The Art of the Movie Trailer: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Paying Attention: One thing that Hollywood does really well is re-cycle. Make one hit movie, and it can be remade once a generation to meet the expectations of a new group of movie goers. Peter Pan, originally an animated Disney film, was rather famously remade as the live-action movie Hook(starring Robin Williams). Remakes are a …

The Letterman Archives

Transitions: David Letterman did his last show on Wednesday, 20 May, 2015. In one of the longest runs on television, Letterman did over 6,000 shows (and remember: he taped them live) and had over 20,000 guests. An intensely private person–except for his on-air appearances–there is no reason to believe that Letterman will do stand up in Las …

Frank Sinatra Has A Cold

Frank Sinatra Has A Cold is perhaps the greatest profile ever written about Frank Sinatra. The article  was written by Gay Talese and published in the April 1966 edition of Esquire, when that magazine was at the center of  The New Journalism literary movement (deep fact checked articles written using the style and techniques most frequently …

The Art of The Movie Trailer: Spectre

iPaying Attention. The James Bond movie series totals 25  films, 23 of them produced by Eon Productions, who now holds all of the rights to the Ian Fleming novels (and spinoffs) that first popularized James Bond in print. The James Bond movies are  the single most successful movie franchise ever created  and are justifiably well known for their spectacular …

Disrupting the Auto Industry

A startling article on the front page of Bloomberg.com  by writer Julie Verhage forecasts the future of the automobile industry. Verhage illustrates her article with a chart that breaks the auto industry into four quadrants and as one moves through the chart, it is possible to see the auto industry’s past, present, near future, and distant …

Ultimate Irony: A Tweet Crashes Twitter Stock

Paying Attention. If you spend any time at all on Twitter, you quickly become amazed at the sheer speed and velocity of information that runs through the “Twittersphere”.  Pick a topic to follow, and you find, inevitably, that Twitter delivers the news on that topic faster and from more different perspectives than any other media, social …

The Art of The Movie Trailer

Paying Attention. This is the big one: the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. At the time of this posting, it had been viewed 30,000,000 plus times. Not only is the trailer itself very, very good (you’d expect as much from a J.J. Abrams film project) but the Force is still in the audience for …

The Art of The Movie Trailer

Paying Attention. Movie trailers are among our highest media arts. We don’t tend to look at them quite that way–some would say they’re just commercials for a film and that is certainly their purpose, but in the right hands, with the right attitude, a movie trailer becomes an art form with an approximately two and one …

Required Reading: The Moral Bucket List

A compelling and very thoughtful essay by David Brooks from The New York Times, on the spirituality of life and correcting a few things that may need some polish before the earthly exit. Not as exciting as climbing Mt. Ranier and some other things you may have on your physical bucket list, but equally satisfying …