Twilight and Summit: Officially Ridiculous

The Hollywood Reporter is, er, reporting that Summit might actually already have a director for the Eclipse movie. To which I say: Seriously?

Look, I liked Twilight well enough. As the wonderful Cleolinda Jones says, it's like a Twinkie(c). It's not good for you, but sometimes you just want something gross and sugary. Or like when I have a craving for Papa John's and some Corona instead of Giordano's or something. (Side note: God, I miss Giordano's.)

But the movie was just awful. I know, I know, it made a truckload of money and they've greenlighted like sixteen sequels, blah blah vampirecakes. The problem is that the subsequent books are terrible. And not in an acceptable "Oh man, this is awful but I can't put it down" kind of way. In a "Holy God, why are these people still alive/undead? I must smash my face into my desk" way.

It seems like Summit is nervous about keeping the Twimomentum going; otherwise, why all this speculation this early in the game? IMDb says they haven't even finished filming on New Moon yet.

Also, this is just going to encourage EW to put the same stupid photo on yet another cover. Because God forbid they not put something Twilight-related on the cover. I don't necessarily blame them, because that shit sells like hotcakes on the newsstands, but they're alienating most of their subscription base. This isn't the Catch-22 it looks like.

Look for a possible new segment, "If we ran the world..." sometime soon. Maybe.

You've Got Facebook

So, Nielsen and THR say social networking is pwning e-mail. To which I say: Duh.

That horrible "Business Exchange" travesty aside, this is actually a good thing. I've never understood why online advertising hasn't been nearly as successful as print advertising was in its heyday (this is a good study about that), and I think that's one of the reasons why most magazines still have horrible sites. (Look, God knows I love EW, and PopWatch is a great blog, but I still hate the way the homepage looks. And, full disclosure, I used to work there and write for PopWatch.)

I still mostly try to keep work and Facebook separate (though everyone at EW was so chill, I broke that rule for them), but the fact is, it's the best way to casually keep in contact with people. The beauty of the internet (yeah, I refuse to capitalize it) is its innately casual nature. Plus, you get the benefit of other people seeing you interacting. It's like, after years of making fun of computer nerds for sitting inside and not having friends, everyone decided to go about being as public with their affection as possible. Since, ultimately, we're a deeply voyeuristic society, it all turns into this ridiculous (but sometimes entertaining) circle-jerk of internet activity. Now you know why I don't Twitter.

This is why I firmly believe what my favorite TWoP recapper Jacob says about it: "The internet actually is just a very large bathroom wall, and anybody who cares about this shit or goes after their employees based on it has bigger problems than their basic inability to understand how the world works." Amen, sir. (For ruminations on why people treat the internet like a bathroom wall in the first place, please see John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.)

Maybe that's why advertisers still aren't sold on the online thing? Too many fuckwads? But you'd think those fuckwads would buy more stuff. Hmmm...

On Not Being a Dickwad

The first R-rated movie I saw on my own (once I finally reached that magic age of 17) was Closer. I'd just finished one of my first shifts at the movie theater, and I was super excited to take advantage of the "all the free movies you want" perk. So I settle back, prepared to partake in some delicious Clive Owen-Jude Law-ness, and I see them.

They're sitting in the very back of the theater, this young couple. And with them is...a stroller. With a small child in it.

This child then proceeded to cry at the most inopportune times (read: almost the entire movie). I couldn't fathom why this couple had brought its spawn to a 10:40 p.m. showing of a ridiculously explicit movie

Fast forward four and a half years or so. I'm seeing Coraline in 3-D with a friend. Due to some pretty ridiculous complications (like the Jonas Brothers...it's a long story), we end up going to the AMC in Times Square (Times! Square! Augh!) for an 11:10 p.m. showing. Now, I know Coraline is PG, but there is some scary shit in that movie. Not that I ever plan on having spawn of my own, but I wouldn't take a kid under 9 to the theater to see it, much less at an 11 p.m. showing on a Sunday. But of course, that's what we found. Dozens of families with their squalling four-year-olds attempting to drown out whatever disturbing noise was coming from the screen. As soon as we had reached the street, my friend and I each yelled about the horrific parenting we'd just witnessed.

And then there was Watchmen. A family (an entire goddamn family, mind you) not only subjected their five-year-old boy to that movie, but also brought an infant.

This so far past the line of "inappropriate," we can't even see it. There are so many things wrong with this situation that I need to outline them.

A) Your poor son is going to have nightmares for weeks about this. Seeing people's arms chopped off? Dogs with their heads split open? A five-minute-long softcore sex scene?

