View From the Phlipside - School Shooter

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

The realm of video games is open to all kinds of heated debate.  For myself I think blaming video games for the troubles faced by young people today is just a quick and easy excuse that let’s over look far more serious problems like poverty and the loss of hope that weigh heavily on our kids.  But there are lines that simply shouldn’t be crossed.  There’s a new video game that doesn’t just cross that line it goes screaming across it.  The game is called School Shooter - North American Tour 2012.

Gun Free School Zone

Now I’m not particularly well versed in the video gaming technical stuff but here goes.  School Shooter is what’s called a mod, that’s an add-on to a larger established program.  In this case the larger program is the long established Half-Life 2 game.  This mod gives you the chance to pretend to be a spree killer going into a school setting heavily armed.  The goal of the game is to kill as many unarmed students as you can in 5 minutes and then kill yourself.  As repugnant as it is to say I wish I were making this up.  The mods creator has stated that this is just “entertainment” and “just a game”.

Every time I read that article I want to be sick to my stomach.

I’ll be honest my favorite arcade video game is a first person shooter.  It’s called “Silent Scope”.  It’s a sniper game.  The difference is that first I’m shooting at terrorists and second they all shoot back.  Maybe you can’t understand someone getting entertainment from a game like that.  That’s fine.  But surely we can see the difference between that and a game based on wholesale slaughter.

The good news is that the backlash came almost immediately and the web site hosting the mod has pulled it.  Along the way a great many people in the gaming world have also rejected it.  If there’s a positive to come from this maybe it will be deeper conversations about what we find amusing and what it says about us.  Somewhere between this game and the folks who want to ban anything that has the tiniest of whiff of violence is a reasonable middle ground.

There is nothing reasonable, acceptable or rational with the idea that this game is entertainment or just a game.
Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - R.I.P. Elizabeth Taylor

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

There are some deaths in the world of the media that simply require a moment’s consideration.  Such is the death of Elizabeth Taylor.  If you’re much younger than I am you may not have the kind of visceral attachment that two previous generations have to the actress.  So let’s lay a little ground work.

Elizabeth Taylor was an old school movie star and there are fewer and fewer of them left these days.  Add into that in her prime she

was stunningly, heart stoppingly beautiful.  But there are more than a few beautiful women in the movies then and now.  Taylor was something new.  She had the stop traffic looks of a Grace Kelly but also the heart racing sexuality of a Jane Russell.  Plus she could act.  It was a devastating and game changing combination.  And she wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted.  Her classic response to criticism that she was in a relationship with singer Eddie Fisher within months of the death of her husband (and Fisher’s best friend) Mike Todd she responded “What did you expect me to do?  Sleep alone?”  In 1958 that was bold new territory for a female star.  Taylor wasn’t going to pretend to be something she wasn’t.  She didn’t just love life, she lusted for it.

I’m always torn on the question of whether Taylor was a great actress.  Her position as a movie star is as high as you can get.  She certainly could be a great actress.  Movies like A Place in the Sun, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? have to be weighed against a train load of decidedly inferior projects.  Taylor seemed to play at the level of the material, never elevating a lesser movie by her presence.  And that’s a little sad.  Then of course we have Cleopatra a movie that very nearly killed 20th Century Fox Studios.  Taylor played the Queen of the Nile on screen and the archetype movie diva off screen apparently.

Her onscreen brilliance was too often over shadowed by her multiple marriages, weight problems and other  real life difficulties.  It’s easy to focus on her perfume business and forget that she was a tireless and generous benefactor of many causes, most especially HIV/AIDS activism.

There was never anything simple or easy to pigeonhole about Elizabeth Taylor.  That may have been part of her incredible allure as well.  Lots of current female actresses would like to claim the role of a modern day Elizabeth Taylor.  None of them come close.  Even in later life the Doonesbury cartoon strip had to pay deference to her with the line “ A tad overweight but violet eyes to die for”.  Yes indeed.

Elizabeth Taylor was 79.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Rebecca Black and "Friday"

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Let’s take a minute or two to consider the latest digital music sensation, Rebecca Black.  First and foremost let me say that I have nothing against the young lady personally.  She and her family are giving her a shot at living out a dream.  More power to them all.

Second, a quick word about the song in question, “Friday”.  That word would be - awful.  The song apparently was written by adults so Rebecca escapes any blame for this monstrosity.  Even by the exceptionally low standards of pop music this song is idiotic.  Anyone over the age of 11 should feel insulted by it.  Billboard magazine estimates she’s sold just under 50 thousand copies of the song.  Forbes magazine reported that she’d rolled up 2 million dollars in sales then later retracted the figure.  Billboard figures she’s averaged about 25 thousand a week over the last couple weeks. Having heard the song I can’t explain that.  I don’t recommend anyone listening to this song because I think you’ll lose brain cells.  ‘Nuff said.

