It’s episode #125 of Scattercast … wow, the holidays kill news?
No news really …
I really like Christmas, and I think I may have the Christmas spirit for once ..
Give up on 3D already!
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There’s no stopping Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at this point, so you might as well get used to the idea that on May 20th, 2011, it’s hitting theaters.
The fourth film in the series sees Capt. Sparrow (Johnny Depp) racing towards the Fountain of Youth with Capt. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Blackbeard (Ian McShane) trying to beat him to it. Penélope Cruz also joins the cast as Blackbeard’s daughter, Angelica, a rumored love interest for Sparrow.
Despite questions if this movie should even be made, I have to say these images are getting me excited for another journey with Capt. Jack and crew.
Click the images for larger views.
Capt. Sparrow and Angelica
Capt. Jack, captured again
Angelica, Capt. Jack and Blackbeard
Capt. Jack and his tiny boat
Capt. Jack … being Capt. Jack
Capt. Jack … being Capt. Jack … again
Have you given any thought to why every movie is being put into 3D? Think about it for a minute. I’ll wait.
If you answered, “because it is an artistic choice that enhances the movie”, you just failed the class and I will be holding you back a year. If you answered, “because they can charge more for the same ticket, and in this time of declining theater attendance every penny helps”, you would be right and you get a gold star.
Nov. 2010 box office hit $897 million domestically, a drop of nearly ten percent from Nov. 2009′s $995 million. Estimated attendance was 106 million, edging out 2007 for the title of worst Nov. in the past 15-years.
The problem is that Nov. was the fourth month in a row where attendance dipped below the same time last year, but yet the overall box office through Nov. 30th was $9.68 billion compared to 2009′s $9.53 billion.
Do the math, how is this possible? How is attendance down, yet revenues are up? Yes, ticket prices overall inch higher and higher, but think about the premium price being put on 3D films. Suddenly the extra money makes sense. Instead of being concerned with quality, Hollywood has found another way to up its revenues with a gimmick. That is exactly what 3D is, and we are being forced into paying for it because that is the only way some films are released. I really want to see Tron Legacy this month, but due to my eyesight problems I know I’m in for a headache if I do go see it in 3D. I’d see it in 2D in a heartbeat, and I hear some theaters will have it that way, but only having one theater in town pretty much guarantees it’ll be in 3D … with a higher ticket price.
Consumers will eventually tire of the 3D shtick, and then Hollywood will find itself back to facing empty theater seats. Perhaps then they will concern themselves with quality over shiny gimmicks?
About five years ago I wrote a post about how stripped down DVDs really tick me off. Some of the examples I pointed to was how Northern Exposure and Quantum Leap seasons had been released without their original music, both shows that relied heavily on songs to set the tone, because studios didn’t want to pay for the music rights. Well … the music rights problem is just getting worse.
From 2006 to 2009, Broadway Video released a season of Saturday Night Live a year, except for 2008 which had two releases. Every December you could count on another season of the show popping up, and for me they were coming out at just the right pace so as they didn’t break the bank. The first five seasons were my priority because they had the strongest writing, but I planned to continue as I am a life-long fan of the show, even in the terrible seasons (even the horrible Julia Louis-Dreyfus seasons of 1982 to 1985). However, there is no season six coming out this year, so I looked around for some info.
… stupid music rights.
It appears that the cost of including the musical performances in each season has just gotten to where Broadway Video can no longer afford to release them. Series producer Lorne Michaels feels that the music is as important as the sketches, and I can’t say I disagree, so it was decided to bring the season sets to and end.
While this saddens me won’t get to the prime Eddie Murphy years, or the always fabulous Phil Hartman/Jan Hooks sketches, I tip my hat to Broadway Video for sticking to its guns of releasing the shows in their complete form. Many other shows have just passed over the music to get something out of it, and this has left consumers with inferior products.
I’ve also been waiting on the third season of Third Watch, and it apparently is also being held up as the studio tries to work out music licensing issues.
My question is why music companies want so much for their music? Unfortunately these shows were all around before DVD sets really took off, so home video releases weren’t covered in the original licensing. Now, instead of getting at least something for the music, it appears record labels are asking for more than they would if it had been settled at the outset, so everyone loses due to good old greed. You either get a product that is not in its original form, so the record labels lose, or you get no product at all and that causes the video companies, the record labels and the consumers to all lose.
