Repeat! We have a winner in The Consumerist’s Worst Company in the U.S. It’s EA! Again!

I’m glad EA made the finals, but I think Bank of America should have taken the award.  Or maybe not.  That’s just logic talking.  Emotionally, I simply hate the fuck out of EA and I’m glad they are the winner.  EA is the epitome of American Corporations who just don’t give a rats ass about consumers.

They have done their best to destroy any enjoyment one could get out of gaming with their crappy half assed half finished over-priced games, their DRM always on connection schemes, their overpriced micro-transactions some of which include paying for game items plastered with advertising so they get paid twice, and their total lack of customer service.  Those last two words are not even in the EA vocabulary.

And the response last week of chief operating officer Pete Moore trying to blame EA’s performance on homohpobia is as disgusting as it gets.  When you start using the gay community as a shield because your company sucks big time, your just as bad as any Republican because you’re a hypocrite.

I can find nobody, and neither did The Consumerist, offering any evidence that people voted because they hated homosexual.  Simply put, practically everybody hates EA and their disgusting lies such as the continual falsehood regarding the DRM of Sim City.  The people who run this company are totally clueless, and the stockholders should be pissed off about it.  But apparently they are as stupid as those they hire to run this fiasco.  Or maybe they love losing money.

The Consumerist:

Make no mistake: Video games are big business. A company like EA — and Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Sony, etc. — merits just as much scrutiny as any other business that plays a leading role in a multibillion-dollar industry. It’s only a fractured, antiquated public perception that video games are somehow frivolous holdovers from childhood that allows gamers to be abused and taken advantage of by the very people who supply them the games they play.

“Until EA stops sucking the blood out of games in order to make uninspiring sequels, or at least until they begin caring about how much gamers hate their lack of respect for our money and intelligence, this is going to continue,” writes Penny Arcade’s Kuchera. “We don’t hate them because we’re homophobes, we hate them because they destroy companies we love. We hate them because they release poor games. We hate them because they claim our hate doesn’t matter as long as we give them our money.”

Instead of deflecting, we ask the higher-ups at EA to reflect on the following question:

When we live in an era marked by massive oil spills, faulty foreclosures by bad banks, and rampant consolidation in the airline and telecom industry, what does it say about EA’s business practices that so many people have — for the second year in a row — come out to hand it the title of Worst Company In America?

Something that is totally overlooked and seldom mentioned is that if EA is such a great company, why have they shown more losing quarters over the years than profitable ones?   And this is by a large margin.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, EA posted a net loss of $45 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with a loss of $205 million, or 62 cents a share, a year earlier. Sales declined to $922 million from $1.06 billion.

When items such as deferred revenue and stock-based compensation are factored in, the company said it earned 57 cents per share on $1.2 billion in sales, compared with earnings of 99 cents per share on $1.65 billion in sales in the year-earlier period. The results were mostly in line with analysts' average expectation of 56 cents per share on revenue of $1.28 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

How can any company rake in that much cash and still stay in the minus column.  Better yet, how do they stay in business?

But this response may be the best one I’ve read to date regarding EA.  From Penny Arcade:

SimCity not only requires an Internet connection, a decision that has led to no end of technical problems, but we can no longer create huge cities. We can’t save our game, experiment with the design, and then reload. It’s not a sandbox anymore, and the playful nature of past games in the series has been replaced by a game that forces us to play a certain way.

The gutless reaction to these issues is just as large of a problem, and after I was personally blown off by Origin PR for daring to ask about whether customers can get a refund for their non-working game, I can understand the frustration on the part of gamers trying to fight for their money back. If their official PR is comfortable giving the finger to the press and refusing to comment on refunds, I can’t imagine how customers are treated.

You know my thoughts on Real Racing 3, a game made by the remnants of two other developers EA ate up before laying off their staff and smashing them together. The company’s reaction to the vocal dismay at the microtransaction model is, once again, that they’re making money so they don’t care if you don’t like it.

