company:blockbuster

Blockbuster has survived in the most curious of places — Alaska
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/26/blockbuster-has-survived-in-the-most-surprising-of-places-alaska

After a long decline, the video rental business declared bankruptcy and its new parent company — Dish Network — began closing all remaining retail locations in 2013. Netflix had won, and Blockbuster was dead. Or so Americans thought.

At least 10 known Blockbuster stores across the country have managed to stay afloat in the digital age. However, the largest cluster of Blockbuster stores are not on the mainland, but in Alaska, where dark, long winters and expensive WiFi have helped maintain a core group of loyal customers.

Absolutely Badasses: Looking Back on Vasquez, 30 Years Later
▻https://feministfrequency.com/2017/03/28/absolutely-badasses-looking-back-on-vasquez-30-years-later

My parents’ attitude toward selecting films to watch on family movie nights was pretty loose when I was young. They’d refined the criteria a bit more by the time my brother was able to sit up by himself and keep his eyes focused; but when I was little, the only real rule was no nudity below the waist. If Blockbuster had it in stock, then my parents were cool with […]

http://femfreq2.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/aliens-vasquez-2.jpg

DVD Review: ’Taxi Zum Klo’ - Film Reviews | CineVue
▻http://www.cine-vue.com/2011/03/dvd-releases-taxi-zum-klo_15.html

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tubKom0e-7s/Tv8CSm4m5kI/AAAAAAAADe8/0UltfH0u3zQ/s1600/taxi+zum+klo+lo.jpg

During one scene from Frank Ripploh’s semi-autobiographical tale of a sex-obsessed, German school teacher Taxi Zum Klo (1980) we witness a man lying on a bed being sprayed in the face with urine. For ten, maybe fifteen seconds, all we are shown is the increasingly soaked and excited gent and a stream of the aforementioned urine being directed by an unknown party. 

Although a large percentage of the film-going public would claim to be appalled by the allusion of one man relieving himself on another, I thought it was a brave and interesting scene. Certainly my first experience of seeing a ’golden shower’ on the big screen and being a liberal fellow in an art house cinema I had no problem with the suggestion. Hell, it was only a stream of water or something; it’s not as if Ripploh had furnished us with a wide shot of him with his cock out actually pissing into the guy’s mouth!

When the wide shot of Ripploh with his cock out actually pissing into the guys’s mouth arrived, a strange silence swept across the audience. Nobody walked out, nobody vomited on the person in the neighboring seat and it wasn’t long before the silence was replaced with laughter - though it wasn’t the act itself which we all found amusing, it was the director’s audacity.

Taxi Zum Klo is audacity personified. Upon its release it quickly became notorious for its graphic portrayal of gay sex. Few people have actually seen the film in its entirety, altough a few gay men of a certain age might have seen the sex scenes cobbled together in a private Soho club or on a grainy videotape. Taken out of context those scenes wouldn’t look out of place in a hardcore porn movie, but to dismiss the film as being nothing more than a sexual aid does Frank Ripploh a gross disservice: it’s a funny, provocative and clever piece of film making. 

Shot in a documentary style on a shoe string budget, Ripploh is fearless in exposing his life and desires. By day he’s a good primary school teacher who shares a fabulous relationship with this students and by night he’s a sex tourist haunting public toilets in search of cheap thrills. Along the way he meets a man in a cinema and falls in love but his lust, verging on nymphomania, eventually spirals out of control.

Ripploh is unapologetic about his sexual exploits and being as this film was made in a Pre-AIDS Germany we shouldn’t make the mistake of judging his reckless behaviour by modern standards. Plenty of heterosexual folk liberally put it about back then without fear of reprisal and although some may question his morality, in reality it’s nobody’s business what Frank gets up to with his own body.

The film also attempts to dispel certain myths regarding homosexuals and children. At one point a public information film about paedophiles is inter-cut with scenes of Frank tutoring a student. He deliberately provokes the audience and although he does it in a humorous way he is also making a point. Just because you’re gay that doesn’t mean you pray on children and just because you have a broad sexual appetite that doesn’t mean you can’t be good at your day job. There is no conflict unless you, or a disapproving other, creates one.

All in all the film works best as an insight into the normality of gay life. Frank may run around like a sex-crazed Timothy Claypole at times, and the editing is a little on the clunky side, but if you want to be challenged and experience a piece of cinema quite unlike anything you have seen before then ’Taxi Zum Klo’ is essential viewing. As a straight man - who, admittedly, has always shied way from gay cinema, believing that it wasn’t for him - I was pleasantly surprised.

Although I’m not going to rush down to Blockbuster video and order a stack of homoerotic DVDs, I’m glad to report to anyone laboring under the mis-apprehension that watching two men have sex turns you gay that it simply isn’t true...now where’s my copy of Brokeback Mountain?

Lee Cassanell

Taxi Zum Klo, review - Telegraph
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8467365/Taxi-Zum-Klo-review.html

On its first release, Taxi Zum Klo (1980) was seized by US Customs. The film (its title translates as Taxi to the Toilet) was written and directed by Frank Ripploh who also takes the lead role of a schoolteacher who likes sex. He marks student essays while sitting on cottage toilets, picks up garage attendants, tells his homebody boyfriend that he’s going to clubs to pick up strangers.
These adventures, intercut with scenes of vintage porn, are shot naturalistically with (literally) warts-and-all candour and a good deal of droll humour. The film, far from being degenerate filth, is a loving document of pre-Aids Berlin, and a touching comedy about the human desire for and struggle to achieve intimacy.

