Snark, Please Don't, Just Lie

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of November 12, 2012



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. 

 Just Lie                                                                                                                  

I’ve talked before about the whole question of safety online for our essential information.  The entire digital business model is really based on getting as much of that information and either using it directly or selling it.  The problem is trying to control access to that information while still enjoying the joys of the World Wide Web.  Folks over in England may have come up with the simplest way to achieve that.

Lie.

No seriously, an Internet security officer for the British government advised people at a major conference over there to only give your actual information to highly trusted sites like those from the government.  To everyone else?  Lie like a rug.  

Andy Smith, listed as an Internet security chief for the Cabinet office, advised everyone to tell social networking sites lies about themselves.  The rationale is that while a limited number of sites absolutely need your correct information everybody else is a potential danger and should be treated as such.

The push back was almost immediate.  It came from all of the business folk who make their living on the web.  If all our social networking info is fake their ability to use that information for advertising purposes.  While I understand their concern let’s say it’s not first on my list of thoughts.

In a world where online predators can be a very serious problem this really seems like a simple solution.  As with any simple solution it turns out there are a few bumps along the road.  I’m a little leery of actually advocating that people start creating fake identities on the web because that comes with its own set of problems.  It also means that those “trusted” sites to whom we do entrust our real details will need to be hyper secure.  Right now a thief has lots of places to try and grab your info.  If they know that all your info is confined to just a handful of sites you can assume that the assault on those sites will go up exponentially.  Which means I need to trust the government to do a really good job with their Internet security.  Let’s just say that I’m a little doubtful on that subject.

For the moment I think I’ll keep my security to myself and my lying to a necessary minimum.

Please Don't                                                                                                          

It used to be that you never saw the names of products or even businesses in the movies.  The movie makers would create fake names for pretty much everything.  There were always exceptions, like when Macy’s appeared in the movie “The Miracle on 34th Street” but more often than not it was some version of Wile E. Coyote’s ACME Corporation.  Then came the days of the paid product placement.  Companies would pay the movie makers to actually have their logo or company name to appear clearly and openly on the screen.  And in those early days there was not even an attempt to disguise it.  You would get a long slow pan over the Pacific Bell logo on a phone booth or have a Pepsi can placed prominently in the scene.  Over the years the product placements have gotten a little subtler.

So I was interested in the product placement issue that has arisen around the Denzel Washington movie “Flight”.  Washington’s character is a high functioning alcoholic airline pilot.  His plane gets into a mid-air catastrophe from which he miraculously saves it and all the folks on board.  The problem is that in the post crash physical the level of alcohol in his blood becomes an issue.  And that’s the real issue in the dispute.

The character is seen regularly drinking Budweiser and Stolichnaya vodka among other drinks.  The manufacturers of the two alcoholic beverages have asked Paramount Pictures to remove or obscure the logos of their products in all future versions of the movie.   The reason is simple.  Both companies have spent a lot of time and money supporting responsible drinking campaigns.  What’s shown in the movie is exactly what they DON’T want connected with the images of their products.  From their point of view this is negative product placement.
The real problem is that Paramount doesn’t really have to do it.  The Trademark laws don’t give this kind of protection.  The products are available world wide and are being used in the manner intended even if over used in this case.  It’ll be interesting to see what Paramount’s final decision will be.

And of course on the other hand Heineken paid millions of dollars to have their beer featured prominently in the new James Bond movie.  To each their own I guess.

Snark

Last week someone on Facebook accused me of being snarky.  Moi?   OK I’ll be honest and say it’s not the first time.  In fact I’m not the only one out there.  I’ve heard people refer to this as the “Age of Snark”.  It’s a word that I toss around with fair abandon.  But it dawned on me this time that I’d never really looked into the word itself.  Since our snark is expressed primarily over digital media I thought I’d take the time right now to do just that.

First we look it up in some online dictionaries.  And it’s right there.  Most of them seem to agree that the word comes from the combination of the words “snide” and “remark” which gives us snark.  The definition of the word itself talks about remarks involving sarcasm or malice.  I’m going to come back to that.  Now the history of the word  (its etymology) is a little unclear it appears that the word has been used in the contemporary understanding going back to at least 1906.  But of course that’s not the earliest usage. That probably goes to The Rev. Charles Dodgeson, better known to most of us as Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in Wonderland”.  Among his other works was “The Hunting of the Snark” a nonsense poem about a fictional beast with a made up name.  Curiously the name snark has been used a lot since then.  There have been missiles, planes, ships, alien races all named snark.  There’s even a Corporal Snark in Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch-22”.

But the kind of snark we’re interested in today is the kind involving sarcasm or malice.  And I think that provides the dividing line on snark itself.  There’s good snark and bad snark.  The bad snark is the kind grounded in malice.  It’s meant just to be mean and hurtful.  That kind of snark is all too common out on the web.  And it’s what gives snark a bad reputation.
The other kind of snark, based in sarcasm, has some value I think.  If you went back to the days of the Algonquin Round Table, a gathering of wise cracking intellectuals in New York City in the early 20th Century, I think you’d find snark in its finest form.  Dorothy Parker would feel right at home cranking out beautifully turned snark all day long.  While sarcasm can cut and be quite painful let’s say that it’s a surgical cut where malice based snark is just a blunt instrument.

