I am a fan of TLC and a fan of Reality TV but what has struck me, and entertained me in a raised eyebrow kind of way, lately is the unusual pairing of premises. Of course “mash-ups” are hot in the grand scheme of things but it is the lack of creativity that strikes me as a little disappointing and did cause me to yell “Come On!” at the TV. Case in point (and prompter of the livingroom outburst) is one of TLC’s latest shows, “The Little Chocolatiers”.

The station has a legacy of shows about little people including: Little People, Big World and The Little Couple and they have shows about chocolate and cake making including: Cake Boss and Ultimate Cake Off. It is almost as if you can picture the editorial boardroom at TLC and a hat filled with slips of paper of every show – whatever comes out of the hat – voila – our new show! Another example of this was on Sunday’s “The Man with Half a Body” (no relation to Mermaid Girl). In this documentary, it wasn’t enough to focus on the challenges this man faces due to his physical condition, rather most of the show revolved around the results of a paternity test and whether his fiance’s daughter was biologically his – I know Maury isn’t on TLC but still. Anyhow, my prediction when I scan over the list of TLC shows is to stay tuned for upcoming shows like “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant until I Moved into My First House” or maybe “Our 19 Kids grew up to be BBQ Pitmasters”. . .You heard it here first!

Babs

In an effort to take aim at competitors’ iPhone, Blackberry as well as the myriad of so called dumb-phones on the market, Microsoft Corp. has unveiled two handsets this week targeted specifically for social networking-savvy teens and twenty-somethings. Manufactured by Sharp and sold exclusively (as of May) in the U.S. by Verizon Wireless and in Europe by Vodafone, the device will come in 2 touch-screen models: a short, square-shaped handset called Kin 1 and a longer, more rectangular one called Kin 2.

According to many reports the devices will not be overtly branded as a Microsoft product as they will sport a “Kin” logo on the rear together with a smaller indication that they are Windows phones from Verizon and Sharp. Some additional features include:

• Both are black with screens that respond to multiple finger gestures, similar to the “multitouch” technology on the iPhone
• The shorter Kin 1 has a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the bottom, while the Kin 2 has a full QWERTY keyboard that comes out from its side
• Both include Wi-Fi access and cameras capable of taking higher-resolution photos
• The Kin 1 will include a 5-megapixel camera, while the Kin 2 will have a 8-megapixel camera
• The Kin 2 will also be capable of shooting HD-quality video.
• Neither device has a memory card slot; instead, the phones will upload content such as photos and videos to an unlimited Kin online storage service
• Zune software also will be incorporated into the devices

For a decent visual just click on the link for a hands on demo recently uploaded to Kin 1 Kin 2

Clearly the Kin is aimed at leveraging the world of social networking and keeping the youthful consumer constantly connected to their friends via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social networking sites. It is interesting to observe Microsoft specifically and directly chasing down an opportunity that most certainly exists with youthful, socially connected people. The devices seem to be tailored for folks who place a high value on the mobile social networking experience and being able to share what’s going on in their lives instantly whilst on the go. In simple terms, this product offering appears to be an all out play to capture a significant percentage of the socially connected mobile market. A market of young consumers, who once favourably influenced through use and familiarity, might be predisposed to graduate upward to a Windows 7 phone.

Needless to say we will be following this development closely here at the shop, especially with respect to pricing, contracts, data plans. Ultimately, the numbers will have to be appealing in order to compete effectively and attract parents and young people alike.

Not surprisingly the whole Anne Coulter / University of Ottawa Provost letter affair sparked a large degree of discussion here at the office. It seems from our perspective, we can all agree on two essential facts:

1) Coulter’s shtick is bombast. As our one and only V is for Victory informed: As my grandmother in Newfoundland would say: “she’s got some mouth on ‘er”.

2) The U of O totally blew it by not letting this overbearing opportunist hang herself with her own words: As Ms. Arcus correctly opined: Yes they dropped the ball. No matter how far-fetched her perspective is (and yes, I do think she’s a nut job), it is nevertheless a perspective. A University in Canada cancelled her appearance – the one place in the world where the free exchange of ideas should be allowed to happen. Sad, sad.”

Here are a few additional highlights of our Youthography’s internal dialogue:

“My thoughts were the Provost should not have sent the letter, the students should not have protested and someone with a tape recorder could have just let her hang herself if she did start to incite hatred with her venomous speak.”

“Coulter is a menace, but refusing to allow her to speak is not only a serious conflict with Freedom of expression (despite what some Professors might think), it also gives her more legitimacy/exposure than she deserves.”

“What surprises me most, though, is how she actually has an audience at Canadian universities. Two-thirds of the crowd at her engagement at UWO gave her a standing ovation. What’s up with that?”

