Is Amazon ready to steal iTunes's Thunder? I say yes.

Apple's clearly set itself apart as the dominant medium for music of this generation. The seemingly unstoppable duo of iPod and iTunes, combined with the rise of Mac computers and now the iPhone, has seemed to given Apple all the momentum, much like Sony had with the Walkman and Casio had with the tape deck. But based on my experiences with the new Amazon MP3 service, I can say it has all the tools to topple Apple's stronghold, and, if successful, can also put Amazon as one of those Google-like juggernauts of the Wild Wild Web.

Even though iTunes remains the most dominant music playing program, some have been frustrated by its restrictions. Universal dropped its contract with Apple, and even though people predominantly listen to songs on iTunes, the inflated 99 cent per song price tag and the annoyance of DRM-protected music has led to continuing piracy at uncontrollable levels. Until recently there wasn't a better option for legally downloading MP3s, but Amazon has now provided a service unlike anything we've seen since the original Napster.

Yes, two major label corporations have still not signed on, and yes, Amazon doesn't have the software to support its store like Apple does, but the benefits of Amazon's MP3 service are strong enough to overcome this. For starters, the 89 cent per song price tag may not seem like that much of a difference, but in the minds of consumers, it makes a big deal. Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for showing that a dollar is a dollar is a dollar does not apply in consumer's decision making, and anyone who's attended a class with Allen Sanderson knows that saving 10% per song makes a huge difference in consumers' eyes, even if it doesn't in economists'. Why would anyone pay 10 cents more for the same song that can be downloaded just as easily? I don't think iTunes' name carries that much weight.

The most significant difference, of course, is the DRM-free tracks. Just think about how often you've been nuisanced by a track or album you downloaded from iTunes: you can't send it to your friends, you can't put it on more than 5 computers, and good luck trying to copy it to an mp3, the format which podcasts and blogs almost universally require. Amazon, however, is not DRM-protected, and when you download an album, it simply gives you an mp3, no fuss. My first purchase on Amazon MP3 was Elastica's self-titled debut. I send it over AIM to my fellow Wire-loving friend to see what she thought of the blatant stealing of the riff from "Three Girl Rhumba" in "Connection." I had no problems whatsoever in the whole deal. Imagine what hoops I'd have to run through to do that if I downloaded the album on iTunes.

As for the compatibility with software, the interface is remarkable adept. The program you download has a big, obvious button to direct you to the Amazon store, and the downloading process was fast and efficient, actually smoother than the stop-start iTunes downloading. If that wasn't enough, the interface automatically installed an Amazon Music folder in my MacBook Pro's music folder, right next to iTunes Music. It added the tracks to iTunes automatically. So if there's no real inconvenience with Amazon's MP3 site, and it offers all those advantages over iTunes' store, there's every reason to think iTunes will face a serious run for its money.

Over at the Freakonomics blog, Stephen Dubner held an excellent quorum on the future of the music industry, during which Fredric Dannen had this to say:

Two decades ago, I was interviewing David Geffen for Hit Men, and he offered a warning about what he saw as a grave threat to the record industry: digital audio tape. If record companies started issuing albums on D.A.T., Geffen said, they would effectively be distributing their master tapes, “obviating the need for catalog.” At the time, Geffen’s admonition made sense; but D.A.T. never caught on with the consumer. The failure of D.A.T. got me thinking, and before long I believed I had discerned something about the consumption of recorded music — something startlingly obvious that has somehow eluded the record industry throughout its history, and led to the industry’s irreversible decline.

My epiphany, if you want to call it that, was simply this: consumers of recorded music will always embrace the format that provides the greatest convenience. No other factor — certainly not high fidelity — will move consumers substantially to change their listening and buying habits. The single exception to this rule was the introduction of two-channel stereo in the late fifties.

Let me state this more clearly, by example. When the long-playing record (LP) format was introduced by Columbia Records back in the late 1940s, the industry as a whole resisted it, and many predicted it would never take off because 78s sounded better. Without question, early LPs did not sound nearly as good as 78s. But given the choice of listening to all of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on two sides of one record versus sixteen sides of eight records, the consumer opted for convenience and simplicity (not to mention less shelf space).

The industry also resisted the audio cassette. Who in their right mind would prefer a format with an ever-present hiss over the pristine sound of an LP? The answer: nearly everybody. Cassettes were much easier to handle than records; they didn’t scratch, and you could listen to them in your car, or while walking or jogging.

Starting about twenty years ago, the CD took off like a rocket, burying both the LP and the audio cassette in a few short years. At that time, the CD was the last word in simplicity and convenience. I remember meeting an audiophile at a record-industry convention in the late 1980s. The popularity of the CD appalled and befuddled him. Couldn’t people hear that digital sound was cold and harsh compared to the warm, luxurious sound of an LP? Sure. But most consumers of music are not high-end audiophiles. Now you could hear all 74 minutes of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on one side of one disk.

