FUCKING FACEBOOK I HATE IT

Olivia Munn Watch

Olivia Munn Watch

She looks fantastic in I Don't Know How She Did It. 

I was very amused to see Jon Favreau direct her to raise the pitch of her voice, make it more feminine, pleasant, lilting, instead of her usual slightly-nasal, more-than-a-little-angry voice, because I've had the exact same complaint with her. Annoying voice. Not feminine. Angry. Not attractive. Apparently Jon Favreau had the same thought. 

Badgeville turns any website into a social network

http://gigaom.com/2011/09/12/badgeville-turns-any-website-into-a-social-network/

This could be the thing that takes down Facebook ... if this power and ability is given to anybody, the web becomes decentralized again

Turntable.fm

*ALERT*

That place is addictive. I have to watch it.

Contact

This brings a tear to my eye:

"Forty-two radio telescope dishes near Mount Shasta will again start listening for sounds of intelligent life in the universe this fall after donors -- including actress Jodie Foster -- came up with more than $200,000 ..."

When the real-world actress saves a radio telescope, it makes the movie that much more real and meaningful.

SETI Project: We're Listening Again, ET

I also liked this quote:

"There is something very quintessentially American about it," Shostak added. "There's something in our culture about being willing to try long-shot but high-stakes experiments in the name of exploration."

The iPhone: will it double as a mini-projector?

You had me at "Minority Report-style hand movement" ...

http://mobile.theweek.com/article/index/218280/the-iphone-will-it-double-as-a-mini-projector

Premakes

These are very satisfying. -0.00003 for adding some modern overdubbing / occasional sound effects, but this is a minor point.


"Premakes" Raiders of the Lost Ark (1951)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GUPDuQq9GsM

"Premakes" Raiders .. A frame by frame breakdown

youtube.com/watch?v=eE9-FcJnQGA&feature=watch_response

"Premakes" Ghost Busters (1954)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kAboGO9MDsQ&feature=related

"Premakes" The Empire Strikes Back (1950)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmTpOQrqoO0&feature=related

Watching Olivia Wilde on House. I'm kind of going in the reverse direction, having seen her first in Tron: Legacy -

I'm realizing my BIGlist is like a virtual library. I should treat it as such. 

What makes Star Wars such a perfect movie?

Planet of the Apes

Am I too cynical? The new Planet of the Apes, it looks ... first, it's insulting to not delve into the existing intelligence that chimps have, and not build on this ...

Liveblogging (the first five minutes of) Cars 2

I don't know what John Lasseter was thinking. 

Apparently this was an idea borne out of a small sequence, clipped out of Cars 1.

This movie just doesn't feel like Pixar.

It feels like someone broke into the studio, utilized all of their technical talent, but the script is missing. The story is missing. 

But Lasseter figured it out, like George Lucas before him.  Make a movie directed at, marketed at *kids*.  Make a ton of money. 

Give a heartfelt story a backseat.

Make money.

Anyway ...  
Although it is cool to hear Michael Caine's voice. But it doesn't make up for it. 

AMC Pacers and Gremlins in the harbor scene. 

(as soon as we cut to Mater:)

What a pathetic ... there's no story here, no set up. It's an injustice to the first Cars movie (not that the first one was especially *spectacular* ... but it did have a lot of heart.)

And I think that Lemon that Mater is towing is a Trabant.  That's cute.

Something's wrong here. There's no development, no re-introduction to the characters.  And we just sailed by Bonnie Hunt like she wasn't even there. 

Miles Axelrod = a Range Rover

Ok, that's just weird, to have cars in an airplane, it just kind of ruins the suspension of disbelief .. a vehicle inside of a vehicle? I mean, cars are sentient, airplanes are sentient, cars are sitting inside of an airplane's innards?

i'm convinced it's a dangerous thing to upgrade OSes on existing machines. I'm of the "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it" mentality.

I hear horror stories of people upgrading to Lion and having problems, and really, why f**k with something that has all your apps on it, all your data, all your settings, sheesh.

Just buy a new machine. OS is on there, it was on there since the factory, everything works, just buy it.

I really don't like fing with something in regards to OS and the machine. The two should go hand in hand.

First Trailer For The George Lucas Produced Red Tails

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/First-Trailer-For-The-George-Lucas-Produced-Red-Tails-25969.html

I just can't look at any George Lucas-produced image and not think "Jar-Jar Binks", "heavy, over-produced, over-busy-special-effects-space-scenes", basically the travesty that was Episode I, Episode II, Episode III ... it's going to take a lot to get that stuff out of my head ...

Maybe if he hadn't put his name on this ... we'd look at this as a much better movie ..

Nicole Kidman used to be really hot.

I've been waiting for hard drives to be declared officially defunct. The new Macbook Airs seem to make that official.