Taxi Zum Klo Movie Review & Film Summary (1982) | Roger Ebert
▻http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/taxi-zum-klo-1982

“Taxi zum Klo” is an unsparingly honest film, documentary matched with (I assume) docudrama, in which Ripploh reveals himself fearlessly. The revelations that must have taken the most courage are not the ones about his homosexuality, but the ones about his unhappiness, his sense of inadequacy. He appears in this film to be seeking a life of openness, love, beauty and loyalty to a lover — and at the same time he marches on a treadmill of futile promiscuity.

As the film opens, Ripploh is a schoolteacher in West Germany. He seems to be a pretty good teacher, cheerful and frank with his students. After hours, he cruises the gay bars and public meeting places, seeking anonymous sex, often with a sadomasochistic flavor. He’s particularly drawn to gay sleaze, to the bars specializing in the theatrical flaunting of sexual identity, to the places in the big city where sex is mixed with danger.

He meets a young man, Berndt, whom he values more than most of his partners. They become lovers. They move in together, and Ripploh tries to break his pattern of addictive sex and to be faithful to one person. The movies best scenes involve Frank and Berndt trying to work out the ground rules of a relationship.

Meanwhile, Ripploh gets fired from his job (for staying out too late after a drag ball and imprudently turning up in his classroom in drag). He contract hepatitis, is hospitalized, and, in the movie’s saddest scene, leaves the hospital bed in his patient’s gown, and hails a taxi to take him to a rendezvous with an anonymous stranger (hence the title’s English translation, “Taxi to the Toilet”).

How does he feel about his sex life? Judging by the movie, he finds the sex itself an exciting addiction, but fears his promiscuity is training him to see persons as objects. The end of the process is clearly a great, bleak loneliness, and it is against his loneliness that he seeks protection with Berndt.

“Taxi Zum Klo” does not contain much explicit sex, but the sex it does portray is graphic and will probably shock some viewers. Ripploh believes he could not make an honest film of his life without showing us all of it, and his frankness redeems even his most scatological scene.
The triumph of “Taxi zum Klo” is that, in the midst of its portrait of isolation, Frank Ripploh himself emerges as a cheerful, open man, willing to reveal his weakness, willing to hope that things will take a turn for the better. The movie is about a person, not about his sex life. It understands that all of our identities and lifestyles are just hopeful strategies in the search for a sense of belonging, usefulness and love.

#cinéma #gay #Berlin

Operation Blockbuster | Novetta Threat Research & Interdiction Group
▻https://operationblockbuster.com

https://operationblockbuster.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/reportcover.jpg

In Operation Blockbuster, a Novetta-led coalition of private industry partners joined together to identify, understand, expose, and aid industry in degrading the Lazarus Group, the malicious threat actors behind multiple cyber campaigns, including the November 2014 Sony Pictures attack. Our story demonstrates private industry’s new role in ensuring the balance of global cyber defense.
...
The attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment
(SPE) was unprecedented in its media coverage
and overt use of malicious destructive capabilities
against a commercial entity. The SPE attack broke
new ground not only as a destructive malware
attack on a U.S. commercial entity but also due
to the fact that the U.S. government attributed
the attack to North Korea and enacted small
reciprocal measures.
1
While the debate over who
was responsible – North Korea, hacktivists, or SPE
employees – was the primary subject played out
in the media, the attack presented much larger
implications, such as how little resistance a modern
commercial enterprise is able to provide in the
face of a capable and determined adversary with
destructive intent.

Further, Novetta’s analysis of the observed tooling and TTPs

suggests that the group has executed numerous successful
attacks due in large part to their organization and determination, more so than due to any highly sophisticated malware
such as those reportedly used by similar classes of threat actors reported in the last few years, e.g., HDD malware
2
and
Satellite Turla.
3
Through careful analysis outlined in this report and other associated reverse engineering technical reports, Novetta has
been able to link the malware used in the SPE attack to a widely varied malicious toolset. This toolset includes malware
directly related to previously reported attacks, suggesting that these malicious tools have been actively developed and
used over a span of at least 7 years, and that the attackers responsible for the SPE attack have a much larger collection
of related malware outside of the set of reported SPE destructive malware. Due to this, we strongly believe that the SPE
attack was not the work of insiders or hacktivists. Instead, given the malicious tools and previous cyber operations linked
to these tools, it appears that the SPE attack was carried out by a single group, or potentially very closely linked groups
sharing technical resources, infrastructure, and even tasking. We have dubbed this group the Lazarus Group.
Although
our analysis cannot support direct attribution of a nation-state or other specific group due to the difficulty of proper
attribution in the cyber realm, the FBI’s official attribution claims
4
could be supported by our findings.
While the SPE attack occurred over a year ago, we are releasing this report now to detail our technical findings, clarify
details surrounding the SPE hack, and profile the Lazarus Group, who has continued to develop tools and target victims
since then. Most importantly, Novetta continues to work with our public and private partner organizations in this
Operation to ensure that Novetta’s signatures and other data will have a meaningful impact on the Lazarus Group’s
abilities to function, as well as help potential victims understand in great detail not only the technical but also the
operational methods. Novetta feels that this combination of sharing highly technical analysis with both the public and
private industry is the best way to interdict these types of actors.

▻https://operationblockbuster.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Operation-Blockbuster-Report.pdf

#sécurité #internet

How to Write a Blockbuster Video Game, All Four Scripts of It: Video | Motherboard
▻http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-to-write-a-blockbuster-video-game-all-four-scripts-of-it-video

When it comes to action-based video games, the narrative probably takes second place in the player’s mind, superseded by the most important task at hand: laying waste to bad guys and aliens. But the two are intertwined, one and the same, and it’s testament to the craft of the writers behind those games when you can’t tell them apart.

▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fXNCVecpfiw

#écrire #jeux_vidéo