Before I begin my review, I think I should clear up that the “Gronholm Method” is an obscure method of interviewing someone for a job. It involves gathering up a number of candidates eligible for a position, but rather than openly interviewing them as a process of discovering their usefulness and weaknesses, there technically is no “interviewer”. In the film, the candidates are placed in a room with six laptops (one for each contender to receive notes) and they are forced to psychologically analyze each other to discover a “winner”. They are issued a series of challenges and hypothetical situations in which they are forced to pick out the weakest of their group. There is always the lingering plausibility that any one of these contestants can be the true interviewer, or perhaps there could be multiple interviewers? Maybe there is only one true contestant, or maybe they are all role-playing in a method to promote a staff member in the company? Any of these explanations are reasonable, because when we’re discussing a method as cynical as the film’s depiction, it’s almost superficial to narrow it down to one solution.

I’m not entirely sure about the historical authenticity of the Gronholm Method, or if it even exists (a Google search sent me to the film’s IMDb + Wikipedia page), but I can almost assure that if this film were a multinational box-office success, small businesses would begin to experiment and possibly adapt the procedure. I personally wouldn’t mind being an interviewee of such a system, for it allows me to challenge my intellectual abilities in an intense competition. As for the film itself, when its narrative followed the characters as they explored each other’s limitations and the film analyzed their credulity and enthusiasm to such a sport, it was an intensely riveting experience. The characters were developed with careful and relentlessly strengthening three-dimensional personalities, and the methods of interviewing grew more severe and brooding to reveal the true nature of man. The first 50 minutes of this film were pure exhilaration, a haunting psychological depiction of cat & mouse. To me it was almost a nostalgic resemblance of the superfluous anxiety found in 12 ANGRY MEN, as I’d never felt so absorbed by long-running dialogue since.

After several characters are eliminated from the process (I’m not about to explain who, why, or how), the film takes a break from its intense onslaught of psychosomatic progression. This veers the film off-course and unfortunately causes it to wane off a bit. Greed is replaced by hormones as one character randomly feels like having sex with one of the remaining interviewees. Although a bit absurd, it also fits the animalistic desperation the contestants must be feeling by this point. They’ve been stripped bare from social courtesy, and are now physically fighting one another, no longer caring for outer appearance. I’m not sure if it justifies going as far as it does, but it would’ve been totally implausible to remain as a restrained and gracious drama.

A romantic subplot also develops between two interviewees. They had once been lovers, but one betrayed the other, and neither had ever forgotten. They still longed to be together, but the hostile circumstances made it impossible for them. The subplot does reach startling poignancy at one point, but does the film ever get back on track? Does it ever re-enter its initial excitement? Unfortunately, the writer didn’t trust his sardonic examination would make for a fully satisfying viewing. His decision to switch gears was more detrimental than refreshing, and that may be the only aspect of the film that inhibited greatness. It still makes for a relentlessly entertaining viewing, one that not only makes for provides an hour worth of cynical fun, but questions human morality in a time of conflict.

Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are all great social news and media websites, but how do they rank in terms of how easy they are on the eyes? Here I will rank all the top social news and media websites based solely on their layout. I’d like to rank all of these sites on overall usability as well, but I’m not a dedicated member on all of them and feel it wouldn’t be fair for sites I’m less acquainted with. Well lets get this started, the sites are ranked from ugliest to sexiest.

Fark

Fark.com, created by Drew Curtis in 1999, is a popular social news website receiving over 2,500 submissions a day and over 5 million unique visitors per month. It is also really, really ugly.

It’s almost difficult to find many redeeming qualities about Fark. The logo itself isn’t too bad, it could use an upgrade, though. The website itself has a nice layout, it’s easy and simple to sort through all the different categories and pages.

From the colors to the way the news items are listed, the site was poorly designed. It’s a nice site, but not in terms of looks. The cheap gradient under the tabs feels wrong. I don’t like the lack of icons and graphics. A lot is done using ‘/’s and ‘( )’s in place of icons, graphics, and other means.

Reddit

Reddit, was started by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. It has an extremely loyal userbase, very well-known for their witty comments and posts.  The website itself became an open source project earlier this year, and all of the code and libraries are freely available. It’s also a little ugly.

Reddit has a great logo, and the Reddit Alien is a very recognizable symbol around the internet. However, despite all of this Reddit, in terms of aesthetics, is poorly designed. One thing that really jumps out is the lack of color, the site feels boring.

This lack of color, make the comment page especially, a bit difficult to navigate. It becomes a bit harder to at a glance see how many points a comment has, and viewing comment threads can get a little bit confusing.

Slashdot

Slashdot was started in 1997 by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, and is owned by SourceForge, Inc. While all the content on the site is user-submitted, editors choose which appears on the site. There is also a Slashdot Japan, which is localized for Japan.

The site is well laid out, and simple to navigate. It’s easy to read, and the site overall looks decent.

However, the site’s banner, especially the font used in the main logo, isn’t all that great. And the entire site has a bulky, feel to it. Some elements of the design just feel weird, like for instance the odd looking red edges on news story title boxes.

Propeller

Propeller (formerly Netscape.com) is operated by AOL-Netscape, and was started in 2006. All content is user-submitted, and stories receive ratings on a scale of 1-10, rather than individual votes.

The site is simple, clear and has a well-made, and recognizable logo. The rest of the site’s colors and theme is very well established.

