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While the Ice Age franchise’s migration from spring to a more competitive summer might be bandied about as a reason for Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ relatively more glacial reception, the picture suffered from looking like more of the same in its marketing campaign. No compelling reason was presented to make it as big a theatrical event as The Meltdown, and the proceedings may have been confounded by the anachronistic inclusion of dinosaurs, which were seemingly intended as a shortcut to audience expansion.
— Box Office Mojo’s Brandon Gray, in his report of Independence Day weekend returns (July 3-5, 2009).

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs grossed $41,690,382 during the weekend and $66,732,868 in its first five days, compared to an opening weekend gross of $68,033,544 for The Meltdown (Ice Age 2) from Mar. 31-Apr. 2, 2006.

1 hour ago

July 6, 2009
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Wikipedia has, over time, instituted gradually more control because of some embarrassing incidents, particularly involving potentially libelous material, and some people get histrionic about it, proclaiming the death of Wikipedia. But the idea of a pure openness, a pure democracy, is a naïve one.
— Joseph M. Reagle, an adjunct professor of communications at New York University who studies Wikipedia, in a NY Times article about Wikipedia administrators’ attempts to keep news of Times reporter David Rodhe’s kidnapping off his page in conjunction with the media silence.
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Issues of personal taste usually shouldn’t be a factor when engaging in legitimate movie criticism. The good movie critic should be able to aptly assess a film’s merit regardless of their own personal preferences for what they like to see on screen. Yet when it comes to a movie like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, personal taste is the major factor that will determine the response of everybody who sees it. Those who embrace the aesthetic of Michael Bay or were a fan of the first film are most likely going to have a good time with this one. For those who think Bay’s films are emblematic of everything wrong with contemporary Hollywood cinema, Transformers 2 will prove to be further evidence to fuel their fire. While many will defend this film and many others will despise it, there’s one thing this film is sure not to do: disappoint. Whatever expectations you have going into it—whether it be a bombastic summer-fun explosions-and-cleavage fest or a bloated schizophrenic mess of incomprehensible noises and images—Bay delivers fully on these expectations.
— Landon Palmer, leading off his review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for Film School Rejects
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Actors live dependent on being validated by other people’s opinions. I don’t understand what it is I do that people want. I don’t know what an actor does. I have no credentials. I don’t know what I’m doing. To my mind, talent doesn’t really exist. Talent is like a card player’s luck. It is motivation, ambition, and luck. It’s just a drive to be the best. I think acting is a con game.
— Shia LaBeouf, in a profile story by Parade magazine.
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link SF Chronicle's Bruce Jenkins calls for crackdown on shriekers

I am inclined to agree with Jenkins purely on the noise level (I’ve occasionally heard some loud male moaners) but couldn’t the shrieking/grunting be a competitive advantage in that it may intimidate their opponents?

Supposedly, such behavior occurs more often in the women’s game “because” when you grunt, when you breath at the contact point, you’re actually generating more velocity out of the racquet head, you’re more relaxed and you get power”, according to Dr. Jim Loehr, the CEO of LGE Performance Systems and adviser to Monica Seles who encouraged her to grunt since it “helps her to be more assertive in every aspect of her play”. (Bleacher Report)

3 weeks ago

June 14, 2009
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video
Jon Stewart breaks down the $135 million Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer I sold for at auction (The Daily Show, June 21, 2006)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Plays: 2


Carcast/Commute Cast Ep. 3 (18m09s)

Low-fi like usual, recorded with the loud AC fan and close to the stereo.

Topics: prepping for Fanime, hopefully soon reviews, some music criticism (Green Day’s and Danger Mouse’s new albums), and a bit of California politics.

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This work provides great academic perspective that will hopefully lead to cross-discipline agreement among linguists, archeologists and anthropologists for reconciliation in population theory. But to groups who still hold on to traditions to explain origins, unfortunately, science will provide contentious information in those circles. It’s just a progression seen in all facets of life where old knowledge and new knowledge must try to reconcile.
— David Smith, a professor in the UC Davis anthropology department and co-author of a recent DNA study that suggests Native American populations descended from a single ancestral population [California Aggie]
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The demise of the record cover has been under way since the arrival of the music video, followed by the shrunken canvas of the CD. Today, the album cover is just one of a dozen requirements for the successful marketing of music. The most important activity for the modern record company is getting artists onto magazine covers or into hit TV shows: the album cover is just one of many surfaces to be filled, no less or no more important than any other. Cover art will survive, encouraged by small independent labels and bands who crave a visual expression of their music. But as far as the major labels are concerned, if they could avoid spending money on record sleeves they would do it tomorrow.

The Coldplay cover, with its intriguing puzzle and uncommercial design, is an almost nostalgic statement of graphic simplicity. It can be viewed as a neat commentary on the death of the old record industry, but in the future it is more likely to be seen as a last hurrah for sleeve design and the notion of record covers as shared generational artifacts.

— Adrian Shaughnessy, writing about the cover of Coldplay’s X&Y album for Design Observer (June 8, 2005)
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In America, there are a limited number of people who can be called readers. […] In Japan, the ordinary citizen likes to read — reading is seen as entertainment and has been since the 16th and 17th centuries. In America, there seems to be a psychological barrier for people to go to a bookstore. Here, it isn’t uncommon, even in the smallest of towns, for people to set a date to meet at a bookstore.
— Tetsu Shirai, deputy executive director of Kodansha International who headed Kodansha America in the 1980’s, in a Jan. 1999 NY Times article about Sawako Noma, who was and still is the president and CEO of Japanese publisher Kodansha Ltd.

1 month ago

May 8, 2009
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