Published on
February 28, 2007 in
movie.
I see a lot of movies, and that means that for me some names of Hollywood studios are household names. Still, ever since reading “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls“, I’m also curious about the stories behind those companies: who started them, what kind of movies did they make in the past. Some of that information can be found on Wikipedia. Here’s a first batch (I’ve not included the really big ones like MGM, Paramount, just some of the ’smaller’ names I recognize):
- Lions Gate Entertainment (Canada): originally founded by Robert Altman. During the 90s known as Cinépix Film Properties. Revived as Lionsgate in 1997 by Frank Guistra. Have bought Artisan Entertainment in 2003 (The Blair Witch Project, Requiem for a Dream …) which also owned Vestron Pictures (Dirty Dancing). Bring out ‘daring’ movies: Fahrenheit 9/11, Irreversible, Saw, Hostel.
- Touchstone Pictures (USA): started in 1984 as division of Disney in order to bring movies that were for more mature audiences. First release: Splash! Last year’s releases: The Guardian, The Prestige and Deja Vu. Also has TV division: ABC Television Studio (Desperate Housewives, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy)
- Focus Features (USA): art house films division of Universal Studios (since 2002). Produced recent gems like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Motorcycle Diaries, The Constant Gardener and Brokeback Mountain. Also does action/horror movies under the brand Rogue Films: Assault on Precinct 13, Shaun Of The Dead …
- Castle Rock Entertainment: started by Rob Reiner (Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally) et al in 1987 with funding from Columbia Pictures (Sony). Name inspired by “The Dead Zone” by Stephen King. Apart from Reiners films, not very successful. Sold in 1994 to Turner Broadcasting, later Time/Warner. Biggest success: animation movie Polar Express (2004).
- Miramax films: started in 1987 by the Weinstein brothers. Sold in 1993 to Disney. Under the Weinsteins, Miramax had a history of buying the rights to Asian films (e.g. Hero), only to sit on them without releasing them for some years. The Weinsteins left in 2005. Famous movies: The Crying Game, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Pulp Fiction, Chicago.
- The Weinstein Company: founded in 2005 by the above cited Harvey and Bob Weinstein. First release: Derailed. Most recent release: Hannibal Rising. Next Release: Grind House (Tarantino). They also have a subsiduary Dimension Films: Scary Movie 4.
- New Line Cinema: founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne. Sold in 1994 to Turner Broadcast, later Time/Warner. First hit movie: A Nightmare on Elm Street. Lots of good movies: Lord of The Rings trilogy, Austin Powers, Magnolia, The Mask. Recent hits: Snakes on a Plane and Wedding Crashers.
- TriStar Pictures: founded in 1982 as joint-venture of Columbia (then a subsidiary of Coca-Cola), HBO, and CBS. When the latter 2 dropped out, became Columbia Pictures in 1987, which was taken over by Sony in 1989. Famous movies: Terminator 2, Basic Instinct, Jerry Maguire, Seven Years in Tibet. Not making very successful movies last couple of years.
- United Artists: found in 1919(!!) by Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D. W. Griffith. The company did not do too well and was almost dead in the late 1940s. In 1951 Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin offered to run the company for 5 years and if profitable, buy it. That worked and they went public in 1956. They releases the Beatles’ movies in 1964/1965 and also backed the first James Bond movie. The company was sold to TransAmerica in 1967 and continued to prosper, working with Woody Allen, Robert Altman and Brian De Palma. Krim and Benjamin left in 1978, and the first project by the new management, Heaven’s Gate, completely bombed. It was sold to Kirk Kerkorian (MGM). In 1990 it was sold to Giancarlo Parretti, who went bankrupt within the year. Taken over by Credit Lyonnais, it was sold again in 1997, again to Kerkorian. MGM took over most of its titles and franchises. In 2005 it was bought (along with MGM) by a consortium including Sony and Comcast. On November 2, 2006, MGM announced that actor Tom Cruise and his long-time production partner Paula Wagner were resurrecting United Artists. Some famous movies (and this is really a hard choice): the Rocky series, the Bond series, the Pink Panter series, The Graduate, Apocalypse Now, Bowling for Columbine, Capote.
