MAIN DRAWBACKS OF HOLLYWOOD MOVIES..REASON WITH EXAMPLE

Those of you who watch a lot of Hollywood movies may have noticed a certain trend that has consumed the industry in the last few years.  It is one of the most insidious and heinous practices that has ever overwhelmed the industry.  Am I talking about the lack of good scripts?  Do I speak of the dependency of a few mega-blockbuster hits to save the studios each year, or of the endless sequels and television retreads?  No, I am talking about something much more dangerous, much deadlier to the health of cinema.

I speak of course, of THE COLOR GRADING VIRUS THAT IS TEAL &ORANGE!!!

This is the insidious practice of color-grading every movie with a simplified, distilled palette of teal and orange like this:

Or this:

Or this:

So how did we get here, you may ask. Well, it's a sad and sordid tale my friend, the combination of new digital technology and a good idea gone bad.

The Cohen brothers ushered in the new era of digital color grading with their excellent 2000 film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou." This was the first feature film to be entirely scanned into a computer, a process known as "Digital Intermediary", or DI.  Once inside the computer, the colorist now had unheard of control over every element of the image.  Imagine tweaking an entire movie with the tools and precision that one has with their still images using Photoshop, and you get some idea of what power was unleashed.

But was that power used for good...  Nooooooooooooooo, or course it wasn't!

Some unnamed yahoo decided that the only acceptable look for a movie these days is this:

This screenshot from the excellent color theory and exploration site,kuler, shows what happens when you apply complementary color theory to flesh tones.  You see, flesh tones exist mostly in the orange range and when you look to the opposite end of the color wheel from that, where does one land?  Why looky here, we have our old friend Mr. Teal.  And anyone who has ever taken color theory 101 knows that if you take two complementary colors and put them next to each other, they will "pop", and sometimes even vibrate.  So, since people (flesh-tones) exist in almost every frame of every movie ever made, what could be better than applying complementary color theory to make people seem to "pop" from the background.  I mean, people are really important, aren't they?

(By the way, filmmaker and tech guru Stu Maschwitz does a great job of explaining the nuts and bolts of how this is done on his blog, ProLost.)

From this seemingly innocuous supposition was unleashed a monstrosity that would eventually lead to one of the worst films ever, and one of the worst examples of unchecked teal and orange stupidity:

Yes, Transformers 2.

This movie took this color-look to extremes that only Michael Bay could vomit up.  Behold!

 This last shot especially concerns me.  I mean look at how orange Shia's face here is.  He should really have that looked at by a professional.  I mean, is it just me, or does he look like one of these unfortunate souls:

Take a look at a few trailers of current and upcoming movies and you can see that the look is now firmly entrenched:

Let's see, summer blockbuster movie Iron Man 2:

Yup.   How about recent horror flick - Wolfman:

Check.  Now, Wolfman at least has the respectability to be a little more subtle in its palette, but it is still there nonetheless.  Also, sometimes it will trade off and do one shot all orange (or gold) and one shot all teal (or blue):

How about upcoming retread flick Tron?  Now this movie can look any way it wants - it's set inside a computer for cripes-sake!  Imagine the limitless possibilities of fantastic color design:

Oh crap!  Well, what about the characters, what do they look like?

Oh hell, I give up!


This infection would be ok if it was limited to only mindless summer action flicks but I'm afraid that's not the case.  How about the fun new "Hot Tub Time Machine"?

Oh dang!  Well, surely in the 1980's we will be free of this Teal and Orange universe... right?

Wow, I sure don't remember 1980 looking like that.  In fact, nothing ever has looked like that because it's physically impossible.  You see, in order to get flesh tones to look that warm and orangey, the entire image would look warm and orangey - like golden hour, just before sunset. And in order to get teals to look that blue and tealey, the entire image would look cold and blue - like at night.  Never in real-life shall the two meet - at least not in this exaggerated way:

Geez Chevy, what have they DONE TO YOUR FACE!!

Please people, spread the word and fight.  Fight against this horrible visual injustice.  If nothing is done, we will never see our friends green, or purple, or even red again.  Imagine a world without red people!  It could be right around the corner.  Our whole world will look like this:

AAAAAHHHHHHHH  I can't take it any more!

Seriously, I weep for cinema of this dark age.  I think twenty years from now people will look at films of this era and say "My God - what were they smoking??!?"

I leave you with this last horrible thought.  What would art history look like if this virus had infected mankind hundreds of years ago?

HEIDI KLUM WALLPAPERS,STILLS

Heidi Samuel, famously known by her birth name Heidi Klum, is a Hollywood actress, German American model, television host, business woman, artist, fashion designer, television producer and occasional singer. Heidi was born on June 1, 1973 in Bergisch Gladbach to Gunther, a cosmetics-company executive, and Erna, a hairdresser.

In 1997 Klum married Ric Pipino. The couple divorced in 2002. Later she dated Garfield Badza. In 2003, Klum announced she was pregnant by Badza. The same day she made this announcement, Badza was photographed kissing Fiona Swarovski. Klum and Badza split shortly thereafter. Klum gave birth to her first child, on May 4, 2004. In early 2004, while still pregnant, Klum began a relationship with musician Seal. Klum and Seal married on May 10, 2005, on a beach in Mexico. They have three biological children together: sons Henry Gunther Adeola Dashtu Samuel and Johan Riley Fyodor Taiwo Samuel, and daughter Lou Sulola Samuel. In December 2009, Seal officially adopted Leni, and her last name was changed to Samuel.