Hard drives are an obsolete technology. They are unreliable, they have moving parts, they are prone to failure. Just like printers. An obsolete, dinosaur technology. We should get rid of them as soon as possible.

Problem is, I've been writing about this for three years. The Macbook Airs seem to validate it though.

Selena in L.A.

When I was in L.A., I thought it was interesting that Selena Gomez down there (San Bernadino, the hispanic community) fiercely regards her as one of their own - a hispanic singer - a Tejana, completely ethnic, something they're proud of, and completely representing this ethnicity, this culture. I always just saw her as a singer, Disney. Radically different representation down there.

Just goes to show you that different people see things different ways.

Red light cameras being shut down in L.A.

Interesting:

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_18561279?nclick_check=1

Contrast this to Albuquerque's red light cameras. Obviously the two areas are much different from each other. Albuquerque motorists *have* slowed down in response to these, which revealed the city's intent to make money off of these ... the city complained motorists were slowing down. L.A.'s municipality talks about how there's no conclusive data that their red light camera system saves lives, although I'm sure revenue is part of it.

Perhaps Albuquerque is just more blunt and honest about how they want to make money from them.

Still, I can't speak for L.A. It just strikes me as odd and interesting how they talk about saving lives. Also, L.A. motorists are not easily intimidated, hence the hoardes of people who just won't pay the tickets. A lack of a way for L.A. to enforce these contributes too, of course. But I chalk this up to vast differences in the cultural habits of each city. (i.e. L.A. is too big, Albuquerque is too easily intimidated, a poorer region, more likely to slow down because they can't afford. L.A.ites just say f--- you to anything establishment. Or more like 'I-don't-give-a-s--t' ...

I just discovered iMovie. Can you believe it?

If only I had used this when I had creativity bouncing around in my head, instead of occupying my time working for the defense industry.

Star Trek sightings

The barber in the Clint Eastwood movie _High Plains Drifter_ is the Andorian spy from "Journey to Babel" ...

The cop in the Harry Hoo episode of "Get Smart" is the "Uhura's Crewman" iteration of the salt vampire in "The Man Trap" ...

... and the young cowboy, Billy, talking to the maiden in "The War Wagon", the John Wayne flick with Kirk Douglas, are none other than Charlie X, and Lieutenant Daras from "Patterns of Force" ...

Fette's Vette Latin mix

Looking for the Latin Mix of "Fette's Vette" by MC Chris. If you have it, please email me, or look me up on Google Plus ... I can't find this anywhere.

The Dickies - Killer Klowns

The Dickies' title track for "Killer Klowns From Outer Space". One of the silliest movies ever made.

Great track. The Dickies' theme is really quite extraordinary. Film is fun too, if you want to have a lighthearted Saturday night.

The Inside

I recently saw this show called "The Inside", created by Tim Minear of Firefly fame. It was pretty good. Parts of it were really good, in fact, it floored me. Wasn't used to seeing this kind of visceral tv on tv. At first glance I thought it was a British show ;)

But no, it was an American show, lasted for like 12 episodes. What I saw was Episode Four, "Everything Nice".


http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+inside+everything+nice&aq=f

Friends With Benefits

Friends With Benefits is probably going to be a big moneymaker. I would see it, because of Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake -- good pairing. It just smacks of big hit.  Then again the kind of movie I am thinking is something made in 1999, like "The Wedding Planner" or "Just Like Heaven". Romantic comedies today are much too dark.

Google+ app for iPhone

Just downloaded the G+ app for iPhone. Two things:

a) I'm disappointed that there is no iOS-equivalent for visually moving around your Contacts in Circles;

b) Being able to upload photos from your phone is pretty cool.

Rebecca Black - "My Moment"

Rebecca Black's new single is here. Question is, will the kids like it?

The Internet crowd will hate it, I could've told you that already. But again, will the kids like it? This is what the producers are asking.

EDIT: I've seen the video, it's okay, a couple of sound snippets which sound vaguely like the auto tuned Rebecca, vaguely so ... which is intentional ... she seems perhaps a little stilted and awkward in those moments where she is trying to be spontaneous ... maybe she needs to go through a let-it-all-hang-out Britney phase ... I may be asking too much of her.

This song and she may be perfect for the Disney crowd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cngKXRMjzu0

Google+ replacing Facebook

I have always had a problem with Facebook.

It just felt wrong.

Any place that restricts what you can do, restricts your movements, retricts your ability to control your own environment, smacks of a regime instead of an open democracy.

The mere fact that G+ recognizes a) you want to separate your contacts into groups, and b) lets you leave and take all your data with you, is *awesome*.

music video ideas for visual equivalent of beat matching

I once wanted to figure out a way to do video beat matching on the computer - that is, take the end transition from one music video, and not only audio-beat-match it to the 2nd video, but devise packages/templates for syncing the video, ideas for creative platforms ways to combine the two songs that the user plays with/stretches/customizes -- finding a visual way to transition them, musically-based. Finding visual elements of each of the tracks, as they already exist as the music video, and combine them / contrast them / play with them / have them interact with each other in the video space.

