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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

'Fast Five' was downloaded 9M times

'Fast Five' is the most pirated movie of 2011

"Fast Five" will probably not be at the top of many year-end movie lists -- best, worst, biggest hits or otherwise. But it is No. 1 somewhere, although probably not where its studio, Universal, would want it to be.
The movie was the most pirated film of 2011, according to data compiled by TorrentFreak. The Vin Diesel-Paul Walker-Dwayne Johnson action saga was swapped almost 9.3 million times via BitTorrent.

That's a lot, but it's way down from 2010 piracy leader "Avatar," which racked up more than 16 million downloads. TorrentFreak says the average for the Top 10 this year was also way down from 2010, although the number of BitTorrent users didn't decline.

"The Hangover Part II" and "Thor" were second and third on the list, each with more than 8 million downloads.
Best picture winner "The King's Speech" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" also made the Top 10, but it wasn't all hits. Middling box-office performers like "Source Code" and "Sucker Punch" also made the list. 

Here's the Top 10, per TorrentFreak:
1. "Fast Five"
2. "The Hangover Part II"
3. "Thor"
4. "Source Code"
5. "I Am Number Four"
6. "Sucker Punch"
7. "127 Hours"
8. "Rango"
9. "The King's Speech"
10. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"

Adapted from MSN
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Published by Gusti Putra at: 5:12 PM
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Top 3 Movies of 2011

These are top three movies of 2011:

3. 'The Descendants' 
A number of major movies this year were about looking into the past and attempting to find some sort of solace or meaning there, creatively, personally or otherwise. But as Woody Allen revealed in his "Midnight in Paris," our view of the past is often distorted by our own desires, and things weren't truly any better then than they are now. That's why there's not a whole lot of emotional truth in a simple homage. But there's a ton of it in "The Descendants," which is ultimately about taking one's eyes off the rearview mirror and peering into the future. That means letting go, and the grief that Matt King (George Clooney) and his two daughters must work through as they say goodbye to their dying wife and mother is acute and real. So is the sense of loss that Matt feels over the possibility of relinquishing his family's stake in their home state of Hawaii. In both cases, Matt comes to terms with the mistakes of the past and attempts to move forward -- forging a new relationship with his daughters now that their "primary parent" is gone, and finding a way to preserve his family's land. Your reaction to "The Descendants" may depend on what point in your life you're at while watching it. For us, it was somber, funny and terribly moving. It's a beautiful film about trying to live right now, to know the people around you and where you all come from, before everything slips away and becomes just another distant, nostalgic dream.

2. 'The Tree of Life' 
If, in one sense, the power of Terrence Malick 's filmmaking comes from its ambiguity, "The Tree of Life," has to rank as his most potent and daring work yet. The movie begins and ends with an image of a swirling energy, a smoky, dancing light which means ... what? The spark that began the universe? The essence of everything that began and will eventually end what we perceive as reality? Yes ... and ... sure, why not? With Tree," it's always more about the questions than the answers. Malick's heartfelt meditation on life's mysteries, as filtered through a portrait of a West Texas family in the 1950s, has been fashioned to allow his audience the space to experience the emotions it might evoke within themselves. So as you watch the film's three young boys caught in the middle between the physical embodiments of grace (their lovely mother, played with such tender feeling by Jessica Chastain) and nature (a never-better Brad Pitt as their stern, thwarted father), we, too, feel the push and pull between the physical and infinite aspects of the human existence. There's beauty, poetry, tyranny, death. There's the birth of the universe. There are dinosaurs! Why dinosaurs? Short answer: (Again) Why not? Long answer: Perhaps Malick is reminding us that the creatures that once held dominion over the Earth no longer exist. Could the same fate befall their successors? Or maybe that little moment of grace where the big lizard spares its sickly cousin shows a way of avoiding that destiny. Again, it's all about the questions, and Malick gives you enough to chew on here that you could return repeatedly to "Tree" for years to come, knowing (and savoring) that your experience will be different each time you watch it.


