Zoho Notebook powerful but not intuitive

Zoho is a Web 2.0 enterprise that offers online office tools. This includes your usual word processor, spreadsheet, planners and such. Last week, I came across several blog posts that mentioned Zoho Notebook beta as an elaborate and powerful tool for taking web clipping and misc notes. I registered with the site (very easy) and logged in to give the app a quick run through.

I found Zoho Notebook versatile but not intuitive – experienced web users with have no problems with creating content but novices (like my parents) may have difficulty figuring out how to add pages and organize entries. The app does give users a choice of keeping notes (or books as they are called) private, published or open to collaboration. You can easily add web pages, audio and video as well as mark up webpages with annotations and side notes. I found the app as responsive as most online AJAX applications – no better but no worse.

I also found this link to a published Zoho “book” that offers prospective users a rundown of the app and a great demo of the apps itself.

Dario Argento returns to form with Mother Of Tears?

Dario Argento seems to be serious about making the final chapter in his witches trilogy that includes Suspiria and Inferno. According to Twitch, the film is tentatively titled Mother Of Tears and will star Asia Argento and her mother Dario Nicolodi. Promo footage apparently made it to this year’s Cannes with positive reception. This is clearly good news as Argento’s last two projects – The Card Player and Sleepless – were both disappointments.

More about this and the Suspiria remake at Twitch.
Promo stills of Mother Of Tears.

Ultimates 2 and All Star Batman worth the wait?

Last week, two much talked about comics with a long history of delays finally made it to the stores – DC’s All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder #5 and Marvel’s Ultimates 2 #13. I can’t even remember when the last issues of these comics came out, but I know it is over half a year ago. The only reason for such ridiculous delays seems to be to allow the artists time to complete the work with some sort of guarantee of quality. So do these two comics warrant their delays? Not really. Both issues were underwhelming. The art looked OK, but not out-of-the-ordinary. The plots fared worse.

Issue #5 of All Star Batman seemed pedestrian, and I have no idea why the issue took so long. Jim Lee’s artwork has its throwaway fanboy moments with Wonder Woman, but nothing here is shockingly creative. Frank Miller’s story for this issue doesn’t seem to go anywhere – are we witnessing the birth of the JLA or Dick Grayson’s first step towards becoming Robin? The issue doesn’t develop the arc as a whole nor is it a self-contained story. Disappointing.

As for of Ultimates 2, the supposed climax to the arc falls totally flat. Most readers won’t be able to remember the details of the story from memory and there really isn’t a payoff for all the build-up from previous issues. Suddenly Loki is exposed for what he is and everyone believes Thor after a prolonged period of doubt. How convenient. And very unsatisfying for readers. Bryan Hitch’s artwork remains solid and there is a widescreen gatefold that doesn’t really dazzle as much as the Marvel wants it to. The issue left me wondering why I bother with the title. Well, at least we have a different creative team for the next arc.

Nightwatch : excellent sci-fi from Russia

I learnt about Sergei Lukyanenko’s Nightwatch series of novels reading online reviews of the equally successful Russian movie adaptation. Film distributors didn’t release the movie in Hong Kong, but luckily the Hong Kong International Film Festival gave it a screening a few years ago. I liked the movie enough to become interested in the novel, and when I came across the English translation, I was more than thrilled.

Nightwatch the novel is the first in a series about the conflict / truce between the Light Others and the Dark Others. Possessing super-human powers, these being have two “police” forces that keep their counterparts in place: the Nightwatch refers to the Light Others unit that patrols the Dark Others during the night. Anton, the protagonist in this first novel in the series, is a relatively novice in this world, but he plays a crucial part in the delicate balance between these two forces.

The novel consists of three independent but connected stories with Anton as the narrator. The stories are titled “Destiny”, “Among His Own Kind” and “All For My Own Kind”. As the stories progress, Lukyanenko serves up well rounded and interesting characters – and gradually we the readers become aware that the conflict between the Nightwatch and the Daywatch is not a clear-cut justice versus evil scenario. The three story structure makes it easier for readers to become acquainted with a sizeable cast of characters and the mythology of the series, a wise strategy on the author’s part. Nightwatch is a fast read and all three stories are excellent, my personal favourite being the third one. Overall, this promises to be an excellent series. Oh, and the book is much more fascinating than the film (as usual).