This can be done by separating them out into sub-windows inside the screen, have them play with each other against a black canvas (or some kind of animated / pattern canvas, anything really), or overlay them against each other in the same 100% space, in a way similar to, or inspired by, the music video for Coldcut + Hexstatic's Natural Rhythm.

EDIT: What these guys are doing is a lot more advanced than what I'm thinking -- they are taking bits of video, and making them visual representations of instruments, as well as having different shots "talk" to each other, rapid-fire, rapid-editing, as again visual representations of what's happening musically. But I got the idea in part from watching different clips interact with each other, in a musical vein. Wouldn't it be great to have two *tracks* do this with each other, as one song transitions from another?

Artists like EBN, Coldcut, Hexstatic, Negativland, already do stuff like this. But it would be nice to put this power in the hands of a user.

No doubt someone has done this or something like this ... and I just haven't researched it. Because I'm too busy seeing the creative ideas in my brain. That's the thing about artists: you have an idea, communicate it to people, someone else has something else they've been working on, you put your heads together and combine your efforts. This is the spirit of dj'ing, of artist culture. it's not about hoarding your ideas in order to make a quick buck. It's about combining your efforts.

If we're all working in separate nothing ever gets done. We are all selfish and competing against each other. Things happen much faster - indeed, progress occurs - when we are working together.

Internet Use Affects Memory, Study Finds

Why Remember When You Can Google? Internet Use Affects Memory, Study Finds nyti.ms/r37mA4

Subaru / Baby driver

I *love* this commercial:

Suzi Barrett / eSurance, Metamucil

Went on the Net looking for hits/info on the eSurance/Metamucil commercials girl -- turns out her name is Suzi Barrett:

(found her on a blog called "whoisthathotadgirl", as the result of a search for people talking about ads and commercials ... turned out to be right up my alley)

http://whoisthathotadgirl.tumblr.com/post/6824698941/q-who-is-the-hot-girl-in-the-new-metamucil

And here's another one talking about Suzi Barrett:

http://olioscourge.blogspot.com/2011/03/suzi-barrett.html

There's something about her ... not classically pretty in that conventional "sexy, alluring" way, but ...

Internet

Reddit is the hot new thing (actually has been for a few weeks). Digg has been relegated to has-been status. Too boring. Reddit is where all the activity is, it's the front of the wave.

Google+ was 30% of all Twitter topics last week.

Netflix / Torrents

Everything is streaming now. Netflix, HBO Go.

Torrents were just a stepping stone, it seems. An introduction into the world of pure digital. But the mainstream stuck with their televisions, which is to be expected.

Really, who wants to watch movies on their computer? You want to sit back, and be entertained by a tv, a large screen on a wall that delivers content to you. You want to be entertained. With a minimum of effort.

Searching for your own content takes too much work.

Local backwater crap

It took the Appliance Liquidators people five years to figure out that the phrase is "bare bones prices" ...

Facebook is the new Myspace.

I knew Google+ would be hot ever since I read about Google Circles at SXSW.

This thing has been a long time in coming, we need it, we need choice, we need something better than the Facebook regime.

I have *never* been comfortable with Facebook, how it has always lumped all contacts together into one big pile. Ever since the beginning, I have wanted different groups of friends to separate out from each other. I have *always* wanted this.

http://m.zdnet.com/blog/networking/is-facebook-already-running-scared-of-google-/1224

See, I knew Google+ was big. I always sensed this. They were getting right what Facebook was getting wrong. And never addressed this. They were the oppressive regime, on their way out.

general musings: / the App store

Thanks to the App Store, attention spans are extremely short - a game has to have serious sticking power to keep in the user's mind for over the course of even weeks. Somehow this is a problem with only iPhone games ... small-console games like DS or PSP don't have this problem, because you have to go out and buy these games, physically: they are more of an investment, it takes more effort, so you buy something you feel lasts a long time. An iPhone game takes next to no effort to get; likely the user is likely to jump to the next game without nary a forethought. It's the investment of monogamy versus the free-for-all promiscuity of the App store.  

Felicia Day

Let's talk about the whole Felicia Day thing. There is an aura this woman puts out, that is just extraordinary.

Cars 2

It's weird to see the characters in this setting. Are we too old, to want to see our characters endeared to a certain style, of environment? Kids eat this up. They have no qualms seeing Mater, Lightning, etc. as superheroes. Their minds are very flexible. Ours are not.

Cars 2

The Cars 2 game is doing it right ... ads in-game *look* like the game, just like I predicted they should during playing Malestrom.

