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Link Ch. 7: Bon Jovi – Steve Jobs is killing the music business
- Jon Bon Jovi: “Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music busines.”
Bon Jovi has become a grumpy old man. Despite the fact that Apple is actually getting people to pay for digital music, JBJ says that Jobs killed the music industry because no one wants to buy albums anymore without knowing what the music sounds like. Really. And people wonder why the music industry is dying…. - Jeremy Horwitz: An open letter to Jon Bon Jovi from a paying fan
Horwitz, editor-in-chief of iLounge.com, explains why he thinks that Jon Bon Jovi is wrong. He thinks Apple’s technology is what has kept people paying attention to Bon Jovi’s music after all these years. - Bob Lefsetz: Abused audiences killed the music industry, not Apple
Lefsetz, author of the long-time music commentary Lefsetz Letter (it pre-dates the web), argues that Apple and Jobs had nothing to do with the suffering in the music industry. Instead, it comes from audience members: “An audience that had been ripped off for years, sold overpriced junk, who used new technologies to get what they wanted for free.” (Thanks to @briansteffen for the link)
I find these stories fascinating because it frames the argument about digital music in terms of what is legal and profitable, not in terms of presumably illegal file sharing. Whose argument are you buying? If any?
36 Hitchcock Movie Death Scenes
/Film has another great Video of the Day up today. This one is of 36 death scenes from Alfred Hitchcock movies, timed to happen simultaneously. /Film has the list of all the movies up on their site.
Posted in Uncategorized
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Link Ch. 8 – Great Bollywood Example
UPDATE – New version of clip with good subtitles.
I showed a great clip from the Bollywood musical Mohabbatein today in class. It’s a wonderful way to get across the idea of what the masala or “spice” movies are like.
The masala movies feature several musical numbers, a strong male hero, a coy heroine, and an obvious villain. The movies have as many as ten separate storylines—in contrast to American movies, which typically tell one or two stories.
One reason for the musical numbers in Indian films is that they help break through language barriers. India alone has more than twenty-five languages. Anupam Sharma, who works in the Indian movie industry, says that Bollywood movies touch people throughout the world: “Because of the distances and different dialects in India, music is the universal language.”
When it comes to romance and sex, Bollywood films tend to be far more conservative than American films. “India is still clinging on to its social values, which explains Bollywood’s success everywhere but in America,” said Priya Joshi, an Indian cinema scholar. “Bollywood films don’t have any kissing in them or tend not to. Warner Bros. used to make movies like this in the past. . . . If it’s ready to return to its roots, then it’s ready for Bollywood.”
Here’s the clip. It runs about 9 minutes and has English subtitles for some of the lyrics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAo8zRrSHTw
UPDATE: Slumdog Millionaire actress loses everything in slum fire.
Posted in Book Link, Chapter 8
Tagged Bollywood, global media, movies
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You talkin’ to me? 150 great movie lines & catch-phrases
/Film posted a great collection of movie lines and catch-phrases today. Quotable quotes ranging from Apocalypse Now (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning….” to Zombieland (“Time to nut up or shut up.”) You can read the complete list at /Film.
Posted in Chapter 8
Tagged movies, pop culture
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Kathleen Parker for my commentary students
My commentary and blogging students are reading Kathleen Parker for class next week. Here are some good places to start. (And if you are not in my class, Kathleen Parker is a much better columnist than she was sidekick for Elliot Spitzer…) And you might find interesting the fuss Parker (and Chris Buckley) created when the two center conservative columnists endorsed Obama for president.
- 03/29/2006 – When illegal is right, what is wrong
(and a bit of analysis of her writing) - 9.03/2008 – Palin the Impaled
- 9/26/2008 – The Palin Problem
- 3/18/2009 – Never Mind the Boys
- 4/7/2010 – Michael Steele’s problem isn’t race — it’s pride
- 4/13/2010 – Online chat with Parker, post-Pulitzer
- Pulitzer winning columns
UPDATE: Interview with Kathleen Parker on C-SPAN’s Q&A program
Thinking about media change (and iPads)
It hasn’t been a productive day today. My main interest has been following all the news about the new iPad 2 announced over the lunch hour. I’m impressed by it, and absolutely certain I did the right thing in waiting a year for the version 2.0 of the iPad to come out. But in the mean time, there has been some interesting media “think pieces” out there worth taking a look at:
- GQ – The Day The Movies Died
Mark Harris takes a look at what’s wrong with the movies today, and with a single paragraph nails it:
[L]et’s look ahead to what’s on the menu for this year: four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children’s book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.