So what does that leave?  Well there’s the question of cyber bullying that Rebecca Black is claiming.  Bullying is a serious issue when you’re in 8th grade like Rebecca and cyber bullying is also a serious issue.  As near as I can tell Black thinks anyone who criticizes her or expresses an dislike for her is bullying her.  This is a clear indication to me that she wasn’t properly prepared for the world she inhabits now.  Having people talk trash about you goes with the pop star lifestyle (just ask Justin Bieber).  If you want everyone to like you (as many 8th grade teens do) then don’t go into pop music.  Can the comments go over the top?  Sure.  Claiming you “hate” a 13 year old because she got talked into recording a really stupid song is mindless and immature.  Sure the song is awful but Rebecca is taking a chance on a dream and is even making a little money.  What’s to “hate”?

Finally we have Lady Gaga weighing in on the whole Rebecca Black issue.  Her assessment?  Black is a genius.  Like so many things with Lady Gaga my reaction is - she’s kidding, right?

Andy Warhol said one day everyone would be world famous for 15 minutes.  Sure it may be for singing one of the worst pop songs in history but why not let the kid enjoy her time in the spotlight?

Call that the View From the Phlipside

While I don't recommend it, if you really WANT to find out what all the hubbub is about check out the video:

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

At the movies

Zombieland (2009)- Three things to know about this movie:

• It is incredibly disgusting with bodily fluids flying in all directions
• It is rather profane.  Lotsa bad language
• It is VERY funny.

Those probably don't seem like they go together but they do.  The gore only has a couple really stomach wrenching moments and they're real fast.  And the obscenity is as appropriate as obscenity can be.  At least there's a reason for swearing when they swear.  You see a sudden virus has swept the world turning pretty much everyone into drooling, shambling zombies.  The movie follows a geek (Jesse Eisenberg), a red neck zombie killer (Woody Harrelson), a teenage girl (Emma Stone) and her little sister(Abigail Breslin who was in "Little Miss Sunshine").  Oh and Bill Murray appears as himself.  Then you're off and running with a very funny and even touching story of zombie killing and community and even family.

No, seriously.

I don't do zombie flicks normally but I enjoyed every minute of this one.  It's a send up of the genre and pulls it off beautifully.  Highly recommend (assuming you can deal with points 1 and 2).

About a Boy (2002) - Hugh Grant plays Will, another of his self centered, try not to think real hard about my life characters, who is gliding through life on the proceeds of his father's one hit song.  Which Will hates by the way.  Marcus is a 12 year old boy with a perpetually depressed mom and is the target of constant bullying at school because he's different.  The two will find salvation in one another in this sweet, funny movie.  Will's actually a bit of a pig and Marcus is a total dork.  But Will knows how to get along with anyone and Marcus knows how to care and that's what they teach one another.  Yes, fairly predictable stuff but Grant is fabulous in this kind of role and he even gets to grow the character.  It's funny and sweet without getting treacly.  Nicholas Hoult plays Marcus and is perfectly believable and appealing.  The movie was adapted from Nick Hornby's book of the same name.  Hornby also wrote the original novel for one of my all time favorite movies "High Fidelity"  I've been told his books are even better than the movies so I may have to go check that out.  This movie is well worth the time.

The Adjustment Bureau (2010)Think Men in Black meets The Matrix.  Man, I liked this movie.  But something kept nagging at me about it.  The acting is quite good.  Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's characters have excellent chemistry.  The story is good, based a Philip K. Dick story from the early '50's.  Visually very well done, the action moved right along, good suspense to the end.  But something was just off.  In the end I think it was the work of the first time director George Nolfi.   Nolfi is also producer and screenwriter.  My bet is that he's a big fan of the original Dick story.  Unfortunately he never elevated the slightly dated concept (men in hats.  Lots of men, mostly in fedoras wandering around NYC.  In trench coats.  They look just a little silly).  A movie like this needs to either give itself some room for fun like MIB or go epic like The Matrix (or BladeRunner another Dick adaptation).  Instead they try to wander a middle road with a strong romantic thread.  And it comes up just short.  Too bad because most of this movie is really good.

Silent Running (1972) - A movie that I loved when I was younger but looks rather dated now.  The environmental message is sledge hammered in, the music is over wrought and the dialogue is pretty bad.  On the redeeming side are the ancestors of R2D2, the drones Huey, Dewey and Louie.   In fact those three (actually just Huey and Dewey are in most of the film.  Louie dies early on) are the stars of the show.  The scene where they are cheating at cards and where one nudges the other when Bruce Dern's character Lowell enters the room are just classic.  Plus Bruce Dern turns in one of his classic nutso characterizations.


This was one of a series of low budget films that Universal did in the early '70's.  The idea was take a new director, give them a small budget ($1 million or less), stay out of the way and give the director final cut.  This movie and American Graffiti were the best of the bunch (by far)

Fascinating look at product placement for all the major corporations whose names are plastered all over the place.  Wonder if they realized that in sci-fi terms that almost always means it's a dystopian view of the future?

As science fiction the movie leaves a LOT to be desired.  Lowell wanders around outside the ship in just coveralls and a helmet with no sign of air supply.  There's an amazing amount of gravity out there too.  The usual issues with sounds travelling through the near vacuum of space.  Also how is that Lowell, the man in charge of the forest somehow overlooks the fact that PLANTS NEED SUNSHINE?

