American Hustle. Wow.
interesting to see how this duck dynasty business plays out. if you dont know one of the dudes was interviewed by gq and said some reliably retrograde things about homosexuals and african americans and for that he was suspended from the current shooting schedule. but the network already has an entire season shot. the show is hugely popular. i think the previous season finale had 14 million viewers which is huge especially for a cable show but these days those are top 5 numbers for any show. so how do they proceed? will advertisers be scared off even if the numbers remain high? got to assume that most viewers of that show wont be turned off enough by the professed sentiments to not tune in but hard to believe there wont be pressure put on the advertisers by rights activists. maybe it will all blow over, at least one imagines that the network and advertisers hope it might.
still i wonder if there is a home on tv for this show in the future or is it destined for the internet in some capacity? or will it just be put out to pasture? how much tripe is there to be mined from their antics?
someone sent me a card through the mail of all places and neglected to include a check. has the meaning of christmas been lost on everyone?
Kubrick, 1999.
new series premiering in january on hbo. true detective starring woody harrelson and matthew mcconaughey.
As Smith notes, there has always been grumbling among old-school types about the 3-pointer — our dads and grandpas lamenting how those impudent youngsters only care about 3s and dunks, since those highlight plays get them on SportsCenter. But new, more nuanced concerns are starting to bubble up about the dominance of the 3-pointer. One strain centers on the consequences of the idea that math has basically solved basketball. Analytics has won out in shot selection. Just about everyone in the NBA, from scouts to head coaches to GMs, understands that long 2-point shots are bad and 3s are good. There is a strong correlation between 3-point attempts and team scoring efficiency, and an even more specific correlation between the number of short corner 3s a team attempts and its overall points per possession.
Is that it for Homeland? Forever? Not sure where they can go from here.
A twelve table restaurant with a five year waiting list in upstate New York that I've never heard of: Damon Baehrel
Formerly known as the Basement Bistro and now simply called Damon Baehrel, the 12-table restaurant has a five-year waiting list. Patrons have come from 48 countries, and celebrities such as Jerry Seinfeld and Martha Stewart regularly visit. The Obamas reportedly requested a table in 2011, but Baehrel, who prefers to keep his guest list private, won’t confirm or deny this. He doesn’t have to worry about loudmouthed waiters, either: “You’ve probably realized I work completely alone here,” Baehrel says each night before service begins. “I’m the chef, the waiter, the grower, the forager, the gardener, the cheesemaker, the cured-meat maker, and, as I will explain, everything comes from this 12-acre property.”
and there's a few hours left in the day
ooooh, these boots were made for walkin'. kind of.
i read very little of this technical history but have been listening to a lecture series about world war one and they were talking about the problem of mounted machine guns shooting through propellers so i sought out more information. that always seemed problematic when watching aerial combat in war movies but they pretty quickly overcame it in reality. hard to believe they could synchronize the guns and propellers at those speeds. who knew? science! (and killing machines!)
The only place I can find in the entire nation (using limited searching tools) the full boat a) IMAX b) 3D c) HFR release of the Hobbit-Smaug movie is the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. In any large city, you can find either IMAX 3D or HFR 3D, but not the trifecta. That is in just the one theater.
I fear the dilution of our precious national frame rate. Don't count on the Europeans to help. Those barbarians think 50 Hz is perfectly adequate. Video delivery in the US is increasing done with mobile and notebook devices -- at 30 Hz rather than good old American 60 Hz. Yes, I said it, 30 Hz video. And somehow that's okay. If that's okay, then why bother with 48 Hz in the theater. And likewise, if the theaters get by with 24, what's wrong with 30 Hz "TV". If Peter Jackson's experiment doesn't gain market traction, we may lose a generation to low frame rate visual imagery.
But the very devices that bring the scourge of 30 Hz video may be the solution. Deep inside the production studios will exist the master format: 60 Hz video. The video production professionals know what's up, and won't let their visual imagery stutter. One mobile device maker will dig deep and tap into that high frame rate video. "Why do sports look like shit on my phone?" "Dear sir, you suffer from low frame rate syndrome. Try one of my brand!"
(I think 24 Hz is a lovely temporal format. But it should be one of many. Personally, I like 120 Hz, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
GLADWELL: Hold on. Paul to Hilton to Kardashian to … Johnny Carson! I just read the new book about him by his lawyer and confidant Henry Bushkin. It's really about what it means to have been a celebrity in the 1960s and 1970s, and reads like something from another century. So Bushkin tells the following story: Carson used to hang out at a bar run called Jilly's, on 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, which was a big mob hangout. One night, Carson got very drunk and hit on an attractive woman at the bar who turns out, unfortunately, to be the girlfriend of a major Mafia guy.
Carson gets thrown down the stairs and escapes more serious injury only because "Jilly," who is everything the name "Jilly" would suggest, steps in. The mobster then puts a contract on Carson's life, who — terrified — holes up in his apartment and misses three consecutive shows. Desperate, NBC gets in touch with an agent at William Morris known to have an in with the mob, who brokers a deal with Joseph Colombo, the head of the Five Families, in which the contract is lifted in exchange for NBC agreeing to cover the Italian American unity rally on Columbus Day.