I’m not saying that the music labels should just give their work away, but at least take a reduced rate. The argument could be made on the Saturday Night Live sets that people are buying it for the music because there have been some famous performances (Simon & Garfunkel reuniting, Elvis Costello changing songs after his ban had already started), but do you think anyone is picking up Third Watch for the music? No, they aren’t. So, instead of getting at least something for the music, the companies want the full boat and everyone loses.
Wake up record labels, you can have a dollar, or you can have nothing. It’s your call.
The first season of The Walking Dead has come to a close, and … how is this show getting such high ratings?
[Spoiler warning from here on out]
As I said before, the show was diverging wildly from the comic book, and since that time I decided to watch it just as a TV show … and that didn’t help much. So, going to a hybrid of comic book differences/judging it as a TV show, how did it do?
Robert Kirkman, creator of the comic and Executive Producer of the TV series, has stated time and time again we wouldn’t know what caused the plague, but yet we got more answers in episode six than we have in the entire comic. We also learned that the zombies are worldwide, another thing we haven’t learned in the comic series. Mr. Kirkman told TV Guide that he approved of the changes, and that we’ll never know the whole story, but he liked what was teased. Why he felt the need for this is beyond me, but it’s his to do with as he pleases.
The biggest problem I have with the changes plays somewhat into the TV problems also, but characters have had their entire personalities changed. In the comic, Rick had leadership thrust upon him, and he constantly fights with his need to be a good leader and the fact he really doesn’t want to be. In the TV series he just seems to be taking it on and not questioning it at all.
Andrea, my favorite character in the comic, seems whinier and just not nearly as interesting. They also seem to have aged her somewhat which greatly changes some of her motivations and reactions.
The visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta pretty much told me will never see the lengthy prison story arc as it borrowed ideas from that section. (specifically the quick conversation about all of the books) I understand that this show is going to interject its own take on the overall story, but cutting the prison is like removing the middle section of a book. Perhaps things will happen at a different location, but the location was almost like a character for a bit of the series, and I’m not sure how they’ll get around this. (Plus, if they want to bring in the Woodbury crew, they have to put Rick’s crew in a desirable location)
Kirkman explained to TV Guide:
Nothing in the show is going to go down exactly the same way it does in the comic
[...]
One thing that’s very important to me is that no one comes into this television show having read the comic knowing exactly what’s going to happen. We’re always going to change things up and keep people guessing.
Fine, it’s your creation, but remember the comic is what drew us into the show. Changing everything, especially motivations, makes it a lot less desirable to watch.
Shall I go into Shane/Lori? No, I won’t bother because it would be an entire essay on how badly you’ve changed these characters. I never liked Lori in the comic, and I like her even less in the TV series … thanks for that.
The zombies in the comic can’t run or climb, and you know what? They’re more frightening than the ones in the TV series that can do all that.
The TV show is doing a great disservice to its viewing audience by assuming they need everything spelled out for them. In the comic book we never met Carol’s abusive husband, and there was no need to meet him in the series. Talk about the abuse all you want, but seeing him being a jerk served no purpose but to take up time.
On the flip side, you drop in things and don’t explain why they leave. You added the gang controlled retirement home, which I did actually find intriguing, and after Rick made peace with the leader, it just goes away. Rick’s crew needs a new home with the destruction of the CDC, will these two bands join up now? Sure that may be a season two plot point, but I doubt it since that discussion should have happened as soon as they made peace, and definitely before Rick got the idea to head to the CDC. It was a fairly secure building, and with even more survivors it would have been even more secure.
You are also guilty of building tension and then giving us no pay back for it. Go back to episode two and the whole sewer system bit. Why was that there? Nothing happened … nada … zip … zero. Oh, wait, there was a zombie on the other side of a gate they couldn’t get through any way. One or the other would have been fine, but both just felt like you were saying, “Oh, we haven’t shown you a zombie for a bit, here ya go, have one.”
Then you did the unforgivable in the finale … the ear whisper. As soon as I saw Dr. Jenner whispering in Rick’s ear, I wanted to throw a shoe at the TV.