EA may have the reputation of being a company run by empty suits, but blowing off the hatred of gamers due to the “market” having spoken shows just how well deserved that reputation has become. It seems that no EA executive can even pretend to care about the massive backlash the company is facing from gamers who feel ripped off.

I’m sure they sell a lot of their big guns such as Madden (overpriced, hardly changes, you’re spending $60 every year just for new rosters) or The Sims 3 (They’ve lost a lot of customers, me included, with exorbitant micro-transactions in their Sims 3 Store while skimping on content in their stuff packs and expansion packs.  Each expansion pack brings new problems to the games functions with no fixes) but nobody is buying the rest of their crap because EA does not give a damn about the customer or the quality of their product.   

And As long as you have greedy clueless executives like Pete Moore blowing smoke up the ass of, well any two bit air headed reporter in listening distance,  and trying to use the flimsiest cover to hide behind in a feeble minded attempt to explain away winning an award such as this, then EA will always be a company that belongs in the shitter.  I hope sooner or later, they get the royal flush.

And despite Moore’s creed of statistics about customers doing this and that, most of which they are forced into in order to play shitty EA Games, nothing will change the fact that most people on this earth believe that EA has been a festering infection on the gaming industry.  Congratulations, to Mr. Moore and EA for their award. They deserve it.

Crossposted at Corporateownedusa.

Annette Funicello passes away at age 70

From Hollywood Reporter:

Annette Funicello, a Disney Mouseketeer on TV's The Mickey Mouse Club who went on to fame by co-starring in several beach movies with Frankie Avalon in the 1960s, has died. She was 70.

Funicello, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1987 and became a spokeswoman for treatment of the disease, died Monday at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, the Walt Disney Co. announced.

Although single-names were not in vogue at the time, her popularity was so wide and her personality so familiar that she was “Annette.” No last name needed.

The quintessence of innocence, mixed with dark good looks and beguiling charm, she was a male ideal and a female role model. Wholesome in the best sense, Funicello was drive-ins, sock hops, beach parties and malted milks -- the personification of an innocent era.

I grew up with Annette having been around during her Mouse Club years, the Disney Films, and the Beach Party movies. I had always hoped to write about some of her films, and will still do so I'm sure. Annette (you seldom used her last name. She was always Annette to us.) was one of the great icons of the 50's and 60's, and her long struggle with M.S. is finally over. I'll have more to say about Annette later.

Frankie Avalon who was her lifelong friend and starred with her in the Bikini Beach movies was interviewed by TMZ.

Frankie Avalon on Annette Funicello's Death: I'm Devastated - Watch More Celebrity Videos or Subscribe

Opening scenes of Beach Blanket Bingo, with Annette, Frankie Avalone, and a cast of many.

Roger Ebert 1942 - 2013

I have been a fan of film criticism ever since I checked out Rex Reed’s book, Big Screen, Little Screen, from the local Library years ago.   It was entertainingly irreverent and sarcastic, but the idea that someone could make a living watching movies and TV shows then writing about it had never crossed my mind.    English Teachers, Literature Teachers, and even one Psychology Teacher, often told me I had a knack for story telling.  I just needed to be more polished.    

In my junior year,  I was told by a guidance counselor that the creative writing class wasn’t for someone like me, and my dreams of putting pen to paper and coming up with any kind of worthy prose that someone would actually want to read were squashed. And no, this particular misguided counselor had no way of knowing whether I had any real talent buried inside of my over active imagination that could be harnessed and projected out through my magic typing fingers.  

In case you’re wondering what she meant by “someone like me,”  see any John Hughes movie that takes place in, near, or during high school for reference.  Yes, teachers can sometimes be as shitty as the students.   

Fast forward to the mid seventies.  Roger Ebert & Gene Siskel, rival critics from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune respectively begin appearing in a monthly show on the local Chicago PBS station, WTTW.  The program becomes popular enough that it moves to a bi-weekly format, and is aired on PBS Stations around the country.  By 1979, it was appearing weekly on stations all over the United States and quickly became the highest rated entertainment show in the history of PBS.

