" PERSEPOLIS "

OBAMA CUTS THRU the BS AROUND IRAQ

2007-06-19T21:43:00.000-05:00

TOM BARNETT at TED

2007-06-08T15:05:00.000-05:00

If you've been here before you already know what my opninion of Dr. Barnett is and those who haven't should watch the above TED presentation and judge for themselves. You may also want to check out Barnett's PopTech presentation.

THE THREE, NO FOUR AMIGOS

2007-01-26T12:25:00.000-06:00

Governor George Pataki (R-NY) who’s clearly been putting some thought into making a run in 2008 and whose eldest son is a Marine facing possible deployment to Iraq has taken up residence in the Brownback/Hagel/Warner anti-surge camp (and by the way, is it just me or is Chuck Hagel quickly becoming the most dangerous potential republican in 2008) as opposed to the McCain/Giuliani/Romney pro-surge camp when he delivered a major speech on the Iraq war at Georgetown University. You can read the Associated Press story HERE.

Take a closer look at Senator Chuck Hagel below ... and ask yourself if he'd loose to Hilary in a general election.

CAN I GET an AMEN!?!

2007-01-24T15:40:00.000-06:00

I can only think of one way to put one here … THANK-GOD! Now that this month has seen well over a half-dozen of the Democratic Party's most politically formidable players (read: Biden and Clinton), most gifted retail politicians (read: Edwards and Obama) and best resumed nice guys (read: Vilsack and Richardson) announce their intention to seek its presidential 2008 nomination--creating some concern that the coming debates will be far too crowded for words or to be contained on any conventional television screen—the man the party foolishly ran for the presidency in 2004 tells us: He will not try again!

CAN I GET an AMEN!?! NO REALLY, SAY AMEN?!?

That’s right, we will all be spared the torture if an online video announcement feature the stone-faced Junior Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry, who been tormenting us ever since conceding his last try with the prospect that he might be preparing for another run at costing democrats the White House. One can only thank the pagan media gods who gave is Obama’s best seller’s and Al Gore’s likely Oscar Winning film (which is not to say that he should make another run by the way) for Kerry’s plan to announce he does not plan to challenge 2008’s early frontrunners Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

I for one would like to thank Kerry for his wisdom and foresight while pointing out that if he thinks signing the drop out song is going to give a shot at that soon to be open Secretary of State job …he can the hell over it already (That’s Bill Richardson’s tune). For some time now, even among democrats who’d welcome a run similarly charisma impaired Al Gore – despite their laudable capacity to spawn hot daughters – even the mention of a second Kerry run has provoked groans. Democrats like myself rightly believe that Kerry lost in 2004 on his own merits while the feeling that Al Gore was robbed is widespread.

Never a favorite among either MoveOn democrats or what Samantha Power has started calling the Empiricist camp of the party …Kerry got the nomination back in 2004 mainly because the MoveOn camp is basically populated by pussies too timid to nominate either of the guys they really wanted and were too easily impressed by Kerry’s—soldier, state official, senator—resume to notice the fact that he was pretty darn boring and came off as even more of an effete Easter intellect snob than Gore had, to say the least. I won’t even go into his freakin’ wife. Meanwhile, the empiricist crowd tried and failed to with Wesley Clark (Who will either be Clinton’s running mate or Obama’s Sec Def … and remember you read that here first).

But that’s a whole other story. In the end neither group got what they wanted … because they got John Kerry. But, unlike Gore, (who really deserves be vilified for selected Joe Leiberman as his running mate), Kerry may never be forgiven by the base. His …uuhhh rhetorical stumbles in 2006 worked to remind even naïve Democrats of everything that should have warned them away from Kerry and these days polls from early primary and caucus states showed Kerry trailing Edwards, Obama, Clinton and Gore who has not even expressed an interest in 2OO8 today – though Oscar night seems like a good time to do it if he’s gonna – not that he should – no seriously – don’t run AL, don’t run.

In all seriousness, I wish John Kerry well, he’s decent and brave man …presidential politics just isn’t his thing.

SNL HARDBALL's HILLARY

2007-01-24T10:21:00.000-06:00

Here’s your chance to take a look at SNL’s much talked about, and truly funny take on Senator Clinton vs. Chris Mathews. ENJOY!

BORN FIGHTING, STILL FIGHTING part two

2007-01-24T10:15:00.001-06:00

Here's the full Transcript of Senator Webb's remarks (Courtesy of The Grey Lady) :

Good evening.

I’m Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown—an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President’s message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy—how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy—how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

When one looks at the health of our economy, it’s almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it’s nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy—that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We’ve introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We’ve established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We’re working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues— those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death—we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable—and predicted—disarray that has followed.

The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering. Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves “as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.” And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. “When comes the end?” asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America.

IN THE RACE

2007-01-16T15:40:00.000-06:00

Here's Senator Obama's exploratory announcement. You can hear more HERE and see more HERE. By the way, has anyone else noticed that Chris Dodd has only entered the race to act as Clinton's Obama attack shill?

BORN FIGHTING, STILL FIGHTING

2007-01-16T11:27:00.000-06:00

Virginia’s Freshman Senator, and my pick for the man most likely to be Senator Obama’s running mate if he happens to snag the democratic nomination, namely …Jim Webb has been tapped to deliver the Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union Address.

Webb’s spokeswoman issued a statement saying that the selection was made by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but I for one, sense that hand of Obama rabbi Dick Durbin (D, IL) at work.

Webb's upset victory over one time Republican presidential hopeful Senator George Allen was the decisive race in giving the Democrats control of Congress in last year's midterm elections.

Senator Webb will speak for around five minutes shortly after President Bush's address to a joint session of Congress on January 23rd.

This will be the 2nd year that a Democrat from Virginia has been selected to rebut the president's annual address to Congress. Last year, newly elected Governor Tim Kaine delivered the response live from the Executive Mansion in Richmond.

RIDDING THE HORN or BEING RIDDEN BY THE HORN?

2007-01-12T11:23:00.001-06:00

Ok so, having decided that Iraq wasn’t producing enough ‘Nam parallels for us to chew on, there are confirmed reports that small team of American military personnel entered southern Somalia to try to determine exactly who was killed in a U.S. airstrike Monday that targeted suspected al-Qaeda figures thought to be hiding in swampy mangrove forests along the Indian Ocean, U.S. sources said yesterday.

“The search team marks the first known case of U.S. military boots hitting Somalian soil since a disastrous mission to stabilize the country ended in 1994 after Somali militiamen downed two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 U.S. soldiers in the capital, Mogadishu. It was unclear Thursday if the search team remained inside Somalia.”

Have fun reading the REST and then more HERE and HERE.

REPLACING FEAR with HOPE?

2006-12-24T15:14:00.000-06:00

Came across this mock OBAMA 2008 ad on YouTube and just had to share . . .

If you're interested, you can read more about my take on the Senator's chances HERE and HERE.

PART ONE of MY 16-PART 8 FOR 08

2006-12-22T17:50:00.000-06:00

Here’s the first installment of my sixteen part eight for 08 … (which is to say eight to be thrust further into the mainstream plus eight who truly need to be shown the door) - only no politicians.

So here goes …Professor Thomas P.M. Barnett, former Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War College, Esquire editor and author of two must-read books (that is if you just happen to be either a foreign policy nut like yours truly or 2008 presidential contender wannabe) The Pentagon’s New Map and Blueprint for Action and gadfly in general, is probably one of the most important military/strategic thinkers of our day. Which, just in case you haven’t guessed, is why I’m going to spend at least three posts bringing a small slice of his work to your attention. His work, which is squarely focused on the connection between economic development and national security has become deeply influential and deeply controversial inside the Pentagon. And whether or not you agree with what he has to say, Barnett's vision for the future of the U.S. military is well worth hearing.

More importantly, while I often find myself at odds with individual policy prescriptions, like Peter Galbraith’s descriptions of Iraq, Barnett’s titular map has all the force that accuracy can offer. Someone, and yes I mean the junior Senator from Illinois, should consider giving him a job. His full brief runs from 1:30 to 2:45 but the short version I’ll be posting goes something like this …In order to promote peace and stability and thereby combat terrorism; Barnett insists that the U.S. military and its partners must assume a far more ambitious role to police and nation-build in the disconnected parts of the world. To do so, the U.S. military should be divided into two distinct forces: a high-tech military, he refers to as the "Leviathan," a force capable of “taking down” rogue regimes, and a much larger force of follow-up peace-keepers and nation builders he calls "System Administrators."

“The global nuclear threat I grew up with is gone. State-on-state wars of the classical variety (A invades neighbor B) has gone the way of the dinosaur, save for a few states in Africa. We still see the need for the U.S. and coalition partners to play Leviathan regularly, but those wars we’ll win easily, leaving the postwar peace for us to get better at. Those postwar situations will be like most of the remaining violence in the system: featuring transnational and subnational actors, but no real opponent nation-states.

That means we’re down in the weeds, strategically speaking. Yes, our soldiers will be lost, though the numbers will never come close to matching the sort of frequency we suffered in WWII, or even Vietnam, which is–of course–better but not good enough. And yes, there will still be plenty of killing going on in the world, but primarily within dictatorships and failed states, so we’re basically down to the last rotten cases, fairly concentrated in those handful of regions I call the Non-Integrating Gap.

None a serious direct threat to us, save through the extension of transnational terrorism, but all very tough nuts to crack in terms of bringing lasting peace, which only comes with sustainable economic development. I believe we can master even all of those remaining situations within a generation’s time, if America and the rest of the Core commit themselves to “shrinking the Gap” and integrating all those states currently disconnected from, or poorly connected to, the Functioning Core of the global economy (old West plus rising East and South).”

-- Thomas P.M. Barnett

You can check out longer versions of his brief HERE or HERE. (if you have BT)

MY BUDDY DAVE is GONNA LOVE THIS

2006-12-19T12:35:00.000-06:00

This is a serious freakin' digression but what the hell. Here's what the folks over at Pitchfork had to say about The Pipettes in question.

