Picture above: Angelika Mosaic in Merrifield VA, opened in 2011. I don't have an AMC picture of my own handy right now.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
AMC's dispute with Universal for "not playing fair" during hard times (over "Trolls World Tour")
A business dispute has erupted in the movie theater business
as a result of coronavirus. ANC Theaters has said that it will not exhibit
Universal (NBC-Comcast) feature films, as a result of Universal’s decision to
put some family films, especially “Trolls World Tour”, right out to VOD rental
(expensive at $19.99) and bypassing the usual month or so in theaters.
Dave McNary explains the controversy for Variety.
Hoeg Law examines the issue with a 30-minute video.
AMC apparently dropped its bankruptcy plans and instead made
a private debt offering. That raises an interesting question for people with
trusts like me. Usually you have to be a
“substantial investor” with assets over $1 million to buy in. Also, this has to be money in your own name
only, not with a deceased name too, because you have a fiduciary responsibility
to other beneficiaries not to make risky investments, even if you are set up
with a grantor trust (for the IRS).
Another player in the AMC controversy is the National Association of Theater Owners. I note
the acronym NATO and wonder about trademark.
Hoeg explains that many affluent families have “home”
theaters and can easily enjoy smaller films.
Only the big films with 3-D and “Dolby Atmos” as he says, really need
theatrical exhibition.
In recent years, theater chains have invested in reclining
seats and remodeling, resulting in reduced capacity and increasing the likelihood
of weekend sellouts and the need to buy tickets in advance online.
Picture above: Angelika Mosaic in Merrifield VA, opened in 2011. I don't have an AMC picture of my own handy right now.
Picture above: Angelika Mosaic in Merrifield VA, opened in 2011. I don't have an AMC picture of my own handy right now.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
"A Day in the Life of a Middle Manager" by Joshua Fluke (turning filmmaker, in Utah)
Joshua Fluke is a 30-ish Youtubber from Utah (read, brought
up in the LDS Church, probably, and used to be conservative) who has explored his personal and tech workplace
problems over the past couple of years, before the Covid crisis.
So now he turns to short film, and may be thinking of moving
into film with more deliberation.
He presents himself in a little monologue: “A Day in the
Life of a Middle Manager” (“Reflecting on Life at the Office”) Other taglines: "Just checking in" and "You do the work, I get credit". Bad karma.
Most of the film is shot in a parking lot next to a low-rise
office building with the Wasatch range in the background (think about Sundance in January 2021, 50 miles away and 9 months into the future). He makes one foray upstairs
to an empty dark hallway. Since he is
alone, he is honoring social distancing. Then he gets on his workstation (alone)
and monitors employees handling customer tickets while working from home – like
he was managing a hosting company (Bluehost is in Utah).
He also makes fun of the euphemisms for getting fired. You get groomed for management, which is then
no-mans-land and vulnerable. It was the engineers
who can really fix the production problems who were the most valuable during my
own career.
Fluke offers an unusually personal video April 20 on his channel.
Fluke offers an unusually personal video April 20 on his channel.
This little short sounds like a parody if the 1999 satire “Office Space”.
In a news item, the Oscars announced today they would
consider films shown only online, because of the Covid crisis, for the 2020
year awards.
Reid Ewing ("Modern Family"), who has made some interesting videos in the past, seems to be looking pretty good in Utah right now judging from Instagram (look at media_reid). There are recent pictures of him near Great Salt Lake (alone, social distancing).
Reid Ewing ("Modern Family"), who has made some interesting videos in the past, seems to be looking pretty good in Utah right now judging from Instagram (look at media_reid). There are recent pictures of him near Great Salt Lake (alone, social distancing).
Picture from 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, click for Wikipedia
(embed) photographer attribution under CCSA. I watched this from a hotel room
in Fresno, California (while becoming ill with something that sounded like SARS, 8 months
early – I fought it off by myself and completed the trip.)
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
"Why the Periodic Table Is Arranged the Way It is": Turn Chemistry 101 into game night
Useful Charts offers us “Why the Periodic Table Is Arranged
the Way It Is” (and some Alternatives).
He talks about electron shells (up to 7) divided into sub-orbits,
and then rows (horizontal), blocks (subshells, yellow) and groups (vertical).
What he gets looks like a game board, that could be expanded
out to something like a Rubric cube almagam, almost.
It’s artistic.
If you click on the Chart artwork at the top you will see the Wikipedia attribution under CCSA and proper credit for the artwork.
If you click on the Chart artwork at the top you will see the Wikipedia attribution under CCSA and proper credit for the artwork.
