Link: Confessions of a Military Wife
A very interesting view of military wives. It’s easy to lump military spouses into some sort of Stepford Wife stereotype, but what this article points out so well is they are just like any other wife.
I think one of the biggest problems Hollywood has is looking backwards. They are constantly comparing film grosses to previous years and getting disappointed. How can you compare the last three years, which saw two Harry Potter movies and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to current movie grosses. No matter how much they wish it, studios are not going to four or five $300 million-grossing movies every year. Look at this weekend’s grosses: Chicken Little brought in $40 million and Jarhead $28 million. That seems pretty damn good to me for an animated film and a heavy war drama. But no, they compare it to last year’s grosses of The Incredibles and start whining. Come on people!
There are a series of commercials out these days that are so bad that I almost want to turn off the TV when I see them: the Campbell’s Select brand soup commercials featuring John Lithgow. The feature Lithgow doing a poorly-written song surrounded by poorly-cheroegraphed dancers hawking some form of soup. Lithgow is such a great actor; did he really need this job?
Well, it looks like the country’s major newspapers are in for some bad news. The Audit Bureau of Circulations will release figures Monday that will once again show paid newspaper readership is down to its worst levels. If you jump over to Jeff Jarvis’ site you can read all the glad tidings about this news and the usual bitching and moaning about liberal bias and how there’s are no Conservative voice in the MSM. That’s load of bullshit, of course, but these kind of people will always howl about liberal bias until every news outlet goes Conservative — and even then they’ll bitch and moan about how they’re not quite Conservative enough.
Personally, I think this is a bit premature. Yes, paid subscriptions will continue to decline in the Internet-savvy world in which we live. That just means papers will need to change how they connect with customers. Online is, of course, the wave of the future; but also podcasts (which I love!), blogging, and video blogging. Look at NBC, they’re going to start streaming their entire nightly newscast; several newscasts are already podcasting their prorams. Newspapers have to find a new way to engage viewers, but that doesn’t mean they’re on death row. No matter how much whiny Conservatives wish it.