“Especially when there are all sorts of ways to deal with the possible backlash from her content: open up an invitation for a speaker with an opposing view, run editorial from both sides in the school press, open up a public forum for student commentary within the campus intranet.”

“Coulter is an opportunist who uses weak logic to play to her narrow audience. Fighting the crazies means ignoring them. They can all talk to one another all they want and we’ll go ahead living our lives. Put it another way: how many Canadians had either (a) never heard of her before this (b) didn’t know she was in Canada or (c) had ever heard one of her opinions? Protesting and writing letters and all of it just amplified the opinion of someone most sensible Canadians would typically ignore.”

So there you have it. Coulter is a loud mouthed bully and the U of O provost is a ham-fisted wimp. NEXT ISSUE!

In honour of the imminent release of The Runaways this week, and The Stooges’ recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we thought it would be prudent to have the shop weigh in on the best rock movies of all time; a lot deliver but a whole lot more under-deliver to be sure. Oh where will The Runaways land?!

We did this on St. Patrick’s Day with Guinness and Kilkenny in hand which added to the day for sure.

The YouTube rock fests that occasionally erupted as a result of this particular stream provided a welcome respite from the fiddle and tinflute.

And so, let’s kick out the proverbial jams….!

The Basics: (documentaries galore!)

This Is Spinal Tap

The Song Remains the Same

Quadrophenia – “out of my brain on the train!!!”

“Quadrophenia is my favourite. I think Tommy was overrated, although not as much as Pink Floyd’s The Wall”

“Quadrophenia is indeed fantastic… “

The Real Me (Quadrophenia)

A Hard Days Night – “the original rock movie?”

Gimme Shelter

Purple Rain

The Last Waltz

The Doors

The Commitments

The Touchy Feely:

“If Barb were here, she’d say ‘Almost Famous’ and make everyone watch this clip   Almost Famous – Tiny Dancer (aka “the touchy feely part”)

“I was going to say ‘Almost Famous’ and also show that clip. It’s just such a good scene!”

“I have a soft spot for “School of Rock”.”

“What about Hair. Another of my favourites – but I was a bit of a hippy in my 20s working for Greenpeace. ‘Let The Sunshine In’ makes me teary.”

The Bad Ass:

Sid and Nancy

“Ramones fans?” Rock ‘n’ Roll High School

“You know, we opened for The Ramones once in Ottawa. Just sayin’ .I should have that tattooed on my face”

Rock ‘N’ Roll High School!!!

The Great Rock and Roll Swindle

The Filth and the Fury – Sex Pistols doc;

 “The filth and the fury is a great companion to Swindle – the pistols side of the story which is essentially ranting about how much of an asshole Malcolm McLaren is.”

“Yes, McLaren is so full of hubris he basically personifies it. But – creation and pop culturification of punk as personified by the Sex Pistols and turning that into moneyit’s deservedly on his CV”.

“I did an essay on punk back in high school and it was such a pleasure to include lyrics as examples that included the word fuck.”

“British punkers or West Coast American punk? Who would win in a chain fight?”

The Intellectual Examination Thereof:

Joe Srummer: The Future Is Unwritten; “a fantastic recounting of The Clash’s beginnings, rise and full-on implosion… mega cameos, too.”

“The Decline of Western Civilization Parts 1 and 2 are both interesting to watch once in a while.” “The metal one (don’t know if it’s part 1 or part 2) is really, really great. Dystopic really.”

The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2(The Germs)

“Has anyone seen “It Might Get Loud”, the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White talking guitars?”

Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey

Slightly Under The Radar:

“Rock and Rule, circa 1983! Canadian animation at it’s best!”

Anvil: The Story of Anvil  - “Toronto based!”

Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park

Phantom Of The Paradise -  “DePalma weirdness. It’s actually quite creepy.”

The Fearless Freaks – Flaming lips

What We Do Is Secret – The Germs biopic

Control – Ian Curtis biopic

24 Hour Party People – Factory Records

Sort of Kind Of Rock Movies:

8 Mile

Madonna: Truth or Dare

Walk Hard – The Dewie Cox Story

The Harder They Come

And Finally….

“Whaddabout fhaken FUBAR!? So maybe it’s not really Rock n’ Roll, but still a great fhaken movie….”

Dean Murdoch: As it stands Plan B is to just keep on Given’r.
Farrel Mitchener: Giving it to her?
Dean Murdoch: No given’r
Farrel Mitchener: Can you maybe explain given’r? What exactly does that mean?
Dean Murdoch: Give’r. You just go out and you give’r. You keep on working hard.
Farrel Mitchener: Is that a plan?
Dean Murdoch: Yeah that’s a plan right there.