Monday, April 27, 2020
"It's Not a Cowboy Movie": French comedy in a rather mundane physical setting
“It’s Not a Cowboy Movie” (“Ce n’est pas un film de Cow-boys”)
is a comedy short, and rather minalmisl at that, by Benjamin Parent and Joris
Morio, from My French Film Festival.
The film alternates two conversations in latrines, by two
teenage boys, and then two teen girls, about Brokeback Mountain (here, Oct. 8,
2017), maintaining that is is not a "western". There is also a Brazilian short “Cowboy
Forever” (here, Dec. 1, 2009).
In the Army they used to say “Never call attention in the
latrine.”
Picture: Passenger Train station in Paris, you can see the Wikipedia attribution and photographer credit by clicking on the embedded picture (CCSA). I was in that station in May 2001. I then took the Chunnel to England.
Picture: Passenger Train station in Paris, you can see the Wikipedia attribution and photographer credit by clicking on the embedded picture (CCSA). I was in that station in May 2001. I then took the Chunnel to England.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
"When Can the Government Lock You in Your House?" panel discussion by lawyers (and an odd coincidence for me)
The Institute for Justice presents “When Can the Government
Lock You in Your House? Quarantines and the Constitution”, a two-lawyer panel
discussion.
Much of the discussion centers arounds the power of the
states, as conferred to governors by legislature.
There is also discussion of the “state of nature” which is rarely
mentioned.
The speakers had familiar names (to me, at least): Robert McNamara, and Anthony Sanders.
In fact, when I lived in Minneapolis from 1997-2003, I met an
undergraduate senior named Anthony Sanders who was majoring in philosophy at
Hamline University in St. Paul (just north of University Blvd near Fair Park). He was involved with the Libertarian Party of
Minnesota and had run for a city council seat in St. Paul in 1997.
Anthony actually set up my lecture on my book which took
place on February 25, 1998, when I was on crutches, about six weeks after a
fall resulting in my hip fracture. The
attorney here does not look like or sound like the Hamline student (even
allowing for 20 years of age), but the Hamline person might have a similar
career and interests.
The link for the entire lecture (57 min) can be found here (first URL; a second travel film is offered there) and I am introduced.
The first photo shows a protest at the Minnesota State Capitol, I believe in 1999.
The first photo shows a protest at the Minnesota State Capitol, I believe in 1999.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
"Where Did COVID-19 Come From?": valuable short from Never Mind
“Where Did COVID-19 Come From?” is an interesting 10-minute
video from Never Mind.
The video, dated April 2, is similar in some ways to some
from Paul Forster at Cambridge.
The film considers that the first known patient in Wuhan was
treated around mid December 2019 and that she worked at the wet market. But that does not prove that the virus came
from the wet market or lab. The genome (a type B, type A is little represented
in Wuhan) was decoded by Dec. 24.
The video criticizes China for holding up the information
for about two weeks in January.
But it is possible that the virus came from a secondary animal
in the wild, and did not mutate into its aggressive and contagious form, capable
of killing maybe 3% of those with a major infection, until circulating undetected
among humans for a while. The protein furin is involved and this is of concern
because a similar protein is found in bird flu (a very different virus).
The illustration shows an inner strand as a double helix,
but the virus is single stranded RNA, type 4.
You can click on the illustration and get the Wikipedia attribution CCSA information.
Friday, April 24, 2020
"Crazy Boy Friend Problems" from QTTV: OK, explicit, but with real characters, real story and a "moral point"
Sometimes explicit film have real stories and “important”
content. I don’t usually post even “soft
core” here, but some of it really does have important artistic value.
QTTV presents “Crazy BF Problems” aka “I Met a Sex Addict at
a Convenience Store and Now He’s My Boyfriend” (just posted 2020/4/15).
It’s a flippant tagline.
An attractive young executive walks into a convenience store and gets
into a cruising session with another man with open shirt. Intimacy (starting with undoing a tie) starts
in the back room, and then a relationship follows.
The “poorer” man (who looks relatively clean-cut for his social status) says that the executive is becoming more
like himself. Soon the “poor” man starts asking for money, especially for a
crystal meth habit. Watching the film,
you really do care.
The film played without being logged on, but it probably shouldn’t
have. The physical stuff may fit barely within gay PG-13, but the language
about “acts” and drugs (a little bit of it) would earn this little film an R,
so it’s essentially intended only for 17+ viewing.
Still, at the end, you want the characters to do well. You want the “poor” man to get off his
habit. It won’t be easy. For the exec, perhaps there are visible
consequences if you look closely enough.
No idea where this was filmed, maybe Canada, maybe LA. Nobody knew what social distancing means when
this short was filmed.
