?Cut the cord? has become the rallying cry for those interested in abandoning cable television in favor of streaming online video to their phones, tablets, desktops and ??forsooth! ??televisions. It’s an apt phrase, not merely for its echoes of severing the umbilical cord in the delivery room but for its metaphoric reach into that almond-shaped…
Certain films are so singular in vision, so spectacular in their realization that they’re fundamentally immune to the disease of sequel-itis, or its often more virulent form, prequel-itis. Among those in this rarified canon are Citizen Kane (of course), Casablanca (duh) and, until last week, Blade Runner. Whether or not one agrees that the futuristic…
The Force from a crayon box, the Star Wars Palette, circa 1977.
A ringing cake. Sure, it reads like a lost lyric from ?MacArthur Park? but it’s actually a key moment in the history of media, marketing and perhaps even marzipan. As recounted by Wired Magazine contributing editor Frank Rose in his recently released tome, The Art of Immersion ? How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood,…
Of all our cultural franchises on ?philias, it’s the cinephiles, audiophiles and bibliophiles who foster perhaps the most socially-acceptable proclivities and yet, somehow, they’re still left out in the cold of mainstream culture. Fetishists par excellence, they are the true fans, the one’s that remind us that the etymological root of ?fan? is ?fanatic? and…
With the launch of a streaming-only option, many Netflix subscribers (including this one) will no longer say “and now the envelope please.” It’s a red-letter day for online movie distribution without, um, the red letter. What will happen to the post-office once their largest consumer of first class postage goes completely digital? And for that…