The Flaming Lips have released a new song that features Siri on backup vocals.
First TV, now music
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Category Archives: culture
Blu-ray of the week
Daniel Craig (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)
I have explained before how I can’t resist the genre/formula Hollywood film for action and clear story-telling. I love at least the ones with good acting, and execution beyond the ordinary. Tonight I watched the Blu-ray version of Cowboys & Aliens, and I was not disappointed.
The film has no particular message or underlying truth. But it brings together two genres that, as far as I know, have never been incorporated into a one film before. It couples the western cinematic mythology of America, i.e., the bad guy with the true heart (Daniel Craig) who rises to the occasion, with evil alien creatures threatening all of humanity. You have the outlaw who joins forces with the hated and domineering rich baron of cattle country (Harrison Ford), and you add the Apaches to the mix of team-mates, all ready to save humanity from disgusting and violent aliens. There is even a cute, and loyal, dog to sweeten things up. I mean, a dog could be viewed as sort of a cheap trick by some, but not by me in this type of film.
What could go wrong? Well, actually everything could go wrong with a movie built on that premise. But the success of this movie is that it successfully pulls it all off. An alien (not one of the bad ones) translates Apache to English, allowing all groups to come together in a common defense. There is a naive boy on the cusp of manhood who actually becomes a man by being given a knife. There is the wanted killer who becomes a hero and rides off alone into the sunset. The cattle baron joins forces with the wanted man even though that man puts the son of the baron in jail. A timid saloon keeper learns how to handle a gun in the most effective way. The wanted man pines for his woman killed by the aliens. And the aliens are disgusting creatures. The only stereotype missing is the prostitute with a heart of gold.
I know the critics weren’t fond of this treat, perhaps because no less than eight writers are credited for the screenplay which can’t be good, but it is fun all the way through.
Related articles
- Blu-ray Review: Cowboys & Aliens (blogcritics.org)
Ferris Bueller ad
Previously I posted a Super Bowl ad teaser featuring Ferris Bueller.
Here is the full advertisement:
Related articles
- Honda Unveils Ferris Bueller Ad, and It Is Awesome (adweek.com)
- Ferris Bueller Super Bowl Ad Creating Buzz (abcnews.go.com)
Siri meets The Big Bang Theory
Hollywood’s long battle against technology
Hollywood’s fight in favor of SOPA is nothing new for the movie business. Check out this terrific infographic.
Alt History
Alternative history is a genre of media focused on the theoretical history that would have occurred had actual history not occurred. What if the Confederacy had won? What if Nazi Germany had won?
An excellent example of the genre from Hollywood is the film “Death of a President” that examines what would have happened had President George W. Bush been assassinated after the attacks on 9/11. The film is worth a viewing and is a available via Netflix streaming. Unfortunately, it was released while George W. Bush remained president and thereby generated huge negative commentary.
But if you view the film now, knowing as we all do that Bush was never assassinated, you can enjoy the movie for what it was likely to have been intended to show. That is, that small differences in history could lead to huge changes in history as we know it.
And in addition, we always know less than we think regarding world developments. We are all naive.
Super Bowl tease
Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.
Political quote of the day
For many right-wingers, Obama was a foreign object, whose unexpected entrance into the body politic activated their immune systems — hence the ‘birther’ movement and other bizarre right-wing obsessions. Whether the right’s aversion to Obama constitutes classic racism is a Talmudic question; what is undeniable is that his race activated a horde of (literally) white cells, rushing to expel the invader. Like organisms, cults always delineate themselves by drawing sharp lines between Us and Them.
SOPA soap opera
There is a fascinating article in The Hollywood Reporter describing the behind-the-scenes drama at the MPAA during the SOPA smackdown of the past few weeks.
In the desperate hours of early January, with chatter spreading that the White House was poised to make a devastating statement opposing parts of proposed anti-piracy legislation that Hollywood studios considered key to the industry’s very survival, MPAA president Christopher Dodd made a phone call to DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Katzenberg’s company is not an MPAA member, but a list of the top 10 fund-raisers bundling money for President Obama would include not only Katzenberg but also his political adviser, Andy Spahn. It would not include any of the chiefs whose studios belong to the MPAA. So the former U.S. senator reached out, he says, to find out about the thinking inside the White House.
“The rumors were running rampant,” says Dodd. “I was trying to use all the information points I could to find out what was going on.”
Dodd says that at the time of his call, he had been assured no major actions were imminent. Then, on Jan. 14, the administration said it would not support legislation “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
“They just made up their mind to do it,” says Dodd. “I raised issues about it, but they were going to march ahead.”
And the article notes the damage to Dodd’s reputation and effectiveness as a lobbyist caused by this remark:
In the days after the controversial House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was derailed, Dodd belittled those who opposed it and threatened Democrats who had fled when the bill became radioactive. Perhaps his worst post-defeat move came Jan. 19 when he told Fox News that “those who count on, quote, ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake.” There was an instant outcry, including a petition on the White House website calling on the administration to investigate Dodd for “bribery.” (In less than a week, it had attracted more than 21,000 signatures.)
As I previously noted, that remark by Dodd does seem to come close to an offer of a direct quid pro quo of money for legislative action.