Picture: Toronto, my trip July 2019. Can't drive there now.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
"Game Night" : a young man takes a new girl friend to his parents' house
“Game Night” (2019), by Jan van Gorkum and Zuiderlicht Film.
Pepijn takes his new girlfriend to his parents’ house for
game night, where they play Trivial Pursuit.
The boy’s parents start treating her in less than a
welcoming manner and she wonders why. One of the questions is, what number is unlucky in Asian culture? Not 13, but 4.
Most of these films on Omeleto are based on a single concept
or idea or situation, as is common in short film. Tyler Mowery talked about
that today, and he thinks that beginning writers need to think this way about
even features.
It’s common for LGBTQ groups to have game nights. Chess has never been popular. Blokus is.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
"My Boyfriend Died of COVID-19", animated short film from The Atlantic Selects
“A Thing By” and The Atlantic Selects present a 7-minute
short animated film by Olmo Parenti, with Megan Burney voicing over, “My Boyfriend
Died of COVID-19”
This is a heterosexual story. In fact, it is set in Wuhan, China as the pandemic
starts in mid January.
Before the Chinese New Year starts, a young woman living
outside Hubei receives texts from her boyfriend that he is sick and found the
hospital swamped, on Jan. 22, and that an ultimate catastrophe had taken
place. This was about the time that
China started building a field hospital in 10 days.
She receives other texts.
He gets better, then gets worse again and then the texts stop.
This time I've embedded the image of the Wuhan monorail from Wikipedia. If you click on the image you will get the CCSA attribution and photographer credit.
This time I've embedded the image of the Wuhan monorail from Wikipedia. If you click on the image you will get the CCSA attribution and photographer credit.
Monday, April 20, 2020
"The Dirt Between My Fingers": simple film about friendship
“The Dirt Between My Fingers”, from director Joshua Chislett
(April 2020, 10 min, 1109 films), offers a teenage boy (Jack Parson) who wakes
up another kid (Shawn Vincent) lying on the bank of a river in the Midwest.
The other kid is suspicious at first but gradually accepts
the first boy’s friendship, when the first boy demonstrates a desire to live
outside all the time.
A moody piece produced on a near zero budget.
Picture: Mine, southern Michigan, 2012
Picture: Mine, southern Michigan, 2012
Saturday, April 18, 2020
"How Are Viruses Classified?"
Useful Charts has an informative video that follows on an
earlier one (Nov. 23, 2019, on evolution of cellular life), “How Are Viruses
Classified?”
The charts look like game boards. The viruses have their own disconnected
little chart because viruses cannot reproduces on their own without entering living cells.
There are seven numbered categories. “I” includes all double-stranded DNA and
includes herpes (and smallpox). “II” is
single stranded DNA, “III” is double-stranded RNA. “IV” is single stranded RNA positive pole,
and includes common colds and coronaviruses in separated orders. “V” is single stranded RNA negative polarity
and includes influenza. “VI” would comprise retroviruses, including HIV.
Friday, April 17, 2020
"Joseph's Reel": an elderly painter gets to review a day in his life as a young man from a film clip and script, like his life had been a simulation
Omelto presents “Joseph’s Reel” (14 minutes, Forty Foot Films)
directed by Michael Lavers.
An elderly man (Robert Hardy) has the chance to review one
day of his life, from a projectionist’s open reel and a screenplay. It was a day when, as a young painter, he had
a chance for a relationship.
Does he get
to rewrite the script of his own life as he has lived it?
Picture: Near Waco TX, 2005
Picture: Near Waco TX, 2005
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
"Can Hollywood Survive Coronavirus?" (CNBC)
“Can Hollywood Survive Coronavirus?” from CNBC.
Many points are made here. Theater tickets bring more revenues to studios
than online rentals. And one chain, AMC, is apparently filing for bankruptcy.
Many big releases have stopped production and may be halted for an entire year.
Many big releases have stopped production and may be halted for an entire year.
Many workers in the film business work in the gig economy
and don’t have health insurance.
Many indie films have lower compensation for actors
(SAG-indie).
On the other hand, really independent videos and films might
get made, and that’s been a flashpoint on YouTube, with the whole deplatforming
issue in the past years.
Picture: theater in Greenwich Village, Jan. 2019
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
"Destroyer of Worlds", time-travel film from CGBros
CGBros (a game company) offers a short film (44 minutes), “Destroyer
of Worlds”, from Pumpkin Money, directed by Samuel Dawes, with one of its game plots in live action.
In 1954, in Plymouth England, an inquisitive teen (James O’Neill)
starts paying more attention to his dad’s (Mard Aldrace) mathematical theorems,
shortly after the tragedy of losing his mother.
