Thursday, March 06, 2008
Methinks They've Seen it Too Many Times
Word for word, this was the conversation between Kira and Parker on Sunday:Kira: Amos Slade, you trigger-happy lunatic! Give me that gun!
Parker: My radiator! Why, you blasted female...
Kira: Hold it, right there.
Parker: Watch it, that thing's loaded.
Kira: Now it ain't loaded.
Parker: Your fox was after my chickens!
Kira: Poppycock!
Parker: You muddle-headed female...
Kira: Amos Slade, that temper of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble someday.
Parker: Temper? Temper? Woman, you ain't seen my temper! If I ever catch that fox in my property again, I'll blast him, and next time I won't miss!
I'm thinking I might start up a Disney theater troupe soon.
Labels: Disney, Hooray for Hollywood, Kira, Parker
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Holy Moses
Parker and Kira saw Prince of Egypt for the first time last week. It made quite an impression - Parker has been asking us to define God, which started a rather complex discussion about beliefs and different religions.The next day, when we put dinner on the table, Kira stood up in her chair and shouted "Let My People EAT!"
A few days later, I listened to playing early in the morning. Parker selected one of his Playmobil figures and told Kira that this guy is God.
Kira looked at the figure for a second, and pronounced solemenly "There is no God."
"Nooo, Kira!" Parker interjected. "We're playing olden days. And in the olden days, there was a God."
Labels: Cute Overlord, Hooray for Hollywood, Kira, Let Kids be Kids, Parker
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Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Engineered Virus
J.J. Abram's next big thing is being advertised initially as a viral marketing experiment: his first theatre trailer doesn't give away much, if anything of the movie, save for its basic premise. It leaves a lot to the imagination, a rarity in today's entertainment world, where regularly surpise and twists are given away in order to encourage audiences to repatriate the ever more sparsely populated theater. Abram's doesn't even give away the name of the film, a bold move that really did set the blogosphere abuzz. The bug was caught and caught good.However, that didn't mean the studio wanted to let it out of quarantine. Those that were piqued wanted to share the experience with others, so invariably the trailer ended up on YouTube - for a grand total of about a day, before Paramount started to threaten legal action to have them taken down.
I really can't understand the myopia, nay, the glaucoma, that the entertainment industry. They should be giddy with the prospect that people actually care enough about a film they know nothing about to promote it themselves, to everyone with an iinternet connection. They can't sell the durn trailer in and of itself - to me, it's a no-brainer to let people run with with it as far they can. Look what it did for Snakes on a Plane. Imagine what that could do for an actually good film, like the Blair Witch Project.
The only way to get them in the seats is to make them part of the experience, not sue them back out of it.
Labels: Anti-Fun, Got a Permit for Breathing, Hooray for Hollywood
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Saturday, March 17, 2007
Road Hazzard
The Cincinnati Pops cancelled a planned performance with Bo and Luke Duke after complaints were made about the show's "racist overtones".
The Dukes of Hazzard...racist? What? I think I might have heard more racial undertones in Different Strokes or Sanford and Son than I ever did on the Dukes, which never presented itself as more than light family fare. It seems to me this is solely centered on the flag plastered atop the General Lee, which was never made mention of except in reference to the name of the car.
Why did the Pops have to cancel because of this. Could they not have had Tom Wopat and John Schneider on without referencing the car?
On another note, I had no idea that Cooter had been so involved in the Civil Rights movement:
In the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, Jones was arrested several times attempting to integrate segregated facilities. He says he was shot at by the KKK, had a tooth knocked out by a Klansman, and had ammonia thrown in his eyes at a sit-in".
I think Jones sets a precedent for all actors who claim they have been typecast into a role and can't break out of it - dive into something else you believe in with all your heart, and you'll break away from that persona.
Labels: Anti-Fun, Hooray for Hollywood, Spot the Pop Culture Reference
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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
When 2 plus 2 equals 300
Today I watched a great episode of Voyager that I'd never seen before. "Living Witness" details how an entire alien culture has developed over 700 years, based on an account of an encounter with Voyager that is made up of distortions and half-truths. It's a good parable of how history is written by the victors and, in the words of Obi-Wan "that you'll find that many of the truths we cling to depend on our point of view".In the real world, though, these nuances don't take 700 years. They can occur in just a few decades.
Case in point: the People's Daily from China reported on an Iranian official's announcement that the new film 300 insults Persian civilization.
According to Javad Shamqadri, President Ahmadinejad's art advisor, the film is
"part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture...following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture...certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."
If only Javad had checked the internet for all of five minutes before he spoke, he might have been able to discern this film is based on a graphic novel and was not hatched out of some psychological warfare unit in Tinseltown, but a cash machine ready to take another gamble on a film from the creator of Sin City. While the film does cast aspersions on the Persian army, it's the same kind of demonization that's down to the enemy in all of Hollywood's films. Declaring it as anything more involved is simply hyperbole.