1. 'Melancholia' 

Universal and personal, blatant and mysterious, sorrowful and funny, nihilistic and yet, sublimely, romantically, celebratory, Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia" takes the black bile of its namesake -- the depression of its heroine -- and transforms the "humor" into exaltation. A terrifying, dazzling planet that, true to Dane Von Trier's dip into German romanticism, is set to destroy life on Earth: Götterdämmerung via Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" (used in the picture's rapturously beautiful overture), via Ophelia via Cassandra via Von Trier's personal mythology. Clinically depressed Justine (a stunning Kirsten Dunst, Von Trier's surrogate) does what's often expected of those afflicted -- wear a brave face and a wedding dress, embrace love, work, family (no matter how dysfunctional) and rules. Well, Von Trier cannot accept that fate, and in the picture's first half, in which Justine destroys her nuptials, her actions serve as depressive, rebellious self awareness. "What did you expect?" she asks. Indeed. And then comes planet Melancholia, inching closer, leaving stable sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) panic stricken while Justine, calmly, grimly and at times, cheekily, accepts annihilation, not as easy suicide but as a kind of cosmic extension of despair. Finally. Justine isn't wallowing in depression, she's embracing, seducing it, and in one of the picture's most exquisite moments, lying beneath it naked, basking in the glow of doom. Von Trier, a sufferer himself, sincerely understands depression (just as he understood anxiety in "Antichrist"), which may be why he maddens many. Weaving himself into his characters, he's sadistic, masochist, empathetic, self obsessed, morbid and morbidly funny and then honest and honestly confused. With "Melancholia" he grants depressives a gift. Taking Justine's depleted darkness and imbuing her with celestial life through doomsday, he, to recall another German Romantic, creates an "Ode to Joy" through heartbreaking and gloriously inspirational...woe. 




Adapted from MSN


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Published by Gusti Putra at: 5:00 PM
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Deer find safe home at FBI firing range, academy

'They're pretty immune to the sound ... they don't know what a gun is,' says FBI instructor

QUANTICO, Virginia — Call it a playground for Bambi and G-Men, where imaginary criminals are hunted and deer are the spectators.
Deer roam atop a berm surrounding the shooting range at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., on Dec. 19.
The 547-acre FBI Academy, where some of America's best marksmen fire off more than 1 million bullets every month, happens to be one of the safest places for deer during hunting season.
The property on the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., is home to some of the FBI's most elite forces and training programs as well as a de facto wildlife refuge where deer, fox, wild turkeys, groundhogs and vultures roam fearless and free.

In recent years, a black bear was spotted running across a parking lot, and a groundhog cornered an FBI agent coming out of the cafeteria, hoping to score some human food, FBI spokesman Kurt Crawford said. Turkey vultures are often seen perched atop the 500,000 square foot national crime lab where the FBI analyzes evidence, including the remains of the former al-Qaida leader in Iraq.
The wild animals are as much a fixture at the academy as the hostage rescue team and criminal profilers.
The most common furry friends on the sprawling campus some 30 miles outside Washington are the deer, a regular at the shooting ranges, driving courses and physical training trails.
On a December afternoon, deer grazed above one of the academy's 16 practice shooting ranges. They stood just 15 feet away from the paper targets. Nearby, shots popped loudly from a Colt M4 Carbine rifle, and the white-tailed deer did not flinch.

