Archive for May, 2008

It has been three years since we followed the Pevensie siblings on the big screen, and the magic that was felt as they went through the wardbrobe and into the land of Narnia has all but been extinguished by a film that fails to impress and plays instead to the lower end of the PG rating scale.

The Return of the Kings and Queens

The previous film left off with the two Kings and Queens coming back through the wardrobe after many years of ruling Narnia as adults.  Upon their return to the real world, they are once again children, and hardly any time has passed since they entered the wardrobe.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian makes sure viewers know this fact by continually hitting the audience over the head with jokes and exposition detailing their situation.  In one scene,  Peter is complaining about being treated like a child, and when it is pointed out that he is a child, exclaims that he “didn’t use to be.”

Just as we are getting used to seeing the Pevensie’s in a constant state of depression, suddenly they are transported back to Narnia via a horn that summons past Kings and Queens back to Narnia.   They quickly discover  that in just the time they were back in the real world, several hundred years have passed in Narnia.

Same Song Second Verse

I have the perspective of never having read the books by CS Lewis, so I am able to come to the films and enjoy them as they are, without any preconceived notions of how I envisioned the books as a kid, or how the director did or didn’t bring a part of the book to life.   I was able to enjoy The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe as the start of a magical adventure, easily up to par of the Harry Potter films, with fantastic cinematography and haunting music.

This time, they settled for gimmicks.

Take the dwarf from Lord of the Rings, the cat from Shrek, and Mr. Beaver from the first Narnia film, put them in a room and let them make jokes about each other and you have a good portion of this film.    Instead of the talking animals and creatures being the cornerstone of the film, we are left with a far less-interesting enemy – humans.

In the first film we had four humans teaming with “good” creatures battling “bad” creatures and the evil witch.  It was easy to tell who was good and who was evil.  In Caspian, suddenly all humans are evil.  In fact, the only moral of the film that I could decipher is this:

Humans destroy the forest and all of its living creatures, including cute, talking mice.

Yes, it is another piece of propaganda from the film world, following on the heels of Speed Racer’s anti-corporate message, directed towards unsuspecting kids and their parents.  Al Gore would be pleased.

What Could Have Saved It?

It’s hard to tell what could have saved Prince Caspian since I haven’t read the book.   Noticeably absent was Edmund’s witt as the brother we love to hate.   The scene where Caspian considers freeing the White Witch from the netherworld seemed thrown in at the last minute – there could have been a little more development in his struggle to use her power or not.  Also, the film relies too heavily on what happened to Caspian’s father – so much so I kept hearing in my head “My name is Prince Caspian of the Telmarine, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

Perhaps then we would have had a good film.

Rutter’s Rating: 2/5.

Technorati Tags: Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, Movie Review, Troy Rutter, Telmarine

6 Figure Blogging 

Ive been participating in 6 Figure Blogging with Darren from Problogger.net and Andy Wibbels from 6 Apart.  Most of the course so far has been fairly elementary for those who have been blogging for a while.  Indeed, I almost wish there was a disclaimer before I plunked down the money that would have rated the course on a sliding scare between Beginner and Expert blogging knowledge.

One of the things that did catch my interest was the subject of message on your blog.   The analogy given was a good one, and one I am trying to find some kind of balance for in my own blog here on troyrutter.com

Imagine going into a bookstore and looking for a magazine.  You are thinking of going skiing in Colorado this winter, so you go from one shelf to another, and come to a section marked Sports.  There tucked in back of the latest NBA news you spot a magazine called “Colorado Skiing” that was exactly what you were looking for.  You pay for the magazine and go home.

Now, think of what it would be like to go to the book store and instead of having a skiing magazine, you had a “Sports” magazine.   Inside you had all sports imaginable and maybe 1 article on skiing in Colorado.   Now back up yet another level, maybe there was one magazine on …. everything.   This magazine had articles on computers, decorating, potty training your child, baseball, fixing cars, politics, Britney Spears – everything in the world.

And that is where you find most personal blogs.

I love my blog here at TroyRutter.com, but the fact is it will not, and can not, ever be used to do the almighty M – “monetize.”   The only blogs/podcasts that seem to do well that are personal blogs are celebrities. (ie: Wil Wheaton, Adam Curry, among others.)

So what does your blog say about your tastes?

Posting Categories

One of the easiest ways to judge if your blog has a tight or broad focus is to look at your category list.   If you see more than 10 categories on your blog, then your net may be too big.  A focused blog may have 5 or less categories that posts fall into.

When you go to make a new blog post, and are considering making a new category, think carefully about what you are doing.   If you are adding a category, then your net is about to get even larger, and you may risk alienating those who have started coming to your blog because of another topic you wrote about.

Monetize? Blasphemy!

If you don’t have any aspirations to  monetize your blog, then by all means talk about anything and everything.   But if you have any interest on focusing on a niche to help earn some extra money, then focusing your blog’s entries and categories on that niche will benefit you from the start.

Almost 2 years ago I remember reading Wil Wheaton’s blog where he lost all or most of his purchased iTunes music, and I remember feeling jealous when a rep from apple who read his blog, called him to make everything right.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/09/apple_gave_me_b.html

Fast forward to the Twitter age.

DIGSBY

I have used several IM clients over the years, and had pretty much settled on Trillian to be my IM program of choice, since it combined the services of AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN. A coworker then told me about Digsby, which also combined Facebook, Myspace, Gmail and Twitter. I installed the application and had no issues whatsoever.

What I was having problems with was a notification showing up in Digsby that I had a @reply, but couldn’t see them on my twitter timeline (I use the actual twitter.com interface). I almost immediately received a direct message from Digsby offering to help troubleshoot the problem.

Whoa.

Turns out it wasn’t Digsby at all, but my settings on Twitter to “show all @replies on my timeline”

But, I was still very impressed with Digsby monitoring the twitterverse for their name being mentioned, and jumping right on questions that were presented – but probably not even directed towards them.

Bright Kite

I don’t have a phone that supports Bright Kite, so I enter in my location manually, thus somewhat defeating the purpose I suppose. In today’s world of so many different social applications being launched, I oftentimes use a generic password for sites Im not sure I will use a lot.

So, when I really WANTED to use Bright Kite recently, I had forgotten which password I actually used. I searched and searched, but to my surprise there was no “forgot password” link to be found. I immediately twittered my frustration (and almost at the exact same time remembered my password anyway). Within 2 minutes there was a @reply to me saying they were working on it, and within 20 minutes, I got another reply saying there was now a forgot password link on the site.

Yikes.

Yet again, another company that “gets it.”

So bravo to these companies and others using twitter to enhance not only their core product, but also customer service. I’m sure there are many other companies out there doing the same thing. But for once (or twice) – you guys made me feel like a celebrity.

Technorati Tags: bright kite, digsby, twitter, wil wheaton