Google Told to Get Bent by Publishers.

While the world has been watching Apple and Amazon's book arrangements it appears that Google has been working on their own. Gizmodo is reporting that Google has plans to sell e-books to anyone with a screen. Which is good since competition is usually a good thing. The only problem is, the Publishers don't quite see it that way.

Apparently the book Publishers, strengthened by their new deal with Apple (and soon to be Amazon), decided to tell Google to take a hike with their offer. Apparently, Google was offering the Publishers a deal that would give the Publishers 63 percent of the revenue, which is a bit lower than the 70 percent they get from Apple. Also, apparently Google's idea to make the store search able wasn't cool with the Publishers either, as well as, Google's idea to allow customers to cut and paste portions of a book, and allow printing of segments of books.

Unfortunately, the Publishers have not only been able to raise their prices, they have also managed to force Google to cave into their demands. Google will no longer have the bookstore search able and the cut and paste and printing of books is out. Which sucks since everyone knows that when you buy a print book you are free to share the book with others. To photocopy sections for personal use. So it kind of terrible that Publishers would want to try to prevent people from having the same ability with the electronic version of their books.  Certainly, I can understand their decision given the fears over piracy, but its a bit of a fool hearty idea that by simply applying some kind of DRM a company will be able to protect their work.  Its only a matter of time that someone will crack the copy protection and the books will be available online.

I think companies need to start working on ways to monetize their work in other ways.  God bless them in the pursuit of protecting their work.  I just know its a futile attempt and its their customers that will suffer before these Publishers finally figure out what they are going to do with their books.

Mr. and Mrs Jones?

What the?

This morning as I went around looking some stories for my blog I came across this post over on The Movie Blog. 

Apparently, instead of doing a sequel to Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fox has made the decision to do a reboot of sorts of the franchise.  The new film will be called Mr. and Mrs. Jones.  (See how clever Fox is.) And will follow a very similar story to that of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith was released back in 2005 and starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as Mr. & Mrs. Smith,  who were both hitmen from rival companies. What made the movie interesting was that neither Smith knew that the other one was a hitman for a rival company.  Which all played out on screen when they both found out.

What surprises me here is why they aren’t simply just doing a sequel.  Anyone that I know that has seen Mr. & Mrs. Smith thinks it was an awesome movie.(Myself included.)  So to reboot it, (or rework it as The Movie Blog calls it), seems to be a bit strange.  Why destroy a franchise if there is nothing wrong with it?

I have to agree with Rodney from the Movie blog on this one.  This  sounds like a direct to DVD film. 

Tracking Your MP:Theirs an App For That

Do you ever feel disgruntled with the way in which your government seems to work?  Did you ever want to know just what your elected representative is up to?  Well there's and App for that.

Yahoo News is reporting that Labour MP Derek Wyatt is the first elected official in the world to use a new iPhone app called MyMP.  MyMp is an app which allows constituents to keep tabs on their elected official and even allows individuals to contact their elected official directly from the app. 

The hope for the MPs using the App is that they will be able to be more accountable to their constituents and be able to engage with a new generation of voters that may not normally be engaged in politics.  But is this app good for society?  I think that its kind of cool for MPs to use this app, but I have to wonder if apps like MyMP will lead employers to want to use simular applications with their employees.  Imagine a company using an applications like MyMP to help them better manage their employees.

If this App works to increase the accountability of elected officials with their constituents, I think its great and its a wonderful app for people to have.  Lets just hope it stays there.

Is The Last Airbender Racist?

That’s the question that I’ve been wrestling with this past weekend.

It all started on Friday, when I put up the post  The Last Airbender’s Superbowl ad.  I thought that it was a simple event, thing  and then I received a comment. The commenter point out that apparently Paramount had used some unusual (racist) practises by favouring Caucasian actors for the lead roles.   This was all news to me and I took it with a great deal of scepticism.  After all, many people in society seem to like to throw around the race card.  Just last month many people were accusing Avatar of racism, which I couldn’t understand given the story is about a group of fictional blue aliens, but some people could clearly see it.
So was there really racist practises being employed during the casting of ‘The Last Airbender’s casting call? I knew I had to investigate it, since well, this argument came to my doorstep and I’m not ignorant enough to just turn someone away without giving a proper answer.

So, I decided to do some reading this weekend and to have some conversations with my friends to talk about this.  I started by heading over to Racebender.com, which was provided in the comments for my post.  On Racebender.com, there were a number of videos and articles talking about how Paramount when casting for ‘The Last Airbender’ decided to favour Caucasian actors for the main hero roles and yet wanted minorities to fill the villain roles.  This kind of seemed strange to me, since I was under the impression that Aang (the main character) was in fact Asian.  We never really get to see a lot of Aang from the trailers, but he did look somewhat Asian from the small clips that we did get to see of him, so much so, that I actually didn’t notice that the actor playing Aang was Caucasian.  This is was very disappointing, given the fact that Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender is very clearly Asian. Their decision to go with a Caucasian actor didn't really make it or break it for me, in terms of whether or not I would see the film.  But I’m not sure about the next main point of contention.

The big allegation against The Last Airbender was that they favoured Caucasians to play the lead hero roles, but wanted minorities for the villain roles.  On Racebender.com, they had a number of posts which included pictures of the actual casting call and even a quote from Roger Ebert, as he answered a question in response to this casting call debacle.  I was initially sceptical of any of these accusations, as well as, the authenticity  of the quote from Roger Ebert.  So I did some searching online to try and find out.  And sure enough they were right.