"They're pretty immune to the sound," said Sean Boyle, supervisory special agent bomb technician and principal firearms instructor for the Critical Incident Response Group based at the academy. The deer typically graze on top of the berm, about 15 feet away from the targets and rarely go directly in the line of fire. Boyle said he doesn't recall an instance where a deer was shot accidentally.
"It's like they think, 'We've pushed the limit for this far, and all our generations have pushed the limit for this far,'" Boyle said. "They're just so docile around here. They don't know what a gun is."
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries does not keep direct tabs on the deer population at the FBI academy, but a spokeswoman said statewide the deer population has remained about the same over the past decade, partly because of regulated hunting. Licensed deer hunters are allowed on parts of the Marine Corps base but not at the academy where the FBI does not hunt its animals.
At the FBI Academy, the deer have even become part of the training in some of the driving courses, said Tim Moles, the supervisory special agent who oversees the Tactical and Emergency Vehicle Operations Center, where recruits learn to avoid crashing their cars and conduct surveillance without being spotted.

The deer are convenient when recruits learn to avoid collisions, Moles said. "There's times when it seems like they're playing chicken with us," Moles said. "We respect them because they can do damage. We'd rather avoid all deer stories in this end of the academy."
For the most part, the deer have stayed out of trouble. Twice, however, deer have eaten freshly-planted pansies at the academy's 9/11 memorial courtyard, Crawford said. Eventually a fence was built to keep the flowers off limits.
Deer have been known to interrupt physical training, too.
"We've had the deer walk across the middle of the track during the 300-meter sprint," said Susann Dreiling, unit chief of the academy's physical training unit.
To become an agent, recruits must pass a physical fitness test. They are scored on how fast they can run and how many push-ups and sit-ups they perform. Sometimes, training will involve running a quarter-mile path along the lake area of the academy, stopping for push-ups, running some more and breaking to box, Dreiling said.
During these exercises, a mother and her fawns are often close by.
"They just stand there and watch as if they're evaluating them," Dreiling said, "just like the instructors are."

Adapted from MSN
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Published by Gusti Putra at: 2:47 PM
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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The 10 Best Guy Days of the Year

What makes a great day? For guys, they generally fall into two categories: days that involve some kind of success, either at work or with women, or days that offer simple pleasures and a respite from the stress of our adult lives. This list is devoted to the latter category. Here are 10 days of the year which, for men, offer an archipelago of sanity in the ocean of chaos that comprises the greater part of our daily lives.

Start of Fishing Season
Some things never go out of style. The act of casting a line into the water and hoping for a fish to rise has been immortalized in works as diverse as A River Runs Through It and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It's one of those heralded manly pursuits that gets at the heart of how we define leisure. Is it a pulse-pounding activity full of anticipation and excitement, or a couple guys spending the day sitting around drinking beer in a boat? It's both of these things, thus reflecting the dichotomy of how men have fun—we like excitement, but in limited doses, preferably supplemented with a cool beverage.







The Opening Round of March Madness
While other sports days like the Super Bowl are all about spectacle, March Madness is all about the game, or rather, the games—nothing in sport rivals the adrenaline rush of that first Thursday of the tournament, when 32 teams take the court to play all-out, do-or-die basketball. These are college kids, not jaded superstars. They play for pride and glory, backed by rabid student and alumni fans who follow every dribble and drive on a blood-and-bones level. There's a feeling that anything can happen, anybody can beat anybody, and any bracket—no matter how well-constructed—can fall apart in a heartbeat. It is the unquestioned pinnacle of the yearly sports calendar, and you will be hard-pressed to find a man anywhere who doesn't love it like he loves his first-born.





Your Birthday
Why shouldn't you enjoy your birthday? Too many guys waste the whole day complaining about getting older, as if there's anything they can do about it. The evolved man understands the nature of inevitability, and savors the increasing wisdom and perspective that comes with age. Plus, it's a day full of potential attention, with co-workers, friends and family all hovering around with well-wishes and presents. I don't know about you, but I can always use more well-wishes and presents.










