If he can make it there…
We saw “Superior Donuts” with my brother-in-law here in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater and it was very cool. Funny, moving and extremely well acted, especially by Michael McKean as the owner of the titular shop. So it’s good to see he’s sticking with the play as it moves to Broadway.
Movie Journal: Johnny Dangerously; Sexy Beast
Both watched on Hulu recently. Hadn’t watched Dangerously in years, despite quoting from it often. (”My mother hung me on a hook once. Once.”)
Asteroids
Universal will create a feature film based on the old Asteroids video game. The one with the triangle ship that spins and flies around and destroys the outlines of asteroids. Needless to say they’re building a plot from scratch.
Wants
If Google Reader had the functionality to post a daily recap of the posts I share through its Shared Items functionality it would be darn near perfect. I don’t want it to repost the entire post, just a link with the blog name and maybe a teaser paragraph. There’s little downside in doing this since Google doesn’t sell ad space on the link blog Shared Items creates for me. And doing so would actually be good for Google since I’d be willing to bet that a good amount of the blogs it would link to contain AdSense units.
But really I want it do start doing so because I want to create the following publishing scheme for myself:
Movie Marketing Madness: Movie marketing news, social media commentary, etc.
CT.WP: Basically everything else that I feel like publishing.
Twitter: Conversations with friends and contacts and one-liners.
Delicious: Research studies and reports that I’d like to access later.
Reader Shared Items: Posts that I think are worth reading but which I don’t have anything to add to – I just want to pass them on as is.
Right now I’ve got daily recaps of my Twitter updates and Delicious-saved items that are being either posted to MMM or at least included in its RSS feed thanks to FeedBurner’s link-splicing function. So my Twitter stuff gets archived with the rest of my MMM content and I can easily export my Delicious items. But there’s no way to archive Reader Shared Items, which are part of my online publishing, even if my involvement in it is limited to simply saying “you should read this.”
I’m pretty comfortable with the arrangement I have going right now but would love to see this functionality added to Reader, if for no other reason than that I could then search one fewer place when I was looking for something and knew I had seen it somewhere and probably did something with it.
QOTD: 6/26/09
But can we please agree to stop using each major breaking news story as an excuse to flog your favored hobby horse, whether it’s “new media can’t do what traditional media can” or “old media is sluggish and nonresponsive”?
Anniversaries big and small
The Augsburg Confession was presented to Emperor Charles V on this date in 1530.
It’s been one year since the formation of Brothers of John the Steadfast, named after one of the men who signed that document.
You’d think the two were tied together in some way. Oh right. They are.
Clapton/Winwood: United Center, Chicago
Pic from Clapton's official site
I’m not going to try and write my own review of the Steve Winwood/Eric Clapton concert last night at the United Center in Chicago. I will say that it’s just incredible to see two consumate professionals like these guys who are, after all these years, still at the top of their game. Their voices might be a little tired but that’s the only outward sign of age they show outside of how they’ve actually gotten better at their trade.
There was a marked lack of pretense about the entire evening, with both the stars and their backing band simply going about their business and having fun in the process.
Here’s the setlist, retrieved from Greg Kot’s review of the show:
1. Had to Cry Today (Blind Faith)
2. Low Down (J.J. Cale)
3. After Midnight (J.J. Cale)
4. Presence of the Lord (Blind Faith)
5. Sleeping in the Ground (Sam Myers/Blind Faith outtake)
6. Glad (Traffic)
7. Well Alright (Buddy Holly/Blind Faith)
8. Tough Luck Blues (Big Maceo)
9. Pearly Queen (Traffic)
10. Crossroads (Robert Johnson)
11. There’s a River (Winwood)
12. Forever Man (Jerry Williams/Clapton)
13. Georgia on My Mind – Winwood solo (Hoagy Carmichael)
14. Driftin’ Blues – acoustic (Charles Brown)
15. How Long Blues – acoustic (Leroy Carr)
16. Layla – acoustic (Derek and the Dominoes)
17. Can’t Find My Way Home — acoustic (Blind Faith)
18. Split Decision (Winwood)
19. Voodoo Chile (Jimi Hendrix)
Encore:
20. Sweet Home Chicago (Robert Johnson)
21. Drowning on Dry Land (Al Jackson)
Rogers’ return
I haven’t been reading the Captain America comics series, but from all accounts the recent run over the last few years has been fantastic, including the death of the original Cap, Steve Rogers.
It’s not surprising, of course, that Marvel has decided, two years post-assasination, to bring Rogers back, even as his once-thought-dead protege Bucky Barnes has assumed the shield and flag for the last year or so.
I was kind of thinking they’d wait at least one more year, though. Two years seems safe, three years seems ballsy.
Super potential
Graeme McMillan has a list of 20 Marvel Comics characters who could get their own big-screen adventure and what kind of film they’d be a good fit for. Great lists.