Which was surprising to me?  I hadn’t heard anything about any kind of controversy surrounding ‘The Last Airbender’ before and I would like to think that if it was true it would at lest make the news somewhere, but nothing.  But, as I went looking for information on ‘The Last Airbenders’ casting call I found that there were a lot of complaints online about the casting chose Paramount made.  The biggest sites that I found reporting on this issue was Slashfilm, who found their casting choice curious, and Film School Rejects who would have preferred to see Asian Actors.

So the big question is, “Is Paramount racist?”  The truth is I don’t think I can label Paramount as racist, at lest not yet.  Let me explain.

Paramount is a profit driven company, and we really aren’t sure why they decided to go with Caucasian actors in the hero roles, as none of us were in the room when the decision was made.  Paramount’s decision could have been made for a number of reasons.  Maybe, as one of my friends put it,  Paramount knew no one was interested to see a Asian lead.  Society could not be ready to see Asian people in lead roles.  The other reason that could exist is that Paramount is made up of a bunch of racist people.   And there could be still yet other reasons that could be thought of, but lets concentrate on the two above.

Is society ready for Asian in lead roles?  I think to a certain extent we are.  People like to see Asians in the lead role of martial arts films, but I must confess that I’m not sure we’ll see an Asian in the lead of a romantic comedy anytime soon.  Unless its a foreign film.  The point that I keep coming back to (in my mind) is that Paramount is a company that wants to make money and so if they felt that Avatar would be well served by having a Asian lead we would probably see one.  But then again, The Last Airbender is an Asian culture film and so to not have an Asian lead is a bit strange to say the lest.

Is Paramount racist?  I can’t say that either.  Paramount is the same company that brought us probably the first minority actor in a role that would normally be played by a Caucasian actor when they casted Nicelle Nicols as Uhura in Star Trek.  So I’m not ready to give them the racist label just yet.


So what can we say then about this casting situation?  I think that we may have a bit of both problems here.  Maybe society isn’t that open to Asian actos in lead roles, and maybe Paramount is still victim to old thinking in terms of what they feel the audience will accept.  Paramount probably believed that they couldn’t make as much money selling an Asian actor in the lead role.  Plain and simple.  It doesn’t mean necessarily that they don’t want to cast Asian actors in lead roles, its just they don’t believe that they could and still make money.  Which is a bit disappointing since films usually work to push against the barriers in society and so for them to be conservative in this area is a big disappointment.  ( I never thought I would be complaining about anyone being conservative.)

So, what do we do?   I’m certain that some people are planning to boycott ‘The Last Airbender’.  But I won’t advocate that.  As I said, I can’t say that Paramount is really being racist here.  And lets face it,  it probably a little late for them to Re-film the movie with Asian actors.  Also, its to soon to reboot The Last Airbender Franchise.  So what do we do?  I think that the best course of action is to express your disappointment to Paramount.  Make it known to them that you feel disappointed that Paramount decided to not cast Asian Actors and hope that Paramount makes better choices  in the future.

Sorry if I’m being a bit of an activist here.  Its Monday I needed to get this off my chest. 

Alice in Wonderland Superbowl Ads

More Movies Videos at IGN.com

For some people its about the game, for some its about the half time show performance and for some still its about the new commercials.  Whatever your reason for tuning into this years Superbowl we can all say that its a real event to watch.  No wonder millions from around the world tune in each year.

It probably with these great number of eye balls that advertisers go all out trying to create the greatest ads they can possibly muster.  What’s interesting to me is the number of films that have decided to advertise at the Superbowl this year.  

Alice in Wonderland, is one of the most anticipated films this year and its no wonder with just over a month to go, they decided to run an ad during the Superbowl.  Although this new Alice in Wonderland doesn’t give us  anything new about the film, its still interesting to watch.

So enjoy! 

Avatar Finally Toppled

Yep its finally happened.

AMC’s Script to Screen blog is reporting that Avatar after 8 weeks has finally been toppled from the number one spot by an unlikely film.  According to AMC, ‘Dear John’ has managed to take the number one spot from Avatar with $32.4 million.  While Avatar still managed to walk away with a tidy $23.6 millions.

But the big story is the fact that it was the female portion of the audience that  played a major role this weekend at the box office.  Women made up more that 84% of the audience for ‘Dear John’, showing us again the strength of the female audience.  I wonder if this will lead to more romantic comedies.

Maybe we may one day see a female focused block buster film.   Well then again, maybe not to soon.

MacGruber May Get Sued

AMC's Script to Screen blog is reporting that MacGruber may be getting sued. Now, if your like me you probably never even heard of MacGruber.  Which I didn't before seeing the above trailer a few weeks ago.  So just what is MacGruber?  Well,  its actually a parody of the 80s TV series MacGyver. 

MacGyver, for those that don’t know, was a very popular TV show in the 80s that followed the exploits of secret agent Angus MacGyver.  What made MacGyver cool was the fact that Angus was always able to build inventions out of common everyday items that he would find lying around.  Its probably due to this coolness factor, that the MacGyver character was chosen to be parodied on SNL in the first place.  Its just unfortunately that not everyone is laughing.

Apparently, the creator of MacGyver (Lee David Zlotoff) is looking to sue the guys behind the MacGruber film. Whether this lawsuit will be successful is uncertain.  As pointed out in the Script to Screen post,  copyright law does allow parody, but normally only in short snippets.  The fact that MacGruber is a feature film, could force the studio to seek a settlement with the Zlotoff, especially if the suit isn’t immediately dismissed.

Its kind of disappointing to see studios pull the lawsuit card especially when everyone in their right mind knows that this is not a MacGyver film.  But I do understand a business minded individual wanting an easy paycheque. 

In any case, lets just hope this all gets cleared up before the release of MacGruber.