Birth Name : Heidi Klum
Birth Date : June 1, 1973
Birth Place : Bergisch Gladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany
Measurements : 34-24-34
Height : 5 ft 9.5 in
Spouse(s): Ric Pipino (1997–2002)
Seal (2005–present)

MAD MAN REVIEWS

Do you have AT&T's U-verse? If so, you might not be able to watch the return of AMC's "Mad Men."

The communication empire is in a stalemate over carriage contract negotiations with Rainbow Programming, who owns AMC, IFC, WE tv and others. If an agreement can't be reached, AT&T will pull those channels from its U-Verse system on July 14th a mere 10 days before AMC's hit series "Mad Men" is scheduled to return.

Carriage disputes like this have cropped up before and are usually planned around major television events. Its a scare tactic the cable networks use to hold the cable providers over a barell at the expense of the customer. In a normal world, this would be seen as extortion, but its all in a day's work in the world of television.

Negotiations have been going on for the past six months. A two-week extension was agreed on, but now the two sides seem to be at an impasse.

"We want to reach a fair deal with Rainbow that reflects our growing subscriber base and reflects the appropriate value of Rainbow content." said an AT&T rep. Of course, that business-speak really means that AT&T thinks AMC is overrated and not worth the money.

"Based on aggregate data we obtained from third party industry sources and our own subscribers, some of the Rainbow channels are among the least-watched and most overpriced per viewer compared to other major programming providers."

I don't know what "third part industry source" AT&T was using, because not more than 3 days ago AMC scored a total of 26 Emmy nominations, 17 of which were for "Mad Men." 

"They’re also trying to force the renegotiation of a contract for one of their other channels that is not yet expired and force us to carry a new channel that wasn’t even formally presented to us until after the recent July 1 contract extension." Said the AT&T spokesperson. "We want our customers to know that we can’t and won’t give in to unreasonable deals that unfairly disadvantage our customers."

"AT&T is acting in an aggressive manner that puts their corporate interests ahead of their customers," said a Rainbow Programming spokesperson. "We are negotiating in good faith with AT&T and are hopeful that we can reach an agreement as soon as possible so that our viewers don't lose out."

We'll keep you posted of any updates. As always, stay tuned.

"DESPICABLE ME" A NEW EXPERIENCE

Genres: Comedy, Kids/Family and AnimationRunning Time: 1 hr. 28 min.Release Date: July 9th, 2010 (wide)MPAA Rating: PG for rude humor and mild action.Distributors: Universal Pictures

Directed by: Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin

JJ Rating: B+

See It Again: Maybe.Own it: No thanks.Recommend it to: those that enjoy being entertained by animation. It’s good enough for that and it has likable characters.

Gru (Steve Carell) wants to be the bestest super-villain ever! BUT…Vector (Jason Segel), a once sidekick, stands in his way of achieving such glory! Then Gru adopts three little girls just to use them to get into Vector’s home to steal back what was stolen from him in order to achieve such glory! However, they alter him in ways he hadn’t thought possible for a villain of his caliber. Despicable Me.

Steve Carell was perfect to play Gru. I fell into the story and followed along without even thinking of who voiced Gru. He had his own distinct voice that wasn’t Carell’s. I like when the voice is the character’s and not the actor’s. There’s a weird thing, though, with Toy Story that Woody and Buzz sound just like the actor’s who depict them, but the way they use their voice to embody the character allows for a similar mentality. Liken to how they are different characters in movies, they don’t sound the same because of how they use their voice, even though you can recognize them; which is different with Brad Pitt and his new movie Megamind. Watching that trailer, I hear Brad Pitt and that’s it. Maybe it’ll be different when the film comes out, but his voice is just his voice—no added character. It bugs me. Everyone in Despicable Me did an awesome job with their voices. Russell Brand as the old, old, old, old man Dr. Nefario was fantastic. Will Arnett, Rob Hubel, Jason Segel, Julie Andrews all added to the consonance of the film’s projection. I got lost in the story forgetting the voices I knew.

Ah, the Minions were hilarious. They’re so quirky and bizarre that if you watch one side you’ll miss something a certain Minion does on the other. Their clever usage was maximized perfectly, definitely the best part of the film. There’s a lot of little parts were it would be fine without them, but with them they enhance Despicable Me, unique characters do that.

Despicable Me has a level of cuteness because of the three little girls. Each one having their own personality just like three friends do in TV shows or in other movies: the Smart One, the Tough One and the Sweet One. Their use in the story was to simply wear Gru down and make him into mushy mush. As predictable as that was from the onset, the charm wasn’t lost on me. The adorable scenes toward the end flowed nicely and I didn’t feel shoved into caring.

Despicable Me’s main problem is it doesn’t have the Pixar touch. There’s no powerful caring going on. The difference between Pixar and Universal is that Pixar is the cool, poet guy who can make you laugh, swoon and cry without making you feel like a loser. Universal is like the guy that makes you laugh because of his fart jokes and silly nature, but makes you feel awkward when he turns serious and tries to get you to care about his pain. Universal continues to try to nestle in to that same spot in the heart that Pixar already owned since 1995, but they continue to miss the mark just like other animation studios. Normally the king of the hill is easy to win if you continue to try, but Pixar has dug in their heels and will not budge, nor will they share the spot. They continue to reign supreme, though Universal did move up a notch with Despicable Me and their adorably evil creation Gru.