"The Pipettes admit they were a concept before they were a band. The polka dots, the dancing, and the re-appropriation of 1960s pop were all apparently set before the band began writing songs. But if the songs came second in the band's grand scheme, they come first on We Are the Pipettes. With few exceptions, each one is polished, clever, and miraculously poppy. Whether singing about a boyfriend's "slightly unnerving" cleanliness, confessing to murderous thoughts brought on by envy, or considering ripping out a mother's spleen, the lyrics are slyly self-aware, offering cartoony twists on modern love. Meanwhile, producer Gareth Parton puts the uniformly excellent harmonies upfront while adding just the right amount of iPod-friendly, DIY-Spector flourishes underneath. Love or loathe their charming nostalgia, but navel-gazing backlashes are wasted on the Pipettes."

Have fun ...then read more HERE or have even more fun HERE.

HAS KIM BEEN ISSUED an EXPIRATION DATE?

2006-12-18T15:10:00.000-06:00

This may be an overly flippant way to say this ...but it looks like the Chinese government might be mad as hell and unprepared to take anymore of a certain vertically challenged, film loving, Team America nemesis’s bullsh#t.

Reportedly the Chinese government has been drawing up plans to attack Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. Hu Jintao, head of the China’s Central Military Commission, recently ordered China’s military to draw up attack plans as a move that’s "deliberately meant as a threat to the regime of Kim Jong-Il."

Covert intelligence activities aimed at toppling Kim’s regime (read: exploding bottles of single malt scotch and/or booby-trapped South Korean starlets) are reportedly also being considered.

The Chinese military intelligence service, known as 2 PLA, "is toying with the idea of a palace revolution that would kick out the 'Kim dynasty' and replace it with 'pro-Chinese generals."

This follows on the heels of China's rather obvious displeasure ater North Korea’s Oct. 9 nuclear test--which Hu regarded as a kind of personal snub considering the conciliatory tact he’d previously advocated and pursued.

The plan was reportedly leaked to sources linked to Western intelligence officers in Hong Kong.

OPEN LETTER to FILMSPOTTING

2006-12-18T00:26:00.000-06:00

First, I really enjoy your podcast guys. Really.

Second, On the occasion of your recent (DVD release oriented) follow-up mention of your review of Brian Singer's Superman Returns; I regret to inform you that not only were you both wrong, you may both be certifiably insane and or blind on this point. If that seems overly harsh, allow me to put it this way:

Your reviews essentially boiled down to an assessment of how successfully two relatively unknown screenwriters and one moderately talented but semi-hack director were able to make alterations and improvements to the time-tested presentation of thee most popular and successful fictional character in modern history.

I'd write that out again for emphasis, but quite frankly it just plain makes my head hurt.

For reasons I can only ascribe to acute ahistorical amnesia, the two of you seem to regard 1978 (i.e. the wake of Munich, Watergate, our pullout from Vietnam, Nixon's resignation, the Khmer Rouge and the Iranian revolution) as a kinder gentler time akin to the black-n-white TV-land from Pleasentville, when literally nothing could be further from the truth. And, Superman: the Movie acknowledges as much.

Or don't either of you remember Lois laughing outright when Superman tells her that he's there to fight for "truth, justice and the American way"?

While it has many virtues as an action film, Brian Singer's Superman Returns suffers primarily from the fatal same flaw as the Roland Emmerich Godzilla . . . A title charter who isn't actually in the movie.

In short: Superman doesn't drink Budweiser, loiter about soaking up adoration or stalk his ex-girlfriend. He does however fight for "truth, justice and the American way." A phrase, I might add that in no way refers to his concerns being restricted to those of a certain nationality, but rather to ideals. You know, those Common Sense kind of ideas that really need to be fought for.

Again, I really do enjoy generally your podcast guys. Really.

Zbigniew Brzezinski GIVES HIS OLD BONES a SHAKE

2006-12-16T21:15:00.000-06:00


Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski showed up Charlie Rose Friday night and to my astonishment, he proceeded to promptly eat the conventional "Maliki Government" Iraq rhetoric for dinner.

TONY BLAIR UNDERSTANDS why don’t “WE” UNDERSTAND?

2006-12-16T13:38:00.000-06:00

"…show them death and they will love the fever "- Peter Galbraith

Despite his poodle-like insistence on backing our doomed and misguided efforts in Iraq Britain’s Tony Blair is not functionally retarded. He set off on a diplomatic mission on Friday that seems squarely aimed at reassuring our perpetually ill-used NATO allies in Turkey about their prospects for joining the European Union and reviving the Middle East peace process.

Blair's trip to Turkey comes in the wake of European Union leaders foolhardy endorsement of a partial suspension of Turkey's EU entrance negotiations – supposedly as a punishment for Ankara's refusal to open-up its ports to Cyprus – but in reality a childish matter of “they’ve got bigger penises” type fear – which is to say that the Turks have a ferocious and battle hardened army and, other than the Brit’s, the rest of the Europeans don’t and therefore fear creeping irrelevance at Turkey’s decidedly manlier hands

“Egemen Baggis, a senior foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, noted in an interview that Turkey is one of the few Western-oriented countries with the credibility to talk with Syria, Iran and Israel. He added that both Beirut and Jerusalem pleaded with Turkey to send troops to Lebanon to participate in the multinational force there because a moderate Muslim country is acceptable to Lebanese as well as Israelis.”

You can read-up on Turkey’s troubled EU bid HERE and HERE.

Blair’s aides said Blair would try to reassure Turkey that Europe was not turning its back. Britain and Poland (NATO’s only other owner of an army of killers as opposed to and army of policemen by the by – which isn’t to say that those policemen wouldn’t have been pretty freakin’ handy in Iraq even though they’re darn near useless in Afghanistan) fear that the partial freeze will further complicate Turkey's membership negotiation while stoking a growing anti-EU backlash in a Muslim country of 70 million. Blair and his cabinet have been the most vocal advocates of Ankara's because they view Turkey as a vital geo-strategic anchor in an unstable region.

Given that “we” really need to make a deal with the Turks to protect our Kurdish friends, it strikes me as functionally retarded that the U.S. has yet to, loudly, intercede on Turkey’s behalf.

GOODBYE BAYH

2006-12-16T12:29:00.000-06:00

In a statement released early today, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana took his name out of presidential sweepstakes hat … Apparently though not reportedly the site of his friends and family sneaking out the back of his New Hampshire campaign event last weekend to just on the off chance they might be able touch the hem of Barack Obama’s sport-coat, he decided that this just isn’t the year for him to run for president and so he won’t be a candidate for the presidency in 2008.

The reason behind Senator’s Bayh's decision appears to have been a remarkably sane assessment of his chances of winning the Democratic nomination are rather slim given a field that’s likely to include political heavyweight Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the charisma machine slash hope factory also known as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, 2004’s Vice Presidential Nominee John Edwards and soon to be Oscar nominated former Vice President Al Gore were too slender to justify commiting time and manpower for the next two years.

“The odds were always going to be very long for a relatively unknown candidate like myself, a little bit like David and Goliath,” Mr. Bayh said in a statement.

“And whether there were too many Goliaths or whether I’m just not the right David, the fact remains that at the end of the day, I concluded that due to circumstances beyond our control the odds were longer than I felt I could responsibly pursue. This path — and these long odds — would have required me to be essentially absent from the Senate for the next year instead of working to help the people of my state and the nation.”

You can read more HERE or HERE

I can’t help but note that Senator Bayh is the second serious Democratic to pass on a prospective presidential bid – after seeing Senator Obama in action, so to speak. After sharing a stage with Obama during Senator Tom Harkin, of Iowa’s, annual steak-fry, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner shocked political insiders by announcing that he wouldn’t be a presidential candidate in 2008. (Think: those bands who refused to go on after Hendrix -- ‘cause apparently Warner was the big event back then to Obama’s opening act). Though some will say this is good news of John Edwards, I can’t help but see Bayh’s Indiana as another likely win for Senator Obama.

MORE CONFLICT in THE HORN of AFRICA

2006-12-14T22:00:00.000-06:00

Let me tell you a story …there’s a “Combined Joint Task Force-Horn Africa” and it sounds a smells a lot like units positioned throughout Central and South America during the 80’s and their early 60’s era predecessors (the infamous “military advisors") in Vietnam. It’s a unit based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti—Camp Lemonier is reportedly 88-acres of swelter on the Gulf of Aden that (and you really couldn’t make this sh#t up) was a French Foreign Legion outpost once upon a time. The camp houses around 1,800 U.S. military personal—including hundreds of special-forces operators. They’ve been stationed there since 2003 conducting missions covering seven countries in Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula—Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Yemen. More importantly, according to the unadorned cubicle types at the Pentagon, the U.S. military presence in the Horn of Africa—even more than our wars of Afghanistan or Iraq — that will be central to the next decade of our war on terrorists.

"In the Horn of Africa, much of the task force's focus is on humanitarian projects like building schools, wells, and roads. It is not done out of altruism: The aim is to project a better image of the United States and make the ground less fertile for the seeds of Islamic radicalism. During another era, it was known as 'winning hearts and minds.' In April, when their Marine brethren were dropping bombs on Iraqis, marines in the Horn of Africa delivered 15,000 pairs of shoes to children in Djibouti city.

"There are, of course, plenty of bullets to complement the bread. Hundreds of special operations forces and CIA operatives based at Camp Lemonier have the mission of capturing or killing the biggest stars in al Qaeda's constellation and have the authority to launch covert missions throughout much of the Horn of Africa. Last November, a missile fired from a CIA-operated Predator drone killed an al Qaeda operative on a desert highway in Yemen, and intelligence officials are monitoring African airspace and dhow traffic in coastal waters to set the stage for future operations."

Before anyone leaps to conclusions and gets me wrong. I do not think the task force is a bad idea. I do wonder why we, meaning: the U.S. and our allies (meaning mainly the UK and its stable former colonies – *quip courtesy of Thomas P.M. Barnett) have made such a miserable and miniscule security commitment to an area larger than Western Europe. It’s not as if the area isn’t welter of familiar troubles just waiting to explode. For example:

“In the past week, several skirmishes have broken out between militias loyal to Ethiopia and those loyal to the Council of Islamic Courts, the movement that has taken control of the southern region of the country, including Mogadishu, the capital.

The fighting has occurred around the southern town of Baidoa, seat of Somalia's fragile but internationally recognized transitional government. Ethiopia considers the interim government a buffer against Islamic Courts leaders who have long expressed desire to create a "Greater Somalia," including ethnically Somali portions of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Wednesday rejected a declaration by a leader of the Islamic movement that Ethiopia withdraw its troops or face war. Though the Ethiopian government has repeatedly denied having more than several hundred military trainers in Somalia, diplomats in the region estimate that at least 8,000 troops have poured in around Baidoa and that thousands more are gathering along the Somali border.”