- Orion Pictures: founded in 1978 by the above mentioned ex-management of UA together with Warners Bros. While it started out strong (10, Life of Brian) and did well in the 80s (Terminator, Amadeus, Platoon), it went into bankruptcy from 1992 till 1996 and was sold to MGM in 1998.
Published on
February 21, 2007 in
Web2.0.
Let’s remix 2 original observations:
In Yahoo! Pipes, what used to be a table in the relational database is now: a web page, an RSS feed, etc. The current list of sources includes: Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Local, Fetch (RSS feeds), Google Base and Flickr. Each source can be searched or queried using either pre-defined or user-defined parameters. For example, there can be a search of all french restaurants in Chicago via Yahoo! Local. The data source and the searches can be mixed together (think emergence), using a reach set of operators. Among them is the iterator (which lets the user loop through the results), a counter and many other functions that facilitate cleaning, manipulating and recombining the information.
Yahoo! Pipes and The Web As Database via PoorButHappy
and this one:
Command line interfaces. Once that was all we had. Then they disappeared, replaced by what we thought was a great advance: GUIs. GUIs were – and still are – valuable, but they fail to scale to the demands of today’s systems. So now command line interfaces are back again, hiding under the name of search. Now you see them, now you don’t. Now you see them again. And they will get better and better with time: mark my words, that is my prediction for the future of interfaces.
jnd.org
Continue reading ‘Pipes + SQL = Structured Web Query Language’
Published on
February 17, 2007 in
security.
For those of you with Wordpress blogs, does this look familiar?
The new Internet Explorer 7 blocks a lot of (Javascript) scripting for security reasons, which means that clicking on “link” in the Wordpress editor gives the warning message above. You have to select “Temporarily Allow Scripted Windows” to be able to use the WP editor buttons. But if you save the post and the editor window is refreshed, you have to do that whole procedure again. Security is nice, and we know why IE makes a point out of it, but it shouldn’t interfere with convenience too much.
Luckily there is a way to let IE switch the security warning off for URLs that are under your own control (like your blog, for instance):
Add your own URL to the Trusted Sites (Options/Security/Trusted Sites) and you do not get the scripting warning anymore. Happy posting!
I get an email from CertiPost, a daughter company of the Belgacom/Belgian Post, that bears the title “You had an unwanted visitor last night“. When one clicks on the link, one has to give the name of one’s partner, best friend and favourite sport. The result is a somewhat customized movie about a wife who cheats on her husband, or actually, your wife cheating on you.
This obviously is a trial to make a viral video. They’ve made some mistakes though:
- You can only personalize the movie for yourself, you cannot forward a copy personalized for a friend. That would have really made it viral.
- I fail to see why “Your wife is cheating on you” would make the subject want to buy a product/service, expect if it concerns lethal weapons or a private detective.
- The contrast between a movie that is trying to be cheeky and a company that is anything but cheeky – an institution that tries to sell you security services – makes it untrustworthy
Published on
February 16, 2007 in
movie.
Did you know that the voices from Homer Simpson, Grampa Abraham Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Sideshow Mel, Itchy and still half a dozen others are all done by the same man?
Check out the following interview with six of the main voice actors from The Simpsons: Dan Castellaneta (the voice behind all the characters cited above), Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson and Patty/Selma), Yeardley Smith (Lisa Simpson, but also played in As Good As It Gets), Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson – is actually a woman!!), Hank Azaria (Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum/Carl Carlson, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon …, but also known as an actor in Mad about you, Along came Polly and Quiz Show) and Harry Shearer (Mr Burns/Mr Smithers/Ned Flanders/Kent Brockman/Rev. Lovejoy/Principal Skinner … but also the bass player in Spinal Tap – cucumber … pants … remember?).
