Judging a Book by Its Cover

John Gruber has finally posted his thoughts on Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs on Daring Fireball:

You could learn more about Steve Jobs’s work by reading Rob Walker’s 2003 New York Times Magazine piece than by reading Isaacson’s book, but even then we’re left wanting for the stories behind any of Apple’s products after the iPod. Isaacson’s book may well be the defining resource for Jobs’s personal life — his childhood, his youth, his eccentricities, cruelty, temper, and emotional outbursts. But as regards Jobs’s work, Isaacson leaves the reader profoundly and tragically misinformed.

I don't know what's more disturbing: that Isaacson so fundamentally misunderstood Jobs and how he viewed the design process, or that he was willing to have such a casual relationship with the truth. What I do know is that our one shot at an understanding of how Steve Jobs saw the world was wasted on pop-psychology and gossip.

Thinking about this reminds me of my original reaction to the title of Isaacson's biography. Steve Jobs. I thought, "Wow. How lazy, lame and unimaginative." Turns out, it was an excellent description of the pages contained therein: lazy, lame and unimaginative.

Reporting on Cycling by People Who Think a Derailleur is Something That Happens to a Train

ESPN's Lester Munson is apparently shocked by US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr.'s decision to drop the investigation into Lance Armstrong. And he smells a rat. Why? Because the announcement came on the Friday before the Super Bowl.

The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Andre Birotte Jr., decided that the best possible time to make a major announcement about the federal investigation of Armstrong was late on the Friday afternoon before the Super Bowl. Is there a better time to hide news you don't want anyone to notice?

Great point Lester! How dare they bury key information about the Armstrong trial in the Super Bowl news cycle!

Wait... What's that you say? He's not on trial? It was a supposedly secret grand jury investigation that the US attorney was under no obligation to announce had come to an end?

Look, if Andre Birotte Jr.'s goal was to hide the fact that the investigation had come to a close without filing any charges, all he had to do was refuse to prosecute and never explain himself to anyone. The fact that he announced it at all, let alone on Super Bowl weekend, is proof that he's not trying to hide anything.

Plus, where was Lester Munson, suspicious-timing-expert, when Floyd Landis let loose his original allegations during Lance's appearance at the 2010 Tour of California? Or when The Wall Street Journal ran their expansion of Landis's claims on the eve of the 2010 Tour Prologue? Or when Sports Illustrated ran their "The Case Against Lance Armstrong" article during Lance's last professional race at the 2011 Tour Down Under? Or when 60 Minutes and Tyler Hamilton decided ever so randomly that the best time to air their interview was while Lance's team was ripping up the roads in the 2011 Tour of California?

This really sticks in my craw. These mainstream sports "journalists" will harp on decade-old allegations against Armstrong forever, but not a one of them could pick Tejay Van Garderen out of a lineup.

At least Munson nails Armstrong on one point:

Consider, for example, Armstrong's gift of $100,000 to Planned Parenthood. The fact that the gift came on the same day as the U.S. attorney's announcement about the investigation is likely a coincidence, but it likely isn't a coincidence that the donation came in the middle of the flap over the decision by the Susan G. Komen Foundation to end its grants to Planned Parenthood.

Well you got me there Munson, you gumshoe you. That Lance. Always donating money to things. What a bastard.

More Than Kindacritical, and Rightly So

John Siracusa wasn't available for this week's episode of 5by5's Hypercritical podcast, so Dan recorded a special episode with Build & Analyze's Marco Arment and Back to Work's Merlin Mann. If you enjoy, care about or in any way depend on Apple products, you should check it out.

The discussion centered on something that's been on my mind recently. While all indications point to this being the golden age of Apple products, we are (in my opinion) seeing a disturbing trend:

1. Lion is the first major release of Mac OS X (again, in my opinion) to be worse than the version that preceded it.
2. iOS seems increasingly to be "busting at the seams," trying to do too many things for too many people instead of ruthlessly adhering to its original strategy of doing things well or not at all.
3. Siri was released half-baked, and as such, is being relegated to toy status.
4. iCloud was released half-baked, and as such, currently seems like nothing more than a reboot of MobileMe. What ever happened to documents in the cloud, anyway?
5. Final Cut Pro X. I'll save the meat of this one for a future post, but for now lets just say it fits the pattern a little too nicely.

