The Interview

I saw The Interview in a movie theater, and I remain unharmed.

A few weeks ago, that seemed like it would be unlikely. At least the theatrical viewing. You probably know about how all of this went down, but let's consider the following a record for posterity:
The so-called Guardians of Peace, after hacking Sony Pictures' employees' emails in an attempt to get The Interview pulled from theaters, had threatened terrorist action referencing 9-11. This caused all the major theater chains to back out of playing it, which in turn caused Sony to pull it altogether. Later, independent theaters who remained determined to show The Interview were once again permitted to do so.

When tickets were made available by the Alamo Drafthouse chain, I bought tickets for my brother and I to see it on the day after Christmas at the Alamo location in Ashburn, VA. Not long after I made that purchase, it was announced that the movie would be available on Google Play, YouTube, Xbox Video, and a website made by Sony itself. Had I known about the online distribution, I could have saved a couple bucks and an hour-long drive. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our experience, and in a small way we stood up for our American right to free speech by watching a film where Seth Rogan and James Franco plot to assassinate the leader of North Korea.

The question that remains is, is this controversial movie even any good? If Sony had known the trouble it would cause them, would they have greenlit it in the first place?

To the first question, yes, I found it to be a very funny and sometimes thoughtful movie, but some of the raunchy humor and violence became gratuitous. Ever since Pineapple Express, Rogan and his writing/directing partner Evan Goldberg have been fascinated with having an ultraviolent climax to their action packed comedies. It's not the blood itself that bothers me, but the clash in tone; are we meant to laugh as a man gets his fingers bitten off, assuming that he's the equivalent of a cartoon character? Come to think of it, he didn't seem to be in much pain in the next scene so maybe that answers that.

These filmmakers are also fond of homoeroticism, sexual mishaps, and anal retention (I am not referring to attention to detail). These moments may bother some, but I thought they were handled in hilarious ways that made me shake my head with a chuckle. There is a funny cameo at the very beginning that will make you wonder "how the hell did they convince him to say that?"

I'm going to lightly spoil the movie, so skip the next paragraph if you plan to see it.

What would most upset the country of North Korea about The Interview is not the simple fact that the plot involves killing Kim Jong-un, but how the movie goes out of its way to make their revered leader look flawed and... human. And the ending depicts something happening that might actually occur in that country if its citizens realized that the Emperor (in one shot, quite literally) has No Clothes. It's not his death that ends up mattering, but the exposing of lies he and his allies have told the population in order to stay in power.

So it may be a dumb Rogan/Franco movie, but it also has something to say. It's not the greatest satire ever made, but if you can stomach the shock value, and/or you believe no art should be censored for political gain, it's worth checking out.

As stated above, you can watch The Interview at several places online, each charges $5.99:
http://www.theinterview-movie.com/
Or, find it in a theater near you. The Alamo Drafthouse played some decades-old Korean propaganda before the flick, as well as exclusive messages recorded for the chain by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, so those were interesting features. Watch out for tigers.

EDIT: Of course now, you can just stream the darn thing on Netflix.

iPhone: Factory Reset

A couple of weeks ago my father asked me if he could use my iPhone 4 so he could give my sister his iPhone 5 until an iPhone 6 was available for purchase. I treat my phones pretty well so the iPhone 4 is in pretty good shape, it just had all my account information on it.

But as you can imagine, it has been a while since I've gone into it. And of course, for personal reasons, I changed the email address associated with my Apple ID. So it made it impossible to restore to factory settings! I couldn't agree to the "new" Terms & Conditions which meant I couldn't turn off "Find my iPhone" which apparently can't be on when restoring an iPhone. And when I went to iCloud and logged it, "Find my iPhone" only listed my current iPhone and not this old one.

Needless to say, I was annoyed. So I went to the Apple Store and the Genius there told me to do everything I had already done.. and redirected me to Apple Support which meant I got to schedule a phone call. And that was fun because I kept getting disconnected after 5 minutes.

