Ann McCourt, an eighty-one year old resident of Los Angeles, is suing the television network known as VH1. Apparently her footage appeared in one of the network’s shows called “Celebrity Eye Candy” in 2007. She had been walking her dog when she came by some cameramen on the street who were waiting for Paris Hilton. She had approached the cameramen to see what they were filming. After they had told her who they were waiting for, they asked her what she thought about Paris Hilton which led McCourt to voice her negative opinions about the socialite, saying things like “I think she’s a disgusting human being…” Her tirade was caught on film and was aired on the “Celebrity Eye Candy” show on VH1. However, she had been unaware that she was being filmed and she claims that she was edited to look bad. I think that if I was in her position, her action to sue would make sense. While it can be argued that she should have realized that she would end up on television because she had been talking to cameramen, wouldn’t she have had to sign some type of waiver or something to give them permission to use her in the show? I don’t know much about these legal issues, but I remember that whenever there was an event, which students usually took part in, that was being filmed at my high school we would have to sign a document giving the camera crew permission to use our footage. I would assume the same would go for a television show. While I am not a fan of Paris Hilton, I do think that maybe Anne McCourt shouldn’t have said those things. Those types of comments are what I would say amongst my friends. Not to camera crews. However VH1 shouldn’t have used that footage either. I thought they were waiting for Paris Hilton? I guess they thought Anne McCourt would boost their ratings.
This is a parody of the Snuggie commercial from CollegeHumor. If you don’t know what the Snuggie is, it’s basically a backwards robe intended to keep you warm. The purpose of the product is to keep you warm while still allowing you to move around. The commercial makes it look like that using a blanket will prohibit you from using your arms because your arms will get cold when trying to reach for something. When I first saw the commercial I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke, much like how the people of CollegeHumor thought of it. It’s basically a robe, which makes you look like you’re part of a cult. I just couldn’t grasp the concept. It’s a product that is just completely unnecessary, in my opinion. If you’re that cold you could easily put on a sweater instead. The Snuggie just seems like a product that will make the American population even lazier. When I see commercials or infomercials like these, I tend to wonder who in the world could have come up with such an idea. The whole thing does make me think that maybe we as consumers are becoming too materialistic. When someone comes up with a ridiculous concept and it actually gets the go ahead to be marketed, what does that say about us? Obviously someone thought that it would do well. I think they might have thought that because many of us want to buy things just for the sake of buying them. It’s kind of like the ipod. How many times has Apple brought out a new generation of ipods? I recently went into an Apple store and looked at the new shuffle which is basically the size of my finger! I always thought the original ipod was perfectly fine, but everyone continues to go out and buy the newest one. I don’t know whether the Snuggie is doing well in sales, but it makes me evaluate how we as consumer tend to buy into everything.
The new superhero flick Watchmen made $55.7 million this weekend, making it the biggest opening of 2009 as of right now. Despite the film being almost three hours long, the movie did fairly well at the box office. Since the movie was based on the graphic novel of the same name, the fans helped make it to number one. However, the numbers were actually below expectations. Many speculated that the film would gross more in its opening weekend than the director’s previous film 300, which made $70 million its opening weekend. I would assume this is due to the state of the nation’s economy. So granted, the movie didn’t make as much as expected, it still did pretty well. I feel as though Watchmen is just one of many epic stories that has been turned into movies. People have already experienced many superhero movies and it is because they are already fans of the heroes, the movies do so well. The same goes with a few upcoming movies. I myself watched Watchmen this weekend, but I want to talk about the trailers that preceded the film. I am always excited to for the previews before the movie, as they give me something to look forward to watch in the future. They showed Star Trek and Terminator Salvation before the movie. Although these two are not based on comic book superheroes, they have characters that many people are familiar with, which is why I believe they will both do incredibly well at the box office. And it was fitting that these two trailers played before Watchmen. As we learned from an article earlier in the quarter, commercials and trailers are showed with shows and movies that appeal to a similar audience. One of the reasons I think that these type of movies do well is that they have familiar characters. In a regular movie, in which you do not know much about prior to watching it, the goal of the filmmaker is to get you to care for the characters so that you care about the movie. With movies like The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Star Trek, and Terminator, you already care about the characters, so the goal has already been achieved. This is why I believe that any future hero adaptations or T.V. adaptations (perhaps one like Arrested Development) will continue to land in the number one spot at the box office.
