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« Older Entries | Newer Entries »5 Things The Oscars Have In Common With Presidential Elections
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 7, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Race, gender, the Iraq war, and arrogant ex-husbands? The 2010 Oscars are feeling a lot like the 2008 election. Oh. And gay men throw the best parties.
I usually don’t pay much attention to the Academy Awards, but this year, an acquaintance of mine said “If Avatar wins Best Pic I will kick myself in the face. If I am unable to do so, I will train in leg flexibility until I am able to do so“. For that reason alone, I’m a little more interested than usual in the outcome this year, and as a result I couldn’t help noticing that this year’s Oscars have a few odd things in common with the 2008 elections.
1.) People of color will play a significant role in the outcome.
Avatar has aroused a lot of discussion about race and class around the world, and some people will be VERY upset if this non-white nominee wins. I don’t think Obama’s nomination caused suicidal tendencies though.
2.) A powerful woman may win, but an arrogant man in her past may impact the outcome.
Kathryn Bigelow probably deserves to win for Hurt Locker, but her arrogant ex-husband could easily muck things up for her. Read the rest of this entry »
Who Is Ann Arbor, And Why Are There So Many Movies About Her?
[ 5 Comments ]Posted on March 2, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Ann Arbor is a town, not a woman, and the 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival is coming March 23-28, 2010.
Someone actually asked me that once when I lived in San Francisco. For the uninitiated, Ann Arbor isn’t a woman, it’s a small college town in Michigan that at one time was as cool as say, Berkley, California, but has since slowly morphed into a dreary backwater of uptight Republicans and Liberal Elitists. Although it lays claim to being somehow hip and progressive, very little really happens here, and in spite of all the amazingly creative people in the area, nothing clever ever seems to escape the local scene. I jest a bit; I’m probably just being bitter because I’m tired of the place and too lazy to do anything about the fact. It’s actually a pretty cool town considering the fact that it’s only six square blocks surrounded by cornfields and strip malls. Aside from the University of Michigan’s overfunded and underperforming football team, one thing that has put Ann Arbor on the map over the years – and with good reason – is the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The festival began in 1963 as a 16mm film festival operated by the University of Michigan, and grew over the years until 1983, when it started operating on its own as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. The festival has definitely had its ups and downs over the last few decades. One of its high points was probably the 2006 festival, when Christen McArdle became executive director. McArdle not only seemed to bring a new level of professionalism to the festival (she was working for John Cusack’s New Crime Productions in LA prior to taking over), but the festival was lucky to have her at the helm that year, because she stuck to her guns when the Michigan Council for the Arts questioned the festival’s content and threatened to cut funding. The festival told them to keep their money, and managed to raise their own, showing that indy film is indeed alive and kicking. For a detailed account, see this NAMAC article by Jay Nelson. Although I barely met McArdle, anyone who questions her impact on the festival didn’t see her at the Judge’s Dinner her first year. I watched in amazement Read the rest of this entry »
Life Is Just A Game. And Then You Buy.
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 24, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Are we all just becoming unwitting players in a huge video game?
 In the future, shopping may be a little more like Minority Report than we’d like. |
I’ve been working on a project for awhile that involves turning pretend money into real money. Sounds crazy, right? People generally think so when I mention the basic idea, but when I go into the details, they say “aha” and want to invest in it. For what should be obvious reasons, I can’t go into those details, but I can give you a few little clues. It involves cognitive dissonance, self-esteem, and the excitement of buying things. I actually thought maybe the idea was crazy, until I watched a presentation (videos below) that Jesse Schell (founder of Schell Games) gave at DICE 2010. In it, he discusses a lot of ideas about augmented reality and consumer habits, the insane amounts of money made with Pengin Club, FarmVille and Mafia Wars, and how life is really just a game in which we’re slowly becoming unwitting players. One example he uses is how the Ford Hybrid SmartGauge EcoGuide dashboards are really just a game that makes the driver “drive greener”. He also explains why the iPad is “stupid”, likening the iPhone to a Swiss Army Knife, and suggesting the iPad is a “Swiss Army Knife of Kitchen Utensils”. He reminds us that NO-ONE expected the success of games on Facebook, the Wii
TV Tropes Is My New Wikipedia
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 18, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Thursday, February 18th, 2010Where else can you find information about Oscar Baiting, the rare element Unobtanium, Tom Hanks Syndrome, and the Ugly Guy Hot Wife phenomena just clicks away from each other?
 Even XKCD is hip to TVTropes |
As someone who has dabbled in screenwriting a bit and also has a tragically terminal case of Wikiphilia, I’ve become at least briefly obsessed with TvTropes.org. If you’ve done a lot of reading and writing, you may share a problem that frustrates me: I have a hard time getting engaged with a lot of fiction for the simple reason that I can’t help seeing past the poorly-written story to view the underlying plot mechanisms. You may have heard of the assertion that there are only 36 basic plots. At least that was Georges Polti’s conclusion in his 1917 book The Thirty Six Dramatic Situations
Best And Worst TV Commercials?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 13, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Is it a good commercial because you like it, or because it does the job it’s supposed to do?
As I mentioned recently, it’s odd that after years of dodging TV Commercials, now we go looking for them, and put them in best ads and worst ads collections. Especially around Superbowl time, many of us seem to end up in more casual conversations about commercials that end up in a YouTube search than we’d care to admit. Which highlights an interesting fact: most “best of” lists are really ratings of the commercial’s likeability, not whether or not it’s a “good” (i.e.: effective) commercial. Let’s ponder a few examples, and then I’ll offer up my own best & worst for your consideration. A commercial that often makes the “worst” lists is the one for that toenail infection product that you can’t remember the name of. I’d argue that it was actually a really good commercial; even if you don’t remember the brand name, I’d bet the next time you have a toenail infection, you’ll look for the product on the shelf. Along the same lines in terms of memorability, but lacking a likely customer conversion, is the this high speed Internet ad from 2007. Several friends mentioned this recently as a memorable ad, but even with only three likely choices, no-one could remember if it was an AT&T, Comcast, or Verizon ad. So if anything, it was only really promoting “high speed Internet”. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Google Parisian Love ad. This one makes a lot of “best of” lists, but in my opinion is utterly ineffective. If you don’t already use Google, it’s probably because you’re loyal to your Yahoo or Bing homepage for whatever reason, and certainly aren’t going to turn around and go digging through your browser settings to change your homepage after seeing the ad. For me all it did was creep me out slightly. I think they should’ve kept going and shown searches for funeral homes with a catchy “Google: Cradle To Grave” pitch. Which highlights the next important factor: quality & impact vs placement. That romantic Google ad was placed in a Superbowl broadcast, of all places, which on the surface makes little sense. Historically, it was fairly easy to argue that placement was as – if not more – important than the quality or instant impact of an ad. With the continuing evolution of new media however, this becomes a much more complicated equation. Given the dynamic and interactive transaction most of us pursue when pondering a purchase, the broader reach and relationship-building of an ad campaign is really more important than the TV commercial itself. To illustrate, below are my two picks for worst and best campaigns to highlight what I’m talking about. First up is this spot for “First Else”: Read the rest of this entry »