Clean, classy, and crimson… that’s the best way to describe this theme. It supports widgets and discriminating tastes, and as you can see it’s fairly light with a fine classy polish. The navigation tabs add some transparent wow, and the look and feel is easy to sink into. This latest version of the theme took me quite a bit of time to tweak just the way I liked it, so I hope you enjoy.

[DOWNLOAD] v1.5 – 17 JUL 08 – 138kB

[LIVE DEMO]

One of MANY, MANY reviews I’ve received:

I’ve looked at hundreds of WordPress themes, and I have to say, Crimson Sunrise is the most technically advanced I’ve seen yet.

- If you add pages, it adds tabs to the top.
- It comes with built in functions for doing things you’d normally have to hunt the Codex for
- It Looks GREAT

Either way, I think I’ve found my new favourite theme for WordPress.

And speaking of… did anybody besides me notice that Stark Industries was a completely un-subtle spoof of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the United States’ biggest defense contractor? Not only does the Stark Industries logo (complete with bold-italic capitals and elongated angle-point) look strikingly like Lockheed Martin’s, but they even make the same F-22 Raptor fighter jets!?

I checked Google and my blog was the first to make the direct connection between the two (albeit obvious). Since then, it has popped up on a few other blogs and the Stark Industries entry on Wikipedia has been updated to reflect the company logo’s peculiar likeness to Lockheed Martin’s.

I would say “you be the judge”, but is there any doubt?

The Acting

This was a pure gem for Robert Downey Jr. as he masterfully filled the shoes of our metallic hero. With all the problems Downey has had in the past it’s easy to approach his performance skeptically… until the movie starts. The ease and comfort with which he fell into the role of Tony Stark (Iron Man) is nearly dizzying, as was his command of the camera and fellow actors.

Stark is a complex character who’s unbridled and energetic approach to women and engineering (a winning combination tantamount to chocolate and peanut butter) would leave both the geekiest slacker-geniuses and the smoothest lady-killers equally schooled. Downey fit the part like a glove.

Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow also rise to the acting occasion to round out the cast of conflicted characters. Bridges was excellent and sold the corporate suited Obadiah Stane. Paltrow, looking better than ever, deftly portrayed a demure yet savvy “Pepper” Potts (Stark’s assistant) including near-perpetual nonchalance at Stark’s antics.

The Physics

Being an engineer I always have a hard spot for bad science (especially physics) in movies. By “bad” I don’t mean things like light sabers or warp drive… I mean science that violates known and common laws of physics.

Now, it’s believable that some super-armor can absorb severe impacts by missiles and bullets… but if you’re inside the suit you still will feel the full forces from your sudden changes in velocity. In Iron Man there are times when Stark’s body undergoes accelerations and decelerations that would near-liquefy his brain, yet he easily survives.

At other times Stark lands (on his feet) onto both hard and soft surfaces from incredible speeds and without leaving much of an imprint… yet in one part of the movie just gently setting down his suit feet-first onto a concrete structure caused it to collapse – under his weight, I guess – and then collapse through an additional floor of the house down into the basement.

The Undertone

My biggest gripe, being a former soldier and perpetual patriot, is the goofy take on national defense and military weaponry that the story partially took. Stark is the mastermind behind his father’s business, the powerful weapons development and manufacturing company Stark Industries. After Stark’s ordeal at the beginning of the movie he starts to rethink the morality of creating weaponry after seeing his weapons used by the bad guys to hurt innocent people.

Hollywood frequently interjects leftism into its movies, and I’ve become numb to their depiction of the US military as a shoot-first outfit. Iron Man was a little better at not doing this. But the annoying thing is that the inevitable conclusion to Stark’s moral crisis would have to have been: making good weapons for ourselves leads to bad people using them for evil so I should stop making good weapons for ourselves. As if our enemies would no longer have any weapons? As if the mere existence of the weapons coerces people to do evil things?

Now, I work for Lockheed Martin (but don’t speak for them in any way construed or misconstrued) and our fighter jets (or any of our weapon systems) don’t find their way into terrorists hands regardless of what Hollywood says. America’s defense technology is kept under such tight export controls that it’s a wonder sometimes even our staunchest allies can get hold of it.

And speaking of… did anybody besides me notice that Stark Industries was a completely un-subtle spoof of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the United States’ biggest defense contractor? Not only does the Stark Industries logo (complete with bold-italic capitals and elongated angle-point) look strikingly like Lockheed Martin’s, but they even make the same F-22 Raptor fighter jets!? [see photo]

The Movie

Despite my bellyaching I highly recommend this flick for any lover of action and acting. I thoroughly enjoyed it and anticipate a sequel, because what’s a comic book story without lots of sequels?

I think the movie is one of the best independent flicks I’ve seen. I watched it with my wife – we found it full of passion and sincerity. Particularly, it was refreshing to see professional musicians acting in lead roles with such engaging realism… probably so engaging precisely because they aren’t actors, and therefore their acting was much more believable, if that makes any sense.

Without giving anything away, the movie is about two amateur musicians each struggling in their own way. They by chance embark on a week-long musical collaboration that culminates with them recording their songs over a weekend. Throughout the movie each of them shares songs that find their way into the storyline (and ultimately onto their recorded CD).

Mere hours passed after watching Once before I bought the soundtrack… which was filled (pleasingly) with all the songs from the movie. For fellow musicians especially, I highly recommend this movie and its soundtrack.

From wikipedia…
Once is an Academy Award winning 2007 Irish musical film written and directed by John Carney. Set in Dublin, this naturalistic drama stars musicians Glen Hansard (of popular Irish rock band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová as struggling musicians. Collaborators prior to making the film, Hansard and/or Irglová composed and performed all but one of the original songs in the movie.

Shot for only €130,000 ($160,000), the film was very successful, earning substantial per-screen box office averages in the United States. It received extremely enthusiastic reviews and awards such as the 2008 Independent Spirit Award for best foreign film. Hansard and Irglová’s song “Falling Slowly” received a 2008 Academy Award and a 2008 Grammy nomination, and the soundtrack as a whole also received a Grammy nomination.

A dystopia can be thought of as the polar opposite of a utopia. A dystopian society is usually depicted as having an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government that has imposed some kind of oppressive social control over society.

Here’s a great example of a dystopic movie I just saw recently… The Island. Now for whatever reason this film was given tepid reviews and a hasty box office stint, but I thought it was excellent… good acting, great storyline (I don’t care how Matrix-y it was), crazy action sequences and enough suspense to keep me riveted even if there’d been no action. The movie also skillfully mirrors the modern-day debate over stem-cells and organ harvesting from living human babies.

Anyways, for much more information about dystopias (and some lists of dystopic films and literature) visit the Wikipedia article :: dystopia.