It is an amazing community effort – all the DJs, coming from all around the globe, have mostly been recruited through the bulletin board. The playing options are actually integrated by default within the board as you can notice on the top right of your browser’s window. Its creation and development have also been reflecting the amazing community spirit we have on the board since it has involved many different people, from
different backgrounds. The website and technical infrastructures were developed by Development Team members assisted by Coolyou, who is in charge of our overall infrastructures maintenance. The first steps of what seemed to become a valuable team of hosts have been undertaken by broadcasting experts such as JiMBO or MD101, who are both active board members. “I am in favor of a freedom of access for any person to the basics of what forms culture and knowledge “ With almost two years of existence now, the notoriety of the station is growing and coming along nicely to a point where it begins to host some alternative artists and bands that are usually happy users of the board service. There are many things to say and to discover about Wadio. Perhaps it would be nice to have a 2 page paper being published in your magazine at each issue that would advertise for the station, report its latest news and host interviews of team members. If there is something we learn in business school, is to maximize the benefits of a good synergy within a group that gathers several kindkinds of activities. In parallel I am sure that the Wadio team will be glad to talk more about theSCENE on air. Rumor has it that you are a diehard anticopyright activist. Is that true? What is your stance on copyright, and how do you express it? PC: Well, I am a fervent defendant of the concept of copyright. It is important to protect the authors of any kind of material from having their stuff being copied without their agreement. At the basis, copyrights were to protect authors from having their creation stolen and being “published” or “released” by somebody else or some other group. But nowadays the term of copyright no longer really refers to what it means in substance. It is referring to a “limit of access”; in other words, you can call it ‘accessright’. I am a diehard activist against that form of copyright usage. I am in favor of a freedom of access for any person to the basics of what forms culture and knowledge. And there are economical solutions to accompany such a switch so the authors can still get
financially rewarded for their work. It will just require a change of attitude & ethics in some industries, which seems to not occur yet, will undeniably have to come. I wish I would have more time to talk about it, it’s been a nice half an hour spent with you but I have lots to do now. It’s been my pleasure to share some few facts with you and your readers. Enigma, I’d like to ask you a few questions as well. You are the most recent addition to the orange team. Do you like it? ENIGMA: Yes, of course; it’s a very enjoyable role – thanks to all members who strive to keep things this way. Apart from being an admin, you are also editor of theSCENE and member of the developer’s team, two demanding tasks. How do you manage to combine these responsibilities with your orange suit? ENIGMA: I owe a lot to the support offered by a dedicated group of leaders and assistants who help with press team management and there are several skilled teammates who actually make the magazine release possible. “The struggle to tackle vicissitudes is a learning and satisfying experience “ I try to help Coolyou and code features for Warez-BB – The majority of code additions that I make are internal and do not affect the external functionality of the system. To tackle duties, I plan and maintain a prioritized list of realistic tasks I intend to complete. I try to work on tasks within a specific time-span during my free time. New blood means new directions. What are your ambitions as an admin? What would you like to change and improve on the forum? Summarized: what can we expect from you? ENIGMA: I will not be offering the site many new external directions - The fundamental directions which HOT TUNA advocated – fair and friendly, will continue to remain the site’s important principle. I don’t have any personally beneficial ambitions as an admin; however, I would love to see this site grow and gain acceptance amongst all audience – We’re working on this. As in every growing project, there is a
constant influx of new requirements based on needs – both human and technical. Warez-BB’s growth over the past few months can be described as an explosion and has brought several new members who are poised to participate and prosper. However, phpBB(used to run this website) does not offer a friendly interface for users who are not familiar with it. This information network attracts a different kind of predator who abuse board services to negatively affect members. Such intrinsic, extrinsic challenges, complexities are commonplace in every environment. “The fundamental directions which HOT TUNA advocated – fair and friendly will continue to remain the site’s important principle “ . The struggle to tackle vicissitudes is a learning and satisfying experience – It is one of my responsibilities to try to help the site scale well to meet its needs, to improve the overall user experience on Warez-BB and make technology work for people. Thank you very much for your time, ENIGMA, PC and Coolyou. Keep up your excellent work!
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The Warez-BB Development Team Text By Daniel.Blaze Layout by Soumyadeep
Starting back in 2008, the Development Team was formed by a small group of individuals who had a passion for programming. Over the years, the Warez-BB Dev Team has produced many different features and enhancements for our forum to try to make it the best there is. This article will give you a brief overview of what we do, how we do it and show you just how much work the dev team puts into making WBB a better place.
Lilium The first of our two major projects is the constant updating of Lilium. Lilium is Warez-BB’s very own Firefox extension, integrating the board into your browser. Originally created by BioDuo, Lilium was a huge success as soon as it was released, and has had
tens of thousands of installs to date. Now maintained by the Development Team, the lead programmers (Yawn. and BioDuo) are taking Lilium to new heights. Here’s what is to come in the near future for Lilium…
Lilium Favorites: Fed up of searching through all of your bookmarks for your favorite threads? No worries, the ********* button is coming! Lilium Favorites will allow any user who has the Firefox extension installed to save their favorite threads with quick access to them at the click of a button. They’re kept in their own section on the
Lilium menu, keeping all WBB features together in a tidy, concise way.
Extended Link Checking Integration: The Link checkers have had a huge overhaul and are now more efficient than ever. If a host changes its layout slightly, you can easily make corrections to the link checkers now or even add your own! No more waiting for a new version of the add-on! Plus, more hosts are now supported.
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General
Search Integration: Highlight text on any page, right click, hit “Search selected text on WBB” and results are presented to you. It’s as simple as that, and couldn’t be any easier to find
Apps, Movies and Music on Warez-BB at the touch of a button.
Huge PM upgrades: Lilium won’t just show you that you have 1 new message waiting – It’ll also alert you by sound, tell you who it’s from, when it was sent, and what the subject of
the PM is. It may not seem like much, but to those who receive lots of PMs, and want to access one in particular quickly, this could be incredibly handy.
Wadio and Magazine Integration: Wadio integration has been given a lick of paint, and theSCENE has also now been introduced into Lilium. Like keeping up to date with the latest official WBB magazine releases? Lilium will alert you every time a new magazine issue has been released.
So many new features are coming to Lilium, and we’re incredibly excited. A huge thanks goes out to Yawn, BioDuo, ENIGMA and Coolyou for working relentlessly to make this possible.
The Warez-BB TAGS System Warez-BB is a huge bulletin board, and a massive number of new threads are posted every minute. This occasionally makes it hard to find exactly what we want to download on the board, as there are just so many different things to look out for: For example, when downloading movies, is it hosted on a site we can download from, is It a DVDRip or a CAM copy, is it 300MB, 700MB or HD, is it an MKV or an AVI file? And so on… The Dev team at WBB have recognized this, and so for the second of our two larger projects, we’re designing a new system to be integrated into all of the forum listing boards. We call them TAGS. General
Initially, there will be 2 different “tag categories” integrated into the download listings: “Source” and “Type”. The “source” tags will allow downloader’s to identify quickly and easily which hosts the files have been uploaded to. The “type” tags will allow them to then check what type of rip the warez are. So in the games section, for example, we’ll input all the major hosts into the source tags, and maybe some of the following for the type tags: ISO, Full Rip, Rip w/o music, Rip w/o movies, Add-ons etc. Music could have the following type tags: 128 kbps, 320kbps, OST, Discography etc.
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We then have the option to add in a few more optional TAG listings, individual to the forum it is in. Games could have the console on which you play the game (PSP, PS2, XBOX, Wii, NDS) and music could have the file type (FLAC, MP3, WMA). What is the point of this you ask? Downloader’s will be able to quickly filter out results based on what they want to find. The TAGS system will be integrated into search.php, so you’ll be able to search for files only hosted on Rapidshare.com (for example) or files hosted on both Megaupload and Megashares. Only looking for Blu-ray movies? No problem: select that
option as well. For the forum browsers out there, click a tag in a specific forum, and topics with only that tag in them will be filtered out, with all other topics fading away, making it incredibly easy for you to see which topics are really relevant to you.
The look of the TAGS hasn’t been finalized yet, but we’re working with the following. It may change in the near future.
What else is happening? Occasionally, someone will find a little bug on the board which needs fixing or staff need a board enhancement to make their work easier. Usually, ideas are presented, and the best idea is implemented into the board. JavaScript enhancements have been implemented to make administrating the board easier, and fixes have been implemented for things which aren’t
working properly. We also discuss and code new ideas on how to make the board safer and more secure as a whole. Oh, and there’s the whole Mario kart competition, which BioDuo is currently winning, but we won’t get into that; that’s a whole other ball game…!
A word from our Development Team leader, Emré You’ll all probably know me by the name of Emré or 3mré. I am from Spain and I have grown up in a highly educated family, meaning I was never happy with just one degree. This passion has actually made me who I am today: A professor who has taught at many different universities in many different countries. Currently, I am the Developers Team Leader and have been since February 2009. We have a great team with many talented individuals who make working on the forums a joy. Managing such a team is not an easy job as we have different coders from different educational backgrounds, all with different tastes and coding approaches. My job is to integrate them in such a way that these differences work as an asset with each other and not as a hindrance or disadvantage. Thus, I assign people to different projects based on how they can assist the project and not vice versa. Another important role I have is to make sure that the whole team is in 13 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
constant communication with each other, as I believe that this is the key to success in managing and leading such a big and great team. In such a small amount of time, the Developers Team has completed a vast amount of projects, both before and during my assignment as leader. Our projects include the Wadio site, the Press Team site, Lilium and now the new tags system in addition to their daily fixes, updates and maintenance. As for new projects: we are ready to work on any good ideas that make our community a better place. Finally I am looking forward to expanding the team, so if you are interested in joining, just contact me via PM. It is a known fact that “No one knows everything”, so you don’t have to be experts to apply to the team. I can assure you that no matter what skills the devs already have, they are all still learning from each other.
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A World of Words Part 4 Myths that still live
By Kartz
Layout by Herinjo
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leepy Jim never was at a loss for words. In one game, the referee kept making calling after call against Notre Dame. At the final gun the official turned to Crowley with a snarl. ‘You fellows sure were lucky to win this game.’ he said. ‘Yes, Cyclops,’ agreed Sleepy Jim, ‘judging from the way you officiated we were mighty lucky to win.’ – Arthur Daley, NY Times, 06 Jan 1964 The reader of this epigraph cannot fully appreciate the retort of Jim Crowley, one of the backs of Notre Dame’s legendary, almost mythical Four Horsemen, unless he is familiar with a character out of mythology, the Cyclops, a giant having only one eye. Very often the word we need in order to point up a story, to make an apt reference or comparison, to enrich a spoken or written passage comes straight out of the myths of the Greek and the Romans. The old myths have never died; they live on in hundreds of words. Through the use of such words, allusions to the myths are made daily in the press and over the air. In this edition of theSCENE, we shall see a comprehensive sampling of the more useful words of this nature, together with the story behind them. In modern usage, aegis has become a vogue word to mean sponsorship and guidance. Mythologically speaking, the aegis (also written egis) was the mantle and shield of Zeus, for even the king of Gods needed protection in his war with the Titans. Zeus lent the aegis to his daughter Athena when she fought aside the Greeks in the Trojan War. Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, was loved by Apollo, who gave her the gift of prophecy. However, when she failed to carry out her promise to love him, the god decreed that, although she spoke the truth, nobody would believe her. As she appears in Greek tragedies and Vergil’s “Aeneid”, Cassandra prophesied calamity and woe. Hence, a person who is 14 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
called a Cassandra is a pessimistic prophet. The name is applied to anyone who utters warnings of trouble – whether the prophecy is believed or not. The Chimera was a horrible monster that breathed fire, had the head of a lion, the body of a goat or a lion, a serpent’s tail and a goat’s head on its back. Such a weird combination was unusually fantastic even for the imagination of a mythologist. Thus chimera came to mean any vain fancy or impracticable idea. The adjective form of the word is chimerical. In his essay “El Dorado”, Robert Louis Stevenson calls the goals that men seek their chimeras. Cornucopia is formed by two Latin words, cornu, horn, and copia, supply, wealth. According to mythology, the infant Zeus was nursed by a nymph named Amalthea. Later, to show his gratitude, the god broke off a goat’s horn and presented it to her. This horn, “The horn of plenty”, would miraculously be replenished with all the fruits that the nymph desired. Hence, a cornucopia is a never-ending supply. Hermes (better known by his Roman name – Mercury) was the patron god of magic. In the Middle Ages, alchemy, the predecessor of chemistry was known as a hermetic art. To put the hermetic seal on a bottle in the laboratory meant to twist the neck with flame and thereby seal it air-tight. The expression is often used figuratively to imply that a person’s mind is shut against the infiltration of ideas or information.
