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Showing posts from July, 2009

Metacritic: But There Really is a Difference Edition

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I saw an article about Funny People, the Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan film opening this weekend and this line caught my eye (I added the emphasis) The film, which has a respectable 62 score on Metacritic.com, arrives a week after another R-rated comedy, Sony’s poorly reviewed “The Ugly Truth,” opened to a surprising $27 million. Do you think we would hear "respectable," "metacritic" and "62" the same sentence from a publisher or journalist? Then again why would we? The quote comes from Hollywood, Hollywood guys only care about money.

Comic Con: Careful What You Wish For Edition

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Every year I start to get calls around this time asking whether I am going to attend comic con. As you may have read in last year's post about the rise and fall of the con, I've been going for over twenty five years and have seen some change. This year I am noticing the change in the people who are calling and I am starting to wonder whether it is a good thing. I used to get calls from artists or comic fans who could not afford to pay the fee. Then I got calls from writers and directors who did not know where to look to get a badge. Now I get calls from game folks, agents, executives, all thinking I can get them a badge to the sold out show. Sure, hold on a second, I'll just lift Shakespeare's head, push the button, and pull one out of my ass, just give me a second to clean it up for you. Let's just stop right here for a second. Sold Out. For years, Pre-Hollywood Takeover, tickets were always unspokenly voluntary. By that I mean you never really had

Bragging Again: Achievement Point Edition

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This morning my trusted iPod and its little Nike + friend let me know I passed the 5,000 mile mark. If I ran in a straight line, I would be in South America, The Arctic or very wet.

American Independence Day: Redux Edition

As we move into the Independence Day weekend here in America, I felt it was worthwhile to point back to last year's post about a small corner of what our fore fathers fought for.

Hollywood in Games 2.0: They're Baaaaack Edition

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It's been a while since my last game related post. Every time I sat down to write something it felt like groundhog day. Another developer shut down, take a look at these. Governor Schwarzennegger is trying to get the Supreme Court to review his video game bill even though his movies are worse than the game he is trying to block, look here. It just felt like I had written all the way through the news cycle and I would just be re writing myself in a new flavor. Then I saw this article in the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-games-moguls1-2009jun01,0,4429125,full.story around E3 and it led me to like it was 1993 all over again: THE HOT TICKET two weeks ago was to Francis Ford Coppola's hacienda in Napa. Fred Fuchs, head of Coppola's American Zoetrope, pulled 50 people to the 1,600 -acre estate for a weekend summit on multimedia, complete with five meals and a tour of the vineyard. After Saturday morning intros, the afternoon was taken up with demos from