More HD Nonsense from Apple

March 7th, 2012

So the new iPad is coming out, and it is a lot like the old iPad but with one important exception: it has a sharper, HD picture.

Here’s the thing, does anyone remember when the first iPad came out? What was the overwhelming feedback/compliment about it? How AMAZING AND CLEAR the picture quality was. Go back and look at the reviews of the first iPad and see if any of them complained that the picture wasn’t clear enough? I’ll save you the energy. No one did. All anyone could do was freak out over how AMAZING AND CLEAR the picture is.

But now with the new iPad, we suddenly find out that what we thought was an AMAZING AND CLEAR picture, is in fact a grainy, barely readable, piece of shit, because the new iPad has an AMAZING AND CLEAR HD picture.

I have no doubt that if you held Ipad3 next to iPad1, the picture quality on 3 would look a lot better. But that’s not the issue. The issue is, all we’re doing is making screens with better picture quality for its own sake. There is no actual consumer demand for this. So when a new screen comes out, all that’s accomplished is it makes the old screen look like crap.

As I’ve said many times: HDTV doesn’t make TV better, it makes non-HDTV worse. And the same applies with computer screens.

Which is, of course, the whole point. How else to get people to trade-in their antique iPads from 2010?

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No one watches the Super Bowl for the ads

February 6th, 2012

Is there any lie more pernicious than the “people watch the Super Bowl for the ads” lie? It is not now, nor has ever been true. (If people loved watching funny ads than World’s Best TV Commercials would air on NBC Primetime rather than on TruTV on Tuesday afternoon).

But, people have been telling this lie for so long that everyone believes it, which is why it is always amusing the day after the Super Bowl to read the VERY SAME STORY where people are mostly disappointed with “this years” Super Bowl ads, comparing them against some mythical time when they enjoyed the Super Bowl ads.

Here is the thing: you never enjoyed the Super Bowl ads. There might have been a few funny ones here and there (though I doubt you remember what brand they were for: hearding cats anyone?), but overall, you have never enjoyed Super Bowl ads for a very simple reason: You don’t enjoy ads.

Look, if it was easy to make ads you enjoy, advertisers would do it all year round. You don’t have to drop $3.5million on an a Super Bowl spot to make a funny ad.  But the problem is, ads are held to a standard other than entertaining you. They are designed to sell stuff, so the entertaining bit is always secondary. Even when people are trying to entertain you for no other reason than to entertain you, they mostly fail (see TV midseason replacements).  So to entertain you AND sell a product or service is nearly impossible.

So please repeat after me: You do not like the Super Bowl ads. You have never liked the Super Bowl ads. And next year, when the Super Bowl airs, if you don’t want to watch the game, just watch this instead. Guaranteed to be better than any Budweiser ad.

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Update: One exception is the Bud Bowl. That actually was awesome (too bad it didn’t sell any beer).

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Ferris Bueller ad reminds everyone why advertising doesn’t really work

February 1st, 2012

Lots of talk about the Honda Ferris Bueller ad, in which Matthew Broderick reprises his role as Ferris to sell cars.

The ad itself is fine. Some of it’s funny. Some of it is uninspired. Matthew Broderick definitely doesn’t seem to be having much fun throughout. It’s a little weird because the premise is he’s playing hooky from coming into work. What work? Hasn’t he been playing hooky for like the last 10 years?

Also, this is one of those tricks you only get to play once, so it’s kind of a shame it had to be in a commerical for a rather boring car.

Speaking of which, in all the debate over whether this ad is good or a travesty, what I don’t hear people talking about is the car. I have seen the spot several times and I still can’t remember the name of it. I think it’s like an SUV like thing? I don’t know. I don’t know any of its features or any of the things it does. Sometimes I think it was a Toyota until I remember Toyota only makes boring ads that sell cars.

But why worry about a little thing like working? If advertising were held to that standard, all of us who make a living at it would be taking many, many days off.

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Maybe I should read the book

January 13th, 2012

American version

I’ve never read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books, but I have seen both the Swedish and American film adaptations.  Both are pretty good. And while each has some differences, they are very, very similar. Okay, that makes sense–they are adapted from the same material.

Swedish version. Like the American version, but with a few more subtitles.

But I mean, even when you are working off the same source materials, there are certain details you think would be different. Like how the two leads have sex. Not that they have sex (that’s obviously in the book), but how. As in the very specific positions and facial expressions and gyrations that are used during sex. I guess the books must be pretty graphic in this regard, because the sex in each movie is exactly the same, from the speed of intercourse to the positions used to the way the woman orgasms.

It just seems odd. You have two filmmakers, working independently, given a scene of two people having sex and they decide they are going to recreate that for the screen in exactly the same way.