The Hydra was a water monster (hydr, water, as in hydrant, hydraulics, hydrophobia, dehydrate, etc.) which had nine heads. Hercules was ordered to kill the Hydra as one of his twelve labors. The Hydra also had remarkable regenerative powers, for as fast as Hercules cut off a head, two new ones replaced it. However, the heads could not grow back if fire was applied immediately to the cut. Hercules thereupon enlisted the aid of an assistant who cauterized the necks as Hercules severed the heads. Hydra-headed, therefore, means hard to eliminate or destroy. The term is applied to an evil which, apparently put down in one place, springs up elsewhere. In biology, the hydra is a fresh-water animal of almost microscopic size which has the property of its mythological namesake. If it is cut up, each part will develop into new hydra. Iris was a lovely maiden who left a trail of color as she carried messages from the gods to the earth. She was the goddess of the rainbow. The word iris itself may mean a flower, a part of the eye, or a combination of brilliant colors, as Tennyson famously puts it in “Locksley Hall” – ´In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove, In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to the thoughts of love.’ Knowing the origin of the word iridescent, you can see why it is spelled with one r. The first woman, according to Greek mythology, was Pandora.
In “Paradise Lost”, John Milton tells us how she got her name – ‘… Pandora, whom the gods endowed with all their gifts’. Pan means ‘all’ and dora means ‘gift’. Every god and goddess contributed something to make her a perfect being. Zeus, angered at mankind, sent her down to be a curse to man. It appears that until she was created, the earth was inhabited only by man and beasts. The gods gave her a box which she was warned not to open. Unable to overcome her curiosity, she did open it one day. Trouble then came upon earth. All the ills that plague the body and mind of man flew out. Only hope remained. This version of the myth is decidedly anti-feminist. It started the legend that woman and her curiosity are responsible for the troubles from which man suffers. A Pandora’s Box is a source of evil, a seething cauldron on which a lid must be kept. Prometheus was a Titan who brought the gift of fire to mankind so that by its use man could develop his civilization. Like Prometheus the scientists of our time have wrested from Nature the secret that is no longer a secret. Once again men are turning to the symbol of Prometheus as a lesson of warning to mankind. The meaning of the new Promethean gift in all its implications is well expressed in the following item found in the science page of the NY Times – ‘The name “promethium” has been suggested by J A Marinsky and L E Glendenin (MIT) for element 61, recently made artificially in the atomic pile at Oak Ridge. Prof. Charles D Coryeil (MIT General
for element 61, recently made artificially in the atomic pile at Oak Ridge. Prof. Charles D Coryeil (MIT again) thinks the name appropriate. Prometheus taught man the use of fire. By the way of punishment, jealous Zeus chained him to a mountainside and set vultures to tear out his vitals. To Prof. Coryeil “promethium” symbolizes the hope of scientists that man will not be punished for developing the atomic bomb by having his vitals torn out by the vultures of war.’
That concludes our Etymological Tour for this edition of theSCENE. We hope you had a good time reading and learning something new. Feedback is always welcome. Until next time, stay safe. Have fun.
So, the myths have never died; in the stories we have retold, we have only sampled their survival.
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THE LIFE OF A PIRATE Yarh me hearties! W hy do we share stuff at the risk of getting caught? ‘Pirates’ is a very common term even in today’s world. The word pirate is defined as: Even though the original pirates have nearly ceased to exist, some, though just about a handful, are still very much alive. These pirates, who we have to admit, are the trendsetters, and the originals of our definition of piracy are still living by the old definition, the definition that throughout history has been sailors robbing every ship travelling across the sea with a cargo worth risking everything to get. They’ve always been pictured with eye patches, parrots on their shoulders and a flavor for rum. These pirates have been a source of inspiration for today’s youth. Though the inspiration is evil and darkish, it’s still an inspiration to create a means for sharing stuff over the Internet with the least risk. And we have to admit, pirates nowadays are very much alive due to the birth of the Internet. Pirates no longer sail the sea, yes - I know I said a few but give me a break, they have abandoned their ships and instead equipped themselves with brand new technology (well, it’s new compared to the lifespan of pirates). This technology that we use in our everyday life is computers and of course our dearly beloved Internet – who would we have been without it? Probably someone great, but who cares? Lots of people think piracy is wrong - and well it is kind of wrong, more like very wrong. Yet we tend to miss the facts. Let’s take a swing at how many have ever listened to a song, which was not legally paid for? I will take the first bet and say over 90% of those capable of using the net for more than MSN gossip have listened to illegal music. What it takes is people to be able to use Google to find whatever they want, or simply download some program like LimeWire, Bearshare, etc. Yet, these are not considered pirates, are they? They get their punishment if caught with illegal music, but they are not considered real pirates – why? As I see it, we can pretty much collect people into certain groups of, let’s say illegality, in this little ladder where we move from least pirate to most pirate. At square one or the bottom of the ladder; we have the newcomers, the rookies. These rookies could be categorized as those who figured out how to install a program and type the name of the song or were smart enough to try Googling the song. Let’s call these the LimeWirers (ye-ha for creativity!). They are not very ahead in the Internet progress than the older generation who just recently got a computer. They just had the desire to get free music. And free stuff is what keeps a true pirate going. Besides, type in “software download music” into Google and it’ll immediately pop up with LimeWire links anyway. Further up we have those, who actually take their precautions. They are aware that their actions can be fatal, and that the APG (Anti Piracy Group – it’s called so in Denmark) is always lurking around the corner. That’s why they don’t share anything themselves. They are always hiding in the shadow never contributing to the community or 16 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
giving anything back – the saddest thing is that they have a really hard time just saying “thanks” when downloading stuff. I think we will call these the ‘leechers’. It’s not that what they do is wrong; they’re just kind of ungrateful. In the end the leechers are pretty much like the LimeWirers, they just know how to use the Internet, what to avoid and they have new means to get what they want, and some are a bit overprotective. Who cares about the small fish when they can get the big fish? Now we have the more interesting half, in the way of pirate relevance. This half contains both the Contributors and the Social Pirate. We’ll start our epic tale at the Social Pirate, this is due to the ladder not letting us skip a step on the way – Not this ladder anyway; it has HUGE steps! The Social Pirate is nothing like the other two, though it at times resembles the leechers a bit, it’s still a long distance away. The Social Pirate has the means to get whatever he wants, just like the leechers, but he is furthermore capable of helping others in need, and he is willing to share what he finds out there. The biggest difference between the leechers and the Social Pirates are the overprotecting ways of handling the Internet and the community. The Pirate is of course aware of the dangers, but he has a healthy relationship towards it. He is a proud member of a community that he loves and worships. This is not the right moment to approach the community behind the pirates, but I will certainly get back to this key feature in the life of a Pirate. A Social Pirate is proud to help, and he never lets a fellow Pirate down. He is the reason piracy exists on the Internet. My last piece of the ladder will be the Contributors. These dedicated people are like Social Pirates willing to share – no, let’s just say more than willing to share. They do their very best to get all the new software before it even hits the store, and they put a great deal of honor in being first on the scene with the new and hot. And now, with that quick summary of the different types I will move on – And you may be disagreeing with me on how the groups should be set, but I like the outline, and it gives a solid idea of how things work. The waves go high; the little ship is floating ever so hopelessly with no land in sight. The crew has almost given up when they see another ship. First they see it then the next second they don’t. The ship is lurking in the darkness, not truly visible. The crew is scared senseless when they see the black flag with the infamous skull. They were warned that these dangerous waters might be overviewed by the most monstrous thing on the sea: Pirates. They are not able to do a thing, the pirates approach with an incredible speed with the weather taken into consideration. They board the little ship and start plundering. The crew is without chance, no matter what kind of protection they use against the pirates, the pirates are outnumbering them and outsmarting them. All they are left to do is sit back and wait till the pirates are done going about their business. When the pirates leave they stand back empty-handed and with a deep hatred towards piracy. General
This situation could have been on a real ship in real water, but it could also be more of a general rule of how pirates work – including today’s pirates. Some of the good things about being a pirate are the free stuff. You can never say no to something that’s free – unless it has a catch of course. This catch is something that the “You’re our 1,000,000th customer! You win a prize, click here to receive it” ads show us every day. But there are also other ways catches can work. When being a pirate or simply a LimeWirer most people don’t consider what their actions can cause. Sure – you get a song for free, but if you get caught you pay 5 times the price. That’s a catch worth considering. Well okay – 5 times the price, then I have to pay what? 5 euro’s? No, because you forget that most people have an average of 1,000 songs on their computer. Are they all legal? I doubt it. That’s why most people, if ever caught, end up in million euro debts. So why are we taking these chances? Because all of us think it’ll never be us. And most of us are right. This is partly because the APG don’t have the resources but also partly because we never show ourselves when doing something illegal. Why are there Social Pirates and Contributors then you may ask? Well, isn’t it obvious? This is due to the downsides not outshining the upsides of being a pirate. Being a pirate is not all about the free stuff you get, a pirate is someone who goes through a lot of obstructions to reach a point where he’s able to help others who might not have the ability to get it themselves. A pirate is, if seen in this light, kind of a Robin Hood-person; he takes the software from the somewhat rich developers and shares it with students across the world, so they can focus on studying instead of buying software all the time. Piracy is about being part of a similar minded community – yep, I got back to it, just as I promised. This community, let’s take warez-bb.org for instance, consists of a lot of different people. Most of them never go beyond 5-10 posts. Most of them being: “Omagad! The links are down! Reup you n00b”, and to be honest with you that gets annoying in the long run. But then there are also those who are in it for the social thing. These are regular posters in all forums, they may reply with something as simple as a “thanks” (I’ll get back to this later) or just lurking around in the Off-Topic section. The regular posters enjoy helping others, sharing stuff with others and being a genuine web-pirate. A genuine web-pirate has no intention of harming others with malware-infected software or having people download useless stuff. They do all the hard work for a simple “thanks”, because that makes them feel warm and all fussy inside. It takes just about a second to type the six letters “t, h, a, n, k, and s”, yet it means so much for those people doing an effort. “Thanks” is really what a community of pirates is based upon. “But.. You mentioned that there are downsides? Is the risk of getting caught the single reason not to be a pirate?” – Well, kind of – but it’s still not the only reason. A pirate usually downloads a trial version of some kind of software, he then patches it (usually the patch is created by the Contributors) and he is able to use the version he downloaded for free forever. But, what happens when they update the software? When they improve it in some way? Then the pirate, if not careful, updates his software and it becomes expired. So he has to get a new patch for the new version. This can all be very tiresome in the long run. But why complain? I mean, you get software that you sometimes have to pay the price of half a computer for, for free! This brings me back to the ladder. I just wanted to say this to get it off my chest: “Shame on you Leechers! Show some appreciation when downloading all your free stuff! It takes a second to say ‘thanks’ but you’ll certainly gain from it. Silent appreciation helps nobody”. And then there’s the LimeWirers. These are simply lonely pirates who have not yet seen the light in a grand community with all the help they could ever need. So why are not all of us uploading like crazy maniacs? Because… Some are afraid of getting caught – a fair reason. But some of us don’t have the upload speed to actually keep up. We want to contribute, but instead it’s we who support those who take their time to upload. The community on warez-bb.org would not be working without the great effort of reporters (those reporting dead links, not those reporting links on Rapidshare). Some have to report stuff that doesn’t belong on the site, so uploaders can keep their mind on uploading. A Pirate Society needs many pieces of a puzzle to work, and that is why warez-bb.org works so well. In the end the pirates get quite good loot from the little ship. They reached the harbor and unload it into a hidden warehouse so people from the town could get some of it for absolutely free. But they were reported by a small minded person; the police came, removed the goods, and banned the md5 hash.
