"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.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
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 ...
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 ...
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.
Friday, April 22, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
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
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.
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" ...
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" ...
Monday, April 18, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
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.
(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.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
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 ..."
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 ...
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.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
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.)
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.)
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
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.
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.
"This game is awesome with so many features, high quality sound tracks, great graphics,"
I *hate* this game! I like Sushi Chain much better.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
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.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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.
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.
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