“Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do so others won’t know we want to do them.”
— The Village by M. Night Shyamalan
Category Archives: Film & TV
Documentary films: Super Size Me, The Smartest Guys in the Room
Watched two documentary films in the last few days. Super Size Me and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. I was very disturbed by both of these films. Gonna be a long time before I eat another Big Mac (or Sonic Coney, for that matter). My take-away from Enron? Our country is hopelessly corrupt and greedy. And maybe…just maybe… we do not live in the best country in the world. (Gasp!) Don’t bother looking for the Comments link. I’m not in the mood to listen to a bunch of “patriotic” horse shit. If you have something to say, start your own blog.
Current TV
I finally got a taste of current TV tonight (DirecTV 366). I say “finally” because I’ve heard about the channel but never bothered to find it and take a look. I thought it was interesting, fresh. If you’re not familiar with the idea behind the channel:
“We slice our schedule into short segments that we call “pods” — each just a few minutes long. And much of it comes straight from you. We call it viewer-created content, or VC2. Right now, VC2 makes up about a third of our channel — and that share is growing. Anyone who wants to contribute can upload a video. Then, everyone in the Current online community votes for what should be on TV.”
It was sort of like 60 Minutes for people under the age of 70. Very sharp graphics. And they include a little status bar near the bottom of the screen to let you know where you are in the segment. Nicely integrated with their website. I’ll be going back for another taste.
Isn’t that the guy from…?
While watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the ____ time, it dawned on me that the actor playing Mr. Rooney, the school counselor (Jeffrey Jones), is the newspaper publisher on Deadwood. And, yes, I am aware that I’m the only person on the planet that had not already made that connection.
Randy comments: “Good actor, bad man.” [Smoking Gun]
Altman films “A Prairie Home Companion”
“It is an imagined last show and so it’s in the context of being taken over by a radio conglomerate, which is happening to a lot of radio shows at home.” Written by Garrison Keillor and starring Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and Lily Tomlin. [Reuters story]
I always liked the Wolfman Jack scenes from American Graffiti. Something about being on the air, alone in a radio station at night. Something we’ll never experience with podcasting. That real-time connection with listeners in the middle of the night. Sigh.