None of which is going to make me less snarky.  But it may push me to raise the quality of my snark.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

View From the Phlipside Radio - The Dumbest Story of 2011 (and 2012)!

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.

End of the year and I like to take a look back at the topics that we’ve talked about here.  This year I thought I’d do a best, worst and dumbest ideas of the year.  These are topics that bubbled to the surface this year that will carry forward into 2012.  This time let’s take a look at my dumbest topic nominee.

This one could have gone for the worst idea but I think it falls just short.  It’s just a dumb idea that some folks just won’t let go on.  It’s 3-D.  Every couple decades we have another resurgence of the attempt to create a three dimensional visual image for the big screen.  This time it’s also lapped over onto the small screen.  I need to acknowledge that I came to this latest attempt at 3-D with a negative attitude.  I’ve seen too many attempts in the past that never tried to get beyond the gimmick aspect of it.  What one friend of mine has described as the “jumpy outty parts”.  Beyond that you still have to deal with those dumb glasses which are an even bigger problem for those of us who wear presription glasses.

When Avatar came out in 3-D I thought we’d finally gotten over the hump.  Avatar gave us a reason for 3-D, it made the story better.  It was visually stunning.  The problem is that NONE of the movies I’ve seen since in 3-D meet the standard.  Even without jumpy-outty parts the 3-D adds nothing.  It’s still just a gimmick.

And then we talk about TV.  What a complete and utter non-starter of an idea.  Television is too deeply set in the American way of life.  So making it more complicated is just a bad idea.  Add in the dumb glasses some of which apparently need batteries and I just end up shaking my head.  When they start talking about putting major sporting events in 3-D then I’m totally confused.  So I’m either supposed to have enough TV glasses for everyone at my Super Bowl party or do I only invite folks who own them?  Just dumb.  And headed for the dustbin is my bet.

Here’s to the New Year.  Which will be just fine in 2D thank you.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

View From the Phlipside - 2011 Movies

Somehow I managed to trash the script for this program.  No idea, these things just seem to happen to me.  So instead here's the audio of the program as it aired on WRFA-LP Jamestown

"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 - Kevin Smith

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.
Last week at the Sundance Film Festival movie director Kevin Smith was interviewed about his next film
 "Hit Somebody".  During the interview he dropped in that the movie would be his last.  For some that sent tremors through movie news.  At the end of the day I'm not sure why.

If Kevin Smith never makes another movie (which is unlikely for a variety of reasons) what would be his cinematic legacy?  To be honest it's a very mixed bag.  Probably at the top of his list you would find the movies "Dogma" and "Clerks" without a doubt.  "Chasing Amy" was also generally critically enjoyed and made a lot of money.  But then Kevin's movies usually make a lot of money (although not always, see the 10 million dollar loss on "Jersey Girls") but that's because he makes them for so little money it's almost impossible not to make a profit.  "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" also made a lot of money but I don't know that it deserves to be included at the Dogma/Clerks level.  14 movies in roughly 10 years.  Clerks won a couple of major festival awards but that's it on the big time movie award front. 

So what does that really leave us with?  Clerks is an interesting, rather bizarre little movie that Smith made on a budget that might buy you a decent mid-sized car.  It took Cannes and Sundance by storm.  He would return to the characters and locale four times.  His slacker icons of Jay and Silent Bob have their place in pop culture but I don't see them as the kind of archetypes that you hang your reputation as a great director on.  Dogma is a brilliant and controversial movie is on a whole different level from pretty much anything else he's done (he got three death threats based on the film).  But once you get beyond the fans of what is referred to his Askewniverse movies what else is there?  There's a bit of a cult, some promise that doesn't seem to have been fully realized, and a couple stand out movies.  Smith really seems to struggle when he wanders away from his Silent Bob cast and locale, and he seems to have mined that vein to extinction.

So again where does that leave us?  Smith says that he'll help other people make movies.  That could mean doing some writing or maybe producing.  To be honest perhaps Kevin Smith's most impressive professional credit might be his ability to create movies on controllable budgets.  So if the time has come for Kevin to give up making his own movies so be it.  As with so many his star burned brightly but only for a little while in the Hollywood sky.


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 2010

View From the Phlipside - Harry Potter

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.

I don’t do a lot of “reviews” on this program.  There’s just too many movies and TV shows and too many other things to talk about.  But the furor that has cropped up around the newest Harry Potter movie has caught my attention.

Let’s get something straight right up front.  I know not everyone is a fan of Harry Potter.  Some folks have their religious sensibilities offended.  Some folks have their literary sensibilities offended.  All well and good.  If you don’t like the story then don’t read the books or see the movie.  The folks that are annoying me seem to be from a new category.  They don’t have anything against the basic story line at all but they are all up in arms about the newest movie.  It’s interesting to note that some of the most respected names in the movie critic world appear to be among them.

