Mon, August 29

Labor Day. Drop Dead. No Excuses.—12:16 PM

Work on the re-bee has been progressing despite the lack of updates. In fact, it's the reason there haven't been any updates – I've been too busy working (or playing poker; or driving to Irvine for stand-up comedy). But I realized something this morning: the new fall TV shows will begin trickling in next week or the week after, and if I'm still tied up with the re-bee, I'll never have time for the Annual TiVo Gauntlet of New Fall Programming.

So, it's settled: gone are the days of the hazy "mid-July" deadline. We waved bye-bye to "August 1" weeks ago. But, sometime on Labor Day, the re-bee will be complete. Heller high water. It's happening.

Recently in the re-bee:

• Search: the kickass new search engine that powers the administrative site has been deployed on the public site as well, allowing cool things like paginated results (for faster page loads), searching comments (why the hell not), and faster/more relevant results.
• "The Day That Was": a page for each day of onebee content, showing what went live that day in writing, comments, photos, etc. (A sort of compliment to the Wayback Machine on the homepage.)
• The homepage: integrating comments and the Wayback Machine, re-coded to go with onebee's new back-end.
• Accounts: the registration section and profile editor received a much-needed redesign (this was the last part to be updated in last May's lightning redesign, around 4am, and never got the attention it deserved – this is one of the reasons I initially refused to put a hard deadline on the re-bee; rush-job work never looks as good); pages are easier to use, less information is collected, there's finally an account cancellation option (don't you dare!), and randomized passwords have been inexplicably changed from eight characters to ten.
• Comics: Comics? Yes, although onebee will not be publishing any comics in the immediate future, there are some long-term plans that may incorporate such things. In the interest of never having to edit another web page again (ha!), I built the tool for the re-bee and it'll lie dormant for as long as it lies dormant.

• Internal links: sublime new system for linking to another onebee post/photo/etc. from within a onebee post, which allows me to type something like (col: tivo) and the site will provide me with search results for "tivo" and then automatically build a link to the selected item – rather than having to stop my typing, find the URL to that item, insert it, and continue. (This is cooler than it sounds, believe me.)
• Lots of data entry: In addition to all the movie reviews, I have to go through each item on the site and replace any outdated code, so the formatting will look right on the new site; also, most photographs have to be regenerated from source because the new site will display bigger pictures (and a lot of the old scans were horrible anyway).

So, we're getting there! All that remains are a few interface niceties, some kind of system for handling video (very simple), and then tying up loose ends. But if you don't hear from me this week, you'll know why!

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Sat, August 27

Teenage Lust Dept.—11:10 AM

I rolled my eyes as hard as I've ever rolled them at an "Entertainment Weekly" cover this week, when I saw their ridiculous throwback "Hey, Remember the '90s" cover. (Well, the second hardest.)

But then I had to open it because I wanted to confirm that they'd snubbed my brilliant entry to their letters page regarding their article about the decline of the movie theatre experience. (They published me once before, in the '90s – hey, remember those? – so I felt pretty sure that since they didn't call me, I probably missed the cut.) Sure enough, bupkis. Their loss – here it is for the loyal denizens of BeeNation:

Read, and loved, your article on the problems of modern moviegoing. (#833) I still don't know why nobody's employed my idea: aerosolized laryngeal anesthetic pumped into every theatre. That'll cut those noisy chatterers down to a whisper and restore dignity and quiet to the cinema experience. Try it out; thank me later.

So, if anything, I was by now even less thrilled with this dopey issue of EW. But I flipped through the next few pages, as you do, just for kicks. Still grumbling at the idea of a '90s flashback cover story. It just barely stopped being the '90s four years ago! Come on!

And then... BAM!

Forgive me, EW. I repent. I have seen the error of my ways.

(Every time I lecherously objectify some sexy young starlet, I assume I come one step closer to alienating my entire female readership. As a result, I choose my battles carefully. In this case, though, no hesitation – Lacey! Yum!)

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Wed, August 24

Dead Wrong

CNN is pretending to be a news channel again with this documentary about the intelligence failures leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Read more.)

