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ausetkmt · 1 year ago

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Bamboozled is a 2000 American satirical black comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the resulting violent fallout from the show's success. It features an ensemble cast including Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett Smith, Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, and Michael Rapaport.

The film was given a limited release by New Line Cinema during the fall of 2000 and was released on DVD the following year.[2] Critical reception was mixed,[3][4] and the film was unsuccessful financially, becoming a box office bomb.[1] Despite its initial reception, Bamboozled later achieved cult film status for its satirical look at stereotypical depictions of black people in both historical and contemporary American film and television productions.[5][6][7][8][9]

In 2023, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[10]

Pierre Delacroix (real name Peerless Dothan) is an uptight, Harvard-educated African-American man in the employment of television network CNS. At work, he endures torment from his boss Thomas Dunwitty, a tactless, boorish white man. Not only does Dunwitty use African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and the word "nigger" repeatedly in conversations, he also proudly proclaims that he is more black than Delacroix and that he can use "nigger" since he is married to a black woman and has two mixed-race children. Dunwitty frequently rejects Delacroix's scripts for series that portray black people in positive, intelligent scenarios, dismissing them as "Cosby clones".

In an effort to escape his contract through being fired, Delacroix develops a minstrel show with the help of his personal assistant Sloane Hopkins. Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show features black actors in blackface, extremely racist jokes and puns, and offensively stereotyped CGI-animated cartoons. Delacroix and Hopkins recruit two impoverished homeless street performers, Manray and Womack, to star in the show. While Womack is horrified when Delacroix tells him details about the show, Manray sees it as his big chance to become rich and famous for his tap-dancing skills.

To Delacroix's horror, not only does Dunwitty enthusiastically endorse the show, it also becomes hugely successful. As soon as it premieres, Manray and Womack become big stars, while Delacroix, contrary to his original stated intent, defends the show as satire. Delacroix quickly embraces the fame and recognition he receives while Hopkins becomes ashamed of her association with it. Meanwhile, an underground, militant rap group called the Mau Maus, led by Hopkins' older brother Julius, becomes increasingly angry at the show's content. Though they had earlier unsuccessfully auditioned for the program's live band position, the group plans to end the show using violence.

Womack quits, fed up with the show and Manray's increasing ego. Manray and Hopkins grow closer, despite Delacroix's attempts to sabotage their relationship. Delacroix confronts Hopkins, and when she lashes back at him, he fires her. She then shows him a videotaped montage she created of racist footage culled from assorted media to shame Delacroix into stopping production of the show, but he refuses to watch it. After an argument with Delacroix, Manray realizes he is being exploited and defiantly announces that he will no longer wear blackface. He appears in front of the studio audience, who are all in blackface, and does his dance number in his regular clothing. The network executives immediately turn against Manray, and Dunwitty fires him.

The Mau Maus kidnap Manray and announce his public execution via live webcast. The authorities work feverishly to track down the source of the internet feed, but Manray is nevertheless assassinated while doing his famous tap dancing. At his office, Delacroix (now in blackface himself, mourning Manray's death) fantasizes that the various black-themed antique collectibles in his office are staring him down and coming to life; in a rage, he destroys many of the items. The police kill all the members of the Mau Maus except for One-Sixteenth Blak, a white member who demands to die with the others.

Furious, Hopkins confronts Delacroix at gunpoint and demands that he play her tape. As he does so, Hopkins reminds him of the lives that were ruined because of his actions. During a struggle over the gun, Delacroix is shot in the stomach. Hopkins flees while proclaiming that it was Delacroix's own fault that he got shot. Delacroix, holding the gun in his hands to make his wound appear self-inflicted, watches the tape as he lies dying on the floor. The film concludes with a full reveal of the tape's contents; a long montage of racially insensitive and demeaning clips of African-American characters from Hollywood films of the first half of the 20th century.[11] Afterwards, Manray is shown doing his last Mantan sequence on stage.

Cast

Damon Wayans as Pierre "Peerless Dothan" Delacroix

Savion Glover as Manray "Mantan"

Jada Pinkett Smith as Sloan Hopkins

Tommy Davidson as Womack "Sleep 'n Eat"

Michael Rapaport as Thomas Dunwitty

Mos Def as Julius "Big Blak Afrika" Hopkins

Thomas Jefferson Byrd as Honeycutt

Paul Mooney as Junebug

Craig Grant as Hard Blak

Gano Grills as Double Blak

Canibus as Mo Blak

Charli Baltimore as Smooth Blak

MC Serch as One-Sixteenth Blak

Kim Director as Starlet

The Roots as The Alabama Porch Monkeys

Reverend Al Sharpton as Himself

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 53% based on reviews from 106 critics. The site's consensus is: "Bamboozled is too over the top in its satire and comes across as more messy and overwrought than biting."[3] On Metacritic it has a score of 54% based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[4]

Among those who gave positive reviews to the film were CNN correspondent Dennis Michael, who compared the film favorably to Mel Brooks' The Producers and praised Glover's performance in the lead role,[14] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, who described the film as "savage, abrasive, audacious and confrontational" and "the work of a master provocateur",[15] and Stephen Holden of The New York Times, who described the film as "an almost oxymoronic entity, an important Hollywood movie."[16] It was not reviewed as favorably by the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert, who gave the film 2 stars out of a possible 4, writing that the film was "perplexing," raising important issues but handling them poorly. "The film is a satirical attack on the way TV uses and misuses African-American images, but many viewers will leave the theater thinking Lee has misused them himself."[17]

By the time of its twentieth anniversary, Bamboozled had been reappraised as an underappreciated work of Lee's.[18] Writing for Rolling Stone, David Fear noted that "the really scary thing is that, 20 years on, Bamboozled feels incredibly contemporary. It doesn’t look so extreme after all...and when you consider the content of this film, that’s a very troubling thing

#Bamboozled #spike lee #Black Films #Bamboozled is a 2000 American satirical black comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee #MauMau's #Black Power #Black Film #Black Actors #Wayans Brothers

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lakelandseo · 2 years ago

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How Content Is Evolving Thanks to AI — Whiteboard Friday

There's no question that AI has already started to have a meaningful impact on organizations that create content every single day.

"The wonderful world of AI is changing rapidly. ChatGPT4 is driving even more improvements in the output from the technology and the space continues to take off," says today's host, Ross Simmonds. "The best piece of advice that I can give anyone looking to use AI in their marketing workflows today is to take the time to plan and create a culture where embracing the evolution is not only embraced but also celebrated. The future is here."

In this video, Ross shares how our workflows, processes, and content creation will positively evolve thanks to AI.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz friends. So are robots coming for your job? That is the question that a lot of marketers and creators are asking themselves today and for good reason. Every single time that you log in to one of your favorite social media channels, you're probably seeing a plethora of news around the new AI, ChatGPT 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, who knows, right?

The evolution of AI is always in the press, in the buzz. It is taking off, and there is a real reason why you should be paying attention to this rise of AI. I'm not here to strike the fears of marketers around the globe to make them think that the robots are going to take their jobs and the robots are going to send them out into the streets to be unemployed.

That is not the message that I have for you today. There's no question that AI has already started to have a meaningful impact on organizations that create content every single day. An evolution is happening. The same way that an evolution happened when the modern printing press was evolved with technologies like laptops, the same way that evolution took place when we went from people who consumed content on VHSs to DVDs to Blu-rays, to now streaming sites, technology continues to evolve.

That evolution now today is through generative AI and how it's influencing the way that we create content every single day. In this video, what I'm going to share with you is how our workflows, how our processes, and how we create content is going to evolve thanks to AI. Now, some of you might be fearful.