Recently I have heard that many celebrities have been getting book deals. Lauren Conrad wrote a fictional novel and Miley Cyrus wrote an autobiography. Apparently Lauren Conrad, of the MTV reality show The Hills, has gotten a three-book deal with Harper Collins. She has plans to write about a teenager who becomes a reality T.V. star. It seems that she is basing this book on her own life, but her book will be labeled as fiction. Miley Cyrus on the other hand has written a book about her life. She signed a seven figure book deal with Disney. She wrote a book about her early life in Tennessee through her move to Los Angeles and her success as Hannah Montana. These two girls are celebrities who have gotten amazing book deals with major publishing companies. What I have to wonder is, is it fair that they are getting books published when many other talented writers are still trying to even find a publisher who will give them the time of day? Both Miley and Lauren are still very young. Miley is just sixteen years old; should she really be writing an autobiography? Maybe in the future when she’s older, I think, but not right now. She’s still a kid. And as for Lauren, her book is also kind of like an autobiography, just filed under the fiction section. She is still young a well, and I feel as though most of the things she will write in her book is everything people can watch on her reality show. I just feel that more and more celebrities are getting endorsement deals for things they shouldn’t be concentrating on. In my honest opinion, I think that they are taking away the opportunity of someone else who has worked hard in that certain field to achieve their dreams. Celebrities already have a career, why take away someone else’s?
I just recently watched the movie Coraline in 3D. It contains the familiar voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. The film was directed by Henry Selick, the same director of Nightmare Before Christmas and it certainly has the same feeling. Coraline is the story of a girl who moves to a new home called the “Pink Palace” and is bored with her new surroundings, especially because she feels a little neglected by her parents. So when she finds a door that takes her to another near-perfect version of her world, she can’t help but prefer it over her real life. There she meets her “other mother” and “other father” who behave exactly the way she had wanted her real parents to behave. Her “other mother” cooks and makes her nice clothes and her “other father” has a less boring job, making music instead of writing gardening articles. And there is one other difference in Coraline’s “other parents” and that is that they have buttons for eyes. It is later discovered that the “other mother” has created this “other world” to lure Coraline in to sew her eyes with buttons and keep her there forever. When I first saw the trailer for the movie I had originally thought it was a kid-friendly film. So it was a lot darker and creepier than I expected. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was blown away by the movie’s aesthetics; it was visually stunning in my opinion. I believe the movie took about 4 years to make because it was done in stop-motion. I can’t imagine how much work went into creating just one frame, let alone the whole movie. A lot of work was put into the film—everything seen on screen was made by hand—so I believe it deserves a lot of success. While the movie may not be showing in 3D anymore, it can still be seen in regular 2D so I highly recommend you to go watch it.
This picture of Miley Cyrus and her friends has been circulating around the internet for a while now. Many people have attacked Miley for being racist. This photo clearly shows Miley and her friends all making the same squinty eyed faces at the camera, except for her one Asian friend who has his eyes wide open. This picture is very similar to the basketball team that did the same squinty eyed expression. They were attacked for their behavior as well. After many allegations that Miley was making fun of Asians, she responded to her fans in a blog saying that she was sorry her actions were misunderstood and that she was simply making a “goofy face.” She also mentioned that she felt people are purposely trying to find a way to give her a bad girl image. Isn’t it strange though that if she was just making a “goofy” expression that the rest of the people in the picture were making the same exact one as her? Some people have weighed in their thoughts about this and have said that Miley is just a kid and didn’t know what she was doing by making those faces. Isn’t she 16? I believe this isn’t a justifiable excuse because I’m pretty sure she knew exactly what she was doing. It may have been all in a good fun among friends, but her actions were still offensive. And her first statement in repsonse to this wasn’t even an apology. She was making an excuse, and not a very good one at that. She should have acknowledged what she was doing in the first place. I understand that Miley Cyrus is still very young and being in the spotlight at such a young age can be hard, but she needs to learn how to carry herself well. She has had past photo scandals as well. Those photographs, and probably this one, were hacked but should a 16 year old girl really be taking pictures of herself like that? Miley Cyrus has become a role model for young girls and I think she needs to start acting like one soon.