I myself am something of a music nut. I cannot get through a day without listening to music, and my personal collection of recordings is enormous. By the early 1990s, I longed for a format even more convenient than the CD. And, based on my own listening habits, I was pretty sure I knew where we were headed. In short, I wanted to be able to run my music library from my home computer, and dispense with disks altogether. What I did not foresee was the advent of MP3 compression. As soon as MP3s hit the scene, I embraced them ecstatically. I was the first person I knew to own a Diamond Rio, the first portable MP3 player.

In 1999, I wrote an editorial for the New York Times predicting that MP3 was an unstoppable force that would destroy the oligopolistic power of the record industry. This paper did not believe me; the editorial ran instead in the Los Angeles Times.

It was an easy prediction to make. You can always count on the record industry to cling to the past, and to fight innovation. (Apart from resisting the LP, the cassette, and the CD, the industry also fought MTV.) The industry could have adopted and embraced MP3 as the new dominant format, had it understood why it was unstoppable. But the business’ failure to understand has been striking for its persistence. By the time Napster hit the scene, the industry had a Hobson’s choice: accept MP3, or die.

We all know what happened next.

In this case, the format is more convenient both in terms of usability, price, and product. It may even cut down on piracy a little. Steven Levitt is all about the effectiveness of moral incentives, and I do believe that if all things were equal, users would choose the legal track over the illegal track. Now that Amazon is providing extemely convenient, relatively cheap, and much easier to use audio files, it may sway some to download songs legally instead of resorting to BitTorrent.

If Amazon MP3 does take off, it will give Amazon a prominence they've never yet achieved, even with all their succes so far. They've always been a dominant retailer, but they've never been the dominant retailer in anything (I'd argue Barnes and Noble and Borders, still surpass them in the book market). If they get ahold of something as prominent and as rapidly growing as MP3 sales, it's easy to see Amazon eventually creating their own iTunes and iPod, and reinvent themselves just like Apple has over the last 5 years. They've always been one of the more innovative prominent websites, and the sky's really the limit.

Omigod guys, being on Broadway totally doesn't suck!

Maybe there's a reason it took Theresa Rebeck so long to get to Broadway. Her recent column in The Guardian's theater blog reads less like the work of a Broadway playwright and more like a 16-year old who just got asked out to the prom. Entitled "How I learned to stop worrying and love Broadway" Rebeck had the epiphany that, shocking as it may sound, getting your play produced on Broadway is actually kind of cool:

I was at a party a couple of years ago where a group of off-off-off-Broadway theatre artists sat around and watched the Tonys, which was just a bad idea on every imaginable level. Everyone got drunk on red wine and screamed at the television set until the only sanguine member of the group, a preposterously hip avant-garde director from Argentina, observed: "Why are you so upset? This is all a circus." People nodded furiously and drank some more wine.

Anyway, last spring, when Manhattan Theatre Club told me they wanted to produce my play Mauritius on Broadway, it took me a little while to catch up. I was so used to thinking about "Broadway" as something truly Other, that it actually took me a minute to comprehend that I might even like it. Then a whole bunch of different people - not my wild little gang from the party, but other people - started saying to me "You're having a play on Broadway!" in a tone that very much sounded like "You've finally made it!"

It was as if the 10 plays I'd done off-Broadway sort of didn't count, compared to Broadway. It hurt my feelings, honestly, but I suspect these gushers meant well. Because Broadway really is, you know, Broadway. It's like moving into a big penthouse when you've been living in a nice little apartment. Not that the old place was so bad ... but this new place is unbelievable.

So in case there was any doubt, I am here to report that having a play on Broadway does not suck. The sets are bigger, the lights are prettier, the seats are more comfortable, and if you play your cards right, the actors are so blindingly brilliant that you burst into tears in the rehearsal room, overwhelmed by the privilege of listening to artists of this calibre say your words. (That did, in fact, happen to me.) With a little luck, you end up with a director who is a major genius. (Also happened to me.) Your name is on a marquee. Your theatre has history. (No Exit premiered there. Mae West got arrested there.) There's a turntable, so the set changes happen in seconds. Everybody makes enough money so they can actually pay their rent. And your name gets recognised by the maitre d's of some really nice restaurants, who are only too happy to find a table for you. Because you're not just some bonehead playwright: you're a Broadway playwright.

"A play on Broadway," my friend Susan David Bernstein said to me, over lunch in the cafeteria of the Brooklyn Museum. "You know, that doesn't happen to very many people." I thought, that's actually true; it really doesn't. And it's happening to me.

People ask me what it's like. All I have to say is ... it doesn't suck.

Yes, I'm sure those starving playwrights would give their left arm to be produced on Broadway only because they want something that doesn't suck. I would hate for Rebeck to have to be at the circus of the Tonys, but if her column is any indication, she won't have to worry about that. If she is put in such an annoying situation, at least she won't have to deal with bonehead playwrights like Charles Mee, Adam Rapp, Will Eno, and Sarah Ruhl.