Now for an intelligent rebuttal to the film, listen to Ephraim Lytle, Assistant Professor of Hellenistic History at the University of Toronto.
Labels: Hooray for Hollywood, Politics, Retcon
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Oscar the Grouch
The Academy might believe in the magic of movies and their impact in people's livesbut they sure don't want people to celebrate except in a six hour telecast on Sunday. Variety reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences requested YouTube to pull all clips of the show. Several segments of the show had been among the most-viewed content of the week.
The academy claimed this was to "to help manage the value of our telecast and our brand." They went on to say that they have clips available on their site; however, the clips were short and did not include the same content as the YouTube clips. Furthermore, the Academy said that the clips they offer will eventually be removed, to "whet people's appetite for next year's show."
How myopic can the Academy get? The ratings for the Oscars have been in steady decline for years. Any segment on YouTube is FREE ADVERTISING for the brand and the telecast. If someone sees a segment in one years telecast that strikes them as funny or worth watching, they are more likely next year to tune in to see it for themselves. Not airing clips from the show for others to see means a steadily declining audience made up of die-hard watchers and does nothing to entice new viewers. And, given that the Academy never airs footage from their telecast except within future telecasts themselves, creates an insular and infertile medium for growth.
Labels: Anti-Fun, Got a Permit for Breathing, Hooray for Hollywood
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Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Call Me the Waco Kid
I went to my first after-hours Gainesville Advertising Federation event. I got to know a few people in the industry from around the town, but overall I was my usual wallflower self. I was finally able to break out of my shell thanks to Derrick from Alta Printing, an all-around great and personable guy. I have to admit, we had the most unusual introduction ever.Derrick was on the other side of the room just as the raffle was about to begin. The raffle consisted of quite a few of those chains of tickets. As they got ready to call the numbers, Derrick handed his drink to someone, and, in a dead impersonation of Cleavon Little, announced:
“Excuse me while I whip this out!”
I immediately rejoined “Noooo!”
Thus introduced, Derrick introduced me to quite a few other members and the night proceeded smoothly.
Labels: Hooray for Hollywood, Spot the Pop Culture Reference
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Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Everyday in a Galaxy, Far, Far Away
It seems everywhere I looks these days, Star Wars has definitely taken its place as a permanent fixture in the pop culture landscape. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a Tootsie Roll. Cases in point:The new Target ad has Lambda shuttles flying in formation depositing snowflakes across the typical Target-inspired Dali landscape.
The local television station is running an ad looking for sales representatives. For no reason among their images of camera operators and boom mikes, there’s a five second shot of Han Solo shooting down TIE fighters from the Falcon.
A promo for college football, also on that station, shows one fan wearing a Stormtrooper uniform – in his team’s colors.
Finally,an Animal Planet special on close shaves for nature photographers shows us an underwater filmmaker who decided to base his squid protection gear on that of the Stormtrooper.
Didn’t he ever watch the movies? If it can’t even deflect a blaster bolt, what good will it do against a kraken?
Labels: Hooray for Hollywood, Star Wars
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Saturday, November 18, 2006
Hurl Harbor
TBS runs a promo for Pearl Harbor that says “before they were great fighters, they were also great lovers.” I’d like to think this statement was written by a staff member that holds this film with as much contempt as I.
Labels: Hooray for Hollywood, Movies, My Cinematic 2 Cents
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Gordon's Alive?!
For Halloween, I decided to shed the ‘Quiet Guy’ image I’ve been been garnering around the College. Quiet Guys all end up doing something Horrible That No One ExpectsTM, so I figured it would be a good time to move out of the rut before someone expects me to go postal.
For Hallows Eve, I became the one person in the world that is never subdued….
Vultan, King of the Hawkmen!
Granted, my version of Vultan looks rather Roman, but it’s not like Vultan has been portrayed in any consistent manner over the years:
Traditional Alex Raymond Vultan.
Vultan of the Buster Crabbe serials.
Vultan, Brian Blessed-ized!
Modern Vultan.
The costume was open to interpretation. Many identified me as an avenging archangel ( most specifically, Ben Affleck in Dogma, Leonardo Dicaprio in Romeo and Juliet, a centurion, a gladiator, and, best of all, Trojan Man!
After lunch, I sojourned to Turlington Plaza, climbed atop a table, and proceeded to scream out the following stirring soliloquy that even silenced and, dare I say…humbled, our permanent professional Bible-Thumpers:
“Onward my Brave Hawkmen. Let this be known forever as Flash Gordon’s Day! Hawkmen sortie…..DIIIIVE!”
One of the biblical hecklers, awed by the acoustics, rejoined “That’s the way to do it!”
I then ran around to the hub for a second performance, where I was given a standing ovation and calls for encores.
I feel I reclaimed maybe a little of that regret for not performing in the Music Man fifteen years ago. Thanks, Brian Blessed, for giving me a VOICE. Onward, indeed.
Labels: Hooray for Hollywood, Science Fiction, Sheer Awesome
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