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Having the slew of Top Ten films of 2007, as well as the top ten 'flops' of 2007, come out on the blogs and entertainment sites, written by the so called critics, is making me wonder why the film critics are writing in the first place. Films, or movies, don't succeed at the box office on the basis of a critical 'pat on the back' yet films seem to 'bomb' more easily based on a critical bruising.
So the critics must love giving a film a pasting and then happily reporting that they were right all along when the movie only recoups or not as is sometimes the case; or do they?
All I know is that Top Ten box office hits seldom compare to the critical top ten in the same time frame - yet the films that struggle seem to be the ones that the critics decide are not for you or I to see.
I went to see The Brave One back in the summer and thought the film was well directed and well acted by Jodie Foster yet a day or so later i read a local film critics destruction of the film which was, frankly, unfair and far too up it's own arse for it's own good.
I wrote to the local paper that ran the critique and tried to point out that a critic's job is not to laud or destroy a film via their writing but to guide people in their choice of 'see or not see'. Where they seem to have lost the plot is in their forgetfulness of the place they should hold in the public services and the place that they want to have in the 'failed journalist/failed director/failed producer' post career.
What I want to know is what kind of film it is, who is in it and whether it's well made, covering the basics of plot, direction, casting and actor performance. That's it.
I don't want to get into the personal opinion of this critic or that - it's totally irrelevant - after all, if I want to see my Tuesday Movie and it happens to be a choice between a couple of Sci-Fi films why would I seek counsel from someone who hates sci-fi.
My point here, that I'm realising that I'm getting to in a very long-winded way, is that films, much like music, are very subjective forms of art. No critic should be so arrogant as to use their 'column' or 'site' or 'blog' to toss the movie into the cinematic toilet bowl.
With that in mind here is my Top Ten of films I've seen in 2007. There are two points to make here; 1) I have not yet seen Charlie Wilson's War and I expect that film (having just finished the book) to enter at number one 2) I obviously have not seen every film on offer over the year - this is in no way a top ten of all films - just the ones I've seen either on DVD (could be prior to 2007) or in the Cinema.
1: Eastern Promises - under-rated film of 2007 in my book - brilliant! *****
2: The Bourne Ultimatum - I'm a Bourne fan and this wasn't Supremacy ****
3: Elizabeth, The Golden Age - gripping stuff,superb acting and direction. ****
4: Shoot 'em Up - Clive Owen again? Paul Giamatti is brilliant! ****
5: A History of Violence - (DVD) 2005 but a classic Cronenburg ****
6: No Country for Old Men - Crap ending but best man hunt film ever ***
7: Transformers - Starts great, middle is crap - end fight is amazing! ***
8: American Gangster - Denzel in best form since man On Fire. ***
9: War - Good vehicle for Li and Statham. Fight romptastic! ***
10: Live Free or Die Hard - best Die Hard yet - Willis still has it. ***
Honorable mention to The Brave One.
I toyed with a top 5 worst films but after my initial bit of the post.....
However, films that I saw that did NOT live up to my expectations from watching the trailer - I like to call it 'Trailer was the best thing about the film' are:
Superbad, Balls Of Fury, Lions for Lambs and Dan in Real Life.
I still have to see Charlie Wilson, Sweeney Todd and I am Legend this year and all three would probably edge in to my Top ten at various points.
....anyway - whoever you are - enjoy checking out my best films of 2007.
OK, so I forgot about this blog for far too long and it's just inexcusable, but as I probably have 2 readers out there it's no big loss to my circulation if i lose them! :-) The reason for this rare post is that I needed a place to distrubute my recipe for the best sauce you can ever have with Christmas turkey and strange as it may seem - the North Americans don't seem to know about it - well that just has to change as this sauce, called Bread Sauce, (I know! not a great title and probably puts people off right away!) is not only the best thing about a Turkey dinner but it's also the best thing to smother on turkey sandwiches the next day - as it gets thicker and tastier left in the fridge.
Ok - first that name - would it be more appetising if we (I) called it Sauce A'la Pan? Here is MY recipe - you can forgoe the pre-prep stage if you want and play around with the onion/clove algorithm but I have made this many times and this really is the best way to get the fullest flavour.
The Pre-prep stage (can be done on the day but best done a few days in advance and lets face it - advance stuff for Christmas dinner or lunch is best, eh?) Get a large jar - maybe a large pickle jar or a large mason jar - it needs to have a wide opening as you need to get the onion in there.