However, in spite of all of that, I got the answer. If you have an iPhone that you are unable to restore to factory there is a solution! With the iPhone turned off, (1) hold the "Home" button and connect it to a computer (with iTunes). (2) Keep holding while waiting. (3) Once it tells you it has entered restore mode and starts to restore the iPhone to factory, release and wait for it to do it's thing. (4) Then you've got yourself a factory reset iPhone.

Lesson learned: when done with an iPhone you might use again, at least turn off "Find my iPhone" before abandoning it in a drawer.

SharePoint: PowerShell

This all started because someone wanted to rename their SharePoint 2010 site collection. And, of course, Microsoft doesn't provide an easy way to do that: it involves using SharePoint Management Shell to run Backup-SPSite, Remove-SPSite, and Restore-SPSite. But when I went into the virtual machine to run these commands, I found no SharePoint Management Shell!

I'm not an Administrator so I don't know any better: I thought you couldn't use Windows PowerShell in place of SharePoint Management Shell. I was wrong! I learned all that is needed is to enter this command before your SharePoint commands:

AddPsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

And voila! Now you can use your PowerShell commands without the SharePoint Management Shell.

Looking for Bill Watterson

Most people who read newspaper comics in the late 80s through early 90s enjoyed Bill Watterson's incomparable Calvin and Hobbes. Others grew up reading the strip in collective book form. Despite the lack of merchandising or continuous syndication, the blond 6-year-old and his pet tiger have remained just as beloved and timeless as contemporaries like Peanuts and Garfield .

A documentary called Dear Mr. Watterson that started streaming on Netflix this year examines the legacy and influence of Watterson and his creation. Several comic strip writers, artists, and syndicate representatives are interviewed, some who were colleagues and some who are fans. Bill Watterson remains somewhat of an enigma since he has remained reclusive and has consistently refused to be an interview subject, so of course the documentary can't provide a lot of insight into what makes him tick. Nonetheless, director Joel Allen Schroeder made a worthy tribute to the artist.

One of the people interviewed for the documentary was Nevin Martell, who is the author of a book called Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip. I found that a local library owned the book and I was pleased to discover that it made for an excellent complement to Dear Mr. Watterson.

Both the documentary and the book discuss how Watterson started as a political cartoonist and decided that wasn't for him. He always wanted to do something more imaginative and original. He based the town depicted in the comic strip somewhat on his hometown of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. He also wanted his art to speak for itself and always refused requests to merchandise the characters. He was especially incensed at the idea of making a plush Hobbes toy, because he wanted it to remain ambiguous whether Hobbes was purely the product of Calvin's imagination. To answer a common question, Watterson was nothing like the mischievous Calvin when he was growing up; he was a shy and obedient child. As an adult, even when his work was awarded, he shunned the spotlight and seldom showed up to accept those awards in person.

What I especially enjoyed about Martell's book was that he described his struggles to interview anyone close to Watterson and inevitable failure to sit down with the reclusive man himself. This provided kind of a look behind the curtain of the sometimes frustrating process of writing a biography. It was also neat to find out Watterson had spent some of his early years in my hometown of Alexandria, Virginia before his family moved to Pittsburgh and then Chagrin Falls.

It is difficult to objectively review these two projects, as I have always been a fan of Watterson's signature work, and they're preaching to the choir. Suffice it to say, I think every fan of Calvin and Hobbes would enjoy Dear Mr. Watterson, and for more detail about the creator, all should definitely read Looking for Calvin and Hobbes.

For more information about Dear Mr. Watterson or to purchase it, go to the official site, and if you subscribe to Netflix streaming, click here to watch it.

For more about Looking for Calvin and Hobbes or its author, go to his official site.

Ebates

Ebates is a company that gives you cash back if you click through the links of the affiliate online stores listed on their site. My older sister invited me with a glowing review (and admitting she'd get cash back for it) so I joined. I did not immediately start using the service because getting cash for clicking a link in that site seemed too good to be true, but I thought it was silly to not at least try. I made a small purchase and later I got $3 deposited into my PayPal account!

I saw later that Ebates has met accreditation standards with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) since 2000. And if you search the internet, there are plenty of reviews that validate it isn't a scam. In my opinion, it's worth the extra step!

Click the following image to join: