Chris Holmes Online

If you’ve been working with Windows Communication Foundation for a while, like I have, through all the Beta versions, you may have found it difficult to deal with the changes each time a new version is released. The documentation has been scant at best, and often I’ve found myself digging through blog posts to find proper documentation; tracking down changes to XML config names, for instance, can be a chore. Blogs are great resources for ideas and opinions, but they make poor documentation, mostly because people post in small chunks, rarely creating the lengthy entries necessary to properly document something.

Today I installed the latest June CTP of WinFX, now being called .NET 3.0. I wanted to play around with XAML and WPF and get the latest code for Windows Workflow Foundation as well. The side effect of this was new code for WCF. When I went to build the latest version of my application I worked through the compiler errors easy enough – just needed to reference the libraries. But XML doesn’t throw compiler errors, and when I fired up the app I got a few exceptions. The exceptions pinpoint what’s wrong of course, telling me that ‘type’ is now an unrecognized attribute, as is ‘maxMessageSize’, but unfortunatley they can’t tell you what you should do to replace them.

And then I discovered there is new documentation

You can get the new documentation here. It’s great stuff; some of the best documentation I’ve seen for a CTP. There’s several help files. Some of it is the usual stuff, class breakdowns, members, etc., but the cool thing is there’s now a complete listing of every XML attribute as well, with a description of what it is for and how to use it. And the documentation navigation is nested precisely like the XML attributes themselves, so it’s super easy to navigate and discover what a given attribute can & will do. There’s also documentation of explicit samples using WCF. That’s something I didn’t expect, but it rocks.

If you’ve been hesitant to jump into WCF because of lack of documentation then this release is the perfect time to get involved.

A few weeks ago I heard that Paramount is planning a “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise with a new movie and new cast, set to be directed by J.J. Abrams, the fella behind Alias, Lost and this summer’s Mission Impossible 3, which I really liked.

When I read this news I immediately started thinking about who I would cast in the two major roles: Kirk and Spock.

My first two thoughts of who should play Kirk were Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon. I’ve liked both of them in just about everything they’ve done, and both seem to have the facial look, acting range and intensity to play Kirk. I was a little bit excited to read that apparently, Abrams feels the same way about Damon.

The real question now is, who should play Spock? That one seems a lot tougher. Leonard Nimoy has that long, chiseled face, and that deep, baratone voice that instantly gives his character’s intellectual superiority real credibility. It’s tough to imagine someone taking his spot.

The first people I’d put on my list would be Damien Lewis and Paul Bettany. It’s unfortunate that neither of them look like Nimoy’s Spock very much (and I have no idea what they would look like with black wigs) but both are the sort of actors in possession of the right mix of experience and talent that could immediately embody Spock and make it work.

I loved Damien Lewis in Band of Brothers, and thought he did a great job of bringing Richard Winters to life as an intelligent, calm, disciplined officer with brilliant leadership skills and excellent tactical thinking. He showed he’s completely capable of playing a character that is a leader among men, and highly intelligent. I’m surprised Lewis hasn’t done more mainstream, big production movie stuff yet (although he did turn up in the adaptation of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher), because I think he’s a bigtime star waiting to happen. I’d call him the English Harrison Ford, if he ever decides he wants to go in that direction with his career.

Paul Bettany is a different guy from Lewis, but I loved his work in A Knight’s Tale and A Beautiful Mind, and I thought the intensity he showed in this summer’s DaVinci Code as the self-flagellation monk was really good. He’s shown enough range that I think he could play Spock pretty well, with all his Vulcan mannerism and unintential comedic nuances (like Spock’s classic eyebrow raise he’s always giving to Bones that says, “Are you really that stupid doctor?”) Come to think of it, he could probably play Bones pretty well too.

My challenge to you, then, is to come up with some other choices. Who should play Spock in this “reboot” of the Star Trek francise?

Sometimes being sick is a blessing.

Monday I was feeling a bit ill; typical soar throat and congested sinuses, the sort of summer cold that bangs away at your head with such throbbing persistence that attempting any sort of logical, cohesive thought is like getting a person with A.D.D. to sit through 2001: A Space Odyssey. I knew I’d be useless at work, so I stayed home and fired up the television set.

Running through movie channels I happened upon a film called Layer Cake. It starred Daniel Craig as a smart middle-man in the UK drug business, having to pull off one last mission for his boss before slipping away into retirement. Craig is, in case you don’t know, the fella who will be sporting the black suit and tie as the next James Bond. That alone was enough reason for me to stop channel surfing and watch the movie, but I also heard that the Layer Cake was really good. Ebert almost gave it four stars; I had to see what it was about.

The film is brilliant, and Craig is superb. I was totally floored. It’s an incredibly smart film; it reminded me of Mel Gibson’s Payback, only British. It has the same menacing tone and underworld setting, the same shady characters, and the same convoluted, yet logical, plot. The film takes enough twists and turns that we’re never really certain of anyone’s motives, and just when it seems like we know what’s coming next, another curveball is thrown at us. Even the ending is a surprise, but not without logic. And that’s partially what is great about the film – there is logic to every piece of it, and watching it unfold is like watching a complex piece of clockwork click into place, one step at a time, until everything makes sense.

When Daniel Craig was announced as the next James Bond I was skeptical, and there was a huge uproar on the internet. He isn’t dark haired, for one, and he was a relative unknown. But after seeing him in Layer Cake I’m totally convinced he could be an excellent Bond, maybe the best since Roger Moore. If the movie is a flop it won’t be because of Daniel Craig. He’s clearly capable of assuming the lead role, and Layer Cake showed that. If there’s a problem with the next James Bond film it will be with the writing and directing, just as it has been for the past decade.

Do yourself a favor though, and add Layer Cake to your NetFlix queue.

AICN is reporting that a director has been chosen to helm the sequel to Alien vs Predator.

I just don’t get this.

Ridly Scott’s original Alien film marks a seminal moment in the history of filmmaking. It is one of the great movies of all time; it redefined what science fiction and horror could be when taken seriously by the creators. It has long been one of my most favorite films; it is absolutely perfect in its casting, direction, story, special effects and pacing. It is one of the movies that made me realize (later in life when I started to pay attention to these sorts of things) that directors have a huge influence on the quality of a film.

John McTiernan’s Predator is another movie that I love. It was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s better films, maybe because the story was bigger than him. It was unique in the world of sci-fi and I’ve never realy seen anything like it since. The sequel to it was cornball and hokey, and like most bad sequels I just forget they ever happened. But Predator is a movie I find myself drawn to whenever it’s on HBO or some other cable outlet, or even when I stumble across it in the DVD rack.

But Alien vs. Predator was an abomination. It was a money-grab, plain and simple. It was 20th Century Fox’s attempt to milk two successful name brands for more money. The end result was exactly what one would expect when the bottom line is the driving force behind a movie, instead of the creative force of the director and writers. Alien vs Predator was a horrible, despicable, rotten turd of a film. It trivialized everything that made its source material great, and it crapped on everything people had come to expect from Aliens and Predators. I idea that someone wants to make a sequel to it makes me nausious.

It is especially distasteful if you’ve heard Ridly Scott hint in various interviews and DVD commentaries that he would enjoy helming a 5th Alien movie that explores the origins of the Alien species, possibly by visiting their homeworld. Can you imagine the possibilities? With the proper script and Scott as the director the potential is almost enough to blow one’s mind. But instead, 20th Century Fox opts to create a sequel to the turd.

I’d like to know who in Hollywood makes these decisions. There has to be someone who greenlit this project. Who thought this was as good idea?

I’m a big fan of smart people. I feel like the world undervalues intelligence a bit too much. We’re a commercial society and I understand that; sex and atheletic ability sells products. But the we’ve come this far as a race of beings because of smart people. If it weren’t for smart folks we’d still be living in caves, barking at the moon and crapping outdoors. I’m sure every single person reading this blog knows at least one person who has the brains of a gerbil and couldn’t possibly survive in a world without lattes, motor vehicles, flushing toilets, running water, microwaves, air conditioning and television. Those people really exist. Imagine if they were the smartest people we had to offer.

So I was happy to see Sean Yazbeck win the job. He comes across as a very intelligent guy with a lot of passion for what he’s doing. And intelligence and passion are two things you can’t teach or learn. You either have them, or you don’t. I think Trump got a steal in Sean.

I think what surprised me was that Trump was surprised by the poll results, which heavily favored Sean. It wasn’t even close. I can understand Trump’s take; he’s always diplomatic when it gets down to the final two and says both of them are “great”. He’s on national TV and doesn’t want to come across as an ass. He’s done this every season. But Lee wasn’t really great. He was mediocre at best. He was good at big idea thinking, and I’ll admit that was cool to see, since previous contestants have spent way too much time worrying about saving their own ass if things go south. But other than that, Lee was a disappointment. He was way too much of a politician, as Trump pointed out several times. Personally I have a real problem with people who are politicians. They either (a) can’t answer your question because they’re too uninformed/uneducated to answer, or (b) they fear your reaction to their answer, which essentially means they lack the fortitude to be decisive. I think Lee leaned more toward (b), and simply feared Trump challenging his point of view. Lee lacked guts and it showed.

Overall I thought it was an incredibly entertaining season of The Apprentice. I read that the Nielson ratings for this season were down, but it certainly couldn’t have been because of the quality of the show. The cast of characters was really amusing this time around, especially Brent, who proved to be one of the most annoying, narcissistic and clueless cast members of all time. It was hilarious every time he spoke to the camera; I can’t recall a contestant who more sure of himself, and yet was so clearly wrong for the job. The comedy factor alone was worth watching.

I’m not sure how much longer Trump can keep doing this. He’s bound to run out of realestate projects sooner or later, right? But for the time being it is fun television.