In the spirit of Rebeck's column, here's a list of other things that actually don't suck:
-Getting elected President of the United States
-Playing center field for the New York Yankees
-Winning the Nobel Prize
-Finding the cure for cancer
-Getting a free ice cream cone on your birthday
-Kittens

Though considering Rebeck also wrote the story for Catwoman, I could understand why she may think kittens suck.

Yet another reason not to read The New Republic

As if you needed another.

I have done my best to be quiet about talling about Ahmadinejad's appearance in Columbia, if for nothing else in that my father is in the thick of it. But I will draw the line at being inaccurate and borderline offensive, a line that was crossed by Marty Peretz, who my dad's known since he was an undergrad at Harvard, on his TNR blog The Spine. His post, and my dad's email, are as followed:

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: mfs3@columbia.edu
Date: Sep 27, 2007 6:02 PM
Subject: last thing you need to read, but this one is pretty funny-- you might want to share it with Aharon Barak
To: Lee Bollinger < bollinger@columbia.edu>

"From The Sprine, Martin Peretz's blog:

09.27.07

INSIDE THE COLUMBIA DRAMA:

Columbia is "reeling," reads the headline in Wednesday's New York Times . Columbia is the Sulzbergers's university, and they had traditionally put a wordy buffer between what really happened at the institution and their paper's readers. Of course, that's virtually impossible to do these days. Still, it is not the Times that has excelled in reportage on Columbia during the past few tempestuous years. It is the Sun which has taken on that burden -- and, with some pleasure, I would think, since the university is a model of what the upstart daily thinks of as paradigmatic of the cowardice of liberal institutions in general. Or worse, the pusillanimity of liberal institutions when their very liberalism is being undermined from within.

In any case, Columbia is really reeling; and its wobbliness about what it stands for has been magnified since Lee Bollinger became president. He is simply scared out of his wits by Edward Said's less bright heirs on Morningside Heights. I have posted on this matter before. Actually, I am sure that Said would never have condoned an invitation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a lower class thug and a Shi'a besides, both an offense to Said's elitism and to his ill-fated Christian maneuvering to make Arab nationalism safely secular. I note that, with his usual discretion and allergy to street fights, Rashid Khalidi has not been heard from on the A'jad matter. He has bigger fish to fry: making sure that that vulgar practitioner of critical theory and deconstructor and rewriter of narratives, Joseph Massud, gets tenure. And that the Barnard tenure aspirant, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who believes that archeology proves there were never any Hebrews in the Holy Land, also is tenured. My guess is that, this time, the gang loses.

Of course, it is not only Columbia that is reeling. It is Bollinger himself. The faculty see this; the students certainly see this; and the trustees who typically will give a president enough rope to hang himself see that he has. My conclusion is that Bollinger is on his way out. The mandate of heaven has deserted him. He has no authority, least of all moral authority.

I also have a speculation about why the earnest protestations of Jewish students and others who were pro-Israel never could touch Bollinger about their terrible experiences in classes in the Middle East: he himself is Jewish, maybe an ambivalent Jew, maybe a frightened Jew, but a Jew nonetheless. (emphasis added)

There are three people who have played a curious role in this drama.

One is John Coatsworth, whom Bollinger lured from Harvard to replace the sneaky Lisa Anderson as dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. What can one say about Coatsworth without having oneself strung up as a McCarthyite? Let's leave it at this: at least since graduate school at the University of Wisconsin he has been extremely radical. Why would a radical find common cause with an Islamic fascist? By the way, Coatsworth signed the Harvard divest-from-Israel petition. Did Bollinger imagine that such a person could (or would want to) restore calm to the Middle East programs at Columbia that were in his SIPA portfolio?

Richard Bulliet is the Columbia historian who negotiated with the Iranians for their president's visit. I've read what I believe is a wonderful book of his, The Camel and the Wheel, although I admit that my credentials for judgment are slight. I've also read parts of The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, a cross-your-fingers-and-hope book, predictably well-reviewed by Juan Cole, which is by now even worse than getting a good review from John Esposito. Bulliet was a supporter of the 1979 Iranian revolution.

There's a personal angle for me in this saga. It involves a Columbia professor, Michael Stanislavski, whom I have known since he was an undergraduate at Harvard and I an assistant professor. He is a very good historian, and I've read three of his books on Jewish history. Moreover, I've learned from them, although my view of E.M. Lilien (someone you don't know of) is different than his. About two years ago, I was scheduled to speak at a Columbia meeting protesting the patent bias of the Middle Eastern faculty against Israel. Michael asked me not to come, arguing that, among other things, it would be unfair to Bollinger who was well-intentioned on the matter and would take deliberate action to solve the situation. I had no interest in inflaming it. So I called the student who had invited me and told him why I would, in the end, not speak. Still, I left out Professor Stanislavski's role in my decision. Stanislavski and I have had difficult exchanges since on these matters. He even wrote a letter to the chairman of a Jewish scholarly institution saying Columbia would not cooperate with it as long as I was on its board. It was a preposterous communication: one professor's pique doesn't decide whether his university would have an institutional relationship with another part of the academy.

