Category: TV & Movies

  • Tempest on a Toy Box

    Mattel printed the wrong URL on the back of the boxes of toys for the new “Wicked” movie, which was not good, but just how bad was it? Lady Sneerwell in Sheridan’s School for Scandal observes, “There’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature: the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes…

  • Retro Futures: War Games

    Can a 1983 movie thriller about computers and the military tell us anything about drone warfare today?  In 1984, my lifelong friend Juliet and I were watching a then-recent movie, War Games, at my parents’ house. This was in the early years of home video. The first Blockbuster store had yet to open, and Tim Berners-Lee…

  • Will Ozempic Kill Movie Theaters?

    The social disruptions that new, injectable, weight-loss drugs like Ozempic will create go far beyond health and health care. We humans organize our mental worlds with categories and consideration sets, so it can be hard to see when trends from different categories collide. Back in the day when I worked at EarthLink, a dial-up ISP,…

  • A “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Happy Meal?

    The giant luxury goods company LVMH is getting into the entertainment business. What are the opportunities and obstacles it faces? A few days ago, luxury conglomerate LVMH announced that it was getting into the entertainment business. In a joint venture with Superconnector Studios (a consultancy): LVMH will seek to bolster promotion of the group’s brands—which include fashion houses Louis…

  • Walmart, Vizio, Amazon, and Experience Stacks

    This week, WSJ reported that the grocery giant is in talks to acquire a TV manufacturer: why is this a good idea, and how does it help Walmart compete with Amazon? (Issue #106) Attentive readers will remember my earlier explorations of Experience Stacks, which are the idiosyncratic collection of prior experiences somebody brings to bear on…

  • Retro Futures: “Wag the Dog” and Deep Fakes

    A classic 1997 movie about technology-fueled misinformation shows how democratized deception has become in 2024, and why we shouldn’t call them “deep fakes” in the first place. Typically, when I write about retro futures I’m exploring what a classic work of science fiction got right and wrong about the future and what that says about life today.…

  • Experience Stacks and Matthew Perry (R.I.P.)

    When social media surfaced a clip of the late “Friends” star on “The West Wing,” it activated crashing contexts that explain how Experience Stacks work and why they can be powerful. I am more aware of Matthew Perry after his premature death last October than I ever was while he was still alive. In part…

  • TV Is Doing Just Fine… For Now

    A new op-ed about the possible end of “peak TV” misses the real story.  Film historian and critic Peter Biskind’s op-ed in The New York Times hangs black crepe, mourning the end of peak TV. The funeral came at last week’s Emmy Awards, with an open casket where viewers could see the cast of Succession. Biskind’s piece went…

  • What’s So Great About Steamboat Willie?

    The 1928 first appearance of the character who became Mickey Mouse entered the public domain on New Year’s Day. Should anybody care? Image created by DALL-E. On New Year’s Day, an avalanche of works from 1928 entered the public domain, their copyrights having expired after 95 years. Walt Disney’s almost eight minute Steamboat Willie cartoon earned a disproportionate…

  • Is David Zaslav the new Beeper King?

    Hollywood hearts went pitter-pat after the Warner Bros. Discover and Paramount Global CEOs ate lunch together, but would a merger accomplish anything? Image created with Ideogram.AI and Adobe Photoshop. After Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav and Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish had a leisurely lunch together last week, the entertainment press exploded with…