A recent New York Times article by David Pogue explores the DVD’s status as a dying medium that will soon go the way of the VHS tapes and CDs (and Laserdisks). Distributors recently decided to abandon the planned upgrade to HD DVD in order to preserve the DVD’s current position as the leading distributor of movies, a move that reveals anxiety over the mounting challenge from internet downloads.
A year ago, Netflix started offering downloadable movies, although the number of titles was pretty small. Netflix is expected to team up with Microsoft later this week to offer a video service through Xbox, to tap the full potential of Xbox Live Marketplace. iTunes also joined the party and started a video rental service last month, which is growing in popularity, although it still only has less than 400 titles available, and there are a number of strange rules and requirements. Continue Reading…
George Bush’s recent trip to Africa inspired us to post this video of the president busting a move onstage during the first ever Malaria Awareness Day.
Compare to this recent Obama mashup featuring Obama dancing on Ellen.
So who’s the better dancer?
Short animated film is the only Oscar category for which we were able to find all of the films (except one) on YouTube, so we’ve listed the links to each of them below, in no particular order. The live action short films — which are currently playing at theaters around the country — are also available for download on iTunes for about $10.
And the nominees are…
Madame Tutli-Putli
Part 1 and part 2
This short by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski of the National Film Board is probably the favorite. It follows the journey of a young woman on an overnight train that gradually descends into a surrealist nightmare. (Check out the making-of video too.)
I Met the Walrus
This was the only one we couldn’t find, but the trailer looks great. From the description: “In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview…38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it.”
Même Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis
(Even Pigeons Go To Heaven)
This short was directed by Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse who used CG animation to tell the story of a priest trying to trick an elderly man into buying a strange afterlife contraption. The ending makes for a cute allegory.
Peter and the Wolf
Part 1, part 2 and part 3
Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman do a new interpretation of Prokofiev’s classic tale with some impressive puppet animation. The run time is about a half-hour, and it is without words — only Prokofiev’s music.
Moya lyubov (My Love)
Part 1, part 2 and part 3
This one’s for the Russian speakers out there (no English subtitles — sorry). The whole thing looks like an impressionist painting.
You won’t believe it, but inside this yellow box (47.2 inches in length, 35.4 inches in height and 31.5 inches in width) is an entire room full of furniture:
1 wardrobe
1 large desk/table
1 desk cabinet with locking drawers
1 revolving, height-adjustable desk chair
2 stools
1 single (twin) bed
1 mattress
1 tall set of shelves.
You have to see the video to believe it:
CASULO is a creation of Marcel Krings and Sebastian Mühlhäuser, at the Köln International School of Design in Cologne. They explain:
“CASULO does away with the problem of temporary furniture rentals and offers a winning solution to all the problems moving involves. We are facing an enormous challenge, for in the working-world of the future we will have to adapt to a more mobile style of life. The CASULO concept offers an inventive and achievable opportunity to face the demands of mobile living.”
As someone who has moved six times in the last five years, this product seems like an ideal solution for college students and young professionals. But as my friend Hannah said, “if my clothes could fit in a wardrobe that small, I would actually be jesus.”
More information at Mein Casulo
Thanks to Hannah Kushnik for the tip!
The Fresh Cut team crashes the Illinois College Press Association conference where Hassan’s video “Covering A Tragedy: NIU” was screened.
From left: Mark Boyer, Dorothee Royal-Hedinger, Hassan S. Ali and the editor in chief of NIU’s Northern Star, John Puterbaugh.
Coolio, the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning artist wants to “teach yo ass how to cook,” and he’s starring in a new online cooking show, “Cooking with Coolio.” The show, which airs on the video site My Damn Channel, is as absurd as anything on TV or the internet. For proof, here’s the teaser from the website:
Coolio, the rapper known mostly for the song Gangsta’s Paradise, wants to “teach yo ass how to cook,” and now the self proclaimed Ghetto Gourmet has his own online cooking show. Unsurprisingly, the show features cleavage, swearing, and references to swords, nunchucks, and pistols. The subject of the first show—caprese salad, or as Coolio explains it, “I’m gunna teach you how to make a salad that will get them panties right off.
The first show is on YouTube, and I’ve embedded it below, but Coolio doesn’t really seem to find his stride until the second episode.
The second show begins with Coolio addressing the audience from the passenger seat of a moving SUV. He tells us that he’s hunting for a college student who’s hungry, broke and “malnutritioned.” After a few seconds, he spots one in an empty parking lot and runs out of the car after him screaming, “Hey dude! Are you hungry? Let me holler at you for a second!” Coolio and one of his henchmen catch the “college student” (who is obviously in on the gag), and they abduct him, tossing him into the back of the car.
