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Why we shouldn’t pay that much attention to the box office gross. “Ticket sales from theaters provided 100 percent of the studios’ revenues in 1948; in 2003, they accounted for less than 20 percent.” And he doesn’t even mention inflation…Gone With the Wind is still the highest grossing film in history when you adjust for inflation.
Anthony Lane slams Revenge of the Sith in the New Yorker this week. “The general opinion of ‘Revenge of the Sith’ seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, ‘The Phantom Menace’ and ‘Attack of the Clones’. True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.” Ouch.
The NY Times is keeping a Cannes Film Festival weblog.
Trailer for Rize, David LaChapelle’s film about krump dancing.
There’s a rumor that Blockbuster may stop offering online rentals. The folks at Netflix must be beside themselves with glee.
Microsoft is sponsoring a short film contest called Thought Thieves about intellectual property theft. And the entry form states: “I will formally license on terms acceptable to Microsoft, all intellectual property rights in my film and agree to waive all moral rights in relation to my film if requested to do so”. Heh.
Free movies in NYC’s Bryant Park all summer; here’s the schedule. Ooh, Touch of Evil.
Pixar’s profits tripled since last year. And it sounds like a Disney reconciliation might happen as well.
Great rant about George Lucas and Star Wars. Warning, some spoilers for Revenge of the Sith in the last few paragraphs.
Michael Moore made himself and Disney lots of money by stirring up controversy for Fahrenheit 9/11. I’m confused though…where’s the link between Disney and Fellowship Adventure Group? Surely the Weinstein’s didn’t purchase the film from Disney for the $78 million? How did Disney get that money back?
100 people who are qualified to carry the “Bad Mothafucka” wallet besides Pulp Fiction’s Jules Winfield. The list includes Cartman, Hemingway, Bruce Lee, Lt. Uhura, Mercutio, and Emma Peel.
Ridiculously comprehensive movie genre primers from GreenCine. If you’ve ever wanted to know what French New Wave films to watch or what “Hammer Horror” movies are, this is the resource for you.
Terry Gross interviews The Incredibles director Brad Bird on NPR. “So, what does the director of an animated film actually do?”
Henry Blodget goes DVD shopping in Shanghai at a fake restaurant. That reminds me, I should write up my Beijing CD-ROM shopping experience sometime.
Sofia Coppola’s next movie will be a Marie Antoinette bio-pic.
I’ve got a new idea for a web site. Actually, it’s really a variation on an old theme, but it won’t be a part of 0sil8. I’m going to become one of those people with multiple concurrently updated personal web projects.
I also started working on a new episode of 0sil8 last night. Unfortunately, I didn’t get too far before I scrapped the whole idea. I’ve never done that before. Usually, I muddle through until something halfway decent pops out. Not this time. The question is: am I getting smarter about choosing projects or just impatient and lazy?
Have you heard about Tom Hanks’ and Meg Ryan’s new movie, “You’ve Got Mail”? It’s just like Tom Hanks’ and Meg Ryan’s old movie, “Sleepless in Seattle”. Except with computers. They should have just called it “Sleepless in Cyberspace”.
No wonder people think physics and math are so hard. Consider the following from Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne, a book I’m currently reading:
(pg. 463) Topology is a branch of mathematics that deals with the qualitative ways in which things are connected to each other or to themselves. For example, a coffee cup and a doughnut “have the same topology” because (if they are both made from putty) we can smoothly and continuously deform one into the other without tearing it, that is, without changing any connections.
Thus, we are forced to conclude that doughnuts and coffee cups are made out of putty. Aren’t we?
I got my first cease and desist letter today. Sort of. Here’s the letter:
Jason,
I am contacting you to let you know that the site:
http://www.0sil8.com/episodes/98/05/06/index2.html
is in violation of logo usage and copyright infringement and you could face legal litigation if the usage continues.
Thank you,
Matthew Barnes
Senior Multimedia Designer
This letter is really strange for two reasons:
a) It’s not from a lawyer. It’s from the “Senior Multimedia Designer” from a company called Rossroy Interactive. I guess this guy is cheaper than a lawyer. Of course, the lawyer might have realized that the Apple Dodge Neon page is a parody of both the Dodge Neon and the Apple iMac and is therefore probably protected under copyright laws.
b) It’s unclear what is wrong with the page. Is it the Dodge logo or the Apple one? I did some checking and Rossroy Interactive is in Michigan…making it a good bet that the Dodge logo is the one in question. It might have been nice of them to mention that.
Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be taking the page down right now. I’ve got a couple letters to write and some legal codes to pore over.
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