Some of you might work for organizations that are actually viewing AI as a replacement to writers, and I hear you. My heart breaks for those who would consistently be met with the idea that a boss would tell them, "Yeah, I can just replace you with an AI," because that is not the intent of these tools. These tools are kind of like our Ironman suit, so to speak, right, or vibranium if you're in the world of Wakanda, and you understand the fact that you can take these things to just elevate us as humans, that is the power of AI.

AI is supposed to be a tool that we can use to be better. I do have some bad news. If you are a mediocre writer and you use an AI tool, you're still going to be a mediocre writer. You're just going to be able to create more mediocre content faster. But if you are a great writer, if you are a great creative and creator, you have the opportunity to use AI tools to elevate and improve and enhance the rate in which you can create great content, and that's the magic of this stuff.

Evolve to the new way

So let's jump into it. All right. There was a great quote from Howard Stark. Howard Stark, Tony Stark's dad. It's not a real quote. It's not a real person. But he said, "I am limited by the technology of my day, but you have the opportunity to unlock something special. You will be able to figure it out."

Even today, technology that we have at our disposal is going to continue to evolve, but we are only limited to the technology we have today as long as we make the decision as creators, as marketers to embrace the technology instead of rejecting it. My goal today is to show you why you need to evolve from the old way of creation to the new way of creation, which is rooted, in many ways, in leveraging tools like AI.

So let's go back into time a little bit. Let's go back to 1992 when we're creating content on our typewriters and things like that. Things shifted, things change because that's a part of life, that's a part of business, that's a part of technology. Then we got computers and we got laptops. Fast forward now to, let's say, 2018. We're now using computers to create content.

We're writing blog posts. How do we do it? We embrace a process that we would call content creation, content workflows. Every organization is going to have a different workflow, and every single type of content is going to have a different type of workflow as well. Let's talk about the writing workflow. Let's talk about creating content with the intent of search. If you're watching this, you're probably someone who's interested in search.

So let's talk about that. You start your process with research. You start your process by understanding the keywords that your audience is going to Google to type in. You're trying to understand the search intent behind the behaviors that they're going to Google to understand a certain topic, a certain industry. Why would they type in a certain thing? You want to understand that.

Then you want to do things like interviews. Let's talk to our customers. Let's learn about their pain points, let's learn about their needs, and use this information to inform us on the stories that we should be creating. Let's analyze social. When Facebook comes out, Twitter comes out, we start to use these tools to gain insight into, "Hmm, my audience is talking about this thing. Maybe I should create content about this." These are things that we should be doing today.

These are things that your organization might be doing. Diving into the SERP, using great tools like Moz to understand the SERP and understand what is already ranking for certain keywords, and then using that to inform your decisions on the stories that you should create. That's happening today. Since the beginning of the creative industry, we've started to do things like brainstorm. So you get all this insight.

You get all this information and you brainstorm. You might drink coffee, you might drink wine depending on your appetite and what you're into. But you're going to brainstorm. You're going to come up with new ideas, new stories, new headlines, new topics, stories that you think your audience is going to love. Then you start to create them. You put on your suit and you walk into the class, "Everyone, I have new ideas that I want share with you today."

Then you start to share them. You write a brief. You write a brief on why this idea is going to resonate, why this idea is going to rank. You create content based off of the research that you've developed. This might take two to three days, right? Like this might take maybe even a week depending on your industry, your space, your company. It's taking time to create these briefs.

The briefs get approved by a creative director or a content director, whoever it might be. Then you brief your writers, your creators, and they're developing drafts, maybe in Google Docs. Maybe they're going in and they're actually writing it up. They're having coffee. They're hitting a writer's block. They're getting stressed out. They're leaving.

They're having a smoke break, whatever it might be. They're struggling to create this draft, and then boom, it hits. They've come up with an amazing piece that they believe is going to set the world on fire and everybody is going to give them applause because they just identified a great topic. Then they press Publish. They upload it to the CMS, content management system. It goes live, and an SEO team starts to throw SEO stuff on it. They start to audit it.

This is the workflow of 1.0. That is the workflow that probably sounds very similar to a lot of you. It might be the process and procedures that you are using right now within your company. That's okay. But as you look ahead, as you start to look at the SERP, you're going to start to notice a shift. You're going to start to notice a shift in the fact that more companies and more organizations, more people, more creators are going to be able to produce higher volumes of content at a higher rate because they have embraced the evolution of content. They've embraced the evolution of content by embracing AI.

AI content will get better

Now, some of you are probably thinking, "Ross, AI content is garbage. AI content is not good. It's not high quality. Nobody wants to read that stuff, and it's just going to put a bunch of spam on the internet." I hear you. But Google is smart. They understand the difference between bad content and good content. Over time, as their algorithm continues to change, just like the AI tools that we're using continue to change, they're going to start to understand the triggers of what is a great piece of content and what is a mediocre piece of content.

So in the short term, yes, we might see a lot of trash content, true. But over time, the content is going to be forced to elevate due to things like Double E-A-T. When Google announces Double E-A-T, the new requirements around what they're going to actually rank and what they want to see from creators and marketers and businesses, that gives us an insight into where things are going.

Think differently

This is why I think AI can still be embraced, but we have to think differently. Now, when we're going through the new workflow, where does it start? It still starts with research, but it's going to be a different type of research. You're going to be able to go to an AI tool and you can say, hey, give me the top 20 keywords that I should be going after if I want to increase my SERP visibility based off my analytics, which the AI can actually pull data from, and give me a recommendation on the keywords that I should go after.

This can happen within minutes now. It's no longer taking a human the time to go through a spreadsheet, to pull up Tableau. They can use a tool that's going to analyze this on your behalf. Then from this detail, from this data, you can then start to dive into the SERP, and there are AI tools that will allow you to do that. You can start to look at social media and start to use AI tools that will analyze on your behalf the topics that are trending in your space and use that to start getting into something very special, which is when you actually start to create content using AI.

What does that look like? So imagine you're using generative AI, which is essentially a tool, a technology that has taken all of the content on the internet, and it's scraped a bunch of it. It's using language processing to understand it and come up with stories and messages that really sound natural, human, right? Natural language processing is at the core of all of this. If you go to a tool like ChatGPT, if you use their API, you can do what I'm going to share with you as the future of content creation in AI, and this is what it looks like.

You go to one of these tools. You set up a Google spreadsheet. You can tell that spreadsheet, you can tell the AI that you want them to find 10 blog posts based off of the keywords that you pulled out of your research. So if a tool like Moz gives you 20 keywords that you need to actually rank for, great, you've got the starting point. Now, I want AI to take each of these keywords and find 10 blog posts on these topics.

Give me 10 headlines. You now have a list of 10 headlines. You tell Google Sheets that you want each of these headlines to be on a separate cell, right? This is all pretty basic Google Sheets efforts right now. Once that's done, you tell AI to hit those headlines and write an outline for this headline using headline, actually using the cell with five key points.

Now, ChatGPT is now creating for you an outline that outlines all of the things that should make up these different blog posts. This is essentially the briefs, right? The briefs are being replaced. Now, after that is developed, you say, hey, ChatGPT, based off of this headline, can you write me an introduction using AIDA, Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, that formula to create a great intro for this blog post based off of the headline that they computed and actually created for you.