Recently there has been a tape that has leaked of actor Christian Bale (American Psycho, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) unleashing his rage on a crew member on the set of the Terminator movie. Reportedly, Christian Bale was filming an intense scene when the Director of Photography walked onto the set to fix the lights, which ended up ruining the scene and Bale’s concentration. Soon after, Bale went off on a rant against the Director of Photography for his behavior. Apparently, the same type of incident had happened before, and as a result Bale finally reacted with a tirade of harsh words. Since the tape was leaked, the audio has been turned into a “remix” and can be found on YouTube. This reminded me of the article we discussed in class, “It’s All About Us” by Steven Johnson. There has been much controversy around the incident and many of it has occurred on the internet. This has been a debate among many blogs and discussion forums, which is the type of thing that Steven Johnson talks about in his article. He mentions that ordinary people use the media to voice their opinions even though they are not professionals that cover the media on a daily basis. Bloggers are doing what many professional journalists and correspondents do as a living. The web gives people easy access to express their opinions. I think the remix of Christian Bale’s tirade is an example of this, and how it has created a massive stir in the online community. The remix has been an ongoing topic. I heard the audio first, and then stumbled upon the remix. To be honest, I have to admit that I found the remix quite funny. The actual rant was a bit harsh though, however I think that the Director of Photography should have been aware what was going on before checking the lights. It may not have been intentional, but filming a movie costs a lot of money and if a scene is ruined, that’s a lot of money lost. He should have realized that they were shooting and waited for the scene to finish. Although, this should be no excuse for Bale to go off on the guy like that. I think that either way, both parties did something wrong.
There’s a new show on Showtime called United States of Tara with a new spin that introduces dissociative identity disorder to audiences. The show, with executive producer Steven Spielberg and writer Diablo Cody (of Juno fame), is centered around the life of Tara (played by Toni Collete) and her different personalities or “alters” as Tara and her family calls them. Tara’s DID (dissociative identity disorder) causes her to take on her different personalities. There is “T,” who behaves like a typical rebellious teenager, Buck, who is kind of like the average stereotypical manly man who loves to go shooting and drink beer, and Alice, who is the perfectionist homemaker. Tara’s identities are often triggered from stress and when an alter takes over, she isn’t aware of what she is doing. I watched the pilot episode a while ago and thought that Toni Collete did an amazing job with her character(s). Unfortunately, many of the alters are played out very stereotypically. Then again, Diablo Cody could have written it that way. The image of “T” is portrayed as a pot smoking, potty mouthed teen who wears a minimal amount of clothing. She relates to Tara’s daughter, Kate, the most. Buck, on the other hand is a real man’s man. He has a tough persona and is a homophobic, which is ironic because Tara has a gay son. And Alice is a very domineering housewife type who likes to be in control. There have been some negative reviews about this show, but I personally think it is quite enjoyable. DID is an actual disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder, and this show can help bring it to a wider attention. United States of Tara can help people get to know a little more about DID and maybe give them a better understanding as well. The show may not be age appropriate for some people because there is some mild nudity and swearing, but I would highly recommend this show for older audiences. Toni Collete deserves an Emmy in the near future.
A New York Times article, titled “Can Sundance Get a Break?,” reports that Robert Redford is receiving some complaints from his fellow colleagues. Redford started the Sundance Film Festival, named after one of his most notable movie characters, about twenty-five years ago. In the present however, many people are not very happy with how the festival has changed from its humble beginnings, claiming that it has become too commerical. On the other hand, there are others who believe that it is nearly not commercial enough, at least in regards to our current economic status. Sundance has been known for its brilliant independent films with quirkly plotlines and even quirkier characters. Now that the U.S. economy is in trouble, studios do not want to take any risks and would much rather stick with producing safer movies. It seems that they may be trying to steer away from what could be the next Little Miss Sunshine or Half Nelson. I think that what people are missing in their thinking is the purpose of Sundance. The focus is clear; it’s film. In the studios’ attempt to battle the recession, I think many amazing films will go overlooked because they may not be considered safe. It is quite understandable that studios are thinking financially in a tough economic period, but it defeats the purpose of this independent film festival. I always cringe when Hollywood comes out with another guaranteed blockbuster. I find it difficult to comprehend why the people flock to these films when there are many other great films out there. It may be more difficult for people to access these indpendent movies, which is why film festivals like Sundance are so important. It gives filmmakers an opportunity to get their work, no matter how risque or outrageous, noticed by the masses. I guess we’ll just have to wait until our country’s economy get’s back on track to see more of these movies.
