The coming and going of wisdom: Access via Lauren4PM
Google has given society many wonderful things: parents can diffuse any responsibility of imparting knowledge with their children, stalkers can find out interesting personal information about their prospective sweethearts and as I discovered two weeks ago, at the click of a mouse you can work yourself into an absolute frenzy before a medical procedure.
When I was told I would need to have my wisdom teeth removed in hospital, I researched every possible complication of the procedure until it seemed inevitable that the surgery would end negatively.
Yes, the possibilities were endless: infection, damage to other teeth, permanent numbness of the tongue, lip and chin, extreme pain from dry socket and, you guessed it, even death.
By the time of the operation, Google had enabled me to become a hysterical, melodramatic mess. I hugged my parents like it could be the last time, updated my Facebook status to ‘.. is about to go under the knife’ and finally donned the less-than-flattering backless gown that I pictured being buried in. And as I tasted the metallic air of the gas mask and felt me eyelids pull towards each other with a magnetic force, I felt incredibly sorry for myself.
Surprisingly, I survived. My Dad said I looked like Heath Ledger as the Joker and my entire face was numb but luckily the painkillers subdued me (unfortunately I later discovered they also had the tendency to make me dry retch). The Google search results had luckily been exaggerated. And I have never been happier to be wrong.
Access via The Detroit News
If movies like I, Robot taught us to fear artificial intelligence, WALL-E encourages us to embrace it and maybe consider adopting a robot of our own.
Set in a projected future where the earth is overflowing with towers of rubbish and humans have vacated their dying planet for a constant holiday aboard a hyper-capitalist spaceship, Disney Pixar’s WALL-E is a cute animation with an obvious moral.
The main ‘character’ WALL-E, a ‘Waste Allocation Land Lifter – Earth Class’, is a robot designed to clean up the mess made by over-consuming humans. Along the way, he collects things that take his fancy and falls ‘in love’ with Eve, a pure white robot with blue eyes who is very iPod-esque.
When Eve finds signs of life on the devastated planet, the story moves into outer space where the humans have spent so much time reclining in chairs and slurping their food through a straw that they can hardly walk. The constant advertising that swirls around their spaceship is reminiscent of Blade Runner and similarly, the moral is blatant.
While it’s certainly not a bad moral, it is hard to see how the main culprits – obese, over-consuming, planet-polluting, thickshake-slurping, Pixar-movie going Americans – would receive the message. David Stratton thinks “the bitter pill is packaged in such a way that children and adults of all ages should enjoy the lecture” but I can’t help thinking there were a number of people in the audience who either thought a) ‘yeh, those stinking fatties are ruining our world’ or b) ‘what a cute robot, I want one’, as their teeth gnashed at vanilla choc-tops and they slurped at frozen cokes.
And was this film sponsored by Apple? There are subtle references throughout from the abovementioned design of Eve to the sound of a Mac turning on which is used as WALL-E’s boot-up tone.
Despite all this, the Pixar animation was typically gorgeous and with a much better storyline than others of late. It also slightly broke from genre with practically no dialogue for the first half, which was a refreshing change from over-the-top character voices. The romance between the robots was also very touching, despite being a little unbelievable. I have to say, I myself was convinced that after watching the film, even I want a robot like WALL-E… and for some unknown reason, a new iPod.
Access via Yahoo Movies: Production Photos
Maybe I don’t really have the authority to review this film as I did have my eyes shut for the last half hour while I drifted in and out of consciousness but I gave away an hour and a half of my life goddammit!
Be Kind, Rewind is directed by Michael Gondry and despite the cute plot and Jack Black’s highly strung brand of humour, it falls short in delivery. The film is set in an old-school video store in New Jersey owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover). When Fletcher leaves on a conference and puts Mike (Mos Def) in charge and orders him to keep his accident-prone friend Jerry (Jack Black) out, things go predictably wrong. When Jerry attempts to sabotage the local power plant, he becomes magnetised and subsequently erases every video tape in the shop.
In an attempt to salvage the business that is at risk off being demolished, the two friends, along with new recruit Alma (Melonie Diaz), attempt to recreate the classics, home-movie style.
There are some amusing moments of makeshift special effects in the re-makes of Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2 and Men in Black but they were mainly weak, air-through-the-nose laughs.
I, like Margaret Pomeranz, felt that “the film ought to be funny, with Mike and Jerry recreating those films as home movies. But somehow it’s not, the laughs are very thin on the ground”.
I’m a bit sad really because the choice was between this and another new Jack Black movie, Tropic Thunder but I guess at least it didn’t cost $14, and I got a bit of well-needed shut-eye after an intense week.
