An amusing metaphor from How Old Media Can Survive In a New World:
“People aren’t going to the Internet because it looks like a newspaper,” Mr. Ellin says. “It’s because they’re getting something exotic and fresh and new and unfiltered. It’s like eating French cheese. It hasn’t been pasteurized. And it’s good.”
I recently visited the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s America’s largest private residence. It’s also where Being There was filmed, so, naturally, I watched the film again — I had the DVR catch it when it came on recently.
Somehow I’d missed (or forgotten) the closing scene, where Peter Sellers’ character, a simpleton who has been mistaken for a man of great ability, literally walks on water. It seems out of place — the rest of the movie is darkly comic, but not at all supernatural — and now I know why. From How the Last Shot in Being There Actually Got Made:
The script for Being There ends as both Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine take walks in the wood. They run into each other. She says ‘I was looking for you, Chance.’ He says ‘I was looking for you too.’ They take hands and walk off together.But near the end of production, somebody went up to Hal and said ‘How’s it going?’
‘Great,’ Hal said. ‘Sellers has created this character that’s so amazing, I could have him walk on water and people would believe it.’ Hal stopped and thought. ‘As a matter of fact, I will have him walk on water.’
Hal was out on location, miles from Hollywood. The last thing on earth he needed was to contact the home office to discuss the idea of Chance walking on water. It’s an idea that wouldn’t pitch or read well. If it had been in the script, there would have been endless arguments over what this Jesus allegory was doing in the picture. Only if you’ve actually seen the film do you realize that it’s not a Jesus allegory at all. Chance can walk on water because nobody ever told him he couldn’t, not because he’s the resurrection of Christ.
Hal knew he could make it work, just as he knew that there was no way in hell the studio would approve of more money for such a controversial shot that wasn’t even in the script. He decided to do it anyway.
In Brain Candy, Malcolm Gladwell reviews Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad Is Good for You — which I assume I’ll buy and read but haven’t yet:
One of the ongoing debates in the educational community, similarly, is over the value of homework. Meta-analysis of hundreds of studies done on the effects of homework shows that the evidence supporting the practice is, at best, modest. Homework seems to be most useful in high school and for subjects like math. At the elementary-school level, homework seems to be of marginal or no academic value. Its effect on discipline and personal responsibility is unproved. And the causal relation between high-school homework and achievement is unclear: it hasn’t been firmly established whether spending more time on homework in high school makes you a better student or whether better students, finding homework more pleasurable, spend more time doing it. So why, as a society, are we so enamored of homework? Perhaps because we have so little faith in the value of the things that children would otherwise be doing with their time. They could go out for a walk, and get some exercise; they could spend time with their peers, and reap the rewards of friendship. Or, Johnson suggests, they could be playing a video game, and giving their minds a rigorous workout.
I’m no fanboy, yet yesterday, opening day, I found myself watching Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith on the big screen — the really big IMAX screen — and I ate it up. I rolled my eyes all through Episode I, and I only enjoyed bits and pieces of Episode II, but Episode III really worked for me.
The movie has its flaws though:
What I really enjoyed was Tyler Cowen’s “Straussian reading” of The public choice economics of Star Wars. The core point is that the Jedi are not to be trusted:
Aren’t they a kind of out-of-control Supreme Court, not even requiring Senate approval (with or without filibuster), and heavily armed at that? As I understand it, they vote each other into the office, have license to kill, and seek to control galactic affairs. Talk about unaccountable power used toward secret and mysterious ends.
From With Ratings Tight, TV Networks Vie For Richest Viewers:
The TV sitcom “The Office,” a documentary-style parody of corporate life, will return to General Electric Co.’s NBC in September despite a weak ratings performance. NBC’s “Committed” — a higher-rated sitcom about two neurotic twentysomethings — won’t be back.The primary reason: Rich people like ‘The Office.’
Of course, really rich people like the original British version better.
Ooh, this could be good. John Cleese writing Aardman film:
Monty Python star John Cleese is writing the next feature film for Aardman Animations, the makers of Wallace and Gromit have announced.
[...]
“It will be great comedy adventure about a pre-historic culture clash between two tribes, one comparatively evolved tribe, and one un-evolved tribe,” he said.
I’ve enjoyed each season of Project Greenlight, and I’m sad to read Chris Moore’s statement about the end of this season:
Last night was probably the last new episode of Project Greenlight ever. I am sorry to be reporting this here, but anyone reading this blog is a devoted and loyal Project Greenlight fan. You have been loyal and vocal and true fans of what we have tried to do, so I want you all to know the truth first. Although the movie FEAST awaits release, the ratings of this year’s Project Greenlight show will not warrant bringing the show back. It is possible that Dimension will do the movie again, which could mean there is a contest again next year. However, my gut is telling me that without the whole three-headed monster of the TV show, contest and film, there is little chance of Project Greenlight continuing.
iStopMotion sounds like fun:
This is a very cool application that creates stop-motion and time-lapse videos. For years my kids and I have been making claymation episodes, doll and figure animations, paper cutout sequences, and fun time-lapse movies with our family handy-cam, but our primitive method of simply blinking the on-button has always been less than satisfactory. Our brain-dead way creates three problems: the interval is too long (jerky movement), you can’t see what motion should be next, and you can’t edit out goofs when you make a boo-boo — which is 100% certain.iStopMotion software is a much better way to do animation, and it solves all three problems. You connect a live video feed from your camera to your computer (via USB or Firewire) and then you control the film from your keyboard — or this is cool — via voice command! After you capture a frame, the program overlays that frame as transparent layer over the current camera view so you can see exactly where you need to move next. You can even request the last 5 frames (onion skinning animators call it) to get a sense of direction and trajectory, which allows a very fine tuning of the motion. And you can edit mistakes, and do redos on the fly. All this is simple enough that my 7-year-old could instantly manage it. Yet it is sophisticated enough that film students use this software for thesis projects. Making time-lapse films is even easier.
