Month: May 2010

Film Review: Robin Hood

Posted on by Timothy Dempsey

Robin Hood stars Russell Crowe in a Ridley Scott film that tells the back-story of the fabled “do-gooder”, up to the very moment the “rob from the rich to give to the poor” business plan is born.

What I Liked

  • The opening visuals accompanying the credits
    Painterly strokes are rotoscoped over key scenes.
  • The visuals accompanying the closing credits (see above)
  • Epic shots of battle scenes are samples of sheer movie magic
  • William Hurt lends a certain amount of gravitas to the proceedings, even if he does often look confused at the proceedings

What I Didn’t Like

  • Almost everything, and full disclosure is necessary here. I have never cared for Russell Crowe, and this is one film that rests entirely on his performance. Since his break-out performance in “L.A. Confidential”, I found him difficult to believe as a tough guy. We know of his famous tantrum with a phone at a hotel that resulted in his arrest, and it’s a pity none of that passion made it into this film.
  • There is nothing “pretty” about this film (excluding the title sequences), and that includes the leading lady, in my opinion.
  • What age group is this film for? Inappropriate for very young viewers, there was some content that made me squirm with the three twelve year-olds I escorted. In fact, lots of things went over their heads. Which brings me to…

Best LOL Jokes (Spoilers!)

Humorless (and colorless save for the title sequences), the distinguished Max Von Sydow utters “I woke today with a tumescent glow! Imagine me – at eighty-four!”. Is this appropriate for twelve year-olds? Heck, I only recently learned of this figure of speech, and I’m relieved the boys didn’t ask.

Parental Watch-outs

See the LOL Spoiler above.

Overall Grade: C-

Everything worth seeing in this film can be experienced at the website robinhoodthemovie.com. Boys who are into RTS games (as my son and his friends are) loved it, but otherwise pass.

Critique: Web Blog “52 Weeks of UX”

Posted on by Timothy Dempsey

Always on the lookout for new, relevant blogs from thought leaders, I stumbled upon the 52 Weeks of UX blog today.

For those not in the Web Design business, UX is a two-letter acronym for User Experience. The ease of which your prospects navigate your site is a task often arrived at by developers and graphic designers, but hardly ever a concentration or specialty of one individual for most of us on modest-sized teams.

I had high hopes for discovering this blog that were quickly dashed by – of all things – difficulty in navigation. Talk about the cobbler’s kids needing new shoes!

  1. “Pointing hand” graphics that are not navigation elements:
    It was the first thing I tried to navigate to the previous and next posts. I was angered when they were merely decorative.
  2. Dark gray on black, even darker gray for unpublished links:
    When viewed on an LCD screen, these become difficult to read. Contrast in font colors relative to background colors is key to legibility
  3. The biggest problem: Comments disabled?
    What possible justification could the authors have for not fostering community by enabling comments? Even a quick dive into the posts touts its importance for social media. Don’t agree? Well, ahem, leave me a comment below.

I’m optimistic that in spite of these issues, there is a lot of content that will prove thought-provoking and I have added a subscription to my Google Reader where the posts display nicely. One of the authors has written “Designing for Social Web“, which is on my short list of summer reading.

Finally, I suggest “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug, because 52 Weeks of UX did make me think, only not the way I wanted.

Do You Draw? Here is Why You Need to Ditch Photoshop CS3

Posted on by Timothy Dempsey
It’s a simple touch that has revolutionary impact if you use Photoshop for drawing. Using a video card that supports OpenGL, you can now twist your canvas with versions of Photoshop greater than CS3.

You could always achieve this effect (in theory) using Rotate Canvas at arbitrary angles; the difference now is that the task is as easy as twisting traditional paper, and about as interactive.

Why would you do this? If you draw, you are fully aware of the habit of twisting your work support (i.e. paper) to position your work area for comfortable access. This becomes difficult with larger scale supports – although I have seen some incredible easels – muralists are flat out of luck. I’ll defy artists that do this to pinpoint the moment when this was taught or learned. It is an intuitive solution as reflexive as scratching an itch.

It becomes especially powerful in combination with the shift-draw technique. Most graphics programs that let you draw a line traditionally support constraint to perfect horizontal, vertical and forty-five degree angles. Combine this with twisting your canvas and perfect lines can be drawn at any angle. It takes a little hit-or-miss to master.

Thank you Adobe, for clearly listening to an artist. However, this one wants to know why your product is still so expensive.

GIMP developers – are you listening?