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Piracy
The lost battle
A
revolution is like a grease fire: throw water on it and it’ll burn even more. In a revolution, people usually know what they are fighting for. Opposition will only strengthen their belief, because it reaffirms the need to protest. When a policeman beats up a protester with his rubber stick, he thinks: “There; that’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget.” When a protester is beaten by a policeman, he thinks: “See; I knew I was right about the system. We need to change this.” Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead during a demonstration in 1967, but people didn’t hide away to avoid the same fate. Benno became the symbol of a rapidly radicalizing student movement. A movement - any movement - is not active because it has a lot of members. It is not fuelled by people, or money, or respect from outsiders. A movement is held together by inspiration. A united goal and the will to achieve this goal will turn individuals into masses, and masses into an unstoppable wave. Why? Because this inspiration is not something individual. It doesn’t want to change things for one single person, no; it wants to change the whole word. When a hundred thousand people are jobless and demand social reforms, they have a common inspiration and goal. On the other hand, when a hundred thousand people are each protesting against a different problem that affects only themselves and no one else, they’ll fail. (When one single person is demonstrating, then he’s just a lazy bum who needs to cut his hair in order to get a job, but that aside). Inspiration is what makes a movement strong. Some time ago, the pirate community was strong. “Sharing is caring” was our motto, and so we did. We set up P2P networks, hosted trackers, filled ftp servers with tons of warez. We cracked software, ripped music, recorded movies at the cinema (and filled entire websites with stupid IRC quotes and jokes, but again, that aside). We spent a considerable amount of time acquiring, uploading and sharing material, building an immense, loosely organized community of pirates. The motivation behind the people downloading all that stuff is irrelevant: whether they are too greedy to pay artists for their work or simply cannot afford their college books, downloaders are no pirates, they’re customers. The real pirates are those who make things available for free.
Correction: it used to be a free digital world. Two symbolic handcuffs hinder the hands of piracy from reaching the keyboard. First of all: pirates who claim copyright for something they never owned or created. I cite from an anonym release NFO: “copyright @ <release group name>. Don’t steal our release!” So let’s get this straight: A
The second handcuff is personal profit. Most pirates are against the burning and selling of data to make money, and I strongly agree with them. Our motto is freedom, not greed. Someone who makes money out of selling pirated stuff is a thief. But I’m not talking about selling warez only; I’m talking about profit in general. Nowadays, many file hosts have acknowledged that the majority of their customers are people who download warez. This awareness translates in offering money and goodies for a certain amount of downloads per account. At Rapidshare you can trade a certain amount of download points for things like Amazon vouchers and more Rapidshare accounts; Megashares and Hotfile have the less subtle approach of offering cash money for your points. Who, what and how does not matter - the main point is that people are making personal profit out of distributing warez. A revolution is rarely killed by brute force. Revolutions die from within. They lose their heart, soul and inspiration. Don’t make yourself any illusions: those who pirate for personal gain will not be there when the system engages on our pirate boat. They will shut down their warez business because recent changes at the stock market a.k.a. justice system exposes them to too much risk. The remainders of our fleet will lose the battle for freedom, and the system will make sure that our boats end up at the bottom of the sea. You think I’m overdoing my metaphors? The French HADOPI anti-piracy law is in the making, banning copyright law offenders from Internet access. If we are to survive, we need to get away from individual profit and start acting as a whole. You don’t have the right to make money out of pirated stuff, so stop doing it. Instead, try to remember those magical words: “Sharing is caring”. Don’t share because you want some extra pocket money, don’t share because you want respect from your peers, do it because you like doing it. Hit that “add to archive” WinRAR button with a smile, because you know that somewhere, ten thousand miles away from you, there will be someone who hits the “extract here” button with a smile as well.
[Layout by waltereegho]
“Free” is the key word here. The essence of our activities is the belief that digital material should be available for free. I’m not going to detail this opinion, nor engage in a discussion about copyrights (you have common sense, use it). The point is that the inspiration behind piracy is freedom from intellectual property claims. If you have something that you like, multiply and distribute it so that more people can enjoy it. (This does not exclude the possibility of actually buying things, contrariwise: the more people who know about a certain artist or brand, the more costumers they will gain). It’s a free digital world.
pirate says “Hey I cracked this first so I have exclusive rights on this piece of software that I didn’t even create”. Does that sound illogical to anyone else but me? Another thing: a topic on a warez site gets reported because “these are my links, he should make his own upload.” Ring ring, common sense police. If you are a pirate, that means you support the freedom to distribute digital materials for everyone to enjoy. So why on earth shouldn’t pirates pirate pirated stuff?
Today the British government announced that there is a new threat on our roads and it is called water. A selection of MPs noticed that there was a growing danger and something needed to be done about it. After a long session in the House of Commons, the majority of MPs decided to go for the idea of having a camera in areas where splashing was frequently occurring, and poor innocent pedestrians were getting wet because of it. The initial idea of this plan is to catch lazy drivers who can’t be bothered to avoid the puddle and splash the innocent pedestrian instead. This new system will be operational through the winter and turned on by local police forces when a rainstorm hits those areas. To be able to enforce this new initiative, the government has passed a law which states that “If a driver neglects the fact that there is a puddle in front of him/her/it and a pedestrian is on the pavement next to the puddle, the driver can be fined a specified amount of money and further charges can be made by the victims party. Unless the driver knows the victim on a personal level, then the fine is doubled and the charges are then made by the local law enforcement.” After hearing this news, we sent a team of talented news reporters to the streets of London to hear the views of the general public. The first lady we asked was in her mid 20s and she doesn’t drive, she said “Great now this new law, and cameras to prove I did it, how the hell am I meant to pass my test now?” After interviewing a fair sized sample of the general public, we got the general impression that they didn’t like it one bit, except a couple of teenage moms who said they have been splashed many times and were happy about this new law. The last man we asked was a big chap and his opinions seemed to talk for themselves, “They put speed cameras up, then average speed cameras up, then stupid traffic light cameras, now I can’t even f***ing splash those annoying teenage moms on the pavement”. Overall we have realized that the government is going to do this no matter what people say, and that a lot of the general public hates the idea, except those innocent teenage moms and their 5 year old children. TEXT | KEYWOLF
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Under The Sky My Heart Starts To Cry Under My Skin My Blood Boils Like Never Before My Life Has Left With Another, She Fades Away But My Love That Doesn’t Fade Destroys Me Slowly. The Day She Came, Was The Day She Loved Me. Between Life And Death I Stand On A Line. My Love That Doesn’t Fade Is Pushing Me Toward The Cliff Ahead. My Life Has Left With Another, She Fades Away But My Love That Doesn’t Fade Destroys Me Slowly. You Had It Good Now You Call Me, I Am Still Here For You, Yet You’re Just A Friend. Under The Sky I Start To Die. Under My Skin My Heart Pounds Slower Every Day. My Life Has Never Been The Same Since You Left. Yet Never Again Will You Bring Me To This. I Am Dead To You As I Can Be. I’m Underground Where I Can’t Be There For You To See. I Still Love You.
By Sp33|)|)3v!lX
Layout by Surferdud3
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The food crisis is not new. The world experienced several food crises in the late 50’s and 60’s. Giant countries like India and China were facing a food shortage. Other countries like Ethiopia and Somalia also are plagued with chronic shortages. What makes the present shortage different however is that it affects the whole world, including the highly developed countries and owing to globalization, this has a negative impact on almost all activities on the globe. Two of the causes of the present food crisis are the growing population and the improved standard of living. The German President, Angela Merkel, once said that about 300,000 Indians, who were having only one meal per day, can now afford to have three meals. A lot of Chinese, who could not afford things like milk, flour and rice in the past, can now afford to buy these. This means that the demand is continuously increasing, but the production is almost the same.
shortages were created on the world market. Shortages of food will lead to poverty. Millennium Development Goals, regarding the reduction of poverty by the year 2015, will not be reached because food costs are rising so much that instead of eliminating poverty, it’s only increasing. El Salvador’s President Elias Antonio Saca said: “This is a perfect storm. How long can we withstand the situation? We have to feed our people, and commodities are becoming scarce. This scandalous storm might become a hurricane that could upset not only our economies but also the stability of our countries.” TEXT | FEENZIE
LAYOUT | GRAFREAK
Climate change is another cause of food crisis. The warming of the planet has brought about extreme weather conditions. In some parts of the world, there are floods, others are having drought. Whether floods or droughts, the effects are the same; crops are destroyed as well as livestock.Protectionism is another factor which contributes to the food crisis. In the wake of shortage of food, many countries introduced protectionism in order to protect their own population. In other words, many countries imposed export duties to keep more of their agricultural products in their country itself. Milk producing countries imposed protectionist measures so that milk became too expensive to be affordable. In the same way, rice producing countries banned the export of rice in order to satisfy local consumption. The result was that the low supply of milk, rice and flour created further shortages on a global scale. The oil crisis, which has further intensified, also has its role to play in the shortage of food. The price of oil is constantly increasing. This has a negative impact on the production of electricity. Cost of fertilizers, transport and irrigation increases. Therefore, food becomes expensive. When food becomes expensive, the high cost of production does not encourage people to produce more vegetables. Another factor which causes food shortage is speculation. Whenever there is a shortage, it is human nature to speculate. In fact, when the shortage of food on the international market was felt, many countries started stocking whole crops in anticipation of future shortages. Individuals also started building up stocks of food. Consequently, further
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General
Flying Thoughts
Cartoon by : RED.PANTHER Layout by: Surferdud3
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Movies & Music
Fall 2009 Movie Preview Summer 2009 is over and now everybody’s getting ready to go back to school, but that doesn’t mean you should stop going to the movies! Here’s a list of some of the films that might be worth (or not worth) checking out for the next four months.
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All About Steve (9/4/2009)
Extract (9/4/2009, Limited)
Sandra Bullock’s on a roll this year with another comedy film. She plays a crossword puzzle constructor who goes on a blind date with a CNN cameraman (Bradley Cooper). Convinced that he is her soul mate, she decides to follow him everywhere just to be with him.
From the director/creator of “Office Space” and TV’s “King of the Hill” comes Mike Judge’s latest comedy, “Extract”. The film stars Jason Bateman (from “Arrested Development”) as a factory owner who must contend with a variety of professional and personal problems.
Bullock’s films are not generally well-reviewed by critics but she’s well-liked by audiences so if you’re a fan, this might be worth checking out. Call me cheesy, but I enjoy watching her on-screen antics!
I’m a big fan of Mike Judge and the trailer had a few chuckleworthy moments so I’ll definitely go see this one. This is certainly a nice way to spend Labor Day as adults return to work after taking off for vacation.
Carriers (9/4/2009)
9 (9/9/2009)
Four friends are caught in the grip of a worldwide pandemic virus and must battle both the infected and desperate survivors when they become stranded in a wasteland. Also stars Chris Pine from “Star Trek”.
“9” is based upon the Academy Award-nominated short film of the same name where a group of sentient rag dolls find themselves in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by war. They must battle for survival against an army of rampaging machines.
This seems nothing more like a “28 Days Later” rip-off and I’m not sure if the PG-13 rating helps with enticing moviegoers. This one is best saved on DVD/Blu-Ray unless you’re a hardcore horror fan.
It’s nice to see an animated film that’s not from Pixar but I’m not sure if audiences will embrace it. However, I like when directors try something new in this age of endless sequels and prequels. This is a must-see for me.
Gamer (9/4/2009)
Sorority Row (9/11/2009)
In the year 2034, gaming has evolved to the point where players can control other humans in a massive, multiplayer online death match game. Gerard Butler stars as an unwilling participant who must survive in 30 matches before he can win his freedom and regain his identity.
A remake of the 1983 slasher film, “Sorority Row” tells the story of a group of hot and slutty college girls who play a prank on one of their friends. The prank goes horribly wrong and they decide to keep it a secret. One year later, they find themselves being stalked by a hooded figure that begins killing them off one-by-one.
Despite his breakout role in “300”, Butler’s career still hasn’t taken off and it doesn’t look like it’ll change here. Action junkies will get their money’s worth but don’t expect anything more from this film. Movies & Music
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Nothing more than an “I Know What You Did Last Summer” rip-off but with a bunch of attractive women acting all bimbo-like and getting killed in gory ways. Save your money on this one. WAREZ-BB.ORG \ theSCENE \ 25
Whiteout (9/11/2009)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D (9/18/2009)
Based upon the comic book from Oni Press and written by Greg Rucka, “Whiteout” stars sexy Kate Beckinsale as a U.S. deputy marshal investigating a murder in Antarctica.
An animated film from Sony Pictures based upon the children’s book by Judi and Ron Barrett. A scientist (voiced by Bill Hader) tries to rid the world of hunger by creating a machine to convert water into food. The machine used to do this soon develops a mind of its own and the scientist must find a way to put a stop to it.
The trailer made it seem like John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and it was only after looking it up did I realize that it was a comic book film. I like Beckinsale so I might check this one out.
