Southwest Virginia Blogs

Amazon may have inadvertently killed its own Kindle ebook reader over the past week. The company discovered that pirated versions of Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm were available for sale on the Kindle bookstore. To comply with the copyright protection laws, Amazon removed the ebook versions from the online bookstore. But then Amazon also remotely deleted copies of the book from all Kindles and refunded the purchase price to the Kindle owners. So Kindle users woke up a few days ago to discover that Amazon had been rummaging around their Kindle, deleting stuff.

The outrage is understandable, and the issue highlights the difficulties of ebooks and copyright protection. Amazon was trying to comply with lawful request to remove pirated texts. And the difference between a paper copy of a book that has been printed as a pirated book and the same text as an ebook is that someone with a copy of a pirated ebook could, with some effort, but not a lot, make and distribute additional copies. So Amazon tried to protect the copyright owners but ended up alienating a lot of Kindle owners.

Amazon has since admitted it made a mistake and says it won't do it anymore, but the damage may already be done. It may dampen Kindle sales, but it may also dampen ebook adoption generally. Once unintended consequence: Kindle texts can be annotated with notes--the equivalent of writing in the margin of a paper book. When Amazon deleted user copies of the books, the company also deleted all the user notes, which were the rightful property of the Kindle owner. Oops....imagine if you had just spent hours reading that book and making notes for a term paper, and you wake up to discover all your work gone. You are not likely to buy another ebook for a long, long time.

Note: Movies are one of only a few things that I can claim to be truly passionate about (the other things being politics and Golden Corral’s yeast rolls). Every time I see a movie, I try to write something about it. In the past, I haven’t really published these feeble attempts at film criticism anywhere. However, now that this blog has officially adopted an “anything goes” policy, I see no reason why I can’t begin posting my reviews here. I’ve got several in the can that I will roll out over the next few weeks. The following essay is one that I penned shortly after seeing Pixar’s latest release, “Up.”

There are certain brand names that, over time, have come to represent the very pinnacle of quality and luxury in their respective fields. For example, in the world of automobiles, that brand name might be Rolls Royce or Bentley. In the world of film, Pixar has established itself as one such brand name. Pixar is widely praised for its pioneering contributions to the field of cinematic animation, and rightly so.

But, as well deserved as it is, giving credit to Pixar only for its superbly executed animation is like gushing over a Rolls Royce because you like the windshield wipers. The truth is that, when I watch a Pixar film, I become unaware of the fact that I’m watching an “animated film,” which probably sounds a little bit silly on a couple of levels. However, Pixar films, unlike most other computer-animated features that hit theaters ever year, are not content to be merely aesthetically pleasing vehicles for slapstick comedy and action (I’m looking at you, “Ice Age” series).

Pixar films strive for a significantly higher level of artistry. They’re not just concerned with making great animated movies; they’re concerned with producing truly great art. In a Pixar production, the visual elements, while breathtaking, are just a “shell.” If you burrow past that shell to the heart of the film, what you’ll find are emotions and ideas that are as thought provoking as they are affecting. When a movie possesses that rare inner quality, everything surrounding and enclosing it becomes secondary.

It is for this reason that we don’t feel compelled to dwell on the absurdity of talking toys and automobiles with anthropomorphic features or belabor the future possibility and practicality of space habitation. On the surface, Pixar films may seem completely fantastical, but on a fundamental level, they are more in touch with reality than the overwhelming majority of live action films produced by modern-day Hollywood.

“Up,” Pixar’s latest film, is an absolutely beautiful movie that explores the grandest and deepest realities of what it means to be human, and makes the exploration look easy. To some, this film may be a love story; to others, it may be a story about friendship or the realization of individual potential. However, to the dozens of young kids in the movie theater that day, it was probably just a really funny and engaging cartoon.

After Pixar’s last film, “Wall-E,” left me completely awestruck, I swore that Pixar had made a movie that simply couldn’t be upped. I couldn’t conceive of them ever producing another film as perfect in every conceivable way as “Wall-E.” They did that with “Up.” When I left the theatre after seeing “Up”, my reaction was very subdued, so much so that the friends who I saw it with suggested that I didn’t like it. But the fact is that I was simply in awe.

