To Keep A Secret

Many of you have probably heard of the immensely popular website, PostSecret.  Every Sunday evening you can find me reading the many secrets posted at PostSecret in a last ditch effort to avoid my homework.

For those of you who don't know what PostSecret is, it's a website that was created by this guy named Frank as a place where anyone can anonymously send in postcards with their secrets written on them and have the chance of seeing their secrets posted online.  For people who have dark secrets weighing them down, it's a great way to anonymously get the secret of their chest, or to even help them open up to the ones they love.

What I find most interesting about this website is not only the amazingly weird, sad, funny, and horrible secrets that people are keeping out there, but also the interesting artwork that can be found on many of the postcards.  In fact, some of the art is so amazing that the website has been nominated for two Webby Awards, one of them being in NetArt.  (The other is for the Blog).

Over the pasts few years, PostSecret has become amazingly popular on college campuses.  In fact, it has become so popular that Frank has taken PostSecret on tour to colleges across the U.S., sharing not only the secrets posted on his website, but also allowing people to come up on stage and share their own secrets.

Unfortunately, PostSecret has yet to come to the University of Iowa, but I know that if and when they do, I'll be there.  I'm way too open of a person, so I really don't have any secrets to share.  Basically I have verbal diarrhea and will tell anyone anything, even if they really don't want to know, but if you have a burning secret, get it off your chest.  Send it in to PostSecret.

American Movie Classics just can't seem to define "classic"

Are you freaking kidding me!!!!!

Okay, I'll admit, I'm a little quirky. There are a lot of little things that really get under my skin and bother me to no end, here is one: how the hell does the channel, American Movie Classics, determine a movie to be a classic because their criteria sucks.

Pictured above is the movie poster to "Autumn in New York" an abysmal 22% on Rotten Tomatoes (in case you don't know, Rotten Tomatoes pools the opinions of both movie critics and the public to rank a movie) which puts it 15% behind the breathtaking classic that is "Space Jam" and yet Autumn in New York is an American Movie Classic.

"Spy Hard", one of Leslie Nielsen's 700 spoof films, is even lower coming in at 5% (that's lower than "Gigli" for God's sake) and yet it is an American Movie Classic. AMC does have classics like "The Good , the Bad and the Ugly" and "The French Connection," but for every "Death Wish" they play (78% on Rotten Tomatoes) there is also "Death Wish 4: The Crackdown" (17%)

It's probably blasphemy, but Chuck Norris' movies aren't American Classics

And that brings me to another thing: AMC stop playing crappy sequels to good movies. In May, AMC is playing five different "Death Wish" movies. The fifth one didn't even make two million dollars. AMC is even playing sequels to movies that weren't even good in the first place. Despite starring the great Chuck Norris, "Missing in Action" earned a 23%, its sequel isn't even ranked by Rotten Tomatoes.

So gosh darn it AMC start playing some good movies for once, or people are going to have to start watching Turner Classic Movies and nobody wants to do that. Nobody.

Covering Pay Per View for the Masses

Since we are really stretching the name "Screen Scene" beyond just covering movies on this blog, I thought I would take the advantage and promote something I do two times per month online on Sunday night's.

Tonight, April 27, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) will broadcast its "Backlash" Pay Per View live from Baltimore, Maryland featuring top matches involving the WWE Title (Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. John Cena vs. JBL), World Heavyweight Title (The Undertaker vs. Edge) and more.

For those who are unable to purchase the event (or simply choose not to), the website I work for (WrestleView.com) will be providing *live* play-by-play updates of the event as it is happening. A new update is provided every 20 minutes or so for fans to follow online as the event progresses from 8:00 p.m. Eastern to 11:00 p.m. Eastern.

I've been doing this since 2002 and have grown quite a following for my Pay Per View recaps for WWE and TNA (Total Nonstop Action Wrestling - a growing competitor for the WWE). Roughly half a million visitors will flock to my website tonight to get the latest updates on the event and a full recap later in the night.