I was lucky enough to discover the show early on, when it always ended with Spot the Wonder Dog making an appearance for the Dog of the Week segment.  I became an instant fan of both critics.  And the dog as well.  But I always preferred Ebert.  He seemed more like the average guy you would go see a film with, and then argue it’s merits or lack of over a brew at the local tavern.  For some reason, when I enjoyed a film that the two critics loved, I felt as if my opinion was validated.  But if there was a film I liked that they panned, I didn’t feel as if my reasoning was any less valuable than theirs.  But I did watch, listen, and learn as to why Gene and especially Roger, offered the criticisms that they did.  And what I learned was that there was many more different layers in the process of movie making then I had realized.

 

It was no longer whether I just liked the movie or not.  It was now, what did I like about it?  The acting?  The Cinematography?  The Costume Design?  The Craftsmanship of a Director choreographing the film so that all of these elements combined in perfect harmony?  On the opposite end of the equation, were the actors giving it their best effort to overcome the crappy dialogue of a miserable screen play?  What decisions did the director make that were just bad choices all the way around?  Is the score pleasing to the ear and does it enhance the film?   Or did you just want to mute the damn thing?  Or is everybody going through the motions just to make a quick buck.

Yet, I never had a chance to actually read an Ebert or Siskel written review until the late nineties, when the internet finally began to unfurl itself to the masses.  We didn’t get the Chicago Newspapers delivered to the town that I lived in.  It was Ebert whose reviews I read for the most part probably because he took to the internet like a duck takes to water.

And what you saw on TV was pretty much what you read in print, with the caveat that the written reviews were more in depth, but could often be just as sarcastic, funny, witty, or totally serious in their absolute praise.  It became a weekly ritual to find Ebert’s reviews on Friday before heading to the theater.  A bad review didn’t necessarily keep me away from many films, but a good review could often convince me to view a film I might not have bothered with.

When Siskel passed away, Richard Roeper took over for him.  I like Roeper, but I had spent so many years with Roger and Gene, that it just wasn’t the same.  And when Ebert became ill and had to leave the program, my interest in it waned.  But I still went to Roger’s web page, hoping he would be back writing about the latest film offerings. 

Eventually he did return.  And in the process having lost his voice, Roger adapted new ways to communicate with his millions of fans through his blog, through his constant twitter presence, and through his many books.   And whether it was a result of having to deal with his many illnesses or not, he seemed to become closer and more accessible to his millions of fans on the internet and off.  

But when it came to what was on the screen, Ebert believed in the purity of cinema.  He often wrote about some of the new film technologies he didn’t particularly care for.  I don’t think he ever came to terms with the 3D process.  He viewed it as gimmicky, and there were less than a handful of films that he thought made proper use of the technique.  These included Avatar, and the recent Life of Pi. 

Ebert hated the conversion of celluloid to digital projection in the theaters.  But I think he finally grew to accept that it was the future and there was no stopping it.  Or maybe he was simply lamenting the fact that the day would come when the world of cinema he knew so well and had loved his entire life would no longer exist at all in the manner he and so many of us had become accustomed to.

It was in 2003 that my old urge to write resurfaced after lying dormant for over thirty years.   I had read many “reviews” on the IMDB, and decided I could do that as well.  My initial offerings weren’t more than a couple of paragraphs, three at the most.  (And I’m sure there are those who wish they still were)  When I mention those early reviews, I often refer to them as a P.O.S.  That’s because for the most part they are.  But at the urging of a few people I had met on the Titanic message boards, I began to expand my horizons.  I did my best to improve.  As you can tell, it’s constantly a work in progress.

