One of the most influential propaganda films of all time meets one of the least. BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN: a mashup trailer created by Josh Nelson.
February 21, 2013
From the sublime to the ridiculous, warship edition
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Looming cutbacks to US military include general officers scrambling for a soft landing
It’s a tough world out there. It looks like it’ll be getting tougher for soon-to-be retired US military leaders:
Sources revealed today that a top U.S. Marine General is “extremely hesitant” about plans for his possible retirement, indicating a greater problem with military transition assistance programs.
General John Murphy, the former commander of Fleet Marine Forces-Pacific, is looking toward a future in the private sector, but he says he may have to lower himself to take any position in order to support his family.
“It’s scary out there with the economy the way it is,” said Murphy in a telephone interview with The Duffel Blog. “I’m certainly hoping that I can secure a job as a D.C. lobbyist or a consultant to a defense contractor. But shit, I’m just not sure anymore. I might have to degrade myself and be a military analyst at Fox News just to feed my goddamn kids.”
Murphy’s worries underscore a major problem of assisting military members on their way out of the service. Junior enlisted personnel usually go through a weeklong Transition Assistance Program, or TAP, but the classes for general officers have serious drawbacks.
“The enlisted classes set the guys up for everything. They basically pave the way for them to go college, give them job placement, the whole nine yards,” said Michael Phillips, a counselor with the TAP program. “But for Generals, they need to do a lot of the work on their own. Most of them have to search for at least a few minutes in their rolodex to find a contact at BAE Systems or Lockheed before they have an executive position.”
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February 20, 2013
Rare praise for obscure movie director of the 1970’s
He apparently goes by the same name as one of the most reviled movie figures of the last 20 years:
It’s hard to imagine now, but the original Star Wars movie was more than just a star-spanning, kid-pleasing action flick. It was also a rule-breaking, expectation-thwarting one-film rebel alliance.
For instance, remember how the movie starts with a blare of trumpets and the title, followed the text crawl, followed by the actual movie? Notice how there aren’t three minutes of “Doopdy Doo Pictures and Skippity-Skip Entertainment Present … A Furfty Fur/Yonker Boo Production … A Glarpton Spitcake Film … Elwee Groodicle … Robbles Pancake … Spankster Carmont … and Bliss Underham … Casting by Arhop Maser, C.S.A … Music by Hambone Jury … Cheese Table Relocation by Hollywood Dairy Movement L.L.C.” and so forth? Lucas was fined $250,000 for that. Specifically, he was fined by the Director’s Guild for not having an opening director credit. That’s right, he was fined for not giving himself credit before the film even starts.
Or take the fact that there are two main characters who not only don’t speak English, but whose growlings and bleepings aren’t even translated into subtitles.
Oh, and one more thing. It’s science fiction. These days you can’t swing a large popcorn without hitting a science-fiction blockbuster right in the hyperdrive, but at the time there hadn’t been a really successful science fiction movie in nearly a decade. Just by setting his film in a galaxy far, far away — not to mention long, long ago — Lucas was defying the conventional movie-making wisdom of the time.
The point is that while Star Wars is the spaceship that launched a thousand clichés, it achieved its success by being something profoundly original. So here’s my unsolicited advice to Abrams, and moreover to the hundreds of entertainment bureaucrats who are going to want to have their meddling incorporated into the upcoming Star Wars VII: Action of the Noun: Don’t give into the Dark Side. Don’t incorporate the following clichés that have increasingly infested sequels for the past 35 years.
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February 16, 2013
Scott Feschuk challenges your detection skills
In his Maclean’s column, Scott Feschuk wants to see how perceptive you are:
Looking for a fun getaway? Here are five theme cruises. Four of them you can book right now. The other? I made it up. Try to guess which one. (For the answer, scroll down past the end of the column.)
The Wizard Cruise. “Imagine!” the website says. “Imagine 600 Harry Potter fanatics, dressed in their finest wizard robes and brandishing magic wands, descending upon a modern luxury liner.” Do you have that image in your head? Now imagine all of the other passengers pointing and laughing. Imagine the three female “wizards” on board getting tired of hearing the same pickup line: “Wanna pet my hippogriff?” Imagine quidditch being a letdown because the snitch is a beach ball and a muggle keeps deflating your water wings.
Listen: I’m not saying this cruise is likely to attract a homely group of passengers, but before the voyage there will be a brief pause as the ship is christened the Self-Love Boat.
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February 13, 2013
Can we get versions of this for the Toronto Star and National Post?
The Guardian-style comment generator:
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February 12, 2013
February 9, 2013
QotD: When God sticks his nose into public health and taxation issues
It is not an original thought to say that public health crusaders often resemble religious zealots, but seldom is the comparison more literal than in the case of Mike Rayner, director of the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group.
[. . .]
So far, so mundane. Another illiberal battler against the free market with a heightened sense of his own importance and his nose in the trough. The only point of interest is that Mr Raynor is a Church of England priest who is guided by voices.
In all of this I see a sacred dimension. You may not believe that I have heard God aright but I think God is calling me to work towards the introduction of soft-drink taxes in this country and I am looking forward to the day when General Synod debates the ethical issues surrounding this type of tax rather than some of the other issues that august body seems obsessed by.
