Category Archives: Movies

Earth to Hollywood: No more 3-D until you get it right

Posted on July 2, 2011

We saw Transformers 3 tonight in 3-D. I felt the effect was almost totally unnoticeable except for the headache the glasses gave me.

With all the extremely fast motion and shooting there was plenty of opportunity for the 3-D to add to the movie but Michael Bay used none of it. Say what you will about Bay’s directing abilities but he does do good blow’em up, and he did in this flick, but he never took advantage of the extra dimension to shoot bits out at the audience.

We saw Green Hornet in 3-D and a few others. None have impressed me except maybe Avatar.

I’m reminded of the South Park episode where the boys go to Lucas and Spielberg and beg them not to mess up their old movies. I wish the boys would do another episode where they blow up all the 3-D manufacturing plants.

I don’t mind the extra couple of bucks, I understand everyone needs their mansions and Porsches. Just raise the damn price and stop playing stupid optical tricks. Please!

| Comments Off

My Future Web Invoice

Posted on March 18, 2011

Reading MC Seigler’s Netflix Original Content Is Much More Than A Strategy Shift — It Could Shift An Industry I thought again about cutting the cord. Our household is a very heavy consumer of cable content: soccer on Fox Soccer Channel, Gol TV and ESPN, movies and series on HBO, Showtime and Starz, original cable series on SyFy (though much less so than I would have expected if you asked 30 years ago!), USA, FX, AMC and A&E plus the normal fare from the ~~five~~four main over the air networks.

Accordingly we pay Comcast a pretty hefty fee, adding on broadband internet to the above. North of $200 a month to be honest.

What if we could just buy the broadband from Comcast and get the sports and entertainment content online, per Siegler’s post? That would mean paying the higher internet fee–somehow Comcast gets away with charging about $15 a month more if you don’t take both cable and internet.

I made a list, and am probably missing a couple of things, but even so we’d save a chunk of money:

Item	Cost	Notes
Broadband	$60.00
Netflix	$10.00
HBO	$10.00	HBO/Cinemax
SHO	$10.00	Showtime/Movie Channel
Fox Networks	$10.00	includes FSC, FSD
Disney Nets	$15.00	includes ESPN
NBC Nets	$5.00	includes Versus, USA, SyFy
CBS Nets	$5.00	includes Comedy Central, MTV+
Starz/Liberty	$10.00	Starz, Encore
Total	$135.00

Wonder how soon I’ll really be able to do this. Networks, can you feel me?

Also posted in Business, Sports, TV | Comments Off

Tiffany Shlain’s The Tribe

Posted on September 26, 2010

A grade school buddy of mine now living in Shanghai passed along a link to this terrific short film, The Tribe, made a few years ago by Tiffany Shlain (thanks, Les!). You can watch the trailer at the end of my post, order it from her website, or see it online, unofficially.

What can the most successful doll on the planet show us about being Jewish today? Narrated by Peter Coyote, the film mixes old school narration with a new school visual style. The Tribe weaves together archival footage, graphics, animation, Barbie dioramas, and slam poetry to take audiences on an electric ride through the complex history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people- from Biblical times to present day. By tracing Barbie’s history, the film sheds light on the questions: What does it mean to be an American Jew today? What does it mean to be a member of any tribe in the 21st Century?

When people ask how I identify myself I usually answer Jewish. Not in the religious sense but culturally and as my ethnicity. People who think of themselves as Italian, Australian or Chinese may not understand my answer for me it’s as reasonable as what they say.