This superb documentary takes us inside Aljazeera TV during the early coverage of the Iraq war and reflects the tensions, biases, trials and tribulations of the Arab world's top news source.
Aljazeera is preparing to launch a major US and international news effort later this year. I'm thrilled because I think it will force many Americans to re-examine the nature of news and cultural bias.
War of the Worlds – the Cruise and Spielberg version, is an excellent special effects movie that manages to preserve enough of the real H.G. Wells classic to be a very entertaining exploration of that timeless theme we Sci Fi fans never tire of – Super advanced Aliens attack earth with ruthless and magnificent technologies, munch humans, and yet (SPOILER HERE) We humans WIN!
As seems too common now with blockbusters the deep and thoughtful nature of the original work, remarkably written in 1898, seems to get lost amid grand and spectacular special effects and family dramatics and histrionics. Yet War of the Worlds is still a very enjoyable movie.
Off to see Mission Impossible III this afternoon, but first let's check the economics of the franchise at www.boxofficemojo.com
The first two have made very close to a billion so far on production and marketing costs of only about 240 million, which I think helps explain why we see more lackluster blockbusters than thoughful, clever films. Films at this level are much more an economic enterprise than a creative one.
I'm not saying there are no good blockbusters – many are and I for one really enjoy "big" movies. But I'm often surprised at how superficial/silly/nasty/foolish/weak/ridiculous/etc the big films can be given their huge production budgets and top level direction writing, and acting. This may best be explained by the fact they are addressing a mass entertainment appetite and looking to capture the maximum number of viewers (economic concerns) rather than making the most creative film they can.
So, I'll keep feeding the blockbusters my ticket while hoping for more great independent films to make it into wider distribution – perhaps through the exploding online video venues like youtube.com
| MISSION Impossible: Release Date: May 22, 1996 |
| Domestic: | $180,981,856 | 39.6% |
| + Foreign: | $275,512,947 | 60.4% |
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| = Worldwide: | $456,494,803 | |
| DOMESTIC SUMMARY | ||||||
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Mission Impossible II: Release Date: May 24, 2000
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| Domestic: | $215,409,889 | 39.5% |
| + Foreign: | $330,492,673 | 60.5% |
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| = Worldwide: | $545,902,562 | |
| DOMESTIC SUMMARY | ||||||
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A few months ago I'd tested Squidoo and concluded that their revenue sharing publishing model was unfavorable and along the lines of "You build it and manage it and do all the work and we'll *share* some of the cash". Based on my March statement I think I was right to be skeptical of playing that game:
JOSEPH'S STATEMENT (From 03/01/2006 to 03/31/2006)
You have earned $0.05 total.
I’m enjoying the great hospitality of my old friend Tom and wife Diane here in their cozy house in Concord, just around the river bend from the Old North Bridge. It’s called “The Dovecote” and was Louisa’s model for one of the sister’s houses in “Little Women”.
Benjamin Hosmer, a minuteman at the first battle of the American Revolution, lived in this house in 1775. The Alcotts were here some 50 years later. Louisa Alcott’s first poem was written here. Among the greatest thinkers of their time, Emerson, Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott very likely met on occasion here to discuss their progressive vision of the new American experience and ideas about social life, nature, and philosophy called the “trancendental movement”
Yes, I’m a fan of this silly show. I’m also fascinated by what appears to be one of the top – if not THE top – online community created by American Idol. I’ve been tracking users online as reported by fox and have seen numbers approaching 800,000 users. This would even top Myspace for the (short) periods of high American Idol community participation, which seem to peak the evenings of the shows, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Alexa graphs are interesting for this, the top TV show in the USA. The spike is remarkable.
My top choices for the eventual American Idol winner are Chris Daughtry and Kellie Pickler.
I've found a new table tennis rubber sheet I really like with one of those funny, malapropesque Chinese names. It's the "PALIO" CJ 8000 tension model. PALIO means "People always love it only". The numbers and other stuff might make some sense – I don't know.
But I do love my PALIO sheets and have ordered more. At about 10.00 per sheet they are a third the cost of comparable German or Japanese rubber and so far feel about the same as the German equivalent.
I've GOT to get to China – both to see the changes, internet buzz, and to play some great table tennis with my Palio!
CNN interviewed the author of a book that suggests the pharmaceutical industry is out of control, beyond the reach of reasonable regulation, and suggested some "Trust busting" a la Teddy Roosevelt may be needed.
The interesting stat was that 600 billion is spend annually on unneeded drugs. Wow. If true that is a staggering waste. Hey – I should start a website featuring objective information about Drugs. It could be called Prescription Report. Wait! I already did that but it sucks. I'll fix that someday.
I’m on an XP machine on the same network (i think) pretty much confirming it was not connectivity that made the VISTA machines lag a tiny bit on some simple aps, feeling clunky. Somebody just said they are rolling back the rollout of Vista again – I’m wondering if it’s based on criticisms here at MIX where it’s getting a lot of use ?
I was WRONG that there were zero people from Google here at MIX06. I just met Patrick with their Adwords API. Excellent guy. He didn’t know of any OTHER Google folks here though. Hey Microsoft – having a Web 2.0 event with so little Google participation …is…. just … wrong.
Joe Duck 