For its time the look of the film was quite impressive.  Some of the shots were re-used several times by TV shows including Battlestar Galatica.

A fun way to spend a free couple hours but not a great movie.

Peace

View From the Phlipside - Miracle Whip

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Time for me to lay a little love on a commercial.  Every once in a while I see one that impresses me enough that I need to give them a little public display of affection.  I always love it when someone decides to turn a negative into a positive.

Late last month Miracle Whip decided to do just that.  When it comes to the white sandwich condiments there is are only three options - mayonnaise, Miracle Whip or none of the above.  I grew up in a Miracle Whip family.  That's all I ever knew and I've always found mayo to just be a little boring.  At the same time I know plenty of people for whom Miracle Whip is about the most disgusting thing they can imagine.  So how likely is it that we'll ever change our minds?  Probably pretty slim but there's always those folks on the fence who never really paid it all much attention.  How to win them over?

The latest ad campaign simply took the issue on head on.  It involves people who love and people who hate Miracle Whip.  On the pro side you'll see folks like political commentator James Carville and author Amy Sedaris.  On the other side you have the Jersey Shore's Pauly D.  Need I say more?

This isn't the first time that Miracle Whip has stepped to the plate over their unique taste versus mayo.  Back in 2009 they ran a campaign that said "We will not tone it down" defending their spicier flavor versus mayonnaise.  In response Stephen Colbert took on Miracle Whip and defended mayo as only Colbert could.  Turns out Miracle Whip wasn't going to back down either and promptly bought an extensive run of commercial time on Colbert's TV program.

Rather than try and be all things to all people they've simply embraced their difference.  The slogan for the campaign says it all "We're not for everyone (are you Miracle Whip?)".  The campaign ties in with a dedicated YouTube channel where you can leave your opinion (the lovers are way ahead of the haters at the moment) and even snag a free sample.

Advertising can too often be bland and boring (a lot like mayo really) when people decide to play it safe.  Three cheers for Miracle Whip standing up and saying  "Hey, not everyone likes us.  That's their problem".

Oh yeah, color me a little loud and tangy.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Star Wars in 3D

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

There's word in the movie world that two of my least favorite things may all be colliding.  Sadly they will not be mutually destroyed in the process.  These things are the latest 3D fad and the eternal attempt by the movie studios and others to try and milk the very last cent out of a movie.  This usually involves creating new and useless "special editions" of the movie in the hope that the fans will race right out to buy the fourth, fifth or sixth version of the movie.

I said before that while I found Avatar really impressive and Inception pretty good the whole 3D thing just doesn't fly for me.  Far too often still they suffer from what one friend of mine refers to as the "jumpy out" parts.  I'm unconvinced that it generally adds anything to the story telling process.  It's just one more kind of flashy special effect.

I'm also tired of the latest and greatest version of movies.  Collectors editions, which usually means they've added some useless filler material.  Commentary tracks by whoever they could drag back in, most of which are mind numbingly boring.  Or they include the trailer.  Or a documentary on the making of the movie which  generally looks like it was done by an amateur.  Worst of all are  the "Director's Cuts".  This is a clear indicator that the movie is now significantly longer and more pretentious.  Spare me.

So would someone go slap George Lucas upside the head for me?  Yes, George is releasing a new version of the Star Wars movies and yes, it's going to be in 3-D.  Why?  I can answer that question and it has nothing to do with making the movies better.  It's a way to make a little more money from the franchise.  For me the proof of that is that he will release the new 3-D versions in chronological order.  That's right you will have to suffer through the release of the lesser second three movies in order to get to the decidedly superior original three.  Because if he did it the other way around no one would buy the second trilogy.

Let me put it to you this way - Jar Jar Binks in 3D.
If that isn't the dark side of the Force, I don't know what is.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Al Jazeera

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Over the last month there has been a little bit of discussion about whether or not more of us should have access to the Al Jazeera English news network on our cable and satellite systems.  I think that's wrong.  I think we should be having a LOT of discussion of the subject.

As always a little background - Al Jazeera is an international news network based in Doha Qatar which is one of
those very small countries along the Persian Gulf.  It's a peninsula on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia.  In 1996, following the demise of the BBC's Arabic language TV station,  the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa made a 137 million dollar loan to the network to get it rolling as part of his belief in a free press.  Over the years Al Jazeera has earned a reputation for offering dissenting points of view to the many authoritarian regimes in its region and also to the United States.  It has grown in scope from just being an Arabic language news source to having a variety of language networks including English.  During the recent upheavels in the Middle East no other network has had the kind of coverage on the ground that Al Jazeera has been able to offer.  Along the way some of their correspondents have also become targets of some of the regimes under fire.

So the question becomes why isn't this network generally available here in the most media saturated culture on earth?  Yes you can watch it online but it is only available on cable systems in Washington DC, Toledo Ohio and Burlington Vermont.  You also have access if you are a Direct TV satellite subscriber.  The reality is that's still a very small percentage of the population.  Last month they entered negotiations with Comcast to increase that coverage although there appears to be little progress on that front.