Talk about a forced tactic to bring viewers back and to try to create buzz. “Oh man, what do you think Jenner said?!? Did you see Rick’s face?!?” Just … stop. For the love of the audience, just stop. You aren’t Lost, we don’t need a bunch of mysteries. (“Where’s Merle?” “What did Jenner say?”) You hooked us, we’re coming back, just tell a good story, don’t force stereotypes down our throats (please leave Merle wherever he is), don’t try going the mystery route, just tell us a decent story about humanity.
If the rumors about Charlie Sheen are true … screw you and your show.
Personally, I can’t decide. Vacillating between anger over changes to the comic and the audience being treated like third graders, I kept coming back, but it was with less enthusiasm each week. The season finale set ratings records, so I’m obviously in the minority, but please, you can still save this show, just fix it.
What do you do if you’re a network that’s about to lose a comic book-based series that has had ten successful series for you? Do you spin off one of the existing characters in the series, which there have been many? Do you find another well known character from the same comic book company? Or do you go for a self-loathing character who is filled with angst that hardly anyone knows of?
Yeah, number three wouldn’t be my first choice either, but, then again, I don’t work for The CW.
As most people have heard, Smallville is (finally) leaving the air this season with its tenth season. The CW apparently really wants another comic book-based series to replace it, but instead of spinning off one of the umpteen other super heroes they’ve introduced on the show, they are instead opting for a character that barely anyone has heard of.
Raven is a half-demon girl who, in the comics at least, formed The New Teen Titans back in the 1980s to help her fight off her demon father, Trigon. She is an empath, teleporter and a witch who has fought giving herself over completely to her dark side for as long as the character has existed. This has mad her a favorite of goth kids for years, but she has never really been a “mainstream” character in the DC Universe.
She did appear in the Teen Titans cartoon on Cartoon Network, but even there she had some minor changes made to her, but they did keep the demon father.
While I’ve always found her an intriguing character, I’ve only ever been able to handle her in small doses because her introspection and “what am I?” monologues did tend to get on your nerves after a while.
This is a character that has worked best in a team setting. With the other Titans to play off of, she makes sense, bt there is little to no chance of the others showing up. Robin? No way due to the Batman films. Starfire? an orange alien princess showing up? Once in a while, maybe. Cyborg? Maybe since he’s been on Smallville. Beast Boy? An all green guy who changes into animals? Again, maybe once in a while.
The idea of this character working in a weekly hour-long drama just boggles my mind. I would imagine she was chosen for the aspect that they can market her to the Twilight/Vampire Diaries type fans. My suspicion is they will make her into a high school student and give her some dreamy boy for her to get feelings for that she can never be with because “he will never accept her if he knew the truth …”.
In other words, it’s only going to kinda-sorta be Raven as we knew her. Just like The CW with the painful Smallville.
So far only one script has been ordered, but something tell me we’ll be seeing this on our TVs in the not too distant future, and like all shows currently on The CW, the pain will begin.
A total of 37 published this week.
Whenever I see governments getting into “Nanny State” mode, it gets under my skin. Whether it be banning Happy Meal toys, or putting a tax on slicing a bagel, it’s just silly, and something they shouldn’t be involved in. That being said, the latest move by the federal government may be the most asinine example I’ve seen yet.
New legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress this week that is now on its way to President Obama for his signature, and he is definitely expected to sign it as it is something the First Lady, Michelle Obama, has fought for. Once signed, the Dept. of Agriculture will have one year to come up with new guidelines for school lunches, what is sold in vending machines on school property … and regulate how often bake sales can be held.
Yes, the U.S. government has decided it’s time to take down that staple of school fund raising, the bake sale.
All of this is being done in an effort to fight childhood obesity, which I agree is a growing concern in the United States, but is it something that actually needed to go to the level of federal legislation? While changing to leaner meat for school cafeteria hamburgers, and removing the worst foods out of school vending machines, are good ideas on the surface, it is not something the cash-strapped federal government should be concerning itself with.
The bake sale aspect is the part that really got me going. Sadly, the best source for this story is a report from The Associated Press, which I dare not quote because they will actually send a bill out to bloggers based on the number of words you quote. (apparently the AP has never heard of “fair use“.) It boils down to that items from a bake sale will no longer be allowed to be sold in the cafeteria, vending machines and limits will be put on the frequency of the use of baked goods in fundraisers.