As a side note, the Nightwatch the movie is pretty much based on the first story, and Daywatch the movie on the second story in the first novel. Both of these movies also borrow minor elements from other stories in the series; for example, the prologue to Nightwatch the movie is lifted from the first part of Daywatch the novel.

Who’s tougher, Alien or Predator?

It does not make for a promising project when you base a film on a comic that in turn pitches two film monsters against each other. But since both the alien (from the Alien series) and the predator (from the Predator series) have a loyal fan base, it does make marketing sense. The resultant movie remains reviled by critics and Rotten Tomatoes’ Critics TomatoMeter reveals that an overwhelming majority dislike the film. I beg to differ. Critics often miss the point when it comes to B-grade films that have no pretence of being anything more than juvenile fun. I actually found Alien Vs Predator rather entertaining and the best thing it did was to head straight for action. It actually delivers what it promises, which means we get to see multiple predators duking it out with a pack of aliens (and a queen too). This is not one of the lame movies where the monsters only face off in the climax of the film. No, we the viewers see the two breeds of space monsters in conflict in more than a couple of scenes.

The film was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. I won’t call Mr Anderson an artist of great magnitutde, but he has made some decently entertaining B-grade sci-fi films (to be fair, he has made some really horrible pictures too). I actually quite liked his Aliens-Hellraiser mashup movie Event Horizon. Of course, Alien Vs Predator cannot be compared to Ridley Scott’s pioneering first Alien movie, but it is not really that much different from the original Predator film. I am sure that the Alien Vs Predator DVD will be one of the discs that I view on a frequent basis, which is not something that can be said of Scott’s Alien (which I find a bit slow).

Rediscoveries : Chris Rea’s La Passione

I bought this album maybe 10 years ago. Back then, the disc’s laid back music and failure to meet my expectations of a Chris Rea album made it a disappointing purchase. I was expecting somewhat bluesy songs with nice guitar work – but instead the album offered plenty of string arrangements, more than a few instrumental pieces, and little overt guitar work (i.e riff based songs).

Listening the La Passione today, I was much more impressed with the music. As a film soundtrack, the CD manages to create very moody textures yet remain listenable as an album. I find that with many soundtracks, composers repeat the themes too often and it becomes a bore to listen to the entire CD. Not so with La Passione. Despite not being a pop or rock album, the disc lives up to repeated listening and is much more than incidental background music. A few songs feature vocals by Shirley Bassey, and Chris Rea’s unique guitar work is present although not prominent in the mix. Although La Passione will remain a curiosity in Chris Rea’s canon, I quite like it as a late night piece.

Folk Singer : Muddy Water’s most intimate session

In 1963, Chess Records asked Muddy Waters to produce an album targeted at the folk revival scene. Water’s brought along new talent – Buddy Guy – for these “unplugged” sessions that were to become Folk Singer. The album represents an anomaly in Muddy Waters’ discography as Waters had begun electrifying his sound, but since the market for blues diminished significantly in the early 1960s, an acoustic  folk approach seemed to make financial sense. The album never transformed Waters into a folk revival hit as it did for Son House, Lightin’ Hopkins and others, but it nevertheless contains some of Waters’ most intimate music.

The tracks on Folk Singer can be roughly split up into three groups : this first features Muddy and a band consisting of Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon and Clifton James; the second group of songs see Waters accompanied solely by Guy; and finally, there is one song where Muddy is totally on his own. The tracks where Muddy is backed by a band generally have more swing to them. The songs with Muddy and Buddy, I feel, are the most exceptional tracks in the collection as it contrasts Buddy more fluid style with Muddy’s muscular riffs. I was less impressed with Muddy’s solo cut. Throughout the album, Muddy plays a mean slide guitar; unlike his late albums where he generally played the same riffs over and over again, his guitar work on Folk Singer remains fresh and creative.

