Image courtesy of Mcbrooklyn

Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign has been one of the main driving forces behind the brand’s image and cult following. However, it’s actually pretty ironic; a lot of Apple product users are, essentially, identical. The above image illustrates this perfectly. Notice how every Apple fan thinks they’re being different, but there are so many Apple fans that this just isn’t the case any longer. It’s actually quite comical to see an image like this. 

The irony here being, of course, the fact that it has reached the stage where if somebody truly wanted to ‘think different’, the last thing they’d do is buy an Apple product. The fact that Apple seemingly hasn’t dropped the slogan shows us that the company really does exist in their own parallel universe, with their followers existing there too. It’s not a bad thing by any means, in fact it’s a very powerful marketing tool, but if you take Apple’s attitude that it isn’t “hip to be square” toward their own products, it results in a paradox of cosmic proportions. 

ES Posthumus are, or should I say ‘were’, a duo from Los Angeles who produced a strange type of experimental music that mixed classical with popular themes such as drums, techno riffs, and synth. If you listen to a few of their songs, it’ll seem like they produced movie music; in fact, a lot of their music has been used on popular TV shows around the world. 

Sure, they weren’t the only people to attempt this style, but unlike most others, ES Posthumus’s songs actually sounded good. And by good, I mean epic in most cases. My favourite track of theirs is ‘Pompeii’, and it’s one of their best pieces to give an indication about just what their music tried to achieve. The band members are simply two brothers, and in 2010 one of the brothers died (nobody really knows why), after which the group essentially stopped dead in their tracks. It’s a real shame, because their music was brilliant in my eyes, and they didn’t get enough publicity as they deserved. I’m confident though that in five hundred years people will revere ES Posthumus in the same way that we look at Ludwig van Beethoven. 

RIP Franz. 

I only discovered that Photoshop CS5 has a built-in effect for turning normal photos into HDR. It’s technically cheating, but it gives the desired effect and looks awesome to my eyes. 

I’ll spoil this review in my first sentence: it’s the best film I’ve seen all year. I’d been aware of Larsson’s trilogy of novels, and also aware of the Swedish films, but never read or seen them respectively. In fact, it wasn’t a film that I would have chosen to see, if I hadn’t been invited to go watch it. 

So I went into the cinema having done no ‘preparation’, and I was pretty blown away. Usually, crime/thriller films send me to sleep very swiftly; they all follow the same formula. However, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo doesn’t. Sure, the protagonist (portrayed by Daniel Craig) is a detective-like character investigating the mysterious disappearance of a girl, he hunts around for clues which eventually lead him to the killer, but there’s something about the film that makes it alltogether different from your typical Poirot-esque drama. 

One of the things that stood out most for me was the attention to detail paid to the backgrounds of the main characters; a decent portion of the film is devoted to introducing the lifestyle and personality of both main characters Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) and Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). It’s refreshing to see the person behind the detective, rather than simply seeing their ‘calculating’ side. 

The quality of acting was also impressive - Craig fits the gritty nature of the film well, but also can show his soft side well (very 007 indeed). Mara also did the same. One of the other things I noticed was the theme of a split personality, not in a schizophrenic way, but in the way that behind a seemingly friendly and conventional exterior there can often lie a darker, more sinister side to a person. 

I recommend you go see this film, even if you haven’t read the book it’s a damn good film. I’m adding the book to my reading list, and it’ll be interesting to see how it compares. 

on IMDB