Criticizing Spiderman3 for having "not much story" sounds pretty funny coming from a guy who thinks Hayden Christensen has the gravitas to play a young Darth Vader, and whose single greatest contribution to modern film thought - in the twenty years between Jedi and Episode 1 at least - was overestimating fanboys' desire to snuggle up to a jive-talking Sesame Street reject. And of course, writing the prequels himself in stilted, Shakespeare-lite prattle.
What Lucas meant to say, though he never will say, is that writers don't matter. Or he's still under the illusion that he is himself a talented screenwriter. Either way, I weep for what should have been a defining movie moment for the current generation of young folks. Let's face it: the prequels (as a literary object, at least) were a total failure.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says.
So I ripped my copy of The Eagles Greatest Hits to my iPod [I've personally purchased the LP, 8-Track, cassette and CD of that silly little record over the course of 20 years], and that makes me a thief?! Let me personally welcome the extinction of the music industry and mouth breathers like Doug Morris. They will not be missed. And "artists" can only gain from it.
Impossible. Only by upgrading their network could this plan work, and not all carriers would be willing to do so. The fact is, if the phone was unlocked Apple could not guarantee the end-user the same experience in every part of the world. Apple is successful in this arena precisely because it has been able to control the user experience to large degree (see: iTunes Music Store -> iPod). As soon as they "open it up" their reputation is in the hands of companies like Creative and Microsoft (on the iPod side) and T-Mobile and Verizon (on the cellular side). They have no incentive to do that when it will ultimately work against them (when products don't work exactly as advertised).
Likewise, I still use my Sony D8 DAT Walkman and Sony R300 DAT Rack 11 years after purchase. With some modification, they are easily able to circumvert SCMS restrictions - which never really mattered since I bought them to tape/process Grateful Dead shows. Having said that, Sony should stick to making great versions of existing consumer products and quit trying to create/force everyone into their proprietary formats. They, quite simply, never have and never will win these battles.
For a band that basically redefined the popular music of its time, years ahead of their time, their management has been atrocious. I remember waiting for Beatles CDs to be released, long after everything in the major label's catalogues had already been ported to digital (Sgt Peppers was released 20 years to the day after it originally came on on vinyl, and the line stretched around the block at Cactus Records in Houston that day). I remember the Beatles choosing to release the first four in Mono (good choice), issue no American releases (they later changed their mind, to make money no doubt), then reduce their sizable Vault down to three good (if incomplete) double-Cd volumes. If the Beatles fail to secure their legacy by making their recorded music available as widely as possible (which they seem hell-bent on doing) then it is their own damn fault. And it is a crying shame. Every last child on earth should know Revolver, if nothing else.
The NRA is the lobby for gun manufacturers. Nothing more nothing less
Criticizing Spiderman3 for having "not much story" sounds pretty funny coming from a guy who thinks Hayden Christensen has the gravitas to play a young Darth Vader, and whose single greatest contribution to modern film thought - in the twenty years between Jedi and Episode 1 at least - was overestimating fanboys' desire to snuggle up to a jive-talking Sesame Street reject. And of course, writing the prequels himself in stilted, Shakespeare-lite prattle.
What Lucas meant to say, though he never will say, is that writers don't matter. Or he's still under the illusion that he is himself a talented screenwriter. Either way, I weep for what should have been a defining movie moment for the current generation of young folks. Let's face it: the prequels (as a literary object, at least) were a total failure.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says.
So I ripped my copy of The Eagles Greatest Hits to my iPod [I've personally purchased the LP, 8-Track, cassette and CD of that silly little record over the course of 20 years], and that makes me a thief?! Let me personally welcome the extinction of the music industry and mouth breathers like Doug Morris. They will not be missed. And "artists" can only gain from it.
Impossible. Only by upgrading their network could this plan work, and not all carriers would be willing to do so. The fact is, if the phone was unlocked Apple could not guarantee the end-user the same experience in every part of the world. Apple is successful in this arena precisely because it has been able to control the user experience to large degree (see: iTunes Music Store -> iPod). As soon as they "open it up" their reputation is in the hands of companies like Creative and Microsoft (on the iPod side) and T-Mobile and Verizon (on the cellular side). They have no incentive to do that when it will ultimately work against them (when products don't work exactly as advertised).
Likewise, I still use my Sony D8 DAT Walkman and Sony R300 DAT Rack 11 years after purchase. With some modification, they are easily able to circumvert SCMS restrictions - which never really mattered since I bought them to tape/process Grateful Dead shows. Having said that, Sony should stick to making great versions of existing consumer products and quit trying to create/force everyone into their proprietary formats. They, quite simply, never have and never will win these battles.
For a band that basically redefined the popular music of its time, years ahead of their time, their management has been atrocious. I remember waiting for Beatles CDs to be released, long after everything in the major label's catalogues had already been ported to digital (Sgt Peppers was released 20 years to the day after it originally came on on vinyl, and the line stretched around the block at Cactus Records in Houston that day). I remember the Beatles choosing to release the first four in Mono (good choice), issue no American releases (they later changed their mind, to make money no doubt), then reduce their sizable Vault down to three good (if incomplete) double-Cd volumes. If the Beatles fail to secure their legacy by making their recorded music available as widely as possible (which they seem hell-bent on doing) then it is their own damn fault. And it is a crying shame. Every last child on earth should know Revolver, if nothing else.