Kids will definitely enjoy this film but it remains to be seen if adults will too. Wait for the reviews for this one.
The Informant! (9/18/2009)
Jennifer’s Body (9/18/2009)
From Steven Soderbergh and based upon the non-fiction book by journalist Kurt Eichenwald, “The Informant!” tells the true story of an Archer Daniels Midland executive (Matt Damon) who blew the whistle on his company’s price-fixing tactics.
Megan Fox plays a popular cheerleader captain who finds herself possessed by a demon and begins feeding on all the boys at her high school by seducing them. Her best friend (Amanda Seyfried) finds herself to be the only one capable of stopping her.
This film is much in the same vein as “Extract” in that it goes for mild chuckles rather than all-out laughter. Soderbergh is a skilled director so this one I’ll check out if time permits.
Whether you agree or disagree about her acting abilities, Megan Fox is a hot commodity right now. The trailer did not impress me but Diablo Cody is the writer, and she won an Academy Award for “Juno”. I’m still undecided on whether I’ll see it so wait for the reviews.
Love Happens (9/18/2009)
Pandorum (9/25/2009)
A self-help guru’s (Aaron Eckhart) book, which deals with loss, becomes a national best seller but when he falls in love with a hotel florist (Jennifer Aniston), he finds that he hasn’t truly confronted his wife’s passing.
Two astronauts awake on a derelict spacecraft with no memory of who they are. They begin exploring the spaceship, only to discover something horrific that may threaten the survival of the human race.
Another well-meaning but tired romantic comedy/drama. Women will drag their boyfriends to see this but it’s best if you wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray.
Movies & Music
Now this is more like it, science fiction and horror rolled into one! Paul W.S. Anderson serves as producer and the film reminds me very much of “Event Horizon” and some of the posters seemed to have leaped out of EA’s recent game, “Dead Space”. I’m genuinely excited to see this film.
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Surrogates (9/25/2009) Based upon the comic book from Top Shelf Productions, “Surrogates” takes place in 2017 where humans live in isolation in their own homes, remotely controlling robotic replicas dubbed surrogates. When someone is murdered while linked to their surrogate, an FBI agent (Bruce Willis) must venture outside his home for the first time to track down the killer. Bruce Willis hasn’t starred in a film since 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard” but he’s had success with comic book films, such as “Sin City”. The premise is interesting so I’ll hit the theater for this one.
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Toy Story 3D Double Feature (10/2/2009, Limited Two Week Engagement)
The Invention of Lying (10/2/2009) Taking place in an alternate Earth where no one has ever lied, a performer (Ricky Gervais) tells the first lie and begins to use this newfound ability for his own personal gain.
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Personally, I haven’t seen much of Ricky Gervais’ work but the film also co-stars my favorite comedienne, Tina Fey. However, I’m not sure how much she appears in the film so I’ll save this one for DVD/Blu-Ray.
Whip It (10/2/2009)
Zombieland (10/2/2009)
Based upon Shauna Cross’ young adult novel, a young misfit girl (Ellen Page), who is constantly pressured by her mother to enter into beauty pageants decides to join up to a roller derby league instead and finds her true calling.
After America is ravaged by a zombie plague, four survivors band together and travel across the country fighting, what else, ZOMBIES!
This marks the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore and she couldn’t have chosen a more perfect lead for her first film. I loved Ellen Page in “Juno” so this I’ll definitely go to the theater for.
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Originally released in 1995 and 1999, the first two “Toy Story” films from Pixar are getting a rerelease in Disney Digital 3D. Pixar is hard at work on “Toy Story 3”, due to be released next summer, so those who haven’t experienced these two amazing films now have a chance too!
Zombies have always been a staple of horror films and “Zombieland” reminds me of a comedic version of Valve’s video game “Left 4 Dead”. If this is your cup of tea, you should check it out but I’ll be waiting for the DVD/Blu-Ray.
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Couples Retreat (10/9/2009)
Law Abiding Citizen (10/16/2009)
Four couples go on vacation to a tropical island resort and find that they must attend marriage counseling.
Gerard Butler plays a caring father who is a victim to a home invasion that results in the death of his wife and daughter. When one of the criminals responsible is let go thanks to a hotshot D.A. (Jamie Foxx), the father takes it upon himself to seek revenge not only against the people responsible for his family’s death, but on the entire justice system as well.
Despite a well-known cast and an amusing trailer, this is one comedy that you should wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray.
What the hell happened, Jamie Foxx?! After winning his Oscar for 2004’s “Ray”, Foxx’s career seems to go up and down. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great actor so I’ll definitely see this one.
The Stepfather (10/16/2009)
Where the Wild Things Are (10/16/2009)
A teenage son (Penn Badgley) begins to suspect that his mother’s (Sela Ward) new husband might not be the dream man that he portrays himself to be.
Based upon Maurice Sendak’s award-winning children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are” tells the story of a young boy named Max (Max Records) who becomes angry when his mother (Catherine Keener) invites her boyfriend over. Sent to his room as punishment, he imagines himself as a ruler of seven creatures called the ‘Wild Things’.
Honestly, why does Hollywood bother with these uninspired, PG-13 remakes? What’s even more perplexing is the fact that people continue to pay to see these movies. Avoid this one at all costs.
This is based upon one of the most celebrated children’s books of all time so you’d be crazy not to see this one. Although I’m a little worried that something might be screwed up, the trailer seems to be rather faithful to its source material.
Amelia (10/23/2009)
Astro Boy (10/23/2009)
Hilary Swank plays famed aviator Amelia Earhart and the film chronicles her rise to fame, along with her relationship with husband George Putnam (Richard Gere).
Based upon the famous Japanese manga created by Osamu Tezuka, “Astro Boy” is set in a futuristic city where a scientist builds a robot with incredible powers in the image of his deceased son. The robot embarks on a journey to find his identity and place in the world.
This is definitely one of those Oscar-bait films and there’s no denying Earhart’s place in history but I’ll wait for the reviews before deciding whether to see this.
Movies & Music
While I do know of “Astro Boy”, I’ve never read the manga and the premise reminds me of “Pinocchio”. Fans will flock to the theater but I’ll wait for the reviews. WAREZ-BB.ORG \ theSCENE \ 28
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (10/23/2009)
Saw VI (10/23/2009) Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) successor continues his master’s work as the FBI is hot on his trail. He devises a new game to throw off his pursuers as Jigsaw’s grand scheme finally comes to light.
“The Vampire’s Assistant” is an adaptation of the first three books of the young adult novels “The Saga of Darren Shan”. It concerns a young 16-year old boy (Chris Massoglia) whose life is turned upside down when he encounters a vampire (John C. Reilly) and joins his carnival of sideshow freaks. Vampires are a hot commodity these days ever since “Twilight” exploded out of the box office. The success of this film depends on how loyal the fanbase is but to be honest, I really have no interest in seeing this one.
Michael Jackson’s This is It! (10/28/2009, Limited Two Week Engagement)
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (10/30/2009, Limited)
Filmed at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, this documentary chronicles Michael Jackson rehearsing for his concert series of the same name before he suddenly passed away.
Despite the original’s limited release and poor critical reviews, “The Boondock Saints” has developed a loyal cult following, enough to spur director Troy Duffy to helm a sequel with stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus returning as gun-toting, Irish vigilantes.
As you all know, Michael Jackson passed away this July and thousands of devoted fans are still mourning him. I’m not a big fan but despite the scandals during the later years of his life, there’s no denying his impact on music. This is a must-see for me.
N The Box (11/6/2009) Based upon the short story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson (who also wrote “I Am Legend”), “The Box” stars James Marsden and Cameron Diaz as a married couple who receive a mysterious box with nothing but a button inside. They learn that by pressing it, they will receive $1 million but a stranger will also die… The premise is certainly interesting from a moral standpoint and the film is directed by Richard Kelly of “Donnie Darko” fame. I’ll definitely be seeing this one. Movies & Music
Really, will this franchise ever end?! I mean, Jigsaw’s been dead since the third film so what story is there left to tell? Lionsgate is definitely milking this for all its worth and I’m not surprised I’ll be writing about “Saw VII” in next year’s Fall movie preview!
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Troy Duffy faced numerous problems trying to get the original film made and faded to relatively obscurity when it was finally released for one week in five theaters. Blockbuster took the film and released it direct-toDVD, from which it began to accumulate a cult following. I may get the Blu-Ray before seeing this one but I’m not sure if there are enough fans out there to make “All Saints Day” a box office success.
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A Christmas Carol (11/6/2009) Ebenezer Scrooge (voice of Jim Carrey) has devoted his entire life to accumulating wealth but in one night, he’ll go through a journey of redemption when he is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. Everybody knows the story of “A Christmas Carol” and there are countless versions already made so it’s hard to tell what Robert Zemeckis brings to the table besides the use of Disney Digital and IMAX 3D. WAREZ-BB.ORG \ theSCENE \ 29
The Fourth Kind (11/6/2009)
The Men Who Stare at Goats (11/6/2009)
Milla Jovovich plays a psychotherapist living in Alaska who begins interviewing a number of people purported to have been abducted by aliens.
A dark comedy based upon the non-fiction book by Jon Ronson, a reporter (Ewan McGregor) stumbles upon the story of a lifetime when he meets a Special Forces agent (George Clooney), who reveals his long involvement with a top-secret branch in the American military whose purpose is to train soldiers to develop mind-control powers by staring at goats.
The film reportedly integrates archival footage and alien abductions, or anything pertaining to UFO phenomenon, has always been of interest to me. I will see this but probably not on opening weekend.
This is a film where the premise is so outrageous that you have to see it to believe it. I mean, staring at goats to kill them telepathically?! Now this I have to see!
2012 (11/13/2009)
The Blind Side (11/20/2009)
A global cataclysm occurs in the year 2012 which causes the end of the world, spurring the U.S. government to create ships to ensure the survival of the human race.
Based upon the non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, “The Blind Side” chronicles the ragsto-riches tale of Michael Oher, who rose from his impoverished upbringing to becoming an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens.
Roland Emmerich certainly delivers on the spectacle with his films but “2012” looks to be like “The Day After Tomorrow,” meaning it’ll be rife with scientific inaccuracies.
Planet 51 (11/20/2009) An animated film where a human astronaut (voiced by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) sets foot on an unknown planet, only to find it inhabited by green-colored aliens living in a world that resembles 1950’s America. “Planet 51” features a nice twist where the humans themselves are considered aliens but despite an impressive voice cast, I have a feeling this film might not do so well at the box office. Kids will definitely want to go see the film though.
Movies & Music
Another Oscar-bait film but I probably won’t see this until it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray since I’m not a fan of football.
Twilight: New Moon (11/20/2009) Based upon the second book in the “Twilight” series by Stephanie Meyer, Bella (Kristen Stewart) finds herself drawn to her close friend, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) following the abrupt departure of her love, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). She soon finds herself drawn into a conflict between werewolves and vampires. I admit, the first film was okay but now it’s turning into “Underworld” for teen girls. The trailer is just full of Lautner with his shirt off but nothing on the story or characterization. Fans will flock to the theaters but I don’t have high hopes for the sequel. WAREZ-BB.ORG \ theSCENE \ 30
The Road (11/25/2009)
Nine (11/25/2009)
Based upon the novel by Cormac McCarthy, “The Road” stars Viggo Mortensen as an unnamed father trying to survive with his son in a postapocalyptic wasteland.
No relationship to the animated film released in September, “Nine” is an adaptation of the Broadway musical directed by Rob Marshall and deals with a 40 year old man (Daniel DayLewis) amidst a middle-age crisis, struggling to balance the many women in his life.
Post-apocalyptic films are one of my favorite genres and Mortensen does good work so I’ll go to the theater for this one. Since it’s based upon a well-regarded work of literature, “The Road” might even be a serious Oscar contender.
I’m not a big fan of musicals but Rob Marshall has done good work with “Chicago” and “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Daniel Day-Lewis is also an excellent actor so I may see this one in the theater.
Ninja Assassin (11/25/2009)
Old Dogs (11/25/2009) John Travolta and Robin Williams star as two best friends forced to take care of sevenyear-old twins and a dog when an ex-wife returns.
Rain plays a brutal ninja assassin who is forced to take vengeance upon the clan who raised him when they kill his best friend.
Another predictable comedy but I admit parts of the trailer were funny, particularly the end where Seth Green is cradled in a gorilla’s arms singing Air Supply’s “All Out of Love”.