Lucy Davis - severe case of tanorexia. Access via Go Fug Yourself
Aaah, I think I might be ‘tanorexic’!
On Saturday, Spring blew in on a hot gravy breeze and suddenly everything was different; people eagerly departed with their clothes, topped up on their supply of hayfever meds and donned their manky old thongs to hit the streets and make the most of the warmth.
When I headed home from work, my flatmates too had changed. It was as if everyone had been infected with a happiness virus and the urge to take off as much of their clothing as possible.
Of course, the only problem was that after a very long winter of covering up, we were all fluorescent white.
My flatmate Gen decided she would try a fake tan and I was inspired by her bravery so followed along. We devoted hours to exfoliating, applying and standing naked in our respective rooms as it dried, checking every ten minutes whether we had changed and were suddenly gaww-geous… Then I woke up this morning in my current state.
Why is it that fake tan never looks anything but fake and horrible? And why is it that it is almost 100 per cent impossible to remove. I was secretly feeling quite OK about it when I woke up this morning; ‘Yeh, I look pretty good really, like a beachy girl with a life so cruisy I can spend hours lying in the sun relaxing.’ But when my boyfriend arrived, the doubt set in.
Usually a sensitive and caring person, he tried to hold back the grin but eventually couldn’t stifle his giggles as his eyes flicked up and down my orange face and body. He was hysterical and the more I looked in the mirror, the more I felt my Spring happiness fade…
Now I have to face two classes in a row of people no doubt wondering whether I’ve developed a skin condition. But what’s strange and disturbing is that so far, no-one has mentioned it. It’s difficult to know whether this is a good thing or not. If people mention it, then it is obvious that I have done a really bad job of faking it but if people don’t, does that mean they don’t want to state the obvious or risk breaking into laughter like a certain boyfriend of mine?
Background
In the wake of several Australian health campaigns, Martha and I decided it would be interesting to examine the use of the web to communicate health messages. ThatGuy.com was the 2007 winner of the Webby Awards’ Health category and is a website at the nucleus of a broader binge drinking campaign known as the ‘don’t be That Guy’ campaign, introduced in late 2006. ‘That Guy’ is coined in reference to that person everyone knows who drinks too much and then turns into someone you spend the whole night trying to avoid! Everyone knows them and anyone can be them.
Who is behind the site and campaign?
Funding came from the US Department of Defence, who invested $2 million in an effort to stop 18-24 year old servicemen from boozing up and doing stupid things, or as John Howard might say ‘just letting off a bit of steam’. (Maybe they should introduce this for the Aussie ‘diggers’.)
The site was designed by public relations consultant Fleishman-Hillard Inc. in partnership with the Chris Farley Foundation, an organisation that was borne out of the death of comedian Chris Farley of substance abuse at 33.
Success as a health campaign
One thing we noticed in researching health-based websites was the need for interactivity and striking graphics. No one actively seeks to be lectured on their health! Thatguy.com is very graphics heavy and is fun it its use of illustrations and cartoons. It opens to a 3D streetscape, audio projecting street-like sounds and a taxi zooming in from the side. Billboards on rooftops point you to sections such as ‘Who is that guy’, ‘Fun stuff’ and ‘Facts’. Its aim is to be engaging, entertaining and encourage people to return and generate interest among friends.
In Australia, we’ve seen anti-smoking and safe driving campaigns use highly graphic images to portray the deadly consequences of certain actions. Here we see fun and games used to get the message across. It can be compared to the approach taken by the RTA in their ‘pinky’ campaign, which used humour in an attempt to show that not even your mates or your girlfriend will think big of you for speeding. Unlike the Australian campaigns however, which use the ‘sit back’ passive medium of television, Thatguy.com draws on the interactive medium of the Internet, forcing users to actively engage in the communication.
Interactivity
Interactive games and features show rather than tell the viewer about the consequences of excessive drinking. One feature allows users to look at the ‘Evolution of that guy’ over the course of a drunken night from Sloberous Sweattoomuch to Drunkus Obnoxious to Projectus Vomitus. An Interactive Bar Tab Calculator allows you to calculate how much you spend each year on alcohol and a simulated boxing game depicts how a lame drunk pickup lines will only leave you punched out on the floor and loveless. The humour of Saturday Night Live, on which Chris Farley often appeared, is evident throughout the site. But unlike the show itself, here some of the jokes lose their punch and, in their politically correct form, come out a bit “drugs-are-bad-mmmkay”.
Problems with design
In terms of design, this website is very striking, interactive and fun to explore. The streetscape design lets you move around within it and the illustrations are great.