The First Day of Barbecuing
As men, our hearts grow sick watching our precious grills spend the winter sheathed and forgotten on our decks and porches. Few things invigorate us more than that first sunny day of the year when the opportunity presents itself, the long-dormant grill is revived, and we savor the season's first whiff of flame-licked meat. The feeling can't easily be described. It rises up from a soup of primordial memory, an ancestral longing that dates back to our caveman origins. Men bond over a hot grill in a way that isn't repeated anywhere else. That all might sound a little overwrought. And maybe it is. But no matter how you feel about the age-old ritual of meat and fire itself, there's one thing we can all agree on: In the end, you end up with a delicious meal—and that at least is worth celebrating.




Father's Day
This day's worthiness for actual fathers is obvious; it's the only other day of the year besides your birthday (as we already discussed) when the focus is all on you. But even for non-fathers, the day has a certain appeal. First of all, fathers are much more blasé about the whole thing, and so the day lacks the pressure of Mother's Day (and don't get me started on "Mother-in-Law Day"). Plus, it's in mid-June, and so the pleasant onset of summer is palpably near.










The Summer Solstice
Human cultures have celebrated the summer solstice for millennia, and so for that alone this day merits acknowledgment. For modern men however, the day conjures a different set of visions. The official start of summer still seems like a holiday because of our childhood associations with long days off from school filled with idle play and hazy backyard afternoons. Even though we are now of working age, the kid inside rejoices when the constellations align just so, and we're gifted with daylight that lasts late into evening.








The Day Your Lawn Stops Growing
We men take great pride in our lawns. A well-maintained field of verdant grass is our Apollonian goal, a statement about not just our skill as gardeners and landscapers but a measure of our ability to exert control in an uncertain world. Our neighbors appreciate us, our friends respect us, and our wives love us all the more. That's all well and good, but let's be honest: The whole thing is a certifiable pain in the ass. In late spring, when we dream of lounging with the newspaper and a baseball game, we're instead dragging the mower out for yet another Sunday clipping. But then, mercifully, we hit a day somewhere in mid-late summer when nature shuts itself down. The grass takes on a slight brown hue, and though a few die-hards attempt to keep it lush year-round, the societal pressure is off. The mower can again be retired until next spring without complaint from the wife, and our Sundays are once again our own.


Your Anniversary
Yeah, I know what you're going to say. You'll say, "Are you nuts? I have to get a present, make restaurant reservations, find a sitter, and of course, remember the date in the first place. What's fun about that?" But it doesn't have to be that way. First off, you should memorize and remember the date. Period. It's just something you do when you're a mature man of the world. Second, if you play it right, it's actually a very easy win for you. You go out with your wife, who will be dressed to kill, and spend the evening canoodling over candlelight while reminiscing about the day you met. Good food is usually involved. And then—with any luck—you have sex. Keep it simple, enjoy your partner, and avoid having a bad day by not prioritizing it enough, in which case there will be no sex involved.




The First Cold Night of the Year You Can Light a Fire
The response men have to fire is high on the list of primal instincts. As we saw before, the urge to make fire expresses itself in summer by our frequent barbecuing. As winter sets in, things get more literal. Any man with a fireplace, whether gas or wood-burning, knows the joy of that initial flicker of flame. A cold, dark room is suddenly made warm and friendly. These men with fireplaces also know the erotic potential of a roaring fire, how easy it is to find oneself engaged carnally with women who—without exception—are made weak in the knees by firelight, soft music and a glass of white wine. If you know a man who is without a fireplace, buy him an outdoor fire pit for Christmas. He will thank you later.





Super Bowl Sunday
Why do we love it so much? It's not really about the game itself, though recent Super Bowls have yielded interesting match-ups and fantastic finishes. No, the real draw is the overt trashiness of it all. We eat retro, junky food like chili-cheese pizza and fried jalapenos slathered in ranch dressing. It's all about mass appeal, a celebration of modern excess and Americana that gives us an excuse to gather with friends and drink beer in the dead of winter. It's that rare television event we can all share together, like the "Seinfeld" finale or "Lost" (the first season, anyway). We even enjoy watching the commercials, for God's sake.







Adapted from MSN









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Published by Gusti Putra at: 3:03 PM
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