news feeds july 21

How can Yahoo be saved? Can it be saved? I don't think so. I remember using Yahoo! in the early days of the internet and it has held up pretty well compared to some other 1990s era web giants Lycos (search engine), Netscape (browser) or The Globe (arguably the first social networking site). Stocks during the salad days of Yahoo, in 2000, went for $118.75 a share while this past week it was trading at $15.42. An outside source working with the company feels that it needs to have a distinct plan as to what kind of company they are, and let go of their lesser products. Yahoo's products include Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Voice, Yahoo Voices (huh?), Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Shopping, the picture site Flickr and rivals.com with none of them working particularly well. In fact, Yahoo's original use, a search engine, has been outsourced to Microsoft. The internet may still be in its infancy but at 17 years old Yahoo looks like it may be dying rapidly. Must be in dog years or something, and if that's the case then you hung in there sport! 

Back to theglobe.com. I remember using the website briefly in the 1990s. I don't really remember what the interface looked like, since to me, all chat rooms from that time look like the one from The Net due to repeated viewings. But I do remember it was slow as hell. One night, I was probably 14 or so, I had a conversation about God knows what, that was a back and forth of about four of five messages. That took about five hours. Sure wasn't instant messaging (remember ICQ?). Nevertheless, it was a hit. Two Cornell students founded the site 1994 and they were among the first dotcom success stories, going public in 1998 (posting the largest first day gain of any IPO to that point), and making Stephan Peternot and Todd Krizelman millionaires overnight. Paternot became the poster boy for internet kids who have more money than brains (they had a lot of both) after he was spotted at an upscale Manhatten nightclub with his girlfriend, model Jennifer Medley wearing leather pants, dancing on a table, then, to CNN cameras, stated "Got the girl. Got the money. Now I'm ready to live a disgusting, frivolous life." The wonder kids were forced out of the company by 2000 and it's market capitalization shrunk from its high of $97 to less than 10 cents by 2001. While not completely dead, it is on life support. In the company's 2011 annual report they claimed $6426 in assets vs $3.2 million in liabilities. Ouch..

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A 26 year old woman was busted stealing diapers in a Pathmark store in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, but fled the scene topless. The woman allegedly went into the store, grabbed a pack of the diapers then was apprehended by the security guards and taken into a holding room. In the room, Aishana Clayton then completely freaked out.. punching, biting and scratching at the 47 year old female security guard. When Ms Clayton started to flee the security guard grabbed her by her shirt, but she managed to wiggle out and ran through the store and parking lot topless (no bras in Pennsylvania?). "Her breasts were swinging as she ran to the car," said Upper Darby police officer Michael Chitwood. She has four prior convictions for retail theft, and well as arrests for aggravated assault and attempted murder. Ms Clayton and her boobs are still on the loose.

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In Nanaimo, British Columbia, a hungry man staying at a hotel near a 7-11, was suffering from late night munchies, decided to steal a couple sandwiches from the nearby shop only to get back to his room and realize they were plastic reproductions for display purposes. Not only that, they are apparently worth $70 apiece! The man ate one of them and noted that they were only slightly harder/more expensive than normal 7-11 sandwiches. Police traced the man back to his hotel room and returned the sandwiches. Since the owner of the store said that the bites taken out of the display models looked more enticing for potential customers.

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A new Tarantino film is almost complete. His movies has always been great, but over the years he has evolved and let all his (diverse) influences seep in. After the crime dramas "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown" he took some time to make the martial arts/Hong Kong influenced Kill Bill films (which had to be made into two films with a running time of over four hours). His next movie was a homage to exploitation and slasher films called "Death Proof" which was kind of a mixed bag, but Kurt Russell sure had fun with his lead role. 2009 saw Quentin do a war film called "Inglourious Basterds" which saw Brad Pitt taking some "Nat-zees." His new film, slated for release this Christmas, is called "Django Unchained." It is a Spaghetti Western set in the American South involving a slave, separated from his wife. He is bought at a slave auction by a dentist turned bounty hunter to help him hunt down and kill a ruthless gang, and in return he will help freeing the slaves wife from an evil plantation owner. The film starts Jaime Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Don Johnson, Samuel L Jackson, Anthony LaPaglia with cameos by RZA and Jonah Hill. Trailer below...

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Filming of a nuclear blast, 55 years ago, July 19, 1957. The eight people who set it off and taped it all got cancer.. Standing under a nuclear test.. Hmmm CLICK HERE

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best picture

Brando in On the Waterfront (1955)

The Oscars were first awarded in 1927, and there have been 84 films that have won best picture. Some of them are absolutely incredible and some, not so much. I haven't seen all of them, in fact, I've probably only seen around half of them. The earliest one I've ever seen, or that I want to admit I've seen is 1940's Rebecca (I saw Gone With the Wind, 1939, and even though I was just a child I weep I won't get those four dreary hours back). Rebecca was Alfred Hitchcock's first American project, which has a woman who marries a British fellow, and lives in the shadow of his deceased wife. Casablanca, I think everyone has seen at one point or another, is great, sure, but I'm not sure if's it was Best Picture worthy. For Whom the Bell Tolls was nominated for Best Picture in 1942 , the same year Casablanca won, and was a better movie. Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in an adaptation of a Hemingway novel, portraying the leads (handpicked by Ernest himself) and kicking some serious ass. Good times. The fifties has one of the greatest best pictures of all time, 1954's On the Waterfront. Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, witnesses a murder that was set-up by the local waterfront union to knock off a potential whistle blower. The union's head Johnny Friendly is a tough S.O.B., and his right hand man, and Terry's brother, is Charlie the Gent, played perfectly by Rod Steiger. Not to mention Karl Malden is positively brilliant as the priest who tries and convince Brando to testify against the union, offering a real sense of morality, all the while smoking, drinking whiskey and beer. 

