Tintin is full of clever action scenes, but clever doesn’t equal thrilling. As I watched the movie, I kept wishing it’d been a live action affair. I was reminded of Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, another flick brimming with clever action. But the Raiders action was also real. I mean, I know Raiders relied on an army of stuntmen (and some editing and camera tricks), but there’s a visceral thrill to be had watching a real guy being dragged behind a real truck on a real road (even if that guy is a trained professional).

I was also reminded of Brad Bird’s recent Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, especially the extremely effective (and extremely insane) Dubai human fly scene.

Speaking of Bird, I think his pals at Pixar would have been a good second choice for Tintin. I prefer their straight-up computer animation to the motion-capture used for Tintin, which combines elements of live action and animation but is less than the sum of its parts. And it also leads to the uncanny valley problem, where everything looks just real enough to seem creepy.

Spielberg is one of the most talented film directors to ever pick up a camera. I wish he’d make another adventure movie that didn’t rely on any computer trickery. He seems to do his most exciting work when he (and his camera and his characters) are forced to obey the laws of physics.

Watched on Jan. 9.

The parts of Girl that are actually cinematic are compelling, but those parts are few and far between. I hope the screenwriter of the inevitable sequel (the Girl novel is the first of a trilogy) can figure out how to create a proper screenplay and not just a checklist of plot points from the source material.

Watched on Dec. 31, 2011.

Edit: I’m referring to the recent American remake, not the original European film. Sorry I wasn’t more specific.

Sorry to be a hater, but AL.com is a sad excuse for a local news website. And the company that runs it has employed this same setup for local news websites for several other states. Yuck.

The secret origin of the term “fanboy.”

This (dumb) year in tech.

Blu Ray Media: Best BD-R Discs Review.

Yep. Sometimes we want files. Dropbox vs. iCloud.

Merry New Year, everybody!

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol is a terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry.

That quote is from Roger Ebert’s MI4 review, and I agree with it 100%.

See it on the biggest screen you can find for maximum vertigo during the movie’s insane Dubai human fly sequence (which apparently impressed Ebert as much as it impressed me).

HitFix.com interview with Louis CK from a couple of years ago.

Philip Bloom has posted a nice movie lighting tutorial.

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy Does the Morning Weather.

Aaron Gustafson’s Smart Markup for Smarter Websites presentation (late-night edition).

There’s still time to buy the Humble Indie Bundle. You get some games, and a couple of charities get some money. (via Chris)

Find out if and where that movie is available at GoWatchIt.com. (via Ebert)

iWebInspector is (apparently) a free tool to debug, profile and inspect web applications running on iOS Simulator.

Lastly, but not leastly, Happy Christmas! And I hope you have a terrific 2012!

Watched on Dec. 14…

Green Lantern is not a good movie, but it isn’t terrible enough to get worked up about. Nobody seems to be trying except for the actors, but those actors don’t have anything of substance to work with.

Watched on Dec. 20…

The Descendants seems to be getting a lot of buzz lately. Which is great, because it is a funny, smartly-acted, finely-observed movie for grown-ups. I’m not hearing as much buzz about Young Adult, which is a shame, because it is in the same league as The Descendants. I’m especially impressed with the cast–Charlize Theron delivers a fantastic lead performance, and every other actor, from Theron’s co-stars (Patton Oswalt and Patrick Wilson) to the day players, does a good job keeping up with her.

So did the Some Creatures album by Delicate Cutters.

Here’s a photo Jason Hamric took of the Cutters on the closed-circuit TV at Bottletree…

I’ll probably regret saying this one day… but I really dig the trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

The videos on this site crack me up–very clever/funny stuff: The Website is Down. (via Troy)

Here’s an iPhone dock I might actually use. And an iPhone case I’d definitely use. (both via Daring Fireball)

74 Great Films To Watch On YouTube. (Legally posted, I assume.) (via Cary)

Speaking of stuff to watch on YouTube… (via Mad Pulp Bastard)

Watched in the last few weeks…

The Good: Margin Call, An American Werewolf in London, The Exorcist, The Muppets, Another Earth, The Descendants

The Bad: The Thing (remake/prequel), Buried

The Not-Very-Good-But-John-Carpenter-Directed-It: Ghosts of Mars

It’s not a movie, but I’ve watched and enjoyed the heck out of the first three seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.

I opened the Ticketmaster.com website and quickly found the Radiohead tour page. And I immediately noticed a problem. The page informed me that Atlanta tickets were going on sale at 10 a.m. It did not mention a time zone. I guess I was supposed to assume Eastern Time Zone, since Atlanta is on EST.

As I had a few minutes to kill, I started reading some of the fine print and came across this message: “SELECT LOCATIONS are electronic Ticketmaster Paperless Tickets ONLY.” I read some more and found that Ticketmaster Paperless Tickets can’t be re-sold or given away. If you buy two paperless tickets, you must arrive at the show with proper ID and the credit card you used to buy the tickets. But there is no physical ticket–you’ve just paid for admission and a “plus one.” So whoever that person is must enter the venue at the same time as you.

