GizmoLA.com - Media

Heathers

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:08:57 -0800

For some time now I've felt like an honorary citizen of Ireland, having married a girl from Dublin and been blessed with two children upon which my wife and I have bestowed the most Irish of names. I've visited the country numerous times over the last 15 years and find myself becoming more intrigued with its history, culture and music with each visit. I've witnessed first hand Ireland's rapid evolution under the influence of unprecedented economic growth and the tidal wave of change brought by the European union. Any such metamorphosis brings with it changes that are both good and bad. The skies of Ireland's major cities have in recent years become thick with giant construction cranes, and its citizens have seen real estate prices hit astronomical highs. Ireland's youth no longer are confronted with the economic necessity of emigration, and expatriates have begun to return home in increasing numbers. The country now faces ironic and unforeseen challenges in the wake of its stunning reversal of fortune.

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EA's Spore DRM fiasco

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:57:00 -0700

EA's big fall PC gaming release is the long awaited "Spore" from Maxis, beloved studio responsible for all things Sim. Spore has been in some form of development since 2000, and finally hit stores on Sept. 7th, 2008, accompanied by predictions of the title living up to its hype and transcending it from EA brass.

I took a look at the Amazon user ratings for the game, and was shocked to see that it has been absolutely shellacked -- currently 2300+ reviews and only 1.5 stars. The primary reason for the low ratings? Customer outrage over EA's employment of the Sony SecuROM copy protection system, that allows someone purchasing the game, to activate it 3 times. As was pointed out in an amazon review:

Then there's the DRM. Let me just clarify what people are saying by adding, it not only counts installations, but changes to your hardware ! Upgrade a system component (memory, CPU, vid card) and you are out an installation....Basically I just paid $50 for a coaster.

When will companies learn that treating their customers like thieves is never a good business practice?

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West Texas UFO sightings, Cloverfield promotion?

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:39:50 -0800

Only days before the virally marketed JJ Abrams film Cloverfield is due to open, does anyone else find it suspicious that a major news outlet like ABC news would be drumming up a UFO sighting story, based solely on a handful of "eyewitness" testimony? Seriously -- this is 2008? You mean to tell me that not a single person had a digitial camera, video or even a run of the mill cell phone on em? Precedence for this goes back at least 80 years, to the infamous War of the Worlds RKO radio show. What would it take to get such a rumor going? A few people in cahoots, and a gullible local news affiliate? What could possibly explain this making it to the national news?

Chuck Norris Facts.... by Chuck Norris

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:32:08 -0800

The Movie-Gurus.com archive.

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:42:48 -0800

Update 3/2009

Movie Gurus is back up for now. http://www.movie-gurus.com/

*Update*
Since i wrote this, my hosting account ran out of juice and took to thrashing and locking up on a regular basis due to the number of mysql processes it required and the amount of buffer memory being used. I run this site on a coop server under UML and we have been talking for two years now about moving to a new server with a different virtualization solution, probably OpenVZ. I currently don't want to invest the time and effort I'll need to rebuild and reconfigure the server (no more Gentoo this time, as I don't have the personal bandwidth to stay up with the maintenance and don't use Gentoo at work).

I spoke with David of MG and we agreed to resurrect MG officially, since he still owns the domain and gets a fair amount of traffic to the review urls, which redirect to his community site Movieloons.com. I'm hopeful we'll get there soon, but for reasons I'll keep to myself, there can be no movement on this project until David sorts an issue with his hosting company.

Movie-Gurus.com went down for the count when the hosting company wiped the site. As we'd lost around a months worth of reviews, I didn't feel like resurrecting it at the time and starting fresh. Then I started thinking about the 1500+ reviews in the database, and all the time and effort that went into the site, so I decided to see if I could resurrect it from backups. I quietly put it back up, and left a little message at the forum run by the MG originator, but that generated no interest, so I left it up and largely forgot about it. Only one little problem there --- search bots found it, and what did they want? They wanted pictures! Mostly pictures of actresses! So I suppose that MG lives again, even if for now it's only as a shadow of its former self, visited by people who are only interested in a small picture. You can find the site for now at Site taken down.

Pirate Name

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 22:26:36 -0700

My pirate name is:

Captain Davy Flint

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.