Fubar: The Movie

Urp.

PariahMike

There were the good times, and there were the not so good times, but (most of us) made it through, and now we have much to discuss.  This is what we thought of the 82nd Academy Awards:

On Avatar:
“ I couldn’t help but think that there was an academy-directed punishment of sorts taking place… punishment for too much past success, too much innovation, too much common popularity? Being too provocative to too many people for too many different reasons? The hurt locker wins seemed somewhat out of proportion to me”
“ I can’t help but speculate if this is one of those Oscar years that 10 years hence fans and film historians will wonder happened? In terms of importance, will avatar’s legs and influence on the industry have far outstripped those of the hurt locker?”
“ I’m personally glad that Avatar didn’t win best picture or best director as the actual plot and story is pretty damn basic and it’s the money and the effects / look of the film that have made it of interest. That and the fact that the success of the flick has been THE surprise of the year; remember all the online disses of Avatar as clips and such began to leak?”

The Hosts:
“I liked Martin and Baldwin. I’m not certain how much better a host should be. It is an impossibly hard job.”
“ Everything original wasn’t good and everything good wasn’t really original. And that’s coming from someone who genuinely loves Martin and Baldwin.”

The Red Carpet:
“Didn’t watch the actual Oscars but caught the AP feed of the preshow online. Seems like the women really brought it this year in terms of dresses; lots of interesting designs and lots of colour. Perhaps this is a subconscious nod to “we’re coming out of the recession”?!”
“I really just watch for the red carpet fashion/commentary. ”
“Vera Farmiga blew it on the red carpet…”
“ Loved Robert Downey Jr.’s blue shades.”
“ The red carpet appears to be more like a factory or assembly line with each passing year… it’s almost a separate entity in and of itself.”

The Youth Appeal:
“How about how Oscar seemed to try to court more young people after declining show viewership amongst youth, with non-nominees Taylor Lautner, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart and Amanda Seyfried on hand to present, as well as the big So You Think This Is a Good Way To Show all the Original Score Nominees dance number. And yet, with two hosts whose combined age was somewhere around a hundred and ninety, no youth-relevant song in the nominees, and no actual nominations for any of the really cool youth film properties this year, the show probably didn’t do what it tried to do in nominating 10 films for best picture – that is, create a stronger connection between younger-skewing blockbusters and the Oscars.”
“I liked that more younger people were involved in the show (at least it’s good for comedy) but I don’t think that has as big an impact on the younger viewers.”

Social Media and the Oscars:
“ On the online feed tip it’s becoming, happily, more and more common that pivotal “shared common experience” events (i.e. the Olympics and The Oscars Red Carpet) can be found online through major media channels – that “second screen” is becoming more and more mainstream and being treated as such by the majors.”
“Like all massive events, [it is] more fun watching with social media at the same time. The National Post, ew.com, and tons of other sites [were] live-blogging with integration of comments or tweets from regular folks. We had two laptops and four smartphones going, and it enhanced the whole thing for many of us. There were also a few moments where the Internet helped us to figure out why a particular actor was presenting something: for instance, I couldn’t figure out why Kathy Bates was shilling Avatar until I used the web to tell remind me that she was Molly Brown in Titanic.”

Other lingering thoughts:
“Where was Brangelina?”
“The dance number was useless. Worst use of a dance scene since Matrix Reloaded.”
“Happy to see that George Clooney’s hair was getting a little shaggy.”
“First airing of the iPad TV ad.”

Our suggestions:
“The most spontaneous parts of the show are the acceptance speeches. Why cut them short?”
“One of my pet peeves was when the actors were asked to pay tribute to the Best Actor/Actress nominees. In theory this should be a nice lasting tribute where you get some sort of odd insight into what it is like to work with each nominee. However, it ends up feeling something like a cross between a court deputation and a wake, with each actor paying tribute to a nominee feeling the need to pay greater tribute to their nominees than the previous actor. It gets to be a bit much. By the end I expected someone to say: “And he’s a great actor, friend and humanitarian. He even gave me his kidney!””
“I don’t care how long the show goes. All I care about is how good the show is. Don’t rush things, just cut out the crappy stuff. If it takes 4 hours, then make it four good hours.”
“More celebration of movies. I love when they show retrospectives of careers, or talk about how influential a genre is. For a place known for shameless self-promotion, they could do a better job taking about the influence of movies and how movie reflect our times.”
“Next year, I’d love to see a better integration of social media. A selected twitter feed across the screen? I don’t know. Something.”

A final note:

“Producing and putting on the Oscars: damned if you do, damned if you don’t!”