Tag: EPIC

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Red Cliff’

John Woo has set himself a new challenge in Red Cliff, and that’s to be as old-fashioned as possible. Returning to his roots after a stint in Hollywood, Woo has made the most expensive film in mainland Chinese history, a pleasantly traditional picture that marks a new direction for one of the world’s premier action maestros.

Woo’s classic Hong Kong films with tough-guy titles like Bullet in the Head and Hard Boiled featured intense, focused, almost balletic contemporary gangster shootouts that seemed to redefine what these kinds of movies could do.

Though it stars Woo regular Tony Leung, Red Cliff, by contrast, is a both throwback and change of pace, a massive historical epic that used four writers, three editors, two directors of photography, 300 horses and a cast and crew that came close to 2,000. And oh, how it is epic. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Red Cliff’

New airport scanner spurs quaint privacy complaints

There's nothing intimidating about walking through a X-ray machine with your hands behind your head.Stick-in-the-mud organizations like the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Privacy Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union are concerned about new airport security scanners that image your body under your clothes to detect metal objects and liquids.

They call this a “virtual strip search,” which would replace the traditional metal detector walkthrough and follow-up groin massage.

(This thought in itself is disturbing as we look forward to our pre-flight happy ending that calms our jitters. Fortunately, there’s still booze.)

Clearly, these “civil liberties” organizations are a bunch of prudes trying to conceal our bodies. In an age of constant twitter updates, breastfeeding photos on Facebook and amateur porn stars on BangBus, who are these ludites to speak for us?

We’re gonna be stars, dammit, and that’s why we don’t wear underwear.