As this drama has unfolded I wondered what Stanislavski made of Bollinger's canceling A'jad last year, giving permission for his speaking this year. Inviting him and then attacking him, a cowardly act followed by an act of spurious bravery. There is in Jewish history the figure of the court-Jew. This Jew did financial and commercial business for the prince. Sometimes he was a medical doctor and cared for the prince and his family. He also tried to intercede for the Jews when trouble was coming their way. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he failed. I guess Michael failed. But Jews no longer need court-Jews, and they haven't for at least a century. It must be sad trying to fill a function that has been obsolete for so long."

So, Lee, an official welcome to the tribe.

And speaking of Court Jews-- I should only be so lucky: they were bankers to the princes/bishops, and most were extraordinarily rich. Can you instruct Alan or Nick to double my salary for next year --at least?

Finally, as you can see, he didn't even spell my name right.

Yes, that's right, Marty Peretz accused Lee Bollinger of being a bad Jew, even though he's not Jewish. It's true that his relationship with my dad has soured, but, judging by the some people's standards (I'm looking at you, Gawker staff), this probably puts my dad in a positive light. You can tell by Peretz's poor spelling that my dad and he have not had much interaction as of late.

But the killer part of it is the following statement by my father, the underpaid Court Jew: As this drama has unfolded I wondered what Stanislavski made of Bollinger's canceling A'jad last year, giving permission for his speaking this year. Inviting him and then attacking him, a cowardly act followed by an act of spurious bravery.

The ironic thing was that not only did my dad, in fact, respond to the issue last year, he gave Marty Peretz and exclusive of his letter. Here's that email:

Quoting Marty Peretz: Fri, 06 Oct 2006

Dear Michael,
>
> Thanks for sending me your letter which I will keep completely to
> myself.
>
> Your reasoning about why Ahmadinejad should not have been invited
> to
> Columbia (or to any university, for that matter) and not to the
> Council on
> Foreign Relations either is very compelling. Moreover, you made
> the case
> much better than I did.
>
> I fully agree with you about Lisa Anderson whom I've known since
> the start
> of her undistinguished academic career at Harvard. Even then,
> when she was
> focusing on Tunisia -or was it Libya?- she was in her calm but
> embittered
> fashion hostile to Israel. An anticipator of present fashions,
> so to
> speak. But, if Bollinger understands this, why did he permit her
> to be on
> the committee evaluating the students' grievances? And why,
> moreover,
> does he permit her to hold him and Columbia hostage to biases
> which are
> poisonous to a scholarly association and destructive of its
> relationship to
> the wider community outside?
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Marty
>
> At 04:19 PM 10/6/2006, you wrote:
> >Marty-- given your recent comments about Columbia, I am copying
> you
> >here (for your eyes only) a letter I wrote to Lee Bollinger the
> >other week about the invitation of the Iranian President to
> >Columbia.
> >
> >Wishing you a healthy and happy new year,
> >
> >Michael
> >
> >"Dear Lee,
> >
> >Several members of the Advisory Board of the Institute for
> Israel
> >and Jewish Studies, faculty members, parents of Columbia
> students,
> >and students as well, urged me yesterday to issue a statement
> about
> >yesterday's fracas regarding President Ahmadinejad. Since the
> matter
> >became moot I decided that there was no point in doing so. But I
> do
> >want to circulate to you, and privately to the Advisory Board,
> my
> >thoughts on the matter.
> >
> >Since you know me well, you know that I totally agree with you
> on
> >matters of the sanctity of academic freedom and of free speech;
> >indeed, I do not feel that I possibly can—not to speak of need--
> >enlighten you on either of those matters. But I do think that
> the
> >University's official response to Lisa's invitation could have
> been
> >more substantive regarding the subtle yet crucial questions of
> >academic freedom and free speech that were raised by yesterday's
> >events.
> >
> >First let me say that I believe that Lisa's actions were utterly
> >inappropriate and, I surmise, deliberately provocative, in the
> >negative sense of the word, meant to put you personally, the
> Jewish
> >community at Columbia, and the University as a whole in an
> untenable
> >situation. Clearly, as you stated, the Dean of the School of
> >International and Public Affairs has the right, and the
> >responsibility, to bring to campus figures who would enhance the
> >academic discussion on campus, including bringing to the
> University
> >figures of controversy. But as we have spoken about so often in
> the
> >last several years, discussions of academic freedom often
> neglect
> >the issue of academic responsibility. Thus, it is not only the
> >timing of the invitation to Ahmadinejad that was so
> irresponsible
> >and insensitive, but in my mind, its very essence: What
> possible
> >enhancement of our collective or individual academic knowledge
> or
> >understanding of the world's situation would have been augmented
> by
> >his speaking on campus? Anyone at Columbia who reads the
> newspapers
> >or watches television already knows Ahmadinejad's repugnant
> views
> >all too well; this is not a question of free speech or stifled
> >speech. And, as is obvious, President Ahmadinejad deliberately
> and
> >vociferously opposes any discussion that challenges his views,
> >either putatively at Columbia, or as you say in your statement,
> in
> >Iran as well.
> >
> >On the contrary, the question here, I would propose, is one of
> the
> >deliberate invitation to campus not simply of a controversial
> >figure, or even one with repugnant and absurd views, but of a
> >purveyor of hate speech. I feel absolutely confident in so
> labeling
> >the Iranian president, on the basis of his denial of the
> Holocaust,
> >which he frequently (and perhaps even cynically) advances solely
> to
> >foment hatred of Israel and of Jews around the world, as well
> as
> >his frequent calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.
> (I
> >need not detail here how this differs from points of view that
> >relativize the Holocaust or question the legitimacy of the
> >existence of Israel or any of its policies.) I, like you, have
> >always opposed and will continue to oppose any "hate speech"
> codes
> >at Columbia, since I believe none can be drafted that
> sufficiently
> >guard against violations of our students' and faculty's freedom
> of
> >speech. But the obverse of opposing hate-speech codes is not
> >automatic support for the invitation to campus of any outside
> >purveyor of hate speech, however famous or controversial, on the
> >grounds of free speech or academic freedom, in situations in
> which
> >there is blatantly no possible enhancement of "the academic
> >experience of our students." I see no point in pondering, at
> this
> >stage, the theoretical question of what would constitute a
> >situation in which an invitation to campus of a purveyor of hate
> >speech WOULD enhance the academic experience of our students.
> But
> >yesterday's situation seems to me to be cut-and-dried.
> >
> >I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday to discuss other
> matters!
> >
> >
> >With best wishes,
> > Michael