Eguchi Aimi

http://gizmodo.com/5814813/can-you-fall-in-love-with-this-beautiful-girl

Until I can get this to Jesus Diaz himself:

"And while the Eguchi Aimi phenomenon may be just anecdotical, the fact that a synthetic creation has been able to make their fans to have crushes and feelings without them never realizing she was a figment of someone's imagination, a digital mutant mix, is not a simple anecdote. That's very real."

Really, this has been going on with actors, and other personalities and celebs, from behind the screen, or magazine photo, or TV, for a 100 years. From the viewer's point of view, they are falling in love with someone fabricated / manufactured / acted / created, and there's nothing tangible there.

From the viewer's perspective there is no difference. It's all warped media. Whether it's digital or analog, the warping effect is the same.

Digital is just a delivery system. The end effect has been happening countless times for a 100 years.

Aural sunglasses = earplugs (I actually use wadded up cotton or tissue)

At night, take them off so you have heightened hearing to adjust for the darkness

Brittany

Chinese woman at

Breakfast cereals of the past 100 years

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112856/breakfast-cereals-declining-popularity-247

"Increasingly, people are eating less cold cereal, which has been part of breakfast for more than 100 years."

Breakfast cereals were the "fast food" of their day; the primetime tv; they were the "experience", much as fast food was less about the food as it was the "experience" of going there, seeing the place, experiencing the living brand; (much like a theme park). Primetime tv was less about the actual content as it was the experience of sitting down, as in a theater, and gorging on your "favorite shows". These all were about the meta-experience.

Breakfast cereals were less about the actual sustenance as they were about the experience, of the flashy packaging / branding, the "experience" you had while eating, the visuals in your head as you ate.

It's no surprise that these have taken a back seat to other forms of entertainment that have now dominated people as the predominant experience. In older times, we had no such stimulation: the flashy breakfast cereals were it. They were our morning entertainment.

GetGlue: if you truly want to be meta, you'll include "sites I'm surfing" along with 'what I'm listening to' and etc. 

Youll be the Google of the new Internet. 

I really like this game. Reminds me of the paper games I used to play and design as a kid. Something about the paper, takes you out of the immersive element of the iPhone and makes it feel more like a real game. The human finger during the tutorial is a bit creepy, though.

Hangman

Looks beautiful. Fun, simple, plays well.

Cars 2: The Fast and the Furious

I'm a little disturbed by trailers for the new Pixar flick. It looks a little dark to me.

City Friends

Why is the library so massive? That drives me nuts.

I found it interesting that I naturally partitioned suburbia and urban/inner-city/metropolitan-downtown from each other on opposite sides of the street, and that I am totally neglecting suburbia and giving urban/downtown all of my attention.

Hey Jayne Mansfield Superstar!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hey-Jayne-Mansfield-Superstar-by-Sigue-Sigue-Sputnik/58646911566

Someone created a Hey Jayne Mansfield Superstar! page, following in the footsteps of my "Rhythm Heritage Theme from S.W.A.T." page and "Shep Pettibone remix of 'Something About You" page. What is it they say about there are no truly new ideas? Or that for any idea you have, someone on the opposite end of the planet is coming up with the same idea?

And they have 297 followers! I'm jealous.

Commercial with dollhouse using smartphone as widescreen TV - that was just adorable

I had this great red Chinese dish on white rice with Albert at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas

http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/?nc&vid=25570923

"Ready to rumble? Police cars are deploying new sirens with heavy bass that you can actually feel coming even if you can't hear them, helping cops respond to the 240 million emergency calls every year."

Actually, this has been going on in San Francisco for quite a while. And the bass is meant to augment the siren, making you pay more attention.

While playing Metalstorm

Ads in games should have the same look, the same stylesheet as the look and feel of the game. For an ad to look like an ad is disjarring. An ad should look like the game.

On the wildfires

Why do people in New Mexico fantasize about the "end times" and the "apocalypse"? I took one look at the ash-covered sky and thought "Mars" ... guess my sensibilities are different. Alternate realities, life on other planets .. setting foot on other planets - this is what I saw. Why do New Mexicans fantasize about the world coming to an end? It's bizarre and I don't understand it.

DJ Baby Anne page

Someone is posting weird comments on my DJ Baby Anne page : grief-stricken comments, to a girl he loves. I've been there. The need to post grief, messages to a girl you love, that you lost, that you cannot do face-to-face ... Ive been there.

In a strange way, I have inadverdently done someone a public service - I put up this page and it allowed them a venue to vent their feelings. The image of the beautiful girl, was a type of psychology, a type of therapist's couch .. he got to talk to her, through this page.

I guess DJ B Anne, the image he sees on the page, is a symbol for the girl he lost. Just a guess. Men pine for women just as much as, if not in different ways, but just as much as women do for men. Men feel the pain also. Men hurt just as much.

General technology rant

Technology should do what you want. It should be doing as much as possible behind the scenes to do simply what you want on the surface.

My Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin page is up to 4 people now.

This is so frustrating -- I have an iPhone app that I want to rush out to market *now* -- but I don't have the tools necessary to develop it. All I can do right now is the design.

I'm greedy because I want to keep all the money for myself -- I need it -- but I'm thinking I need someone else to develop it.

I will not see the Hangover 2 in an Albuquerque theatre. Not even in a new York theatre.

An L.A. theatre, perhaps.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/raunchy-hangover-part-ii-male-191790

But I agree this is a big big movie and should be seen to see what the trends are.

blog today

It was good to hear from Albert today.

And good to hear from Selian yseterday.

I ahve several dilemmas.

I was fretting yesterday about not having the money to buy a po box.

Once I got the $31 dollars, however, I shifted and felt I should keep the money, hang onto the money.

Once I got the money I felt I should do this.

Still need to get the CRX back from La.

Still need to get my place back.

--

I also made some progress and got Wordpress uploaded (and figured out) onto my account vson. (I figured out that you didn't need some new system to do this, you can do it on your own existing unix account.)

I don't know what the hell I'm going to do about my life. But I need a money solution if I'm going to take care of all these problems.

Assassin's Creed reminds me of Airon.

Rat on a Skateboard

I hate the font they use for the menu selections: arg, it's just a cold, cold horrible kind of emotionless look.

The science of Star Wars?

I've always thought Star Wars, in terms of its technical aspects, to just be a whimsical flight of fancy. Such that when anyone talks about deconstructing the "science" of Star Wars I just find it silly. 

Do I have a prejudice against Star Wars?  I consider Star Trek to be much more scientifically accurate. However, am I just buying in to one religion and rejecting another?

Pat tells me that fer crissake, Star Trek was created with NASA consultants and other scientific consultants on board, brought on by Roddenberry, at the beginning of the series.  So perhaps I am too hard on myself for rejecting Star Wars on this front and propping up Star Trek. It's always been hard for me to have a conviction. I'm always second-guessing myself and fact-checking myself, going, "am I sure on this?" when I shouldn't. When it comes to religions, I'm always making sure I'm not totally delusional and making sure I'm not just blindly following one. 

But yes, when it comes to Star Wars, all this stuff - the light sabers that go yay high, to quote Kevin Smith & _Clerks_ (the ABC cartoon), the Millenium Falcon that makes that powerful kind of hybrid jet-engine / aircraft carrier sound, the pretty silver-blue-white colors and iceberg patterns of travelling through hyperspace, x-wings that can turn and bank like airborne WWII planes without any bank of on-board multi-directional thrusters (see Battlestar Galactica 2003's Vipers for an example of this) - then yes, all of this stuff *is* pure flights of fantasy and we best not forget it. Star Wars is the fantasy, Star Trek is the science fiction. 

ADHD and videogames as a therapeutic device

I was reading this article on ADHD and ADD in women;

http://www.healthcentral.com/adhd/women-197127-5.html?ap=825

applies to me too, I was reading up on the symptoms. My eyes went to a sidebar link to a "Video Games for ADHD" article, and it took me to something I recall: Playing Grand Theft Auto on the PSP helped alleviate my ADHD when driving.

Specifically, driving the motorcycle all over town, making swinging constant lane changes, hard turns throughout the city, it helped me alleviate my need to constantly do things perfect while driving, to carve a perfect line, to get very "I-have-to-do-this-repeatedly-until-I-get-it-just-right" in my thinking.

This stuff works.

Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin page

Someobdy posted on my Ronald Emmerich and Dean Devlin page.

They were asking "how are you guys doing?" I never know how to answer that. I don't want to say "this is just a fan page, a tribute page", because I don't want to blow the bubble of what this fan sees. Yet I don't want to lie and answer as them, I've seen people that do this online and it just spirals out of control, takes on a life of its own. That's just wrong. I just keep silent, although not the best solution.

Update: 5/20

A user named Sumi Sevilla Haru joined as a fan. (Beautiful picture.) I looked at her profile, and it says Michael Hornbuckle and Camille Mana are mutual friends, who are friends on my profile. Small world.

Kia Sorento ad

music in Kia Sorento ad ..

this has yet to appear on YouTube. This posting, however, comes close:


http://adtunes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102157

Nintendo 3DS commercial

Nintendo 3DS commercial w/ Face Invaders and Nintendogs

Todd Rivers / ATHF

Todd Rivers from Garth Marenghi's Darkplace doing a voice in Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 (ATHF sequel).

Blackberry ad

Gumball ad

The Amazing World of Gumball ad Cartoon Network - movie voice

returns in May

iCarly and Seinfeld

I see a lot of similarities between iCarly and Seinfeld.  Good ensemble cast; tight number of characters, limited to four; the main character is not a good actor; all the characters revolve around the central one ...

and it's a funny show.  Again, mainly due to the talent of the peripheral characters and an indefinable charisma to the central one. Despite the bad acting.