Al Jazeera has developed a very strong reputation in international news.  They are one of, perhaps the only, major news network that continues to expand their investment in international coverage.  Yes, they are sometime critical of American policy.  So does the BBC.  And the CBC.  They bring a different point of view to what's happening in the world.  That's a good thing and something that an awful lot of what passes for discussion of current events in this country would benefit from hearing.  Instead too many people insist that we should only hear more of the same, should only hear reporting that reinforces our image of ourselves.

Once upon a time we lauded American journalism for seeking and speaking truth to power.  Now we seem to want to hide away from someone who may want to continue on that tradition.

I say bring on Al Jazeera.  A better informed debate makes us a better nation.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - All News is Local

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Back in the 1980s we heard a political truism from then Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.  Tip knew from his days in Boston politics that "All politics are local".  Over the years of working in the media I realized that there was a parallel truism in the news - "All News is Local".  If it doesn't have some impact on us locally it isn't news.  The earthquake in Japan may be terrible and we certainly pay attention to it but it's not NEWS, not the way the increase in gasoline prices are.  The unrest in the Middle East has a much greater impact on us because it strikes close to home.

With that in mind is the bill currently coming before Congress to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Several sponsors of the bill have been quick to point out that they aren't trying to score political points by taking out NPR and PBS.  Rather this is just necessary pruning in hard times.  Since politics aren't the balliwick of this commentary I'll take them at their word.  Let's look at this strictly from the point of view of media.

Folks like to extol the virtues of private industry over public institutions.  I'm just not sure that in this case the argument works.  While both commercial radio and TV have brought us some excellent products they've also brought us "Who's the Boss" and the safest 500 songs list (and yes, that's a list of songs that virtually no one gets really excited about.  There are folks in radio who think that's a good thing.  Go figure).  Having a source for programming that is actually primarily concerned about the excellence of the programs doesn't strike me as a bad idea.

But that's not the best argument for continuing to fund CPB.  You see there IS a local argument.  Sure NPR has recently announced that they only get about 2% of their funding from the federal budget.  They'll probably easily replace it if necessary. The problem is that many small radio stations probably won't be able to replace it.  Small radio stations like this one.  The one you're listening to right now.  Grant money from CPB is a vital part of the financial health of small radio stations like ours.

Suddenly this story is a whole lot more local isn't it?  The story is easy to ignore when it is just about 2% of National Public Radio's budget.  I'm hoping it's a whole lot higher on your priorities list now that it may take something away from this area.  Something we're not ever likely to be able to replace.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

Theological Thoughts - Constatnine's Curse

The Donation of Constantine (check this and this) is a forged document of the 8th or 9th Century that claimed to be from the Roman Emperor Constantine I to Pope Sylvester I and those that followed him granting the bishop of Rome authority over most of the world.  Not just spiritual authority but secular authority as well.  It was generally accepted as real (and its "authority" called upon by some popes) until the 15th Century when it was fairly definitively shown to be a fake.

And that should be the end of that, right?

Well not really.  The Vatican chose to ignore the proof that it was fake for a while and I think the Church Universal still bears an underlying belief that even if we weren't granted secular authority, we probably ought to have been.  Consequently we still act like we are or should be in charge of the governance of the world.

Before anyone thinks I'm taking shots at our brothers and sisters in Rome let me point out that this basic idea is available in its own handy, dandy Protestant version in forms like "Dominionism"   The problem that I have with all of this is that I think it is the exact opposite of what we are called to be and do in the Gospel.

Yes, I'm aware of the passages telling us about Christ's kingdom in this world.  I just don't see where we're told that we're to set it up (as if God were incapable of doing it himself) or that we get to run it.

There are also plenty of passages of Jesus' direct teaching about NOT being in power, of giving up power and accepting a role in society outside of power.  For me the greatest of these is when he is confronted with the question about taxes and shown a coin of the realm (which you'll find in Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20). 

Is there any more simple expression of power in this world, now or then, than money?  Here is the question of power all wrapped up in a single small chunk of metal.  And in that chunk of metal we have the perfect simple symbol of governmental authority, the authority to tax.  Jesus' response is equally simple and instructive.  He refuses the power expressed therein.  Not tangentially or indirectly but straight to the point.  Give the Emperor (the government) what is theirs (power).  Not that "our day is coming" or "yeah, we need to take over soon" or  even "See how he keeps stealing from me?".  Nope. Give it up. 

Power in this world isn't what we're about.  In fact it's exactly what we're NOT about.  So why do so many of our brothers and sisters (of all theological stripes I might add) spend so much time trying to make sure that government expresses our particular understanding of God, the Gospel and All That Is Good?

I think it's a lack of faith attached with a good old dose of ego.  The lack of faith is in the ability of God (through the Holy Spirit) to work in this world.  We need to put it into law because it can't happen any other way.  To me that is an alarming lack of faith.  If legalism was the answer then why does Jesus spend so much time hammering away at legalism?  The ego part comes from the very simple idea that we need to put MY vision of what God wants into law so that everyone will live their lives the way I think they ought to live them.  (It's amazing how often folks with this point of view don't actually want to live their own lives that way but that's another subject for another day).  I know what's right, my way of thinking is right and I'm going to make sure all of you do it my way.  Me, my, mine.  Pretty sad Christian theology.