So Marty Peretz lied about Lee Bollinger being Jewish, only so he can call my dad his Court Jew, and then accused my dad of not responding, when in fact, he had given Peretz an exclusive last year, and Peretz thanked him for it. Sounds like the publisher of a magazine I want to read! Frankly, Peretz's post sounded like an Isaac Bashevis Singer story, but maybe that's just me.

Indiana Jones 4 Spoilers Revealed!

While a "dancing Russian soldier" is most likely out of a career, at least it was sacrificed for a good cause: revealing crucial plot points for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The said Russian soldier, Tyler Nelson, was interviewed in his hometown newspaper, The Edmund Sun in Oklahoma, where he revealed that:

* Indy, played once again by Harrison Ford, and the Soviet army are both searching for a priceless skull made of crystal in the jungles of South America.
* The Russians take Indy hostage and then blackmail him by threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and mother of his son, Marion Ravenwood, portrayed by Karen Allen. Cast as the son is Shia LaBeouf.
* Cate Blanchett plays an evil Russian who grills Indy. "I saw Harrison Ford strapped to a chair and being interrogated," Nelson told the paper.

Nelson's scene has been cut from the film, and Spielberg and Lucas are up in arms. It'll be interesting to see Cate Blanchett don a Russian accent (and she certainly will, considering Spielberg's history of actors use bad foreign accents). It'll also be interesting to see if the Cold War baddies will be as vile as the Nazis, because as everyone knows, Indy hates those guys.

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Bring Back Wayne Campbell! The state of Mike Myers' career

(The following article will appear in The Campus Word later this week).

It doesn’t seem like it’s been long since Mike Myers was a household name. The man probably produced more slang than any other pop culture figure of the 90s. Between Wayne’s World (“Not!,” “Schwing!,” “That’s what she said!,”among countless others), Coffee Talk (“I’m all ferklemped!), and Austin Powers (Which every middle schooler was quoting incessantly back in the late ‘90s) at this point most people aren’t even aware of how much they are quoting him.

Yet, other than the Shrek franchise, Myers has done absolutely nothing noteworthy this decade. There was the disaster that was Austin Powers: Goldmember and the unspeakable horror that was the Cat in the Hat movie. And while the Shrek franchise has maintained its bankroll, the characters have become so standard that we pretty much forget who’s behind them.

Myers’ career isn’t the only thing that’s suffering. He divorced his wife of 12 years, and anyone who’s seen his Inside the Actor’s Studio special knew how devoted he was to her. There are rumors he’s had problems with substance abuse, which may have led to said divorce. For one of the most depressing interviews you’ve ever seen, check out Mike Myers’s discussion with Justin Timberlake upon the releae of Shrek the Third. He discusses his depression like it’s a joke, but it’s pretty obvious he’s not joking. To paraphrase Steve Zissou, Mike Myers knows he hasn’t been at his best this past decade.

