A classic evolution: American-invented becomes globally-owned--and locally adapted

BBC News online story by way of brother Andy.

"Historic" line comes from old friend Rod Beckstrom, now head of ICANN.

To me, this is one of America's most profound success stories in spreading globalization.  

As for the Balkanization fears, that's way overblown.  The future is machine translation.

Cultures have to be able to format the web in their own languages, plain and simple.  Enough language destruction will happen anyway, but the biggies like Mandarin and Arabic will thrive, and we will all learn them all, on some level, with our big advantage being American English's uncanny willingness to absorb new words from other languages.

The Iranian "Blade Runner"

Gist:

While the world's film community continues to protest the detention of Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, another helmer from Iran traveled to Italy's recent Cartoons on the Bay festival to unveil a sneak peek of the futuristic "Tehran 2121," billed as the country's first sci-fi feature, live action or animated.

Shot by locally popular animator Bahram Azimi, using a rotoscoping technique but with a "Blade Runner" aesthetic, "Tehran 2121," almost seems intended as Iran's answer to opponents of its hard-line government.

Azimi described the pic as being about "a far-away future in which, despite how much our country will have changed, the morality and the ways of Iranians will remain the same."

"Tehran 2121" producer Mohammad Abolhassani says, "The Islamic Republic is happy to use the tools of culture to spread peace and equality." He called Iran "the top animation nation of the Middle East," citing 200 companies in the country's toon sector. 

Animation is often used in Iran for government campaigns, such as the series of computer-animated adverts that Azimi shot in 2006 to spruce up the image of Iran's police force. 

Seven minutes of the big-budget "Tehran 2121" unspooled at the Italo toon fest. 

Pic revolves around a 160-year-old man, who, deeming his death to be imminent, wants his niece, to come to Tehran so he can pass on his inheritance to her, on condition that she gets married.

During her travels, she encounters three men: a taxi driver, a rock singer and the owner of a robot shop.

This I got to see.

Recent Bret Stephens column cites Bernard Lewis saying he can imagine a future where Turkey is the Islamic republic and Iran is the secular one.

Frankly, just the fact that Iranians can think like this is interesting enough.

Of course, the notion that the Revolutionary Guards will get you to this future is awfully ludicrous, but the Iranian people?  That I could see--post-revolution.

I do not see 3D, in its current form, sweeping the TV landscape

Roger Ebert railing against 3D in Newsweek, and I will confess to agreeing with a lot of it.

The biggest gripe for me remains the murkiness of the image ("Have you noticed that 3-D seems a little dim?") and the tunnel vision it creates.  I actually liked "Avatar" better in my home theater (high-def projector) because there was so much more to see.  In the IMAX experience, which I liked plenty, you really find yourself staring at the actors in motion, with the background almost too much to take in.

I'm not arguing against 3-D per se, as I love the immersive quality, but I don't yet see the technology moving beyond the epic-picture requirement, and I really don't see my family donning glasses to watch regular TV.  Now, football (and sports in general)?  Yeah, I could see that, but again, we're talking the epic nature of the subject matter and a willingness on the part of the audience to totally commit to that viewing experience.

Ebert's larger point is that movies fear the Internet and other new challengers (e.g., role-playing games), and whenever Hollywood gets scared, it turns to technology to spice things up (think back to the 50s and the threat of TV).

I will admit that the lure works:  the vast majority of movies I've seen recently have been in Imax and 3D, otherwise I'm usually willing to wait til the DVD. And the kind of movies they're putting into IMAX are the sort that have big global appeal (the blockbuster trend that Hollywood chases right now more than ever), but there are still a ton of movies out there that would not benefit whatsoever from this technology, where it will be--in Ebert's words--a "distraction" from the storytelling, characters, etc. 

And as for TV, there's just little on it that justified the personal commitment to donning the glasses, sitting just so, and tuning out all other stimuli and actions.  With DVRs and series being seen more on DVD than live in some instances, I just don't see that breakthrough happening any time soon--except in the sense of the dedicated home theater, the committed participation by the audience and the right sort of material--all of which are limited to the epic subject matter.

For 3D to work for me as a routine participation in the home, it would have to escape the requirement for glasses and become more like the floating images that Tony Stark (Iron Man) plays and/or works with in his high-tech office.

You stay classy, globalization!

Entertainment Weekly blurb saying the sequel to "Anchorman" (2004) has been scuttled for now.

Primary reason:  first movie cost $25M and grossed $85M domestic but only $5M overseas.  Paramount is apparently concerned about that.

Kind of stunning to read.  Usual rule:  if movie costs $X, then--worst case--you double that figure for promotion and that's how much you need to earn for a profit. So the first movie should have cleared $40M.  Not huge, but a moneymaker.  

Still, if the movie did the usual overseas box office (equal or better than domestic), then the profit would have been more like $120M.

The sequel is expected to cost round $50M, so if it got the same BO, it would lose money--unless the overseas take somehow saved it.

Thus the logic of fearing low international appeal.

So we already see globalization placing some new rules back on Hollywood.