In the next scene, Josh, the college student, has his head entirely covered in duct tape, which makes him look like some sort of BDSM slave, and he is guarded by two baguette-wielding women. But it’s for his own good, because Coolio is about to teach Josh how to prepare steaks using low-grade meat. For the steaks, Coolio basically just immerses them in beer and vinegar in a shallow bake pan. Then, he gives a “ghetto garlic bread” demonstration that includes a jar of mayonnaise, a whole stick of butter and some hot sauce. It’s some of the worst-looking food I’ve ever seen.
Somehow, though — despite the gimmicks and the general ridiculousness of the show — I now have a newfound respect for Coolio. The last time I saw him, he had his goofy head submerged in a tank of maggots and scorpions, screaming “I’m traumatized for life!” But despite his proclivity for putting himself in what would seem to most people like compromising or humiliating situations, he’s actually one of the most enduring pop icons of the past 15 years.
This week 145 million pounds of ground beef were recalled after the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover video showing cows being dragged with chains across a cement floor and moved to slaughter with forklifts. However, this is not the first and will certainly not be the last video to shock the American public by revealing where their food comes from.
In this excerpt from the 2003 film “The Corporation” (which is available for free on google video), the issue of rBS or rBGH use in dairy cows is addressed. These substances were banned in Europe and Canada but dairy producers in the United States continue to subject cattle to the infection-causing drugs - the results of which are most likely in the milk you drink everyday…
Photo via psmphotography
If you’re Bill O’Reilly, now would be a pretty good time to hire a new PR guy. That, at least, was the first thought to cross my mind when I encountered this headline:”Welcome Tony Snow to the Factor Family!”
Indeed, President Bush’s former press secretary, Tony Snow, was officially hired yesterday by Bill O’Reilly’s syndicated radio show, “Radio Factor,” but not in any public relations capacity. Instead, Snow will serve as O’Reilly’s “permanent fill-in host.”
In a way, that’s even more intriguing. Where’s Bill-O going? Is he expecting to take a little hiatus, as some of his critics have been suggesting?
No, of course not; O’Reilly isn’t going anywhere. In fact, his producer, David Tabacoff, even defended O’Reilly’s suggestion of going after Michelle Obama with a lynch mob yesterday, insisting that “what Bill said was an obvious repudiation of anyone attacking Michelle Obama…As he has said more than ten times, he is giving her the benefit of the doubt.”
It’s no surprise, really, that FOX is unconcerned with O’Rielly’s recent remarks. But the timing of Snow’s hiring is almost as ironic as Keith Olberman’s use of a Bush quote (”Some Americans do not understand the effect that references to nooses and lynching can still have”) to lambaste O’Reilly for his reference to lynching.
Since when did outer space a) get so off-the-chain exciting and b) receive the amount of press that it has over the past week?
I guess the answers to both questions go hand-in-hand: when crazy stuff happens in space, people listen. And there’s been plenty of space happenings to go around lately.
First, there’s the safe return of the shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts on Wednesday. The crew, which included a suburban Chicago native (galactic shout-out!), had been on a mission to deliver a $2 billion European research laboratory to the International Space Station. Of course, leave it to America to do Europe’s dirty work!
Then astronomers discovered planets orbiting a star some 5,000 light-years away, implying that “solar systems like ours may be unexpectedly common,” according to Scientific American. (Still don’t believe in aliens?)
The talk of the town yesterday had to be when/where/how to watch the total lunar eclipse, which won’t happen again for two years. I was especially taken by Newsday’s coverage of the occasion:
The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 was accompanied by cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.
In some spots, skywatchers viewing through a telescope could also see Saturn’s handsome rings.
Wow, so that’s what space porn sounds like!
Forget about Tribune boss Sam Zell’s mea culpa, and don’t expect him to put a muzzle on himself any time soon. The fact is, Zell himself is the Tribune Company’s most valuable asset because the outspoken billionaire knows how to sell papers. When he cussed out that photog in Florida a few weeks ago, it seemed like Zell just had no self-control. But according to Zell, those seemingly random outbursts are actually part of a well-coordinated master plan.
Every time the guy opens his mouth, there’s a media frenzy. To capitalize on it, he should just put himself on permanent public speaking duty and require his scribes to make everything he says front-page news. Papers would be flying off newsstands. Zell seems to realize this now, and he’s trying to somehow rally the company around his own outbursts — at least that’s what he suggested when he addressed his Chicago staff yesterday. A video of the entire meeting is below, and we’ve highlighted some of the more notable parts.
Sam Zell’s Talk at the Chicago Tribune from margaret on Vimeo.
Most of the meeting involved your typical corporate money stuff (bleh), until the Chicago Tribune’s Public Editor Timothy J. McNulty addressed Zell’s apparent transgressions (about 57:15 into the video). McNulty told Zell:
A number of people at the company — and especially women — have been deeply offended by some of the statements you said in other places and other venues…it’s taken so long for people — especially women — to rise in the profession, and some of them feel personally disrespected.