Exact wording of the bill actually gives a presidential administration the right to ban bake sales altogether, but there have been indications that won’t be happening (for now).
As a former “band kid” that was around when we had to buy several hundred new uniforms, I can tell you that if it wasn’t for bake sales, we would have been sunk. The government is saying there are other means of raising funds out there, and it’s time to move away from the bake sale. What exactly would that be? Tell me another activity where a parent can donate their time to make something that is relatively cheap, donate it and then the people raising funds can sell it for what amounts to a silly amount of money. I’ll be waiting for your answer, but I won’t be holding my breath.
I can get behind fighting childhood obesity, it is a problem in this country, and I won’t even try to say differently, but this is not something the government needs to be involved in. Even setting aside the expenses to come up with these new rules, implementing, the costs of informing schools and so on, this is not the sort of activity the government needs to be involved in at all. These are local matters, and state government at best, and even then I feel like I’m being generous. Those two examples I gave at the outset of this article was local and state issues respectively, these sorts of matters never need to rise to the level of federal legislation … ever. This is not what the federal level is for, and it is over reaching at its finest.
Without having read the legislation myself, I wonder if they covered the very first loophole I thought of: “FREE Brownies … With $2 Donation”. Somehow I doubt it.
The U.S. government has much larger issues to deal with, and the idea that it is wasting valuable time, money and resources on fundraising bake sales is just simply appalling to me. If they want to make suggestions, that’s one thing, but to pass actual legislation? Are you out of your ever loving minds?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go meet a man in a trenchcoat out in the parking lot to buy some black market bake sale goods.
It’s episode #124 of Scattercast … new life?
Some thoughts this week on …
Getting ready for CES
The new life found that thrives on arsenic
World Cup 2018 an 2022
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Qatar’s World Cup stadiums
I am not nearly as up on current music as I once was, but when I saw Justin Bieber nominated for multiple Grammys … well, I had to chime in.
Are people in the music industry smoking crack? Oh, wait, I know, they’re trying to make the Grammys actually seem relevant and draw in young viewers to the telecast by nominating a talentless teenage twit. My bad.
That would also explain how Lady Gaga got so many nominations for an album that is essentially a re-release with a couple new songs thrown on to it. Wooo.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good nominations on there such as Florence and the Machine getting a nod for Best New Artist, but since she’s up against Bieber, who knows what will happen.
I have no delusions that the music industry hasn’t done this before, but this is absolutely insane that a kid with no talent other than a high pitched voice can be nominated for such a prestigious award. So, congratulations to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for driving another nail in the coffin of their relevance.
For those that want to see all of the nominations, they’re below the jump.
NaOnka and Kelly S. (AKA Purple Kelly) both quit Survivor: Nicaragua tonight. Could someone please explain to me the thinking of people like this?
While I have given up my constant reality TV recaps of years ago, every once in a while something happens that just makes me comment, and this is one of those times.
There are people who would do anything to be on this show, or similar ones, and to see two people who get so close to the end of the show just up and quit. This was day 28 of the season, and this season will run 39 days, it just makes me wonder how someone couldn’t finish this. Yes, if you got injured in some way, that is one thing, but to just say, “I quit”? Wow.
Then, to top it all off, NaOnka doesn’t step up to sacrifice her reward for the good of the tribe even after she declared she was quitting. Instead Holly, a swim coach, stepped up and probably propelled herself to being the favorite Survivor of the season.
It is just beyond me how someone can quit something they’ve started. You begin something, you’re making a commitment and you carry it out. Period. While I have never been a Survivor setting, i have put myself through physical activities I am not used to because people were counting on me, to the point that I once collapsed to my knees outside my hotel room in Tokyo and crawled in to my room on all fours and peeled off a shirt that probably had three pounds of sweat in it. You know what? The next day I was out in 96 degree heat with 96 percent humidity because that’s what my commitment required of me.
So, to any future Survivors, or players on any reality game essentially, suck it up. You put yourself in this position, and there are thousands of people who would gladly take that spot you just walked out on. This is the 21st season of this show, so don’t you dare try to say, “Oh, I had no idea it would be this hard.” Bull. Shut up, suck it up and live up to your obligations.
Okay … I feel better now.