B) Your infant's screaming fucked up the movie for everyone else in the audience, you insensitive clods. It is neither my fault, nor anyone else's, that you either decided to breed or forgot to use a condom, so do not inflict your troubles upon me. You want kids? Accept the fact that for a while, you'll barely be able to leave the house.

C) You spent an extra how much for a seat for that kid? If you can afford to do that, hire some tween in need of some cash to watch them for a few hours.

In conclusion: It is not that difficult to avoid being a completely horrible parent. This is common sense. Do not bring your small children to incredibly graphic movies really late at night. And, movie theaters? Stop letting this happen.

I watched the Watchmen...

...And I liked it.

Of course, in this situation, it would have been very hard for me to not like it. My friend Joe had been trying to get me to read Watchmen practically since I met him, so once I saw the second theatrical trailer, I figured I'd give it a try.

It took me a bit longer than usual to get through the book--it's not very long, but the density and complexity of the story's structure takes a while to adjust to. Upon finishing it, I believe my thoughts were "Jesus Christ, how much bleaker can you get?" and also, "I'm going to need to re-read this at least three more times." (As a side note, I also had Rorshach's narrative voice in my head, which, since I'm not a psychotic misogynistic masked vigilante, was unpleasant.)

So, after seeing that trailer, reading the novel, then watching a bunch of footage, I was pretty freakin' excited. Not even the lukewarm (or negative) reviews could dampen my spirits. And you know what?

It was exactly what I wanted. Granted, the ending lacked the utter, blood-drenched terror I was hoping for, and Malin Akerman was awful but whatever. The attention to detail was spectacular, Jackie Earle Haley rocked the shit out of Rorshach, and I think I might pitch an amusement park based around the ride, "Dr. Manhattan's Blue Dong of Doom."(Would that not be an awesome ride?)

Oh, NBC.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/media/09leno.html?ex=1386478800&en=354a8bf86d9b0d33&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

Following the announcement, Ben Silverman hopped onto his white tiger and, playing the NBC chimes, shouted, "SILVERMAN OUT."

WEB INFINITY

I am going to punch the next person who dares to use the term "Web 2.0" in my presence.

This summer I think I've heard that term more times than I can count. And you know what? It didn't mean anything the first time, and every time an editor mentioned it after that the meaning got more and more garbled. Eight weeks of spin about an idea so silly I couldn't believe it got greenlit in the first place. I couldn't discuss it for a long time, and it killed me to have to keep my mouth shut about such a potentially colossal mistake.

Thankfully, the cat is finally out of the goddamn bag.

BusinessWeek has decided to throw its hat into the "Web 2.0" scene. To them, this means creating what basically amounts to an aggregator with a LinkedIn tie-in. They spent millions of dollars on this, dollars that would be so much better spent on expanding their online team and better meshing the print and online divisions. Instead, they're going to have writers, editors, and regular ol' businessmen waste their time coming up with these topics, moderating them, updating them daily.

Why?! Why would anyone want to spend that amount of time doing something when, arguably, they could look over their RSS feed and then go about doing the million other things a CEO does. Who gives a shit what everyone else is reading? If you really care, you can go see the "most read" on the site (except for BW's, because for some reason we make the "Most read" box a fucking Easter egg on a DVD) or go to Digg. (Side note: I have never used Digg. Is it really that useful? Do that many people use it? This is coming from a "young person," mind you.) Why would you want your competitor to know what you're reading? You'll disable that capability, and so will your competitor, so we're back to square one, which is...an RSS feed. With a LinkedIn tie-in.

Guys. This is not "Web 2.0." There is no such thing as "Web 2.0." Technology evolves, and the way people use it also changes. There's no need to make up a pointless word for a process that's been going on since the dawn of fucking time. Facebook and MySpace were lightning in a bottle. You cannot duplicate them. I don't know if they'll ever go away, but whatever this bullshit hybrid thing you're trying to sell is, it's not new.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe every goddamn CEO and his mother wants to use this thing, and Terry McGraw will sit in his office on the 49th floor laughing and throwing piles of money in the air because the ad revenue will be coming in by the truckload.

I could also be right, too.

Harry Potter and the Stupidly Delayed Movie

Oh, come on.

Warner Bros., you greedy, greedy bastards. You saw how well The Dark Knight did in July, and now you want another piece of that. Nevermind that Goblet of Fire did pretty damn well in the same late-November spot and that it would have killed any other movie it went up against. Other studios had even moved their films away from that week.

And my poor future employers even put the Chosen One himself on their cover last week.

(I started writing this last Thursday, but got incredibly distracted and then Blogger crashed and everything just went all to hell.)