James McTeigue did a fine job adapting Alan Moore’s “V for Vendetta” and his new film has quite a few notable people attached, such as the Wachowski Brothers and comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski. Expect lots of bloody action but I still have some reservations on the plot.
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Armored (12/4/2009)
Brothers (12/4/2009)
A young armored car guard (Columbus Short) has trouble making ends meet and reluctantly joins the veteran guards in hijacking one of the trucks whose cargo contains $42 million. However, a standoff ensues when a cop is shot and the rookie guard finds himself locked in the armored car with the money.
A decorated marine (Tobey Maguire) embarks on his fourth tour of duty and goes missing while his wife (Natalie Portman) is cared for by her brother (Jake Gyllenhaal). When the marine is found to be alive, tensions brew between the two brothers.
The premise is intriguing and there are some good actors in the cast but the morality lesson in the film is obvious.
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It’s not hard to guess what happens between the brothers but I love drama so I’ll definitely check this out in the theater.
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The Lovely Bones (12/11/2009)
Avatar (12/18/2009) Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a marine paralyzed from the waist down and enlists in the military’s “Avatar’ program to infiltrate the Na’vi, an extraterrestrial species living on the planet Pandora. However, as Jake finds himself falling in love with a young Na’vi female, he is caught between the Na’vi and the militaristic forces of Earth.
Based upon the novel by Alice Sebold and directed by Peter Jackson, a young girl (Saoirse Ronan) is brutally raped and murdered. She finds herself trapped in the afterlife as she observes her family mourning for her and the killer preparing to strike again. Just the words Peter Jackson are enough for me to go see this film. Definitely an Oscarcontender so we’ll see if Jackson can strike gold again.
“Avatar” is directed by James Cameron and there’s been a lot of hype surrounding the film. The trailer (with over 4 million views) was visually impressive but nothing really stood out. I’ll still go see it though, in IMAX 3D.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (12/25/2009) The sequel to the 2007 hit film finds the Chipmunks sent to school by their human friend, David Seville (Jason Lee). Meanwhile, Ian Hawke (David Cross) comes upon the Chipettes, and uses them to get back at the Chipmunks. These furry CGI chipmunks are cute and will draw kids in but I’ll sit this one out seeing as how I never saw the first film.
It’s Complicated (12/25/2009) Jane (Meryl Streep) has been divorced for 10 years and maintains an amiable relationship with her ex-husband, Jake (Alec Baldwin) but an innocent dinner turns into an affair. Meanwhile, Jane’s architect, Adam (Steve Martin) begins to fall with her, leading to an awkward love triangle. This looks to be a decent romantic comedy. Meryl Streep is always a joy to watch onscreen and both Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are skilled funnymen. Nonetheless, I’ll wait for this one on DVD/Blu-Ray.
Sherlock Holmes (12/25/2009) Set in 1891 Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his ever faithful colleague, Watson (Jude Law) must stop a conspiracy to destroy Britain, led by Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong). The trailer was hilarious and it looks like this isn’t the Sherlock Holmes we’ve come to know, as this version has more of a rugged appearance and engages in as many fistfights as they are solving crimes. Definitely a must-watch, though I fear Robert Downey Jr’s newfound fame might lead to overexposure. Movies & Music
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9 Movie Review
Written By: Spiderman120988 Layout By: Surferdud3
When we look at animated films, only one word comes to mind and that’s Pixar. With every release, they push the boundaries of animation and storytelling to new heights while raking in the cash at the box office. Other studios have been unable to replicate their success (with the exception of DreamWorks Animation) but along comes “9,” released into theaters this Wednesday and directed by Shane Acker, based upon his Oscar-nominated short film, with Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov serving as producers. “9” features a wellknown cast and incredibly detailed visuals but unfortunately, the characters are thinly developed and the story relies on tired science fiction clichés. SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! In the future, the world is decimated by an army of machines that eradicate the entire human race and the only living beings left are eight ragdoll creatures called ‘stitchpunks’ that roam the city ruins trying to survive. 9 (voice of Elijah Wood) awakens in a rickety home and sees the decaying body of an old scientist and a gold talisman, which he takes. He encounters another of his kind, 2 (voice of Martin Landau) but before they can get to know each other, they are attacked by a mechanical ‘Cat Beast’, who captures 2 and the talisman. 9 succumbs to his injuries and is saved by 5 (voice of John C. Reilly), who brings him to an old church. 5 is part of a group of stitchpunks led by 1 (voice of Christopher Plummer) and together they live in fear of the Cat Beast. 9 tells 1 what happened with 2 and wants to go save him but 1 tells him not to bother. 5, however, is convinced to go help 2 and together they make their way toward an old factory. Inside, 9 and 5 find 2 locked in a cage and the Cat Beast attempting to insert the talisman into some device. They fall under attack and are saved by the timely intervention of 7 (voice of Jennifer Connelly) but 9, letting his curiosity get the better of him, inserts the talisman into the device, which kills 2 and awakens a large ‘Fabrication Machine’, putting all of the stichpunks’ lives at risk.
The characters themselves are more like archetypes but they’re given personality thanks to the impressive voice cast. 9 is the natural leader who’s kindhearted and willing to risk his life for the other stitchpunks, though it’s a mystery that he seems to connect with 2 and 5 within moments of just meeting them. 2 is the kindly old inventor and 5 is the ever-faithful sidekick. 7 is the warrior princess and 8 is the dimwitted muscleman. 8 has his humorous scene where he plays with a magnet. The only character that exhibits any growth is 1, who is at first conservative in his beliefs that the stitchpunks should hide but then comes around to the idea of fighting, going so far as to sacrificing his own life. As Roger Ebert puts it, ‘the dialog is mostly simplified Action Speak, with barked warnings and instructions and strategy debates of the most rudimentary kind’. Released on Wednesday (9-9-09), “9” has received mixed reviews from professional critics who praised the visual effects and ‘director Shane Acker’s attention to detail [which] succeeds in drawing viewers into the film’s universe’ but found the story ‘too familiar and less complex than some might wish’. It currently holds a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. This film will most likely reach #2 at the box office (so far it has made $8 million domestic and $9 million worldwide) as I saw Tyler Perry’s latest, “I Can Do Bad All By Myself ” had three show-times sold out. “9” features stunning animation and detail but this is a film that’s style over substance and could’ve been so much more. However, thanks to Acker’s creativity, these visuals are worth the price of admission alone. Final Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Rated PG-13 (Violence and Scary Images) Running Time: 1 Hour & 20 Minutes
The plot of “9” is reminiscent of other well-known science fiction films such as “Terminator” and “The Matrix” but due to the short running time, is never really developed. Many of the same themes are touched upon, such as humanity’s over-reliance on machines and how technology proves to be their undoing and also the dangers of totalitarianism, but the script never explores these. This is very much a chase film as 9 and his friends race to find the talisman and discover their hidden origins. Acker certainly has a great imagination but is not quite so good at storytelling. If it weren’t for the strong visuals, this would’ve been a mediocre film.
Cast (voice): Elijah Wood-9 John C. Reilly-5 Jennifer Connelly-7 Martin Landau-2 Christopher Plummer-1 Fred Tatasciore-8 Alan Oppenheimer-The Scientist Tom Kane-Dictator
As for the animation, it is simply spellbinding and worth the price of admission alone. As 9 explores his new world, you can see every individual stitch on his body and the joints on his copper hands. The wasteland recalls Bethesda’s Fallout 3, with weapons scattered on the streets and buildings reduced to rubble. The robotic menaces are suitably frightening, especially the Seamstress, who hypnotizes the stitchpunks and quickly captures them using rolls of yarn attached to her back. The animation often resembles stop motion. Sound effects are also well-done and little details like the clinking of 9’s fingers are vivid.
Directed by Shane Acker
“I’m not sure. But this world is ours now. It’s what we make of it.”
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(500) When we fall for someone, everything in the world becomes perfect. You enjoy spending every second with that someone and believe that you’ll spend the rest of your life with him/ her. Out of the blue, you get dumped. You spend your days wallowing in your self-pity trying to figure out what went wrong. This is “(500) Days of Summer” in a nutshell, an atypical romantic comedy that debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is in limited release right now. I would’ve never have went to see this film if it kept being mentioned by every critic who panned “The Proposal” and “The Ugly Truth”. Call me a sap, but “(500) Days of Summer” has now become my favorite romance film thanks to its honest look at love, it’s cute leading couple and an offbeat, often quirky charm. Quite simply, it’s one of the best films this year so far!
SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW!
Told in non-chronological order, we meet Tom Hansen ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt), once set to become an architect but due to money issues, ended up working for a greeting card firm for the past 3 or 4 years. His boss, Vance (Clark Gregg) introduces his new assistant from Michigan named Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom is immediately taken with her. He annoys his friends about how much he likes her and after a random elevator encounter where they learn that they both love The Smiths, Tom becomes convinced that she is ‘the one’ and his soul mate. During a karaoke event with his co-workers, Tom shares his idealistic beliefs on love but Summer remarks that she doesn’t believe in love or get tied down and being someone’s girlfriend. As they leave for home, Tom’s very drunk friend, 34 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
DAYS OF SUMMER Reviewed By spiderman120988
Layout By KieronDSFX
“This is a boy meets girl story. It is not a love story.”
McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) blurts out that Tom likes Summer very much. She coaxes him about it and Tom admits that he does but quickly adds ‘as friends’. The next day at work, the two are in the copy room where Summer suddenly kisses Tom. They begin to spend more time together, with Summer telling Tom her most intimate thoughts and him on top of the world. His performance at work greatly improves but it all comes crashing down all of a sudden when Summer blurts out one day that they should stop seeing each other and that she’s not happy. Tom is taken aback and falls into a depression. His work begins to suffer and he desperately tries to figure out what went wrong, forcing him to take a long hard look at his beliefs on love and relationships. Unlike the mediocre “The Ugly Truth”, there is a meaningful message in “(500) Days of Summer” and that can be summed up in two little words: “love hurts”. In this modern age where everyone is so worried about the economy and making sure there’s food on the table, Tom still believes in true love and finding ‘the one’, due in part to his complete misunderstanding of the ending in 1967’s “The Graduate”. As his relationship with Summer blossoms, we see them enjoying such mundane activities, things that we would take for granted such as shopping for furniture at IKEA and then suddenly pretending to be a married couple in a scene that will make you smile. Tom tells us how much he likes the way Summer smiles, her little heart-shaped birthmark, the way she licks her lips before she talks and while we the audience so desperately want them to be together, not just because they’re such an adorable and cute couple but because they seem like a match made in heaven, we know that they won’t make it. As Roger Ebert wrote in his review, ‘In romance, we believe what we want to believe’. Tom is not in love with Summer, he is in love with an idea of Summer, a Summer that will appreciate every gift he gives and will love him forever but as the reality shows, this is not to be the case. No amount of chasing, anger, or wallowing in self-pity will make her come back because quite simply, it just wasn’t meant to be. By the end of the film, Tom begins to recover and resolves to finally be an architect. Just when he least expects it, he meets a girl named Autumn. If there’s anything that you should learn from “(500) Days of Summer” is that one should not go through life romanticizing and just let love happen. Hey, they say it works in mysterious ways but it also comes from the place that you would least expect it to! There’s also the fact that we have Movies & Music
commercialized love so much (like the greeting card industry) that we’re all afraid to speak what we truly mean and just give a meaningless piece of cardboard. It’s amazing that first-time director Marc Webb has crafted a film that doesn’t fall back on ridiculous Hollywood clichés but takes an honest, often ugly look at love and the crazy things that it causes us to do. There are also quite a lot of funny scenes such as Tom telling his friends how he gave Summer plenty of signs that he was interested in her. Then it flashbacks to the office where Summer asks if the guys need anything from the supply closet and Tom remarks, ‘Oh, you know what I need!’ which confuses her. He quickly mutters that he needs toner. Another scene had the two sit in the park yelling out ‘PENIS!’ at strangers. It’s such a stupid thing to do but that’s what couples who are in love do. There’s also Summer telling Tom that people used to call her ‘Anal Girl’ (means neat and organized) and remarking that ‘looks doable’ when they rent a porno film together. Of course, nothing beats Tom doing his musical number in the street to the tune of “You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oates, complete with Disney bluebirds!
him to look back, to really look back at his relationship with Summer and not just the good stuff. Rounding out the cast is Matthew Gray Gubler and Geoffrey Arend as Tom’s best friends, Paul and McKenzie. Gubler has a funny scene where he asks Tom if he and Summer ‘did it’ or if she gave him any ‘jobs’. In limited release since July 17, “(500) Days of Summer” has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from professional critics, who called the film ‘a clever, offbeat romantic comedy… refreshingly honest and utterly charming’. It currently holds an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Romance comedies get a bad rep these days because their reliance on formula undermines their integrity but director Marc Webb turns the genre on its head by taking a serious look at love, one in which chronicles a failed romance, rarely seen in today’s films. This candid approach that will relate to everyone is what makes “(500) Days of Summer” such an excellent film so I urge everyone to stop making “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” the #1 movie of the year and go see something meaningful. Guaranteed, you won’t be disappointed!
