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This might just be one of the coolest, borderline most Foolish experiences I’ve seen in a long while. For roughly $12,000, you too can eat a gourmet meal hanging anywhere you want.
“Excuse me waiter, my table is a little wobbly…”
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Bottom line–free is free. Okay, I know some of us guard our precious minutes each day like we’re Warren Buffett and we huff and puff while watching ads that run before our favorite web videos, TV shows or online whatever. I’m certainly one of those people and, yes, it gives me great power to rant and sigh as I sit through the commercials. But in the end, I’ll drive and park seven blocks away to avoid paying a $3 valet tab, AND I’ll sit through commercials if I don’t gotta pay one penny. So after five months of private beta testing Hulu has officially launched and I’ll say it here first, it’s going to kick some major bootie.
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God bless The Happy Tree Friends! As reported today by those who know, Moscow has banned this sweet, innocent cartoon from Russia’s delicate soul, sparing millions of citizens pain and suffering. Reason cited: “It’s too violent” said Rossvyazokhrankulutra (government watchdog).
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Yet another reason we Fools have been holding out to get our iPhone (aside from the fact AT&T wireless service sucks in Los Angeles). There’s been plenty of 3G iPhone speculation around the web ever since the iPhone was previewed as a 2G model and Steve Jobs said, at the original iPhone keynote, that a 3G model would come ‘in the future’. Oh, and we ain’t talkin’ about Gigabites for those of us who might be confused at this point. We’re talking about the actual wireless technology (speed/bandwidth) and the difference between a current 2nd Generation (it’s actually at it’s 2.5G stage) and 3rd Generation which will utilize UMTS technology, transmitting roughly up to 2 megabits per second (Mbps) of text, digitized voice, video, and multimedia.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported on AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, publicly saying that a 3G iPhone was due ‘next year’, although he didn’t know when or at what price.
What has been unleashed since is an entirely new wave of 3G iPhone speculation. All we know so far is that Jobs’ only 3G iPhone availability update was when he announced the iPhone would be available in the UK through European telco O2, where he said a 3G iPhone was coming ‘later next year’.
This would seem to indicate a mid-year to second-half availability timeframe for 3G iPhones to be unleashed onto the world, giving Apple enough time to get the necessary FCC authorisations and testing with 3G carriers.
A 3G iPhone would provide users the speed they need to get lightning fast access to the web, email, Google Maps, the iTunes store and any other iPhone app that requires access to the data network.
More…
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A little late out of the gate, let’s just say this podcast has developed a fine bouquet. The Fools will give you a little secret on opening weekend marketing hype and why the studios do what they do to open bad movies in a big way. One such an example is the great lengths Fox went to just to open the new Fantastic Four flick and piss off the U.S. Government at the same time. Also, the Fools will break down the break down of the reality show The Lot. Don’t miss one of the funniest filmmaking stories ever from the set of Knocked Up.
You won’t be disappointed!
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To some extent or another, we all realize that movie trailers can be misleading, and in recent years, pretty much give away an entire film. However, with William Friedkin’s “Bug” from Lions Gate (the king studio of most things horror nowadays), different boundries were crossed — the lowest of lows — complete deception in advertising.
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We fools are game for just about anything Imax ever since watching the Imax film “Flyers” at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC 25 years ago in the first Imax theater in the world. There was nothing like having to turn my head back and forth, as a little tyke, to see everything in a breathtaking experience that was the closest thing to flying like a superhero I could imagine at the time. Since then, Imax films are a big business, bringing the company hundreds of millions of dollars per year as the novelty of the format has a clear, loyal audience (Warners’ “300″ set an attendance record at Imax theaters in its opening weekend in March.) So, without further adieu and if you haven’t heard by now, director Christopher Nolan has made an inventive decision to film four sequences of “The Dark Knight” with Imax cameras. The next installment of Warner Bros. Pictures’ Batman franchise, scheduled for a July 18, 2008, day-and-date theatrical release with Imax theaters. Will mixing up the formats be annoying or friggin’ cool?
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So regardless whether or not it is necessary to show a character smoking in a film as part of a complex, three-dimensional person, filmmakers now might get an R rating as a thank you for smoking.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said Thursday that its rating board will consider film depictions of smoking among the criteria for assigning movie ratings. Anti-tobacco activists have been pressing for an automatic R rating for films with smoking scenes, but MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman rejected the proposal for a more nuanced approach.
“The MPAA film rating system has existed for nearly 40 years as an educational tool for parents to assist them in making decisions about what movies are appropriate for their children,” Glickman said. “It is a system that is designed to evolve alongside modern parental concerns.” In line with that evolution, the MPAA ratings board “will now consider smoking as a factor among many other factors, including violence, sexual situations and language, in the rating of films,” he said.
“Clearly, smoking is increasingly an unacceptable behavior in our society,” Glickman said. “There is broad awareness of smoking as a unique public health concern due to nicotine’s highly addictive nature, and no parent wants their child to take up the habit. The appropriate response of the rating system is to give more information to parents on this issue.”
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Question: What does teflon, Tang and 3-D have in common? Answer: NASA.
A 3-D technology developed to help NASA astronauts practice making repairs in space is set to revolutionize the way people watch movies by 2009, when a wave of live-action 3-D movies hit theaters. Just 18 months ago, “Chicken Little,” the first modern 3-D movie, touched off a sensation among studio executives and theater chain owners who say the crisp, digital images of the new 3-D will drive profits in the next decade. The slate of 3-D films set for 2009 is led by “Titanic” director James Cameron’s “Avatar.” The technology has the backing of Walt Disney Co., which set up a 3-D studio with “Polar Express” director Robert Zemeckis this year, and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., which pledged to release all its films in 3-D in 2009. Nearly every large movie studio and many smaller ones have at least one or two 3-D titles in production, though most release dates have not been announced.
Digital 3-D, pioneered by a Beverly Hills company called Real D, still requires moviegoers to wear geeky glasses, but the left- and right-eye images are calibrated so finely that most viewers experience no headache or eyestrain.
How does 3-D work? Click here to get your own glasses.
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Yesterday at NAB in Las Vegas, Apple announced its new video editing suite, Final Cut Studio 2. As always, the new package of software is a bundle of upgraded previous software that makes life even easier if you are a professional video editor… or amature video editor with extra cash. On one hand, Apple has been bringing great tools to the entertainment world for years, on the other hand, film festival submissions are up by thousands every year with the same number of submissions accepted (In 2007, Sundace received over 6,000 and accepted only 48 films). Outside of the professional world, this clearly indicates that Apple has instilled confidence in just about every Tom, Dick and Jane who at one point in their lives wanted to “get into movies.” Steve Jobs has enabled our creative souls, and yes, a whole lot of movies are being made that will never see the light of day and shouldn’t. This sparks a new conversation that us career content providers in Hollywood have been kibitzing about for years.
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