Now, here's where it gets even more interesting. Now, you take all of that information that ChatGPT just gave you, right, and you're able to say, hey, ChatGPT, write 400 words based on the topic and key point. This is what the outline gave you. The outline gave you five key points. So you're now able to tell it to take the headline from that output and write 400 words based off of that topic.

It creates that on your behalf, and you tell it to write it as if it was in a blog on this headline. If you wanted to get really fancy, you can say using a tone that Ross Simmonds would use, using a tone that somebody else would use. You can use other information to make it tell the story the way that you want it to. What are you met with?

You're met with a draft. You're met with a draft that you might be thinking is going to be trash, that might have some inaccuracies. All of those things are true. But you didn't have to have coffee, you didn't have to have wine. You didn't have to lose sleep. You didn't have a writer's block. You didn't have to have a smoke break.

You didn't have to do any of that. You didn't have to go through Docs. You didn't have to go through any of those things. You didn't have to do any of those things to get to your draft. So where do humans start to come in? We come in as it relates to elevation. As I mentioned, these are not tools to replace us.

They are tools to augment us. We then go in on that asset and you elevate it. You elevate that content asset to make it worth reading. You set the bar for what content excellence looks like in your industry, with your brand and with the story that you want to tell, and then you start to look at things like this. This is the elevation checklist. You're looking at: Do we have, can we incorporate in this blog post two DA60 URLs being linked to?

High-authority sites, can we make sure that we're referencing high-authority sites? Can we ensure that we have four images within this blog post? So in point three, where they're talking about a certain topic, can we create a custom visual that showcases this? Can we double-check to make sure that AIDA introduction is actually strong, and that the facts and the information within it are actually real information and not something that ChatGPT just made up?

Can we do that? Can we make sure that there are two third-party quotes, meaning I'm going to reach out to two people in the industry to get third-party quotes to elevate this content and ensure that Double E-A-T is being met with its expectations of having people with experience in my content? Can I ensure that I have one internal reference where I'm talking about my product, where I might even upload pictures and screenshots of the thing that I'm selling?

Can I ensure that I am embedding a YouTube video that has been uploaded? Why? Because Google bought YouTube for billions of dollars, and you can leverage that to ensure that you are increasing your ability and your chances to show up in the SERP. Can you ensure that that conclusion is inspiring? Can you ensure that the humans on the other end of the keyboard, when they're reading this blog post that AI essentially developed, feel inspired to take action to do something when they're done reading?

Can you ensure that there are charts and graphs? Can you ensure that the definitions that are being made and talked about within the piece are actually isolated from the content so it could possibly show up as a featured snippet? Can you run this content through a duplication check to make sure that there's no duplicate content where this isn't already been written, that there's no plagiarism happening in this piece that was created by AI?

If you can do this, you will have on your iron suit, right? This is where the magic happens. Then you're able to do it much faster than you would have the old way. Will the content still be good? No doubt about it. But as long as you have that commitment to content excellence, as long as you are there to elevate the content and embrace a culture that actually cares about the end reader, the content that your AI tools, your AI workflows produce might still be mediocre.

But when you add that human touch, when you add that expertise, and when you take that piece and you take it up a notch through elevation, that's when you get a piece of content that is worth reading, worth sharing, worth bookmarking, and ultimately worth creating, because at the end of the day, you still have to hit Publish.

You still have to share it. You still want to understand whether or not it's going to show up in the SERP. You're going to use elevation to ensure that it's ultimately set up to do that, but you're going to do it much faster because you embraced the evolution of content. Content is at the foundation of society. Every single piece of content that you create has an impact on the people on the other end of the screen.

Do not take it lightly. Create content today that you can distribute forever and ultimately have a massive impact on culture. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you want to learn more, check me out online @TheCoolestCool. Thank you so much. Have a great day or evening.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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bfxenon · 2 years ago

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How Content Is Evolving Thanks to AI — Whiteboard Friday

There's no question that AI has already started to have a meaningful impact on organizations that create content every single day.

In this video, Ross shares how our workflows, processes, and content creation will positively evolve thanks to AI.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Evolve to the new way

AI content will get better

Think differently

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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oakandcirrus · 3 years ago

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remember when we went to the movies and then we had to wait like a year for the dvd to come out. i miss the old times. reject modernity embrace tradition

#luke.txt #i hate the future sometimes #i miss waiting for things

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hopscotchfriday · 5 years ago

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Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space

There was a clear intake of breath from film nerds at the announcement of Stanley’s Lovecraft adaptation. Here was the promise of a serious adaptation of the Providence native’s fiction that would not simply focus on gloopy ooze and cosmic horror (while at the same time serving it up), but be willing to add a critical dimension to Lovecraft’s work.

The rising popularity of the author’s fiction, resting on a bedrock of American bigotry distinct even for the period, is troubling as news of rising racial tensions around the world continues to assault us on our devices, our televisions – the gossip of workplaces. H.P. Lovecraft has found his cultural moment and I almost wish he hadn’t.

Richard Stanley, meanwhile, has spent the last two decades in the wilderness. A South African émigré to the United Kingdom who somehow managed to court controversy even as his interests were strictly marginal – reminiscences featured in the documentary Future Shock!: The Story of 2000AD indicates comic creators still remember his lifting of Steve McManus and Kevin O'Neill's story Shok! (featured in prog 612).

Indeed, Stanley endured a reputation for many years as a promising young director, whose career was marred by this accusation of plagiarism and a disastrous failure in the Australian rain forest.

Fired from the set of The Island of Doctor Moreau, Stanley missed his shot at a Hollywood career. Refusing to simply fade away, the rejected director haunted the Northern Queensland locations in disguise as one of Moreau’s creations. He was even rumoured to have made some black magic workings to curse the production. The film-maker has continued to pursue his interest in the occult with indie documentaries.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau released in 2014 was the perfect forum for a reappraisal of the troubled director. David Gregory presents Stanley as a bleakly whimsical naïf, crashing on the rocky shores of Hollywood business. Interviews with bemused cast members and crew paint a picture of a visionary incapable of communicating his ideas to the money-men, trusting instead to puckish confrontation.

It did not pan out, with John Frankenheimer being air-dropped in to complete a mediocre adaptation of the H.G. Wells tale.

Gregory also introduces concept art for Stanley’s excessive vision, presenting the experiments of Moreau escaping into the modern world, with hallucinatory chaos ensuing. His fascination with Wells’s themes of man playing god, and colonial contempt for indigenous people, inspired a spectacle of karmic revenge on the streets of London.

Color Out of Space (oh yes, that is what this is supposed to be about) features a similar inversion of the original work’s thematic concerns. The original story features working-class New England farmers, the Gardner family, doomed by a mysterious alien meteorite that contaminants their well and corrupts them physically and mentally. Lovecraft’s thematic nihilism is touched with a degree of class derision for the Gardners, their fate recounted to the reader by an educated visitor from Boston who pieces together the events of the story.

Stanley makes a number of changes that retain the cosmic nihilism and essential beats of The Colour Out of Space (why drop the ‘u’, does it signify his contemporising of the test?), while challenging the privileging of Lovecraft’s classist hauteur. Now the Gardner’s are urbanites-turned hipster land owners, clearly out of their depth in raising alpacas in the New England countryside. Nicolas Cage’s head of the household Nathan mentions cooking the meat of the animals in the following year, which daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) has to point out is exactly what you don’t do. Alpacas are raised for their wool; it is a waste to eat them.

Here the Gardner’s privilege marks them as alienated from the land. Their lack of experience with farming is underlined by how the household’s finances derive from mother Theresa (Joely Richardson), who works as an online stocks advisor and is frustrated by the poor internet.