And then what else is odd is that I hear people talking about how the books (predictably) don’t follow the plot of the book. But they follow the plot of each other.

Which really leads to my main question: was the American version an adoptation of the book, or the Swedish version of the film?

I understand that screenwriter Steve Zallian and director David Fincher (claim they) never saw the Swedish version prior to making their version, but obviously people around them did. I can just imagine all these people offering Fincher suggestions on how to shoot certain scenes that are essentially copied from the Swedish film and Fincher, having never seen the Swedish version thinking,  ”Yeah, great idea. Let’s have her get on top of him and gyrate violently for thirty seconds, cum, then role off him. Genius take on the material.”  And then of course, the inevitable moment when Zallian or Fincher watch the Swedish version and realize they basically just did a shot-for-shot remake of a movie that was made two years ago.

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TV Fail: How could they not know

January 5th, 2012

It’s really easy to look at a finished TV show (or film or whatever) and say, “How did this crap get made?” Truth is, the process is pretty complicated and sometimes good ideas get watered down or there are conflicting directions or political pressures that take promising projects and turn them into stinkers. And sometimes that piece of crap was designed to be a piece of crap because someone knew it would be a really profitable piece of crap (I’m talking to you Scary Movie VII).

All that said, I cannot see how, on what universe, in what parallel world people thought that Work It, a comedy that looks like a D-rate Bosom Buddies would be popular.  I mean, is there any evidence anywhere that suggests people still think men dressing up as women is funny? Haven’t we had plenty of evidence–recent evidence in fact–suggesting just the opposite? That as a “joke” a man dressed as a woman fall somewhere between a pie-in-the-face and calling someone a fag. Meaning, it’s dated at best, out-of-touch at worst.

It must be terrible to be one of the people associated with a show like this. You want so badly for it to be a success but you must know (and I’m talking about the writers, actors etc.) in your heart of hearts that there is NO WAY it can be successful. Even if you are talented at what you do, this concept cannot work. Woody Allen in his prime couldn’t make it funny.

The good news is, this makes me all the more optimistic that my TV Pilot about a white kid who dresses in black-face to take advantage of a company run by former Black Panthers will find a home. Because even midseason replacements need replacements.

 

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Man who invented rainbows dies

December 22nd, 2011

Oh Beloved Leader, we hardly knew ye.

When an important political figure dies, as Glen Greenwald explains here, we tend to see it as an opportunity to “put politics aside” and pay our “respects” (which means say only nice things about how great they were. This was true of Regan, Nixon and others. It should also be true for the Beloved Leader, Kim-Jong-Il, who passed away this week.

Kim Jong Il was an important political figure and a unique personality.  Some of his political decisions may have been controversial (like starving his own people, holding the world hostage with threats of nuclear war, and generally making North Korea a pit of human misery), but now is not the time to dwell on them. Instead, we should remember the positives: his invention of rainbows and how he helped Korea win WWI with his bravery and cunning. Also his amazing hair.  You will be missed beloved leader, if not by people per se, then at least by exporters of high-end cognac, which he enjoyed squandering his nation’s scarce resources on.

 

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Traffic

December 16th, 2011

Yet another Busy C blip.

 

Traffic from BUSY C on Vimeo.

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Top 5 Careers for the New Economy

December 12th, 2011

5.  Food truck owner / operator.  Competition might be stiff in hipster cities but soon people across the U.S. will realize that sitting comfortably indoors while eating really takes away from the flavor.

4.  Statistician.  I just heard a statistic that consumers have not felt this bad about the economy since the 2009 recession.  I don’t know who is doing this research but mind blowing data like this is out there for all to discover.

3.  Protestor.  As long as you are okay with a pay cut / life style change.

2.  Special education teachers.  This is still an area which tends to have openings, particularly in middle and high school levels.

1.  Compiler of “top lists” .  Send resume to yahoo.

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Robots hate us.

December 1st, 2011

I’ve been saying for a long time that robots hate us. They hate us because we have human emotions and that drives their cold, heartless robot bodies crazy.  But apparently, I am not the only one to fear and despise robots. As far back as 1932, people were warning about robot shiftiness.

Which brings up an interesting related point. Remember that game Gyromite for the Nintendo with the robot? Did anyone ever successfully get that game to work? All my stupid Nintendo Robot would do was shake back and forth like he was trying to swing a hula hoop around his robot waist.

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This blog is like a rowing machine

November 16th, 2011

The one you bought because you thought it would be a fun, easy way to get exercise, but now it just sits in the corner of your bedroom filling you with guilt every time you look at it. That’s at least what writing this blog is like for me.

The other similarity is writing this blog has given me amazing triceps.

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