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First Review of Intel's New Classmate PC
An anonymous reader writes "Intel gave the press a sneak preview of its 3rd generation Classmate PC at IDF. It looks like this guy managed to kidnap the only working sample for a while and write up a full report. It looks like a major departure from the original, with a rotating touch screen and Atom processor. There's no official word on pricing yet, but no doubt the OLPC guys will try to rain on Intel's parade."
I spent three days on set, here's my take on things.
Tucker is completely out of control. As he explained it to me, he's
spent so much of his life not having to report to anyone that it's
killing him having to work with other people. Judging from the
agitation I'm seeing, that's an understatement. The first day I was
there, Tucker and Nils (the other screenwriter guy, who's really the
brains behind the operation) were in a heated argument in the corner. I
asked Nils what it was about, he tried to downplay it. But from what I
saw personally, this is a normal occurrence for Tucker.
Nils tells me that the actor playing Tucker, Matt, who really seems to
have his shit together, is the complete opposite of Tucker (super nice
guy, etc etc). I've spoken with Matt a few times and he really couldn't
be nicer to a guy who's only got about 3 lines. Bob Gosse, the director,
is the brains behind it and seems to butt heads with Tucker pretty much
constantly.
Tucker apparently thinks that the actor playing him has to actually be
him in real life. Or something. I have no idea what the deal is. To
me it looks like Matt's doing a fantastic job. I think Tucker's just a
control freak. He interferes constantly with the acting, the directing,
even sometimes the lighting. He doesn't know shit about any of this
stuff.
The sad thing is apart from him this is a really good group, who all
seem to have their shit together. My previous experience with filming
is limited to a few episodes of FarkTV that I was in. That was pretty
much 6 guys and a handicam. There's a full film crew out here, easily
100 folks working just on logistics. I was kinda surprised, I figured I
was gonna see 6 guys and a handicam. It's a full blown production.
The actors are doing a great job with the material. And speaking of
which, I read the previous articles about the movie on Gawker. The
script does read pretty lame, but the main actors are delivering it
extremely well. It all sounds very natural. I think also that this
pretty much isn't a movie the Gawker demo is going to like anyhow.
NASCAR-loving fart-joking middle America will eat this stuff up. If
this succeeds it will be in spite of Tucker and not because of him.