Note: Le billet dont il est question ci-bas a �t� effac� par l’auteur du blogue.

Les fans de la tr�s populaire t�l�s�rie Lost seront s�rement aussi int�ress�s que moi par ce billet tir� du blogue d’un des sc�naristes de la s�rie. Le billet a �t� �crit en r�ponse � un article du magazine Rolling Stone dans lequel un autre sc�nariste – qui a maintenant quitt� la t�l�s�rie – se plaignait du manque de planification dans l’histoire de Lost. Il allait jusqu’� affirmer que les sc�naristes eux-m�mes ne savaient pas ce qui allait se passer dans les prochains �pisodes, ce que son coll�gue d�ment sur son blogue. Il affirme:

- we know what the island is.

- we know who built the hatch and why.

- we know who the others are and how they wound up on the island.

Lecture fascinante, surtout pour ceux qui s’int�ressent � l’�criture t�l�visuelle.

Oh et puis Patrick, tu as s�rement remarqu� la jolie Evangeline en tenue transparente sur la couverture du Rolling Stone. Pauvre fille perdue…

via A Writer’s Life

Goran has my vote, of course. But loyal readers knew that already. ;-)

What a great Bond he would be. Wow. [/drool]

via A Writer’s Life

Vous pensiez que The Shining �tait un film vraiment �peurant? Attendez de voir ce qu’on en a fait! Terrifiant!

S’il y a encore quelqu’un qui doute du pouvoir du montage apr�s un tel exercice…

via Entertainment Propaganda

Halfway through The 40 Year Old Virgin is a thoroughly remarkable scene. It’s got nothing to do with first-time sex, though. No, it’s about gaming: David and Cal, two of the virgin’s twenty-something slacker friends, are sitting in his apartment playing Mortal Kombat: Deception.

What’s so unusual about that? It’s that their behavior is so oddly realistic: They slouch in chairs and stare at the screen with nonchalance and intensity, while a sardonic stream of trash-talk flows between them. “You know how I know that you’re gay? You like Coldplay,” David snarks. Cal responds by pulling off a classic Mortal Kombat “fatality” move. “I’m ripping your head off right now,” he says coolly. “It’s off. And now — I’m throwing it at your body.”

The vaguely self-parodying homophobia. The Zen-like calm of the violence. The casual profanity. You have to give director Judd Apatow props: He shot a pitch-perfect evocation of how gamers actually behave when they’re playing. And it makes me wonder — has Hollywood finally figured out how to realistically depict gaming culture?

From Gamers Get a Hollywood Makeover, by Clive Thompson in Wired.

“As I’ve gone through life, I’ve found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old.”

Walter Murch in The Conversations: Walter Murch and the art of editing film.

Between nice and eleven years old, what I loved most was making up elaborate scenarios for Barbie and her buddies, and creating plays in the basement for the family and neighbors to watch. I guess I’m in the right business.

I was reading a magazine over lunchtime and saw a full page ad with the following tag line:

“What happens when technology finally understands a woman?”

Gee, I don’t know… A pink Playstation? A free Powerbook that weighs one pound?

Nope.

The iBra.

Back from a short week of vacation, which actually felt quite long, but in a good way. No tv (there was one but we didn’t watch it), no computer (we brought one but we didn’t use it), no cell phone, no e-mail, no instant messaging, no RSS feeds and no news for a week. It’s amazing how quickly one gets used to that beat!

I don’t like to travel in the summer when it’s hot and humid so I try to take my vacations during the months of September or October. The only problem with that schedule is that everybody seems to get very active again when September comes around so a lot of things tend to happen while I’m gone. I had e-mails with proposals for conferences for me to attend, questions for me to answer, phone calls to return. Where were you all just a couple of weeks ago, when everything was so quiet? I’ve got a new screenplay in the works and a producer called me during my vacation, wondering where I was (even though I had warned them I was going away), wanting to schedule a meeting for a tv show that I will start developing for them. It’s exciting and scary and it all feels like it’s happening very fast but it’s just an illusion because nothing ever works fast in the world of Canadian cinema and television.

But hey, the vacation is not over until it’s officially Monday morning so I better go take advantage of the last few hours of it! We had a great time in Bar Harbor, with perfect Fall weather, lots of sightseeing, walking, reading, sailing, drinking and playing damn trivia games. Oh, and we almost died, n’est-ce pas, MJ? I’ve got a small photo album here and there are a few more photos chez Blork and on Patrick’s Flickr.

Ocean breeze.
The smell of pine trees in the air.
Lobsters everywhere.
Clam chowders.
Lots of reading.
Too many late night trivia games at the chalet (I really suck at them).
The mobile phone service refuses to let me post photos to Flickr.
I forgot the passwords to access my e-mail accounts.

Life is good.

The house is full of piles: clothes for hiking, clothes for lounging around, books to read, magazines, cables for camera/iPod/Palm/cell phone. My computer is backed up. The Tivo is set to record a bunch of season premieres (Lost, Nip/Tuck, ER). The iPod has been filled with great music for the road and the luggage is finally out of the closet. A charming young man is coming by later to pick up The Mini who will spend his very first week indoors (yikes). The house-sitter is on her way. Blork just walked in the house and sang: “I’m on vacatiooooon!”

Ni.vu.ni.connu is finally taking a summer vacation! Woo-hoo! We’re going to spend the next week in Bar Harbor, Maine, where we rented a chalet with friends. Of course, Ophelia will pay us a visit so the drive might be a bit tough tomorrow. We’ve put one of us in charge of bringing a bunch of games, just in case we have to spend a lot of time indoors.

The chalet we’re going to is nice and fancy enough but it doesn’t have Wi Fi and that, my friends, is a good thing. There’s an Internet caf� in town and we might get curious during the week, considering that a few of us are bloggers, but don’t expect much updating this week.

So I can manage a whole week without posting anything?

Heh heh… Not quite. I’ve got a new phone and posting to Flickr has never been easier, so this is where the action will be during my absence.

On se voit la semaine prochaine! Soyez sages!

“How was Xena a female pioneer? Let me count the ways. She had no male support or regular romantic interest. She didn’t, unlike Wonder Woman or the Bionic Woman, have a conventionally feminine day-to-day alternate identity, though on a mission she could pose as a Roman matron, a virgin priestess or an exotic dancer. Xena was not “strong but feminine”; she was unapologetically strong and unapologetically female, sexy and powerful, unafraid to get sweaty and dirty on the job, and all the more beautiful for it.

The fan-driven growth of the subtext illustrates another “Xena” phenomenon: the special relationship between the show and the fandom. Other than “The X-Files,” “Xena” was the first cult hit of the Internet age: the face that launched a thousand Web sites. One of the producers and principal writers on “Xena,” Steven Sears, participated in discussions on “Xena” message boards (and occasionally still does); other staff members and actors reportedly lurked there as well, and seemed well aware of fandom debates. In the last season, popular fan-fiction writer Melissa Good was hired to write several scripts for the series, two of which were made into episodes.”

From What we owe Xena in Salon.