The funniest show (not) on TV

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:58:24 -0700

Recently I was driving home one evening and a local radio talk show here in Los Angeles was bemoaning the disappearance of the "situation comedy" from the lineups of the major US TV networks. Most adults remember the golden age of the TV sitcom, and classics like Taxi, Cheers, Roseanne, Cosby, Family Ties, Friends, Frasier and Seinfeld. With seminal 90's sitcoms like "That 70's show", "Friends", "Will and Grace" and "Everybody loves Raymond" calling it quits, and with the failure of critic favorite "Arrested Development", the number of sitcoms on the air and the ratings of the few that are left, are at a historic nadir.

Anyone who doesn't see the connection between an increase in internet use and the decrease in television viewership is in serious denial. A recent Jupiter Research report found that people who have an Internet connection spend as much time online as they do watching TV. This trend, when considered along with the rapid adoption of Digital video recorders like Tivo, signals the death knell of the golden age of network television -- and an end to the era when consumers would revolve their weekly schedules around their favorite "must see" shows.

Which brings me to consideration of "The funniest show (not) on TV". It's a situation comedy of sorts, although its not really a series at all. It's on a network which isn't really a network. It has no budget, no production company, no promotion, sponsors, and during its entire one year run, faced cancellation on a monthly basis, based on the direct input of those who had watched its most recent episode. Could this be the future of TV?

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Jane Kurson's Art site launched

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:30:56 -0700

Our friend and neighbor Jane Kurson has launched a website focused on her work as a Painter. Jane has spent most of her career as a film and television editor on movies like Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" and most recently director Patty Jenkins's "Monster", the film about Aileen Wuornos that features Charlize Theron's Oscar winning performance.

The last few years she's focused much of her time and attention on a new artistic pursuit, and its been great fun to see Janes portfolio grow, and witness the development of a distinctive style and artistic sensibility that reminds me of Impressionists like Gauguin. With two showings of her work already, Jane seems well on her way to establishing herself as a serious artist. Now if we can just get her to do a painting for our house!

You can view her Gallery at http://www.janekurson.com/

Ted Henning's Brainmeld

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Tue, 17 May 2005 10:21:35 -0700

In my days at Broderbund software and Cendant software, I witnessed first hand the demise of the edutainment software industry due to market pressures and consolidation. What remains is the vestiges of those companies, and the titles they created years ago, while the developers are gone. As someone at Broderbund said to me one day, "the days of interesting educational tiles like 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego' are long gone." It simply costs too much to develop educational titles in a world where consumers expect to pay $10 or less.

Ted Henning's latest project is http://www.Brainmeld.org, a site devoted to promoting the use of computer games and simulations in education. I think we can all agree that computer games are a part of life for most kids growing up in the US and Europe, and Ted's Master's thesis and the work of people in the educational research field which inspired him indicates that this isn't the disastrous turn of events many have predicted it to would be. Brainmeld.org supports the premise that some games are actually "educational" in a way both children (and adults for that matter) find entertaining.

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The Movie Gurus

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 02:25:00 -0800

My latest hobby is a website called Movie-Gurus.com. I've been adding to the site, rewriting quite a bit of the php code, and have contributed a few reviews. The site was started by a teenager and has grown to include 600+ films in the review database, and has a staff of around 14 total reviewers, developers and admins.

The Ring

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Tue, 08 Apr 2003 23:54:00 -0700

In 1989 Japanese novelist Kôji Suzuki published Ringu, an epic ghost story due to hit American shores for the first time this month. Nine years later, screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi and director Hideo Nakate adapted the book into a film with the modest budget of 1.2 million dollars. The resulting film Ringu, created a sensation with asian language film-goers, becoming one of Japan's top grossing films ever, and doing similar blockbuster business in Korea and Hong Kong, and gaining cult classic status in Europe. The plot of The Ring concerns a reporter on the trail of a story about a videotape, which kills anyone within 7 days of watching it.
Dreamworks secured the rights from producer Roy Lee, who managed to grab up licensing for a number of successful Japanese and Korean films, all virtually unreleased and unknown here in the states. Lee has at least eleven films in developement, including Chaos (Kaosu) Nakate's 1999 suspense thriller about a kidnapping gone wrong, due in 2004 from english director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) starring Benicio Del Torro.