But, I feel everything is too boxy, and doesn’t flow. The logo is made up of circles and curves, which would make you think that the rest of the site should follow that theme, except that just doesn’t happen. There are no curves to be found.

Tip’d

Tip’d was started in 2008 by some guy named Andy. The Community Director is Muhammad Saleem, who is a well-known for his status on Digg.com, as the #2 digg user of all time with nearly 2000 Front page submissions.

Tip’d is a social news website specifically targeting financial and business news and media. And the entire site feels this way. It feels like finance and business, it feels formal.

However, just because it’s a business and finance site, doesn’t mean it needs to be boring. In the banner especially, i feel like they could have done a better job.

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo! Buzz was started in February 2008, believe it or not, by Yahoo. All content is user submitted, however the front page is under editorial control. Meaning that editors at yahoo.com can choose what gets to the front page of buzz.

The website itself looks good, and most of the site feels great, well laid out, and easy to use and navigate.

However, it feels inconsistent. Certain bits of the site don’t look good, some smaller images are pixelly. And some things have borders, some of the borders are different sizes than eachother, and the site feels all around inconsistent.

Design Float

Design Float was started by Andrew Egenes, as a solution to the problems with digg’s design category. Since design is such a broad category, why does Digg only have one category for design?

Design float is very well designed, which one would expect from a website made specifically for designers. The site keeps it consistent, and has an all around theme surrounding water, which goes along with the name.

I wouldn’t go as far to say the site is absolutely beautiful. It is stylish and easy to navigate, but it is actually quite simple, and doesn’t demonstrate a ton of skill. It feels very “safe”.

Digg

Digg, started by Kevin Rose in December 2004, is one of the most prominent social news websites out there. All content is user submitted, and all the content that appears on the front page is chosen by users.

The site is laid out extremely well, and you can tell that lots of work has been put into it over the course of it’s lifetime.

There are, however a few things I don’t like about Digg’s design. The header colors seem a bit dark compared to the rest of the site, and at times it feels too simple. It could use a gradient or two.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon was founded by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd, and was bought by eBay in 2007. It has a toolbar which allows you to like things, and not like things from the actual page. It is also recommendation engine, based off of what you like and do not like.

StumbleUpon’s layout is absolutely fantastic. Everything from the tabs to the listed items looks great. The few annoyances on the site are few and far between.

Mixx

Mixx was created in 2007 by Recommended Reading, Inc. It’s a social news site similar to Digg. It has been claimed as a sort of refuge for the diggers that were banned in the recent mass bannings over at Digg.com.

Mixx looks great, it was designed extremely well. Everything is where everything should be. The categories at the top are easy to find and use. The content on the front page is sorted and easily distinguished.

The overall design looks good, from the icons to the tabs. The use of gradients is just enough, they don’t overuse them. And the comment pages look just as sexy. The sites logo is great and makes sense to the name.

Mixx is a model website in terms of design.

Just about every year this decade has had its hyped failures and J-horror extravaganza, but there’s always that one glimmer of hope that makes the otherwise useless pondering worthwhile. 2008 hasn’t been very well-endowed in that sense at all. Sure, it brought us the exhilarating DARK KNIGHT, the hilarious PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, the dementedly awesome BURN AFTER READING, and the realist, semi-tragedic, loosely brooding VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, but when Oscar season comes around (which should be right around now), it doesn’t look like we’ll have much to justify the year’s failure.

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Mike Leigh’s new… pessimistically optimistic film transcends the bickering good vs. evil, pseudo-charismatic rom-com, and “virgin survives” plot structure dished out this year. It’s a film that explores a wide range of emotions and characters, themes, and even genres. It stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy, a character who, without the film’s sardonic examination, would’ve appeared as though conceived through acid. She’s the personification of “high on life” as we know it. She has the uncanny ability of finding a punch-line in even the most dark and brooding situations. Were it not for her sanguine personality and the film’s atmosphere of cheery semblance, I would’ve been shaken by the film as a dark and gloomy experience.

When Poppy’s beloved bike is stolen, rather than lamenting in sorrow, she brushes it off and instead of buying a new bike, she uses her lack of transportation as an incentive to sign up for driving lessons. Unfortunately, she’s partnered up with a repressive and systematically irritated driving instructor. It’s not revealed why he is how he is, but it’s a good choice on the director’s part to avoid an inevitable sappy revelation conclusion. The film doesn’t center around their encounters, it centers around Poppy’s life as she fights through a brigade of unstable losers and lives not for yesterday or tomorrow, but today.

But Poppy isn’t just a “happy machine”. Although I’ve labeled her as a blissful caricature at one point, she’s totally capable of lashing out when provoked to an extent. She’s just as human as you or me, only more altruistic in nature, not as demanding of society, and doesn’t allow failures to bring her down. The troubled people she encounters are unable to keep up with the challenging development of civilization as we know it. They are all the subqualities of the subdued monster veiled inside us all. Many have called her annoying and unrealistic, I call her Strong.

Along with being an enjoyable and deeply affecting picture, it’s a film that subtly reveals its knowledge of human nature without openly analyzing it in your face. Or mine. Powerful stuff.

Absyrd will soon have his own home filled with film and tv reviews, but until then will post a few of his best right here on Emit Graphics. An announcement will be made here when his Absyrd Reviews is released.