You can read the International Herald’s take on this increasingly sad tale HERE.

ENTERING the BATTLEFIELD

2006-12-14T09:29:00.000-06:00

I usually wouldn't post a whole piece, but everyone interested in film should plainly read it, so here goes ...

Why Film Criticism is Dying ... And How to Save It
By
Russell Brown
Jul 17, 2006
A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to see the revival screening of Funny Girl at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. About halfway through the screening, a line from John Simon's review went darting through my mind. I hadn't read the article in years, but one of his observations had stayed with me, as being both particularly insightful and well-phrased. The moment I arrived home, I called my friend and read him the review. It was funny, as most of Simon's writing about Barbra Streisand can be, but also dead-on accurate. In just a few sentences, he captured not only his personal distaste for the actress (and the reasons why) but also placed her phenomenon in a larger social context. Reading the review aloud to my friend, I was reminded of why it's still fun to read John Simon 30 years after his reviews were published. The writing still crackles, the observations are still potent and there's something personal -- stylish and unique -- about how he approaches writing about a movie. Nobody could ever be mistaken for John Simon -- one sentence in and you know who's at the helm. It's the same experience when you read an old piece by Pauline Kael: You are immediately transported into her way of seeing things, her world and her life all coalesce into great writing about film. At the end of their essays, you felt these critics were writing about things larger than simply a movie -- and that's what keeps them fresh and vital, even when the movie itself is long forgotten.

Film criticism is experiencing a crisis this summer. Some of the most anticipated studio movies were not screened for critics before their release, or were only shown to a select few. Other films were rendered critic proof, opening to huge numbers after receiving lackluster reviews. It's not the first time, of course. Bad movies have performed well in the past -- the marketing and hype of a huge project overwhelming anything in its path. So what makes this summer any different? Why is the profession of film criticism suddenly under threat?

Most writing about the issue has focused on the influence of bloggers and online opinion making. The audience, some say, has taken back the power and decide which films they like on their own. Hundreds of blogs and online websites cater to the desire for people to have their voices heard. To boil down the growing cacophony, sites like Rottentomatoes add it all up and provide a percentage of how many critics liked something and how many didn't -- siphoning a film's success or failure down to a statistic.

But really, what is the difference between a blogger and a critic, other than the fact that someone has been able to convince an editor that they know something about films and filmmaking? The truth is, most "critics" reviewing for newspapers and magazines have no business writing about film. Self-appointed and self-aggrandizing, you can generally sense the vacuousness of the thinking that compromises most of these "film reviews." Why certain people have been deemed worthy of sorting the good apples from the bad ones is pretty much beyond comprehension, and why every paper needs their own "film critic" is equally questionable. I suppose, in a perfect world, there would be some sort of test (like the bar for lawyers) where people writing about film would have to pass a basic level of expertise before they are allowed to put their opinions in print. Frankly, if I was a studio chief or well-known filmmaker, I wouldn't want to be beholden to these amateurs either.

Great film criticism has been devoured by its ugly kid sister, the film review. I personally find it so dull to read what some guy sitting in an office thinks of this performance or that performance, this screenplay or that one -- it all seems dreadfully irrelevant to me. What turned me on about John Simon or Pauline Kael was how they brought films into their own philosophy of life and art -- how it was placed into a larger context. And in doing so, they were as vulnerable as the artists putting their work onscreen, and demanded the same respect. The film review, on the other hand, is simply the process of providing a cursory "authoritative" explanation for an argument (is it "good or bad") that is pretty pointless. There's nothing personal about it -- no glimpse into the soul of the person writing -- just a dashing off of "what I liked and what I didn't." There's rarely any comparison to other art forms or placing of the film in a social or political context. It's as colorless as a studio coverage form, a checklist of "what worked and what didn't" with a few snarky turns of phrase tossed in the mix. They never really "say" anything, and it's hard to imagine any critic writing today publishing a compilation of their work 20 years from now, because their writing is only about the movie.

I suppose the question for me has always been, "how did the movie affect you" versus "is it a good movie?" Sometimes a movie that's important might not be pleasurable to me, or a movie that's memorable or artistic or unique might be something I'd never want to see again. There are movies that I think are terrible but I remember a scene or image as having a moment of wisdom. I don't feel qualified to "review" the work of someone who's put years of his or her life into a movie, but I do feel qualified to say how it affected me and why. I think if film criticism is to remain relevant, we need great writers bringing more of themselves into the mix. Perhaps when the audience gets to know their critics, and the critic has something on the line too, they will regain the influence of halcyon days when what a critic wrote really mattered.

"A critic is someone who enters the battlefield after the war is over and shoots the wounded."
—Murray Kempton

NEO-CULPA? NOT! ANOTHER OPEN LETTER to MR. SULLIVAN

2006-12-13T20:00:00.000-06:00

Last month, after seeing your post about the “neo-culpa” in Vanity Fair it occurred to me that the most import paragraph written about the proximate cause of the Iraq War and therefore the last few years may have appeared in Naomi Klein’s article “Baghdad Year Zero.” Specifically, her description of a strain of thought among certain conservative ideologues that assumes that any failure can only be the result of conservative ideology not having been applied ruthlessly enough.

My point is to well, point out, that Perle and his ilk have not reconsidered the logic that lead this country into Iraq, they’ve concluded that the Bush Administration was insufficiently pure of heart, so to speak, to give the new world they envisioned life. That means they’re still dangerous (read: a half dozen or so Kissingers), and it means that people like you can’t let them off the hook. They can’t be allowed to use a simple repudiation of the Bush administration’s execution of their disastrous misreading of the nature of things as a way to creep back into to the corridors of power.

It may seem like I’ve been hyperbolic above but stop and consider their Iran rumblings for a moment or the fact that Peter Galbraith never met with the Iraq study group but Kagan and Kristol did. I can’t help it …that scares me. Iraq could get worse.

2008 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES and CAUCUSES

2006-12-13T14:10:00.000-06:00

Does anyone else see encouraging news for the junior Senator from Illinois on the calander below ...or does anyone out there think he might loose South Carolina, D.C., Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, Hawai, Minnesota or Michigan?

* January 14, 2008 - Iowa
* January 19, 2008 - Nevada
* January 22, 2008 - New Hampshire
* January 29, 2008 - South Carolina
* February 5, 2008 - Delaware, Missouri
* February 12, 2008 - District of Columbia, Tennessee, Virginia
* February 19, 2008 - Wisconsin
* February 26, 2008 - Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho
* March 2008 (date to be determined) - American Samoa, Democrats Abroad, Guam, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Virgin Islands, Wyoming
* March 4, 2008 - Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont
* March 7, 2008 - Colorado, Utah
* March 8, 2008 - Kansas
* March 11, 2008 - Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas
* March 18, 2008 - Illinois, Oregon
* April 2008 (date to be determined) - Alaska
* April 1, 2008 - Pennsylvania
* May 6, 2008 - Indiana, North Carolina
* May 13, 2008 - Nebraska, West Virginia
* May 20, 2008 - Arkansas, Kentucky
* May 27, 2008 - Washington
* June 3, 2008 - Alabama, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota
* June 10, 2008 - California

It seems that in a one on one contest Senator Clinton would probably win out, but if the 2008 crop, as it seems likelt to, includes the regional "spoilers" like Biden, Richardson, Kerry, Edwards and Vilsack ... for once, KOS may be right and the contest may be Senator Obama's to loose.

DOES the REPUBLICAN PARTY HAVE ITS OWN DENNIS KUCINICH?

2006-12-13T11:44:00.000-06:00

Ok …I’m going to go semi conspiratorial for a moment. Ready? Here goes: I need someone to explain why the recently defeated Senator from RI (Lincoln Chaffee) has hit the liberal talk show circuit at full speed. You can take a look or listen to his outing to see for yourself. Ousted by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse and generally considered to have been the most liberal Senate Republican – Chaffee was the only Senate Republican who voted against the Iraq war. And during his lame duck term Chaffee notably and might I add nobly split with his GOP cohorts again when he opposed John Bolton nomination as Ambassador to the United Nations, because and I’ll quote:

"The American people have spoken out against the president's agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy,"

"And at this late stage in my term, I'm not going to endorse something the American people have spoke out against."

So here’s the kinda-conspiracy part …If we take him at his word that he won’t turn Democrat (and no man honorable enough to do the above should be distrusted) why is he chatting with John Stewart (with nary a book in hand) could it be that he’s thinking of becoming the republican party’s Dennis Kucinich and running for the nomination as a way of redeeming his party and perhaps even his good name – sounds like a blurb/ad for a “West Wing” spin-off, doesn’t it?

CRESENTS and STARS

2006-12-13T07:05:00.000-06:00

This is a problem and it couldn’t have come up at a worse time:

"...EU foreign ministers agreed Monday to punish Turkey for refusing to open its ports and airports to Cyprus, an EU member. They suspended talks on 8 of the 35 issues under negotiation ahead of the possible accession of the mainly Muslim country more than a decade from now. The decision is expected to be endorsed by EU leaders at their summit talks on Thursday.

"This decision is unfair to Turkey," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech. "Let us not forget that our friends in the EU also have promises they have not fulfilled."

He said that relations between Turkey and the EU were "going through a serious test, despite all our efforts."

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the EU's decision represented "a lack of vision."..."

Read it all HERE

Why? Because it is long past time that we Americans were disabused of the notion that there are, what we would call, “armies” in Europe – or elsewhere for that matter. Let me put it this way …there are essentially two kinds of military organizations in the developed world (read in the G-20 or so) . . . war-fighting armies and police force armies. And while the Europeans do indeed have plenty of police force army divisions laying around, there is only one war-fighting army in the EU (England’s) and it’s tied down along with ours in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for the remainder of Europe . . . Russia has a war-fighting army but it is doctrinally ill-equipped for peace-keeping (read: Chechnya) and Turkey is holding-out the prospect of using its rather large war-fighting army in such forays as a bargaining chip to get into the EU (a strategy that happens to depend on us throwing our weight on the scale – though for reasons that baffle me we haven’t – O’ and plain fear of obvious military impotence is partly why "Old Europe" needs a bit of coaxing). The Turks are also justifiably paranoid – worrying that if Dennis Kucinich & Arianna Huffington get their way, they’ll have to send it into Iraq to help counter whatever Iran and Syria try to cook up.