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Embedded—10:15 AM

I completely forgot to mention, I also watched Embedded, Sundance Channel's telecast of Tim Robbins's play about the war in Iraq. (This is why I should avoid writing at two in the morning; a lot slips through the cracks.) It was actually a great counterpart to Dead Wrong, juxtaposing the truth with its fictionalized/satirized version.

The general chatter I heard about "Embedded" was that it was masturbatory, arch-left, hippy pacifist tripe. And while there is a masturbation scene set in the Pentagon's Office of Special Projects (the sort of greek chorus of the play), I thought the rest of this criticism was unfounded. Certainly, Tim Robbins has a strong point of view about the marketing and execution of the Iraq war, but I felt like the bulk of the play was about the absurdities and horrors of war, with some additional time spent on the management of the news media (censorship rules for embedded journalists, the whole Jessica Lynch thing) and a little bit on the neo-con philosophy.

Scenes between family members and soldiers were very moving, and a handful of the scenes with journalists actually included dialogue pulled from transcripts of news stories from the time – and sometimes the lines that seemed the most over-the-top turned out to be the real ones. Most of the performances were excellent and the choreography inventively combined military maneuvers with dance steps (but this was a small part of the show).

It's kind of a fun escapist satire of the war situation, if you're interested in that sort of thing. As with Dead Wrong, probably not a lot of information that comes as a surprise, but still thought-provoking.

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Fri, August 19

Whither Snakes?—12:38 PM

In the Hollywood blog maelstrom, I've picked up considerable buzz around this Snakes on a Plane movie and the mini-battle over its title. Today I stumbled across what must be considered the definitive post:

Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane

Not only is this a perfect storm of Hollywood blogging (insider anecdotes, funny personalities, snakes, planes), it also details the author's converted use of the phrase "Snakes on a plane" into a zen koan, much as I did with "It has a robot" a while ago.

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Thu, August 18

Teething Ring Tones—2:42 PM

So this is how Dakota Fanning keeps in touch with her agent. A cell phone is now being marketed for toddlers. They can call from a list set up by a parent, and there are programmable buttons to dial Mommy or Daddy directly. Of course, if you look at the Mommy and Daddy buttons, they're a bit confusing.

First of all, the parents in these pictures have no arms. Also, apparently Mom is never seen outside of a Cinderella ball gown and Dad trots around in a Flash Gordon outfit with extremely tight pants. Whose parents look like this? You'll also notice that no alternative phone is provided with two Flash Gordons or two Cinderellas. Rick Santorum is certainly behind this pernicious slight.

In 1995, Clueless portrayed high schoolers gabbing on cell phones by their lockers as a send-up of nouveau-riche excess. We're well past that now. Oh, and don't forget the hands-free headset, for the 3-year-old on the go!

"Yeah listen, Tyler, I'm gonna have to call you back later. This sandbox isn't going to shit in itself."

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Tue, August 16

The frogurt is cursed!—3:31 PM

Pizza Hut has done away with its Dippin' Strips pizza, which debuted at last year's Super Bowl – apparently as a "limited time" offering. This is a huge blow to the fledgling field of dipponomics.

That's bad!

Bravo is bringing back Celebrity Poker Showdown, starting this very Thursday night!

That's good!

The first episode of the season is a cross-promotion with Bravo's atrocious "battle of the reality stars" show, featuring an all-reality lineup.

That's bad!

But, among these "stars" is Charla from The Amazing Race, who may very likely fall into Trishelle's cleavage in the Losers' Lounge, then whine for forty minutes about not being able to climb out.

That's good!

2 comments

Mon, August 15

Uh oh.—5:10 PM

U.S. study of gay sheep may shed light on sexuality [WikiNews]

Say what you will about gay marriage, but I think we can all agree that the only thing more disturbing than this:

is this:

0 comments

Sat, August 13

UMD?—9:40 AM

I've been browsing the Amazon DVD section a lot lately, finding links to add to the Reviews section, and it strikes me that Sony has made a tremendous marketing blunder with its new UMD format.

UMD stands for Universal Media Disc, and it's the disc format used by the new PlayStation Portable (PSP) that all your geek friends are slobbering over and no one else has ever heard of.