I recently watched Wayne’s World for the first time in years. Like all great comedies, you pick up on new jokes with each repeated viewing, and while it’s not much in terms of plot, it’s one of the few SNL skit-turned-movies that manages to maintain laughs for the entire feature length. What’s even more striking is how out of date, but essential it feels. Wayne’s World came at the height of the grunge era, and was set in teenage wasteland of Aurora, Illinois, which could just as easily be another town of note from that era, Aberdeen, Washington. If Wayne and Garth’s ridiculous hair and the slacker, stoner humor seems hilarious out of date, it’s only more of a testament to just how iconic the film and the skit was - how many other SNL movies spawned sequels? Certainly not The Ladies Man.

What’s so frustrating about Myer’s decline is that the culture of filmmaking hasn’t strayed from his strengths. In fact, the trend in Hollywood has only been more favorable to Myers. When Hollywood is trending towards outlandish, instantly recognizable main characters to lead its threequels, Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers are easily on par with Captain Jack and John McClane (and easily more interesting than Peter Parker), yet other than Shrek (which even now is letting Myers’ depression seep through), Myers has failed to take advantage of the decade of the sequel.

However, the tides are turning for Myers, and he’s poised to make a comeback in the closing years of the decade that may make him a household name once again. There will most likely be a fourth Austin Powers movie, and there will be at least two more Shrek movies, but those are actually the least interesting of Myers’ upcoming projects. First up is The Love Guru, which Myers co-wrote about a self-help guru raised in India that features familiar Myers faces such as Justin Timberlake and Verne Troyer, and also Jessica Alba (as if America’s favorite little person wasn’t enough to draw the teenage males). Myers will also recall Danny Kaye in the remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, trying to rekindle what’s now one of Kaye’s definitive roles. But without a doubt the most intriguing project for Myers is becoming a rock legend, as he’ll take on the title role in the film Keith Moon: Naked for Your Pleasure. While there’s still no word if Myers will be living up to the film’s title, playing the late drummer for the Who should be one of the biggest challenges Myers have ever faced. As someone who still thinks Myers’ career can be like buttah, it’ll be interesting to see if can live up to the promise of his return.

Best New York Times Correction Ever

"An Inside summary last Sunday about 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' misspelled the given name of the actor who stars in the film. He is Brad Pitt, not Bratt."

Really? Could have fooled me.

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Do Chicago theaters have critics in a strangle-hold?

Some may remember the big controversy in Chicago theater criticism world about a year ago this time. Hedy Weiss, critic at the Sun-Times, was blasted for reviewing work-in progress musicals that she didn't even see to completion. I was critical of her at the time, but was conscious of the fact that the response wouldn't have been so strong if the reviews were positive.

It seems, however, that in past year Chicago theaters have gotten out of hand in how they protect plays from critics. The Chicago Reader had an excellent story recently on how the Steppenwolf probably overstepped its boundaries in asking critics not to judge the three plays of its First Look Repertory, which, though considered previews, were staged in full production. What they didn't tell critics, however, was that one of those plays, Laura Eason's When the Messenger is Hot was headed to an off-Broadway production just weeks after closing in Chicago. Trib critic Chris Jones rightly bitched the Steppenwolf out for this, to which the Steppenwolf immediately responded by opening the doors for critics (for the record, When the Messenger received excellent reviews.)

At some point there have to be clear standards for what is acceptable to review and what is not. In the Weiss case, barely seeing the plays that are still in the preliminary stages of tryout is wrong, even if it wasn't checked until the reviews were negative (the Stages Festival producers only have themselves to blame for letting that situation arise, but that still doesn't validate Weiss.) However, expecting critics not to review a play that's more of a finished product to the point where trying out for a transfer to New York is not only unreasonable, but it also would be irresponsible for the Chicago critical community not to review it. Imagine if critics weren't allowed to review The Producers or Young Frankenstein while they were being tried out before a New York run.

This past year we've seen the eradication of the unwritten rule of not publishing movie reviews until Friday—and the studios have even helped that change by releasing blockbusters all over the globe over the course of a week (lawsuits against projectionists be damned). Theater, old-fashioned as it is, hasn't had to deal with the onslaught of premature blog reviews like movies just yet, but eventually we're going to be seeing more of this type of thing. It's going to be harder and harder for theater companies to keep strong-arming critics, and the more they try, the worse they're going to look with this kind of crap.

(Hat tip: Terry Teachout)

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Theater and Hockey: My exchange with Tracy Letts

I have a confession to make. Though I may blog about theater, film and music, I'm a closet sports nut, and I'll ingest just about sport that I see (with the exception of NASCAR). I'm follow baseball, hockey and football probably more than I do the arts, and my bloglines aggregator is equally split between the likes of Deadspin and Defamer.

Most of the time these interests stay separate, but last March they converged in probably the highlight of my entire experience blogging. I thought I'd bring it up again in honor of the start of the hockey preseason.

