Lazy spammers.

Check out this spam email I received earlier this week…

I am Koh Beng Seng from Bank of China Hong Kong have a late client’s funds of 65.5m USD in my bank for you and I to share fifty fifty if interested kindly get back to me withyour complete details via email so we can proceed.

Sincere,
Mr.Koh Beng Seng.
Chairman of the Risk Committee, Hong Kong.

That’s the whole thing. One run-on sentence, part of a complimentary close (they didn’t even give me a complete “sincerely”), and a two-line signature.

I miss the good old days, when people running phishing scams would compose strange and elaborate emails in an attempt to persuade me to give up my bank account and routing numbers.

Watched on June 15…

Manderlay seems made to be disliked. The production design is almost non-existent, the camerawork is gleefully sloppy, and the characters often do hateful, terrible things to one another.

I like it anyway.

Well, I don’t know if I like it. But, since watching Manderlay, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, and that’s gotta count for something in an age over-saturated with sequels to and remakes of movies that weren’t that interesting in the first place.

I also like the Manderlay cast. Bryce Dallas Howard plays the lead and delivers a particularly fearless performance. And Willem Dafoe is entertaining, as usual, in a small role.

The plot–a gangster’s daughter takes over an old South plantation and puts the former slaves in charge–is preposterous, but it serves as a clever metaphor for America’s attempts at nation-building in places like Iraq. And the movie’s narrator (yes, there’s a narrator) has a great line that also might be the moral of the story: “Determining the time by public debate [is] rarely feasible.”

Also…

That phishing scam I mentioned earlier is a riff on the old Spanish Prisoner con.

Couldn’t have said it better myself: James Rocchi explains what’s wrong with so many modern super-hero movies.

Oh. That Spider-Man Broadway play finally opened.

Did you hear that DC is relaunching its entire line of comic books? Scott Tipton posted some interesting comments on the relaunch at Comics101.com.

This is pretty impressive: free DCP builder software, which creates files that can be played on high-end digital cinema projectors.

Also impressive… Polaroid’s SX-70: The Art and Science of the Nearly Impossible.

Raiders of the Lost Ark turned 30 this week, so Moviefone.com published a list of 30 things you might not know about Raiders. (via Stacey)