The blunder is this: Sony is spending way too much time marketing the UMD format. Amazon listings – as well as promotional billboards around town – always mention "UMD (for PSP)." Guess Who is "coming soon to DVD and UMD (for PSP)." The ads themselves admit that people are more familiar with the term PSP than they are with UMD. So why not just say the movie is coming to PSP and skip the confusion? Why expend any extra effort pimping the new UMD format when you could spend all your energy selling PSPs and people will become aware of UMD over time as they buy discs for their PSPs?

I understand that Sony wants UMD to be separate from PSP, because they have an interest in using the format to drive other devices in the future, but for now it seems like a real shame to be splitting the promotion between both acronyms, confusing customers, and cluttering up my pretty billboards.

1 comment

Fri, August 12

Meet the Survivors—2:01 PM

With any luck, this year's Survivor columns will be the snarkiest and most derisive ever. (I ordinarily avoid landlocked Survivor shows, but after the horrid disappointment of Palau, I can't wait another year.)

CBS released its group photo for the new series, and I went ahead and marked it up. (Click for the full version.)

"Okay, everybody. Now let's take the 'fun' version, then you can all head back to class. Johnny, one more paper airplane and I'm calling your mother."

11 comments

Thu, August 11

Why?—9:42 PM

I was just watching last night's Conan, with Paul Rudd who is fast becoming my new favorite person ever. As a joke, they screened a funny clip – I looked up from the laptop about a third of the way through it and thought to myself, "Is that a clip from Mac and Me?"

To my horror, it was indeed.

I don't know how I managed to recognize it, but I'm very very scared about what that implies.

1 comment

The Situation Room—6:08 PM

CNN's Wolftastic new program The Situation Room perpetuates the insipid, divisive, non-informative scourge that cable news has become. That is all.

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Wed, August 10

Dead End Job—8:32 PM

Ready to be present at the origin of one of the greatest rising talents in the next generation of filmmaking?

Good!

Here's what you do:

1. Create a (free) account at filmerica.com.
2. On the homepage, click to view the "Top 20 Films."
3. Watch and enjoy Dead End Job, submitted by team Kingski McStoneberry. (List is alphabetical by team.)
4. Vote for Dead End Job in the Audience Award, before 8/22.

Filmerica is a competition akin to the National Film Challenge and others: participating teams receive a list of constraints (a prop, a genre, a character, and a line of dialogue) and produce an original short film in 72 hours, using these elements. For Dead End Job, the genre is horror, the prop is a magnifying glass, and I don't know the line of dialogue, but I'll wager it wasn't "Hassle-free-ness."

Dead End Job was directed with stylized, chilling precision by Josh Skierski, whom I have not met. It was written by – and stars – Kate McManus, a childhood friend and also the writer/director of "Jesus Was A Capricorn", a gleeful exploration of the romantic quagmires of hapless twentysomethings and the smartest, funniest, most enjoyable stage musical I've seen – and I saw "Mamma Mia!" twice!

In Dead End Job, Kate focuses her probing, ironic perspective on the desperate disconnect between marketing and real, human interaction. Which is more of a sociopath – a serial killer or a traveling salesman? In the role of saleswoman Kelly Blair, Kate's performance, like her writing, takes bold chances and refuses to embrace the ordinary. At first, Kelly is detached and jittery: a nervous suppliant, speaking like the menu recording you get when you phone your bank. But as the story unfolds, she assumes control of her surroundings, and confidence blossoms into sarcasm and manic glee. As the customer, Roy Berry (who was delightful in "Capricorn") is distracted and hostile: he's got secrets, and he's not exactly in the mindset to buy.

The chemistry between the two is uncomfortable from the start, and the scene's energy builds slowly throughout, interrupted by frenzied outbursts. All of this is explored through Skierski's lens via a wandering magnifying glass, which creates a voyeuristic tension as it leers deeper into the scene. The visual style matches the compelling and unusual tone of the film and, well – I think Kingski McStoneberry puts it best: "all notions of cleverness to date are hereby rendered obsolete."

0 comments

Parts vs. The Island—1:43 PM

I knew it!!

Was 'The Island' Cloned? [Variety]

The producers of Parts: The Clonus Horror have finally caught up on their onebee reading and found out that Michael Bay ripped off their movie to make The Island. Now they're after a cut of the (admittedly puny) profits that Warners and DreamWorks are making from the film.