Curiously, Folk Singer is marketed currently as an “audiophile” disc (and in a comic twist, Muddy is translated into 水泥佬 in Chinese) . Apparently, the sessions were given serious remastering by some German technicians back in 1994. As a result, the sound quality is very good and it retains the echoey flavour common in classic Chess recordings of that era. The music on Folk Singer sounds very crisp and engaging.

Highly recommended. Stand out tracks : #1 My Home Is In The Delta, #4 Good Morning School Girl, #6 Cold Weather Blues, #7 Big Leg Woman.

4 excellent metal albums released in early 2007

I seem lucky lately to have landed four new decent metal purchases.

Dimmu Borgir – In Sorte Diaboli
In Sorte Diaboli highlights what Dimmu Borgir has become over the last few years. Arguably one of the most popular and widely-known symphonic black metal bands from Europe, Dimmu Borgir has refined their sound to preserve their sound signature as well as ensure a fair amount of commercial success. One could say that the album offers more of the same style the band has delivered since Death Cult Armageddon – and that’s not exactly a bad thing. The first track to receive airplay, The Serpintine Offering kicks off the album with awesome atmosphere and a nice melody. My only complaint is that as the album proceeds, my interest seems to wane.
Recommended. Nice album art too.

Therion – Gothic Kabbalah
The most melodic and ambitious of the North European metal bands, Therion doesn’t really sound very black or death – it is, however, very symphonic. I felt Gothic Kabbalah was more accessible than In Sorte Diaboli and Ordo Ad Chao. The guitars riff along nicely, production sounds cogent and mainstream, and even the vocals are audible and clean. On the downside, the album feels abit pretentious with all the mythological references and cryptic titles. It would also be nice if they could trim it down to a single album. Unlike Lemuria / Sirius B, Gothic Kabbalah is not offered as two separate purchases.
Recommended, but go check out Theli first if you’re new to Therion.

Black Sabbath – The Dio Years
Black Sabbath hired diminutive Ronnie James Dio as the lead singer for a few memorable albums after Ozzy’s departure in the late 1970s. At that point, Dio had already been with Elf and Rainbow and was an established metal singer with a following. This compilation collects the stronger tracks from Dio’s Black Sabbath albums (taken from 1980’s Heaven and Hell, 1981’s Mob Rules, 1982’s Live Evil and 1992’s Dehumanizer) with three new songs attached for extra value. While nothing here comes off as seminal as the band’s first two albums Black Sabbath and Paranoid, they are nevertheless a very strong selection of metal tunes that don’t really song dated at all (I would argue that Dio’s solo album Holy Diver, while excellent, sounds much more a product of the mid-1980s). With Dio, Black Sabbath sounds more aggressive and tighter. I found the three new songs decent but unexceptional as it lacks the vibrancy of the songs from their first stint.
Highly recommended though not essential unless you are a Dio fan (which I am).

Mayhem – Ordo Ad Chao
Perhaps one of the most notorious bands to come out of the Norwegian black metal scene (see Wikipedia entry for band’s fascinatingly black history), Mayhem has endured an ever-changing line-up of band members. When Mayhem reformed back in 2004 after a four year hiatus, they received a mixed response. After another three years, they have finally delivered a follow-up album in Ordo Ad Chao (translated into English it means “order In chaos”). This time, the band includes founding bass player Necrobutcher, prolific and much lauded drummer Hellhammer, vocalist Attila (who sang on Mayhem’s masterpiece De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas) and guitarist Blasphemer (who was been part of Mayhem since 1995). The first thing that struck me when I started playing this disc was the sound quality : some will call it raw, others will say it feels severely under-produced or awful. Hellhammer is quoted as saying “the production sounds necro as fuck, but that’s the way we wanted it-this time. It represents Mayhem today.” So audiophiles be warned. Musically, the songs represent the more avant-garde leaning of black metal that bands like Emperor have also been exploring. It makes for an interesting listen, but the songs are not as immediately striking as the sinister and more direct tunes of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. I think it requires a few more sessions to really get a hang of the album.
Recommended.