As for the Gardner children, Lavinia has embraced magic ritual to affect an escape from the drudgery of her parents’ escape to the countryside. She is also introduced attempting a healing spell on behalf of her mother’s cancer. But of all the Gardners, Lavinia is the character most approximate to the otherworldly force that invades their farm. Son Benny (Brendan Meyer) is stoned, too online, and disaffected, while the youngest child Jack (Julian Hilliard) is overly attached to Theresa.

The stage is set then for Stanley theme of the self-proclaimed wholesome American family being torn apart when encountering something outside their regulated life. Theresa’s cancer is the spectre that haunts the passive aggressive sniping between the children and Nathan’s failures as a father. The cancer is an early corollary for the metastasising corruption of the ‘color’, which arrives via meteor and quickly mutates and assimilates animal and plant life, before enveloping the Gardners themselves.

There is a studied weirdness in the script to the interactions between the Gardners, hinting at the family’s already festering tensions and resentments. A scene of romantic banter between Nathan and Theresa descends into an exchange that emphasises his possessive hold over her as a literal sex object; Lavinia and Benny exchange insults exclusively focused on their respective genitals. In Stanley’s inversion of Lovecraft, it is the family unit that is already a corrupting trap.

The alien intelligence that plagues the Gardners manifests what is already working on the clan and their presumed normality.

Stanley’s other coup is to remove the passive epistolary tone of the story. Instead he introduces hydrologist Ward (Elliot Knight), who at first tries to rescue the family from what he regards as a water-born illness. For his efforts he is then targeted by the alien intelligence at work.

There’s plenty for gorehounds to enjoy here, from twisting masses of flesh, limbs being lopped off and the always reliable – murderous trees – but Stanley has also produced an evenly paced, visually exhilarating meditation on alienation and invasion.

Color Out of Space is now available On Demand via Telstra, Google Play, iTunes, Fetch TV, Foxtel & Umbrella Entertainment plus DVD & Blu-Ray.

#color out of space #richard stanley #joely richardson #film #Emmet O'Cuana #film review #Lost Soul The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's The Island of Dr. Moreau #The Island of Dr. Moreau #H.G. Wells #H.P. Lovecraft #the colour out of space #madeleine arthur #Future Shock!: The Story of 2000AD #david gregory #hopscotch friday #nicolas cage

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thisbluespirit · 4 years ago

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#Out of the Unknown#the machine stops#e. m. forster#Single play#Kenneth Cavander#Clive Donner#Yvonne Mitchell#Michael Gothard#Nike Arrighi#Jonathan Hansen#Jane Jordan Rogers#Lucy Hill#Philip Saville#1966#Annnnd we're back! Series 2 babey! I imagine a second series was far from a foregone conclusion at the beginning of the run so it must#Speak to the success of s1 that it was so quickly recommissioned (success almost entirely masterminded by the great Irene Shubik). And what#A way to open s2.. Screen adaptation of Forster's work was relatively rare during his lifetime (and he was still alive in 1966) so I'm not#Sure what Irene did to butter him up‚ but it worked (to the extent that‚ per the booklet with this set‚ he wrote to the BBC to commend them#On this adaptation of his story). It's not hard to see why he was impressed; this is without doubt the most experimental and avant garde of#The episodes yet‚ whilst also being one of the most carefully designed and impressively executed. A visual tour de force‚ from the#Intricate design of the machine interior to the alienating direction by Philip Saville. This is premium 60s TV and it's difficult to#Imagine it being produced with such care (and cost!) at‚ really‚ any other time in the BBC's history. The script closes tightly on Mitchell#And Gothard‚ mirroring not just the source text (this is a very faithful adaptation) but reflecting the isolation and claustrophobia of#This future society. A dystopia which does not realise it is a dystopia; a society which is inferior precisely in the things it considers#Superior (the embracing of technology above all‚ the rejection of nature and mechanisation of all). Actually Forster is strangely‚#Alarmingly even‚ prescient: it isn't hard to recognise in the automated living spaces and instant video messaging and computer designed#Comfort and entertainment‚ something of our own modern world. Yes indeed‚ we 'live in a society' but I'd like to think we're some way off#The dearth of energy and originality that Forster posited; and besides the message is ultimately hopeful. Even as everything fails around#Them‚ Mitchell and Gothard are comforted by the knowledge thst there are those who never left the natural world and who will prosper just#As the machine will perish. If the Internet comploded 2moro it would be catastrophe; but the cows and the flowers wouldn't know

now i have no idea whether i watched this one or not. Is there where I sent the DVDs back or has my memory finally given up??

Out of the Unknown: The Machine Stops (2.1, BBC, 1966)

"I asked for euthanasia again today."

"Why?"

"My lecture was unsuccessful. I wanted the homelessness that is beyond all human conception. I am easily depressed these days."

"The death rate is not permitted to exceed the birth rate. Were you refused?"

"Yes. Oh, there was never a more unfortunate woman than myself."

#out of the unknown #1960s #sff #e m forster #mariocki #reviews

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mirandalinportfolio · 5 years ago

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VICE: Face Shapes and Blood Types: Wading into the World of Online Dating in China

The Mandarin term shengnu literally means “leftover woman.” It was coined to describe China’s growing crop of middle-class women who, thanks to new educational and economic opportunities, have been able to rise to unprecedented ranks within Chinese society—at the expense of their love lives. Nearing (or, heaven forbid, passing) the age of 30, these women find themselves materially successful but romantically unattached.

As a female in her mid-20s, living in China with a graduate degree and no significant other, I’ve been particularly sensitive to the term’s use. But while local media and gossipy mothers often use it derisively, my leftover sisters and I have come to embrace it as a badge of honor worn by independent women who know what they want and are unwilling to settle.

We shengnu are in dual position of being supposedly desperate, but in actuality having all kinds of men to choose from. In 2003, Gong Haiyan, a single coed from Shanghai, started the online date site Jiayuan.com (“Beautiful Destiny”) because she was frustrated by the lack of legitimate dating options she found around her. The bare-bones website she initially sketched out has since grown into China’s largest online-dating website, with over 56 million registered users, more than OKCupid and PlentyOfFish combined.

Like Gong Haiyan, I have, in my years in China, had little luck on the traditional meat market, so I decided to see if her internet service, and a few others like it, could be a better matchmaker for me.

Signing up for an account on Jiayuan or any of China’s other big-three dating services starts like most sites: cheesy screenname, recently created email account, vaguely accurate description of age and looks. But just like democracy, dating in China has developed distinct Asian characteristics. Your blood type, face shape, and willingness to have your future in-laws live with you are treated as basic information (O-positive, duck-egg-shaped, to be discussed when the time comes, for the record).

My profile photo also proved to be a sticking point. It was rejected three times, initially because I chose some abstract avatar, then because not enough of my face was visible. “Show the world who you really are,” the site moderator urged. Although that struck me as contrary to everything the internet stands for, I submitted my passport photo and was passed to the next phase.

While most of your profile’s essentials can be filled out with the help of a drop-down menu, the final stage requires a personalized self-introduction. A provided example on Zhenai.com (“Precious Love”) is instructive as to what kind of women the service is appealing to:

Before, in order to focus on my studies, my mom didn’t let me date. Now, because of work, I don’t have time to date. As time passed, I suddenly discovered I’d already become one of the “shengnu.”Actually my demands for my other half aren’t that high. He doesn’t have to be that handsome, or that wealthy, but he must be motivated, responsible, obedient, and that’s about all. I have great hopes and visions for my future, but I hope to accomplish them with the person I love….