The biggest problem with the website is experiencing it in a vacuum. There is nothing really clear on the front page that tells you what the campaign is about or who is behind it. Jakob Nielson’s Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability states that the most important factor in a website is to make the site’s purpose clear: explain who you are and what you do; and secondly, to help users find what they need by emphasising the site’s top priority tasks. Thatguy.com fulfils neither of these objectives. Instead, the vital information is buried behind a very flashy and graphic front page, giving the user no indication of where to start. The only way to really find out the details and background of the campaign is to click on the tiny writing at the bottom of the page, which says: “About this program” . This gives you some background on the program itself:
“That guy is a multi-media campaign that uses online and offline communication with the goal of reducing excessive drinking among young servicemen.”
The site also falls short in Search Engine Optimisation. It is not even listed in the first ten pages of a Google search for either ‘alcoholism’ or ‘binge drinking’. Its obscure name and general lack of content means it is unlikely to get as much traffic from a user who is not specifically seeking it out.
While the site gives some information on the Chris Farley Foundation, it does not link to any other sites or allow you to find out more information. The website for the Chris Farley foundation itself has been deactivated. The best place to get more information is through their myspace site .
The importance of multimedia
What’s important to take into consideration is that this site was part of a larger campaign involving print, radio and TV advertising. Viewed within the context of these other mediums, the site shows how multimedia tools and the Internet are increasingly vital in marketing campaigns. Viewed in a journalism context, you need only look at the recent sacking of over 500 jobs at Fairfax to see how important the Internet and multimedia tools are for a job in the journalism industry.
Check out these other health Webby Award winners:
www.trydrugs.net (2008) – This site allow users to try pot, coke and smack! Each drug affects your control of the mouse as the real drug might affect your own coordination. You are then bombarded with a number of pop-ups about bankruptcy, prison and overdoses etc. It’s a great design but there is relatively little to it and we seriously doubt it would change anybody’s mind about drugs. Perhaps if you were a hardcore gamer you might think: ‘No way man, I’m never going to be able to shoot anyone with my sniper if I can’t move the mouse accurately.’
www.invisionguide.com/heart (2006)
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/index.html (2005)
This blog from music/film/theatre critic Martha Tattersall is really a jackpot for anyone searching for opinion with integrity. A journalism and international studies student lucky enough to work at one of Sydney’s live music venues, the author of Tit for Tat offers reviews with personality on a diverse range of cultural events from the poncey… ahem, I mean delightful Billy Elliot to the soulful Barbara Morrison.
The gorgeous cherry picture beside her introduction and over-ripe-exploding-cherry background teamed with the creamy beige text panel is lush, unique and easy to read from. Martha also finds some great photos, choosing mainly macro close-ups but also some very professional looking live gig photos with tonnes of atmosphere.
The site uses a san serif typeface (one without the little skin tags on the tips of letters), probably Arial, which I learnt this week in my Editing and Publishing class makes it easier to read on the web even though generally serif typefaces like Times New Roman are easier to read in print… how bizarre.
Anyhow, this blog is entertaining, insightful and looks good enough to eat. If only Martha would stop fiddling with the settings so I could get used to it.
Check it out.
Access via NewMatilda.com
A couple of days ago, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain surprised the public with his choice of running mate, Sarah Palin. Today Palin revealed a surprise of her own. Yes, the Governer of Alaska’s 17-year old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant.
Now, you can think what you will about teen pregnancy but what intrigues me is the effect this will have on the campaign. Teen pregnancy, of course, happens all the time. In fact, in Australia about 20 teenage girls in 1000 have babies and a further 24 have terminations, in other words 44 girls in 1000 fall pregnant as a teenager. In the United States, this figure is 84.
So while it’s not so weird about Bristol Palin’s situation, there are certainly some weird aspects to this whole thing. Take, for example, the fact that Governor Palin herself just gave birth four months ago. Some people have even suggested that the baby Trig is not in fact Sarah’s but Bristol’s…
Also incredibly ironic and a little horrifying for me is the gun-toting church-going Governor’s stance on sex. Palin has a strong anti-abortion position as well as being opposed to contraceptives being available in schools and sex education in the classroom.
And get this, she is instead an advocate of abstinence among teenagers… in other words, she is unbelievably ignorant and will now pay the price.
And who knew Barack Obama was the son of a teenage mother as well…
This will be a very interesting election.
Once I got over the ridiculous price rise of movie tickets, I really enjoyed The Bank Job.