Chop up some onion - 2 -3 medium - or a large one - up to you doesn't matter too much but the onion needs to be small enough to fit in the jar. Take about 6 or 8 cloves and add to the onion in a pan - pour over a litre or so of milk (your choice on the milk and just make sure you don't use too much that the milk and onion and clove don't fit in your large jar. Don't add any salt but I add a grind or two of black pepper. The 'on the day' method for this often state that you stick the cloves in a whole onion and add to the milk - this is fine and aids the separation of the onion and clove from the milk but I feel this doesn't get the full flavour from the onion.
Bring to a light boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Cover and let it cool a bit. Pour it all into the jar. Cool with the lid just on - then when cold pop the lid on and stick it in the fridge to be forgotten about a few days. On the day...... Get the liquor (the milk/onion/clove milk) out of the fridge about an hour before you plan to make the sauce. I would make the sauce about the same time I make the gravy. Now - you need to prepare some breadcrumbs - white, no crusts and I tend to have a loaf that I've had in a brown bag for a couple days and let it go a bit stale (not mouldy). A whole loaf is usually enough. Cut off the crusts and whizz in a food processor - just make sure you don't have any big bits but conformity isn't that important. Sieve (pass) the liquor from the jar into a pan and bring to a simmer - add half the bread crumbs and mix. Now it's up to you how thick you have it - I tend to like it so I can spoon it from a sauce bowl rather than pour it.
Add the rest of the bread and decide your thickness as you do it - keep it warm, don't burn the bottom of the pan and transfer to a sauce bowl as you pour the gravy into your boat. people will probably balk at it if you call it bread sauce - so make something up - it's better than the cranberry sauce and almost as good as my gravy which I have just made the stock for - make as much as you can as the real delight is spreading it on a turkey sandwich the next day. Here is your shopping list: Onion - white not red - 3 medium or one large one. Some cloves - at least 4 up to 8 Milk - 2% is best about a litre or so. Bread - white and let go stale and made into breadcrumbs sans the crust. Some fresh black pepper. There you have it!
It's been a while and I know it's very bad blogging etiquette to not 'do one' for so very long but I have a load of very lame excuses that, when all added together, make for a half decent one.
I've had stuff to do, I've been answering questions on LinkedIN (in the answers forum there) and that takes up some time, I've read several Stephen King books - I had only previous read 'The Stand' which was a great book and a decent TV adaptation too, so I've read about 5 of his back catalogue which I'm enjoying - currently a 1/4 of the way through 'Needful Things'. What else? Well I am the 2007 Snowspiel champion - along with my very able team members, who, if I'm honest carried me all the way!
But these are all secondary to the main reason..... I have been catching up with THE best TV show on TV by borrowing DVD's from a friend's daughter. I first saw '24' about a year ago when I fell ill over a long weekend in January 2006 and decided to watch the first series of '24' after owning it for over 2 years; waiting for 'that' opportunity to watch 18 hours of solid TV (remember that there may be 24 episodes but they are only 45 minutes long when your have the non-ad injected DVD). Since then I've not had any time to either acquire the seasons that have passed nor watch them.....until now.
I recently (last week) finished series 5 and since then I've been catching up with the current series (6) by watching on the internet - (all of tv) was my main 'friend' although some 'uploads were pretty poor quality and often I had to abort watching due to the appalling download.
Today - I saw my first 24 on real TV today after PVRing the 17th episode from the current series last night. I'm officially caught up!
LOST is great, DEXTER was good too and HOUSE is clever and pretty good too but 24 beats them all hands down - kudos to the makers, writers and all the cast! I'm a total 24 addict and I don't mind admitting it.
But, dear reader, maybe I'll have more time for YOU now!
[socket from division closed]
;-)
DRUDE
I just posted to my MOG...so I thought I'd be consistent!
Just found out I'm off to see one of my favourite bands that I've never seen in concert; VNV Nation are coming to Montreal (3 hours away).....after all the aborted attempts to see this 2 man power-force in action it's finally going to happen and I'm very happy!
I was going to embed the YouTube video of my favourite track of theirs but I decided that if you wanted to you should discover VNV on your own.... but for the record my fave track is Epicentre and it's from their Futureperfect CD.... check YouTube for some videos of the boys in action.
I generally hate most forms of sport so this weekend held very little for me out in the NFL crazed continent of North America! I don't watch any forms of American sports, no Canadian ice hockey nor will I be watching any baseball when it starts - it's just me right? well maybe others out there - somewhere.
I occasionally catch the odd game of international football (soccer to my NA readership... !!!!!) and I watched some world cup games up until England got booted out.... and if there is some curling on I find that quite therapeutic!