Unfortunately Turkey’s problems are pretty typical of the democracies with war-fighting armies (India, South Korea, Taiwan et al) and that means the United States should be doing more to help them sort-out freakin’ nonsense, like that nonsense above -- which is just my way of suggesting that 5,000 Turks would go a long way toward killing off our troubles in Southern Afganistan.

OPEN LETTER to THE DAILY DISH

2006-12-12T19:23:00.000-06:00

You’ve asked what you’ve called the “big question” so here’s my two-cent answer: Regardless of execution – there was simply no way for the United States to achieve its stated goals in Iraq.

Why? …That comes down to three items:

ONE: The Kurds were never going to buy into our “Unified Iraq” idea—and we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that they will now, just because they were smart enough to lease it for a year or so. TWO: Invading Iraq was always going to transform Iraq into a “failed state.” THREE: This thing folks around the State Dept used to call the “West Africa Rule” clearly applied to overall societal DNA of Iraq. Please allow me a moment more to illustrate with a bit more detail.

First, 98% of the Kurds voted for independence, they’ve always had their own political leadership, their own middle managers, their own economic development plan, and their own (rather large) army. They were always going to head for the exit door the first chance they got. And why wouldn’t they? Expecting them to be a part of Iraq is frankly obscene. It’s like asking the Jews to give up Israel and settle in Munich?

Second, yes I know that Failed State is an overused and too often misapplied term, but what it means when used correctly goes something like this: When a State loses and or lacks societal mortar, it has failed. The mortar in question consist entirely of its middle managers or “nurses and sergeants” …Ask yourself; which of two losses would be more damaging, an army loosing all of its sergeants in a day or loosing all of its generals in a day? You see what I’m getting at. The only middle managers Iraq (south of the green line) had to offer were Sunnis. De-baathification or no de-baathification, invading was always going to disenfranchise those Sunnis.

Third, that so-called “West Africa Rule” refers to a pair of interrelated observations many carry away from any substantial sojourn in West Africa. ONE: tribalism always produces a cleptocracy—the severity of which will be directly proportional to the degree to which the “nurses and sergeants” thing applies (read: Nigeria bad, Congo worse). TWO: the presence of natural resources = a fight (read: ANGOLA). In other words, the Shia were always going to rob the place blind, kill the Sunni, one another and eventually start a fight with the Kurds over the freakin’ oil.

ONCE for LIFE, ONCE for DEATH and ONCE for POWER

2006-12-12T18:57:00.000-06:00

You may not recognize the title of this post -- even if you happen to be a comic fan, it's a shortened version of the orginal Green Lantern blurb -- "three times will I shine, once for life, once for death and once for power" or so prophesized the lantern before it became the ring of power. Sadly, today we have news of the second:

Artist Martin Nodell, co-creator of the Golden Age Green Lantern, passed away on December 9 at age 91.

“Marty was a gentle soul who got a renewed lease on life from discovering his fans after years away from comics,” says DC Comics President & Publisher Paul Levitz. “He and Carrie delighted in the convention circuit, and we’ll miss both their warmth and laughter.”

Nodell began his comics career in the late 1930s, and first drew Green Lantern in 1940’s ALL-AMERICAN COMICS #16, working with writer/co-creator Bill Finger. The character proved popular enough to earn a solo title the following year. Nodell also illustrated the Green Lantern chapters for several Justice Society of America adventures in ALL STAR COMICS.

Nodell left DC Comics in the late 1940s to draw Captain America and other features for Timely before moving into advertising in 1950. Among other accomplishments, he is credited for creating the look of the Pillsbury Doughboy. Nodell returned to DC to draw Green Lantern on several occasions, including a page for GREEN LANTERN SECRET FILES in 2002.

DEATH on the BLUE NILE

2006-12-12T16:29:00.000-06:00

Every so often someone I know suggests that Marxism and it’s associated ideologies haven't been decisively discredited. I always think that if they could have seen the handiwork of Mengistu’s regime first hand I’d get to stop having the argument.

"...Mr. Mengistu ruled Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991, which included some of the darkest days of the country’s history, when government soldiers rounded up tens of thousands of students and intellectuals and brutally killed them in a campaign called the “Red Terror.” Human Rights Watch has labeled it “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa.”

Mr. Mengistu, 69, has been widely accused of killing many of the victims with his own hands, including Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie, who was strangled in bed, probably in 1975, and buried under a toilet.

Mr. Mengistu was also, in a way, responsible for the extended famine in 1984-85 that claimed 1 million lives and reinforced the image of Ethiopia as a poor and desperate country. He first denied the famine was even happening and flew in planeloads of whiskey while his people starved.

He was ousted by a guerrilla movement in 1991 and escaped to Zimbabwe, where he lives in a fancy — and heavily guarded — villa. The Zimbabwean government has indicated that it has no intention of extraditing him.According to Reuters, Ethiopia’s High Court decision said that Mr. Mengistu and his top officers “have conspired to destroy a political group and kill people with impunity.” The statement added “they set up a hit squad to decimate, torture and destroy groups opposing the Mengistu regime.” "

You can read the rest HERE.

FLASH and SUBSTANCE

2006-12-12T15:37:00.000-06:00

Maybe it’s just little ‘ole me, but every time someone somewhere brings up Senator Obama’s “lack of experience” as a negative, four things inevitably occur to me.

First, even a skim-style review of the last 50 years of national politics reveals that the individual who, indisputably, had the most experience when he assumed the Presidency was Richard M. Nixon.

Second, I can’t recall a single national election during that 50-year period in which “experience” played in favor of the eventual victor …For Example: When that 2^nd term Governor of a state where the Governor has little if any actual power and who lacked any other notable resume items (read: George W. Bush) defeated not one but two exceptionally well credentialed opponents (read: McCain and Gore) to become our current president.

I can however think of several examples of the more charismatic of two candidates emerging victorious. If anyone out there can think of a contrary example, I’d be happy to read it.

Third, other than Senator McCain and Vice Present Gore, none of the top-ranked 2008 hopefuls or talked-ups has all that much in the way of “experience either”. Warner was a one-term Governor of a state less populous than New York City. Romney is one term governor. John Edwards was a one term Senator. Wesley Clark has never held elective office or any governmental post outside of the military. Rudolph Giuliani was only the MAYOR of New York City.

O' and that still means Giuliani’s been the elected representative of more Americans than ANY of the current presumed contenders—other than Gore, Clinton and Obama.

Fourth, by far the most pressing concern facing the U.S. is a broken foreign policy ....and foreign policy simply does not emerge from individuals. It flows out of circles and or schools of thought. In other words … No one neo-conservative is responsible for Iraq, their school of thought is. No one RealPolitik purveyor (neither Kissinger or Brzezinski) is responsible for the paradigm that has caused us to regard the nuclear-proliferating, terrorism sponsoring despots of Pakistan as ¿allies? – the entire circle slash school is at fault.

But, how does that pertain to Senator Obama? Simple. The foreign policy types around him (Samantha Power et al) subscribe to the only school of thought that hasn’t been completely discredited by the last decade. So if you’ve realized that “we” need to kiss the neo-cons and the Kissinger / Brzezinski RealPolitik types a long overdue goodbye – Senator Obama becoming President Obama is the key.

The others will just offer us more of what we've already have far too much of.

UPDATE:

Just because I'm a fan of well formed thoughts in phrase ... I'd like to point out this editorial from TSPI:

"..The "wise men" of Washington, D.C., punditry have no business defining wisdom. Until recently, they performed as supine dorks backing the Bush administration's Iraq fiasco -- ignoring legitimate questions posed by dissenters like Obama."

HORN of AFRICA WATCH

2006-12-12T10:43:00.000-06:00

Here's something folks may want to know . . .

“The fighting appear to be the fiercest yet between militiamen allied to the Somali Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), which controls most of south-central Somalia, and Ethiopian-backed government troops. The SCIC has been steadily approaching Baidoa in recent weeks and has taken most of the surrounding towns and villages.

Salad Ali Jelle, the government's Deputy Defence Minister, told Reuters yesterday that 'war could start any minute because we are so close to each other'.

Many analysts and diplomats in Nairobi see a full-scale conflict in the coming weeks and months as inevitable. Though peace talks are scheduled to resume in Khartoum on Friday, a government spokesman said that they were 'a waste of time' and both sides have continued preparing for war.

With Ethiopia firmly backing the government - it has sent at least 6,000 troops into the country, analysts believe - and Eritrea taking the side of the Courts, the looming conflict could plunge the entire region into turmoil.”

…You can read the rest HERE.

Seeing as how Ethiopia is currently making incursions into Somalia that are more in our interests, vis-à-vis the war on terror, than Israel's summer assault on Lebanon (as distinguished from its attack of Hezzbolah -- which to be frank wasn't that helpful either), crazed wild-eyed hippies like myself think that maybe we should be doing something about it that Bush and Co aren't . . . Like maybe backing them publically or giving them more aid financially or . . . what's the word I'm looking for . . . REALLY helping them! (NOTE: No, 1,800 trainers scattered across an area larger than Western Europe doesn't count).

God forbid that we should have policy that didn't give one group of jihadist the breathing room to recover and re-arm while we're focused on another group.

THOSE DOWNLOADING FOOLS

2006-09-25T19:02:00.000-05:00

Last week, the blogger known as Motley Fool found a video download link while searching for "fitness" on Netflix.com …That link has been pulled down since then, but now that Apple's iTune's service and Amazon.com have unveiled their respective movie download plans, can Netflix.com be far behind?

When asked Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey recapped the company's announcement that they were in discussions with TiVo on a download development deal but said they have no other comment.

The company has plans to discuss its downloading plan in January.

CRUSHING THE COLLECTIVE SPIRIT OF WOULD-BE COMPETITORS

2006-09-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

Just a few days ago Apple threw its yearly "lets crush the collective spirit of our would-be competitors by announcing a new slate of hardware and services. If you want in on all the tech-geek babble surrounding all the new iPods, the movie store that every studio in Hollywood will be trying to get in on by this time next week, I'd recommend that you check out WIRED. Here at THIRD WAVE CENTRAL, we're only interested in how Apple's newest offering will affect the online short film market we've clearly become totally freakin' obsessed with.

