Uncategorized

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Some of My Favorite Trailers of 2011 (so far)

I was chatting with Russ Fischer this morning about the amazing trailer for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and it caused me to reflect on some of my favorite trailers from this year so far. Obviously this list will probably change by the end of the year, and the following definitely does not reflect my appreciation of the films themselves.

What do you guys think? What did I miss?

Fast Five – I wish I knew how to quit this series of films. Thankfully, the latest iteration was a highly enjoyable, mindless heist film.



Martha Marcy May Marlene – This film is so disturbing and so well-made that I’m loathe to revisit it, yet feel I must.

Hanna – It is safe to say this movie did not live up to my expectations. Great Chemical Brother score though.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Amazing.

The Red Envelopes

The NYTimes’ Brian Stelter and Nick Wingfield try to deconstruct what went wrong at Netflix. Their theory? Netflix discounted the emotional connection that people have with the DVD service:

Like many other companies built in Silicon Valley, Netflix prides itself on its analytical, data-driven approach to making decisions. But it made a classic business misstep. In its reliance on data and long-term strategy, the company underestimated the unquantifiable emotions of subscribers who still want those little red envelopes, even if they forget to ever watch the DVDs inside.

The Travesty of the NCAA

If you’ve ever purchased an NCAA video game, bought a college basketball player’s jersey as sports memorabilia, or watched a televised NCAA championship with commercials, it might have occurred to you that you’re paying for something that the players themselves (sometimes still teenagers) aren’t getting any compensation for. There’s a pretty striking level of injustice going on at the NCAA and Taylor Branch’s exhaustive feature in The Atlantic starts to get to the bottom of it.

The only consolation? Their tyrannical reign may soon be over.

Americans Now Owe More on Student Loans Than Credit Cards

USA Today has a sobering report on student loan debt in the U.S.:

The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago after adjusting for inflation, the College Board reports. Total outstanding debt has doubled in the past five years — a sharp contrast to consumers reducing what’s owed on home loans and credit cards.

Alex Pareene has some further perspective on it. In short: our generation is doomed.

The iPhone 4S Camera

I don’t get my iPhone 4S for another two weeks or so, but in the meantime, a bunch of online posts demonstrating the 4S camera have had me salivating to get my hands on one. Camera+ posted a comparison between the 4S and a bunch of other cameras this morning. This video shot on the iPhone 4S (via Gruber) is also extremely impressive.

The video below has also been making the rounds, comparing a video shot on the 4S with a video shot on the Canon 5D Mark 2 (camera body = $2400):

iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison from Robino Films on Vimeo.

I’m looking forward to getting my own. Expect impressions here when that happens.

How Facebook and Google+ Erode Our Options

Chris Poole, founder of 4Chan, explains why Facebook and Google+ are forcing us into boxes when it comes to our online identities:

“The portrait of identity online is often painted in black and white,” Poole said. “Who you are online is who you are offline.” That rosy view of identity is complemented with a similarly oversimplified view of anonymity. People think of anonymity as dark and chaotic, Poole said.

But human identity doesn’t work like that online or offline. We present ourselves differently in different contexts, and that’s key to our creativity and self-expression. “It’s not ‘who you share with,’ it’s ‘who you share as,'” Poole told us. “Identity is prismatic.”

One of the biggest challenges for online social networks is to accurately convey the messy realities that make up our lives. So far, they’ve done an okay job, but there are many ways in which they could do better. Poole powerfully identifies one of them.