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Archives for May 2007

The Weekly ‘Loper – May 6, 2007

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With all that was going on this week – NBA playoffs, Britney’s 15 minute lip-synching performances and Paris Hilton being sent to jail (Hee!) – you may have missed a few things. That’s ok, we’ve got you covered. Here’s what we were paying attention to:

The Daily Loper – May 4, 2007

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I Didn’t Know My License Was Suspended Edition

Todays links of interest:

What Would Ninja Do?

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Ninjas are cool, but pirates have always played a bigger role in popular culture — at least in the West. That’s probably because we know so much about the history of pirates and their lifestyle, and we know almost nothing about ninjas. Ninjas are a mystery. Actually, I should say, ninjas were a mystery until Ask A Ninja came along.

Ask A Ninja is a web video program that answers questions about the ninja lifestyle. Besides explaining issues relating to Ninja history and killing techniques, Ninja also takes the time to explain complex political issues like Network Neutrality — ninja style. And speaking of pirates, his review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is the final word on that cinematic “masterpiece” (obviously he thinks Ninjas of the Caribbean would have been a better movie).

Ninja is the creation of Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine (Sarine plays the Ninja). The made-for-web series debuted in late 2005 and has been gaining popularity steadily since.

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The Heroes Online Comics: A Web Extra Done Right

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So this is how it is with Heroes right now: I TiVo the show on Monday night; spend all day Tuesday desperately trying to avoid spoilers (one co-worker made fun of me by emailing the following: “Mr. Muggles is the mastermind behind everything”); Tuesday night Rox and I watch it after dinner; and on Wednesday I check out various online deconstructions: TWoP, Sepinwall, Poniewozik , EW, etc.

This isn’t so different than my current pattern with a lot of other shows — TiVo, watch, deconstruct — except that Heroes also has something else that I check out on Wednesdays — the online comics on NBC.com.

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The Daily Loper – May 2, 2007

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Science Is Whatever We Want It To Be Edition

Todays links of interest:

Jaman Brings The Film Festival To Your Computer

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If you’re a fan of independent or foreign films it can be surprisingly difficult to track down new and interesting movies. You’re pretty much limited to catching films at the local art-house during the first run, waiting for them to run on IFC or the Sundance channel, waiting for a copy to become available on Netflix, or splurging on a DVD of a movie you may only watch once. Any way you look at it, there’s a lot of waiting around involved and it can be difficult to figure out what movies are worth seeing. A new download service called Jaman might just change all of this.

Jaman claims to have the rights to legally distribute over 1,000 foreign and independent films for download. That’s far more than iTunes or any other legal movie download service. Through partnerships with a number of film festivals Jaman also offers films that are currently on the festival circuit. For example, several of the movies currently screening at the Tribeca film festival in New York are available right now on Jaman, and films from the upcoming San Francisco International Film Festival will be available on Jaman next week.

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Why Even Bother Trying New Shows on FOX?

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So, last week, after just four episodes, FOX canceled Drive, which was just good enough and fun enough for me to overlook all of the implausibilities that lurked beneath the surface.

Because Nathan Fillion has built up such a reservoir of goodwill with me and was so immediately likable in this show, I was willing to let it unfold and see if there was any good mythology there. But the ratings just weren’t there, I guess, and so FOX wasn’t.

My question is this, if FOX isn’t going to give any of their new scripted shows a chance, why should I? And, more importantly, was the cancellation of Drive a self-fulfilling prophecy: that people stayed away in, ahem, droves because they figured that it was going to be cancelled anyway?

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