While it may not make the companies promoting these events very happy that some one could save $39.95 and instead follow results on the internet, it really is no different then an online correspondent covering a major sporting event such as boxing and providing updates to those unable to purchase or view the event. In reality, it is promoting the product to an even larger audience that would ever purchase it on Pay Per View. As the saying goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity and tonight is just another example.

To Study or Not to Study

It's getting to that time where everyone is looking for a distraction from the papers and the studying and the stress of impending finals. For many people, these distractions can be found online.

My roommates are especially good at finding distractions on the internet. Their two favorite websites for stupid and entertaining games are http://www.addictinggames.com/ and http://www.bored.com/.

Right now, their favorite game on http://www.addictinggames.com/ is Bartender. In this game, you get to be the bartender and try to serve as many customers as possible in the given amount of time.

My favorite game of all time, and it's also fairly time consuming, so prime for paper distraction, is called Escape the Room. This game can be found at http://www.bored.com/ and is a lot of fun to play. Basically, you wake up in a room and you are trapped. In order to beat the game, you have to find things hidden about the room that will help you escape. There are many different versions of this game and they can be found at bored.com.

So enjoy doing everything but studying...but don't forget, finals are in two and a half weeks!

Xbox Live: The Life of a Gamer

It is amazing the amount of different game consoles that are available in stores today. There is the Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and many earlier versions of these consoles such as GameCube and Playstation2 still for sale.

What is even more amazing is the lifestyles that revolve around the videogames that you can play on these consoles.

At the University of Iowa and at other universities around the U.S., students, especialy males, spend a lot of their freetime in a virtual world. In fact, it's easy to say that some people schedule their entire lives around the gamer lifestyle (with breaks for classes, well, sometimes).

Xbox Live is just one of those gaming perks that allows people to become more involved in the virtual world, and even get some social activity out of it. It is like an online gaming option where you can access the internet through your Xbox gaming console. At the University of Iowa, not only to several students have Xbox 360s with the Xbox Live option, but some even pay money for extra Xbox Live abilities.

My friend Mike recently purchased an Xbox 360 and loves the options that Xbox Live gives him. His gaming console came with the Xbox 360 silver package which allows him to voice chat with other players as well as download content, such as new games, a week after they are made available for gold members. With a gold package, players are able to not only do everything that is included in the silver package, but they are able to download content a week earlier, video chat, and have multiplayer gaming online. However, subscriptions are required for a gold package and it costs $49.99 a year.

You would think that being on a college student budget would deter a lot of university students form purchasing the gold package, but that just isn't the case. Mike says that he pays for the extended service because he is really into the games and since this is what he does with his friends, it's worth every penny to get the experience out of it.

"Some people pay money to go to the movies or the spend extra money going bar hopping. This is what I do for fun, so why not spend the money on it," Mike said.

Xbox Live is even working on expanding its services to cellphones and other handheld devices, bringing a whole new meaning to the term gaming.

I say if you're into it, go for it. Who knows, maybe I'll give it a go, but as long as I don't have to pay for it.

Does Marvel have a winner in Iron Man?

For the better part of the last ten years, Hollywood has tried to take successful comic book titles and hope that success translates to large dollars on the big screen.

To a degree, it has worked and more specifically with Marvel Comics. Successful titles such as Blade, X-Men and Spider-Man have done well at the box office and spawned numerous sequels as a result.

However, not everything has been a success. In recent years crowds were not in favor of titles such as The Punisher, The Hulk, Fantasic Four, Ghost Rider, Daredevil and Elektra. You also can't forget the 1986 classic "Howard the Duck." Yes, that was a "Marvel Legacy" believe it or not.

That could all change starting on May 2 when the highly anticipated film "Iron Man" is released nationwide starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow. Trailers alone for the film have been running for the better part of the last year. Every time I go see a movie and this trailer comes on, you can hear the sound of hundreds of whispers that I can only guess are saying, "I wanna see that!"

Judge for yourself. I know I will be one of the millions who wait in line to check out this movie the weekend it arrives in theaters!

YouTube: Taking Over the World

So, as everyone with a computer and an internet connection knows, YouTube is taking over the world. Not only is it wildly popular on the internet, but videos from the popular site are often featured on the news as well as in certain TV programs. YouTube is also looking to come to a television near you by making YouTube videos available for viewing on your TV.