The complaint is that the latest movie “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1” isn’t a classic, complete movie.  In other words the basic story line doesn’t come to a nice clean ending.  Every time I hear that complaint I just shake my head.  Folks the movie says, right in the title, that this is only part, Part 1, of a longer story.  So apparently the screenwriter was supposed to create some kind of artificial ending to make the movie purists happy.  The movie ends at a perfectly logical point in the story with a nice cliff hanger.  I find the complaints about the movie to be elitist snobbery.

There is another group of critics that amaze me.  These are folks who either haven’t read the books or seen the previous movies and then complain that they don’t understand what’s going on.  Well duh.  I’m not sure if this scores higher on the arrogance scale or the stupidity scale.  There have been just over 900 minutes of on screen story telling before you reach this movie, the 7th in a series of 8.  You haven’t done your homework as it were but want all of us to stop and catch you up.  I don’t think so.  If you don’t have the background the story there is a way to figure out what’s going on.  Go with someone who has seen all the movies and then ask them questions every time you can’t figure out what’s going on.

That’ll work fine right up to the point when the usher throws you out.

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 2010

View From the Phlipside - Mega-cast Movies

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 an interesting argument going on these days about whether or not the age of the “film star” is over.  What’s meant by that is the ability for a single actor to make a movie a hit just by being in it.  There’s evidence that it may be true.  Or not.  There’s a fine old tradition to deal with times like these however.  Don’t rely on just one star.  Get several.  And in case you think you’re still not covered, get a whole bunch more.

We’ve had two recent examples of this trend.  This past summer brought us “The Expendables” which starred just about every major action movie star of the last 20 years including Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and even had cameos from Bruce Willis and the Governator.   It may not have been a critical favorite and it’ll never make a Top 100 list but it did make almost a quarter of a billion dollars world wide.  Right now you can check out the movie “Red” which stars Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfus, John Malkovic and a boatload of others (even Ernest Borgnine!).  The movie has only just opened so it’s hard to say how it will do.  Opening weekend wasn’t bad.  It earned just under half of it’s production costs in a single weekend.

The mega cast doesn’t always work out.  1963’s “Cleopatra” was a massive failure despite Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Roddy McDowell, Rex Harrison, Martin Landau and more.  Over the entire lifetime of the film it’s only barely made a profit.

What brings all this to mind is the latest rumor in Hollywood that a bunch of big name stars want to work together.  Martin Scorcese, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Robert DeNiro are talking about doing a, big surprise, mafia movie together.  

In the end a lot of these movies suffer from a simple problem.  When you’ve got that much star power and that many egos on the screen how do you keep them all happy?  In the end the movie gets run by screen time needs rather than story needs.

That of course is the real ticket to box office success more often than not.  A great cast can only do so much with a rotten script.  But a great script?  Well that’s what turns actors into stars.  I’ll take a “Mystic Pizza” or “Juno” over “Batman and Robin” or “Ishtar” any day.  Keep the stars, just don’t lose the story.


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 2010

View From the Phlipside - Facebook Movie

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.

While I talk about movies on this program I don’t do many movie reviews. But when a movie comes along that’s about social media it just seemed too obvious to pass up. Last week I went to see “The Social Network” better known to many folks simply as the Facebook movie.

The movie tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. It’s an excellent movie and is being compared in some quarters to “Citizen Kane”. Certainly the story lines are similar. Aaron Sorkin, the brains behind the TV hit series “The West Wing”, wrote a brilliant script that does take some liberties with the facts. Zuckerberg calls the entire movie fiction.

But what really grabbed me beyond the acting and the script is how this movie is different from “Citizen Kane”. I never felt any sympathy for Kane. For the uber-nerd version of Zuckerberg presented in the movie I will admit to a fair bit of sympathy. I would certainly never do business with him without a dozen lawyers at my side but you could say the same about any big business man. Maybe it’s the nerd boy in my own history but I understand how Mark Zuckerberg ends up where he does. His character is totally socially inept, smarter than most people in the room and looked down on by the social elite. When he’s given money, power, the interest of beautiful women, the chance to dump on the jocks and the favor of his geek superhero(played superbly by Justin Timberlake) his character’s ethical compass is lost. That doesn’t excuse what he does but I have to admit I understand how he gets there.

The movie is one sided. It’s based mostly on the version of history from Zuckerberg’s former best friend and partner Eduardo Savarin. So approach the historical aspect with great caution. The whole girl friend motivation from the first scene is total fiction. Like Citizen Kane this is a magnificent examination of the effect of power on flawed personalities. Just don’t be surprised if you come away from the movie feeling more sorry towards Zuckerberg than angry.

It might not be a bad thing from Mark Zuckerberg to watch “Citizen Kane”. Here’s hoping that Mark finds the way to avoid his very own “Rosebud” moment.