Verizon "Susie" commercial

This is the cutest, hippest commercial:

The Late Shift

"Letterman likened Higgins' portrayal to a 'psychotic chimp.'"

I grew up watching David Letterman and it felt very comfortable to me. Letterman has such enormous self-hatred that he is really talking about himself.

Marcella Valladolid

http://www.foodnetwork.com/marcela-valladolid/bio/index.html

link


http://www.chefmarcela.com/

Chef Marcella Valladolid changing minds about Mexican cuisine

Die Hard on AMC

Believe it or not, Die Hard is a love story first ... an action thriller second ...

Little peripheral things that you notice ... (the camera acting as an omniscient guide ... pointing out things to the viewer that even the characters may not notice) ... the significane of the tower ... the camera is very observational ...

Little things during the set-up to familiarize us with the setting ... the weird, kind of off-key sound of the elevator chime, the lobby and first floor, the way we all survey it all, with John McClane ...

Shigeta:
His eye contact is a little weird during that initial dialogue with John MCClane ... I wonder if that was intentional ...

That truck looks pretty ominous ...

Alan Rickman was cool in this long, LONG before he was cool in Harry Potter.

The way Hans surveys the outside xxxxxxxxx, like a cat ...

<<commercial break>>

When the action breaks, all rationale goes out the window ... literally, in terms of the writing.

It seemed a little counter-intuitive to kill Takagi ... they could've used him for something else ...

"Why didn't you stop him, John? because then you'd be dead too asshole ..."

This thought made no sense.
Actually, he'd have the element of surprise ... no other civilians ... he could've taken three three of them out right then and there ...

he's simply thinking as the protagonist, with the self-preservation mechanism turned on ... it's designed to get the audience in the survival mindset with John ...

<<>>

The fighting between JOhn and the guy with glasses could've been done a *little* better ... but for 1988, this was awesome ...

Little inexplicable things John looks at, or smiles at ... as Steven Spielberg says, 'what i miss most in movies is showing people thinking ...'

'Now I have a machine gun ho ho ho' - John McClain is now terrorizing the terrorists ... turns the tables on the simple protagonist vs. the bad guys ... in a very subtle way, this is brilliant / clever ...

"What do you think?" "Something's wrong ..." this is where the movie gets interesting ...

Hapa sighting

I think that guitarist in _Lemonade Mouth_ (the one with the short hair) is hapa ...

Wyatt Earp & Tombstone ... and others

Wyatt Earp:

AMC lists this as a classic.

But pit this against Tombstone, and which one comes out ahead?

Tombstone ... it was a more entertaining movie.

(Quick and the Dead was another one from this era, that was very entertaining.)

And Kurt Russell looks great, with that mustache and long black coat.

Bill Paxton is doing some of that Hudson freak-out eye-movement behavior ...


What was it about the studios in the 80's spying on each other and rushing ideas to market before the other one could? Leviathan - The Abyss - Deepstar Six ... it's like this was the kind of cutthroat competitiveness that existed before the tech industry came out ... I don't really see movies doing this anymore ... because movies are no longer the primary form of entertainment. (Long ago, movies were the *it* thing ... people would go to movies because they could experience things there that they could not anywhere else. Movies were the ultimate form of entertainment that blew away anything else out there.)

Now it's rare that a movie still captivates, gets people talking, gets people actually going to the theatre. Movies need something, continue to need something, that one can't get anywhere else. The combination of big screen, a big presence (or big cast), memorable scenes, the visceral experience ... again, something that can't be experienced anywhere else.

Nothing has really changed. It's just that there's this extra layer of noise on top of it (of movies), that vie and compete for your attention: tv, videogames, the Internet. But what made movies powerful continue to make movies powerful. I may be getting old, but I will continue to see a fun movie, or an entertaining movie, or a captivating movie, in the theater, for the simple reason, for starters, that it has a screen that cannot be rivaled anywhere else. Combine that with enough elements to make a great, entertaining experience, and I'll go.

Nightclub Story

Nightclub Story:

Nice sound effect when you pop the top on a bottle. 

Brides Maids

Brides Maids

Another trailer with absolutely nothing funny in it. 

Repo Games

Repo Games:

Pretty clever. Call me a tv junkie, but I liked it, the concept. 

Repo Games

Repo Games:

Pretty clever. Call me a tv junkie, but I liked it, the concept. 

Well, I've gotta say this ...

I find the iPhone to be completely childish, a childish little toy.

It's not a serious device.

I mean, look at that interface.

And the touch system ... completely ridiculous. A serious device has to have BUTTONS. A tactile interface.

I am so sick of touch, real human-computer interface has buttons.

"Where do babies come from?" commercial

"Hugs?"