Not long after that, politics got in the way.  I was on the old AOL, and 2004 being an election year, I decided I could no longer stand the George W. Bush admiration society campaign of misinformation any longer.  So movie reviews gave way to politics, and in November of that year, I was designated as the Democratic Blog Page of the Month out of thousands.  There was, a Republican Counterpart.  In the end, it may have been an award that had little meaning for anyone but myself.  But I can’t tell you the joy and surprise I felt for just having been acknowledged for the first time.

Eventually I would get back to the movies.  And I enjoyed doing it so much I started a separate movie review blog.  Clyde’s Stuff was generally used for other entertainment features and politics.  A strange mix if there ever was one.  And except for my writings concerning American Idol in 2005 and 2006 which set my blog aflame, my reviews of movies old and new attracted the most traffic.

I think what I also learned from Roger Ebert was to not only  be myself,  but to do my utmost to be entertaining while being as informative as I could.  Say what you think, but don’t act like some know it all talking down to others.  You have to love what you are doing when it comes to writing.  Chances are you won’t make a dime.  You do it for the enjoyment of it, and if someone happens by and likes what you’ve done or responds to it, then that’s just icing on the cake.

Roger loved the movies, and loved to write.   I do as well.  I  followed him for over thirty years, and in his last blog entry, I had a very uneasy feeling about how things were really going.  During the entire period of his illness, Ebert always tried to put the best face on what at times must have seemed like insurmountable obstacles while experiencing excruciating pain.  And last Thursday, when I came home from work and logged onto The Huffington Post, the news couldn’t have been more any worse.  Ebert, had passed away.  I felt like I had lost a best friend.  I was devastated.  I don’t think there has been the death of any celebrity that had affected me as much as this one did.

There weren’t too many days that I spent on the internet that I didn’t check to see if Roger had a new column, or some new reviews.  Or if he tweeted something he found particularly compelling on the chance that you might be interested in it as well.  Chances were pretty good that you would be.  I always was.  There was something comforting for me about just knowing Roger was there and that anything he had to say would be infinitely more worthwhile than the thousands of words I’ve typed out in this entire blog.

I had commented on his blog several times.  The last time was in one of his most widely responded to essays asking his audience what was the movie that they really hated, hated, hated.   I offered up Norbit, a movie I examined in depth on this blog, and went so far as to use a brief passage from that article in my response.  But other than that, I made no real attempt to ever contact him in person.  Now I wish I had.  Now it is too late.

I’m not sure what I would have written.  Maybe just writing and letting him know how much admiration I had for him not only as a writer, but his importance to me as a person because he believed in the philosophy that it was more important to do your best to make others happy.  From a political standpoint and a humanitarian standpoint, we were on the exact same page.  And he never tried to hide it, often writing lengthy essays such as this recent passage on climate change and this one written in January on gun legislation where he had a sense of hope, and then this later one, where his outlook had turned bleak.  I understand this as well.  Having written about politics off and on for the past nine years, I’m not sure that too much has really changed for the better in this country.  And most days, I swear I’ll never write another word.  But the hypocrisy in the never ending selfish philosophy of much of the world boils inside you until you have to let it out regardless of how frustrating it may be in the end.  Just as I sense Roger’s frustration when writing about a young girl who died needlessly in Harsh Park.

There are some people who hated Roger Ebert.  They hated him because he dared to give a thumbs down to some inconsequential piece of film tripe that they may have revered.  To them, it didn’t matter why.  But this is the same type of narrow minded earthlings who hated Roger politically, because he was often derisive of their inability to grasp the simple equation that their fellow man’s well being should be given the highest priority, and not lining the pockets of Corporate USA.  It is their loss, for they’ll never really understand nor did they experience all that he had to give.  

Monday, April 8th, will be Roger’s Memorial service.  It is open to the public on a first come basis.  And that’s a good thing.  Because for Ebert, other than the movies themself and the love of his life, Chaz, it was his millions of followers that meant more to him than anything.  But he wouldn’t want tears.  He had lived life to the fullest, and relished every minute of it.  He had given all he had to give.  He would want us to continue to do so as well.