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 2010

Just a fanboy at heart

Really nice mash up of Star Wars and Star Trek. And yes, I'd pay to see this movie. Over and over. h/t to Matthew McNutt, my fellow Star Wars/Star Trek geek.

What I did On my Summer Vacation - Movies

It was a busy summer.  And a pretty good one.  So I'll break some of this down into bits to make it a little easier to take on.

As always summer is actually a slow time for me watching movies.  I am working on a couple of series along the way as well.

TV Series -

Lovejoy -  We first started watching these back in the '90's I think when A&E carried them.  Fun little British series about an antiques dealer named Lovejoy (just Lovejoy).  It's fun and lightweight and you might actually learn just a tiny bit about antiques along the way.  This time we got the DVDs in order and have no seen the entire series.  I saw someone refer to Lovejoy as the greatest character you've never heard of.  That's probably pretty true.  Ian McShane played Lovejoy with a fun supporting cast.  There's always a love interest kept just at bay by Lovejoy, his partner "Major" Tinker Dill plus a couple other sidekicks and foils.  Nothing profound but characters you can invest in.  Great weekend viewing when you want to have some fun and have nothing better to do.

The Prisoner - I have no idea how I've gone this long in life without having seen this series.  Another British TV show, one that ran for only 17 episodes.  But it's one of the most talked about series ever.  For many years it was very difficult to find or see so that's my excuse.  The Prisoner is about a strange little village where people are taken to for reasons they don't entirely understand to be controlled by people with plans of their own.  It's very strange and very disturbing to find yourself there.  The story follows a prisoner, known only as "Number 6" (no one has names only numbers), who apparently worked in the intelligence community and resigned angrily.  But no one seems to know WHY he quit and he doesn't want to say.  The show is a long series of games between Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan) and the ever changing cast of Number 2s (among the actors who play this role was Leo McKern.  More than 17 actors filled the role).  It's still to this day bizarre and confusing.  I'd watched about 3 episodes when I realized what it reminded me of.  "Lost", the NBC hit that just ended its run.  A secluded place, run by strange people and no one is quite sure why they are there. There are mysterious symbols like Lost's numbers and this pennyfarthing bicycle for the Prisoner. There's even a mysterious "beast" that enforces discipline (The Smoke Monster on Lost and Rover on The Prisoner).  The parallels are quite striking.  I'm really enjoying the series so far.  It's great to finally add this one to the list of classic programs I've seen.

Movies -

I actually saw one movie in the theaters this summer.

Inception -  The movie has been a good sized hit and gotten pretty good reviews as near as I can tell.  Directed by Christopher Nolan (who has done several other movies I've like Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Prestige) the movie was visually stunning with a great twist at the end.  At least a twist for me since I had forgotten the last level!  DiCaprio, Ellen Page (who I'm really liking) and the cast did a very nice job as well.  There was one nagging problem for me however.  They just vault into the whole concept of the Inception (the ability to manipulate people by entering their dreams) with very little in the way of explanation.  Where did it come from (one throw away line), how was it developed, et cetera?  For me the willing suspension of disbelief was damaged because they posit this whole new technology without establishing any foundation for it.  My theory is this - the closer you are to "reality" the more you need to explain any novel concepts you want to play with in the story.  If you're doing Star Wars you can get away with much closer to a "lick and a promise".  Although I think Star Wars did a lot more exposition setting up their world than Inception does.  And that just left an enormous hole for me.  It's easy to let the action just sweep you along (and to be honest this was another action movie that could have dropped at least one action sequence.  Suppose they needed to justify the 3-D process.  But towards the end I got to the "Yeah, yeah, yeah, BOOM.  Got it.  Can we get back to the plot and the characters for a minute now?" phase again) and forget about it.  That's probably what Nolan wants you to do.  Too bad because it kept this from being a great movie for me.  Very, very good but not what it might have been.

Music and Lyrics - Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore are just wonderful in this lightweight little romantic comedy.  It's fun and funny and totally enjoyable.  Grant plays the less successful half of an '80's pop duo that broke up when his partner went solo and became a big hit. Think Andrew Ridgeley after WHAM! broke up.  He's found a comfortable little niche that doesn't require much from him at all.  Then he gets the chance to write a song for "the next big thing" and needs a lyricist.  Enter Drew Barrymore (who could wander into my life anytime she wants.) and the story is off and running.  I'm sure this one got brushed off by lots of people as a "chick flick" (by the way, that's a really stupid reaction to a movie.  Ranks right up there as one of my ways to determine if you're really serious about movies or are just a poser.)  Great fun and yes, it IS a great date movie.

Casino Royale (2006 version) - Disclaimer.  Read ALL the original Fleming novels and most of the sequels.  Sean Connery has been THE movie bond although Timothy Dalton wasn't bad.  Do NOT be trying to drag Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan into this equation.  I will just have to beat you down.

So I may have walked into this one with a little bit of a preconceived attitude maybe.