They know a mad scientist (Jamie Saiderwaite) who wants to
use them for a dangerous time travel experiment.
The scientist produces a plasma ball (like Taylor Wilson’s
fusion reactor) which, when you enter it, offers you time travel. For practice, the go back to an Egyptian tomb
in 356 BC.
Then they see the future at various points until they run
into a “barrier” that they can’t cross.
The scientist has devised a series of stepping stones or “beacons” to
try to breech the barrier, which shows a future that looks like Syria under
Assad.
The characters go back and forth, and the teenager,
physically maturing into full manhood himself, gets suspicious of the scientist
and wants to protect his father. The kid winds up on what looks like a WWI
battlefield at one point and escapes back, and find duplicate copies of
himself.
This film won some awards in film festivals in Britain.
Labels:
indie sci-fi,
Short films,
time paradoxes,
time travel
Sunday, April 12, 2020
"Lloyd Neck": charismatic gay track runner has his younger sister guessing
March B presents “Lloyd Neck” (16 min), from Saturday Pictures,
2008, in Sundance that year. Benedcit Campbell directs a film apparently set on
the Long Island Sound.
Taylor (Aaron Michael Davies) is a charismatic track runner
and high school senior. He protects his younger sister Alex (Carina Goldbach)
while going on a beach nature outing with his boyfriend Jesse (Brian
Dare). There is a cat and mouse game as
to whether Alex figures out they are boyfriends from merely platonic behavior.
Picture: Long Island Sound, from LIRR, my picture, 2014
Picture: Long Island Sound, from LIRR, my picture, 2014
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Roger Penrose explains "Consciousness Is Not a Computation"
“Consciousness Is Not a Computation”, as Lex Fridman
interviews Roger Penrose.
He talks about “orchestrated objective reduction” inside the
neurons, somehow connected to microtubules.
It is somehow a resolution of quantum processes at some
level where intention and localized decision making is necessary.
I think it has something to do with reversing entropy, for conscious agents to be locally responsible for keeping the Universe from falling apart. And these agents can't live forever (maybe their local souls do and reincarnate?) and need to reproduce. It's mitosis, reproduction, that preserves the miracle of consciousness.
I think it has something to do with reversing entropy, for conscious agents to be locally responsible for keeping the Universe from falling apart. And these agents can't live forever (maybe their local souls do and reincarnate?) and need to reproduce. It's mitosis, reproduction, that preserves the miracle of consciousness.
Picture: PapPaw tunnel, MD
Friday, April 10, 2020
"High Risk" and "Every Time I Tell": two short Spanish films from Canal on HIV risks for gay men, even today
Studio Canal seems to have some gay short films from Spain
regarding HIV and responsible behavior among gay men, in series called “Indetectables”.
One of them is “High Risk” (or “Alto riesgo”), directed by
Juan Flahn, 7 .
A policeman (in street clothes) goes to the doctor to see if
he can get post-exposure meds (protease inhibitors – why wasn’t he on PrEP?)
and in the last scene he describes an orgy to the female doctor.
In the waiting room he discusses it with another young gay
man. But two older women sitting next to him (no social distancing yet) misinterpret
what he is talking about in a comic way.
The discussion of nausea in Spanish is particularly hilarious.
Another more explicit film (probably rated R from what you
can see, so I didn’t embed it) presents two other gay men confronting the possible
outcomes of their pleasures. It’s called “Every Time I Tell It” (“Siempre quelo Cuento”).
Wikipedia:
By Fotograccion - http://fotograccion.org/, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Wikipedia:
Labels:
foreign language,
HIV issues,
LGBT,
Short films
Thursday, April 09, 2020
"Guillermo on the Roof": a young writer is challenged by when he wants to present his own life story in film, by a real-life Syrian refugee
Parandroidd presents the Spanish short film “Guillermo
on the Roof” (“Guillermo en el tejado Cortometraje”) directed by Miguel Lafuente.
Guillermo is a young writer who would like to produce
autobiographical film about his own loves. He sees the world through his own experience as a kind of moral filter. I know the feeling.
His own mentor thinks this is self-indulgent and an inappropriate
way to get into writing. She has another docudrama project about a Samir, young
Syrian refugee who came to Spain through Greece and then came out as gay before
his family went to Sweden, leaving him behind.
It seems as though Guillermo follows both ideas, but
he comes to bond with the Syrian refugee.
There is talk about how you write voice-overs and
other parts of a screenplay.
With Javier Amann,
Mariu Bárcena, David MatarÃn y Anuar Beno.