New Honda Accord commercial

New Honda Accord commercial - I need to find that -

Schick Hydro commercial

For some reason they changed the music for this ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kE_hhPPBfY

Nokia Astound commercial

Pretty cool.

5 guys

An oldie but a goodie ...



Starring Don LaFontaine, John Leader, Al Chalk, Mark Elliot, and Nick Tate

this video was the before/after threshold of the secret of movies / the internet blowing wide open the secret of movies ... it was never the same after this

Acura MDX driving backwards

Acura MDX driving backwards through what looks like a slalom at 40 mph: I've done a lot of driving, even stunt driving, *even* driving backwards, and it's impossible to do this, in reverse ...

Even if you could exhibit the nuance and subtlety of steering needed to course-correct at shallow angles side-to-side, with the amount of precision needed usually when you are driving forward, knowing that the wheels in the rear are now steering ...

... you would still need to *see* where you're going, without straying from the track and carving a path through those cones. Too much is happening in the brain, and the senses, simultaneously, doing this going forward. With reverse, you have ruined - removed - the benefit and all the information-gathering of *sight*, all the visual inforamtion you're taking in, which is totally necessary for this kind of maneuver.

notice how they did all that editing and cutting. Not a continuous shot.

This is totally different from all those stunt shots we see in commercials. This doesn't exist.

Dan Black - Symphonies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYxly14v5do

I may be the only one this side of the Atlantic that recognizes that the main synth-string riff in the chorus is a reference to John Carpenter's "Starman" ...

Google Maps and driving navigation

The Google Maps algorithm is a little outdated. 

They should probably teach it little tricks, like doing an overshoot-your-target-and-do-a-triple-right-turn instead of a left turn ... hell, if they can program in little AI behaviors into objects in videogames, surely they can program a Google Maps navigator to learn little tricks to each city. 

Resident Evil / Max Headroom

That Camera 29a thing at the beginning of Resident Evil reminds me of Max Headroom.

(The movie / pilot for the television show, not the character himself.)

I don't know why, it just had the same look as a shot from the tv show pilot or first episode / movie.

Independence Day

Independence Day

took a lot of dramatic cues from Close Encounters. I'm not talking context, the sci-fi context: I'm talking about little moments, little bits of cinematicness that remind me of CE3K. I wouldn't call it a rip-off, but they definitely took little bits of Close Encounters and placed it in this radically different context. Brent Spiner rushing toward the entrance to the hangar, saying "o boy, o boy" reminds me of Bob Balaban rushing toward the wreckage of the ship, saying "the Cotopaxi ..."

The people in the beginning, looking at the ships arriving, had a very Spielberg look ...

This is also Vivica Fox's last role before she went insane.

This is the movie that almost made Will Smith a star. You can see he's trying to breakout into full-blown star but hasn't quite made it yet.

And this is the movie that made Bill Pullman a cool President. (Harrison Ford had him beat, though, in Air Force One.)

Side note: With computer geeks, and probably with general people today, this movie lost all credibility when Jeff Goldblum said, "We can plant a virus, within their ship ..." "A computer virus ..."

Television commercials and YouTube

We all know how pervasive YouTube is. For a longtime media watcher like me, it is as significant as television itself. It singlehandedly combines television, VCRs, videotape, DVDs, music videos, DVRs, anything captured or stored on media. It is beyond revolutionary. It is a new medium, and it is here to stay.

Having said that, it is in every advertiser's best interest, every company's best interest, to post each and every commercial they have to YouTube. Plenty of people are tv junkies, and that includes commercials. People follow, study, crave, and are inspired by (and entertained by) commercials every bit as they are by shows.

And for every commercial seen out there, large and small, someone wants to view it again. Putting it on YouTube makes it available to those who want to see it again, and share it with their friends. Why aren't every ad agency, every company, every product, every public service announcement, doing this? It does not hurt the product; by God, it does exactly what they want! *To get the word out*. People sharing and showing each other commercials achieves what they want: it gets the word out. There is no reason not to do this.

The more likely someone is to find a commercial on YouTube, the more likely they are to *voluntarily* share it with their friends.  And advertisers cannot ask for any better than this.

Varolo

This is an interesting site, and good idea. 

The problem with it, tho is that the concept needs a big push, either a television ad campaign, or a big name behind it, some really big branding, to attract a huge audience to the site, to make it work. If Yahoo! did a site, or Pepsi , or one of the networks ... the problem here is that if they did put their name on it, they are inadvertently locked into their *own* brand and can't be a general site without people suspecting or mistrusting that they aren't in it for their own means or purposes. Is there a brand name, sizable, big, that isn't tied to a specific product?  Something that is so big it will pull in a huge audience, yet not make them think of a particular product?  Find that and you've got the perfect name and high visibility to pull in people to transform advertising.

Again, this is a good concept. It may or will just get dwarfed once something bigger comes in and capitalizes on the idea. 

