Monthly Archives: May 2010

Are 3D movies taking over?

I recently saw news that they are making a sequel to Clash of the Titans, which was recently released. I don’t know if anyone else saw it, but it was horrible. I usually find mythology movies really interesting story-wise, but this movie was ridiculously bad because basically it had no plot, or character development for that matter. So when I saw that they were making a sequel I couldn’t help but wonder: huh?
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Well apparently, the movie ended up grossing $300 million world-wide, and not because it was a good movie, but because it was in 3D and people went to see it for the effects. In fact the release date for the film was delayed so that it could be converted in 3D and so that the theater could charge movie goers the additional $5. In class we discussed the 3D phenomenon and whether or not it was a fad or something that was here to stay. In my opinion this example shows that 3D movies are here to stay: at least for now. The studios have discovered a wonderful gimmick that causes audiences to flock to the movies, even the bad ones. The best thing is that this gimmick also allows the studios to make even more money because they can charge more for these 3D movies, even if they are quickly and shoddily made. The fact of the matter is that those that call the shots only care about one thing: box office performance. Since 3D movies are still proving to perform financially for the studios, they will continue to make them until audiences stop lining up to consume them.

The randomness of Twitter.

I must admit that I have put Twitter on the backburner because honestly I don’t find it that useful a tool, because I know that the amount of people who read my twitter are infinitely less than the amount of people who I am friends with on Facebook and therefore read my status. Nevertheless, recently I have received a couple of emails notifying me of new people that have started following me on Twitter. These people are strangers and while I understand the one-sided following aspect of Twitter, I don’t really understand why strangers would want to follow me, after all I’ve only tweeted a handful of times.
However, the most interesting group that has decided to follow me is without a doubt Gao International. With a little investigating, I discovered it to be a Twitter page dedicated to following and connecting people with the last name Gao. While I understand that the internet is a place for people to gather, they usually have common interests or something that connects them together. To me it just seems superficial and arbitrary that people would assume that a person would want to get to know someone just because they share the same last name. Anyways, it was something funny that happened this week that I thought I would share.

HBO’s Imagine Cube

I must admit that HBO’s imagine concept was really interesting to watch because it was executed very well. Watching the short clip titled “the affair” from the four different angles really opened up the story in a way that would not have been originally seen, had there only been one angle, without expanding the clip. Yet, at the same time by giving you ‘all’ of the story at once you are not really saving any time either because in order to fully get the entire effect of the story you also have to re-watch the clip many times from each side of the cube.
“The Affair” sort of reminded me of Façade, in that we are immediately taken into the living room of this couple that is obviously having marital problems. At first we are unsure of what is going on, however as time elapses we soon realize the depths of the issues that lay underneath. Like Façade, “The Affair” starts and ends with the same outcome, when watching from different angles the middle details get filled in, but the ending is still the same. This is exactly like Façade, in that you can vary the conversation and interactions you have with the couple, but the outcome will always be that you get kicked out of their apartment in the end.
In my mind “The Affair” is like a cross between Façade and the film Memento. If you treat the entire experience as a series of different clips that are independent entities, it is clear that the format of “The Affair” is very similar to the format of Memento as well. Just by viewing one clip we are not able to put together the pieces of the puzzle, however after watching all four we can begin to construct a story of what really happened. Similarly, even after watching all of the story from all of the angles the audience is also left to make significant assumptions and guesses about what really happened as the many details of the story are left vague and incomplete, no doubt to encourage users to watch again and enquire more about the story online through message boards. All and all I really enjoyed the formatting of “The Affair” and thought that it was a creative way to tell a story using a format that is not commonly seen.