I think the best part of this is that one of the producers is a film professor at UCLA. How awesome would it be to take film classes from the guy who made Parts: The Clonus Horror? I had to settle for the guy who shot Gator Face.

(Just kidding; John was friendly and knowledgeable – an excellent instructor. He'd understand that Gator Face is too easy a joke to pass up – I know because he was a mensch the last time I made fun of it, in his class. He took it like a man.)

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Mon, August 8

DreamHost, I love you—10:16 PM

I don't need new blogs to read. I have plenty. We all do. There are now at least nine blogs on the Internet for every man, woman, and child alive on the planet.

But the DreamHost Blog is fun enough (and sporadic enough) to earn a spot in my regular rotation. You have to love people who love what they do, do it well, and do it confidently enough to be playful and open about it rather than sounding stuffy and corporate just because their competitors do. Their spanking-new blog is an extension of their giddy monthly newsletter in that regard – breezy, fearlessly informative, and fun to read.

That's why I don't mind paying 2000% markup – it's still among the best prices available, and along with the fun and casual culture you get excellent service, super-smooth account management tools, handfuls of add-ons... and more! Between myself and various friends/co-workers/freelance clients, I've sampled a lot of the web hosting companies out there, and DreamHost is by far the best I've encountered. Switch to DreamHost. Tell 'em I sent you.

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JavaScript, I loathe you—4:11 PM

The vast majority of items in the reviews database will not include a formal write-up. There will be more than 500 items and I don't have time to go back and review 'em all!

However, there will be an opportunity to request a review of any item. The idea being, if I someday have a lot of free time and nothing to write about, I'll sort through the most requested items and write a review.

I really wanted a little checkbox that you would click to request a review, which would automatically submit the form. But a form's onSubmit event handler isn't invoked if the submission comes from an onClick handler on the textbox! And I could find no way to return a true/false status from my little Ajax script for submitting the request without refreshing the page! So, I had to go with a submit button instead of a checkbox.

Damn you, JavaScript!

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Entourage "Screen Test" Ads—10:43 AM

I hadn't seen these spots before, although I assume they run on HBO. As enjoyable as this season of Entourage is becoming, these are even better. Select scenes (I think they're from season 1) are screened, followed by pretend "screen tests" with well-known D-listers. It's clearly inspired by the brilliant SNL Star Wars screen test sketch, and it's very, very funny.

Lost Scene: Liquor Store with Diamond Dallas Page, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, and Nikolai Volkoff (wrestlers, presumably).

Lost Scene: Poolside with Gary Coleman and Pat Morita.

Lost Scene: Coffee Shop with Erik Estrada, Pat Harrington, Richard Kline, and Jimmy Walker.

Lost Scene: Studio with Ellen Albertini Dow (the "Rapping Granny"), Estelle Harris (George Costanza's mom), Zelda "This house is clear" Rubinstein, and Renee Taylor.

When Pat Morita asks Gary Coleman, "Do you ever jerk off with a belt around your neck?" you don't ask why. You just laugh harder than you laughed at anything in The Aristocrats.

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Fri, August 5

The Incredibles and my Pixar stock—12:38 PM

All right, all right. I took a lot of glee from DreamWorks Animation's thrashing in the stock market after DVD sales for Shrek 2 fell below expectations, so I suppose turnabout is fair play. Yes, Pixar announced that the wildly popular DVD for The Incredibles was not as wildly popular as hoped, and yes their stock price dropped around 15%-18% (but it's hanging in there – it's even up today!).

But still, Darling Ben doesn't have to act so darn excited about it! (Pixar perf is nothing incredible [Variety]). Oooh, he hates Pixar so much! I'm going to see him tonight. Remind me to kick him in the teeth.

In happier news, my hunch that Eisner's ouster from the Mouse House would win back Pixar premier Steve Jobs seems boffo!

(God, that's tiresome to try to keep up; the point is, Pixar is apparently reconsidering extending its distribution partnership with Disney past next year's Cars, which is good news for both studios.)