Maybe if Bing ran a system like this ...

Filmlook

Everything is filmlook these days ; I was raised on videotape ; it really alters your perceptions. 

Avatar

The thing about Avatar is, that in a year, the graphics will look outdated.  Anything that wows, that pushes the envelope, does so partially because there is no reference point.  

Avatar was groundbreaking for, among other things, bringing life to faces. Motion capture on facial expressions elevated it to a level of you-forget-it's-cgi. And that's significant. 

James Cameron was also doing something mystical and deliberate with the movements too. There was something going on there which I can't quite put my finger on. 

And Michelle Rodriguez should've been in Aliens. I know James Cameron well enough, she was destined to be a Colonial Marine. That's why he cast her in this. She just feels right. 

I saw Avatar in 2-D and even had that kind of immersive effect, the "Avatar virtual world withdrawal and depression" that they were reporting about in the news, with some people, after seeing it in 3-D. (Boy, I miss the days of cheerfully going back to the theatre 2, 3, 5, 7 times to see a movie over and over again. Like fans of this movie were doing. It's nice to believe in something again.)

HBO Go

HBO Go: iPad has now officially hit the big time.

Camerawork in a news or live television setting

First rule of camerawork: smooth, zen movements. No jerking the camera around. Don't react. Always fluid.

You are the window. Be aware of it.

Susie's Sushi House Lite

Susie's Sushi House Lite

"This game is awesome with so many features, high quality sound tracks, great graphics,"

I *hate* this game!  I like Sushi Chain much better. 

Strange Rain

One of my favorite games on the iPhone is 'Strange Rain'.  It's not really a game; more like an experience. It's living art.  It's what artists do when they create.

Your Highness trailers

Your Highness
is like the worst movie trailer ever. There's like nothing funny in it at all. Is the movie this way?  Usually even in a bad movie they steal all the good jokes for the trailers. This one must mean the movie is a total *bore* for 2 hours. We're talking horrible. 

"We love our bank" talking dog commercial

That "We love our bank" commercial with the talking dog ... If you look away from the screen, and just listen, It becomes really transparent how bad that audio patch is.

Buffy TVS

Buffy -- what Buffy does -- is all about confronting personal demons. It
is a metaphor for something internal she is playing out, working out within
herself. Otherwise she wouldn't be called upon in this role, to "play out" this role she's supposed to play out.

There is always an internal reason for something.

Sure, there is the obvious literal component to what's going on --
but there is a metaphorical component too. She internally is acting out
something she has needed to act out.

Evacuate the Dancefloor

Evacuate the Dancefloor - Cascada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A68j28KQaik

Rebecca Black - Friday

this song is for kids - but the singer is cute and has star quality:

I mean, that's why the video got to 50 million views.

And Lady Gaga's right: she's a genius (although not in the traditional sense, and even though she may not realize it) -- there is a pop quality to this song, tell me you didn't listen through the whole thing.

The girl has a future ...

Update: People/critics have said she has a whiny voice. See, the thing is, she sounds like everygirl. Regular girls sound like this to each other.

Rebecca represents everyday, regular girls. This is why the video has reached 50 million views. Not because 50 million people all have some kind of morbid curiosity. These are kids and young people clicking on and checking out this video, downloading the song.

Simple beat, pop sensibility, an x factor to the lead singer ... this last one is the key right here. That x factor. That defines fame. You can't (or very rarely can) concoct it. Maybe with the exception of the Spice Girls. But this girl just "has it". it works, it's stumbled upon.

Again, out of context, people think it's a nasally voice ... but if you go to any California school, girls sound like this to each other.

Most of all, she's real. So basically, critics are lambasting her for being herself.

Weird.

Lady Gaga at Google

Lady Gaga at Google

My Life With Liz

Looks like reality tv is moving back to ... uh, unreality tv.

"My Life ... With Liz" is reality tv, but contains scripted, skit-like material ... it blurs the line between reality tv and fictional tv.

Not that reality tv wasn't ever partially fictional anyway, but this makes it more overt.

iTunes and syncing to a device

iTunes and "syncing" to a device:

I've always objected to Apple's "sync everything through iTunes" interaction between iPod touch and computer. It's too weird, too proprietary ..

Things should just be drag-and-drop in. As in, you see a song in your library you like, and want on your iPod touch, you drag it and drop it into your device.

Think Different sometimes is very counterproductive. If one way works, and works well, efficiently, and quickly, why do it a different way, that is more tedious, constricting, cumbersome?

FreeSpaceWallpapers

FreeSpaceWallpapers app (Space Shuttle backgrounds): the ads for other apps down the right side is horrible, it completely ruins the aesthetic of the experience and the interface; but that Save chime is very pleasing.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds: I feel sorry for the guy who created the game that this game is based on. I've seen this exact same game in at least three incarnations before.