The acting is superb and Joseph Gordon-Levitt exudes a likable, everyman charm of someone with limited romantic experience. The focus is always on Levitt’s character and as such he’s an unreliable narrator; we always see Summer the way he sees her. We fall in love with her because he falls in love and vice versa. I’ve only seen Zooey Deschanel in one film (2005’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) but she is amazing in this film. She displays a cutesy quality that would make any man fall for her. With so much hubbub about Megan Fox being ‘totally hot’ in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, I’d pick Zooey any day of the week. Then there are her blue eyes and seriously, when you look into them you feel a sense of calm and all the world’s problems just melt away. You feel exactly what Tom feels. I also love her singing voice and would really like to get my hands on some of her music! The rest of the supporting cast is also great such as Tom’s little sister, Rachel, played by Chloe Moretz and strangely serves as his relationship expert. During a game of Wii Tennis, she says, ‘Just because she’s likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soul mate!’ and also provides Tom with the means to recover, telling Rated PG-13 (Sexual Material and Language) Running Time: 1 Hour & 35 Minutes Final Rating :
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INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to re-write the course of history in his latest film, “Inglourious Basterds”. Nope, I did not make a typo, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is Tarantino’s school of spelling! “Inglourious Basterds” takes place in an alternate World War II where Hitler didn’t commit suicide in a bunker, but instead died by being riddled with bullet holes in a fiery demise at the hands of a group of vengeful Jewish persons. Though some may complain about its bloated length, Tarantino’s latest is the most fun you’ll have at the movies this summer. Packed to the brim with memorable performances, amazing dialogue and bloody violence that’ll leave you excited until the very last scene!
Review by : Spiderman120988 Design by : Surferdud3
SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! Told in five chapters with two concurrent storylines, we meet Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) of the Waffen-SS, proudly known by his more popular moniker, the ‘Jew Hunter’. He interrogates a French dairy farmer about the whereabouts of a Jewish family, the Dreyfus’, and manages to get him to admit that they were hiding under the floorboards all along. He orders his soldiers to open fire but a young girl, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), manages to escape to Paris, where she later comes to own a small cinema under an assumed identity, Emmanuelle Mimieux. She catches the eye of Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a sniper-turned-actor who is the subject of Joseph Goebbels’ (Sylvester Groth) latest propaganda film, “Stolz der Nation”. Zoller manages to convince Goebbel’s to hold the premiere of the film at Shosanna’s theater. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) gathers a group of nine Jewish American soldiers to form the Inglourious Basterds, devoted to the killing (and scalping!) of Nazi soldiers. British intelligence learns that all of the Nazi’s high-ranking officials, including Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke), are attending a movie premiere, which just so happens to be the one set to take place in Shosanna’s theatre. The British send Lt. Archie Hicox, (Michael Fassbender) to meet the Basterds and attempt to blow up the theater with the help of a German double agent, Bridget von Hammersmark, (Diane Kruger). END SPOILERS! At its core, “Inglourious Basterds” is a revenge tale much in the same vein of “Kill Bill” but like “Grindhouse”, the film is a love letter to cinephiles with Tarantino using the spaghetti western as his inspiration. Unlike most war movies where we see soldiers persevering against the enemy on the front lines, “Basterds” presents heroes that are just as bad and sadistic as the people they fight. This is not about being noble or sacrificing for the greater good, this is the bloody, dirty side of war, the side that we rarely see anymore. Does it glorify violence? Probably, but damn is it entertaining! Much of the film is driven by dialogue and all of it is smartly written, with a heightening sense of tension that explodes in short action scenes, finally leading to a grand finale that will leave you with a gaping mouth as you leave the theater. The best example takes place in a basement bar with Kruger, Fassbender, and Schweiger’s characters trying to verbally outmaneuver a suspecting German SS officer. One wrong gesture and everyone starts riddling each other with bullet holes, notably in their testicles! Some may complain that “Basterds” is talky bordering on tiresome but does Tarantino look like he gives a crap about what we think? No, he makes films his way…and we love him for it.
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“We’re gon na be doin g one than and one th g ang only...k illin’ Nazis .” Most impressive is the large cast that he has managed to gather and almost all of them deliver superb performances. Brad Pitt is the film’s most recognizable face and chews up every scene as the hillbilly Aldo Raine. He has several comical (and violent) scenes, the most notable being at the very end where he carves a bloody swastika into a German colonel as he screams! He then remarks that this just might be his ‘masterpiece’, an obvious in-joke from Tarantino. Famous torture porn director Eli Roth plays Donny Donowitz, also known as the ‘Bear Jew’, whose feared reputation even reaches Hitler’s ears as he beats Nazi soldiers to a bloody pulp with their brains scattered all over the ground using a baseball bat. It reminds me very much of Rockstar Games’ Manhunt and you’ll feel a kind of sadistic glee as he does it. Roth’s performance is somewhat over-the-top but Raine says that ‘watching Donny beat Nazi’s to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies!’ Til Schweiger is Hugo Stiglitz, who receives a humorous introduction when his name pops up in big, bold lettering, Tarantinostyle! Various other members of the Basterds are shown scalping Nazis in gruesome close-ups. Hell, they’re not even fazed; it’s like a work routine for them! Like his previous films, “Basterds” also features strong-willed female characters that are every bit as ruthless as their male counterparts. The beautiful, blue-eyed Mélanie Laurent is Shosanna, who presents a calm, attractive exterior but once she learns that the Nazis want to premiere their latest film at her theater, takes it upon herself to reap vengeance. When everything finally explodes, we only hear her devilish laughter. The only other female is Diane Kruger but Laurent is more memorable since she is on-screen more. The best performance comes from Christoph Waltz, whose Colonel Hans Landa is charming with his flowery vocabulary but his veneer betrays a sociopathic streak. In the first chapter, he successfully maneuvers the French dairy farmer into admitting where the Jews are hiding and during a Cinderella homage with Kruger, suddenly leaps on top
and chokes the life out of her. Suffice to say, he meets a much deserved fate that will make us cackle with glee. “Basterds” is not filled to the brim with action like “Kill Bill” but everything leads up to an explosive climax as all the pieces fit together. “Inglourious Basterds” had its debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and the reaction was somewhat mixed. Fortunately, reviews have been very positive leading up to its release today, with a solid 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. Professional critics called the film a ‘classic Tarantino genre-bending thrill ride… violent, unrestrained, and thoroughly entertaining.’ Most of the theater was filled as I tried to find a seat since I arrived at a perilously close five minutes before show-time! No doubt it’ll reach #1 at the box office this weekend as Tarantino has a very devoted fan-base but the film’s length might limit its earnings. It’s hard to believe a former video store clerk would turn out to be one of the most acclaimed directors of our time and Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” shows that he still hasn’t lost his touch, crafting a violent, revenge flick, packed with suspense and scene-chewing performances despite its long running time and focus on dialogue. Hands down, you’ll leave the theater thoroughly entertained and with a smile on your face!
Final Rating:
Running Time: 2 Hours & 33 Minutes
Michael Fassbender-Lt. Archie Hicox
Cast:
Christoph Waltz-Col. Hans Landa
Brad Pitt-Lt. Aldo Raine
Diane Kruger-Bridget von Hammersmark
Mélanie Laurent-Shosanna Dreyfus Eli Roth-Sgt. Donny Donowitz Til Schweiger-Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz Gedeon Burkhard-Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki
Sylvester Groth-Joseph Goebbels Martin Wuttke-Adolf Hitler Mike Myers-General Ed Fenech
B.J. Novak-Pfc. Smithson Utivich
Rod Taylor-Winston Churchil
Omar Doom-Pfc. Omar Ulmer
Julie Dreyfus-Francesca Mondinol
Samm Levine-Pfc. Gerold Hirschberg
Jacky Ido-Marcel
Paul Rust-Pfc. Andy Kagan
Samuel L. Jackson-The Narrator
Michael Bacall-Pfc. Michael Zimmerman Movies
Daniel Brühl-Fredrick Zoller
Carlos Fidel-Pfc. Simon Sakowitz
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District 9 review Review by: spiderman120988 Layout By: Surferdud3
e a r a e r e s h t e “T r ec s f o ”.” 9 lot t ic r t s i in D
So far, this summer has proven a general disappointment for movies, dominated by big, special effect laden films like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Make no mistake, my feelings about these films are evident and whether you choose to agree with me or not is up to you. As we head into the final weeks of August, along comes the long-awaited “District 9”, a science fiction film directed by newcomer Neill Blomkamp with “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson serving as executive producer. Blomkamp was set to direct “Halo”, based upon the famed video game franchise from Microsoft and Bungie Studios but the project has now been defunct due to budgetary concerns from 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures. Jackson felt obligated to give Blomkamp a chance to direct another film and decided to make a full-length adaptation of his short film, “Alive in Joburg”. After seeing the film, I am left shaken as to how original and brutal “District 9” is as Blomkamp successfully crafts one of the most emotionally gut-wrenching tales of the darkest depths of the human soul but also their capacity for good. In a summer full of mediocre films made for mass consumption, “District 9” is a godsend and you’ll be hard pressed not to leave the theater deeply affected. SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! They came 28 years ago, a large alien mothership, just hovering over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. For three months, nothing happened and it was decided that a small research group would forcibly enter the ship. What they found was thousands of insectlike aliens starving and on the verge of death. At first, people welcomed them with open arms and tried to nurse them back to health at the holding facility dubbed District 9, but the aliens quickly became a drain on society. District 9 began to devolve into a colony of shantytowns, with crime rampant and the aliens, called derogatively ‘prawns’, living in terrible conditions. Control over the colony was transferred over to Multi-National United, who cared little for the aliens’ welfare but instead wanted to reverse engineer their technology. They have been unsuccessful as the weapons only interact with alien DNA. Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is assigned to evict the 1.8 million aliens to District 10 but after an accident (which I will not reveal), his life is turned upside down and he is forced to become a fugitive. His only salvation lies in Christopher Johnson, an alien with a son who desperately wants to go home, and together they unlock the secrets of District 9. END SPOILERS! This is a film that you should go in with as little knowledge as possible and the trailers have done a good job of introducing the basic premise, but the mystique is still preserved. The allegory of “District 9” is obvious: apartheid but applied to extraterrestrials. We know the horror of apartheid between whites and Africans in South Africa but how would we react to aliens just suddenly popping up? How we interact with them will certainly define the human race forever. Blomkamp shows that at first, we welcome these aliens, I mean, anyone seeing someone so malnourished would do the right thing and help them. Of course, helping them becomes a drain on society and people begin to say that these ‘prawns’ should just go. Their problems don’t concern us and whatever they’re dealing with pales in comparison with what we go through. This reminds me of how the American public slowly started to call for the withdrawal of soldiers in Iraq. The economy was tanking so why the hell are we wasting time trying to save some backwater country? As public opinion turns against the aliens, they treat them with disdain and take advantage of them. Thugs begin setting up shop, trying to get their hands on their weapons and even outright killing them to consume their flesh in order to gain ‘special powers’. Corporations are driven by greed as they try to reverse engineer their technology and have no qualms performing horrific experiments on the aliens. District 9 is nothing more but a trash heap, a concentration camp where its residents scrape by on nothing but garbage. In terms of different races, everyone tries to look out for themselves and no matter how much we say we accept everyone, deep down you’re just as prejudiced as you and me. We’ve just gotten to the point where we’re good at hiding them. When you look at the treatment of these aliens, it’s just a mirror showing us who we truly are deep down.