Golly. Where to begin? On a theological note, I do wonder whether Jesus would really be in favour of a deeply regressive stealth tax that would take from the poor to give to the rich. Perhaps the reason the General Synod does not debate tax policy is because they recall the old “render under to Caesar…” message and realise that it’s none of their business.
If we weren’t already sceptical about the documents coming from Mr Rayner’s team of would-be policy-makers, the fact that its director believes that God has told him to bring about a fat tax in this land should be enough to make us suspect that a tiny bit of research bias might have crept into his work. Considering that the Almighty has approved of the policy, what are the chances of his loyal servant producing evidence that would question its efficacy?
Christopher Snowdon, “Fat tax campaigner: ‘God told me to do it'”, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, 2012-05-21
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February 2, 2013
Romania responds to British anti-immigration talk
Romania’s Gandul has a bit of fun at Britain’s expense:
Public fears in the UK over mass immigration by Eastern Europeans has prompted a peculiar response from Romania: One newspaper published a series of ads playing on British cultural stereotypes, and saying why people should move to Romania instead.
“Our draft beer is less expensive than your bottled water,” one of the ads proudly states, hinting at the high costs of living in the UK. Another ad made fun of British cuisine: “We serve more food groups than pies, sausage, fish and chips.”
Other ads touched upon politics, weather and even women: “Half of our women look like Kate. The other half, like her sister.”
The ‘Why don`t you come over?’ ad campaign was designed by the online Romanian newspaper Gandul and GMP Advertising firm in response to numerous reports in the British media about a possible government initiative to launch a negative ad campaign discouraging Romanians and Bulgarians from coming to work in Britain.
Update, 13 September: The campaign just won a Gold Award at AdStars.
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February 1, 2013
Nicely played, Samsung
At Techdirt, Timothy Geigner tries to talk about something to do with football or advertising:
It’s almost that time of year again, when many of us lesser beings will gather together to watch super-human men on all manner of PEDs and deer antler urine sprays smack each other around while an oblong leather ball sits somewhere in the background. We’ll leap for the pizza and chili like salmon during mating season while, between whistles, obligatory commercials with Avatar-like production budgets glow at us. That’s right sports fans, it’s [editor redacted] time!
Wait, hey! What the hell? I said it’s [editor redacted] time! Oh, come on. I can’t say [editor redacted]? Fine, what about a euphemism, like [editor redacted]? No, can’t say that either? Maybe [editor redacted]? Damn it, this is stupid. I’m talking about something that rhymes with “Pooper Hole” (heh, got you, editor!).
Fortunately for our entertainment sensibilities, Samsung decided this year to combine a distaste for trademark stupidity and our concept of advertising being content in this gem of a spot.
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January 29, 2013
January 25, 2013
The wrong maple leaf forever: the new $20 bill controversy
Oh, hang your heads in shame, Canadians: you put the wrong maple leaf on your new $20 bill. The entire rest of the civilized world is laughing and pointing:
The mix-up began a hundred-some years ago when Canada, a small club founded by French misfit children, decided to create its own currency. These bills and coins would function much the same as Chuck E. Cheese tickets at a modern-day Chuck E. Cheese, in that it would be tradeable for goods (and services). It would be valid in all of Canada.
For many years, the system was a success. Canadians used their Canadian money with ease. Every once in a while a Canadian penny or dime would slip down into the United States but that was no big deal because all the coins look about the same and everyone could just leave them in tip jars, like “not my problem.”
Then, in 2011, Canada decided to redesign their banknotes.
“Paper is out and polymer is IN!” Canada exclaimed in an email newsletter that the rest of the world deleted without reading.
The new bills were made out of plastic. They had fancy updated pictures and a holographic whoozy-whatsits and a big clear window to make them harder to counterfeit.
They featured a big ol’ maple leaf.
But not a Canadian maple leaf.
A Norwegian one.
“Big deal,” you say. “Leaves are leaves; who cares?”
The problem is that maple leaves are Canada’s thing. Like how some nations’ thing is communism, or being the world economic leader, or producing generation after generation of beautiful supermodels. Canada’s thing is that there are leaves there.
And they fucked it up.
H/T to David Akin for the link.
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January 18, 2013
When sarcasm goes right over their heads…
Andrew Coyne parodied Toronto attitudes to winter in a Twitter update earlier this morning:
MY GOD IT’S -10 IN TORONTO HOLY MOTHER NO PLACE HAS EVER BEEN THIS COLD EVER EVER
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
As often happens, the sarcasm went right past some folks:
Ummm… @norlaine: @acoyne Hahahahahaha! Ever spent the winter in Winnipeg?
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
Ummm… @norlaine: @acoyne Hahahahahaha! Ever spent the winter in Winnipeg?
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
Ummmm…. @altonabusiness: @acoyne Suck it up Princess! Come to MB, we’ll toughen you up!
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
Ummmmmmmmmm….@cupedoll_500: So cute. -30 Winnipeg pats yer li’l heads. R@acoyne: MY GOD IT’S -10 IN TORONTO HOLY MOTHER NO..
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
I’m from Winnipeg, morons.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
There is no joke so obvious that two-thirds of Twitter won’t get it.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) January 18, 2013
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January 17, 2013
BargainBinBlasphemy
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