But perhaps none of these deals would ever come to fruition were it not for Dreamworks' 45 million dollar version of The Ring directed by Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt, The Mexican, Pirates of the Carribean) and starring white hot Australian actress Naomi Watts, fresh from her eye popping performance in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.

Released in January 2002, The Ring, made over 128 million at the US box office, and the march release of the DVD sold over 2 million units on it's first day. Dreamworks has also released the Tanake version on DVD.

There's a number of websites devoted to the Ring, including Ringworld, and a more general site devoted to the dynamic japanese horror/thriller market Snowblood Apple. Snowblood Apple covers a number of Japanese directors who are doing interesting work, some of which may very well end up as Hollywood remakes, if Roy Lee has his way. If you're fortunate enough to have IFC or Sundance, you can often catch originals like Ghost Actress or Cure in subtitled form. Hollywood is always chasing trends, and with the success of the Ring, I expect we'll see a rash of Japanese sourced material hitting the US markets in the coming years, which isn't a bad thing, considering the risk averse formulaic drivel that predominates Hollywood's output. However, one can only wonder at Hollywood's ignorance of the talent and creativeness of directors like Hideo Nakata and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, while at the same time falling all over themselves to remake their films.

For fun, I made a the small Flash teaser for The Ring as an exercise, which should hopefully if nothing else, give you an idea of the haunting visual tone and production design (influenced by the artwork of Andrew Wyeth purportedly) which sets the film apart. If you didn't catch it in the theaters, by all means catch it on DVD. Along with The Sixth Sense, It's easily one of the creepiest and most intriguing Horror films in the last ten years. And if you're even more adventurous, check out the influential Ringu on DVD.

Art imitating art

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Fri, 08 Feb 2002 04:33:00 -0800

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well someone said that anyways.Ok, well they aren't exactly the same layout, but I knew immediately that the recent Ocean's 11 Layout reminded me of this great Album from 1990 which i once owned on cassette. Maybe it's just synchronicity, or maybe the designer was a Smithereens' fan.

George Harrison (2/24/1943 - 11/29/2001)

nospam@example.com (David Rolston) — Fri, 30 Nov 2001 04:07:00 -0800

I became immersed in the music of the Beatles as a teenager, listening to their albums and songs for hours on end. I'm old enough to remember when all the members were still alive.

Following the tragic death of Linda McCartney to cancer comes word that George Harrison finally succumbed to his long battle with the disease on Thursday November 29th, as so many of his fans feared would happen.

As a songwriter with the Beatles, his compositions could be caustic and precise (Taxman), expansive, spiritual and psychedelic (Within you, without you) and optimistic (Here comes the sun, and the standard "Something") Credited with teaching John Lennon the basics of guitar playing, his blues and rockabilly influences matured and adapted to the composing explorations of Lennon and McCartney, along the way contributing seminal riffs to the Beatles catalog like the Daytripper riff, a veritable rite of passage for any guitarist.

His rhythm and acoustic technique, use of 12 strings, and other stringed instruments like the Sitar continues to influence new guitarists in the same way the music of the band casts a shadow over the entirety of popular western music.

George was a man of taste, sophistication, intelligence and a quest for understanding of the human condition and the essence of the human spirit. The youngest Beatle and most solitary and private, he survived tabloid scrutiny of his personal life (particularly his marriage to wife Patti Boyd who later left him to marry his good friend Eric Clapton who wrote Layla about her). I doubt anything could be more telling in regards to Harrison's character and loving nature than his attendance at the couple's wedding. Harrison's post-Beatle's career was varied and successful in numerous artistic and social endeavors. He produced a number of well received solo albums, incuding the triple album "All things must pass" and as an Independent film producer he backed numerous films including "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Life of Brian", Neil Jordan's breakout "Mona Lisa", and the cult favorites "Five Corners" and "How to Get Ahead in Advertising." He virtually created the genre of World music with his use of the Sitar on Norwegian Wood, and his efforts to bring Ravi Shankar to the world stage.

His concert for Bangladesh pioneered territory which paved the way for Live Aid and the benefit concert as a way of generating income for charity while raising awareness about issues that confront humanity throughout the world.

At only fifty eight years of age, having battled llness for the last few years, he passed from this earth far too soon.