Well, our initial impression goes something like: This is great news for Channel 101 fans.

First of all, video iPod screen resolutions are going up and hard-drives are getting larger. On the video front everything is moving up to 640x480, (basically four times the resolution of previous iPods and hard drive capacity is being upped to an impressive 80 gigs.

Besides which, Apple announced a new "iTV" set top box (see below) that will allow you to play iTunes content on your TV without going on a mad scientist wiring binge first (which might attract the attention of the FBI these days). To sum up: When I read all about it all, the words "user friendly" and "inevitable success" sprang immediately to mind.

TV ON THE DESKTOP

2006-09-18T02:03:00.000-05:00

In what has to be considered an almost bizarre turn of the worm, Apple recently pre-announced (yes, you read that correctly) a wireless video streaming set-top box scheduled to hit streets in 2007. For the moment the whole thing is known as iTV, and looks a bit like a flattened mini Mac – but according to the grapevine the iTV is around half the height of Mac mini – features a built-in power supply that hopefully won't overheat, Ethernet, USB 2.0, 802.11 "wireless component video", HDMI plus optical audio ports, and just plain RCA stereo audio ports besides. Compatible with Apple's standard remote, the iTV box will ship with an updated (right-handed?) version of the Front Row interface.

Reportedly, iTV will work with iTunes on PCs and Macs alike, and will retail for $299.00

The Shorts Circuit: ShortTV (PT 2)

2006-09-04T16:25:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

WizWak accepts submissions in genres from Humor to Animation and beyond, ranging from 10 seconds to 3minutes in length, (though run times under 1minute are preferred) and offers filmmakers the option of either uploading their films directly or submitting on Mini-DV.

Meanwhile, the folks over at ShortTV are seeking submissions in all genres and all formats. And unlike some online distributors who claim to accept all genres while in reality focusing on home video comedy, bloopers and the like, ShortTV actually means it.

Their current lineup ranges from Jesse Johnson's 12minute, 47second futuristic action thriller Death Row: The Tournament to Zaki Gordon's 30minute drama Geometry of Death to Jesse Griffith's 7minute western Southpaw and even includes a mockumentary. They didn't say so specifically, but a review of their acquisitions suggests that despite their logo, they prefer longer shorts.

But, don't get discouraged if your short doesn't make it onto TV, it'll still have a chance to be on the ShortTV website.

The Shorts Circuit: ShortTV (PT 1)

2006-08-31T15:07:00.000-05:00

Of all the shorts distributors I've looked into, ShortTV is my favorite. By every possible measure their acquisitions represent a diverse, mature and clearly talented swath of independent filmmakers. Founded by former real estate entrepreneur Roland Dibs back in 1999 and billed as the "Only Cable Company Dedicated to Shorts," ShortTV is an independent short film channel and e-cinema broadcaster made up three entities—ShortTV, ShortTV.com and its sister site WizWak.com—devoted to supporting short filmmakers by providing a distribution venue aimed squarely at a mass audience.

ShortTV currently broadcasts out of New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit and Philadelphia. ShortTV.com is one of the Net's top digital entertainment sites dedicated to showcasing short films and animation via cutting edge interactive technology. WizWak.com fills in the gap between the two by offering short films aimed at cell phones.

Together, the three have practically assailed the digital entertainment marketplace through a network of web sites and mobile operator partnerships and cable providers to sell short films to millions of consumers worldwide. And unlike many of the other short film venues I've covered here, I didn't have to bone up on Long Tail economic theory to get a handle on exactly how they earn a profit.

More to the point, the compensation formula over at WizWak is especially filmmaker friendly, they offer a percentage and a limited licensing package. Moreover, with the help of a username and a password, filmmakers can actually track how many times their short has been purchased and thereby calculate their profits at any time.

On the hand, over at ShortTV things are handled in a way that's practically traditional by comparison.

"The point is to introduce shorts to the masses," said ShortTV CEO Roland Dib. "The Net is a place to distribute . . . but we're a cable outlet first and an e-cinema outlet second. Our business model doesn't call for revenue to be generated by our website. ShortTV is available to over 2million viewers from New York to San Francisco and that's where we make a profit. It's also just plain sexier to be able to say that your film is going to be on TV."

I love the web as much as the next guy, but I couldn't agree more.

The Shorts Circuit: Motion Matrix (PT 2)

2006-08-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

Motion Matrix is open to film submissions of all genres, with a variety of subjects—from horror or documentary to stand-up comedy concert firms to just plain comedies. But. They will need to have running times of 15 minutes or less (2 and 15 minutes for dramatic and 20 minutes or less for stand up and docu). They recommend submitting 1st generation clones of original masters as QuickTime or .avi files – to make conversion easier on their technicians.

For applicable forms and more information on how to go about submitting films to Motion Matrix, you'll want to pay a visit to: http://www.motionflicks.com/.

The Shorts Circuit: Motion Matrix (PT 1)

2006-08-25T11:19:00.000-05:00

This was supposed to be my first Chicago-based short film distributor profile—it's not. Please allow me to explain. Not two weeks ago I came across an ad on Chicago Craigslist soliciting shorts of all kind for distribution via a new website and more importantly promising payment. Because the ad appeared first on Chicago Craigslist, I decided to look into the company in question because I assumed that they must be locals. I was wrong. But even though that company isn't based here, they have a set-up that is more than worth hearing about.

In the ever-expanding world of online short film distributors, the folks over at Motion Matrix are literally the new kids on the block. Founded by Bradley Wynn and Jay Tuli and launched early last summer, Motion Matrix offers short filmmakers exposure, revenue and services—from "script services" and production insurance to digital post-production facilities and original music composition to help make producing high-quality but budget conscious work a little easier. Motionflicks.com, features streamable short films, specialized content aimed at a base of monthly subscribers, filmmaking advice and more.

Motion Matrix also reps a select group of shorts, with an eye toward securing domestic and foreign offline distribution deals for them. No, they don't promise to take every film accepted for exhibition on the website, "public" as it were, but they do promise the filmmakers that they'll do their best to. You couldn't really ask for much more than that.

The key to Motion Matrix, seems to be their focus on helping to create or rather assist in the continuing evolution of the new media market they're doing business in.

"If you want people to adapt to the internet to view this type of content, the quality needs to be on par with more conventional means," said Motion Matrix co-founder and fellow Georgetown grad Jay Tuli. "We spend a lot of time encoding, testing and retesting our films. We'd like to be a one-stop shop for filmmakers and film watchers. We'd like be somebody to come to Motionflicks.com, watch our films, order them on DVD, learn about the film industry and spread the word. Similarly, filmmakers can get help with their latest film project and when that project is completed use Motion Matrix to distribute their film."

LAPTOP POST PRODUCTION (PT 2)

2006-08-23T13:25:00.000-05:00

The Technical Term For It Is Disintermediation

Let's just face facts. We live in a culture increasingly obsessed with cutting out the middle man. Bloggers don't like the idea that News Editors get to pick the story that goes on page one. TiVo users don't like network execs to decide when their favorite show will air. Film directors are less than thrilled by the prospect of dropping work off at a post production house then coming back later to see what's been done with it.

The technical term for all of that is Disintermediation. But if you're a filmmaker, are the tools to act on it, really, readily at hand? The short answer is ... yes. After years of nonlinear digital post production development, it's finally evolved into a mature, readily available and more importantly easily used technology. Ubiquitous FireWire ports have removed connectivity hindrances so basically anyone with a computer can download digital video.

You can cut that video, edit its soundtrack, add titles and author it to DVD with a $1,100.00 program suite like Apple's Final Cut Studio, (it combines Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion and DVD Studio Pro) that's relatively easy to use as accessible as your nearest Amazon.com and that will run on just about Mac. Even those without Macs have access to similar suites like Adobe's $999 Premiere Pro; that will run on any mid range PC.

"We envisioned video editing becoming a commercial commodity akin to desktop publishing," said Adobe Premiere's Group Product Manager Richard Townhill, who's long believed that a technological "perfect storm" would free post production from capital-intensive facilities "All we were waiting for was processing power in everyday PCs. Now you can shoot with an HD camera, feed the output into a Premiere-equipped PC, edit it and get HD playback with Dolby Surround Sound."

Not so long ago post professionals like Pinnacle Systems Laurin Herr were predicting that there would always be a place for traditional post houses because: ". . . There will always be expensive specialty pieces of the chain that only established facilities can afford, including telecines, cutting-edge graphics generators and color correction units."

But his reasoning just doesn't hold water anymore. Thanks to growing the popularity of HD video with independent filmmakers and the proliferation of three-CCD HD camcorders like Canon's XH G1, and new disc-based cameras like Sony's XDCAM'S, the need for professional telecine services that dominated the post scene of the not so distant past has reached the end of its rope.

Both Final Cut and Premiere include a color correction utility. And, as for the high-end graphics and visual effects side of the post production equation, there's software that's laptop compatible enough, like Adobe's After Effects or Apple's Motion but general consensus among amateur users seems indicate that no such application boasts the ease of use that characterizes most sound and video editing software. Of course, there's always tomorrow.

LAPTOP POST PRODUCTION (PT 1)

2006-08-18T12:20:00.000-05:00

A Practical Reality or Just a Reality?

Fighter pilots and post production professionals have something in common, and they may not even be aware of it. Since the advent of the jet age, big thinkers and louder commentators have risen occasionally to declare that technology had rendered the primary function of fighter pilots, which is to say winning dogfights, cool but pointless and redundant nonetheless.

You may not see the connection, but ever since the first Avid editing systems were introduced, thinkers and commentators have said the same thing about post production houses.

History Channel addicts among you, will no doubt be quick to point out that those big thinkers have always been flat wrong about technology's impact on the efficacy of fighter pilots. This time however, they may be right about its effect on future of post production.

One only needs to note the recent fate of well known Chicago-area post houses like Superior Street and S2/Swell. Even though an industry-wide dispersion in ad revenue is partly to blame, technology is taking its toll as well.

Earlier this year the editor of an editor friend of mine asked me if I had any thoughts on the matter and not long afterward, I came across an interview featuring Director David Fincher. He casually mentioned that he'd done most of editing on his new film Zodiac on his laptop while loitering about in airports.

Even if Fincher exaggerated a bit, the viability that statement is still worth looking into.