And the movie blew me away.  Extremely faithful to the book (went back and re-read it to be sure).  Daniel Craig is a VERY acceptable Bond for me and they did a wonderful job of updating the franchise just the right way.  No problems with Judy Dench as M, she maintains the character perfectly.  A black Felix Lieter?  Interesting.  I can let the lack of black hair on Craig slide ( a small  irritation), got the cars right, the drinks right, changing from Blackjack to Texas Hold'em makes perfect sense.  The only other irritation was changing the two assignments that earned Bond his 007 designation.  But again a small irritation.  After watching so many awful Bonds in movies that bore NOT THE TINIEST RESEMBLANCE to the original stories when they used the titles or the original concept otherwise this was a breath of fresh air.  I've got Quantum of Solace all lined up in the queue so we'll see if they keep me this happy.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - Talk about walking in with preconceived ideas!  I mean it's doper humor.  Which is a breed of what I call "idiot humor" (Let's see most things by Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell.  Can not abide it.  There are lots of others, mostly folks who don't do it as well as these two.  Which makes those other movies REALLY awful.).  Humor that comes from the main character being an idiot.  Big market for it.  Just doesn't include me.  At the same time I did grow up listening to and loving Cheech and Chong.  So go figure.  In the end, I loved this movie.  The script plays a beautiful balancing act between the doper stuff and, hey HERE'S a novel concept, real characterization.  I actually liked these guys and enjoyed the story.  There's the obligatory juvenile humor moments and bare breasted young women moments but they don't dominate the movie.  It was fun and I would recommend the movie.  Just know that this IS a doper movie.  You have been warned.

Gotta start watching more movies!

Movie and a Book

I've been reading at a tremendous rate recently. Not sure what's up with that but I never complain about having time to read. Plus caught a classic film I'd never seen before.

The Dig by Alan Dean Foster(1995) - I've read Foster before (most especially his books involving Flinx and Pip) and always enjoyed him. So I assumed this would be more of the same when I picked it up at my local library's annual book sale. What I didn't know till I'd finished it was that the book is actually based on a video game. Foster does a lot of novelizations of TV shows, movies and the like. This one didn't really do much for me. The video game roots of the book didn't serve it especially well.  My first impression was "These characters sure have dumb names" (Boston Low? Seriously?) I'll give it this, the book starts off pretty well. This is a First Contact story but the most obvious conclusions are ignored over and over by the characters (a meteor suddenly appears in the solar system basically just outside the Moon's orbit. Then it suddenly decelerates and goes into low earth orbit. Somehow it doesn't occur to ANYONE that maybe, just maybe this thing is acting like an artificial artifact NOT a natural one? It stays consistent from there.  Whatever they should do they almost certainly DON'T do) setting up the conflict in the story by simply being stupid. Despite the fact that everyone in the story is supposedly quite bright. The ending is obvious by about half way through the book and the conclusion just seems to arrive very abruptly. Not a waste of time but certainly going right back into the give away pile.

Green for Danger (1946) - Not sure how this ended up in my Netflix queue but I'm glad it did.  Probably because it stars Alastair Sim.  Sim is a wonderful actor (my favorite Scrooge) and lived up to my expectations.  Never sure about movies of this vintage.  Many are brilliant and many are also really cliched and hackneyed.  This one is one of the better class.  A war time murder mystery in a small hospital in the English countryside.  Seems that one member of a 5 person surgical team killed the local postman.  Part of the mystery is why anyone would kill the old geezer.  The movie is pretty straight forward till Sim's Inspector Cockrill arrives.  Cockrill is very much the modern movie police detective - quick with a quip and with his own set of quirks.  The Inspector has a whimsical side and brings a whole new tone to the movie.  I will admit that the murderer was not obvious to me even though the clues were there (no surprise twists just good plotting).  The cast isn't particularly well known to me other than Sim and Trevor Howard.  The "creative team" of  Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder (between them they covered most of the writing, producing and directing duties) have more than 60 movies credits each to their resumes.  They had a long and productive career together.  I would bet that they're virtually unknown in the States but they shouldn't be.  I really enjoyed this movie.  A good story with a solid cast and only 91 minutes long.  What's not to like?

View From the Phlipside - Syfy movies

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 essence of story telling is the question of “What if...?”.  And no genre of story telling dives deeper into that question than science fiction.  What if robots were real and looked like people?  What if aliens looked like giant bugs and liked the taste of human flesh?  What if you could control the basic power of the universe and your father was a bad, bad man?

How about this one?  What if a cable television

network decided to let it’s viewers make the decisions on what movies to make for the network?  Syfy, the science fiction network with the dumb way of spelling its name, has decided to do just that.  They’ve created a web site in partnership with entertainment site IGN called “B Movie Mogul”.  Fans will be given the ability to choose everything from the basic concept to character’s final words.  Those decisions will form the basis for a made for TV movie to air next year on the network.