I can already hear your fingers tapping away, angrily proving me wrong on each and every point. Let me save you the trouble:

1. "Then just keep using Snow Leopard." I have a 2011 MacBook Air. It came pre-installed with Lion, and as such, can't run anything prior to 10.7. When I buy a new desktop later this year, the same will be true of it.
2. "What, you want to go back to an iPhone that doesn't even have cut and paste?" No, but I do want every new feature of iOS to work as well as cut and paste eventually did.
3. "You don't even have an iPhone 4S, how would you know?" I don't want an iPhone 4S, that's how I know.
4. "What about iTunes Match?" I'm not going to pay a subscription fee, however small, to access music I already own.
5. "But they just put all the pro features back in!" Really. Did they? More on that next week.

Just to be clear, I'm not framing this as a Steve Jobs issue. We're way too early in the game to see what the post-Jobs Apple will look like. My issues have more to do with the company's size and focus than with who's at the helm.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not deploying lifeboats just yet. But that brings me to the scariest part of all: where would I turn if I decided that Apple sucked? I need Apple not to drop the ball, because there's nowhere else to go. I've already gotten a taste of that medicine by switching to Avid. And while I reamin upset with Apple for killing off what we're now forced to refer to as "classic" Final Cut, I'm far more furious with them for forcing me use this.

Anyway, give the podcast a listen.

One-Line Review: A Better Life

"Occasional struggles to strike an authentic tone are easily forgotten thanks largely to Demián Bichir's truly outstanding performance."

Learn more about A Better Life here.

About one-line reviews.

One-Line Review: Moneyball

"Superbly executed, and delivered with far more subtlety than I expected."

Learn more about Moneyball here.

About one-line reviews.

SOPA, the MPAA, and Plastic Discs of Hostility

I'm a big fan of Marco Arment. I oppose SOPA. And I'm not a big fan of the MPAA. So, you can imagine how surprised I was to find myself offended when Marco wrote this piece earlier this month.

Marco presents the issue as having three key players:

• Congress
• The MPAA
• The Major Movie Studios

He outlines the improper relationship that the MPAA has with congress:

Such ridiculous, destructive bills should never even pass committee review, but we’re not addressing the real problem: the MPAA’s buying power in Congress. This is a campaign finance problem.

We can attack this by aggressively supporting campaign finance reform to reduce the role of big money in U.S. policy.

He goes on to characterize the MPAA as a hateful organization, and also reveals who he believes to be the men and women behind the curtain:

The MPAA is a hate-sink, a front to protect its members from negative PR. But unlike the similarly purposed Lodsys (and many others), it’s easy to see who the MPAA represents: Disney, Sony Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Brothers. (Essentially, all of the major movie studios.)

So far, so good. The MPAA is without a doubt the studio system's hit man, and is tasked with protecting their collective monopoly. It has a well documented history of prejudice against independents, so I'm all for shedding light on the MPAA's blatantly prejudicial practices.

If you don't know much about what the MPAA is and who they represent, you're not alone. I highly recommend watching Kirby Dick's excellent documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

Then we come to where Marco loses me. Sort of.

The MPAA studios hate us. They hate us with region locks and unskippable screens and encryption and criminalization of fair use. They see us as stupid eyeballs with wallets, and they are entitled to a constant stream of our money. They despise us, and they certainly don’t respect us.

Yet when we watch their movies, we support them.

I say sort of, because I don't disagree with everything he's saying. I too think region locks are dumb and ineffective. I also hate unskippable trailers on DVDs.

But as a filmmaker who has paid for feature film production out of his own pocket, I do respect the studios' desire to protect their intellectual property. I think they're going about it all wrong, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve the right to protect what's theirs.

I also reject the idea that by going to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I'm supporting the MPAA. The studios undoubtedly benefit from my patronage, but so too does David Fincher, and Rooney Mara, and the day player who's on a big set for the first time, and the grip who's just thrilled to have a steady gig. Are they all evil minions of the MPAA?