The Shorts Circuit: Channel 101 (PT 2)

2006-08-16T22:48:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

In the meantime Channel 101 is open to submissions, the rules are pretty simple and their ten points of advice are truly sight to see. (Follow the Hate, Deny Everything and Turn on the Air Conditioner—to name a few). 101 is truly, where the rubber meets the road.

If you're interested, submit a 5-minute pilot, and Channel 101 may choose to show it at one of their increasingly popular and well-attended monthly screenings. During which an audience will vote, ala Live at the Apollo, to decide which pilots will be picked up for another episode. If yours is picked up, you can be part of the group that selects new pilots.

It's that simple.

The judgments are blunt, the lessons painful and even if a show's "picked up," the deadlines are perverse, the time limits are impractical and the pay for all but the site's owners is non-existent. But, the shows on Channel 101 are almost painful reminders of just how much quality comedy isn't on TV at the moment. And, to say that the right people are noticed is an understatement.

The Shorts Circuit: Channel 101(PT 1)

2006-08-15T01:34:00.000-05:00

There seem to be two distinct questions on the minds of those who've followed this series with any level of interest. The first group always revolves around requests for additional markets and venues—to which I can only reply that I haven't been referring to this as an ongoing series for nothing. There definitely are more short film distributor profiles on the way. The second group of questions tends to concern an issue that's a bit more complicated. They usually go something like ...

Is there any room left on the venue side of this new shorts business for ambitious newcomers? The short answer is: Yes. The long answer is: Yes, and if you don't believe me, now would be the time to look at the story of an online cinema call to arms known as Channel 101.

Back in 2003, a pair of former FOX Network employees (Dan Harmon and Rob Scrab) got the idea to expand their private short film challenge parties into the "Super Midnight Movie Show." An almost festival defined by moving them out of Schrab's living room into the Improv Olympic West and setting up rules including a monthly schedule, a five minute time limit on entries and by opening them up them up to the public.

Before the end of the year, the Super Midnight had become the Channel101.com—essentially an L.A.-based underground television network (their sister network Channel 102 is based in NY) that gives participants the opportunity to create a show of their own and attract a fan base.

These days Channel 101 is an almost institution that attracts a slate of fun, creative and conspicuously well-made five-minute "shows" made mostly by unknowns, high profile guest stars (both Drew Carrey and Jack Black have shown up), has its own motto: "Every month you sit around thinking about what you're going to do is a month you could've done something," is available on iTunes and that bills itself as the unavoidable future of entertainment. And, they may just be right.

"We called 101 the Unavoidable Future of Entertainment because we saw this day coming," said co-founder Dan Harmon. "Not only does podcasting make for a bandwidth-friendly way to enjoy our network, we like to think of its syndication via iTunes and Fireant as a way of taking a jackhammer to traditional television's foundation. Never mind. Don't hurt yourself. Just imagine being able to watch our stuff at the laundromat."

Of course, the point is that you don't have to imagine, web-surfers everywhere can visit Channel101.com, iTunes or Fireant and see for themselves—more importantly, short form entertainment fans in New York or Los Angeles can stop by one of those live monthly screenings and see for themselves. "More importantly," because that particular list of cities begs the question at the center of my musings this week:

Why are you sending me questions instead of starting Channel 103?

The Shorts Circuit: BritShorts LTD (PT 2)

2006-08-14T00:55:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

There are really two important things about BritShorts that aspiring 60-second auteurs will want to remember:

The first is that although they’re based in the UK, Shorts International’s outlook is as good as its name. They operate a satellite office in New York and all the information you’ll need to submit is available on their website - shortsinternational.com.

The Second, is that while BritShorts’ buyers at do have high standards, they also want and need you and your film. They’re looking for shorts submissions of all lengths (but those between 7 and 10 minutes are encouraged) in all “appropriate” genres—because the market they sell to is large and it’s getting larger.

The Shorts Circuit: BritShorts LTD

2006-08-07T15:31:00.000-05:00

If you’ve come across this series before, you’ve probably noticed that the word “international” has popped up more than once in context of describing the marketplace for Chicago-made short films. Given that I’ve only discussed the international side of the shorts business in terms of audience and potential venues until now, you may be tempted to assume that’s where it begins and ends.

Fortunately, it wouldn’t take more than a casual look at BritShorts LTD’s operation to convince you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Founded back in 2000 by old guard producers Barnaby Thompson and Robert Fox and based in London, the folks at BritShorts have quickly become the premiere short film specialists in the UK. To simply refer to them as a full-service short film distribution co. might even be an understatement. Through their programming arm, the aptly named Shorts International, they supply over 120 broadcasters worldwide—across every platform and every medium.

Boasting what they consider to be the “world’s largest collection of short films,” BritShorts’s dabbles in production but their focus is on licensing. They provide “branded entertainment” shorts to companies ranging from Nike and Tiscali to Diesel and Jameson Whiskey and programming to internet providers, television broadcasters, and even airlines. They’ve also partnered with O2, Nokia and the French telecom group Orange, to offer the mobile channel Shorts TV.

Like most other companies in the short film business, that’s where they see the future.

“Short films, created by the world's hottest new filmmakers, are perfectly in tune with this new format because they are at the cutting edge of filmmaking," said Carter Pilcher, CEO of Shorts International. “Not only is the format good news for broadcasters, it’s great news for aspiring filmmakers. Their films will be seen by much wider audiences, greatly increasing both sales and the chances that individual films will receive exposure and acclaim.”

Mobile Media Providers Aren't Having a Good Summer

2006-08-03T15:57:00.000-05:00

Last week business watchers from Bloomberg to The Wall Street Journal, started reporting that the "wave of cell pone start-ups" counting on iFilm and YouTube style home movies and bloopers plus music videos to lure users has begun to flounder. Mobile video startups from Amp'd Mobile to Mobile ESPN have signed up fewer than 10,000 new subscribers apiece.

Even though the advertising to support mobile content has taken off to the tune of an estimated $10 billion over the next four years, carriers don't seem to be the beneficiaries.

Specialized mobile content providers such as WizWak.com and AtomFilms to Go are the ones posting black ink. That's bad news for Cingular, Verizon and Nextel but I think it's good news for short filmmakers. Because it means that that the "wow factor" of a new technology has worn off and users are migrating away from video scrap to higher quality offerings.

The explosion of specialized niche content providers seems posed to relegate Verizon Cingular and others to little more than service provider status. A recent report from Detecon Consulting lays the phenomenon out in relatively plain English:

"The walled garden approach to exclusive content and entertainment with service offerings is not working, as entertainment options proliferate and the mobile operators face competition from more versatile devices like BlackBerries, WiFi-equipped PSP's, and Video iPods."

That's a fancy way of saying that subscriber dependant service like Mobile ESPN, simply isn't equipped to compete with the built-in versatility of a company like NanoTV.

The Shorts Circuit: Tigris Films (PT 3)

2006-07-31T07:46:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

Those of you who’ve been keeping up with this series will have already noted that taken as a whole, the above adds up to the fact that because of Nano TV, Tigris Films is in the market for all three time categories of shorts (cell cinema, online and international TV).

Like the buyers over at AtomFilms, the buyers at Tigris/Big Film Shorts are particularly market conscious when it comes to acquiring shorts, so if there’s a niche for it, they’ll consider it. But they won’t consider acquiring films that may be bogged down with clearance issues.

For detailed submission information, I’d recommend paying a visit to bigfilmshorts.com.

The Shorts Circuit: Tigris Films (PT 2)

2006-07-28T14:28:00.000-05:00

Big Film Shorts

The oldest of the three partners, Big Film Shorts has been in the shorts distribution business since 1996. They buy shorts of all genres, lengths, and national origins from the experimental to the mainstream, including dramas and genre pieces, but especially comedies, gay-themed and animated shorts shot on film or video. That means that there’s plenty of competition.

But, they also license shorts to domestic and foreign broadcasters, DVD packagers, web-casters and theatrical exhibitors worldwide—so there’s quite a demand for quality product.

Operating under a belief system, best articulated by founder and Tigris Film president David Russell, that short films are "great gems of truth and enjoyment," BFS does cruise well-known festivals such as Sundance, Telluride and Cannes looking for films but they also accept submissions.

Nano TV

On the venue side, Tigris branched out in 2003 with Nano TV, the first short film channel in the United States. Designed to provide a new and exciting entertainment alternative to tech-savvy consumers, Nano exhibits online through iN DEMAND Cable and via Sprint’s Mobi TV, offering content drawn from the combined Tigris Films/Big Film Shorts library.

The Cloud 9 Festival

Even though I’ve purposefully tried to steer clear of profiles centered around the festival circuit, like the Cellflix Festival, the Cloud 9 Short Film Festival is an exception worth mentioning. Co-sponsored by Tigris and Frontier Airlines, the “Festival” (it’s really more of a contest) boasts viewer judges, audience-based exposure and a $5,000 grand prize. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The films selected for the competition are available online at gowildblueyonder.com and each month Cloud 9 provides a fresh program of short films for Frontier’s customers.

To Be Continued . . .

The Shorts Circuit: Tigris Films (PT1)

2006-07-27T21:18:00.000-05:00

Let me ask you a quick question: Are you working on a short subject that could impress judges and attract contest dollars, or a film that would engage an airline or international television audience?

Now that we’ve come to the conclusion that there is, in fact, a growing number of venues out there for short films, a paradigm shift in the way we think about producing shorts is past due. Forget feature film festivals and their short subject addenda. Right now, the most import thing to focus on as you produce a short, is its’ intended market.

Fortunately, even if you can’t decide, there’s a company you can look into. Founded by Jon Nash in 2001, Tigris Films specializes in distributing short films to buyers ranging from Spain’s Morphe Arte and Italy’s Village SRL to Denver’s Frontier Airlines. They operate as sales agents for short filmmakers and as consultants for film bookers and programmers.

More importantly, though begun independently, Tigris is the parent company of both Big Film Shorts and Nano TV as well as the co-sponsor of Frontier’s monthly Cloud 9 shorts festival.

To Be Continued . . .

The Shorts Circuit: AtomFilms (PT 2)

2006-07-26T08:59:00.000-05:00

The Bottom Line

Most of the below is simply fancy way of saying that if you’re looking for a distribution venue that will offer your short film the maximum possible exposure, AtomFilms just may be the place to turn. They pay both an up-front acquisition fee and continuing royalties. And more notably perhaps, once you’ve sold to Atom, they’ll offer you an avenue to seek financing for subsequent films.