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Thu, August 4

Reviews—3:13 PM

Eagle-eyed readers might have already noticed that the onebee navigation options will be changing from "Writing About Online Creative" to "Writing Photos Reviews About" in the near future. I've already detailed many new features for the photos section. The last few days I've been perfecting the reviews.

The idea began with a simple concept: a display of the books I'm currently reading and the movies I currently have out from Netflix. I thought it might spark discussion, or possibly spur me to finish both more quickly.

As usual, my eyes then glazed over with desire as I thought about all that data. My whole Netflix history! Completely databased and sortable! Endless possibilities. The idea grew, incorporating my ratings for each item, plus my review if I decided to write one. So, the reviews section will list everything in the database, with ratings and a link to the review if one exists. When reading the review, the related sidebar will display a few tidbits about the reviewed item, like so:

All of this fell into place surprisingly quickly, but then I realized that my initial approach was deeply flawed: one record for each entry in the Netflix history. For instance, I rented Broadcast News from Netflix in April of 2000, but then I felt like watching it again in July of 2002, so I rented it again. Why have two completely separate records? I had to rip out all the date information and re-code it so that viewings were associated with a review, rather than incorporated into it. Mercifully, that's now complete. It even yielded some snappy ways to display associated items on the edit page; these came in handy for other associated items, like the options in a poll. The admin interface got smarter across the board.

There's an interesting story also, about inspiration and interface design. I've been somewhat unsure about the amount inspiration drawn from kottke.org on certain features, but I've reminded myself that we all draw inspiration from everywhere; the good ideas rise to the top, so if you're doing something in the smartest way it may be similar to someone else who's doing it in the smartest way. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that, but never a blatant rip-off. Anyway, I'm thinking about these issues, and then comes this post from Kottke: My God, it's full of stars..., which details his decision to switch his movie reviews from scores of 1-100 to ratings of 1-5 stars. Aha! So here's an example of him changing to my approach! (Then again, I'm simultaneously changing to a 100 point score, but that's just for the sake of simplicity on the back-end. It will continue to be translated into a 1-5 star rating on the public site.) The point is, the best solution is the best solution, irrespective of who thought of it first.

Other great news: the re-bee is very near completion. Weeks behind schedule, to be sure, but closing fast. I can't put a specific date on it yet, but... very soon.

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Wed, August 3

Bush: 0 for 3—10:41 AM

I posted the Wonkette blurb about Bush's endorsement of intelligent design theory because I thought the comparison between "intelligent design as an alternative to evolution" and "magic as an alternative to physics" was apt and funny, like most things Wonkette says. I didn't bother to click the link to the actual article at the time, but now that I have, a few things stand out.

Bush, quoted in the article:

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

The National Academy of Sciences, in a 1999 report, quoted in the article:

"The claim that equity demands balanced treatment of evolutionary theory and special creation in science classrooms reflects a misunderstanding of what science is and how it is conducted."

Bingo! This isn't like interpreting a Keats sonnet. It's not "all viewpoints are created equal," it's about which theories stand up to scientific inquiry – or even satisfy the basic requisites of scientific thought.

John West, from the Center for Science and Culture, a "think tank" that comes out in favor of ID, quoted in the article:

"The fact is that a significant number of scientists are extremely skeptical that Darwinian evolution can explain the origins of life."

I would say that people are missing the point, but that's missing the point. People are intentionally spinning this to sound like if there are any gaps in Darwinism, ID is the only caulk to fill those gaps. Just because scientists express skepticism over Darwinism doesn't mean Darwinism is bunk and it doesn't mean ID is correct by default. What it should mean is that they devise hypotheses and experiments to fill those gaps, either by refining Darwinism or forging a new theory.

Also, Bush took the occasion to continue to throw his support behind Karl Rove and Rafael Palmeiro, both of whom have recently been proven to be liars. So, not a good day for Bush.

Update: The rantier version: The President and Intelligent Design [KF Monkey]

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Photojournalism at its finest—9:58 AM

Why can't I stop looking at Jessica Alba playing with her bikini?

I'm going to say it's because of the bright colors.

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Mon, August 1

Trailer Country

Half the time, the best part of going to a movie is getting to see trailers. It's a shame we can't replace the Nike ads and anti-piracy announcements with more trailers. Herewith, some standout trailers from the last few weekends. (Read more.)

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