On March 19, Tracy Letts, general bigshot at the Steppenwolf who's writen Bug, Killer Joe and August: Osage County (which is going to Broadway in October), as well as numerous acting gigs, wrote a post on the Steppenwolf blog entitled "The Giggles." The post related to a fit of laughter during rehearsal, but the opening paragraph of the post was as follows:

Psst. Hey. Hey, you. Theatre geek. Yes, you. I know you’re a theatre geek, or you wouldn’t be reading the blog on the Steppenwolf website. If you’re a hockey geek, you’d be looking at another website. I’ve got a little inside poop, something we “theatre ah-tists” aren’t supposed to share. And if you’re a fellow theatre ah-tist, stop reading this now; go read BJ Jones’s blog at the Northlight website today, cause this isn’t for you. This is for YOU, theatre geek.

I naturally took offense to this, me being both a theater geek and a hockey geek. I figured this was the time to speak out. Here was my response:

I maintain that it is possible to be both a theater geek AND a hockey geek. I went to the Rangers-Bruins game on St. Patty’s Day, will watch the Rangers Penguins tonight, and then I’m going to see Liev Schreiber in Talk Radio tomorrow night, then see Coast of Utopia on Thursday. Best spring break ever.

I thought this would be just like any other comment, one in a long string of anecdotes that go largely ignored. Instead, Tracy Letts took it on himself to respond, and boy did he ever:

Thanks for your response, Ethan. Actually, after a bit of research, I found there’s a lot more crossover between hockey and theatre than I knew.
Apparently, Mario Lemieux spent a couple of seasons at Stratford, Gordie Howe did an evening of “Shakespeare’s Women” at Stratford, and even Stu Grimson got in on the act in a production of Lettice and Lovage at the Old Vic. And on the other side of the coin, you might recall the ‘91 Norris Division semifinal, Blues over the Red Wings, 4-3. Winning goal? Lanford Wilson, five-holing it off the power play.

The sad thing was, for a second there I believed him, until I recalled that Lanford Wilson would have been about 50 in 1991. I decided to play along, leading to the end of the Stanislawski-Letts exchange:

Don’t forget Boom Boom Geoffrion’s surprise appearance on stage at opening night of the Cirque de Soleil, or Jeff Beukeboom’s heralded performance as The Stagehand at the George Street Playhouse’s production of Master Class. Of course, there was the infamous Hartford Stage Board of Directors conspiracy that drove the Whalers out of town, which is even more tragic than the Babe Ruth for No No Nanette! trade.

This goes in my personal blogging hall of fame, and it's up there with another contentious exchange involving a Steppenwolf regular, Yasen Peyankov, the bad cop to Letts' good cop (or was it the other way around?) in the Steppenwolf's production of The Pillowman. Seriously, though, Canada must have some real hockey-theater crossovers, or at the very least Minnesota (the Guthrie, maybe?).

Ambiguously Gay Duo Voices, or: I love Wikipedia

So guess who did the voices of The Ambiguously Gay Duo? That's right, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert.

Reviewing the Wascally Wabbit that is Shoot Em Up

Randall Munroe, the genius behind the webcomic xkcd, may finally have the movie he's looking for. While I didn't tally up action minutes versus plot minutes, there's only so much plot to go around in an 80-minute movie. There was actually more plot than I thought there would be; I'd estimate it at around a 50-50 action/plot ratio. But what Shoot 'Em Up's action lacks in quantity, it sure makes up in quality.

Think Jason Bourne beating up a baddie with a book in The Bourne Ultimatum was badass? Try Clive Owen taking a guy's eye out with a carrot. Think John McClane driving into a helicopter in Live Free or Die Hard was ridiculous? Try a gunfight in mid-sky dive culminating with a Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque fateful helicopter propeller meeting (though a propeller death seems loads more exciting when it's 15,000 feet in the air.) Writer/director Michael Davis sees every action movie cliché and raises it to ridiculous extremes, as well he should with the kind of hand he's packing.

I felt less guilty when I saw the movie than I was a few days ago, and that's because I found myself laughing more than my adrenaline running. I was hesitant about the film's "violence is one of the most fun things to watch" motto, but when I saw the direction Davis took that motto, my conscience was eased. It's ridiculous to think that Shoot 'Em Up could encourages real life violence when the violence here is so cartoonish. There's no way anyone could even believe anything that happens in the movie could happen in reality, and those that dare to try are probably doing the human gene pool a service. I have a problem when people think violence is beautiful, but I have less of a problem with fake violence that's funny: if Shoot 'Em Up aestheticizes violence, it's main aesthetic is Looney Toons.

Davis was not afraid to admit that Looney Toons was his muse for Shoot 'Em Up, and it shows: between Clive Owen's constant carrot eating, Paul Giamatti's continuous personification of Elmer Fudd (all the way down to his "Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!" ringtone), and the aforementioned sky-dive that resembles a Wile E. Coyote plunge, it's a wonder that Warner Brothers doesn't sue for copyright infringement (and may have even done so if the film hadn't come from fellow TimeWarner-subsidiary New Line). It's hard to be offended by a film that's no more morally—ahem—desthpicable than Bugs Bunny.