This paperless thing would obviously cut down on scalping. But, wait a minute, what’s this “SELECT LOCATIONS” thing? Is the Atlanta show paperless? If I didn’t get tickets today, would I be able to buy them from a scalper later? The fact that this isn’t specified is a big problem.

I read a little further and found another problem. The ticket price is $69. That might sound like a lot, but, for a large arena concert by a popular band like Radiohead, $69 is quite reasonable. But the total ticket price is $80.65, because Ticketmaster adds $11.65 in “fees.” What exactly are these “fees?” Does they include sales tax or something? I don’t know, as I couldn’t find any additional info. Anyways…

I clicked through to the next page and noticed yet another problem. I was seeing a message that no tickets were available. Understandable, since it was a bit before 9 a.m. (10 a.m. EST). But, as it was almost 9, a more useful message would seem appropriate. Something like “You may purchase tickets for this event in 12 minutes, 53 seconds (click to refresh).”

As it was, I could only assume that Ticketmaster’s server clock was on the same time as my iPhone. So I waited till my iPhone showed 9 a.m. and hit the refresh button on my web browser and… got the same “no tickets” message. Hm. Maybe the Ticketmaster clock was a little slow. So I hit refresh again. And again. Waited. Another refresh. It was 9:02, and I was still getting the same message.

Then I noticed a detail of the message: “Tickets may not be on sale yet.” And I started getting angry. Were the tickets on sale or not? A company with a name like “Ticketmaster” should be able to, at the very least, tell me whether or not tickets are on sale for a particular event.

I called a friend who was also trying to get tickets. He’d gotten through and bought two tickets. And, he informed me, the tickets for the Atlanta show were not paperless. So I had to call somebody unaffiliated with Ticketmaster to find out two pieces of information–tickets are now on sale, the tickets are not paperless–that should have been front and center on the Ticketmaster website.

But, wait, had the show already sold out? At this point, was that what the vague “no tickets available” message meant?

A few more page refreshes later, and I finally got to a “search for tickets” page. All right! I chose three tickets from the little selector box and clicked the “find tickets” button. Then I had to fill out a CAPTCHA to prove that I was a real human being. Then I received this message: “Sorry, no exact matches were found, but other tickets may still be available.”

Wait a minute… the Ticketmaster.com website made me waste time deciphering a CAPTCHA only to tell me “no tickets?” And, then, the “no tickets” message includes the following vague information:

Try the following:

• Select “Best Available” or “Any Price”.
• Change the quantity of tickets requested.
• Double check your promotional code or password, if you used one.
• At the time of your search, another customer may have been viewing the tickets you want and then decided not to buy them.

Okay. The site knows I had already done the “best available, any price” option, so why bother suggesting that? The site also knows that I didn’t enter a promotional code, so that’s another pointless suggestion. After a few more tries, I deduced that three tickets together were not available.

So why did I have to choose “three tickets” and fill out a CAPTCHA to (sort of) find that out? If three tickets are not available together, why was that option even offered to me?

After more trial and error, CAPTCHAs, and unhelpful messages, I figured out that only single tickets were available. And not particularly good single tickets. I guess Stacey and I will just buy tickets from a scalper. Good thing they weren’t selling those paperless tickets for the Atlanta show.

I’d like to think that somebody from Ticketmaster will read this and make some changes to improve the Ticketmaster website. But that’s not going to happen, because Ticketmaster is a monopoly. If you want to buy a ticket to the Radiohead show in Atlanta, or any event (as far as I know) at Atlanta’s Philips Arena, you have to go through Ticketmaster. With no competition, they don’t have any incentive to offer customers a good web user experience or to explain (or reduce) their fees.

Next time I want tickets to a big show, I think I will save myself the headache and just go straight to the scalpers.

Also…

We’re already working on the third Delicate Cutters album–we’re hoping to put it out less than a year after the release of our second album.

This looks handy: Miro Video Converter for Mac OS X, which can create videos in the Theora format (among many others).

And this: Kigo Video Converter, which can create videos in the Flash format (not that you’d want to create videos in the Flash format).

Netflix, however, is more expensive these days. But it’s not really Netflix’s fault.

If you’re still on the fence about whether to watch Interplanetary on Netflix, maybe this review will convince you.

Ain’t It Cool News published a fantastic (and fairly technical) interview with Steven Soderbergh.

Here’s a good interview with some less-reputable filmmakers: How to make a mockbuster (in five easy steps). (via Andrew)

Man, I really hope this movie gets distribution.

This article about Drive lends credence to my feeling that the movie is–contrary to critical consensus–a mess (and not in a good way).

And this article lends credence to my feeling that QR codes are dumb.

Delicate Cutters got a nice mention at the end of this local newspaper article. And Cutter-in-Chief Janet got interviewed by Mog.