Wed, August 27, 2003

The Toyota Matrix

What is this? Come on! How ridiculous, naming a car after a movie, to try to "ride the hype." You didn't see the 1985 Chevy Splash or the 1989 Ford Big. You didn't see the 1993 Chrysler League of Their Own! Plus, if you're going to name it after the movie, you should at least make it marginally cool like the movie. It's ugly, and I haven't been inside but I'm betting the console display doesn't feature little animated green characters falling in front of a black background.

Body Shots Videos

These are the videos that you see advertised on cable which feature the nude scenes from a bunch of Hollywood movies. (For instance, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Titanic – hoo, those would be hard to find!) What I don't understand is, these videos and the ads that sell them are crappy soft-porn stuff on par with "Girls Gone Wild." But, they'd have to get licenses from the studios for the clips, right? What, do they just pick up the footage on the floor of the nearest Clean Flicks office? What self-respecting movie studio would sell the rights to use its scenes in such a way? (Considering the fact that the word "sell" is in there, I guess I've answered my own question.)

Woody Allen

I like Woody Allen. His new movie Anything Else, starring Jason Biggs (runner up to Tom Everett Scott in That Thing You Do! for transparently playing a thinly veiled version of the director/screenwriter) and Christina Ricci looks sweet and possibly like a return to the more Manhattan-esque side of things. Interestingly, Woody features in the trailer even less than Allison Janney in the trailer to The Hours. In fact, he features in it about the same as the foreign language does in most trailers for foreign language films. Has it come to the point where we have to trick people into going to see Woody Allen movies? The terrorists have already won! (Meanwhile, Nancy Meyers or no Nancy Meyers, I think the new Diane Keaton movie looks fun, too. Okay, yes, I admit I was swayed by Amanda Peet in her panties. Peet's topless scene from The Whole Nine Yards is in the Body Shots ad, by the way.)

PowerPoint

I was reading Edward Tufte's little diatribe on PowerPoint this week (link at left), and I wholeheartedly agree! Not only is it a disgusting, bloated piece of software, but it encourages its users to think in a very "style first, substance fifteenth if at all" manner, which would be one thing if its "style" even looked good. It's the ultimate in speaking without saying anything, a trend which should come as no surprise in the era of Bush. Using PowerPoint manages to degrade interest and "readability" equally from the material presented on the screen and the words coming from the speaker's mouth. It's a damn shame that people can't understand that if you can't find a way to say it effectively on your own, maybe that means it just isn't worth saying.

The Television Season

I really miss the old days when the TV season used to start in the fall and run until mid-spring. (Sounds strange coming from a TiVo based time-shifter, but it's true.) Now, we're in that ramp-up toward the fall season, but that "season" won't even last until the "mid-season" of January when shows which aren't working get swapped out for new ones. Two or three weeks in, shows will get pulled, shuffled, and replaced – and that'll happen every two or three weeks until next summer when they'll all be shuffled again, and replaced with repeats or reality. I've ranted about this before, but until the networks give new TV shows ample time to find an audience, soon there won't be any Friends or Frasier to fall back on, and nobody will have a lasting relationship with any characters, so it'll be all reality all the time. (I know they think they want that now, but reality shows don't repeat, so it's not a sustainable model.) I look forward to Bravo's upcoming week behind-the-scenes of reality TV.

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