Related articles
- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia: MPAA CEO Christopher Dodd should be fired (nextlevelofnews.com)
- Petition: investigate Chris Dodd for fraud (boingboing.net)
SOPA quote of the day
The former senator and now CEO of the MPAA can’t catch a break: “You’ve got an opponent who has the capacity to reach millions of people with a click of a mouse and there’s no fact-checker.” Must be terribly hard to represent the largest media empires in the world, who collectively own all the major newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, billboards, record labels and studios. How will they ever get their side of the story out?
– Cory Doctorow, writing at Boing Boing.
The right to photograph
Over and over again, photographers on public property are told that it is illegal to take photographs. It is not illegal, in this country or in the UK, to take photographs on public space. Here is a good summary of US law from the ACLU.
For more information, you can check out this release from the Department of Homeland Security. Click the left-most button below to view full-screen.
(via Nothing To Do With Abroath)
Related articles
Cellphones and live performances
This is an ideal way to react when a cellphone goes off during your solo performance.
(via Distinguished Baloney)
Is that a threat? (updated)
Those who count on quote “Hollywood” for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.
– MPAA head Chris Dodd. Maybe it is not a threat, but perhaps a contractual offer to pay a bribe as a quid pro quo for help: support Hollywood and we will pay you. More here.
Update: And here.
The Megaupload case (updated)
I am sure you heard that late this week the United States Department of Justice, with the cooperation of New Zealand authorities, shut down a very popular site called Megaupload. Megaupload was a “file locker” site, a category of cloud based service providers that allow users to upload files to the site for easy Internet access on multiple devices later. This type of site is not rare and includes sites like box.net, DropBox, Facebook and YouTube.
The DOJ claims that the operators of Megaupload paid users to upload copyrighted media for distribution to other Megaupload users, and that such uploads cost the media industry damages in excess of $500 Million.
But there are at least two important questions raised by the DOJ action. First, if the government is able to shut down a site unilaterally and without a prior judicial hearing why in the world is either SOPA or POPA necessary. The law enforcement shutdown provided no opportunities for due process whatsoever, and immediately rendered inaccessible presumably thousands or hundreds of thousands of files uploaded by innocent users and stored on Megaupload that contained no intellectual property whatsoever. Were those users not entitled to a hearing before their data was seized?
Second, what stops government seizures of any sites that store user uploaded content? Keep in mind that this type of situation is purely financial in that there were no claims of injury or possible injury to individuals. No violence was involved. If there is a claim that Party A stole and sold the property of Party B, isn’t that claim heard in court?
This action demonstrates quite clearly the dangers of legislation like SOPA. But it also shows that law enforcement acts precipitously in commercial disputes if they occur on the Internet. If I were YouTube, Dropbox or the others, I would be very concerned.
Robert Bennett has been hired to represent Megaupload, so it is likely that a strong defense will be mounted.
Update: Glenn Greenwald, writing at Salon, has much more on this point. Worth a full read.
… the U.S. Justice Department not only indicted the owners of one of the world’s largest websites, the file-sharing site Megaupload, but also seized and shut down that site, and also seized or froze millions of dollars of its assets — all based on the unproved accusations, set forth in an indictment, that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement.
In other words, many SOPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they learned that the very power they feared the most in that bill — the power of the U.S. Government to seize and shut down websites based solely on accusations, with no trial — is a power the U.S. Government already possesses and, obviously, is willing and able to exercise even against the world’s largest sites (they have this power thanks to the the 2008 PRO-IP Act pushed by the same industry servants in Congress behind SOPA as well as by forfeiture laws used to seize the property of accused-but-not-convicted drug dealers).
* * *
The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process: once the defining feature of American freedom that is now scorned as some sort of fringe, radical, academic doctrine. That is not hyperbole. Supporters of both political parties endorse, or at least tolerate, all manner of government punishment without so much as the pretense of a trial, based solely on government accusation: imprisonment for life, renditions to other countries, even assassinations of their fellow citizens. Simply uttering the word Terrorist, without proving it, is sufficient. And now here is Megaupload being completely destroyed — its website shuttered, its assets seized, ongoing business rendered impossible — based solely on the unproven accusation of Piracy.
Related articles
- Robert Bennett to represent Megaupload (wjla.com)
- Internet Wars: Anonymous Attacks DOJ After Feds Shut Down Megaupload (mountainrepublic.net)
- Copyrights: Feds push a few novel theories in MegaUpload case (opinion.latimes.com)
- “It is really offensive to say that just because people can upload bad things, therefore Megaupload…” (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
- Megaupload Back Online With New Website? (techie-buzz.com)
- Megaupload assembles worldwide criminal defense (news.cnet.com)
How big is too big for college sports?
There is certainly a national conversation going on now that I can’t ever recall taking place. We’ve reached a point where big-time intercollegiate athletics is undermining the integrity of our institutions, diverting presidents and institutions from their main purpose.
– William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system and co-director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. As an example, Big Ten colleges, including Penn State, spent a median of $111,620 per athlete on athletics and $18,406 per student on academics.
Related articles
- Big Bucks Compromising Athletes’ Education? (npr.org)
- NCAA Asks for New Proposal on $2,000 Stipend (abcnews.go.com)
- Paterno Put Penn State Money Above Abuse Disclosure (businessweek.com)
- Fundraising can distort college athletics’ mission (denverpost.com)