Th ONLY thing I try to watch RELIGIOUSLY is international rugby union and today saw the first games of this years Six Nations championship kick off with France v Italy and England v Scotland.
Now, I can forgive Canadian TV moguls for not including these matches in their line up - I really didn't expect it......
BUT.....why can't I get a live stream of these games on the BBC site? The dumb wits (restricting my language there) - the live stream was only available for UK IP addresses - so when I try to get the stream it wasn't available to me in Canada! I paid for my BBC TV license all those years and frankly always thought I was being ripped off for what I got (puffed up overstaffed corporate TV company that very occasionally made some interesting programmes - but 95% was crap).
I can watch the highlights after the game, I can listen to Radio 5 Live commentary of the game and get a text update which has 3 minutes lag time. Absolute crap!
Even the highlights are the poorest excuse of quality I've ever seen in my recent streaming life - the Real Audio window popped up and I could make out a field of green and that's about it.
WHY?
BBC - get your collective world wide asses together and have a real WORLD SERVICE instead of this half assed fucked up attempt as breakthrough technology!
You have people wanting to watch this stuff - if you are IN THE UK - guess what? You can watch it on TV - it's the Brits OUTSIDE the country who want it streamed!
Took this shot this mornning (16th). I use a simple Olympus SP-310.
Dear reader,
(I say reader as, apart from a few views from a comment I left on http://www.strumpette.com I don't really have an audience yet, but I'm not too bovvered; 'face; bovvered?' - a Catherine tate jokette there)
Anyway, it's snowed now two days 'on the trot' and although it looks nice and winterwonderlandy. It also means snow shoveling for moi! We have a guy who snowblows - see the pic - and Mel does a great job but I am the one who has to tidy up and brush up after he's been - and it's bloody cold out there.
It gives me time to think about stuff though - somehow the cold air makes ones's thought a lot clearer. It's when I usually start to invent some contraption a'la 'Wallace and Grommit' or think up the way to make money from blogging! (Joke)
Today, though...... nothing, nada, not one intellectual thought or idea or invention - am I losing it? Maybe, or maybe it was too cold (-25c) and my invention brain waves only operate down to -10 or something like it.
(see I told you in the header I would ramble!)
The only thing today was good for: I got out the camera again and realised I'd not taken any photographs recently - so I'm going to use the snow/sun combo to take some pics and maybe share them here with my readership of three (and that includes my wife - who are you strange third reader???).
If anyone has been following the Strumpette Vs Thornley Fallis debacle; I thought I'd leave them to it bar ring this one comment....
Amanda Chapel posts a critisism she has of TF and their blogging policy (which I agreed with as you'd see if you read the post) of allowing anyone in the company to be the spokesperson (basically a junior guy called Chris Clarke then wrote a post that suggested that everyone at the company was meant to know what social media was and that he didn't and..... well you get the picture).
OK - so far it's one post on a PR insiders blog and a bit of fun/criticism etc. is had by all/a few; but no real harm done.... BUT... then Joe Thornley AND Chris Clarke decide that the 'strumpette' can not go unanswered and rather than going into 'damage control' mode - they both blog themselves into an ever deepening hole!
Now their clients, previously blissfully unaware of the fact that this has occurred, read this on the TF site and know all there is to know!! Frankly, if I were a client of TF I'd be asking if I really wanted all and sundry at the company blogging about the fact that no one knows what they are really doing; the point here is that if the PR company allows that sort of thing to occur why would I trust them with my communications strategy least of all my social media strategy!
Anyway - I'm sure Amanda and Joe will end up this weeks mini Trump/Rosie in the PR world....me? I'm off to shovel more white stuff.... I mean snow....just stop that line of thought now!
PiC
I am not the biggest football (read soccer for non-euro readers).... and so I don't really care too much for watching or talking about it, I care even less, really, about Beckham and what he does with his obvious talent on the pitch as I think that it's obvious to most that the off-pitch issues must have some effect on his ability, otherwise he's have shone in Germany.
However, this Real Madrid manager is just a total arse for saying that he will not play DB again - if he has actually said that - not only is that a stupid thing to say it is also childish - people are obviously going to come and go at RM and what message does that say about what calibre of manager he is to the prospective players?
If this guy was in the business world he wouldn't last 5 minutes (for all I know he is probably a top Director or C-level at some company! ;-).....) - seriously how mind blowingly stupid?
I actually, even though the guy has never ingratiated himself to me, feel a tad sorry for DB.
My non-liking footy two pennyworth..... because I can.