What happened to Love God, Love Your Neighbor As Yourself and Love One Another?  What happened to "...To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."?  Oh yes, the curse.

I believe the most powerful act that the church could offer the world right now would be to utterly renounce power.  We're not going to try and influence you, we're not going to lobby you, we're not going to try and impose our view on anyone else.  We're going to render unto Caesar and get on with the business of caring for the poor and the ill and those in prison.  We will love our neighbors and ourselves.

And the world will suddenly start getting better.
And many people will flock to our sides in wonder at what we are doing.
And the politicians will start showing up because they won't understand what we're doing but they know how to detect which way the wind blows.

And the world will change.

But only if we turn our back on that darkness ensconced in the Curse of Constantine.

Peace

View From the Phlipside - Opera Redux

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Well this is certainly the first time and in all likelihood the last time this will ever happen here on The View From the Phlipside.  For the second week in a row we're talking about opera.

Last week I commented on the Royal Opera Company in England looking to attract a new audience by putting on Anna Nicole - the Opera.  That elicited a response from my long time friend and one time collaborator David Robie.  David has worked in the Technical Services end of the opera industry for well over three decades now.  He pointed me towards a completely different approach being done here in the United States.

The Indianapolis Opera Company is performing Bizet's Carmen even as we speak.  This is one of the big names in the opera world.  You probably even know some of the music but may not realize it.  What makes this version interesting is that they've taken a shot at making it more accessible for more people.  They've shortened it, they've added dialogue, they've added characters and they've moved away from the really big operatic presentation to a much more intimate one.  The opera is being performed in a revamped church gymnasium so the audience is much, much closer to the action than ever before.  Add in scenery that is largely video projections, minimal props and the translation of the French lyrics onto video screens and this is a very different kind of Carmen.

I have no doubts that the purists will be every bit as appalled with Indianapolis Carmen as they were with the London Anna Nicole.  I'm just not sure they should be.  There are two very different approaches here.  I think that the Indianapolis company has decided to build on the historic strengths of their art form in bringing it into the 21st Century.  I think the London company has largely decided to walk away from those same strengths and reach toward a lowest common denominator version of opera. In newspaper terms they seem to be moving away from a Times of London seriousness towards the tabloid style of the Sun and their Page Three girls.

It's quite possible that both styles will find their place in the world of entertainment.  But I have to admit that for the very first time probably ever I actually care about what's happening in the opera world.  And I'm rooting for the folks in Indianapolis.

Call that the View From the Phlipside


Check out this video of the director of Carmen talking about this production:

 

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Swiss Chalet TV

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Lots of serious stuff this week so why not throw in something that's at the complete opposite end of the spectrum?  Something that's borderline ridiculous, outrageous, funny and, oh did I mention, just lip smackingly delicious.

Since I love the underlying history of things let's give a quick nod to the history behind this.  It's the Christmas Yule log TV broadcast started by New York TV station WPIX.  If you're not familiar with it it's a two hour long loop of video of a fireplace broadcast on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.  You get the video of the fireplace and some Christmas music.  That's it.  Of such things are legends made of.

Flash forward in time and a couple hundred miles west in location.  If we were in Canada and were subscribers to Rogers Cable we could turn to channel 208 right this very minute and watch the Swiss Chalet channel.  Oh but it gets better!  What do you watch on the Swiss Chalet channel?  Well if you're a fan of the restaurant chain, and I count myself as one, then you know it would have to be...yes, a chicken turning on a rotisserie over a flame.  Yes, you heard me right.  This 24 hour a day, 7 day a week channel offers you the chance to watch rotisserie chickens turning on its spit and hear the sound of sizzling.  And that's pretty much it.

The channel launched at the end of February as part of a, here comes the bombshell, new advertising campaign for Swiss Chalet.  The idea began with the current batch of TV ads that feature a Swiss Chalet employee whose idea to make the brand better known is a rotisserie channel.  The obvious next step was to do just that.  Periodically the screen also carries promos for the Swiss Chalet Facebook page and the codes for a variety of discounts that fans can use.

If you want to experience it for yourself then just hop on over to their website (link below) and you can watch the channel right on your computer screen.  It's bizarre, and fascinating, and rather delicious looking while still being just slightly disturbing.  The really bad news is that if the Rotisserie Channel puts you in the mood for some Swiss Chalet it's a bit of a drive.  The nearest one I can find is in Niagara Falls.  Ontario.