It was flattering but not altogether too surprising that within minutes of activating my profile, my inbox was flooded with messages. The first came from a 26-year-old, O-type (hurray our children, or rather our child, will be a universal donor!), triangle-faced man named “Poisonsc…” But as I browsed through his profile, alarm bells quickly went off. He was a private entrepreneur. He listed his monthly income as 3-5,000 renmindi per month (equal to about $480-800 dollars, an average white-collar salary). He didn’t own a car or a house yet. No wonder he was single.

With the growing numerical disparity and social parity between sexes, women know that not just anyone will do anymore. Owning a car and home are standard expectations before marriage. A candidate’s appeal rises if he has a five-figure monthly salary and stable career (state-owned corporations are best), but falls if that means he has to work overtime and thus won’t be around to whisk his partner off on romantic dates. Modern China’s romance with materialism was epitomized on the popular TV dating game show “Are You The One”, when one contestant famously claimed she’d rather cry in the back of a BMW than smile on a bicycle.

Baihe.com (meaning “Lily”, but also literally “Hundred Matches”) makes it easy to weed out the scrubs. Users can sort users by age, height, education, and income. Though IRL I’d like to think I’ve never judged any person by such narrow criteria, I decided if I was going to date in China, I had to do it with a Chinese mindset. So clicking the obvious choice, I browsed on.

The top hit was a block-headed 30-year-old with a lush head of hair named Heavy. The self-described “Chairman-looking” home-owner had posted half a dozen photos of him frolicking on an exotic beach. He clearly had the right salary-to-free-time ratio.

Like nearly every male profile I browsed, though, Heavy had almost no demands of his partner. He wanted someone between 24-28 years old, 140-175 cm tall, preferably ethnically Han. But income, education, and housing situation—factors that can make or break a man's prospects—were all listed as “no preference.”

Despite the cold rationalism that seems to surround these sites, all these sites still cling to the sweet romantic notions. It's about finding your other half. Each user, before finalizing their profile, must check off a box affirming their good moral character and honest intention to search for a spouse on the site, NOT a one-night stand. Bang With Friends, this most certainly is not.

But while sites try to ensure pureness of heart, there's no escaping the internet's inherent ability to con, especially in a country that trades on its ability to mass produce fake Chanel purses and pirated DVDs.

When I began my online search, the Chinese Lunar New Year was fast approaching. It’s a time when virtually everyone in the country returns home, gathers with their loved ones, and is ruthlessly interrogated about their personal lives. Accordingly, internet message boards light up with ads seeking and offering rental girlfriends and boyfriends. Taobao, China’s version of eBay, for a while banned the search term altogether.

“Busy at work, no time to consider relationships,” reads a typical message. “Can anyone help me cope with the parental pressure?”

Though joke and scam posts are rampant, I decided to respond to one that at least sounded thorough. User 19760923b was a 32-year-old male, Master’s degree, 180 cm, 75 kg, “probably considered good looking” seeking a 25- to 30-year-old female for an eight day "rental" to northeastern China.

“I’m just a regular office worker, not anyone rich, so anyone looking to get rich or become a mistress please don’t apply. If you’re too ugly or too fat, it will tip my parents off, so sorry, you won’t be considered.” What a charmer.

19760923b promised the rental wouldn’t be required to sleep in the same room or perform any kissing and fondling, though she “must be willing to hold hands.” He offered 300-800 Renminbi per day, negotiable. The deal also included train tickets to and from Beijing. If necessary, he’d be willing to also accompany his rental girlfriend to her hometown.

Using a mix of my latent Chinese class skills and Google Translate, I wrote a brief note expressing my desire to fake it. Within a couple of hours, I received an email: “Thank you for your reply, but I don’t think you will be a good match to bring home.” Even to play a sham girlfriend, the rejection felt real.

But my heartbreak was soon eased. A bounty of new "flirts" and "winks" were waiting in my inbox. One man in particular, using the name “Single-Minded,” had sent 13 messages in a span of 35 minutes. Though back home such over-eagerness would be ruthlessly mocked over a round of drinks with girlfriends, in China, it felt reassuringly sincere.

“Your subtle smile makes my heart jump,” cooed his first message. “I love to smile too. I hope we can smile together. Can I get to know you more?”

Mousing through his profile, I learned he was university educated, a car and home owner, and employed in finance by a Fortune 500 company. I was already imagining my mother’s approving nod.

In his next note, he waxed even more poetic: “In the whole world, who knows how many millions of people pass us by, but fate made me stop and look at your photo. I hope you will look back at me.”

His clear, unobstructed profile photo showed an athletically built man in his early 30s, with hair gelled into the snow cone swirl common among aspiring C-Pop stars. He was also wearing what looked like a lumpy holiday sweater knit by his grandmother. A sign of filial piety, I hoped.

As I clicked to respond, a screen flashed open offering me a series of ready-made responses. There was the generic, “Thank you for your interest. Please tell me more: ^.^” Or the flirtier, “If you read my message, write back so I know you reciprocate O(n_n)O.” Or the straightforward rejection: “Thank you for your interest. I don’t think our circumstances are a fit. Good luck, hope you find your soulmate.” I wondered if 19760923b had copied his response from here.

But as I considered what level of emoticon flirtation to use, I realized Single-Minded’s messages had also been computer generated. A row of tabs suggested dozens of opening lines, categorized from "funny" to "cute." Worst of all, my Single-Minded suitor had chosen from the "standard" section. He didn’t even use a creative scripted response!

Outraged, I aired my sense of betrayal to a male Chinese friend. Far from sharing my indignation, though, he bashfully confessed that at the age of 25 and just entering his first official relationship, he too had used a move learned from an American teen soap. How else, he asked, were young people, sheltered by overprotective parents since birth and often right through their adult lives, supposed to know how to hit on girls?

If, as they say, Chariman Mao abolished arranged marriages in 1951 after his own unhappy experience with the practice during his first marriage, the system that’s replaced it hasn’t made finding a genuine connection any easier for Chinese men and women. In the end, I got rejected for the role of a rental girlfriend, used an algorithm to pick out men by their income and blood type (which I later discovered in Asia is associated with certain personality types similar to zodiac signs; type-Os are ambitious, self-confident, and recommended to eat extra poultry and fish), got wooed by a succession of swirly-haired men with scripts, and continue to be harassed by all three dating companies trying to sell me additional matchmaking services. But I am still no closer than before to finding my soulmate.

And probably even further from finding a one-night stand.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yv5987/face-shapes-and-blood-types-wading-into-the-world-of-online-dating-in-china

#text

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orchid-vc · 6 years ago

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// PROJECT: “DYSTOPIA - ENDANGERED SOUNDS”

This 3D animated interactive project consists in a looped tunnel with no entrance or exit, where you are constantly going back and forth and noticing the exhibited cubes in the area.

Each cube holds the sound of an old technology that is lost in time, or being lost slowly.

Clicking on the cubes activates the sounds.

Concept -

Depicting how nostalgia creates a stagnant loop in the development of society. A rejection of social norms by retreating into cyberspace and embracing an apathetic view towards life by idolizing the nostalgia of a more innocent time, their childhood during the 90s and early 2000s.

A reaction to our one dimensional culture, a mass culture society that instead of enriching their lives and developing culturally, contribute to a stagnant situation by recycling and being emotionally dependent on the past.

“Instead of moving forward, instead of making progress, instead of freeing us, our modern technological society has turned the world into a panopticon, and we find that we are prisoners of the past, gaining release from the mass production of culture.”