How do you make money from social media? How do you monetize blogging? (notice I'm accepting the 'z' rather than the UK 's'.... good eh?) Everyone seems to be obsessed, and with some good reasons other than just plain greed, in the how's and whens of turning social media traffic into hard cash.
The very 'grail' in coming up with a way to do this is in fact a way to make money so everyone (who's involved, not my parents!) is going to sleep at night trying to figure out this enigma for the year 2007.... and the strange thing is that it's really, in my opinion, sifting those who understand what SM is all about from those who don't.... and just because these people who don't understand have a blog and maybe a podcast does not a SM expert make!
Just go and look at some of the PR firm's web sites to grab a slice of 'feel' as to what they are saying, writing and proposing on the subject - it's akin to either nothing or just random incoherent babble and waffle.... funny but scary at the same time. Why? ....because these are the people and companies that corps are going to be soon turning to and asking the question: what do we do about our corporate blog?
Oh, and btw I obviously discount in this brief post the idea that the way to monetise is to simply have advertising on the site you post your blog; this works to an extent and the early personal bloggers continue to do well at a tidy income on their Google AdSense revenue. It's a relevant income for some but not for all, for all sorts of reasons (which is a whole new post full of opinions and POV's). (see I reverted to the 's' there?)
Where was I? Oh, right, making money from SM.
Yep, I just see it now - the PR firm meets with the CIO of some corporation.... and the question is asked...... and how do we increase income by doing this?
The PR crumbles under the omnipresent $$$ question and comes up with some intellectual pitch on the style of the writing (voice they call it) allowing the corporation to drop in product placement 'copy' talking about how great their latest gidget or mop or service is and why the reader should be using it......zzzzzzzz BOLLOCKS!
There is no omni answer here! The real answer is - look we don't really know how your particular corp is going to use this but whatever you do don't try to use SM and the corporate voice to sell the product - no one will care, no one will come back and no one will share the blog link or subscribe....... just won't happen. Let's work together and we'll help you not make mistakes that will lead to loss of reputation - we'll be your guide in the darkness; but we only have a 'lantern' ourselves - you see honesty sounds so weak sometimes and no one is going to say that in a 'tooth and nail' pitch; but they probably should and if I were a CIO and a PR guy or gal said that to me - they would have my full support and account.
However, corps do need to be involved in SM at a corporate level and they should engage... but I fear they'll totally fuck it up, especially if they listen to some of these 'experts' in the PR field and the associated marketing consultancies out there banging on about the same old bollocks and just trying to force the same business objectives into a new 'channel'.
My opinion is that they need to change the title and duties of the CIO to CRO - Chief Reputation Officer..... you heard it here first (probably!) These people need to have enough 'clout' within a company to be able to say to a CEO/COO/CFO... STOP! You can't do that!
The one thing that SM will probably end up bringing to corporations? Honesty.
This in part comes back to my '34th miracle syndrome' (see archive) but it's real and easy and should be the way forward for all corporations from this day on (sounded a bit preachy but what the hell - it's Saturday).
The 'almighty dollar' is alive and well but just don't look for the quick buck in SM Mr. Corporation - it just isn't there! ....and that goes for you PR's out there, too!
Oh and does anyone have a good link they could comment on regarding to what has happened so far in Heroes? Off topic I know but I saw the episode the other night and although I liked the show I had no idea who was doing what, who was the baddy or goody... you get the idea - anyway I'd like to catch up and be ready for the new episodes.... please?
Although I haven't put this blog 'out there' yet, well not much; I don't expect a flood... ;-)
PS - Isn't 'Dexter' a cool show? Lovin that!!
I didn't blog yesterday as I wasn't going to add to the already massive coverage of the iPhone from Apple..... but I can't not!
This piece of kit looks great and you can tell that the engineers and designers have gone that extra mile to come up with a sector slam dunk that will undoubtedly be 'the thing' to get in 2007 - I'm in Canada so I expect it to be on the Rogers network by June too - better start saving up my pennies. Hope it's available to upgrade to too.....
My only comment would be that I've tried to use similiar (I don't mean same - I mean along the same lines) devices before and I just didn't get on with them - the closest I got was the XDA that was quite popular in the UK around 5 years ago - they have since had various new models XDAII etc - Up left is what the second generation looked like...
Now I'm not saying this was the iPhone and that Apple are just copying - my point here is that on paper I should have loved this bit of kit - it had email, camera, phone, text, video, touch screen, internet - the usual stuff in a quite well designed case - basically all that the iPhone has but the iPhone prob has more and better interface etc. - but I had threee of them and although I tried I could never 'get on' with any of them and always sold them.