Wikipedia attribution license for Madrid neighborhood
picture, by Esetene, CCSA 3.0
Labels:
foreign language,
immigration issues,
LGBT,
screenwriting,
Short films
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
"The Main Event in America": a boxer goes straight, to the chagrin of a boyfirend, and he even loses the fight
“The Main Event in America”, directed by A. W. McNight. From
Mystic Lotus and Backyard Fireworks, running 29 minutes, just posted by Coreynyc.
The film presents a 28 (guess) year old white male boxed
(Arthur Kuklov) living in the South Bronx with a single mom (black) abandoned
by her husband, and he says he wants to marry her. He tells his (non white)
boyfriend, who is passionately attached to him, that he has a “real life” and
that “I f—k people up for a living” Then he loses a fixed fight at the local ring
and his life comes apart. The place is
hardly “Fight Club” though.
This film (which needs more video detail) looks like it
wants a sequel and may be expanded into a feature (sort of like a Jorge Ameer
film).
My experience in life is being the “boyfriend” and clinging
to somebody who has a real life as I regard as a “good master” (remember “the rich
young ruler” and “why do you call me good”).
I remember riding by Amtrak through the South Bronx back from Boston in 1975 (I had seen a game at Fenway). It was a disturbing sight.
Picture: Harlem, 2014, mine.
Monday, April 06, 2020
"Broken Places": documentary about resilience of kids growing up in disadvantaged homes
“Broken Places” (2018), directed by Roger Weisberg, aired on
PBS in abbreviated form (55 out of 76 minutes) tonight.
The film examines families in the New York area and compares
the children damaged by poor environment and those who still thrive anyway, with
“resilience”.
There was a lot of attention to families with multiple medical
problems, including strokes and multiple sclerosis in parents, fibromyalgia,
and pain and sometimes opioid.
One baby is shown with her head covered with electrodes, which apparently can do readings thorugh hair without shaving.
One baby is shown with her head covered with electrodes, which apparently can do readings thorugh hair without shaving.
The documentary looked at the development of PTSD in some
children.
Labels:
children in poverty,
indie documentary,
PBS-related
Sunday, April 05, 2020
"Kiss": in an outdoor outing in Bavaria, a male couple and lesbian couple interact unpredictably, with two endings
“Kiss”, from Queerblick, from Germany, presents a lesbian
couple and a gay male couple sharing an outing in Bavaria on a lake.
The short film (9 min) offers two endings, a “realistic one”
and a “happy one”.
There is some experimentation as to whether the two men
relate to the fluid non-binary “lesbians”.
The film dates back to 2015, before this idea became more popular.
Wikipedia:
By Björn Láczay - Über dem SpitzsteinhausUploaded by Magnus Manske, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
Wikipedia:
Saturday, April 04, 2020
"Why the Shanghai Tower Failed": Overbuilt, wasteful design
“Why the Shanghai Tower Failed”, by B1M.
The last of three competing skyscrapers in Shanghai, built
in 1999, 2009 and 2016, it’s 2000 feet tall and twisted (there is a similar
condo in Massapequa, Ontario near Toronto).
The developers can’t lease it out.
Much of the floor space is wasted.
But it is spectacular.
Friday, April 03, 2020
"A New Beginning" for a young man going blind; QA without the short film from Sedona Film Festival 2019
Here’s an interview from the 2019 Sedona, AZ film festival
for the 10 minute short “A New Beginning”, directed by Erik Lauer, written with
Tyler Mowery (Practical Screenwriting).
I couldn’t find the actual film anywhere, including the
Facebook and Instagram handles given by Erik.
A young man with approaching blindness from a rare eye
disease goes on a last sightseeing trip with a friend, but then there is a twist.
For him, descriptions of what he could
see matter.
Wikipedia:
By Dr. Igor Smolyar, NOAA/NESDIS/NODC. - NOAA Photo Library: amer0081, Public Domain, Link
Wikipedia:
Labels:
interviews,
people with disabilities,
Short films
Thursday, April 02, 2020
"StandBy": what happens when you don't have a surge protector for your computer (sci-fi) during a storm
“StandBy” is a rather curious sci-fi short film from Trey
Drysdale (from July 2014), 6 minutes.
In a home in Britain, a business school student (Nico Drysdale)
is typing a term paper into his computer. There is a severe thunderstorm
outside and the house is hit by lightning. He is plugged in to Britain’s Direct
Current without a surge protector, and his computer is fried.
He tries to fix the outlet and it arcs on him. Then the computer comes back up and seems
like a portal to other dimensions.
Picture: From Smithsonian, Washington DC (2015)
Picture: From Smithsonian, Washington DC (2015)
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