Surfing over to the website provides some interesting reading.  Our first choice is on basic premise and we are given three.  The movie will be about A: The Bermuda Triangle, B: The Roswell crash or C: 2012 and the alleged end of the world.  Nothing real exciting or new there but then the website IS called B-Movie Mogul.  Which is a fun choice all by itself.  Clearly these movies aren’t going to take themselves too seriously.  With any luck at all they’ll capture some of the old Roger Corman B movie magic again.  With titles like “Sharktopus” and “Mansquito” I’d say they’re headed in the right direction.

Got to admit I enjoyed reading the section on “Rejected Syfy Movies” too.  How can you not love concepts like “Lobster Swarm” which involves flying killer lobsters, “TaMantula” your basic science screw up movie, and because you always need a good monster battle film how about “Uber Whale vs. Jumbo Shrimp”?  There’s several more titles most of which are at least slightly disturbing so I’ll spare you them.   

It’ll be fascinating to see just what the fans at Syfy come up with for the movie.  They might even create a new classic.  What if?

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 2010

View From the Phlipside - Movie Piracy

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.


Part of this story is very serious.  The rest however is either deeply ironic or just absurdly amusing.  Maybe it’s both.

The serious part has to do with movie piracy.  The real downside of the digital revolution is how easy it is to steal and mass produce copies of all kinds of media files.  Audio, video whatever can be copied on even the most basic computer.  If left in a digital form and shared on the internet the ability to cut into the profits of the artists and companies creating those pieces is absolutely enormous.


I’ve talked before about some practices in the music industry that have probably done more damage to the industry itself than to the pirates.  The reality is that some kind of solution has to be found that offers the buyer a reasonable ability to make use of the product they buy while protecting the long term interests and businesses of the producers.  At the moment the systems most end users like don’t leave much room for the producers and the ones the producers like put a stranglehold on the consumer.


This is becoming a real problem for the movie industry, especially in places like Spain.  Spanish law only makes piracy illegal if you are doing it for profit.  So Spanish movie lovers feel no compunction what so ever about going around the movie companies and just downloading bootleg versions off the internet.  Without the law on their side the movie companies don’t have much room to maneuver.  The situation is so bad that Sony Pictures is thinking about getting out of the Spanish DVD retail business all together.  That’s a potential major hit to the bottom line for Hollywood at a time when they don’t really need to see any more hits.


So that’s the serious part.  What’s the funny/ironic part?  Well that would be that Warner Bros., a leader in the anti-piracy fight here in the United States is currently being sued by a German company that makes, wait for it, anti-piracy technology.  According to the suit filed in the spring of this year Warner Bros. began using the technology, without paying for it, back in 2004.  That’s right Warner Bros. allegedly is using anti-piracy technology that it...pirated.


Your whole sympathy quotient for the movie industry just dropped a couple points, didn’t it?  Yeah, mine too.


Call that the View From the Phlipside.

View From the Phlipside - Movie Rumors

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.

If there’s anything I enjoy as much as watching movies it just might be listening to movie rumors.  The process of  picking a movie to make is so convoluted and bizarre that you can never be quite sure what will actually happen and what is just being talked about.  Some movies linger for years before they die or before they get made.  Scripts get re-written, actors change, directors change.  Along the way all kinds of great stories and ideas crop up plus boat loads of really awful ones.  For example, to no one’s great surprise, talks have already begun on a “Karate Kid” sequel after it’s great start.

So what’s floating out there right now.  Let’s start with people who are messing with concepts.  I haven’t seen the newest Sherlock Holmes movie because I love the original stories and I’m not sure how I’ll like this “new interpretation”.  The same goes for the rumored new “Don Quixote”.  One description of the approach describes it as “Pirates of the Caribbean” style story.  The Lord of La Mancha isn’t crazy and there really is a fantasty world.  Ummm, I don’t think so.  How about a movie version of the Jim Henson TV show “Fraggle Rock”?  Seems director Cory Edwards and the studio suits at the Weinstein Company are at loggerheads over the approach.  The suits claim it’s not “edgy” enough.  Sprocket and the Doozers need to be edgy?  Maybe something a bit more “Avenue Q”?

Prequels are a big thing right now as is 3-D.  So maybe something that combines them both?  Folks are looking at a prequel of “The Wizard of Oz” that looks at how the whiziful wiz ends up in Oz.  At the moment it looks like Sam Raimi will direct and Robert Downey Jr. will play the man behind the curtain.  Also in prequel mode at the moment is Ridley Scott who would like to revive the “Alien” franchise.  He wants to go back to the beginning and explore a few things that he thinks went unexplained in the original.  Both “Oz:The Great and Powerful” and the Alien prequel would be done in 3-D.

Summer movies are here and the rumor mill is churning.  It’s a good time to be a movie fan.

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 2010

Reviews - Lion in Winter and The Sign

Just banging through things these days.

