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The Velvet Podcast 006
Episode 6: Jennifer’s Lost Overboard Body: Cinemuck Boogaloo, part of The Velvet Podcast series is now live for your enjoyment. I handle the hosting duties, featuring panelists Stephen Graham Jones, Logan Rapp, and Jesse Lawrence in a conversation about the big and small screens, both as consumers and creators, cinners and cineastes wading through the ...
TV By the Numbers
The Hawthorne effect suggests that a subject that’s aware it’s being observed will alter its behavior accordingly, that the act of study itself can taint results. When I was contacted by Nielsen to participate in an eight-day study of television viewing habits for sweeps week, my mind immediately fantasized of staging a coup upon all ...
The Golden Flix Awards 2009
Hard to believe this is my fourth annual offering. After an exhaustive amount of deliberation, below you’ll find this year’s winners and runners-up, ready to populate your Netflix queue with months of quality entertainment. The usual disclaimers apply. Though I’ve seen nearly 100 new movies this year, mostly on home video (so a few of ...
Trite Tropes
Cinema is a language with its own conventions. The audience must be familiar with certain patterns, even unconsciously, for the transfer of visuals to register properly. Establishing a scene with a wide shot to get our bearings, not crossing the 180-degree axis, keeping the flow of action moving in a single screen direction – folks ...
The Golden Flix Awards 2008
[EDITED 12/31/08 to include several worthy new films that forced retractions.] Toss your dog in your purse and text your publicist on the way to the dress fitting . . . it’s time to raise the sails for my third annual windbaggery about the year in cinema – at least the approximately 120 new films ...
Forkin’ Screen
My long-awaited outing to see Synecdoche, New York (review here), was a unique experience. AMC Theaters is headquartered in my town, and they often pilot new initiatives at my local flagship complex. Their latest endeavor is called Fork & Screen, and in a changing market that finds more folks staying home to watch movies, it ...
Promo Copy Cats
Cutting through network promotions clichéd hyperbole. What they say. What they mean. The show everyone’s talking about.Everyone being those in our programming department whose jobs are on the line. It’s been a ratings disappointment despite the buzz cash we poured into ads and promotion. See the show critics are calling “X.”We doomed it with a ...
Leakage in the Folds
I don’t like to just re-post news items here (there’s no shortage of those kinds of blogs already), but I had to make an exception for one of my favorite musicians, Ben Folds. The guy booked a day in the studio, recorded fake versions of many of the songs on his much-anticipated new album, and ...
Hannah and Her Consenting Sisters
Would you care to share any thoughts on the latest Miley Cyrus scandal? More to the point, on the use of “scandal as P.R. device” in general, especially “planned” scandals. I mean, in the old days, raping and killing a bimbo in the St. Francis Hotel would put a stain on your career; nowadays, it’d ...
Cineplexity
Tickets to off-Broadway productions cost more than those of regional theater (at the same venue). New England Patriots seats will set you back more than Buffalo Bills seats (for the same matchup, even). If you want to ride the Vominator at the local theme park, you’ll have to dig a little deeper into your pockets. ...
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