Category: Entertainment

Newest Grant Theft Auto Slams Right Wing

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Well, now we know why younger Americans are trending against the Republicans.

Cases in point in GTA IV:

  • A hack news organization, Weasel News…Perhaps representing some other mammal named “fair and balanced” news channel?
  • Bridges closed to the city center (Manhattan) for “unspecified” security threats.
  • A Limbaugh clone who is poorly depicted, “You listeners make the show. All I do is make the money and spend it on face fulls of pharmaceuticals that make me go deaf.”

The vast left wing conspiracy seems to be doing its job.

Really, Really, Really Bad Ideas: Steve Jobs Edition

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Steve Jobs is in negotiations with Universal Music about selling preloaded iPods, where the player will have a subscription attached to the device.

I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad idea, if I want music, I want to own it, and if you want me to rent it, I will just fire up µTorrent, additionally, eMusic is clearly threatening an antitrust lawsuit on this.

However, I do know that one thing is a bad idea, the idea of giving music distributors a cut of the hardware sales. There is a difference between making a subscription service available on your player, and giving a cut of each hardware sale to those distributors.

It is the camel’s nose under the tent, and it will be used ad precedent in future lawsuits against the hardware manufactures and against independent distributors of music.

It’s bad for the consumer and it’s bad for Apple.

Carole Channing is Biracial?

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From the wiki:

According to Channing’s memoirs, when she left home to attend Bennington College in Vermont, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist whom she had believed was born in Rhode Island, was in fact born in Augusta, Georgia to a German American father and an African American mother. According to Channing’s account, her mother didn’t want her to be surprised “if she had a black baby”. Channing kept her heritage secret so she would not be typecast on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, published in 2002 when she was 81 years old. Channing’s autobiography, although containing a photograph of her mother, displays none of her father or her son.

Melanie Morgan Gets Well-Deserved Boot

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Citadel Broadcasting, which owns her station, KSFO, had declined to renew Malanie Morgan’s contract, see here and
here.

I wish that it was a sign that there are going to be limits to how scummy you can be, but a more likely reason is that they were trying to save cash.

Citadel is losing money hand over fist, and is also cutting extensively at their Chicago station, WLS, in what is described as bloodbath.

Pay Per View Review

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It was movie night, and it was Natalie’s turn to choose, and she chose Shreck the Third. Charlie objected mildly, since he had already seen it at school, but he he enjoyed it once it was on.

Mike Myers … Shrek (voice)
Eddie Murphy … Donkey (voice)
Cameron Diaz … Princess Fiona (voice)
Antonio Banderas … Puss in Boots (voice)
Julie Andrews … Queen Lillian (voice)
John Cleese … King Harold (voice)
Rupert Everett … Prince Charming (voice)
Eric Idle … Merlin (voice)
Justin Timberlake … Artie (voice)

First and foremost, as with any franchise, the question is if it was true to series.

The answer is yes.

The plot is by no means throw-away, with Shreck trying to find a Nephew of the King, Arthur (Artie), so that he does not have to be king.

We also have the vengeful Charming, and some amusing sendups of dinner theater and high school along the way.

The use of music in this movie is the best yet. I’ll never think of Led Zepplin’s The Immigrant Song in the same way.

It is a worthy successor of the first two.

Recommended.

Wal-Mart Screws the Pooch on Digital Downloads

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So, after less than a year, Wal-Mart is abandoning its digital download service.

Its basic features were:

  • Just as (if not more) expensive as a DVD.
  • A draconian DRM regime which forced you to watch it on your computer and only that computer.
  • It only ran on Windows Machines.
  • No High Def.
    • Which doesn’t mean much to me, but for the technophile early adoptors, it does.
  • The DRM scheme allowed the studios to revoke your rights to the movies that you downloaded with no recourse.

To quote ars technica:

The message here is very clear: draconian DRM and unrealistic pricing are turning consumers away from legitimate retail channels and giving them a big incentive to adopt underground file sharing.

World Wide Pants Makes Deal With Striking Writers, Letterman Back on the Air

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So will Craig Ferguson’s show, which is also produced by Letterman’s sartorially named production company.

The details of the deal have not yet been released, but this should create a significant advantage for both Letterman and Ferguson, not just because they will have writers, those monologues typically take a dozen writers to hammer out, but because there are a lot of guests who won’t cross a picket line, and with World Wide Pants productions, they are not.

As to whether this will lead to Letterman taking back the ratings lead from Leno, only time will tell.

As for me, I may watch Letterman, but I won’t be watching Stewart or Colbert, who will be airing shows without a deal with writers.