|  | 
Studios to Replace Feature Films with Trailers August 19, 2002 |
Hollywood CA Junior Bacon You’d better eat that popcorn fast, chubby he heads of MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, and Universal City Studios called a press conference today to announce a dramatic restructuring of the way movies will be released and promoted in America. The announcement was the final step in a ten-year plan designed to cope with Americans’ shrinking attention spans and the prevalence of Attention Deficit Disorder among American teens, who drive the movie industry.
According to the studio heads, movie trailers will now replace full-length feature films in American theaters. Trailers, the previews for upcoming films that until now were shown for free preceding the main feature, have grown over the last ten years from one minute in leng...
he heads of MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, and Universal City Studios called a press conference today to announce a dramatic restructuring of the way movies will be released and promoted in America. The announcement was the final step in a ten-year plan designed to cope with Americans’ shrinking attention spans and the prevalence of Attention Deficit Disorder among American teens, who drive the movie industry. According to the studio heads, movie trailers will now replace full-length feature films in American theaters. Trailers, the previews for upcoming films that until now were shown for free preceding the main feature, have grown over the last ten years from one minute in length to the four to five minutes of today. While trailers once served to whet an audience’s appetite for a film with only a slight tease of what was to come, they had been gradually expanded over the years to tell the film’s entire story in capsule form. Purists criticized the dumbing-down of the medium and the spoiling of surprises, thought to be the handiwork of inept studio execs. But today’s announcement revealed it to be part of a larger master plan, with major studios gradually weaning film-going America off of the old system both by making the trailers complete experiences in and of themselves, and making modern feature films so unbearably long that watching only the trailer instead would seem like a reasonable alternative. “This is the completion of a logical progression,” stated Columbia Pictures head Amy Pascal. “For years we’ve been faced with the problem of how to deliver an audience their favorite stars doing the things that made them famous, without all of this plot and writing getting in the way, and without taking up so much of a movie theater’s valuable time. Now we can get the seats filled, get the stars up there on the screen for a few quick one-liners and an explosion, some T&A, whatever, and a few minutes later they’re out the door, buying tie-in key chains and hats and what have you. Filmgoers interested in a more immersive movie experience will still be able to watch the entire film in the Deleted Scenes section among the Special Features on the DVD release. It’s perfect.” “It used to be, you see the trailer, you get hooked, you go see the movie,” continued Pascal. “If for some reason the movie leaves you wanting more, you go buy the book. Way, way too much work. Now, you eat the sandwich, you get hooked, you go see the trailer. If you still want more, you can watch the whole movie on the DVD, if you’ve got that kind of time. So watching the movie is like what reading the book used to be. I suppose you could still read the book after that, which is the equivalent of what used to be having written the movie yourself, but we prefer if you just start over and buy the sandwich again. Or ride the ride.” Studios are currently in debates over what to call the new, three-minute long versions of the films, since Americans may still be resistant to shelling out eight bucks to watch anything called a “trailer.” Among the front-runners are “The Ritalin Cut” and “The Director’s Bad-Assed Niece’s Cut.” Others prefer renaming the full cut of the movie “The Marathon Cut” while giving the 3-minute version an appealing tag like “The Buzz Cut” or “Flavor-Blasted.” Still others argue in favor of Reader’s Digest magazine’s offer to sponsor all new films as “Reader’s Digest Condensed Classics,” though some think that a title like “Reader’s Digest Condensed Classics Presents Adam Sandler in The Hockey-Loving Retard” will lose teens who forget what they’re doing before they get done reading the title. the commune news has liked pretty much every movie ever made, except for Good Burger. Ivana Folger-Balzac has been tougher to get out of Ivan Nacutchacokov’s life than a deer tick from a Yorkie’s ass, but the staff has become endeared with her and her charming near-constant stream of vitriol.
 | New EPA head "strongly leaning" toward pro-environment stance
Dow drops low enough to stare up Mickey Rooney's ass, says stock dude
Florida announces waiting list for hurricanes
 Failure of Sirius Radio Blamed on "You Can't be Sirius!" Ad Campaign |
Controversial Rockwell Painting Found in Collection of War Criminal Spielberg Giuliani Woos Conservative Base By Killing Arab Bush Admonishes Tornado’s Cut and Run Policy |
|  |
 | 
 October 14, 2002
Different"I have long been, and may always be, a confirmed bachelor. But like other people who say that, I am not gay.