Can't remember if I've reviewed "The Lion in Winter" before.  The 1968 multi Oscar winning film is one of my favorite stage plays.  Great cast (Katherine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins {his first role}, Nigel Terry and Timothy Dalton), a fabulously quotable script, and some compelling if not particularly likable characters.  Everything you'd think you'd need for a great movie.  Yet as I watched it with the kid (her first time after years of listening to her parents rave about the show) I realized that the movie version lumbers a bit.  This is a play with very little "action".  It is dialogue driven and character driven.  Which on stage is fabulous.  But the movie drags.  And it's too bad because most of the performances are amazing.  Hepburn shared an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role with Barbara Streisand in "Funny Girl" and O'Toole was nominated but lost to Cliff Robertson in "Charly" for Best Actor.  Weird to see the wispy and weasly John played by Terry who I usually connect with King Arthur in "Excalibur", and Hopkins who plays more cerebral characters as the burly and not particularly bright Richard.

Bear with the slow pacing and savor the dialogue.

Raymond Khoury's "The Sign" is the second book by this author (I read "The Last Templar") and for what it is it's not bad.  It's conspiracy theory with religious overtones.  Characters are OK, plot was pretty good.  It's the second book in a row for me that has used genocide against the Islamic/Arab population of the world as a story device.  Distasteful is the nicest word I can think of  for the concept.  This book also spends a lot of time bashing not just religion (I have a certain sympathy for that) but faith in general.  Its basic assumption is that most people are stupid and would be better off if we just let our betters lead us in the right direction.  Which would include the previously mentioned plot device.  I'll give Khoury this he makes the folks pushing this agenda the bad guys at least.  But it seems pretty clear to me that he doesn't have much use for faith or religion given that he has no character who spends so much as an instant defending either.  His main religious characters are a stereotypical TV preacher (come on people, I'm not the televangelist's biggest fan either but to keep trotting out these cardboard charlatans is really getting old) and a do gooder RC monk who is rather ineffectual on his best days.

Looking for an interesting read that won't tax your intellect too much?  Great book for a long dreary weekend.

A few reviews - Books and Movie

Read "The Lost Symbol", "The Art of the Heist" and "The English Assassin" plus watched the movie "Boondock Saints" all in the last couple weeks.  A few quick thoughts:

Since there's only one movie let's do "Boondock Saints" first.  My daughter is a big fan of this movie and has been urging me to watch it.  Turns out Dad's not as big a fan.  Let's see shall we call the movie "stylish"?  No, more like "stylized".  The movie follows two Irish brothers from Boston who decide that they are called by God to rid the city of its worst citizens.  And they're very specific about only offing the baddest of the bad.  There's actually an interesting idea in there about vigilantism and taking a stand against evil in the world.  It's "Death Wish" meets "The Blues Brothers" Sadly this movie is mostly about F bombs (this may be my personal champion for dropping the bomb.  It's certainly right up there) and the stylized violence that the brothers unleash.  At the same time the movie has a wicked sense of humor and two pretty gritty performances by the leads (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) plus a bizarre and well, bizarre performance by Willem DeFoe all of which gets wasted.  There's really no story here, you don't get to investigate the characters and the dialog is uneven. The brothers idea of theology is twisted and the call to vigilante justice, while having a long history in our nation, remains an exceptionally bad idea.  Sorry kiddo, not a great movie.

On the book front -

The English Assassin by Daniel Silva - The second in the Gabrial Allon series (I reviewed "The Confessor" previously) I enjoyed this.  It's more of the action adventure stuff following the Israeli assassin/art restorer.  This time he's suspected of murder (several actually, including at least one he did), fighting the Swiss banks and the memory of World War II and the Nazi looting of wealth and art from many people including many wealthy Jews.  Silva's is a good read and a fun story teller.  His books perk right along with the action and just enough interesting art and history to pull it all together.  I know there's about ten more books in this series so I'll probably be working my way through them slowly.

The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock and Roller and Prodigal Son by Miles J Connor Jr and Jenny Siler.  Here's the story of a career art thief from New England who was very, very good at what he did.  From small country art museums up to the biggest (does he actually reveal a clue about the Gardner robbery?  The Gardner is one of the biggest unsolved robberies of all time) Miles Connor has taken a run at them.  By his own account he amassed a very large and valuable personal collection of art and swords.  The one thing you WON'T find in this is any sense of remorse.  This is what he did.  He's sorry he hurt a couple people (emotionally, Connor used as little violence as possible) but that's about it.  It's a very matter of fact, walk on the beach kind of account.  He's obviously very bright and a wonderful story teller.  It was an interesting read.

And last but not least "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown - The latest Robert Langdon novel takes on the arcana of the Masons.  If you're a Mason you should love this book.  It all but falls over itself in its fawning admiration for the group (which has gotten an bad rep that it doesn't deserve).  Brown knows how to tell a story and it rips right along.  It sucked me in and I devoured the book in just a couple days.  Great fun just like the two previous.  On the other hand Brown's writing can leave a lot to be desired.  It can be awkward, his imagery can be awful, he apparently managed to completely reorganize Washington D.C. and his history is, well, creative.  I actually had much bigger problems with some of the characters and plot devices in this one than the previous two.  And his spiritual/theological bits are astoundingly simplistic and stitched together.  As with any of his books you can get caught up in picking on the bits he gets wrong or just accept that as the price of admission and enjoy the ride.  I just wish that after as many novels as he's sold he took a little more care with his craft.

