I have to say, I love this kind of stuff. I have books and books on the history of Hollywood which contain all kinds of long-forgotten or holy moly! facts.
This comparison is pretty cool as you can tell from the first set of pictures above. Click the link to our friends at cracked.com for nine more pictures/examples!
10 Moments the Wolverine Trailer Stole from Batman Begins | Cracked.com.
I truly feel the Oscars are in a time-warp. Seriously. Specifically, The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. It’s as if the entire world…Facebook, iPhone, Apps, Twitter, iPad, Skype — and the billions of humans who use them and new technology to watch movies, find movies, rate movies, critique movies, rave about movies and make movies (among everything else in the universe) never happened. None of it exists.
This technology allows innovative producers to put together incredible shows, if they’re allowed to do it.
People asked me if I thought Seth Macfarlane would lead the Oscars out of the usual hum-drum show it’s become. I said, “No.” Here’s why.
I remember chatting with former Oscar hosts Jon Stewart and Chris Rock during their week leading up to the show.
While they didn’t come out and say it, I could tell that the weight of the Oscar mafia was bearing down on them. And I say mafia in only the kindest of terms.
You see, I had seen it before. These very talented individuals are asked, courted at times, to host the Academy Awards. Stewart and Rock are exceptional at what they do. They both do it in the comfortable, well-crafted environment of their world. The Oscar world is an entirely different world.
I could tell when I chatted with Jon Stewart that he was inside the Oscar machine. When creativity and new thoughts run up against “the way it’s always been.” Chris Rock? Same thing. I asked Chris on a Thursday before the Sunday show if he was able to be Chris Rock, if the Academy was reigning him in at all? He just shot me a look.
Year after year we start off with hope it will be different and hope gets put through the Academy meat grinder, circa 1978, and it comes out the other end as Oscar Sausage. This is 2013. There are complete gluten-free menus in restaurants these days. Geeeeez!. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the Oscars. I went to every one from 1999-to-2011. It’s like when you have a relative who you love but who can’t get out of his or her own way.
Pretty soon the Academy will have to get out of it’s own way before late one day an intervention suddenly appears. An intervention because the Academy has continued to ignore the inventions of the day, which will cost them the 20-30-year olds who are embracing the new technology and new ways of doing things, watching things and more.
If the Academy doesn’t embrace the young, who will watch when the 40-50-60 year olds are gone? Apple did a smart thing when it opened up it’s retail stores. Rather than have all the laptops and computers bolted to the counters like every other retail store, they had them all available to pick up and play. More importantly, they had those little computer stations for kids. Suddenly kids were using Macs. Then kids wanted Macs. Then the iPod came out. Kids wanted those. Then kids wanted music and went to iTunes. Then they grew up and went to iPads and iPhones. You get the picture.
What did Microsoft do during this time? Nothing to capture the youth market, the adult buyers of the future. My 19-year-old daughter doesn’t associate anything with Microsoft. She is Apple everything. She rarely watches tv. It’s all second screen, YouTube, etc.
My 8-year-old daughter will never use a PC. She’s Apple wired.
Here’s my point. The Academy is a poor-man’s Microsoft. Teens and those in their 20s are vaguely aware of the Oscars. How will it ever open up the live-show equivalent of the interactive Apple retail store? Or will it be the pc equivalent of Dell? Once great, but quickly becoming marginal?
It’s from Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle. He of Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. And it’s intense. U need to be 17+ to watch.
This one stars James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel. McAvoy plays a fine-art auctioneer who seeks out a hypnotherapist to find a lost Goya painting.
It opens April 5th. Enjoy.
Look, I’ve always found Justin Timberlake to be innately curious and very entrepreneurial. I first met him back in early 2000 just after *NSYNC’s “No Strings Attached” album was released. He and the band had just released their first single, “Bye Bye Bye” and had officially exploded on the scene. They were, literally, going a million-miles an hour.
Over the next 10-years, I noticed in the interviews I would do with Justin that he had other interests than ‘just’ fronting a band. The above picture is of Justin and me at his PGA Golf Tourney in Las Vegas. I believe it is from his first year fronting the tourney and bringing in Shriner’s Hospital. Speaking of golf, golf was a big thing for him back when we chatted in 2002, telling me about playing the sport with his dad and how cool it would be to own your own course someday. We laughed about never needing a tee-time. He doesn’t. I still do!. But, anyway, the point is, he’s always looked outside the “music-box”, as it were, to grow and invest. He does own a course in his native Tennessee (the eco-friendly Mirimichi Golf Course), restaurants, clothing line and just sold to Apple an app-company he backed called Particle.
So, if you think about it, MySpace makes sense. Just like the run-down golf course he snapped-up, pivoted and turned fabulous, Justin snapped-up (with investors) the run-down, on-it’s-last-legs MySpace. It is here where I must make an important point. There is another reason Justin’s investments outside of music seem to work. Sure, he’s mostly using OPM, other people’s money, but he brings a fantastic ‘brand’ to every deal. Not just his notoriety, but his persona which has a fantastic quality –authenticity. Often persona and authenticity, espesh in Hollywood and music, are mutually exclusive. Not here and that is what attracts investors, fans and customers. He’s not going to do it half-assed. As my entrepreneurial wife always tells me –authenticity is key.
Case in point, “Justin Timberlake’s MySpace” (as I’m calling it) is headed in the right direction with a very nicely done ‘sizzle’ reel of what it will be when it launches. If MySpace were a house, Justin and his team demolished it, leaving only the foundation and constructed something entirely new, complete with all the latest gizmos.
Can JTMS bridge the gap between musician/artist and fans? I believe it can, but it won’t be easy. It’s an entirely different social landscape today than when MySpace or Facebook launched. It’s another planet, really. But, Justin’s foray into this internet space seems justified.
Here is a great interview with pics of my wonderful and incredibly creative wife!