Local horror more shocking than modern zombies

Gong Tau – Herman Yau’s latest gore-feast is an entertaining romp. I have not watched a similar local film like this for ages; with fewer released these days, HK cinema has seemed to abandon financially risky films like these for a few big-budget star-studded film. Anyway, Gong Tau’s unoriginal plot goes like this : HK man goes to Thailand, gets hooked up with a woman, abandons her to come home, and woman puts a curse on him. What elevates this film from dull to fun is the sheer amount of offensive material, from loads of internal organs during an autopsy to roadkills, full frontal male genitals, etc etc. The flying head vampire is abit silly though.

28 Weeks Later – Inferior to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, though not horrible. 28 Weeks Later begins promisingly with the rebuilding of London after the catastrophic events of 28 Days Later but the subsequent action didn’t really engage me. Once the zombies (or infected people) started appearing, the film collapses into a simple chase and kill scenario with very few surprises. The social / political commentary about the failure of US forces in re-establishing order and their general ineffectiveness felt heavy handed. As recent zombie revival movies go, I much prefer Land Of The Dead.

Black Book – Paul Verhoeven’s first Dutch film in decades, this is a solid WWII drama about a Jewish woman trying to survive during wartime. I found the film engaging as the protagonist transformed from hating the Germans to falling in love with a Gestapo officer. Discarding the bombast of his Hollywood films (like Starship Troopers), Black Book is much more drama driven and although it contains a few scenes of sex / nudity, this is not the same kind of exploitative film like Basic Instinct.

Spider-Man 3 : too many under-developed characters

I saw Spider-Man 3 the first day it was released in Hong Kong. The simple question most have asked is : how does it compare with the two earlier Spider-Man films?

In terms of spectacle, this latest Spider-Man film delivers more action that the first two films taken together. The action sequences are technically well constructed as a whole but I thought they felt less integral to the plot that the excellent train-losing-control scene in Spider-Man 2. As for special effects, I liked Venom’s execution more than Sandman and wish Sam Raimi had given the alien creature more screen time.

Plot-wise, Spider-Man 3 is the least successful film in the trilogy. There seems to be too many characters Raimi wants to throw out at viewers and none of the storylines work out to be convincing. Bryce Dallas Howard looks spot on as Gwen Stacey but has a peripheral role; Harry Osbourne’s New Goblin feels neither here nor there (one critic called him a spoilt kid with expensive toys); and Sandman gets introduced but mostly forgotten till nearly the end. The falling out between a cocky Peter Parker (affected by the alien symbiote) and a childish (I felt) Mary Jane didn’t really provide much dramatic tension either. And what’s with the horrendous slapstick comedy in the middle act of the film??

Many critical comments have been made against this third Spider-Man film in online forums and perhaps we all have too high expectation for the series. At any rate, viewers flocked to the see the movie and as a result it proved to be a huge box office hit. So much so that Sony immediately announced that several more sequels will be on its way.

What’s your Web 2.0?

Many Web 2.0 apps are touted as the “next big thing”. But how many of them are used on a regular basis by actual users? Well, I came across an article at Web Worker Daily that links back to a survey at Engtech, with the intention of discovering this.

The Rules posted over at Engtech include linking to the post and the post of whoever tagged you and creating a list of the Web 2.0 sites you use and categorize them from “daily use” to “weekly use” to “monthly use”.

The survey is open to all to participate in the comments section at Engtech or to join in on the meme with their own blogs. And here are the Web 2.0 apps I use.

DAILY : Google Reader, Gmail, Last.fm, Wikipedia, Netvibes
WEEKLY : YouTube, WordPress.com
MONTHLY : Tumblr, Photobucket, Blogger
OCCASIONAL, when needed : Todoist, Yahoo!Pipes, Google Notebook