Before you get too far ahead of yourself, here are the basics what you’ll need to know to submit to AtomFilms:

First off, Atom accepts both animated and live action submissions in all genres so long as the films include neither pornographic nor infringing content. Second, they prefer their shorts under five minutes but will consider films as long as 15 minutes. Third, you’ll be able to mail submissions to their San Francisco offices or submit via email. Fourth and finally, proper clearances will be required for the actors and elements in your film, so be sure to have all of your paperwork ducks in a row.

The Shorts Circuit: AtomFilms

2006-07-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

You’ve got a short film to sell, so you need to understand that the expanding reach of broadband Internet access has changed everything. That’s right, literally every aspect of short film distribution has been affected by faster download speeds. New opportunities for short filmmakers are popping up every day. Or at least that’s how the hype goes. But before there was any hype, there was an AtomFilms. When the company first appeared back in 1999, there were almost no online venues for short films.

These days, there are dozens of specialized film sites following www.atomfilms.com’s lead—financing their efforts with a profitable combination of advertising, sponsorship, e-commerce, subscriptions, and partnerships, paying filmmakers a percentage of ad revenue based on how often a film is downloaded (i.e. the more popular a film is, the more it will make) and most notably, chasing wider and wider distribution channels.

Even if one were inclined to discount the good PR, it would be hard to make a case for a better first stop for a filmmaker with a short under 15-munutes to sell than AtomFilms. Not only does their site boast a list of contributors from short filmmaking’s biggest names—including Joe Cartoon, JibJab and Aardman, it claims a monthly audience of between 13 and 30-million visitors as well.

According to Atom Entertainment’s CEO Mika Salmi. “Short-form, on-demand entertainment is something we started in 1998. AtomFilms enables innovative filmmakers and animators to earn money and reach a large audience.”

Most recently, Atom’s been signing distribution deals that have extended their reach to AOL, Singingfish, BlinkxTV and other video-friendly search engines—and their newest service, AtomFilms To Go, has made the company a player in the mobile device cinema market via Verizon’s V Cast and platforms, from Sony’s PlayStation Portable and Apple’s iPod to Creative's Zen Vision: M.

“The ad market for online-video sites and content is just blowing up, so now there is a race among the large media companies to acquire video inventories, but there's very little quality short-form video available." said Scott Roesch, JibJab partner and Vice President and General Manager of Atom. “Fortunately, AtomFilms has a longstanding history of opening doors for today’s most promising filmmakers and animators,”

TO BE CON'T

MINUTE BY MINUTE (PT 4)

2006-07-22T14:49:00.000-05:00

From 20 to 30-Minutes, International Television and Short Films

Shorts and the web may seem like the perfect match, and in many respects they are. But short subjects are a rather popular feature of Canadian television and an incredibly popular one throughout Asia and across Western and Eastern Europe, and scores of companies have cropped up to drop some serious coin on acquisitions.

The economics of turning a profit will be a bit more complicated, but more than worth the effort as well.

International cable channels such as Germany’s Premiere, IFM, Canal Plus, Channel 4, he BBC, Canada’s Movieola Channel and others will typically buy a one to three year exclusive license on a short film for. Depending on the contract, during that same period a film may be available for broadcast over the internet. In some cases, sellers may be free to license a short to an additional venue such as Frontier Airlines or Amtrak Europe.

According to Roger Gonin, director of France’s Clermont-Ferrand short film festival, "There are more opportunities in Europe than North America for short film makers because short films have a different status and have been recognized more years."

Essentially, you can expect a distributor such as Big Film Shorts or Apollo Cinema to work to sell your short and have it shown anywhere possible, worldwide. After the first license expires, the distributor can then take your film to regional programmers, where contracts usually aren’t so exclusive.

“Shorts can generate advertising revenue with product placement. And a new trend is their use in infotainment.” Said iFILM’s John Halecky.

He isn’t wrong. BMW’s high-powered campaign of short films as advertisements opened a door that other advertisers have practically been falling over themselves to get through. Ford, Amazon.com, Volkswagen and DKNY have all followed BMW’s lead and according to Forbes Magazine’s Melanie Wells more advertisers are on the way.

NBC LAUNCHING WEBISODE SPINOFF OF THE OFFICE

2006-07-21T15:34:00.000-05:00

NBC has just launched an online spinoff of its remake of the fantastic BBC sitcom The Office in the form of The Office: The Accountants--a two-minute webisodes. The story will be perpendicular to the main show narrative of venom, drudgery, and lust among the cubicles of Dunder-Mifflin, and concerns an internal investigation into expense-account shenanigans.

MINUTE BY MINUTE (PT3)

2006-07-20T10:54:00.000-05:00

From 5-minutes to 15-minutes, The World of Online Shorts

Earlier this year, the video search engine Blinkx.TV partnered with a group of short film providers—LoveFilm, Tiscali, BBC Film Network, World Cinema Online and others to make thousands of hours of worth of short films available online. It was only the latest move by a company determined to get in on the media revolution that’s leaning more and more heavily on the world-wide-web.

"Shorts have a growing following globally; all the major film festivals now incorporate a section devoted to showcasing them,” said Suranga Chandratillake, Founder and CTO of Blinkx.

This isn’t the first time that comenators have been stepping up to declare that virtually overnight, the ineternet seems to have become “thee” place for entertainment. Back in the late 1990s a slate of online soap operas ignited the same buzz machine before flarring out just as quickly as they’d arrived. But today those predictions, with the exception of those attributing “overnight success” to an eight year-old company like Atom Entertainment, are getting it just about right.

The broadband connections available to hundreds of millions of subscribers worldwide have led media behemoths from NBC and Disney to Viacom to purchase stakes in popular web portals in order to take an active hand in steering traffic to their publicity and commerce sites. Increasingly these same media conglomerates are partnering with short film websites— basically viewing them as farm teams for tomorrow's entertainment franchises.

Supplied by a growing army of computer savvy independent filmmakers from Greenwich Village to Wicker Park to Santa Monica, a solid block of shorts oriented sites has emerged. From the comedy centric Icebox to Shorts T.V. to the comparatively tiny UrbanChillers and the higher profile eBaum’s World—an online comedy showcase that boast over a million hits a day. Together, they’ve quietly become a New Hollywood that’s offering up hundreds of short bursts of entertainment for desktops everywhere.

Funded by a combination of underwriting/partnerships schemes and advertising placed in front of or besides the shorts, alt-online TV networks are still on the rise. CHANNEL 101, for example, only attracts around 30,000 viewers a day with its slate of audience programmed 5-minute comedies.

"We had a strong sense when we started there was an audience that wanted alternative entertainment content," said Mika Salmi, the founder and CEO of AtomFilms. "At some point the internet, or broadband entertainment, will be the home base for anything related to video. Some will look like odds and ends, some will look like TV. We want to provide the right content ... we believe in snack-sized content."

For would-be producers, the most important fact to take out of all of this is that all of these online venues are more or less fully dependant on submissions from independent filmmakers. But the history of the film business (as epitomized by the Hal Roach Studios or to a lesser degree the Republic Pictures model) seems to suggest that specialized shorts production companies are the next step over the horizon.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

MINUTE BY MINUTE (PT2)

2006-07-19T12:07:00.000-05:00

From 60 to 180 Seconds, The World of Cell Cinema

Ever since Verizon introduced its LGVX8000 handset, Apple its 60GB Video iPod, and Sony its video capable Play Station Portable, technology wonks have been divided over the viability of Cell-delivered Cinema. For aspiring mini-moguls however, the answers are simpler. Does take too long to load video content? Yes. Can the buffering issues be aggravating? Yes. Will VCast, MobiTV and their cousins catch on? Of course they will. After all, not so long ago, today’s ubiquitous online video feeds faced the same problems.

More importantly, because there are far more cell phones than computers floating around in our world, the demand for cell cinema may create a much more substantial venue than computer’s have.

For the moment, filmmakers interested in producing 60 to 180-second shorts have a variety of options. For instance; Sprint’s MobiTV offers content from numerous shorts clearing houses—including the UK’s Channel 4, the aptly named ShortsTV, Nano TV, and iFilm (who also supplies Cingular Video). There are similar services popping up everywhere from Germany’s Debital and Vodafone to a Latin American take on MobiTV to Nokia’s new service for Kuwait and Qatar. Even online shorts pioneer Atom Films is offering a new “To Go” service aimed at iPod and PSP users.

But, according to Tim Bajarin, president of the futurist firm Creative Strategies. “Wireless carriers haven't really figured out the best business model for getting the content onto Palm's Treo 650 or Sony's PlayStation Portable. The issue continues to be figuring out exactly what people will want."

“Mobile movies have to be created with mobile users in mind, featuring simple storylines, basic characters and sharp writing,” said Mitchell Weinstock, vice president of business development for smart phone media player and production tool developer Kinoma.

So the trick will be producing high-quality short films with running times of three minutes or less. Or, as Verizon's associate director of programming Alex Bloom put it, "A mobile device is not the place for a 30-minute show, I don't think people have the time or the patience."

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

MINUTE BY MINUTE (PT 1)

2006-07-18T08:52:00.000-05:00

Selling Short Films In a Flat World

For the first time since aforementioned mini-moguls like Mack Sennett and Hal Roach made their fortunes producing short films for theatrical distribution, talk that short filmmaking is back with a vengeance, isn’t hype. A perfect storm of rapid bandwidth improvements, increasingly media-friendly delivery venues and a globalized network of sales outlets has given birth to an enormous market for shorts ranging from 60-seconds to 30-minutes in length.

Whether you’re ready for it or not, the future of short filmmaking is becoming clear. It’s a genuine revolution that every filmmaker and would-be filmmaker needs to be more aware of. Hordes of well-known film and television production companies are stepping into the Online and Cell Cinema Markets, but they can’t satisfy these new content demands on their own.

The marketplace is hungry for talented newcomers with the ambition to take advantage of the opportunity it represents. But to properly exploit it, filmmakers need to come by a workable understanding its structure and needs.