One of the main things was that I was still in 'putting the phone to my ear' mode and it just looked silly. I just wonder if the iPhone will make people use the BlueTooth ear pieces more than they used to....??
I'll probably get an iPhone just because it looks so damned cool and shiny, but I'm wondering if there is something else in this mix over and abopve my past experiences that will make me keep this rather than sell it when i can't get on with it.
My current set up is nice - I use a Nokia 8800 as my phone - small, neat, good weight, nice slide - it has a crap camera but i hardly use my phone as a vid or cam. My mp3 is a Chinese Netac - which is ok - but not probably the best in the world and I use an Olympus 7mp camera.
I don't have problems taking these with me anywhere so maybe i'm not the best person to be targetted for the convergence phone...
One thing I missed on the iPhone specs was the MegaPixel rate of the camera.... better go check that out.
All my feeds are going iPhone crazy I must have seen a thousand pics of it already.
:-)
....and no I don't mean go nuts or mentally unstable (well not completely anyway).
I was reading, today, about corporate transparency and corporate reputations in the aftermath of the Home Depot CEO being fired (www.reputationxchange.blogspot.com/) and it occurred to me that in 2007 companies are going to have to come clean or go out of business. I'm not sure a lot of the big companies actually 'get this' but boy they better hurry up or the guys with the customer relationship that is built on honesty and good reputation will be biting their ankles and knees and pretty soon their torso's.
Corporate strategy needs to be revamped for 2007 and the blogging revolution era and I now see this as clearly a call for companies to clean up their acts and start thinking seriously about their reputations.
Lets call it the '34th Miracle Syndrome' - you've probably seen 'Miracle on 34th Street' this Christmas where a nice old chap believes he is Santa and gets his day in court to prove it. The big corporate message here, though, is at the beginning of the film as the character takes over at Macey's as the store santa and goes against the company ethos of promoting the high profit items or the overstocked toys and starts to honestly direct customers to other stores where the toy is cheaper or in-stock, that the child actually wants.
The screenplay writers probably never thought that decades later companies could be so bogged down in scandal, deceit and cover up and that their idea that this plot line of honesty in sending customers away to competitors would be, in turn, a most successful 'campaign' in and of itself.
The line from the mother is one to remember for the fortune 500 and big corporations everywhere it goes like this (from memory so don't flame me), '....I've always thought of your store as expensive and i don't often shop here, but after today Macey's will have my custom...' - (after being told that the other shop has what her son wants at a better price) she goes on but that, in essence, is what this is about - honesty and reputation not only in making and bringing a good product to your customers, but in the ethos and transparent nature of the corporation's business methods will be one of the most important over the coming years. Get it right and the customers will reward you with their loyalty. Customer loyalty to a brand is in one of the most important of intangible assets a customer has and as some have found out to their cost - you mess with your reputation you could easily lose that loyalty.
The film 'Crazy People' comes to mind too - that is also a good film for CEO's to watch - I'll not spoil it if you haven't seen it.....just to say this:
Volvo's - boxy, but good!
Happy Sunday.
I've been working in the internet (if you can call early non-web CompuServe web in 1995) industry for over 12 years and although I, only now have time to really get into my own personal blogging, I've been a casual user of social media (although it wasn't called that back in 'the olden days') like early IRC, news feeds/readers, Forums etc and even had my own Worlds Away avatar (I think that is now used for that online Hotel - a sort of 2nd rate Second Life type. My point here is that I've been around I'm no newbie here and I need to make a bit of a point here about postings:
Why are people generally so intolerant of peoples views? I can understand debate. I can even see argument and correction as valid. Why am I so often put off community based sites and forum based media by the total lack of flexibility and allowance of others' opinions and statements?
I know that people generally can be like the posts flaming people I see daily - but one has to wonder if these people are like this in their off line lives? Really!
I think online forums and new social media sites that allow free comment are great - don't get me wrong, but - I think that people 'change' when they get on their keyboard in the same way people sometimes change when they get behind the wheel of a car.
The sweetest mild mannered person can change into an aggressive driver the moment they sit in the seat of a car. Maybe the posts that i find inflexible and frankly unnecessary are made by people that use the keyboard and monitor as a shield - but why can't we debate topics and offer our own opinion and even correct people whilst still remaining civil?
Maybe, maybe not - who knows?
I was looking at some YouTube videos of Neal Peart a day or so ago and the comments were the usual, 'Peart is the best drummer in the world' and others like it - but there were others that disagreed - but didn't just disagree - they flamed these poor people just for having an opinion.
I just wanna say one thing - 'CHILL'
:-)