He prefaces this with a lengthy introduction on how Hollywood couldn’t believe that Christopher Nolan’s Inception would be a success. I mean, it had bankable stars, the director of the decade, and was a sci-fi action movie. What was wrong with it? It was original…. - Daring Fireball – Dealing With Apple’s 30 Percent Commission
DF’s John Gruber gives us an exhaustive, if not exhausting, analysis of Apple’s controversial policy of charging a 30 percent commission on all subscriptions sold through iTunes or in-app purchases. If you really are interested in new-media economics, you need to read his take on it. Great followup to what we were looking at a couple of weeks ago.Also, some additional analysis of Gruber’s arguments by the Joshua Benton at the Nieman Journalism Lab.
- USA Today – Growth of “Indie” Writers
With the success of Amazon’s Kindle as both a hardware platform and as software that runs on almost any type of computer or mobile device, there is actually now a market for e-books. And authors like Amanda Hocking are making good money selling their books at a low cost without the involvement of a traditional publisher. Hocking writes paranormal books for young adults, and she reportedly sold 450,000 copies on Amazon.com in January. Her big advantage? She gets to keep 70 percent of the cover price of all her books sold, rather than the more typical 15-30 percent offered by publishers.
Columnists for my commentary class
Here are links to a number of columnists and columnist index pages from newspapers around the country for my commentary writing students, and anyone else who’s interested.
National Columnists
- Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald
2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. His column written in response to the events of 9/11 struck a strong chord with readers. One of my favorite columnists. (I really liked his recent column on Anderson Cooper that addresses the issue that Jay Rosen calls The View From Nowhere. You can get a collection of his columns in book form here. - Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers Group
2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. While she has recently been a co-host on CNN, her real gift is as a center right columnist. - George Will, Washington Post Writer’s Group
1977 Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, known as an “old guard” commentator who drops a lot of Latin and literature references into his columns, and writes occasionally about baseball. - David Broder, Washington Post Writers Group
Broder is famous for writing a editorial column that often analyzes without taking a point of view. He won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. - Frank Rich, New York Times
Writes a longer format column for the Times, but will be leaving in mid-March after 30 years to take work for New York Magazine. - Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
The former Reagan and Bush 41 speech writer is known for her books on politics, her frequent appearances on television, and work the series The West Wing.
Commentary from newspapers around the United States:
- Washington Post
- New York Times
- USA Today
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Miami Herald
- Chicago Tribune
- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
- Dallas Morning News
- Denver Post
- Deseret News
- Arizona Republic
- Los Angeles Times
Commentary from Nebraska newspapers:
Note: Many of the posts here are letters to the editor. They are interesting, but they are not newspaper columns. If you use this link, check what you are reading carefully.
Posted in Chapter 6, JMC 406
Tagged columnists, opinion writing
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Oscars, the day after
An array of links, inspired by last night’s Academy Awards:
- Pete Docter’s student film Winter
An art-school animated film from Pete Docter, director of last year’s Best Animated Film Up. (/Film) - A short story not actually by James Franco about hosting the Oscars
A fascinating look at why Franco may have appeared so bored during the Oscar telecast. (Salon) Perhaps it was because the wrong movies won? - James Poniewozik on what was wrong with Sunday’s broadcast
In a relatively non-snarky article, Poniewozik looks at why we need comedians and not actors as hosts. (Time) - Oscar wants you to use the web the right way, only
Use it to talk about and promoted the program, but don’t you dare post a clip from the show! (All Things Digital) - Did you want to see Franco and Hathaway doing a Grease dance number?
Nope, me neither. Never liked Grease myself…. (Mediaite) - LA Times awards blog The Envelope
My favorite source of Oscar gossip and photos.
And finally… A link back to a post I did in December about the Bechdel Test on the relevance of women’s roles in movies. Fascinating way to analyze how important women are in a movie.