Continue reading ‘Who are the voices from The Simpsons?’
Published on
February 14, 2007 in
security.
If you’re allergic to acronyms, don’t read on. I’ve reached an all-time TLA/FLA density high in the following article!
THE PROBLEM
Who knows the passwords you use for your email accounts? Who knows the password you use for your FTP account? Who knows the password to your blog admin page? There might be more than you thought!
Imagine user John Doe, with username jdoe who has the ’strong’ password “p@ssw0rd“. Let’s take a look at what conversation happens when his Outlook/Thunderbird email client connects to check for new messages, or when he uploads a new version of his website with Filezilla/Dreamweaver:
This is a typical FTP conversation:
Response: 220 (ID of the FTP server)
Command: USER jdoe
Response: 331 Password required for jdoe.
Command: PASS p@ssw0rd
Response: 230 User jdoe logged in.
Command: ...
This is a typical POP3 (email) scenario
Command: USER jdoe
Response: +OK Password required for jdoe
Command: PASS p@ssw0rd
Response: +OK jdoe's maildrop has 2 messages (320 octets)
(remark: POP3 does have an APOP command that does not transfer the password in clear-text. It is however typically used for 2nd and following POP3 connections, using a piece of information that was given in the first transaction)
Even more scary: when you log in to your blog/CMS software (that does not use a Google, Yahoo, MSN or Passport account), how does your password reach the server, you think? Encrypted? Not!
Continue reading ‘You give out your passwords every day’
Published on
February 4, 2007 in
spam.
I just received an email on my Hotmail account from someone that normally never contacts me. The email itself is clearly generated by an automatic process:
When I take a look at the website that was cited (I won’t link to it), it is not clear to see what the service is actually about: I’m guessing it is to see who blocked you (MSN contacts that look off-line to you, but that are actually online). To check if one of your MSN buddies has blocked you, you ‘only’ have to fill in your Hotmail username and password. This should already make you nervous: you should never give those credentials to a site that’s not Hotmail or MSN.
Take a look under the “Verder” (= “Continue”) button. In a very light gray (#dfdfdf to be exact), there is the option to email all your MSN buddies, and by default it’s ON. Since it is hardly visible, I guess most people who try out the service leave it like that and as such ‘give permission’ to send out a couple of dozen to several hundreds of emails. You only need a few gullible recipients to create a ‘viral’ effect.
In the terms and conditions on the bottom of the (very long) page, you’ll find:
6. De gebruiker die deze dienst gebruikt is zelf verantwoordelijk voor het goed bekijken van de opties alvorens hij of zij op de knop [ verder ] drukt.
7. U dient zelf de optie [ mailen naar uw MSN vrienden ] uit te vinken als u uw vrienden niet wilt mailen.
8. Er kan geen aanspraak worden gemaakt op de werking van onze diensten omdat wij het checker systeem niet zelf hosten. Wij zijn alleen een technische kant die er voor probeert tezorgen dat u contact kunt krijgen met de MSN server. De MSN server/checker kan soms offline zijn. Wij mailen absoluut zelf niet. Alle mailtjes worden door de gebruiker zelf gedaan. Hij of zij is hier dus ook zelf verantwoordelijk voor. Bij overmatig gebruik kunt u mailen naar de persoon waarvan u het mailtje heeft ontvangen. Bij gebruik van onze dienst stelt u ons vrij van enige schade aan derden.
In short:
#6: the user is responsible for verifying all options before clicking [ Continue ]
#7: you should disable the option [ send mail to all MSN friends ] if you don’t want to send those messages
#8: we don’t send the emails, the user does. If you have complaints, contact that person, not us.
I certainly don’t agree with their point #8. Technically, they send the messages. They could claim the user ‘requested it’. In any case: it’s spam!
The person responsible for the site is already known as the “Mongool van scripthosting“: ene P.J. (Peter) Bierling from Groningen.
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