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Out of this chaos arrives Wikus van der Merwe, played with such excellence and sincerely by Sharlto Copley, a virtual unknown actor from South Africa. When we first meet him, he’s nothing but a pencil-pusher and brown noser. While serving eviction notices to the aliens, he curses and treats them with extreme disrespect. Once the accident happens, he finally experiences first-hand the extreme cruelty of what the aliens go through. His superior, who just happens to be his father-in-law, immediately allows him to be experimented upon and the scenes where he’s pleading to see his wife (Vanessa Haywood) are gut-wrenching to watch. Once he’s a fugitive, he enlists the help of Christopher Johnson, an alien single father who’s trying to save his people. Wikus still has selfish means and is using Christopher for his own gain but as he achieves his moral awakening, he decides to put his life on the line and allow his new friend the chance to save his people. The aliens themselves are brought to life through Jackson’s own Weta Digital and they look amazingly lifelike and sympathetic. They’re black in color and have a shrimp-like appearance, communicating through clicks and chirps. One of their most unusual quirks is their love for cat food. Christopher and his son are at the heart of the story. Whenever the camera is up-close, their eyes are so expressive, revealing how much they’re on the verge of giving up. The son, as he stares at a hologram of his homeworld, asks his father how many moons it has and when he will go there but Christopher holds a pamphlet saying they can’t, because they are being relocated to District 10. There’s also another scene where the little guy curiously looks at Wikus and remarks that they’re the same. The relationship between parent and child shows more humanity than Wikus’ own family. It’s easy to dismiss them as nothing more as CGI creations but that line of thought is absolutely wrong. As the film convinces us that mankind is the enemy, one wouldn’t feel any guilt if the aliens unleashed hell like the ones in “Independence Day”. In fact, it would be just. The ship itself is never shown off like another CGI effect but is more of an afterthought, allowing us quick glimpses but remaining fuzzy in the background. The second half explodes with quite a lot of action, as Wikus and Christopher fight their way through MNU with alien weaponry, which isn’t all that advanced but absolutely destructive. You’ll see quite a lot of bodies explode and it earns it’s R-rating in spades. There’s also the Mech scene and that’s when the film has you firmly in its grasp as you’re wondering if there’s any hope for Wikus or Christopher. Blomkamp utilizes a documentary-style to tell the story through the use of testimonials looking back at these events and their effects on the human community. It lends the movie realism and allows us to accept what we’re being told as ‘fact’. Released nationwide today, pre-release buzz of “District 9” has been immensely positive, and critic reviews reflect that, with an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. Made on a relatively small budget of $30 million, the film may make three times this amount through positive word-of-mouth, though when I was at the theater today, there was only a moderate amount of people. “District 9” also leaves many of its plot threads unresolved so while a sequel is likely, I think it’s better to leave it as a stand-alone film and let it foster debate of what happens next. This film has single-handedly saved a summer dominated but inane toilet humor and loud explosions and one will leave the theater disturbed when ‘gazing through the dark lens of…human nature’ ( James Berardinelli, ReelViews). Berardinelli also wishes that the ‘inhabitants of Earth never encounter visitors from another planet because the reality of how we might interact with them could be close to what is depicted here, and that’s a depressing thought.’ “District 9” is brutal and cynical, depicting humanity at its worst but also at their best. No question this is the best movie of the summer by far and has all the makings of a classic science-fiction masterpiece.
Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Rated R (Bloody Violence and Pervasive Language) Running Time: 1 Hour & 52 Minutes Cast: Sharlto Copley-Wikus Van Der Merwe Vanessa Haywood-Tania Van Der Merwe Jason Cope-Grey Bradnam (UKNR Chief Correspondent) Nathalie Boltt-Sarah Livingstone (Sociologist) Sylvaine Strike-Dr. Katrina McKenzie John Summer-Les Feldman (MIL Engineer) William Allen Young-Dirk Michaels Nick Blake-Francois Moraneu (CIV Engineer Team) Jed Brophy-James Hope (Police Officer) Louis Minnaar-Piet Smit Marian Hooman-Sandra Van Der Merwe Johan van Schoor-Nicolas Van Der Merwe Vittorio Leonardi-Michael Bloemstein (MNU Alien Civil Affairs) Mandla Gaduka-Fundiswa Mhlanga Stella Steenkamp-Phyllis Sinderson (MNU Alien Relations) David James-Koobus Venter Tim Gordon-Clive Henderson (Entomologist) Directed by Neill Blomkamp
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As summer draws to a close, we’re treated to one last action flick, and that’s “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, based upon Hasbro’s famous militarythemed line of action figures that began in 1982. To be honest, I was never a G.I. Joe fan and any action figures that I had back when I was just a child were all Batman. The film has received quite a fair amount of bad buzz due to the lacklustre trailer attached to “Star Trek”, and all signs pointed to a bad movie when Paramount decided not to screen the movie for professional critics to avoid the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” disaster. While initial reviews from popular internet sites (like IGN) were positive, reception took a nosedive as critics began posting their thoughts on the film this morning as they returned from the midnight showing. Although I really wanted the film to be good, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” amounts to nothing more than a two hour, headache-inducing toy commercial, that features mass amounts of CGI of varying quality, in an attempt to cover up the lack of any story or character depth. Consider it a companion piece to the equally crappy “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, and a nice way to close out one of the most disappointing summer movie seasons so far. 40 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! After a prologue in France, 1641, the film fast forwards to the not too distant future, where James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), CEO of weapons manufacturing corporation Military Armament Research Syndicate (MARS), introduces his nanotechnology capable of destroying whole cities to a group of military officers. He sells four warheads to NATO and the package is to be protected by a contingent of U.S. Army soldiers, led by Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans). However, during the trip, they are ambushed by a group of terrorists led by the Baroness (Sienna Miller), who intend to steal the warheads. They are forced to retreat after the timely intervention of Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), agents of an elite force known as G.I. Joe. Duke and Ripcord are brought before General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) and the two are soon allowed to be part of the team after an intense training period. It is revealed that McCullen himself is the one who ordered the Baroness to steal the warheads and is using the ‘nanomites’ to breed an army of super soldiers with the help of the Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). He manages to learn the location of the G.I. Joe’s base, and sends the Baroness and Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-Hun) to retrieve the warheads. They are successful, but the G.I. Joe team, along with new recruits Duke and Ripcord, aren’t far behind as they try to prevent McCullen from using the warheads to cause worldwide destruction. END SPOILER!
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There are a host of problems as to why “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is a terrible movie, but first let’s look at the plot, or rather the lack of one. After the McGuffin (a plot element/device that moves the story forward) is introduced, the film devolves into a 118-minute chase as each set-piece is piled with loud explosions to deadening effect. Of course, director Stephen Sommers attempts to give the film some ‘depth’ by including some flashback sequences, but even there the action is non-stop! The only times the actors/actresses say anything is when pointing out the obvious, such as a chase through the streets of Paris where Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui) figures out that the target is the Eiffel Tower. In any case, one can enjoy “G.I Joe” in the right frame of mind but unless you’re a kid, this is going to be hard to do considering the film piles on the loud action scenes with no end in sight. The acting, with the exception of Sienna Miller, is atrocious. Channing Tatum as Duke is nothing more Movies & Music
than a macho-man cardboard cut out, whose only thoughts are ‘the mission’. His character has some history with the Baroness, but do we really care in the midst of all those explosions? Marlon Wayans is mostly for comic relief as Ripcord, repeatedly making advances to intellectual hottie Scarlett (Rachel Nichols). At least none of it was as inane or banal as “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. The aforementioned Nichols serves no other purpose than to look good in her leather jumpsuit and spout techno-babble. Rounding out the ‘good guys’ is Dennis Quaid as General Hawk. The only bright spot is Sienna Miller, who looks good with her cleavagedisplaying leather and manages to make most of the corny dialogue work, probably because she’s the most experienced actress. The main villain, played by Christopher Eccleston, is cartoonishly evil and exhibits such glee in revealing his entire ‘genius’ plan, only to be thwarted right after. Why couldn’t everyone just be like Ray Park’s Snake Eyes, who’s a mute, and spare us from the groan-inducing dialogue? WAREZ-BB.ORG \ theSCENE \ 41
So this just leaves the CGI and the action sequences, but there are just so many explosions happening onscreen that by the time the credits rolled, I had no energy left. The best part would have to be the Eiffel Tower scene where the nanomites start eating into the metal, causing it to collapse. The chase beforehand with the accelerator-suit wearing Duke and Ripcord would’ve been great if there weren’t so many things blowing up. I’m surprised someone didn’t go into an epileptic seizure! Several fight scenes are also wellchoreographed, such as when the Baroness engages in a girl fight with Scarlett and Snake Eyes clashes blades with Storm Shadow. Of course, you can’t end a film like this without an epic battle, but the final 40 minutes are just as ridiculous as the Joe’s engage in an underwater explosion-orgy with McCullen’s goons that’s ripped straight out of “Star Wars”. And ice that sinks? I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. You can go to Roger Ebert for that, where he writes, ‘We thought ice floated in water but, no, you can see big falling ice chunks real good here. It must be only in your Coke that it floats’. To make matters worse, the entire film is filled to the brim with gadgets so that Hasbro can sell more action figures, much like 1997’s “Batman & Robin”.
Released into theatres today, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” was not screened by critics beforehand, leading to a bloated score on Rotten Tomatoes this past week. Thankfully, justice is served as the film now holds at 38% and I wouldn’t be surprised if it went even lower. The few professional critics that reviewed it concluded that it was ‘largely a cartoonish, over-thetop action fest propelled by silly writing, inconsistent visual effects, and merely passable performances’. Like “Transformers 2”, no one is going to care what the critics say because everyone will still go out to see this movie in droves. Expect the film to make upwards of $50 million this weekend and then drop hard next week with the (thank god!) release of “District 9”, which has received positive buzz. “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is a series of migraine-inducing explosions that are strung together by a paper-thin plot with terrible performances thanks to the clichéd action dialogue. As Richard Corliss said, ‘The only collateral damage is in the audience, where, as you sit through the movie, you can feel your IQ drop minute by minute.’
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Final Rating: 1 out of 5 DIRECTED BY STEPHEN SOMMERS G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Review Rated PG-13 (Strong Sequences of Action Violence and Mayhem Throughout) Running Time: 1 Hour & 58 Minutes Channing Tatum Conrad Hauser/Duke Marlon Wayans Wallace Weems/Ripcord Rachel Nichols Shana M. O’Hara/Scarlett Ray Park Snake Eyes Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje-Hershel Dalton/Heavy Duty Saïd Taghmaoui Abel Shaz/Breaker Dennis Quaid General Clayton Abernathy/Hawk Karolína Kurková Courtney A. Kreiger/Cover Girl Brendan Fraser Sergeant Stone Christopher Eccleston James McCullen/Destro Joseph Gordon Levitt-Rex Lewis/The Doctor/Cobra Commander Sienna Miller Anastasia DeCobray/The Baroness Lee Byung Hun-Thomas Arashikage/Storm Shadow Arnold Vosloo Zartan Jonathan Pryce The President
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“When all else fails, they don’t.” (This is such an ironic statement, don’t you think?) Movies & Music
Scotland's Music Venues Review
article by: 3nt3rclyro layout by: surferdud3
Wednesday, 16th September 2009 Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland Coldplay [with special guests Jay-Z and White Lies] It was 6 o’clock in the evening, and the sun was beginning to set as White Lies took to the stage. Hampden Park was half-empty, the standing section barely crowded and only a few seats occupied. But White Lies gave it their all, and the result was a promising performance from a still-developing band. The cheer they got when they announced that their final song would be “Death” was impressive for such a relatively small band. After about 20 minutes of shuffling equipment around, Jay-Z and his band of merry rappers took to the stage, and the crowd – somewhat subdued until this point – came to life. Song after song, the audience was bouncing to the lyrics and beat of officially the greatest rapper of all time (based on album sales). Jay-Z played his last song and then, as darkness fell, the main attractions bounded on stage. Really, this was a master class in live performance. Chris Martin (lead vocals, guitar) had the crowd performing for him by the end of the night, such was his connection. The set list was a mixture of classics and songs from their newest album, Viva La Vida (or Death and All his Friends), the highlights being one of each: during “Yellow”, enormous yellow balloons were floated and bounced across the crowd, which was truly a wondrous sight. But possibly more amazing was the finale, “Lovers In Japan (Osaka Sun Remix)”. At the climax of the song, millions and millions of fluorescent and shiny paper butterflies were shot over the crowd, who were now delirious with the sight of fluttering pink and green and yellow and blue butterflies floating around them. Truly a perfect way to end a fantastic night.