I did meet one gay fellow quite a while back. It was 1954 when I met him, an affable fellow named Pitt. He wore bright clothes but that didn't send me any signal that he was gay. To my ears he had no special way of speaking and there was nothing immediately gay about him. I would venture to say if I hadn't accidentally found out through a misunderstanding one day, while we were standing next to each other at the men's room urinals, I would never have found out.
'I can't believe it,' I told him quite frankly. 'Why don't you like girls at all?'
'I like girls, Sampson,' the gay said simply, no less visibly masculine than myself. 'It's not a matter of liking or not liking someone, and it's not a matter of picking who you're going to sleep with. People are just born the way they are, and it doesn't make them all the same if they share one common thing between them.'
He went on to say, as I tapped the water out, 'You and me may be more alike than me and any gay man. We both have sisters named Stephanie, we both have brothers that we're competitive with in our lives, and we both love to just sit and talk about the good ol' days, the 1920s. Why should the one thing that's different about us keep us from being good friends?'
It really made me think, and it hurt—the idea that I, like everyone else in the world,...
º Last Column: State Fair º more columns
"I have long been, and may always be, a confirmed bachelor. But like other people who say that, I am not gay.
I did meet one gay fellow quite a while back. It was 1954 when I met him, an affable fellow named Pitt. He wore bright clothes but that didn't send me any signal that he was gay. To my ears he had no special way of speaking and there was nothing immediately gay about him. I would venture to say if I hadn't accidentally found out through a misunderstanding one day, while we were standing next to each other at the men's room urinals, I would never have found out.
'I can't believe it,' I told him quite frankly. 'Why don't you like girls at all?'
'I like girls, Sampson,' the gay said simply, no less visibly masculine than myself. 'It's not a matter of liking or not liking someone, and it's not a matter of picking who you're going to sleep with. People are just born the way they are, and it doesn't make them all the same if they share one common thing between them.'
He went on to say, as I tapped the water out, 'You and me may be more alike than me and any gay man. We both have sisters named Stephanie, we both have brothers that we're competitive with in our lives, and we both love to just sit and talk about the good ol' days, the 1920s. Why should the one thing that's different about us keep us from being good friends?'
It really made me think, and it hurt—the idea that I, like everyone else in the world, picked one different thing like religion, skin color, or sexual orientation to get all worked up about when in a lot of ways all of us are like one another. From that day on whenever I meet someone new, even if they don't look like me or might seem a little strange at first glance, I put on a big smile and say, 'Hi, there, neighbor! I'm Sampson L. Hartwig. Maybe we're a little different, but maybe we'll find out we're a lot a like, too!'
I might as well mention that me and the gay fellow Pitt didn't see each other after another week or so, when I found out the biker gang I had joined with him was all gay. Only when one of them named Peter couldn't keep the secret any more did Pitt tell me the truth, that they were all hoping I would 'come around' once I got used to wearing the leather. It's just another thing that's different, yeah, but it looked awful painful in all those videos we watched, so I found another crew to ride with." º Last Column: State Fairº more columns
| 
|  March 12, 2007
Driving My Life AwayOmar Bricks here, writing to you from the seventh ring of hell, or as it is known in mapese, Nashville. How'd I get here? What am I doing here? All fair questions. If you come up with any plausible answers, let me know.
It all started, if these kinds of things can ever be attributed to simple cause and effect, with a 12-hour repeat listening of the Eddie Rabbit tune "Driving My Life Away." This was caused, I assure you, not by conscious choice but rather Foghat putting the CD player on one-track repeat when he was listening to the new Counting Crows album the other day and I'll be damned if I know how to switch the thing back. By the way, I won't be held responsible for my dog's taste in music. As long as he limits his crap-listening to the hours when I'm not at home, well, that's his own deal with the devil and not my problem. Most people that visit Bricks Manor are impressed enough that my basset hound knows how to operate the CD player at all, but after I have Foghat make everyone omelets they usually forget about how impressed they'd been by the whole CD thing. Because they're too busy throwing up half-cooked omelets.
To be perfectly honest, I was so wrapped up in working on the development of my latest invention, a pneumatic fly-stunning air cannon, that I didn't even realize the song was on repeat for the first six hours or so. And by then my body rhythms had so completely melded with the song that I couldn't very well shut it off without risking...