Lemmon & Shirley McLaine in The Apartment (1960)

The sixties, 1960 to be exact, boasted The Apartment as Best Picture, where Jack Lemmon is a low level executive who scores points with the big bosses by renting out his apartment to them for.. extra curricular activties. I'll skip over most of the musicals, that went through a real revival for 1969's Midnight Cowboy, where small town diner dishwasher Jon Voight picks up and heads to New York City with dreams of becoming a male escort for rich old ladies. 1969 also included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ("who were those guys?!"), which lost it's nomination for Best Picture, but won four other Oscars. 

Stallone & Burgess Meredith in Rocky (1976)

The seventies might have been the greatest decade for Best Picture. Honestly, every one is a beauty. 1970's Patton starred George C Scott (in his only good role ever) as General George Patton who was a brilliant mind when it came to war, found himself in trouble in WWII because of his very VERY short temper. The French Connection, 1971. Best. Car chases. Ever. 1972 - The Godfather.. do I need to say anything about this or its 1974 sequel and also Best Picture winner The Godfather Part II. Wedged between those was The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman as small time Chicago hustler who try to take a rich schmuck from NYC who killed one of their pals. My favorite three year stretch in Best Picture history is definitely 1975-77. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept the 1975 Oscars taking home all five major awards (Picture, Screenplay, Best Director - Milos Forman, Best Actor - Jack Nicholson, Best Actress - Louise Fletcher). Jack is brilliant as a con who think going to a mental hospital will be better than jail. He was wrong. Other members of Jack's (or R.P. MacMurphy) psych ward include Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and that guy from the original The Hills Have Eyes movie. ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY! Everyone loves the Cinderella story of the Philadelphia club fighter given his chance to take on the champion of the world. Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in a week, working day and night. The studio loved it, wanted it, and offered Stallone big money for the script so they could cast Ryan O'Neal or some 70s bankable tough guy to play the lead. Stallone refused, and wound up making himself a house hold name in the lead role. Stallone was even nominated for Best Actor (doesn't quite seem right does it), with one critic making comparisons of his performance to that of Marlon Brando's in On the Waterfront. There are definite similarities between the two roles, but let's face it, as much as I enjoy his movies, the first Rocky is the only movie where he's ever shown any actual acting talent. 1977's Annie Hall ranks up there with my favorite movies of all time. The scary part is, it's arguably Woody Allen's second best movie of the 70s (how good is Manhatten?). It follows (not in a linear fashion) the relationship of Woody's Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton's Annie. Sweet, bittersweet, funny, sad, intelligent.. just a great movie start to finish. And about the acting, this is a movie geek fact, but whatevs. The average shot in Annie Hall is 14.5 seconds, whereas other films from 1977 averaged about 4-7 seconds, and how much lower do you think it is nowadays? The average shot feels like 1 second now. 

Woody Allen & Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (1977)

Berenger in Platoon (1986)

The first truly great Best Picture in the eighties was 1986's Platoon, quite possibly the best war movie ever made. Set during, and in the Vietnam War, it follow dissent within a unit, with the two highest ranking officers in the Platoon, Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger, constantly at odds with each other. Also starring Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Deep. Directed by Oliver Stone. Kind of a weak decade really though, with bio-pics in particular being well received (like Gandhi, Amadeus, The Last Emporer and Chariots Of Fire - but usually boring and overlong). Oh, and Driving Miss Daisy.. Really?

Clint & his kids in Unforgiven (1992)

Silence Of the Lambs was great in 1991, but never really felt like a Best Picture type film, despite how good Sir Anthony was. But in 1992, my favorite western of all time, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven took home the trophy. It follows a long since retired gun slinger, who now runs a small farm with the help of his young son and daughter. Two cowboys go rolling through a Wyoming town and hook up with some prostitutes. One of them laughs at the size of the cowboy's package so he slashes her with a knife, scarring her permanently. When the towns ruthless sheriff Gene Hackman plays off the incident, so the girls take all their money and put a bounty on the cowboys head. Yup, Clint comes out of retirement. And his good pal Morgan Freeman is going along with him on one last kill. Amazing. 1994 was a super year for movies. Pulp Fiction maybe should have won Best Picture but I like Forrest Gump just fine, so no big deal. It was a damn shame Ed Wood didn't get a nomination (though it did pull in an Oscar for Martin Landau's portrayal of Bela Lugosi), as I think it is everywhere as good as Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump.. No big deal, but it is my favorite Tim Burton movie. The nineties had some great movies but none of them won, with the Academy opting for  Titanic over LA Confidential, The English Patient over Fargo, etc. The 2000s weren't much better though. Yea, No Country For Old Men deserved the Oscar, so did The Departed, but did Million Dollar Baby or Lord Of the Rings (Lost In Translation was the same year.. wtf?) really deserve Best Pictures? Nope. They have redeemed themselves with last years mostly silent masterpiece The Artist, the reigning Best Picture. Who will win next February?

The Artist... reigning Best Picture.