Saturday, 26th September 2009 Glasgow ABC All Time Low [supported by The Friday Night Boys and The Audition] At first, the queue was backed up around 2 corners, and yet I managed to get to nearly the front of the standing section without any difficulty at all. Surrounded by sweaty teenagers obsessed with sex, drugs and alcohol, I watched sweaty teenagers sing about sex, drugs and alcohol. All Time Low seemed to be oblivious to their crowd, talking to each other (and not the crowd) in-between songs, mostly about how horny they were. Hmmm.... still, the actual music was good. The mosh pit was a lot better than you’d expect at a gig full of samey near-scene indie kids. Eventually, the band cottoned on to the fact that they could interact with the crowd, and got everyone going… for the last song. Still, they’re young, so they’ll learn soon enough. A decent way to spend an evening. Sunday, 27th September 2009 King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Scotland Bombay Bicycle Club [supported by Three Blind Wolves and Flashguns] King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, voted “the best UK gig venue” by NME, was packed full – to its 50-person capacity – for this gig. Three Blind Wolves started things off, and were very good for a band that I’d never heard of, frankly. Really nice guys who were in the mood for a laugh with the crowd, and based on this performance they should be moving onto to bigger and better things soon. Flashguns were next, and they were pretty disappointing: they needed their songs to be played into their earphones so that they didn’t forget them, and that sums their performance up. They established pretty much no connection with the crowd, albeit the lead singer’s dancing was nothing short of breathtaking. Then, as claustrophobia set in to the tiny venue, Bombay Bicycle Club wandered on stage, and the noise from the crowd was closer to 500 people than 50. They played both well-known and new songs, the highlight of the night being Always Like This. Jack Steadman (lead singer) lost control then, jumping into his adoring crowd – who’d also lost control by this point. King Tut’s has only recently begun to allow Under-18s to attend their gigs, and it was justified in the frantic energy the youngsters brought to the gig.
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General
- APPLE’S ANNUAL IPOD REPLENISHING EVENT this year brought a lot of smiles as well as sad faces. Every year, Apple holds this event to introduce new iPods and other Apple software.
iPod Nano: The nano this year is the product that got the most remodeling bringing a variety of features, most notably the addition of a video camera - yes the rumors were true, not completely though! I’m coming to that - and several other features. The video camera is a simple one which however only allows the user to take videos and not still images, which is a bit disappointing. The user is able to add several effects in the video being taken, such as motion blur and sepia, and it also has the ability to share these videos to sites like You Tube and Facebook, but not without connecting it to the Mac or PC, which is again a tedious process. Another interesting addition to it is the FM radio, which the competition has had for a while. The exciting thing here, is (yes Apple always has something exciting up it’s sleeve doesn’t it?) you’re able to live pause, and also ‘tag’ the song you’re listening to so that you can purchase it later on iTunes, making listening to the radio a whole new experience. Voice Recording, is another new features and has an interface that is similar to the one introduced in the 3.0 firmware. The Nano also now has an in-built speaker, and trust me, it sounds like your favorite songs are being performed by a band of fleas. That’s about the new features, the old ones include Genius and Voice Over.
iPod Touch: Well this is what caused a small disappointment. There were rumors that the iPod Touch and the iPod Nano were both getting cameras which turned out only half true. The iPod Touch however has got a capacity revision. There are now 8GB, 32GB and a brand-new, whooping 64 GB model, without any change in the dimensions. It’s also sharing the 3D hardware from the iPhone 3GS and a faster processor too. That’s just about it with the new iPod Touch. However, in the event, it’s gaming capabilities were actually compared to the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS. “And people are starting to see what a great gaming device this is. When you think about the companies that came before us... when you played those other systems, they seemed so cool, but now when you look at them, they don’t stack up against the iPod touch.” - Apple’s Phil Schiller. True, the iPod Touch has truly evolved as a gaming device but I don’t think it is any serious threat to the Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP. This still is my favorite device, it’s got everything you want, internet, music, and gaming all put in an Apple interface.
iPod Classic: The iPod Classic remains unchanged except for upped memory to 160 GB and being “50% faser”. 44 \ theSCENE \ WAREZ-BB.ORG
Section
iPod Shuffle: Another device that hasn’t changed much. It’s got a voice announcing feature now, which announces the battery being full and stuff like that. It’s also become much glossier and comes in a few new colors.
iTunes 9: This is up there with the iPod Nano when it comes to new features. It’s got a completely refined iTunes store which looks much cleaner and more appealing. It’s got so many new features and I’m going to start off with iTunes LP. This is basically a more digital and visual way of experiencing your music with a lot of artwork created by the artist themselves. Now comes another feature which wouldn’t be too useful for us but it’s called “Home Sharing”. You’re allowed to access the music libraries of up to 5 computers in the house, and you’re given the capability to transfer the music, movies, TV shows and other content. An interesting feature here is the iTunes Extras feature. When you download a movie from the iTunes Store, your movie comes with something called iTunes Extras which is basically the special features you see in a DVD. Pretty interesting. Genius Mixes is yet another feature that’s been introduced. Think of it as a more refined Genius Playlist. These mixes are like channels programmed entirely within your music. I checked it out and it’s awesome, I love it. Last but not least, the syncing. Now this is my favorite feature in iTunes 9. It allows you to control the stuff that gets synced into your iPod/iPhone easily for example, you have the option to sync all the stuff by say, “Metallica”. Artists are presented with checkpoints next to them so you’re able to select exactly what you want on your iPod. You can also now arrange your iPod Touch/iPhone apps within iTunes. Pretty cool huh?
Firmware 3.1: Apple just can’t stop updating their devices can they? Well they’ve gone and done it again. So let’s take a look at what’s new. First of all, there’s now a genius feature for apps! Look how far they’ve gone. I’ve checked it out and it’s pvretty cool. Genius Mixes as I mentioned before in iTunes, is here in the new firmware too and it’s impressive, it really works. Other features are Peer-to-Peer gaming and the ability to purchase movies and TV shows right from your iPod/iPhone, which in my opinion is going to take forever.
Last but not least: Good old Steve made an appearance today like nothing had ever happened! Okay no, he mentioned what had happened to him (liver transplant) but he was the same for the rest of the event. Apple is nothing without Steve Jobs and we’re glad to have him back. Section
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Ten must have browser addons for
Mozilla Firefox NoScript This little code chewing monster is a must have for everyone who uses FireFox. With over 50 million downloads, one might wonder why this isn’t included in the default installer to begin with. NoScript does exactly what its name says: block code on web pages unless you allow it to be executed. Useless, annoying and malicious web content doesn’t get a chance anymore. Java, Javascript, Flash, Silverlight,… the sharp teethed S handles them with ease. Equally important: the user can handle it with ease as well. Behind a simple, easily accessible interface for novice users, there are lots of advanced features to be found. NoScript has received wide media attention and has won several awards, appearing on PC World’s “100 best products of the year” in 2006. Its vast expert user base translates in a very active development, with almost weekly updates to ensure protection against the latest threats. As CNET reports: “Giorgio Maone’s NoScript script-blocking plug-in is the one-andonly Firefox add-on I consider mandatory” (O’Reilly, March 2009). Do yourself a favor and install this addon.
Adblock Plus Perhaps the best-known FireFox addon, ABP delivers most noticeable results. Today’s webpages consist of advertisement for the greater part. Ads can be distracting to downright annoying and may pose a serious security risk. Adblock Plus can save you from a lot of frustration by simple removing ads from websites. Additionally, it allows you to block specific content such as images you really don’t want to see. Adblock Plus currently has a 5-star rating on the Mozilla addon center. Developer Wladimir Palant keeps his project running by regular updates. Just in case you don’t have this one already, installing this addon surely will make your browsing experience more pleasant.
Greasemonkey Sometimes, a website simply doesn’t work as you want it to. Maybe you just want to fix a badly placed header, or you want more features, or a different layout. Of course, notifying the webmaster might help, but in most cases, that guy just spilled coffee all over his keyboard and is therefore unable to look into your inquiry. The solution: Greasemonkey. This addon provides a simple, yet effective interface to easily add, manage and run custom javascripts. You don’t need to code those scripts yourself, just get them from userscripts.org. Add a script, reload your page and… it’s magic! With over 350,000 downloads a week, Greasemonkey is another heavyweight addon champion. And that’s in spite of its silly name. Go figure.
Web developer toolbar Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nooooo, it’s the Web Developer Toolbar! While that shoutout may have sounded a bit geeky, comparing this addon to Superman is not far-fetched at all. Anyone who wants a bit more control over the content of visited websites should have this. But why add yet another toolbar to your already extensive collection? The Web Developer Toolbar consists, as the name says, of a variety of handy developer tools. It allows advanced control over cookies and browser cache, CSS, images and page layout.
Additionally, you can validate the site’s code via w3, have a look at the page information and much more. Novice users will like the “disable images” feature, which enables you to partially or fully disable images in web pages. If needed, the toolbar can be hidden anytime via View –> Toolbars. The Web Developer Toolbar is rated 5/5 at the Mozilla addon center with over 11 million downloads.
HyperWords HyperWords can be classified as a general timesaver. Basically, it’s a context-menu based secretary tool with a lot of little features that’ll make your browsing a lot easier. Just select any text on a page and navigate through the context-menu to various sources, translations, converters and commands. Via “Search” and “Reference” menus, you can look up your selection on websites like Wikipedia, Facebook, Google, Youtube, Britannica,… even the Urban Dictionary is in this very extensive list. You can also translate your selection online, convert currencies and measurements and execute a dozen commands with one click. Where once you had to open a new Google tab every time you needed something, now a simple right-click will suffice. Although the concept, features and general usability of this addon are well worth appraisal, I should add that HyperWords is not bug free. Constant development is ironing out the kinks, but you might encounter a small problem every now and then. Still, that shouldn’t keep you from using this great addon.
Lilium Did you know that Warez-BB has its own FireFox addon? If not, about time to learn about it! Lilium is a compact, feature-rich addon specially designed for warez-BB. Credits for the development go to BioDuo, Mr. Mandrake and the rest of the dev team. Along with a forum index for easy browsing, Lilium fully incorporates Wadio – the official warez-BB online radio station - and private message updates from the tray icon. Another very handy tool is the built-in linkchecker that checks your download links to see if they’re alive. Lilium is being developed by trusted warez-BB members and being used by thousands, so you don’t need to worry about its safety. V0.94.1 is now available for FireFox 3.5.
Firegestures This is one of the most basic, yet indispensable addons available. The Opera browser started a revolution with this new way of navigating, but unlike Opera, FireFox does not natively include mouse gestures. A mouse gesture is a predefined movement of your mouse that triggers a certain command. For example: rightclick and then move your mouse to the right/left will have the same result as using the previous/next arrows in your browser toolbar. Because you don’t need to move your mouse up to click the arrows, browsing will go a lot faster. Once you start using mouse gestures, there’s no way back. You NEED them. Firegestures adds these mouse gestures to FireFox. You can customize your gestures and create new ones. Moving through web pages feels like thumbing through a book now, a very comfortable way of navigating. Adding this one to your browser will greatly improve your Internet experience.
Flashblock What, another “block stuff from your web page” addon? Why yes, and I see no reason not to mention this. Flashblock, as the name suggests, prevents all Flash content on a page from loading automatically. Instead, an (ugly) button is displayed where the flash object would be. Clicking on the button will load the object. This addon is targeted at removing annoying flash animations such as advertisements or stupid games from your screen, but because it blocks all Flash, users may find it a bit annoying. If you’re a Youtube addict, better not install this one. However, if you’re one of those grumpy, bandwidth-greedy Internet lurkers like me, you will find this addon come in handy.
Download statusbar Another very basic addon. Why do you need this? Because, frankly put, the default download window in FireFox sucks. Limited features, ugly interface and annoyingly persistent when it comes to popping up randomly whenever you don’t need it… the default window really is a pain in the back. Replacing it with Download statusbar is probably the best alternative. Download statusbar is compact and feature rich (although it can’t keep up with an external download manager). A second place in the Mozilla “Top Rated addons” category and more than 21 million downloads prove the usability of this tiny xpi-package.
Override Mozilla FireFox Guidance What would the Internet be without “teh lulz”? Laughing is good for your health, science proves. Getting frustrated because your page doesn’t load or returns a 404 error, on the other hand, is bad for your blood pressure, mood and nerves. That’s exactly where this random addon kicks in. Instead of displaying the everboring error messages you hate so much, it sweetens the failure with some random nonsense. Instead of growling at your monitor, a beautiful smile will brighten your face (and your day). Hottempered people, this one’s for you.
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