º Last Column: Christmas: Don't Try This at Home º more columns
Omar Bricks here, writing to you from the seventh ring of hell, or as it is known in mapese, Nashville. How'd I get here? What am I doing here? All fair questions. If you come up with any plausible answers, let me know. It all started, if these kinds of things can ever be attributed to simple cause and effect, with a 12-hour repeat listening of the Eddie Rabbit tune "Driving My Life Away." This was caused, I assure you, not by conscious choice but rather Foghat putting the CD player on one-track repeat when he was listening to the new Counting Crows album the other day and I'll be damned if I know how to switch the thing back. By the way, I won't be held responsible for my dog's taste in music. As long as he limits his crap-listening to the hours when I'm not at home, well, that's his own deal with the devil and not my problem. Most people that visit Bricks Manor are impressed enough that my basset hound knows how to operate the CD player at all, but after I have Foghat make everyone omelets they usually forget about how impressed they'd been by the whole CD thing. Because they're too busy throwing up half-cooked omelets. To be perfectly honest, I was so wrapped up in working on the development of my latest invention, a pneumatic fly-stunning air cannon, that I didn't even realize the song was on repeat for the first six hours or so. And by then my body rhythms had so completely melded with the song that I couldn't very well shut it off without risking serious epilepsy, so I rode it out until I fell asleep on the floor in a pile of freshly unwashed laundry. When I woke up, the song was still playing, but I don't count those hours in my total even though it thoroughly infiltrated my usual Driving Miss Daisy-themed dreams. Before you start asking why in the hell I put that song on in the first place, let me explain that it's the only halfway decent track on the disc. The rest is all Bulgarian folk music and European techno, which is every bit as shitty as it sounds. The CD itself came in a Discman I bought for seven dollars at the Salvation Army, I didn't realize there was a disc inside until I got home. Even before this all came up the Discman purchase was revealed as a mistake, since I'd envisioned Foghat using it to listen to his shitty musical tastes in a way that didn't crawl up my own ass like a hungry banana slug. But if you've figured out a way to get a dog to wear headphones, you're handier with a roll of duct tape than Omar Bricks, that's all I can say about that. Anyway, the song repeated for another hour straight after I woke up, by which time I couldn't even hear it any more, it had so completely rewired my internal landscape. But then the CD started skipping, probably the disc glues coming apart after so many hours of constant spinning, and the skipping music was causing Foghat to freak out, running around and pissing on everything at a slightly higher rate than he normally does. I had to get the disc out of the player with the toilet plunger, though from the way Foghat looked at me there was probably an easier way, maybe a button on the CD player or something. I don't pretend to have a PHD in consumer electronics. At first it was a relief that the music had stopped, but then I started to feel my insides twist around like two snakes at an orgy, and I began to feel an irresistible compulsion to drive my life away. It was sort of like that scene in Naked Gun where Reggie Jackson gets hypnotized and runs around shooting everybody with a machine gun, yelling "Say hello to my little friend!" It was like my brain wasn't my own, I was just holding onto it while a buddy was in the can. Before I knew it I was behind the wheel and out on the open road, with Foghat riding shotgun. Then I put the shotgun in the back seat because I'll be damned if that dog hasn't been freaking me out with his marksmanship as of late. All was well out on the open road, except for the fact that I didn't have any Eddie Rabbit tapes in the car, and none of the Mexican oompa-oompa tapes that came with my car were scratching that itch. This distracted me so much I didn't even realize I was driving to Nashville. I'd had some vague visions of Vegas in my head, maybe the sunset strip or Baja California... in all honesty it wasn't that well-planned of an excursion, but I think Nashville is too harsh a punishment for such minor indiscretions. Everything you've heard about this place is true: it's full of rednecks, everybody moves slower than Ed McMahon getting up off the couch, and everyone's got real shit taste in music. Not to mention the high asshole-to-Bricks ratio. When I cruised the Bricksmobile IV through the pedestrian entrance at the CMA Music Festival, you wouldn't believe the number of assholes who were yelling at me to turn down the Mexican polka tunes. Look, Slocum, you think I'd be listening to this shit if I could get it out of the tape deck? I left the toilet plunger at home and I don't trust Foghat with that shotgun after he tried to use it to open a can of Kibbles 'n Bits back in West Virginia. Don't hate a player just because you weren't smart enough to get around the cover charge, Hoss. You'll get yours when I get behind the microphone on the main stage. Bricks out. º Last Column: Christmas: Don't Try This at Homeº more columns
|

|  |
Quote of the Day“It is a wise man who makes a career of providing quotes, for the dollar-to-word ratio is fantastic. Eat your heart out, novelists.”