My main criticism of the film is that it seems like it would be a better video game than a movie. That's not necessarily a negative, as I have already said I don't mind video game aesthetics in movies, but when it comes to seeing someone shoot bad guys while sliding on oil and doing it virtually, most people who both watch movies and play video games would take the latter. Granted, the movie does have Clive Owen, and it'd be nice to imagine myself being as dashing as he is. That however, is only fantasy, as is everything about this movie, and all the better for it. What could have been an utter disaster is saved by a sense of humor, and that humor only works because Davis was fearless in seeing how far he could go. Well, what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?

Shoot Em Up Reviews: Reviewing the Reviews

I have already pronounced my guilt over wanting to see Shoot 'Em Up, and I will be seeing it today. Before then, however, let's take a look at the reviews, because a movie this polarizing is sure to get some strong opinions on both sides. On Rotten Tomatoes, it gets a surprisingly high 69%, which dips to 64% for the cream of the crop. When the cream of the crop is lower, it usually indicates to me that the younger critics generally like it more, as they're the ones more likely to be on the non-Cream of the Crop blogs. On Metacritic, the score is a lower 55, which indicates that the negative reviews are more negative than the positive are positive. This doesn't surprise me, since this movie has the "guilty pleasure" tag, it's easier to bury it than praise it.

Now let's look at some of the actual reviews of Shoot 'Em Up. The most negative is without a doubt A.O. Scott at The New York Times, who essentially calls it a worthless piece of garbage. My main problem with the review is he spends more time snarkily bashing it than actually critiquing it. I'm all for an outright thrashing every now and then, but at least try to analyze the movie, especially when one of your biggest complaints about the movie is that it lacks any substance and fails at being witty. Other thrashings include Stephen Hunter at The Washington Post and Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune, who called it incoherent and vile, respectively. Phillips went so far as to use the phrase "A lot of gamers (sorry, 'filmgoers')", and he's not alone in comparing it to videogames: Andy Spletzer of The Seatlle Post-Intelligencer states "In the end, you care about the characters on screen as much as you do for those in video games, which is not at all," and Dana Stevens of Slate says director Michael Davis "seems to have scribbled the dialogue with one hand while operating a gaming joystick with the other."

Can I just say right here that it's about time for film critics to stop comparing movies to video games like it's a synonym for trashy and morally depraved? Doesn't anyone know their American film history? If they did, they'd know that in the '30s video games occupied the same reputation of corrupting youth, vile, heartless, and morally bankrupt. Do we care about a character in a video game dying more than we do about a random extra dying in a Die Hard movie? Yet why do we think movies are inherently better? Enough already.

Now moving on to the positive reviews, we have Roger Ebert leading the pack, who calls it "he most audacious, implausible, cheerfully offensive, hyperactive action picture I've seen since, oh, "Sin City," which in comparison was a chamber drama." Ebert confesses a tendency which I must confess to too: "I may disapprove of a movie for going too far, and yet have a sneaky regard for a movie that goes much, much farther than merely too far."

Other supporters include Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman, THR's Frank Scheck, and, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, who calls it a "wet dream for action junkies." I wasn't surprised that there was a lot of divisiveness among critics in 300 style, I just hope there's no national controversy that starts out of this one.

This time, Ariel dies: The Little Mermaid set to fail fantastically on Broadway

It's no secret that while a few movie-turned musicals have succeeded critically and commercially on Broadway, even more have failed even more dramatically, (I'm looking at you, High Fidelity). Normally, however, Disney has, for better or for worse, provided entertaining musicals that draw the Nebraskans to Broadway, which is fine. What's not fine is when the Nebraskans spend $500 on tickets six months from now and don't enjoy the show. That happened with Tarzan, sorta happened with Mary Poppins, and, by all indications, is bound to happen again with The Little Mermaid.

Chief Variety theater critic David Rooney saw the tryout production in Denver, and he gave it the thrashing of a lifetime. Granted, it would be fine if a critic called it dumb, but Rooney called it out for being completely incoherent and crappy looking. When the chief critic of Variety has no idea what the fuck is going on, it's hard to imagine a bunch of 3 years olds figuring it out. For a second opinion, it's ugly too.

Michael Riedel at the New York Post wonders if The Little Mermaid will be the death knell for Disney on Broadway, and it's definitely possible, but keep in mind that this is Broadway standards we're talking about. The musical only cost $15 million, which is about as much as Disney lost on Treasure Planet. It's a shame that Doug Wright's name has to be attached, who truly deserved his Pulitzer and Tony, and may have even deserved an Oscar (Quills in my mind was better written than Traffic, that year's winner). But since I have stated that the Maroon prides itself on ruining childhood dreams, I can't really complain about a butchered Little Mermaid musical. (Butchered Little Mermaid...?).