Access via Collider.com
It’s based on actual events of one of the biggest bank heists in London which occurred in 1971. While the press went crazy for a few days about the case, they were silenced with a D-notice apparently due to some material that could hurt the authorities.
Jason Statham is at the nucleus of the film as he gathers together his petty criminal mates to do the job that will be his ticket out of selling used cars but which turns out to be a scam by the secret service to recover compromising pictures of a certain royal.
The film drums up the suspense beautifully and the plotline is crafted with just enough twists and turns to keep it interesting but not overly complex. Each character is developed surprisingly well and you really do feel for these fairly innocent criminals who have bitten off more than they could chew. Jason Statham may be a little type-cast as the mischievous cockney geezer but he is just so watchable with that husky voice.
While I had read reviews beforehand, for anyone who hadn’t it would be impossible to know from watching the film that it was based on actual events, a fact that always makes these kinds of films ten times more compelling. I think particularly when considering the research that went into the film, this would have been a valuable addition. However, as the SMH reviewer notes, it is difficult to separate the fact and the fiction.
Apart from this, my only major criticism would be the horribly unnecessary romantic sub-plot and sexual tension between Terry (Statham) and Marlene (Saffron Burrows).
He’s mine, back off!
Access via Rex
I love flying, what an incredible feat of mankind. I used to take the train back to Wodonga and it was eight hours of discomfort usually next to the craziest or drunkest person onboard. Then when flights became only 20 bucks more and seven hours less than the train journey, I became a frequent flyer and I’ve never looked back.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still negatives to flying. You have to arrive early, they confiscate your scissors and you have the guilt of a yeti-sized carbon footprint. But nothing beats the exhilaration of the plane speeding up after taxiing around and the feeling in your stomach that you are about to either take-off or explode. Unfortunately, far too many plane disasters of late are making me increasingly anxious about the latter.
There are three airlines that fly to Albury now - Qantas, Virgin Blue and Rex – but all are not created equal. I have only flown Qantas a couple of times and while the prices are generally out of my reach, it’s pretty reasonable when they offer promotional deals and well worth the price of the prosciutto, camembert and rocket paninis.
Virgin Blue on the other hand is a ‘no frills’ airline and you don’t even get a little sealed vial of luke-warm aeroplane water. But the flight’s only one hour and you do at least have peace of mind that you’re relatively safe and sound…
Which brings me to Regional Express (Rex). I flew home and back to Sydney with Rex this week and, while they do give you some water sealed in a container so that you will almost certainly spill the contents in your lap when you open it and a tiny packet of Pizza Shapes, the experience was horrible.
Unlike the other two airlines which have jet engines, Rex still has propellers that make an incredible amount of noise and seem to constantly struggle to keep the plane in the air and travelling in a straight line. Thus, I am utterly exhausted today from tensing every muscle in my body for the hour of terror. I guess it didn’t help that I sat in the airport departure lounge watching vision of a plane crash in Melbourne for half an hour. Oh well, I’ve never been so grateful to be on solid ground.
I’m going to have to disagree with all the negative critics that didn’t see the fun in this film because I absolutely loved it!
Access via StarPulse
Directed by David Gordon Green, Pineapple Express is the tale of a hapless stoner and his dealer who find themselves running for their lives after a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pot-smoking process server Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) witnesses a murder by one of the city’s ruthless drug lords and a crooked cop, and subsequently flees to his dealer Saul’s (James Franco) house. But a discarded roach at the scene of the crime containing the rare variety of marijuana ‘Pineapple Express’ leads the murderers to the two protagonists and begins a fast-paced run-for-their-lives.
The film is co-written and executive produced by the star Seth Rogen who does seem to love these hopeless stoner roles, but he plays them so well that I’m certainly not complaining. And James Franco is brilliant as the pyjama-wearing perpetually high dealer (with a gorgeous smile).
While I do think some stoner movies are pretty tedious (eg. How High and Jay and Silent Bob) and I don’t really like the glorification of pot, there are some albeit vague moral undertones that the weed is not exactly helping these boys get ahead in life. David Strattan was pretty unimpressed by the film, as was Daniel Kimmel who commented that “…stoner humour is primarily funny to people who are stoned,” but I have to disagree with regard to this movie. If it is a ‘stoner movie’, Pineapple Express is an awfully exciting one.
The action and suspense in this film are fantastically done and combined with the very quirky humour, there’s not a boring moment. The car chase is particularly hilarious as is the forest scene when paranoia starts to set in. The music is great, there are plently of explosions, a mighty big body count and a number of tense scenes that have you biting your nails between the laughter but, dare I say it, I think this is the funniest film of 2008.
Watch the trailer here.
