So, if you consider the price plus shipping for $.99, you get both films for $13.86 delivered (tax not calculated), then subtract the full price of the ticket (at least in California and New York) you get both movies for $3.36 delivered, and already have your ticket for Ocean’s Thirteen. (If you split $3.36 in half, you arrive at $1.68 each).
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.”
It’s so rare nowadays for a studio to have great confidence in their films. Even the toys are on the market so early that if the movie bombs, they’ve still made some toy moola… Well, the internet has spawned a great new concept… show us a few minutes of a movie, and then go to the theater to see the rest. For me, it works, and I’m looking forward to seeing more ‘advance’ sequences this way.
It’s so much better than watching a whole movie in the trailer. But more on that soon…
This week the Fools dive into the controversy and HOT topic of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and how it will effect your life. There’s LOTS to say about it, but NO ONE has given you the exclusive breakdown the way the Fools do! They will lay out a little history of DRM and if you’ve ever owned a VCR, you’ll relate! Also, the Fools will chop it up on the question–Does the media have the right to disclose personal information about us because some news writer thinks it’s news? And the Fools will look at love–Alec Baldwin style! Don’t miss this show.
In today’s media frenzy world, we’re at a point where many of us want to carry movies, television shows, and even our favorite YouTube clips with us to watch and share with others. We’ve evolved beyond photos and audio alone. We’re on the brink of the portable video revolution, and to answer this call, Apple has announced their long awaited Video iPod. Oh wait! No they haven’t! Instead of releasing the best Video iPod, Apple decided to mix an iPod with a Phone and Internet Communicator. Is this overkill, or the best pairing since chocolate chip cookie dough hit ice cream (arguably the best pairing after chocolate and peanut better got together)? Continuing this ongoing series, this article will examine how the iPhone measures up as only a Video Player. (Since the iPhone has yet to be released, evaluation of screen clarity and quality will not be examined until hands-on experience is available.)
Spider-Man 2.1 is clearly the movie the way that Sam Raimi wanted it to be. Compared to 2.1, 2 has some continuity problems. It’s clear from 2.1 that a better assembly of the film existed before the film had to be shortened prior to it’s original release.
Okay, before going any further, who came up with this 2.1 concept?! Does this mean that there’s going to be a 2.2? 2.3? 2.4?! Will Spider-Man 2 ½ be a story that takes place between the two films? Honestly, 2.1 is a very poor title for this project.
We’re in a time when the ‘Mighty Dollar’ rules the world. Unfortunately it also can ruin the edit of a movie, for financial gain (i. e. Lost World: Jurassic Park). It can either force a film to be shortened to allow for an additional daily showing–or in its worst case–the film can be re-edited just to sell another copy of the film on DVD. Rarely, there’s a pure motivation behind the recut of a film… completing it the way it was originally intended. What a unique concept.
Apple revolutionized the ease of placing your music on your iPod by enabling iTunes to be set to automatically convert your music when you placed a CD in your computers drive. But why not DVDs? The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which made it illegal for you to circumvent protection on a DVD, and duplicate what you already own. Ahh, remember the good old days where protection actually had to be intelligent enough to stop people from circumventing it? Now all it has to be is ‘there.’ You defeat it, you’re breaking the law. But what if you want your favorite movie on your iPod? Well, according to the law, you have to PURCHASE IT AGAIN likely through iTunes, or convert it from an unprotected format (feel like going through the long process of digitizing your old videotapes or laserdiscs, and encoding them?). So, today, you need to go to iTunes, and purchase your favorite movie from a major studio for ANOTHER $10; with quality that doesn’t even compare to a DVD! But wait, with superior hidef quality on the horizon, the byte (pun) may soon be worth the extra money.
Quality:
A basic fact. The higher the resolution, the better the picture quality is. That’s a generally true statement when you accept that the transfer of what you’re watching is of good quality. Historically, an old VHS tape was about 200 lines of resolution, whereas a laserdisc was about 400. The current DVD is at the full quality of the American standard television system of roughly 540 lines. When iTunes first started offering video, the quality was 240 lines; a bit higher than VHS. Now, all videos on iTunes are 480 lines; far better than VHS, and even better than laserdisc, but not DVD. Your DVD is still 11% better in picture quality (not to mention multi-channel sound). So, not only are you buying the same movie over again, but you’re paying for less. Now that’s not too bad when you plan to watch your movie on your iPod’s 320×240 screen, but what about the AppleTV. Apple is pushing a new television commercial that suggests that you should have one copy of a movie on your computer, iPod, and TV (why buy a DVD then?)
Everyone knows that technology right now is pushing our little personal worlds to change on a daily basis. It’s bringing upon us a new way to look at just about everything connected to our senses, expect maybe smell (unless you count the smell that your overly-abused iPod Nano takes on after the many sweaty places it’s been). So here’s a line of thinking that is pretty clear to follow, yet I’ll be the first to brand it. Hmmm, let’s call it the “magic box theory.” As a filmmaker it makes me sad, but I’ll explain:
In the 1950s, there was this ‘magic box’ that seeped its way into just about every household in America. On it, you would get magical moving pictures, news and advertisments of your favorite kitchen appliances and soap powder. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of this ‘magic box’ but trust me when I say, it changed the world. When it did, the movie studios were paranoid as hell and planned a massive counter attack. They created wide screen formats like CinemaScope, VistaVision and Cinerama and launched a primitive 3-D process so as to offer people something they couldn’t get in their living rooms on their brand new 10- and 12-inch black & white screens. And never guess what? It worked. People still kept going to the movies.
So what about now, you ask, when the ‘magic boxes’ turned into ‘magic picture frames’ in the form of 40-60 inch Hi-def plasma screens as the centerpiece of home theater systems fully equiped with digital suround sound? And what about the small screens we can carry in our pockets anywhere and the ability to watch high-quality video on our computers? The answer: digital, theatrical 3-D. And yes, it too is working.
Lucasfilm has just posted at their www.starwars.com website a free PDF that you can print, cut, and fold into your very own R2-D2 mailbox! (Didn’t I say something recently about a marketing opportunity for miniature mailboxes??? Read our previous discussion here…)
It’s your very own origami R2-D2 mailbox! You can either go to their official link here, to read more about it, or…
…save time and directly download your own R2-D2 PDF, click this link. (Note, it’s a two page document, Instructions on page one, R2 on page two.)
Funny… and I thought there was going to be one sold… Maybe that’s still to come. Until then, get your scissors, and enjoy!
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