-Beenjammin Lynn-FrankFortune 500 CookieYou! In the yellow shirt! You’re going to have an awful week. Move along now. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but your lifetime ban from the municipal aquarium still applies. Those repressed childhood memories you’ve been having about animal abuse and a shady-looking construction site? That was Donkey Kong. Try eating something with at least 17 letters in it this week: mailboxes and Alpha-Bits don’t count. Your lucky dong accessories: ornaments, jingle bells, argyle cock sock, festive wreath, racing stripe, spare donut.
Try again later.Top-Selling Software| 1. | Windows XPlodes | | 2. | Norton's Anti-Social | | 3. | The Sims Hot Threesome | | 4. | Doom: Columbine Commemorative Edition | | 5. | Mavis Beacon XTreme Typing | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Orson Welch 5/7/2007 We’re heading into the biggest blockbuster summer in the last few years like a cannonball, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let them get the jump on me just because they’re too afraid to send me screeners of their mega-hit films. I’m going to go ahead and review these highly anticipated money-munchers based on the trailers alone. Unfair, you say? Just beating the other critics to the punch, since they made up their minds before they saw the films, too. See how right I’ll be.
Spider-Man 3
Safe money’s on this little colorful costume nugget to reap the big bucks. Some people say it cost about $300 million to make, some people say the actors were hardly necessary. Like the other Spider-Men, this one will no doubt make a fling at a story and super-hero...
We’re heading into the biggest blockbuster summer in the last few years like a cannonball, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let them get the jump on me just because they’re too afraid to send me screeners of their mega-hit films. I’m going to go ahead and review these highly anticipated money-munchers based on the trailers alone. Unfair, you say? Just beating the other critics to the punch, since they made up their minds before they saw the films, too. See how right I’ll be.
Spider-Man 3
Safe money’s on this little colorful costume nugget to reap the big bucks. Some people say it cost about $300 million to make, some people say the actors were hardly necessary. Like the other Spider-Men, this one will no doubt make a fling at a story and super-hero angst, but what you’re really going for is to see CGI people slammed repeatedly against walls, cars, trains, and other CGI people. Sam Raimi wants to go out on a big bang, assuming this will be the last time he’s allowed near the Spider-franchise, so there’s about 435 villains fighting Spider-Man in this one. Half of them just because they’re still pissed about Pleasantville, so go figure.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
While the boys are off achieving erections in Spider-Man 3, the girls will be swooning their brains out with Hollywood’s hottest male model/actors in this flick. Fans of the first two films… actually, I have no way to end that sentence, as I’ve never actually met "fans" so much as people who didn’t want to see the producers shot and killed. But there’s more swaggering Johnny Depp, more timid Orlando Bloom, and more tossed-around pointlessly love-triangulated Keira Knightley, who is becoming world famous for doing nothing outside these films. Expect more weird gross-out pirate gags, more buckles savagely swashed, and the real high point of the film everyone’s waiting for, Johnny Depp out-Keith Richardsing Keith Richards himself. Shitloads of boats, too, just for the record.
Shrek the Third
Now here’s an amazingly creative film—nothing in the contents, mind you, only the use of "the Third" in the title rather than the big number "3." Expect Shrek fans to be stymied, wondering where the sequel went and why another movie has "Shrek" in the title. Eddie Murphy continues to finance his house while Mike Myers hangs by a thread over the dangling precipice into film obscurity. And of course, the heart of any Shrek film is present—plenty of burps, farts, pees, and poops to beat the band. You could just stay home with your 68-year-old Scottish grandfather and get the full effect of the whole thing. But then, you’d keep your $8 bucks, so I can understand the experience isn’t complete without losing your cash. Enjoy the CGI horse being flogged dead.
Across the Universe
There will be bigger films than this, more expensive films, but I doubt there will be more inventive and creative films than this. After all, movies come and go, but how many can absolutely ruin the entire musical catalogue of a band as iconic as the Beatles for the rest of your lives? Julie Taymor, the pure evil force who put Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway, has dared to take the most complex and emotional songs of Lennon & McCartney and trivialize them with ridiculous straw characters and cliché-ridden situations that will forever make you weep. As with any Taymor effort, its stocked with cool visuals and sub-human storytelling. Let’s all chip in and buy her some oil paints and canvases and ask her to bury her camera in the dirty once and for all. Put that artistic eye into some still medium that doesn’t require people to say words or anything. And for God’s sake, leave the Beatles alone. Why don’t you ruin ABBA or the Bee-Gees, or a band we can live without?
Gosh, that felt good. And as I assumed it would, I clearly demonstrated seeing the movies is hardly necessary. Which puts me in comfortable company with the people who picket the movies for their content. Until next time, when I promise to actually watch the movies. Sort of.   |