Guess I may just have to drool on my monitor for a while.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Check it out HERE  

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

From the Reading List

Two audiobooks:

A Darker Place by Jack Higgins - This is yet another in the series of novels Higgins has written involving former IRA enforcer Sean Dillon (there have been 18 so far).  All the usual characters are here - Dillon, Brigadier Ferguson, the Salters (reformed East End criminals) and the rest of the crew of the unofficial "Prime Minister's Personal Army".  I've been a fan of Higgins beginning with his first bestseller "The Eagle Has Landed".  He has a deft touch with character and plot.  Better yet he doesn't try to be anything beyond what he is - a top flight thriller author.  This one follows a famous Russian author who is also an accomplished killer.  He finds himself confronted with the both a false and real defection operation all at the same time.  I doubt the ending will come as any great surprise to anyone but Higgins does a great job of making you want to stick around to the very end. 

Cross Country by James Patterson -  Alex Cross is Patterson's best known character who also appears in no less than 18 novels.  I've read at least one other in the series and liked it enough to grab this audio version for a recent long trip.  Unfortunately as so often happens with long running characters Alex Cross has become one of those mystery heroes whose greatest asset is the inability of the villains to ever kill him off.  In following a murder case Cross decides, with no back up, no real contact in country and with no real leads at all, to go to Nigeria.  Nigeria - a country with very little civil control and rampant crime.  After being arrested, beaten and more he decides the smart thing to do is...go to the Ivory Coast, yet another country where he is guaranteed to be kidnapped, beaten some more and have the fortunately inept villains miss their chance once again.  Then Patterson takes time to make his political case for the horrors of Dharfur.  And it really felt like a political screed rather than what was needed to advance the story.  Can you tell I got rather annoyed with the book?  I'm close to the end so I'll probably finish it up on a run to Buffalo and back but I'm not overwhelmed and less likely to grab another one of the series.

There is one other thing I want to note about the audiobooks.  The Higgins is from Brilliance Audio while the Patterson is from the Hachette Book Group.  One is an audiobook specialist, the other has it as one of their divisions.  Let me tell you that there's a difference.  The Brilliance discs were MUCH more convenient to use as they would tell me that I'd reached the end of the disc and tell me what disc it was.  Then I'd be told what disc I had just inserted at the beginning as well.  This made things significantly easier as I was driving since I didn't need to check things as I went.  The Hachette discs gave no indication you were done till they looped back to the beginning of the disc and started over again.  No audio to help me along at all.  It added to my irritation with the book.  So I'll keep my eyes out for the Brilliance name in the future.

View From the Phlipside - Anna Nicole - the Opera

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Pardon me while I try and retrieve part of my education from many years ago.  If I remember my History of the Theater class at Edinboro then Opera was created to be the ultimate form of theater.  The grandest and most challenging music, epic stories, fabulous scenery.  Everything was supposed to be at the ultimate pinnacle of possibility.  I'm not sure all of us would agree that they achieved the goal but that's pretty much what they were aiming at.

Today opera, like most forms of classical music, is struggling.  Several generations have been raised with no particular appreciation of the art.  And yes that would include me.  It's generally seen as an elitist endeavor with a decidedly older fan base.  And that's a problem.  It makes things tough financially because your fan base is dying off with very few new fans stepping up to the plate.

Why this sudden concern for an art form that I readily admit I don't particularly

like?  Three words.  Anna. Nicole. Smith.  I know, seems like a total non sequitur doesn't it?  But then that pretty much sums up Anna Nicole too.  Playboy Playmate, pole dancer, actress and buxom wife of an octogenarian billionaire.  A woman to whom the words subtle and understated were so much meaningless noise.

And the subject of her own opera. No less a theater than the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in London has just closed a limited but sold out run of "Anna Nicole - the Opera".   The official line is that the theater was trying to "move the art form forward".  I think the reality is that they were desperate to attract an audience that wasn't past retirement age.  While the purists are caught between poo-poohing and outright apoplexy don't kid yourself, American opera companies are watching this story with great interest.  If the Royal Opera House gets away with it, meaning they don't lose too many subscribers, then you'll see more of this coming our way.

If the bottom line for opera is grandiosity then Anna Nicole is probably the perfect opera heroine.  She wouldn't be the first bad girl heroine of the form.  To be honest while the former reality show star was over the top I don't think she was really ever epic.  The reviews seem to indicate that it all fall short in the other categories as well.

Critics have used words like trashy, flamboyantly vulgar and fabulously entertaining about the opera.  Kind of reminds of the lady herself, doesn't it?

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Harper Collins and Library E-Books

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Now that I'm an e-book reader owner (still enjoying my Nook Color a great deal thank you very much) I've been exploring the whole new world of electronic publishing.  It's very interesting and still very much in a state of flux as we try and figure out what the new business models are going to look like.

Everyone it seems except for publisher Harper Collins.  They apparently are not only trying to hang on to the OLD business model but they're trying to make it even more restrictive and, oh yes did I mention, profitable for themselves.

I've got nothing against publishers making a dollar.  That's what keeps the

flow of new reading material headed my way.  Given the amount I read I need a steady influx of new titles.  The key problem is that while the traditional book wears out eventually a digital book probably never will.  And that is a loss in sales of replacement volumes.  Ok fine.  But Harper Collins used to sell e-books to libraries with a lifetime license.  That was their choice.  At the end of last month they announced a new policy.  The e-book could be lent 26 times and then the license would expire.  Meaning if the library still wanted that book in circulation they'd have to buy it again.  The publisher is quick to point out that replacement versions would be available at a reduced price. 