A bad film immediately elicits boos and hisses; a good film immediately elicits praise and applause. A truly great film, however, leaves the moviegoer recalling and analyzing its nuances long after it’s over. Therefore, an immediate reaction of any sort simply isn’t possible. That’s how it works for me anyway.

“Up’s” exposition, for example, is a splendid piece of filmmaking, utilizing a touching American montage to explore the decades-long relationship between Carl Fredericksen (voiced by Ed Asner), the film’s protagonist, and his wife, Ellie. Ellie is both lively and outgoing; Carl is very reserved. Both, however, have an intense love of adventure and exploration that makes them an ideal pairing.

The way the film deals with Carl’s life after Ellie’s death is powerful. Carl’s sadness, and the resentment he feels toward himself for never having been able to make the adventures that he and Ellie dreamed of more than just dreams, is conveyed directly and unambiguously in the expressions on his face, and in the silence of his lonely house.

Ellie lives on in Carl’s mind through photographs, the audible one-way conversations he has with her, and her “Adventure Book,” a childhood relic that serves as the catalyst for a scene later in the film that had even this heartless moviegoer a little bit misty-eyed. Those of you who have seen this film should know exactly which scene I’m talking about.

As soon as we have been made to care about Carl, we are introduced to Russell who is an honest-to-God normal kid. He’s a naive, idealistic, and tenacious Wilderness Explorer Scout. At some point, while attempting to earn his merit badge for assisting the elderly, he becomes an unwitting aerial passenger aboard Carl’s house after it is pulled (ripped, rather) right from its foundation by the lift of a multitude of helium balloons (Carl made his living as a balloon salesman).

As one might expect, Russell warms up to Carl almost immediately, whereas it takes quite some time for Carl to reciprocate with similar friendly affection. By the end of the film, the relationship has become paternal, with Carl in some ways filling in for Russell’s real dad, who we learn is the ultra-busy executive type who never seems to have time for parenting between business trips.

When you think about it, Carl and Russell serve as perfect foils for one another. Russell’s enthusiasm for adventure and exploration more or less forces Carl from his lethargic post-Ellie state, while Russell benefits from Carl’s aged wisdom and fatherly guidance.

You’d better believe that Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, who wrote the film, were keenly aware of this dynamic when creating “Up’s” two protagonists. Pete Docter, if you’ll recall, is the Pixar writer who also gave us the pairings of Mike and Sulley (”Monsters, Inc.”), Eve and Wall-E (”Wall-E”), and, perhaps most memorably, Buzz Lightyear and Woody (”Toy Story”).

Creating complex, multi-layered relationships between film characters isn’t easy, which is obvious from the number of painfully shallow romantic comedies that moviegoers are subjected to every year. However, Pete Docter, along with everyone else in Pixar’s phenomenal stable of talent, has it down to a science.

For the sake of not belaboring any further what anyone who views this film will see and consider for themselves, I won’t offer anything more about the plot or characters. I will merely offer one final thought, which is that “Up” may fit the description of big-budget Hollywood “blockbuster,” but it possesses the charm, poignancy, and intimacy of an endearing indie film.

If you’ve not seen “Up,” you should find the time to do so. If you have, you should watch it again. I, for one, can’t wait to.

Google has announced a new service called Voice, which is supposedly a break through because you can give people one number and calls can then be routed wherever you like--home phone, cell phone, office phone, etc. It's a wonderful idea that VoIP telephone providers have been offering for years. Design Nine has used this kind of phone system for more than three years.

Google's promotion of this kind of service will help get more people interested in VoIP, but most people won't take advantage of it until they get better broadband connections that allow true open access networks with a variety of service providers. You can do most of the things Google Voice offers today with Internet-based companies like Vonage, but the quality of the calls varies widely with the time of day and your Internet access provider. The DSL and cable modem Internet providers hate independent phone service providers like Vonage because they siphon customers away from their own voice services. In a well-provisioned open access, service-oriented network, customers would have a choice of VoIP providers and most of them would have excellent voice quality because the network is designed specifically to support multiple providers at high standards of service quality.