January 27, 2012 at 9:42pm
I loved Daytrippers, so I was eager to watch Greg Mottola’s Adventureland. Beautiful film. Good structure, great cast, fab soundtrack. But what blew me away was Anne McCabe’s cut of the film. It’s rhythm is so damn perfect and there isn’t a wasted frame. What a talent. IMDB’d her to find that she also cut Maria Full of Grace and You Can Count on Me, two other films I admire.
12:15pm
Love me now or forget me later
Warner Brothers, struggling to hold onto diminishing DVD sales, has opted to cripple Netflix users who actually want to watch their films. Venturebeat reports:
Warner Brothers is now imposing additional stipulations for its DVD movie new releases. Starting Feb. 1, the company has decided to restrict Netflix users from adding any new DVD releases to their queue until 28 days after the DVD goes on sale in retail stores.
The delays and queue restrictions are part of an overall effort by Warner Brothers to boost its ailing DVD sales. The company thinks that by lengthening the time it takes for a movie to reach other platforms, it will increase demand for the DVD, and in turn make more money.
Flawless plan. Consumers have shown a strong willingness to care about release windows and follow the lead of studio marketers.
Not allowing Netflix users to conveniently wait out the delayed availability of new DVDs fits within Warner Brothers new strategy. The company clearly wants consumers to feel the inconvenience and discomfort of not being able to watch these newly released movies immediately because it makes the option of buying the DVD much more attractive.
Replace the word “strategy” with “jackassery” and this all makes much more sense.
January 25, 2012 at 1:25pm
It doesn’t end well.
Amazon is now licensing their books to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for real-world penetration and to work around B&N’s “we won’t sell this unless you do that” stipulation.
Watching this ongoing relationship between New York and Seattle reminded me of the relationship between John Hurt (pictured, on table) and what is about to emerge from his sad, infested body.
A decade ago, publishers thought Amazon was a toy. Turns out toys grow into something not entirely playful.
January 24, 2012 at 1:23pm
THR:
Allen had McAdams in mind for the role of Gil’s demanding fiancee when writing the screenplay, selling her the part by telling her: “You don’t want to go your whole life playing these beautiful girls. You want to play some bitchy parts. It’s much more interesting for you.”
What actor in the last 20 years has needed to be “sold” to be in a Woody Allen film?
January 21, 2012 at 8:12pm
Empire.
Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher dig into Apple’s supply chain:
Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.
In China, it took 15 days.
Staggering.
3:18pm
“The single most important thing about Danah is that she’s the first anthropologist we’ve got who comes from the tribe she’s studying.”
-Clay Shirky in the Times on Danah Boyd.
1:10pm
Stop watching.
Marco Arment thinks we can beat the MPAA by not watching their member’s films:
Even if we don’t watch their movies in a theater or buy their plastic discs of hostility, we’re still supporting them. If we watch their movies on Netflix or other flat-rate streaming or rental services, the service effectively pays them on our behalf next time they negotiate the rights or buy another disc. And if we pirate their movies, we’re contributing to the statistics that help them convince Congress that these destructive laws are necessary.
So maybe, instead of waiting for the MPAA’s next law and changing our Twitter avatars for a few days in protest, it would be more productive to significantly reduce or eliminate our support of the MPAA member companies.
In principle—great idea. In practice? Well, here’s a test. Lean over to your girlfriend or husband tonight and tell them to turn off 30 Rock. Or Harry Potter. Or the million other filmed stories they watch. When they ask why, tell them it will help avoid shutting down the internet.
How’d that work for you?
That’s the effectiveness of using consumer purchasing to stop the MPAA.
The alternatives? Campaign finance reform. Play the game. Collaboration.
Or, just kill them.
January 20, 2012 at 9:16pm
Drown the drowner.
Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline. But this is not an ordinary industry. The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise.
That’s Paul Graham’s call-to-arms on the day that SOPA was rubbed out.
When I was 14 I learned about being a life guard. I vividly recall the warning that drowners often drown the people who try to save them. They’re a mess of panic and adrenaline and will do anything to survive—even if that means killing those around them.
Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka photographed by Matthew Kristall for Out Magazine, January 18th, 2012
I’d also like to call him my husband. I’m not the biggest fan of the word “partner”: It either means that we run a business together or we’re cowboys. “Boyfriend” seems fleeting, like maybe we met two weeks ago. I’ve been saying “better half” for as long as I’ve been able to. I think it’s a little self-deprecating and clearly defines that we’re in a relationship, but it would be nice to say “my husband.”
(via suicideblonde)
January 15, 2012 at 11:30pm
Vanessa Paradis with her hubby. Have you seen her in Heartbreaker? She’s pitch-perect, as is the rest of the cast.
January 14, 2012 at 9:16pm
We cannot expand our self, and our collective self, without making holes in our heart. We are stretching our boundaries, and stretching the small container that holds our identity. Of course there will be rips and tears. Late-nite informercials, and cavernous CES halls of unsellable gizmos, are hardly uplifting techniques, but the path to our enlargement is very prosaic, humdrum, and everyday. The only real progress that sticks is boring.
— The Technium: Making Holes in Our Heart
8:37pm
I schlep, therefore I am.
Paul Graham of YCombinator writing about founders who don’t shrink from the tedious or unpleasant aspects of the business:
A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. And schleps should be dealt with the same way you’d deal with a cold swimming pool: just jump in. Which is not to say you should seek out unpleasant work per se, but that you should never shrink from it if it’s on the path to something great.
This reminds me of one of the best comments Kaye said while we were thinking about a big/fat/scary part of the business. I fretted about not knowing how to do something, to which she replied:
Of course you do. You just jump in. You know how to do that.
Youth, stupidity, naiveté—these are important tools in a startup (and a marriage, for that matter.) You don’t shrink from things you don’t know about. You just deal with them as they occur.
This is why I love Steward Brand’s “stay hungry, stay foolish.” You fail when you think you know everything or won’t do anything.
January 13, 2012 at 9:03pm
Charlie has taken ownership of the chocolate factory!
— Tim Cook speaks! | brian s hall
January 10, 2012 at 9:35pm
The word “power” splinters into several definitions when I see this shot. Photographed by Mark Seliger for Vanity Fair.
3:47pm
Under the guise of launching a Facebook clone, Google has actually embarked on a major plan to improve search relevance AND shift its revenue mix to the much more profitable first-party ads. It’s an amazing coup.
— Google Plus Is Going To Change How The Web Works
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