June, 16, 2005 archives

assault on precinct 13 is basically a zombie western set in 1970s los angeles. the gang members making the assault have a thin motive and not much of a strategy or a sense for self-preservation. the pacing of the film is pretty slow, but it holds up pretty well — amazingly well considering its budget. it certainly rose above its potential.

assault on precinct 13 is a more typical action movie. it has been relocated from los angeles to detroit, and the biggest problem with moving the setting to the modern era is waved away with a cellphone-jamming magic wand. the bad police officers making the assault are developed somewhat as characters, and aren’t nearly as self-destructive. although the remake/reimagining looks better and has better actors and acting, it doesn’t even rise to meet that potential.

• “we used to be friends,” by the dandy warhols: the theme song from veronica mars, and a catchy song
• “blackbird,” by eros: one of two remixes of beatles songs from beatles regrooved
• “let it be,” by eros: the other beatles remix, and the better of the two
• “somewhere over the rainbow / what a wonderful world,” by israel kamakawiwo'ole: you’ve heard this before in some movie or commercial, and it’s probably one of the most beautiful songs ever
• “kung fu fighting (rob smith mix),” by carl douglas: part of a whole album of “kung fu fighting” remixes, this version isn’t a whole lot different from the original — still a classic, if goofy, song from a one-hit wonder
• “hotel california (spanish mix),” by gipsy kings: an awesome spanish version of the eagles’ “hotel california”
• “rhapsody in blue,” by george gershwin: another incredible piece of music, and the soundtrack to the best segment of disney’s fantasia 2000

tomorrow (saturday) at 10:30am is the annual meeting of the los angeles conservancy at the cineramadome at arclight hollywood, and it will include a slide presentation about looking at los angeles, a collection of photographs of los angeles. it’s open to the public, not just conservancy members.

paypal now has a all-in-one payment processing interface, which means you can handle credit cards without even bouncing to the paypal website. i’m amazed this didn’t happen ten years ago — the existing schemes with distinct merchant accounts and gateways has always been dodgy.

you do have to use their express checkout thing (which does bounce to them, and lets users use their paypal account directly) in order to use the direct payment api. it’s $20/month and 2.2-2.9% + 30¢ per credit card transaction or 1.9% + 30¢ per paypal payment.

the best part may be that paypal is a company that seems to know where its towel is. what i’ve often heard from people working with existing providers is that they’re either morons or crooks. (or in the case of verisign, both.)