First and foremost, the most important thing for filmmakers to bear in mind will be that the “marketplace” is in fact made up of three separate and distinct markets. Secondly, and this is really good news, access to all three markets will be less dependant on an accumulation of frequent flyer miles by visiting film festivals than on having a DSL line or a cable modem.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

GOODBYE MICKEY SPILLANE, DEAD AT 88

2006-07-17T19:38:00.000-05:00

If you've figured out why the production company that runs this joint is called "ArsonPlus," you've figured out why I'd like to stray of topic for a few moments to post a goodbye to Mickey Spillane.

Usually I'd be verbose, but today, I just want to drop Kiss Me Deadly into the DVD player and "say:"

"Va Va Voom, Pretty Pow!" Translation: Rest in Peace Brother!

LONG LIVE THE NEW SHORT (PT 4)

2006-07-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

The Challenge for the Creative Class

You don't take my word for it, there's a whole school of "Third Wave" economists (most notably Chris Anderson's Long Tail), whose niche market entertainment theories and business models can back me up.

Or you could just do the math.

The question isn’t "can" short films be profitable. The question is: Where will the shorts that feed these burgeoning markets be produced? The overwhelming consensus among distributors is that there is a built-in bias favoring both comedies and American made films (comedies are among the international market’s biggest sellers). But that advantage has been largely ignored and the door won’t stay open forever.

This is a tremendous opportunity and boutique production companies should be the result.

Ever since the Tarantino Generation hit film-schools en masse back in the 90s, most large urban areas have suffered from an over-abundance of both comic and filmmaking talent. Fortunately for them, those same areas are also rife with investors on the look out for new opportunities. After all, Tom Friedman’s popular Flat World theory goes both ways. We're sitting on the cusp of an opportunity that only vision can exploit.

Creating short-form filmed entertainment for a changing world.

The films will be produced somewhere. If we decide to make it here, it will definitely bring much needed revenue and film financing dollars into our cities. Last year, Dallas-Fort Worth’s “new media” community brought a staggering $800 million in revenue—with only a fraction of even Miami or Boston's creative resources. This time, being late for a party won’t be a good thing, or good enough.

LONG LIVE THE NEW SHORT (PT 3)

2006-07-15T02:47:00.000-05:00

The Revenge of Hal Roach

If you’re an ambitious filmmaker looking to get in on the action, you shouldn’t let the big boys in marketplace discourage you. The profit to cost ratio that makes for a short film success doesn’t fit the way giant media conglomerates operate. Just as the micro production studios of Mack Sennett and Hal Roach were once able to dominate the short subject market in spite of the major studios best efforts; today’s short film entrepreneurs will be able stay in front in a market that today’s majors are still wary of.

''I don't think it's a wise idea to throw everything at the wall.'' Fox entertainment’s president, Peter Liguori, said in a recent interview. ''We're taking a more measured approach to what works and what may not work.''

He means that the profit margin on a 60-second short subject, doesn’t exactly make it worth the time of one of 24 or The Shield’s Emmy award winning writers. My time on the other hand, comes considerably cheaper. Considering that the average locally produced short costs between $1,000 and $2,000 and can be licensed to an international television or online distributor for between $5,000 and $50,000, its easy to see how a boutique production company boasting a slate comparable to AtomFilm Studio’s two to four dozen projects per year, could turn a healthy profit.

Until now, short films have been considered little more than expensive “business cards” for US-based filmmakers, but even the international theatrical market is open to them these days. According to shorts distributor Apollo Cinema’s president and founder Carol Crowe, "The majority of overseas territories are purchasing shorts by the minute. A 30-minute short has the potential to make $30,000 plus.”

Typical of online short subject distributors, AtomFilms pays as little as $500 per film, up front. But Atom also offers filmmakers a cut of the advertising revenue generated by their films. According to Atom Entertainment CEO Mika Salmi, popular shorts have made more than $200,000.

To Be Concluded . . .

LONG LIVE THE NEW SHORT (PT 2)

2006-07-14T03:00:00.000-05:00

Television, Internet and Mobile Device Markets hungry for shorts

International television markets in Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe are literally starved for American-made short films. Canada's Movieola Channel, for instance only shows shorts, and Canal Plus, Channel 4, and the German pay TV channel Premiere have made them an everyday feature of their lineup. US-based cable outlets from Showtime and Bravo to the Independent Film Channel and the Sundance Channel are following suit. Similarly, web-based short film specialists like AtomFilms, animation playhouse IceBox.com, and Big Film Shorts are gobbling up independently produced short subjects. The 60-second mobile device short may be new to the U.S., but Indian and Chinese teenagers are downloading them to their cell phones and iPods by the hundreds.

According to distributors, any place where people wait for more than a few minutes has become a venue for shorts. Both Air Canada and Delta Airlines have gotten into the business of buying shorts, and airports in general along with cruise ships are widely considered to be quickly developing markets for. Amtrak buys short films for its overseas lines.

For years advertisers have struggled to find ways to chase consumers into new markets. So, short subjects are also generating additional revenue through product placement the same way that producer Mark “Survivor” Burnett’s reality shows do. Companies like Miller Brewing, Ford, and AT&T have placed their products in the films themselves or run ads attached to the film’s online runs.

TO BE CON'T . . .

LONG LIVE THE NEW SHORT (PT 1)

2006-07-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

In spite of recent pronouncements that might have led you to believe otherwise, a huge and growing entertainment market exists in international television, web-based film and cell cinema venues, which are buying short films like hotcakes. Scores of dedicated short subject distributors are dropping serious coin on acquisitions. And, the U.S. is in an ideal position to take advantage of it. Just as cities like Chicago became Mecca's of storefront theatre and improv comedy. Which is to say that if you're a member of what Richard Florida calls the Creative Class, and a resident of the Urban Archipelago besides, I've got a message for you: It's time to hop into the engineer’s seat of this particular train before it passes us by.

Last January, NPR’s Douglas Hopper did a Morning Edition story about an entertaining but penguins-at-the-zoo style report on the Cellflix Festival sponsored by upstate New York’s Ithaca College. On the surface the featured contest sounded like most university sponsored film festivals, open to high school and college students from around the world, a $5,000 grand prize. It even sported a built-in gimmick—to qualify, submissions had to be shot on a cell phone, have a running time of 30 seconds or less and include dialogue, music or other audio.

The “cell cinema” angle wasn’t a gimmick. It was the tip of an iceberg.

According to Cellflix organizer and Dean of Itahca’s Park School of Communications Dianne Lynch, the festival was her way of asking a question that everyone in our business should be these days: What do filmmakers need to know to be successful in spite of the shifting and changing media landscape that’s confronting all of us?

The answer is so close at hand it’s about to be missed: Short films are selling agan! Until the 1950s, standard commercial cinema included not only the feature films, but newsreels, cartoons and live action short films as well. Television altered the entertainment landscape completely, introducing a new set of market imperatives and consigning short film producers like Hal Roach and Mack Sennett to financial obsolescence. Now, after decades of film school/festival exile, the short as product is back.

Hoping to boost sales, Sony is sponsoring a series of short films designed for its PSP (PlayStation Portable). Verizon and Fox Entertainment Group have launched three "mobisode" series specifically for cell phone screens. Sprint actually beat Verizon and Fox to the punch with its cell phone dram The Spot. And CBS spent the latter half of 2005 inking deals to deliver programming, including it's own “micro-series” The Courier, through every available medium—the net, cell phones and iPods.

Sony, Fox, Sprint and CBS aren’t charting new territory; they’re playing catch-up, desperately trying to carve out a niche for their brand in one of the few filmed entertainment venues whose market-share is actually growing rather than shrinking.

TO BE CON'T . . .

HBO JUMPS ONTO CELL CINEMA BANDWAGON

2006-07-12T23:02:00.000-05:00

HBO is jumping onto the Cell Cinema bandwagon by producing original mini-episodes of its hit series Entourage. The new mobile device friendly Entourage "mobisodes" will be available to Cingular Video customers who subscribe to HBO Mobile. This first-of-its-kind cell cinema deal (for cable TV at any rate) will expand on existing Entourage storylines with a series of "mobisodes" that will be written by, produced by and of course staring series regulars.

The mobile episodes of Entourage will focus on Kevin Dillon's hilarious and fame-hungry Johnny Drama, who will be given the opportunity to make a "cellivision" show. HBO Mobile also will also be offering full-length episodes of Entourage, segmented into chapters, of the series first season of Entourage, in addition to episodes of Sex and the City, Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Dane Cook's Tourgasm.

THE MISSION STATEMENT

2006-07-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

From ArsonPlus Entertainment:

Every day, in a steady never-ending trickle, cities from Chicago to Hong Kong lose bits of their native creative community to the lure of New York and Los Angeles. It’s been going on for years. Fortunately, thanks to its uniquely deep and diverse talent pool, Chicago, like many other most cities is in an ideal position to take advantage of booming markets hungry for American made short films. These include international television, web-based and cell cinema—and in all honesty, that list is just for starters.

All three are starved for short-short films, ranging in length from under two minutes to half an hour, are designed to play on cell phones, over the Internet and on TV. They’re especially popular throughout Asia and across Eastern Europe, and scores of companies have cropped up and are dropping some serious coin on acquisitions. Atom Films, probably the best known of these companies, is just the tip of the iceberg. The market is an opportunity for ambitious filmmakers everywhere looking for profits to go along with the attention a smart and sharp short film can accrue.

The market is already huge, and it’s growing. The films that feed it will be produced somewhere. If it’s Chicago, it will definitely bring much needed revenue and film financing dollars into the city while helping to put a cork in that trickle.

Best of all, thanks to the online nature of this new marketplace, Chicago’s filmmakers will be able to get in on the action without having to deal with any of the hassles typically associated dragging their short films around to traditional festivals. The international market still does a certain amount of business in-person, but it’s definitely accessible via the Internet; the web-based market’s accessibility is self-explanatory and the cell cinema market is likewise setup to accept submissions online.

Just as Chicago became a Mecca of storefront theatres and improv comedy troupes, your home town and mine can get in on this bandwagon while the getting’s good. Filmmakers just need to be made aware of it. We have so much talent here, and the way to keep them is to create a viable market outlet.

To that end, the founders of Chicago's ArsonPlus Entertainment have decided to launch "Third Wave Central a meager, but hopefully informative that can help point us all in the right direction. We'll start with postings sketching out the market’s general lay of the land, follow up with updates and regular series profiles featuring short-film distribution and production companies, and of course the same futurist ramblings that coaxed this Blog out of us in the first place.