Something exciting has been brewing in the jungle, the monkey’s have been swinging about the dense terrains, and we will be moving to new pastures by this MONDAY!
Check out the new logo, and check back on Monday for new articles and a new home.
Thanks to Faritz Mus for the new shrieking design!
Skype, the internet phone service is looking to go public, offering shares to increase the number of users.
Skype, headquartered in Luxembourg, is planning a $100 million initial public offering. The company would offer American depository shares.
Ebay who had sold the company in September 2009, has come out and said that the company is doing well. This year, Skype has been able to generate more than $406 million in sales, with 560 million registered users – which is an increase of 41% from a year ago. Paying users too jumped to 8.1 million from 6.6 million – an increase of 23% from a year ago.
An IPO can help it grow and develop better and faster. The company said it had achieved “significant global scale and user growth,” but “the penetration of our connected and paying users is low relative to our market opportunity.” They are able to tap further into the market with an IPO, acquiring a larger capture of the market.
Skype made headway when it landed a deal with Verizon Wireless. Previously, mobile providers were sceptical to allow Skype’s services to be used on their networks, since the user did not have to pay for the voice minutes used. But now with data service being identified as a strong revenue stream, wireless companies are opening up to this opportunity.
EBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, then selling it in 2009 for $2.75 billion to an investment group led by Silver Lake Partners. EBay intially planned an IPO for Skype, but decided to straight sell it instead.
Skype has been a consistent revenue driver for years, and EBay estimated that the Internet phone company is on track to break $1 billion in revenue by 2011.
Its culture is one that higher-middle class Indonesians cringe about, but it is very much a quintessential element in Indonesian culture. If you were to visit Jakarta , the array of nightlife is vast – The selection of nightclubs and bars span from the swanky to the downright dodgy.
So you’ve consulted your Lonely Planet guide book, and it refers you to a ‘popular’ nightspot that offers cheap drinks and popular western music. What you find when entering the club, is a room packed with hookers and seedy looking South East Asian men, rocking out to some sort of music that sounds like Euro trash techno grilled up with hardcore amphetamines.
Dangdut (pronounced Dung-doot) is a genre of popular Indonesian music. It is enjoyed largely by lower middle class youth, and played extensively on all mediums from bars and clubs, television, radio, stadium concerts, and even at wedding parties. The fans of this genre span widely from Indonesia, Malaysia and Southern Philippines.
Comparatively, its is regarded as Pop music, and the lyrics accentuates the trivial problems found from falling in love and maintaining relationships, like Ria Amelia’s SMS, where she sings her sorrows about finding a mysterious SMS from another woman on her boyfriend’s phone.
Ria Amelia – SMS
Contemporary Dangdut originated somewhere in the 1960′s, and finds its influences from Malay, Arabic and Hindustani music. Throughout the years, Dangdut saw its sounds evolve by trend setting artists adding new styles into the composition.
With the self proclaimed ‘King of Dangdut’, Rhoma Irama blending in Western rock music, and Dangdut Diva, Ade Irama introducing Disco,modern dangdut incorporates features from the styles of House, RnB and Hip Hop music.
What makes the music popular, is the element of eroticism found in Dangdut dancing. Known Ngebor, a blend of Hip Hop and belly dancing, the girls of Dangdut can goyang-goyang their asses to an extent that would put Shakira and Beyonce to shame.
Artists such as Inul Daratista and Lina Geboy have created controversy with Islamic authorities with their sexually ‘suggestive’ buttock revolutions, that have portrayed them as Jablays (whores) and labelling their music as aural pornography that leads pious men to Haram activities such as getting smashed from anggur merah.
Inul Daratista – Terlambat The guy on the right off Inul redefines the saying ‘rock out with my cock out’.
Lina Geboy – Basah, it means ‘wet’ in English, or ‘moist’ as I like to see it. Damn, Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me? Imma take my shirt off….
When listening to Dangdut with a Western ear for music, one will smirk with amusement and relegate the genre to an embarrassing component of South East Asian culture. However, with self opinions kept to oneself, it is a multi million dollar industry that finds its fan base in Indonesia’s population of about 250 million people.
The expansive influence of Dangdut music has found appeal in the western world, spurning multiple Youtube video’s of white tweens singing along to its bouncy, high tempo rhythm and even founded American Dangdut artists.
So, love it or hate it, and cringe all you want when you hear it. Dangdut is very much an essence of Indonesian music and its culture, and it seems it be an ever evolving genre that can either get better or worst, depending how you look at it.
Murphy’s supposed law of Nature ‘anything that can go wrong, will go wrong’ epitomizes the film Cell 211.
A sordid prison drama, it is charged with intense scenes and an edgy plot, that engulfs you within the emotional volatility portrayed by its characters.
The film is set in Spain, and begins with novice prison guard Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann) going on a tour of the notorious prison on his first day of work.
A series of events creates uproar with the cellmates which inevitably leads up to a prison riot and the prisoners taking over the prison. An accident occurs that leaves Juan unconscious, and he is left deserted in the midst of the riot. To survive, he is left to convince the prisoners that he is one of them.
He meets the inmates leader, Malamadre (Luis Tosar) a rugged yet witty character who revolts against the conditions that the prisoners are subjected to. The steady composition of the film presents several plot twists which creates a deeper significance in drama surrounding the prison riot and the personalties of the characters in the film.
The screenplay was based on the fiction novel Celda 211 by Francisco Pérez Gandul. Director Daniel Monzón said in an interview with cineuropaTV that he wanted to add a realistic depth by portraying the film with documentary techniques to explore the atmosphere of life in prison.
“We wanted to put reality into the plot, the novel is a fable, a tragedy, and I wanted to get the real atmosphere of a prison,” Monzón said.
“The films style is somewhat of a documentary, we visited jails, talked to the guards and their family’s to get this impression.”
The film portrays a stark perspective into the Spanish sociopolitical landscape. Monzón uses the characters to convey issues such as prison rights, police brutality, and political corruption.
Luis Tosar’s performance as the affluent brute Malamadre won him the Best Actor award in this year’s Goya awards, the Spanish equivalent to the American Academy awards. Tosar told Spanish film news website pasion por el cine, that he believes that his character was the most authentic personality he has played.
“Malamadre is a guy with a very tight moral code. Maybe he cares little for human life and leaves a guy dead or alive. He would kill for some specific reason, but not for anything. Basically, Malamadre is human like everyone else.” He said.
Cell 211 has won eight Goya awards this year including: Best movie, Best director, and Best screenplay. The vast accreditations seem somewhat overrated; riddled with various plot twists the film draws out to a predictable conclusion. Some of the events that unfurled seemed farfetched, and appeared to provide a simple solution to tie the loose ends of the script.
Cell 211 is a cliche thriller flick – think on the lines of Con Air, but in Spanish. However, if your looking for a film with more action than substance this is a must see.