All of which misses the point.  With an average loan time of 2 weeks that means the e-book, if it's popular, is good for a year.  The average traditional book has a lifetime several times that long.  In fact I regularly check out books from our local library that are 10-15 years old.

Harper Collins has identified a legitimate area of concern for their business.  The answer they've chosen is arbitrary, illogical and not in their own best interests in the long run.  Given the extremely tight budgets faced by many libraries, the Prendergast included, they need to spend their dollars wisely.  Some libraries have already decided that they simply won't be buying any more Harper Collins e-books.  From Harper Collins point of view it just means they are creating an obstacle to becoming a prominent player in a growing publishing market.  In a word it's stupid.

Like many players in the music industry Harper Collins is choosing to cling to an out dated business model and attempt to win the day by throwing its weight around.  For the music industry that has resulted in an huge increase in product piracy and let Apple's iTunes store become a major driving force in setting product price.

You'd think a book publisher might read a little more history than they apparently have.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Check out this video prepared by librarians to explain the issue:

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - An Open Letter to Charlie Sheen

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

An open letter to Charlie Sheen.

Dear Charlie,
   There's a lot of people talking about you but I'm not sure how many

are talking TO you.  And it just seems like you could use an outside opinion.  We're about the same age, we're both fathers of daughters, so let's talk man to man.  I have the advantage of having no investment in your success or failure.  If you never make another movie or appear on the TV again it's no skin off my nose.  Call me impartial.

The first thing you need to really get a grip on is that no one takes you seriously right now Charlie.  Yeah, lots of folks want you on their programs but it's for comic relief.  They may sound all concerned and like they care but the instant you stop  being the freak show you are right now you'll never hear from them again.  Yes, I know you were the highest paid actor on TV last year, and I know you come from a distinguished acting family (all right let's be honest your father is a distinguished actor.  You and your brother Emilio have a couple of hit movies and you have two roles on hit TV shows.  A nice career but not in Daddy's league).  But being famous and making lots of money doesn't make you smart.  Your behavior over the last 6 months or so is proof positive of that.  You're rich and famous and acting like a complete moron.

There's nothing cool about being addicted to drugs and booze.  Maybe you believe in the burn the candle at both ends, live hard die young theory.  So let me set your straight on that too.  You're raking your family and friends over broken glass, you're robbing your daughters Sam J and Lola Rose, and your twin sons Bob and Max of a responsible parent and it's a path that leads to an early and unpleasant death.

The other side of that coin is that if you're stupid enough to throw away all the good things in your life, the salary, the marriage (you were married to Denise Richards dude!), spending decades watching your children grow up that's entirely up to you.    Live your life the way you want but spare us the sight of your descent into madness and your final cataclysm.  I've got just a single piece of advice for you.  Just this.

Do your family a favor, do your children a favor, do us all a favor...
And shut up.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

Let's go to the movies!

A couple more movies that I've seen recently.  Dish Network just gave us a free year's worth of the Starz network and I've been checking out some movies on there:

Reign of Fire (2002) - I remember seeing the previews for this one and thinking it looked interesting. But I was concerned about a movie that seemed to rely on effects this much.  Bad effects, bad movie.  Instead I was very happy to discover that this is a very well done movie.  In the course of digging a new subway tunnel in London humanity awakens dragons.  The dragons who had killed the dinosaurs (and everything else) and then gone into hibernation.  Our weapons make them stronger and now we're in the deep weeds trying to hang on.  The rest of the story is straight out of "Moby Dick".   Matthew McConaughey plays the Ahab as an bald headed, cigar chomping, obsessed American National Guardsman who has figured out how to beat the dragons.  His whale is the only male dragon.  Christian Bale plays an Englishman who was the only survivor of the event that set the dragons free.  Now he's trying to hold together a small community against the dragons.  "Ahab" arrives on his doorstep in a tank in this version.  A solid story line and some respectable acting carry you forward in this one. 

And the special effects were handled wonderfully.  We really only get glimpses and silhouettes of the dragons until the male shows up.  Some of those images will stay with me for a LONG time (especially him standing on the peak of the castle keep as he prepares to destroy everything.  Amazing).  I actually had to leave to pick someone up in the middle of the movie and kept stalling and stalling because I didn't want to leave.  I caught the rest on the DVR (thank you technology!)  The movie is Bales, McConaughey's and the dragons.  And they all deliver.  It's post-apocalyptic and Middle Earth all rolled into one.

Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time (2010) - I'm going to be honest and say I didn't watch the whole movie.  I watched the first 45 minutes to an hour and quit.  It was plotless with flimsy characters.  Plus I have a limited pain threshold for watching actors who clearly wish they were somewhere else, anywhere else doing anything else.  Jake Gyllenhaal has this incredibly pained look on his face in most scenes and I think I know why.  This is a movie about the effects, not unusual for a movie made from a game.  Bad dialogue, bad characters, minimal plot.  Really awful.