Theories -

Michel Focault (panopticism I) George Orwell (panopticism II )

Visual references -

Aesthetically the project is inspired by the “Neo-noir” futuristic style which also creates a contradiction, since it is a critique in nostalgia and retreatment of the past.

// NEO - NOIR (cinema)

>> hyper visual nature >> utilising vibrant colors >> dynamic lightning >> dream like aesthetic Noir - sci - fi is surrounded by neon lights A particular way of expressing anxiety & melancholy.

// OLD BOY

// BLADE RUNNER I & II

Pioneer film in postmodern aesthetic depicting a tension between real and artificial, alive and decaying. Blade Runner has a quintessentially postmodern aesthetic, the blurring effect is echoed in the narrative and thematic sense too, depicting so a distinction between what is and what isn’t human behaviour.

// SWIM - VENUE

Also the aesthetics were inspired by real surrounding interiors such as Swim Venue in Stepanska. At night the venue has the “Neo-noir” atmosphere with the strong purple neons and the grid gradient that the old pool tiles create, together with the dynamic lightning and dream like aesthetic.

// Museum of the Endangered Sounds The main visual element implemented in this project is the Museum of the Endangered Sounds.

The Museum Of Endangered Sounds is owned and operated by Brendan Chilcutt.

He launched the site in January of 2012 as a way to preserve the sounds made famous by my favorite old technologies and electronics equipment.

For instance, the textured rattle and hum of a VHS tape being sucked into the womb of a 1983 JVC HR-7100 VCR. it's a wonderfully complex sound, subtle yet unfiltered.

But, as streaming playback becomes more common in the world, and as people get brought up to DVD players, it's likely that the world will have seen and heard the last of older machines like the HR-7100. And as new products come to market, we stand to lose much more than VCRs.

“Imagine a world where we never again hear the symphonic startup of a Windows 95 machine. Imagine generations of children unacquainted with the chattering of angels lodged deep within the recesses of an old cathode ray tube TV"

#vaporwave

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almondmilkmaddie · 7 months ago

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I got past lives on dvd from the public library bookstore for a dollar and then watched it with my roommate’s cat and I think that it’s beautiful that I could experience emotional turmoil at such a reasonable price!

#past lives #movies #reject modernity embrace dvds

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dippedanddripped · 5 years ago

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When the game-changing micro-robotic vibrator, the Osé, invented by tech pioneer Lora Haddock, was banned at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year, it ignited a firestorm, particularly given the show’s history of showing love (or lust) for sextech in the past—as long as the products were for men. VR porn has been a mainstay at CES since 2017, various sex robots for men have launched on the show floor, Trojan Condoms has exhibited sex toys, and an adult film company exhibited the same year the Osé was blocked.

It’s not a shock to see yet another hurdle for women to conquer. The battle for equality for women impacts everything from pay gaps to opportunity, and the advance of sextech is demonstrating with new clarity how the fight is far from over. As marketers, we know that products for men often lead the way, followed by female brand extensions (think: Gillette).

But what’s most thrilling about the present day is that women inventors, marketers, CEOs, and investors—as well as consumers—are flipping the script. We’re not waiting to be heard or raising our hands quietly. From viral movements like #TimesUp, #MeToo, and #YouKnowMe to the conversation around the wage gap, we are alive in a time where women are proving their ability to own the conversation and destigmatize what was previously too taboo to discuss. So why not sextech?

Sextech, or sex technology, is a vital component in the overall femtech category, that’s predicted to be a $50 billion market by 2025. As a woman who has spent her entire career in advertising and PR, I see an incredible opportunity for a disruption that has implications beyond the women’s wellness consumer packaged goods category, where lo-fi sextech has always discretely held a place in the development of products such as warming lubes and lotions.

ADVERTISING

Sextech impacts the larger tech ecosphere. App developers are creating vibration apps and phone-controlled vibrators, and female inventors are integral to shaping its future. While CES ultimately did an about-face to support the Osé, the damage was done, demonstrating not only discrimination but also a worrying lack of foresight. Events like CES are supposed to show us the future of consumer technology, and the growing embrace of sex toys, sex education, and sextech has the potential to be an inflection point.

THE SECRET WAYS SEXTECH DRIVES INNOVATION

If you want to know where the biggest tech innovations are coming from, look to unlikely industries. The military brought us modern digital computers, the internet, and GPS. Or you can look to the adult industry. Porn has been a surprising driver of consumer attitudes and the mass-scale adoption of broadband. It’s tipped the scales in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray fight and even standardized many of the building blocks of e-commerce that we now take for granted.

Sex toys are becoming increasingly tech-enabled and forward-thinking, too. At the time CES originally rejected the Osé, it had eight patents pending related to engineering, robotics, and biomimicry. Sex robots (yes, they’re a thing now—and they come in female and male models) are poised to make huge strides in robotics by simulating physical systems.

WOMEN’S SEXTECH IS THE FUTURE

Innovation in this industry is happening at lightning speed. It won’t be long before sextech’s work with multi-haptic systems, AI, and biomimetics spreads into other industries. In some places, it’s already happening. In 2016, Apple filed 38 patents for multi-haptic technologies and biological vital monitoring systems. The same tech that lets you engage with a smart sex toy will work its way into future iterations of the Apple Watch. Even the multi-haptic technology behind Huggies’ pregnancy belt, which allowed fathers to feel their babies’ kicks in real-time, thanks to the mother-to-be’s matching belt around her belly that sensed pressure and movement, was made possible by sex toys.

Tech-enabled sex toy brands like the Osé, OhMiBod, and Lioness are showing that the slice of the Venn diagram where sextech, femtech, and health and wellness overlap. The technology is fascinating but more important for marketers and communicators is its place in the cultural conversation. Our current moment has allowed these women-built sextech products to have a bigger platform than they would have had even two years ago. It’s opening new ways of talking about our sexuality for women, for brands, and for influencers.

These brands are mainstreaming the narratives around sex toys in a serious way, talking about them in the same language used in the health and wellness industry. This isn’t to say that every brand is ready to have these conversations. Maybe the telecom giants aren’t ready to start talking about smart vibrators with their consumers—yet; but they must know that the female segments of their audience will be talking about this.

The sex-positive feminism movement has made room for suddenly emboldened and powerful women’s voices in the cultural conversation. And the most groundbreaking work in sextech is being done by women and for women. Marketers and communicators would be shortsighted to not pay attention to these brands and the ripple of impact they are poised to create.

There’s still a long way to go toward mainstream acceptance. Facebook and Instagram still don’t allow ads for sextech products but cultural norms are changing. And those disruptions offer opportunities for challenger brands and visionary marketers, while also providing a heads-up to the traditional leaders in the broader category.

The marquee brands that have been holding up the women’s health and wellness market risk losing their place if they don’t adapt. Their ability to drive sales is compromised if they don’t offer what women want today. We know women are asking for it, and instead of having brands serve them, they’re inventing the category themselves in a space, like so many others, that was predominantly male-dominated.

What’s different in 2019 is that women won’t wait for the female complementary products to be introduced into the market once the male market is fully sated. Women who own their sexual lives are also powerful consumers. With $50 billion on the table, are you paying attention?

#byline #fashion #tech

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zakwebbmefan · 5 years ago

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Review 2012: The Most Significant Technology Flops In 2012

Innovation can bring a whole lot to the table. It can stun you or it can wit you with the unusual gadgetry that has no functional or real-world use. While some concepts in modern technology can press it to become a solid moneymaker some concepts will certainly discover their method the obituary. A lot of things take place in this social media age as well as it is very easy to miss what are the top misses out on in modern technology this year.