I feel a bit trapped between a rock and a hard place on this issue. I don't want to see SOPA and PIPA succeed, but I do want to be able to release my film in a way that protects my investment. I think Marco offended me by lumping the studios in with the MPAA wholesale. Yes, the MPAA does represent the major studios, but those studios are enormous organizations made up of thousands of people, some of whom just want to make movies.

Marco's solution is essentially to boycott the entire film and television industry:

So maybe, instead of waiting for the MPAA’s next law and changing our Twitter avatars for a few days in protest, it would be more productive to significantly reduce or eliminate our support of the MPAA member companies starting today...

For those of us who want to watch and make movies, that simply isn't going to work. In fact, it might just end up being counter productive. The web made waves by basically shutting down for the day. What do you think would happen if movie theaters went dark and TV turned to snow for a day? You think that'd make any headlines? I think Joe Taxpayer would be clamoring to pass SOPA and PIPA just to get How I Met Your Mother back on the air.

All that said, however, Marco does deserve credit for nailing the core issue here:

This is a campaign finance problem.

Yes, it certainly is. It's a problem that laws of any stripe can be bought by lobbyists. It's a problem that senators and congress(wo)men don't feel obligated to educate themselves on what's at stake. And it's a problem that an organization like the MPAA (and the studios by proxy) are more interested in prosecuting piracy than they are in preventing it.

Maybe we should be spending some of the money we're currently using to make criminals out of millions of Americans on developing a 21st century distribution model that is easy and empowering for consumers while still protecting filmmakers' investments.

Anyway, gotta get off my high horse now. I have an episode of Build & Analyze to listen to.

One-Line Review: The Artist

"A stunning achievement that felt both aged and modern in a way I didn't know was possible."

Learn more about The Artist here.

About one-line reviews.

One-Line Review: Tree of Life

"Heartbreaking and beautiful, but ultimately not my cup of tea."

Learn more about Tree of Life here.

About one-line reviews.

About One-Line Reviews

One recurring feature of Edge Numbers is going to be a series of one-line reviews of movies that I've seen and enjoyed, seen and hated, or just plain seen. Why only one line? Because, as a filmmaker, I'm constantly battling for storytelling efficiancy. Is this scene redundant? How does this subplot affect the overall story arc? Do I need this character? Fitting my thoughts about a film into one, carefully crafted line seems like a good writing exercise. And while Edge Numbers is largely about your enjoyment, it's also about bettering myself as a filmmaker.

Please also remember that, as with everything here on Edge Numbers, One-Line Reviews are my opinion. I'm not reporting them as fact, nor do I intend them to be taken as anything but one idiot's (likely wrongheaded) opinion. If you disagree, great! Write about it on your site, and send it to me. If I think you have a well thought out argument, I'll link to it (whether I agree or not).

I'm always looking for ways to see new work by my peers, and independent films can't ever get enough publicity. If you've got a new film on the festival circuit, or just coming out on DVD/Blu-ray, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, etc. and would like to see a One-Line Review of it on Edge Numbers, just let me know how I can see it (I'm always happy to pay to rent a fellow independent's work) and I'll do my best to review it here and, of course, link to your website.

Everybody Do Me a Favor

Don't go and see Star Wars: Episode 1 in 3D. I see no reason why we can't all get on board with this. Don't all cinephiles, geeks and nerds want the same thing at the end of the day? To see a pristine transfer of Star Wars sans special edition-ification? Well, here's our chance. You see, the bastardization of the original Star Wars trilogy is all your fault (and mine). What's that you say? It's not your fault? It's George Lucas's? No, it's really not. Consider this:

He “polished up some effects” for the 1997 theatrical re-issue, and you went. He changed more for the DVD Special Editions, and you bought them. He made three disastrous prequels, and they currently sit at #’s 7, 14 and 32 at the all-time domestic box.

This is like me taking a shit on my neighbors lawn, and him throwing money at me to get me to go away. You wanna stop the insanity? You want to give ol’ George an incentive to release the theatrical editions of the films on blu-ray with a new, decent looking transfer?

Don't go and see The Phantom Menace in 3D.