I'm sure gamers will disagree with me but I certainly wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this one.  Even if you're getting it for free.

Karate Kid (2010) - I'm very leery of remakes and REALLY leery of remakes of movies that I liked.  The original Karate Kid (1984 w/Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita and the exceedingly cute Elisabeth Shue) was a fun, feel good movie with distinctive characters that stay with you.  Plus at least one catch phrase that instantly entered the lexicon (Wax on, Wax off).  It's what I think of as a great "little" movie.  It was totally predictable but irresistible nevertheless. 

We will not speak of the sequels.

This version manages to hang onto all the positives of the original and still create a new and original version of the story.  Once again you need two actors who click as the boy and the master and they found them.  Jaden Smith (Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's son) and Jackie Chan are wonderful.  It's funny to see some of Will's mannerisms show up in Jaden but it works.  He inherited the considerable charisma of his father and puts it to good use here.  I'm looking forward now to watching father and son in "The Pursuit of Happyness".  Jackie Chan manages to walk along the edge of his usual comic martial arts characters.  You get just a glimpse every now and then but it never takes away from the serious character he plays.  I was really impressed. Chan is inevitably very watchable and a lot of fun and he scores here as well.

This version is every bit as predictable as the first.  The Kung-Fu moves are even more impressive and the ending is every bit as satisfying.  I was more than pleasantly surprised.  I really liked this movie.

View From the Phlipside - RIP Jane Russell

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Time to note the passing of another great figure from the world of the media.  And in this case figure is the absolute correct term to use.  Movie star and siren of the silver screen Jane Russell passed away on Monday following a brief illness.

Russell was born in Minnesota bearing the rather cumbersome name of Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell.  Her family moved to California where she was discovered while working as a model and receptionist.  What happened next would change the movie industry forever.

Her first role was as Rio the sultry western girlfriend for Billy the Kid in the movie "The Outlaw".  Produced and directed by Howard Hughes it spent as much time as possible showing off Russell's considerable physical assets.  The movie made a star of Russell and was a box office hit.  Debuting right before the start of World War II she became one of the top pin up girls for American GIs through the war.  The office of the Production Code, the precursor to the modern rating system and supposed guardian of the nations cinematic morals, was not as impressed.  Hughes refused to back down, featured Russell in an aggressive ad campaign that featured what were considered pretty salacious photos for the time.  In the end Hughes won and the Production Code would begin a slow decline towards elimination in the '60s.

But Jane Russell was more than just an gorgeous physical specimen.  What made her special among all the bombshells of the time was her ability to be both extremely sexy and  completely unimpressed by her own sexiness.  That wry, tongue in cheek attitude made Jane something else entirely.  Add in her ability to sing and she had the makings of a whole new kind of female star.  You get a little bit of a look at what that might have been in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" where she starred opposite Marilyn Monroe.  She did a couple small sorties into the musical world singing with the Kay Kyser orchestra for a while as well.  Unfortunately Hollywood only had eyes for her body and she never got to make the movies she wanted  to make.  Politically conservative and religious throughout her life she never really liked the bombshell part of her past.

I hope that I won't diminish the great lady's memory by saying that while I wish she'd been given the chance to be more than she was, Jane Russell was truly legendary just the way she was.

Jane Russell was 89 years old.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011

View From the Phlipside - Anonymous

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

There's revolution in the air.  You can't have heard or read any news source over the last month and not come into contact with it.  Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and more.  I've spoken before about the role that the electronic communication media, especially social media, have played in all this so far.

But there may be the beginnings of a revolution in the digital world as well.  You may have caught a scent of it or it might have quite easily slipped by you.  To be honest the folks involved don't have a huge problem if you never notice them at all.

They are Anonymous.  They are Legion.  They never forgive.  They never forget.  Expect them.

That sounds like dialogue from a rather bad movie.  In fact it is a sort of unofficial motto of a group of computer experts who just might be the cutting edge of an online revolution.  Unofficial because to be honest everything about the Anonymous Collective (they don't even have a designated name other than the single word anonymous or some variant phrase) is unofficial.  One characterization of them said they are a group the way a flock of birds are a group.  They're flying in the same direction but the members change over time.  In simplest form they want the internet to remain free.  Free from government censorship,  free from political control.  That's why they've launched attacks on Australian governmental web sites when that government tried to control the content available.  You've most probably heard them defending WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and attacking Bank of America and some of it's associates for their attempts to put WikiLeaks out of business.  They've also supported the protesters in Africa and the Middle East.  There was also a recent conflict with the folks from the Westboro Baptist Church.  Anonymous denied attacking the website but did react angrily to foolish comments made by the church.

So where does that leave us in the digital revolution world?  History likes to make heroes out revolutionaries after the fact.  The reality is that revolutionaries are ALWAYS uncomfortable dinner guests as it were.  By it's very nature Anonymous can strike at any place, at any time.  The selection of targets may not seem consistent because of the fluid nature of the collective.  At the same time it never hurts to have people willing and able to fight for freedom on our behalf.

Anonymous just might be a new hero for a new age. 

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011