Allow us rewind and also evaluate the year that got on the technology room and learn the greatest technology flops thus far this year.

Less likes for Facebook IPO

Among one of the most hyped events in stock market history is Facebooks IPO. Prior to it hit the bourse; it was proclaimed to break records on the securities market. Some even saw the business to become one of the initial to get to a trillion bucks. Not bad for a business that earned $3.7 billion to be valued at $104 billion. Individuals freaked out over the IPO buzz just to see their bubble burst as the supplies lost 30 percent of their original value. Some capitalists really did not such as (pardon the word play here) what was occurring and also attempted to take legal action against Mark Zuckerberg over the dismal performance of the firm stock.

SOPA stopped working to stop on the internet piracy

The begin of the year saw a lot of drama concerning the controversial Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA). If the costs passed through the United States Congress; it could have enabled the United States Government to get ISPs to block websites that are infringing on intellectual property rights. The act attracted flak from the on the internet community such as Google as well as Wikipedia. As an outcome of the demonstrations by large technology names, the measured was tabled (delayed its deliberations).

Google Budget

Near Area Communications could have been big and also trigger a new ecommerce revolution. Google was poised to be at the middle of the activity with Google Purse. Nonetheless, customers are not keen on making use of NFC being used it as the primary technology for cashless purchases. The unsafe nature of NFC has actually rejected individuals away from embracing the idea of Google Budget. With Google functioning to boost NFC security; it now introduces a physical card where you can connect your credit/debit cards to it because not all vendors can make use of NFC, which is seen as the difficulty in the broad use Google Wallet.

Sonys Playstation Vita

Sony was severely impacted by the quake that struck Japan in 2011. It almost shelved the intro of the brand-new Playstation handheld called Playstation Vita. After the hype generated by the Japanese electronic devices giant-- the launch of the tool saw disappointing sales in spite of positive evaluations, owing to the truth that the majority of smart devices are now with the ability of doubling as gaming gadgets.

License wars

Did you recognize that there are greater than eight million license claims taking place? Apple is taking legal action against Samsung; Samsung is suing Apple; Motorola is taking legal action against Microsoft and also Microsoft says ditto to Motorola. It appears that competition in the technology room has moved from development to the courtroom. Essentially, every person is filing a claim against everybody. License suits may be a sign of robust innovation; yet at what cost to the consumer that should have a choice.

Fatality of DVD?

Microsoft has announced that it will drop playback support for the DVD in the new Windows 8. This can be the beginning of completion for the DVD. However is DVD shedding its hold; rather honestly there are a great deal of DVD walking around and despite the intro of the Blu-Ray disc, it is not anticipated that DVD will certainly disappear and ride on the sundown. Microsoft choice to drop the DVD is a flop due to the fact that it estranged hundreds of individuals that still want to use their DVD drives.

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daleisgreat · 7 years ago

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Man on the Moon

Season’s greetings everyone! Now seemed like the perfect time to pull Andy Kaufman’s 1999 biopic, Man on the Moon (trailer) out of the ‘ol backlog box. People who are keen to the seemingly endless amount of Netflix original content hitting lately are probably aware of their recent documentary, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (trailer). That documentary is all about the behind-the-scenes tomfoolery Jim Carrey was up to as he portrayed Andy Kaufman for the film, but stayed in character off-camera to everyone’s dismay. I watched the documentary last week, and was surprised at the plethora of footage the studio captured of Jim Carrey embracing the spirit of Kaufman as he pulled modern day Kaufman-esque pranks on his cast and crew mates. After consuming that it seemed ideal to finally get around to watching my DVD of Man on the Moon after it sat in my backlog box since 2004 from a buy-two-get-one-free promotional offer with The Rundown and a director’s cut of Beyond the Mat. I barely had a clue who Andy Kaufman was when I first saw the film in the theaters back when it hit theaters mere days before the turn of the century. Astute readers of this blog know I am an ardent wrestling fan. All I knew about Kaufman going into this film was from reading wrestling magazines and websites of the time that chronicled how Kaufman had a feud with wrestling legend Jerry “The King” Lawler in his wrestling territory based out of Memphis, Tennessee in the early 1980s. Their rivalry garnered some national attention when the duo got into a tussle on Late Night with David Letterman. So when wrestling was having its ‘Attitude era’ boom period in 1999, I eagerly attended the film because WWE promoted it on their programming because they brought in Jerry Lawler (who was announcing for WWE at the time) to reprise his role in his feud with Andy in the biopic.

I was trying to ponder recent examples of Andy Kaufman to compare his style of comedy to and the best I could come up with is Sacha Baron Cohen. Both performers conjured up personas and were both pioneers in uncomfortable reaction comedy in real life scenarios on unsuspecting strangers not enlightened to their act. Sacha filmed his adventures as Bruno and Borat while Kaufman had the alter ego of Vegas lounge singer reject, Tony Clifton unleash his brand of havoc on the cast of Taxi. Most of the cast of Taxi reprise their roles in cameo appearances in Man on the Moon along with a handful of other celebrity cameos throughout the film. There is a fantastic bit at the beginning of Man on the Moon where Carrey does a bit as Andy with his trademark humor to scare away the casual moviegoer expecting slapstick laughs. The film perfectly captures how Kaufman was ahead of his time and doing daring bits of comedy and always trying to innovate and come up with something different every time he went on stage. He had help along the way with lifelong friend Bob Zmuda (Paul Giamatti) as the film captures how his improv act caught the eye of George Shapiro (Danny Devito). George opened doors for Andy for nationwide success with his infamous debut on the first episode of Saturday Night Live lip-synching the theme to Mighty Mouse and how that lead to Andy’s breakout success on the hit sitcom, Taxi.

Andy did not want all the fame and fortune however as he only complied to go along with the crowd-pleasing Taxi with the understanding that he would get his own special where he would do his own style of comedy. I love how Man on the Moon portrays Andy’s revenge when management tells Andy they would not run his special and how Andy reigned terror on the set of Taxi as Clifton to get himself off the show. That brought the film to what 16-year old Dale at the time was anticipating the most, the wrestling section as Kaufman turned his attention to his secret favorite passion, professional wrestling. Andy did not have the most intimidating musculature so he instead wrestled over 60 matches against women and proclaimed himself the intergender champion of wrestling. This did not sit well with Jerry Lawler, and he challenged him to a match that saw Kaufman leaving the arena in a stretcher. Andy loved his new ventures in wrestling, but wrestling’s showbiz background carried a stigma with Hollywood at the time and film fairly encapsulates how Andy’s wrestling endeavors blackballed him from Hollywood.

Unfortunately, Andy developed lung cancer around this time in 1983 and he passed away a year later. The final act of the film is a tearjerker, and attendees of the funeral state in the extra feature interviews that Man on the Moon nailed the atmosphere and vibe of Kaufman’s one-of-a-kind funeral. In the buzz following the Netflix documentary, I heard several commentators and critics recently state how they believe Kaufman is still alive and how he faked his death for the quintessential prank. There are a few noteworthy extras on the DVD. Spotlight on Location is a 19 minute EPK piece with standard cast and crew interviews promoting the film along with a few takeaway anecdotes on how Carrey stated how this was the first film in several years he had to audition for and how the cameos came to be. There are 12 minutes of delete scenes that I wish most would have made the cut where Kaufman has fun messing with the crowd during his standup and backstage antics after his wrestling performances. There is a text bio of Andy’s life that is quite thorough and covers a few more details the movie could not squeeze in and text production notes with several pages of behind-the-scenes information on what went on off camera during the film’s production. I ate up both features and devoured both entries.