Right now, YouTube is being used by college students across the country for a variety of different reasons. Some people are required to upload videos to the site for a class assignment while others are just trying to entertain themselves on a Friday night. While many people use YouTube to catch funny moments that they may have missed from their favorite sitcom or late night talk show, others want to check out the latest music video or see people doing dumb stuff. Politicians are even using YouTube for their own political messages and campaigns in an effort to reach more college-aged voters across America.

Some videos become so popular that they are well-known by students no matter what University you are at. One of the most popular videos at this time is a video of a guy, Nick Pitera singing "A Whole New World". Now, most of you will laugh and say, "Oh, I've seen that," but for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, check it out. I promise, just this one video will get you hooked on YouTube.

Nick Pitera-"A Whole New World"

8th annual WAVES Festival to screen free movies

As if you hadn't heard enough news about free screenings of movies brought to you by Iowa City or the University of Iowa, there's more....

The University of Iowa is bringing the 8th annual WAVES Festival to the Becker Communications Studies Building, BCSB, from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon.

The WAVES festival will feature eight different independent Asian/Asian-American films beginning with The King and the Clown at 7:30 p.m. Friday in room 101 of BCSB. All of the other seven films will be shown in this room, and a complete listing of times and titles can be found on their website.

Capitalizing on the popularity of MMA

As a fan of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), it pained me to see the preview for the new movie "Never Back Down" all over TV recently.

This is just another example of Hollywood trying to capitalize on a sport that is growing in popularity with the 18-34 year-old demographic in the United States.

It's not like I can blame them. With a production budget of $20 million, the film has already grossed a little over $22 million domestically and over $23 million worldwide. That my friends is a profit - and not yet including DVD sales later this year.

(Source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/id=neverbackdown.htm)

But when you are a fan of a sport like this, the last thing you want to see is a production company trying to make it "look cool" when they clearly don't even understand the sport to begin with.

From the clips of the movie I've seen, they don't seem to get the first concept of MMA - RESPECT. Sportsmanship is a huge part of Mixed Martial Arts and this film instead portrays it as more of a "street fight" with MMA gloves. Granted, the film does move in a different direction when the main character Jake Tyler (played by Sean Faris) realizes he has to train to actually be good at the sport. What a concept!

Listen, I know there is a demographic for a movie like this out there. I'm sure little kids across America begged to be dropped off at the movie theatre a few weeks ago when this movie came out. But that isn't the audience who normally watches the real form of MMA. They just think it is cool or the current "fad" right now (what pro wrestling was in the late 1990s-early 2000s). This movie is basically the "Karate Kid" of this generation or what "Fast and the Furious" was a few years ago when cars becaming all the rage once again.

It's really sad what Hollywood will do to make a buck these days.

Iowa City Documentaries.... Coming to a Theater Near You

The Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival kicks-off its three day festival tomorrow at The Bijou Theater inside of the Iowa Memorial Union at Madison and Jefferson Streets in Iowa City.

Featuring over 30 documentary films in all, the videos will be played at both the Bijou and Public Space One, located in the basement of the Jefferson Building at 129 E. Washington St., over the three day showing, and the winner(s) will be crowned Saturday night at approximately 9:00 p.m. at Public Space One.

The committee behind the festival was found in 2001 and this will be the 7th festival. For complete information and details of when and where the doc's can be seen, visit the ICDOCS page.

Real-Time Instant Messaging!

Now you can see what your buddy is typing...as they type it!

AOL is now testing the first real-time instant messaging feature for their AOL Instant Messaging program, otherwise known as AIM.

Mostly created for the deaf and hard of hearing, this new feature offers a natural flowing conversation over the internet, without the use of expensive web-cam equipment, for everyone.

Real-time IMing allows users to see each individual letter that a buddy is typing, as they type it. This means no more waiting for your friend to hit the send button, although I guess sometimes the suspension makes it interesting.

Unfortunately, because the feature is still being beta-tested, both the IM sender and the receiver must have the real-time version of AIM in order use the function.

However, you can now download the beta version at http://beta.aol.com and try it out for yourself!