View From the Phlipside - Rashomon vs. Iron Man 2

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.

I had an interesting time a week or so ago watching two movies that were in many ways very similar and yet had virtually nothing in common.  Both movies revolved around crime, ego and a story told from more than one point of view.  One challenges the intellect, the other one doesn’t much care if your IQ barely reaches room temperature. One is acknowledged a great classic, the other will likely never get that accolade.  You might be tempted to say that one was a treasure and the other trash.  You’d be wrong.

Movie number the first is “Iron Man 2” the most popular new movie in the world right now.  It racked up enormous numbers in it’s first weekend and shows every sign of being a major hit.  The true story behind the Iron Man technology is told by two very different characters with very different interpretations.  The action is uptempo almost to the extreme and character and plot take a back seat to explosions and mildly witty banter.

Movie number the second is Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic “Rashoman”.  It tells the story of a murder and assault from multiple point’s of view, the ego’s involved are almost as grandiose as Tony Stark’s and the movie sits on just about everybody’s list of “Greatest Movies Ever”.  Meanwhile the tempo of this movie is incredibly relaxed.  There’s very little action and it’s all about plot and character.  The audience has to carefully weigh the evidence and figure the truth out on our own.

Why bring up two movies that would seem to have so little really in common?  Mainly because I’m tired of listening to folks yap on endlessly about what makes a good movie and what qualifies as garbage.  You hear people bellow about what’s “ART” or whether or not it made money.  What they’re really saying is “What I like is good and if you disagree you’re an idiot”.  There’s a different way to settle the issue and with it you’ll see why I give the thumbs up to Iron Man and Rashomon.

Back at theater school we were taught Goethe’s Three Rules of Criticism.  Goethe was a 19th century genius who wrote about everything from poetry to mathematics to theology.  His rules are simple - What was the artist trying to do, how well did he succeed and was it worth doing? That makes both Rashomon and Iron Man 2 perfectly successful.  Sure Rashomon is the deeper, more powerful creation.  But Iron Man 2 is in many ways a lot more fun to watch.  Sometimes a rock ‘em, sock ‘em blow ‘em up movie is just what you need.

So relax and enjoy the movies.  Goethe says it’s alright.

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 2010

Reviews - Bagger Vance and Voodoo History

Slowly working through the very long list of movies I want to see that is otherwise known as my Netflix queue.  I've wanted to see this one for a while.  Perfect to get me into mental position to go out and chase that little white ball this summer.

The Legend of Bagger Vance - (Yes, I've been watching a lot of  Matt Damon movies)  How can you go wrong with Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Will Smith plus Robert Redford directing?  Ok, you could have stopped just with Ms. Theron who just makes my little heart go pitta-pat.  The story of a local golfing great who has his game taken from him by the mental ordeal of WW I.  He rediscovers it and himself with the help of a very unusual caddy named Bagger Vance.  This movie brings to the game of golf the epic romanticism that "The Natural" brought to baseball.  If that works for you you'll probably love the movie.  If you're into golf it's more about the amazing moment in time that is the setting for the movie than the game itself.  Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones Jr. and Walter Hagen, two of the greatest golfers of all time and two men who shared only the game.  Jones was the clean cut paragon who would win the four majors of his time, the first time it had ever been done, and then retire at 28.  Hagen is too often overlooked as one of the all time greats.  He still ranks third behind only Nicklaus and Woods for all time tournament wins.  Jones was the last of the great "amateur" champs, Hagen is the real start of the great "pro" champions.  It's an interesting back drop for the story of the local boy who finds himself caught between the two greats in a challenge match.  There's nothing particularly surprising in the plot or the ending but the performers all do a fine job.  Will Smith is great as Bagger and a nice little wrap around cameo for Jack Lemon too.

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch  (Check out the NPR story on the book)   JFK and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, WWI and WWII, Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe.  These are just some of the conspiracy theories that the book takes a look at and challenges.  The author also takes a look at the effect that the constant chant of "Conspiracy" has had on how so many of us approach the question of what is and isn't history.  What's really frightening are the folks who admit up front that the "theory" is wrong but then say that it doesn't matter!  While allowing that none of us of ever totally objective that doesn't mean that any interpretation of events is equally "true".  It's an interesting point also that the Internet may be speeding the process by making it easier to only hear the voices of people who agree with you.  Again it becomes clear to me that society NEEDS the dissenting voices (yes, even the conspiracy theorists) in the same room.  We also need to hold each other to account for how we present our points of view.  Politics is about scoring points, political discourse isn't.  The book is well written and an easy and interesting read.  My only problem is that too often Aaronovitch disputes the claims of the theorists by saying that "...such and such a study refutes those points" without going into even a little more detail.  Too often it feels like he might be guilty of the same "glossing over" of the facts that the theorists too often are.  Whatever you may believe about the moon landing the book is worth a read.