Finally, this will probably be the only movie blog where I highlight the music videos as the standout extra feature, but that is the case today because this has two music videos from REM, with ‘Man on the Moon’ being the standout track and gaining fame beyond the soundtrack because it still gets regular nationwide radio play today. Whenever I hear it I cannot help but nod along to it as I recall a few of my favorite scenes from the movie. After gleaming more knowledge on Andy’s life over the years I was able to appreciate Man on the Moon exponentially more than 16-year old me did 18 years ago. I want to slap myself for having this awesome film sit in my backlog for well over a decade, and it took a kickass Netflix documentary that dropped from out of nowhere to inspire me to watch it, but as the adage goes, better late than never. If you have yet to see Man on the Moon then by all means check this out to learn about one of the most groundbreaking comics of all time and then track down the Netflix documentary, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond to discover all the craziness that transpired backstage. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Guardians of the Galaxy Hercules: Reborn Hitman Ink Joy Ride 1 & 2 The Interrogation Interstellar Jobs Man of Steel Marine 3-5 Mortal Kombat National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets The Replacements Rocky I-VII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars The War Wild The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Days of Future Past

#random movie #man on the moon #jim carrey #Paul Giamatti #danny devito #Jerry Lawler #andy kaufman

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topicprinter · 8 years ago

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MJ Demarco: Unscripted Top 5Animated Book SummaryMJ Demarco the author of ‘the millionaire fastlane’ has got a new book called ‘unscripted’, and these are my top takeaways, so let’s fucking get into it.The Script:The script is the modern day Matrix. It is a system that has been formed to keep you in the position that you are in, it’s modern day slavery. In the 1999 movie ‘The Matrix’ Neo realises that many of the inhabitants of the earth have been living in a ‘dream world’, a virtual reality that has been fed to humans by a parasitic machine race. The virtual reality distracting them from the discomforting truth. Our script is the socially conditioned narrative that we have been indoctrinated into since childhood. It consists of fallacies such as:• To succeed in life you need to go to school, get good grades and receive your college degree.• People that create wealth for themselves are in the position that they are in because of luck• Rich people are usually shady• Retirement happens at age 65 after working hard for a good company• Compound interest is the key to riches• You should do what you love• Starting a business is risky and you should put your money in a 401k or bank to be safeThese fallacies are preached by seeders, all in an effort to create you into an M.O.D.E.L Citizen Mediocre, Obedient, Dependent, Entertained and LifelessDo What You Love MythIn the pursuit of financial independence we are often bombarded with the advice of ‘Do what you love’, the basic premise being that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. The problem with this notion is that doing what you love pays no attention to what the market needs, it instead focuses on your own selfish desires. Just because you love going to the gym doesn’t mean being a personal trainer or starting the thousandth YouTube fitness channel is going to make you rich. Just because you love playing Call of Duty, doesn’t mean that you should make the millionth YouTube Gamer Vlog channel.The market does not revolve around what you love, the market is selfish and only cares about what it NEEDS. A similar concept was talked about in the E-Myth Revisited. Just because you know how to do something, doesn’t mean you should revolve your business around that thing. The skills needed to make your famous apple pie recipes and the skills needed to run an apple pie business are two completely different things.Do what you love is a myth that is propagated by many of the Gurus. Understand that there is a difference between ‘do what you love’ and putting love into your work. You don’t have to enjoy cleaning up your backyard, but you can put love into the work making sure the job is done with integrity. A good entrepreneur always puts love into their work, they don't necessarily limit themselves to doing only things that they love.The Gurus and the compound interest mythHow many gurus have you heard giving the same old advice about the power of compound interest, the power of the stock market, and the importance of cutting coupons? This advice is repeated over and over ad nauseam in just about every finance book. These gurus offer you advice about investing in mutual funds, and other investment as a way to get rich fast! Promising incredible returns! One problem tho… These gurus do not follow their own advice.The truth of the matter is that these investment vehicles do not usually create explosive growth unless you are dealing with large volumes, compound interest works well when you already have a large principle to work with not pennies. These gurus make their money from the books they sell, and the expensive seminars /retreats they run. They are not making their fortune from the stock market; they are making their fortunes charging clients thousands of dollars to learn about the stock market.The market can’t be predicted, but the gurus would have you believe that you can beat it! The secret can be yours once you sign up to their email list, and buy their new DVD course. They won’t tell you about inflation rates, or the threat of financial recessions, no way! That shit will scare you away, instead, they tell you the same story about how if you bought stock in Coke back in the early 1900s you would be able to enjoy your millions right now! Yes at age 100 and something, you can finally ball like Dan Bilzerian.Value CheatsThere is a new breed of entrepreneurs that have plagued the market. This new breed is in it only to make a quick buck by any means necessary. These fakepreneurs are the ones that try and cheat value. Entrepreneurship is fundamentally based on providing value and solving problems. These entrepreneurs will try provide the least amount of value while trying to receive the most amount of money possible. These are the guys that run affiliate links to dodgy products all through their blog pages. The same guys spam the Kindle store with crappy copy paste ebooks that try upsell you on their VIP course.Value cheats often follow trends, as soon as the trend dies they die and have to find a new way to earn money. These value cheats jump from, blogging to kindle, shopify, drop shipping, and to whatever new trend is popping. Ultimately value cheats don’t stay in business for too long, you can only cheat value for too long before having to face to consequences.Entrepreneurs offer real value in exchange for monitory gains. They offer value by solving problems. Problems are often solved in one of two ways; innovation of a new product or system or improvements on an existing product or system.Uber was incredibly successful because it made improvements on a problem that existed (the taxi industry). For years people complained about how cabs were often unreliable and too expensive, but no one did anything about it. Uber is disrupting the industry because of the improvements it made on customer experience. They are the typical example of a successful entrepreneurship venture.Innovation is creating something entirely new often marketing it in a blue ocean in which you can create a monopoly (check out 'blue ocean strategy' for more on this). A good example of entrepreneurship innovation is the streaming services that are now gaining huge popularity such as, Spotify and Apple Music. It is far easier to improve an existing problem over creating something entirely new. Do not value cheat if you want to be successful.The Process Vs The EventEntrepreneurship largely consists of many processes that go unheard by the masses. The Script would have us believe that things happen due to sudden events;• The actor gets the blockbuster role• Some college kids invent the biggest social media site• The YouTuber becomes a millionaireWhat the script does not highlight is the process that underlies these events. The actors 100s of auditions and embarrassing rejections are ignored. The college kids ten thousand hours of programming and many failed attempts are ignored. The YouTubers hundreds of failed videos and sleepless nights editing are ignored.Entrepreneurship is a game of process; it is not a glamorous event as depicted by the SCRIPT. It is instead a life in the trenches. Entrepreneurship is not easy, you must be willing to constantly work on your vision, all while embracing the fact that you might not get rewarded instantly. There is no instant gratification in entrepreneurship, it is a long game.Most people won’t be successful entrepreneurs because it requires you to go against your human nature. It required you to be formless like water as Bruce Lee said. There are no clear cut blueprints. There are no simple steps to follow, only actions and feedback. Human nature is lazy, which is a quality that entrepreneurs can not ever embrace.This shit isn’t for everybody. Ok guys those are my top five takes from the book! I suggest you guys go and buy it.There is a lot more content in the actual book that has been emitted in this summary. Otherwise, I would go on for days.

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