Catch that ‘Tiger’ looks at the now-extinct Thylacine, the marsupial “tiger” or “wolf” of Tasmania:
This image is one familiar to many Australians. It’s also one of the most haunting to us as well. It’s from a grainy black and white film shot of the last remaining Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, in Hobart Zoo in 1933. The film runs only nine seconds — but it’s one of the few glimpses any of us will have of the now supposedly extinct mammal — remarkable for reportedly being able to open its jaws wider than any other mammal (a range of 120 degrees) and for being the world’s largest marsupial carnivore. And — for embedding itself into ‘Australian mythology’ as a mysterious and intangible, almost supernatural creature.
I’d propose that while Abraham Zapruder’s footage of JFK being shot in Dallas has an eerie resonance with many Americans, for me this simple, nine second film connects on an almost spiritual level for many Australians. It certainly haunts me every time I see it.
I found better Thylacine footage at the ARKive.
(Hat tip to Boing Boing for the original story.)
Now that the Chronicles of Narnia Trailer is on-line, I thought I should re-share my Hollywood-style pitch for the movie:
It’s Lord of the Rings meets Passion of the Christ — with talking animals!
How can it fail?
Variety likes Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith:
Whatever one thought of the previous two installments, this dynamic picture irons out most of the problems, and emerges as the best in the overall series since ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’
When we look at what’s covered in this one film, I have to ask, Why did we even need episodes I and II?
Everyone who has followed the “Star Wars” saga over the years will come to this film knowing that it all has to pay off here: the transformation from Anakin into Darth Vader, the face-off between Anakin/Vader and his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, the morphing of the Republic into the Empire, the exile of Yoda and Padme’s birth of the twins Luke and Leia, siblings who become the central figures in episodes 4-6.
In Everything Bad Goes Public, Steven Johnson imagines a world where books were introduced after videogames, instead of the other way around, and asks, What would the teachers, and the parents, and the cultural authorities have to say about this frenzy of reading? :
Reading books chronically under-stimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to processing written language is activated during reading, while games engage the full range of the sensory and motor cortices.Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new ‘libraries’ that have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently, oblivious to their peers.
Many children enjoy reading books, of course, and no doubt some of the flights of fancy conveyed by reading have their escapist merits. But for a sizable percentage of the population, books are downright discriminatory. The reading craze of recent years cruelly taunts the 10 million Americans who suffer from dyslexia—a condition didn’t even exist as a condition until printed text came along to stigmatize its sufferers.
But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person? But today’s generation embarks on such adventures millions of times a day. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learning to ‘follow the plot’ instead of learning to lead.’
The low-budget, made-for-TV thriller, Last Best Chance, has an unusual origin, explained in Big Guns Try to Peddle A Nuclear-Terror Film:
The movie was the brainchild of Mr. Nunn, who has spent years pushing to keep nuclear arms from falling into the wrong hands. Even in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he feared the government was moving too slowly to address the threat while the public was largely inured to it.So Mr. Nunn, who isn’t known for his left-coast sensibilities, decided to go Hollywood. He persuaded the bipartisan board of his advocacy group, the Nuclear Threat Initiative — which he co-heads with Mr. Turner — to spend $1 million on a made-for-TV movie dramatizing the clear and present danger of nuclear terrorism.
Court hears Jackson was in debt, faced cash crisis:
O’Bryan, who pored over Jackson’s financial records, said the entertainer was more than $230 million in debt in February 2003. At the time, he said, Jackson was spending $20 million to $30 million more than he was bringing in per year.His lavish lifestyle was made possible in part by a $200 million loan from Bank of America secured by Jackson’s stake in a valuable music catalog that included Beatles songs. Jackson owns the music in a joint venture with Japan’s
Sony Corp known as Sony/ATV.A second $70-million loan from Bank of America was secured by Jackson’s stake in his own music catalog, O’Bryan said.
A balance sheet at end-June 2002 showed Jackson with a negative net worth of $285 million, O’Bryan said.
Even before that, Jackson’s accountants had been cautioning that his spending habits were endangering his hold on one of his most valuable assets, his stake in the Sony catalog.
A memo in 2000 showed Jackson had income of $11.5 million in the prior year but that was swamped by more than $20 million in expenses, including $5 million for legal costs and other services, $5 million to run Neverland and $7.5 million of personal spending, O’Bryan said.
Wacky. From South Korean TV Show Invents Friendly Rivalry With North:
During a visit to Pyongyang in 2003, Kim Young Hee, the creator of Exclamation Point, saw a North Korean quiz-show series and was determined to bring it to the South. “In the South there is still an unnecessarily negative view of the North,” says Mr. Kim. “I wanted to change that.”
The South Korean producers took footage from episodes that aired in North Korea last year and edited in new scenes shot in Seoul, on a set that is a replica of the North Korean stage. The producers have redubbed parts of the Northern emcee’s dialogue to make it appear as if she is bantering with the South Korean host. Casual viewers often think the quiz is a direct competition, despite disclaimers to the contrary.
[...]
The show reveals plenty of differences between the two Koreas. The dialects spoken on either side of the demilitarized zone have diverged. South Koreans have adopted many English words. North Koreans haven’t. Sometimes, the show resorts to subtitles to explain what the Northerners are saying.The North Korean children seldom smile, and they often use military language. Answering a vocabulary question, kids from the North rattled off the words “arsenal,” “military supplies,” “platoon leader,” “battalion commander,” and “detached force.” The South Korean children, dressed in colorful, brand-name clothing, laugh and joke with the moderator.