He loved his fans every bit as much as we loved him.  As far as I’m concerned, the balcony will never close.  Goodbye, Roger.  We’ll miss you. 


 

Weekend Box Office Report 4/7/2013: The Evil Dead-Revised Edition

It was another testosterone filled weekend at the Box Office as American Males scurried into the theaters to gape, holler, and hoot, at the gore and bloodletting in Evil Dead to the tune of $30.5 million dollars off of a production budget of $17 million dollars.  Chances of Evil Dead recuperating it’s production AND marketing costs are now at 100 percent.  However, the film only earned a C+ CinemaScore in North America which proves one thing:  Since the audience was made up of 58 percent males, when it comes to guts and gory, the guys will watch about any piece of crap you put up on the screen these days.  Unless of course it’s directed by Uwe Boll.  Nobody wants to see any movie produced by the guy who is a continual blight on the art of film making.

Jurassic Park 3D, the other not so really new entry, came in at number four with a domestic take of $18.2 million dollars.  Not bad for a movie that has been on DVD forever, and was released on Blu-ray in a boxed trilogy set just about a year and a half ago.  It even beat Titanic’s 3D Weekend totals, but keep in mind that Titanic had the disadvantage of less showings due to it’s running time of over three hours.  Up next for the dinosaur epic is the Blu-ray 3D version scheduled for release in just two weeks on April 23, for those of you who have the capability at home for that format. 

I purchased a new set for my girlfriend this past Christmas and didn’t go that route.  Finances were not on my side, but more than that, I still see the appeal of 3D as being limited as well.  The expense doesn’t stop with the purchase of a 3D set either.  You need a blu-ray player that is 3D capable (I have one of those, but looks like I’ll never use it for that function), and the 3D blu-ray discs are more expensive.  There isn’t much as far as the broadcast medium either, and what you will find is that it will cost you extra as well. 

On the other hand, those who keep predicting that this latest incarnation of 3D will eventually die off keep being proven wrong.  It appears audiences are just being more selective in what they see, or perhaps when they believe the 3D will add to the experience.  And despite Jurassic Park being a 3D retrofit, most of the reviews I’ve read have praised it.  I gave thought to seeing it myself this past weekend but my girlfriend had other ideas.  We ended up seeing The Call with Halle Barry.

The Croods, in it’s second full week of release pretty much tied with GI Joe for runner up status and continues to rake in the dough surpassing the $125 million dollar mark domestically.  GI Joe, while taking in 21.1 million domestically, continues to conquer Europe and Asia where it has taken in $145 million in overseas box office compared to the $86.7 totals it’s racked up here at home.  Sorry kiddies, but the U.S. box office is not not the only thing that makes the world go round.

From Hollywood Reporter:

Universal opens the 3D rerelease of Jurassic Park 20 years after the original dinosaur movie debuted and is using the pic to prime audiences for Jurassic Park IV, which rolls out in June 2014 (Spielberg is producing but not directing). Hollywood has had a mixed track record with 3D rereleases and will be watching closely to see how Jurassic Park performs over the course of its short run (the Blu-Ray/DVD comes out in two weeks).

The Croods and G.I. Joe: Retaliation claimed the No. 2 and No. 3 spots on the North American box office chart, although the precise order won't be determined until Monday morning, since both films are estimating a $21.1 million weekend.

Croods, from DreamWorks Animation and Fox, jumped the $300 million mark globally over the weekend, becoming only the second title of 2013 to do so after Oz the Great and Powerful. Croods grossed $34.1 million internationally from 62 markets for a foreign total of $206.8 million. The 3D toon has now earned $125.8 domestically for a global cume of $332.6 million.

G.I. Joe raced past the $200 million mark in its second weekend of play at the global box office. The action pic, from Paramount, MGM and Skydance, boasts a domestic total of $86.7 million, while it earned $40.2 million internationally from 60 countries for a foreign total of $145.2 million and global haul of $231.9 million.

For all you box office score keepers out there, here are the totals: