“One of the first things I tried to do when I bought the team was to make it an identification for this city, like Motown in Detroit,” he says. “I try to keep that identification alive. I’m a real Angeleno. I want us to be part of the community.”

 ”Los Angeles is about diversity, and so are the Lakers,” he says. 

Via The Los Angeles Times 

I’d heard very little about it, other than the fact that it starred that McDreamy character from Grey’s Anatomy.  That’s one strike against it already, I thought.

Was I wrong! It turned out that I liked everything about Enchanted, from the gently subversive, stereotype-flipping story (of course), to the clever animation (a fresh homage to the classic Disney tradition we thought was gone forever), to the witty songs (by Alan Menken of The Little Mermaid fame), to the inspired casting (including Susan Sarandon as the villainess, Amy Adams as Giselle, and, yes, Patrick Dempsey as her love interest).

What struck me immediately after the credits had rolled was what a smart branding move Disney had made.  What’s been the knock on Disney’s animated films?  They’re too saccharine.  They’re too cookie-cutter. They’re too “The Hero’s Journey”.  The Shrek series has made a killing mocking the Disney way.

Now, for the first time since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Disney has an answer.  It’s the Saturday Night Live strategy: there’s nothing more powerful than a brand having fun with its own image. Nobody can do a better imitation of you than you. A culture that can afford to laugh at itself is a very healthy culture.

Shrek’s going to have to find a new gig.

Disclaimer: I own stock in Disney and regularly do work for the Mouse. 

I think of even greater interest is the possibility of author J.K. Rowling authorizing the construction of the British version of her world. The possibilities are intriguing, to say the least.

Imagine turning one of London’s many shopping streets (like Leadenhall, which plays the part in the film version) into a genuine Diagon Alley. From that starting point think of boarding the Knight Bus for a trip to the real King’s Cross Station, where an authentic recreation of the famed Hogwarts Express is waiting on Platform 9 and 3/4. While you’re being whisked north to Yorkshire, dream of ending your journey at Hogwarts, where the Sorting Hat will assign you to your “house”, and you’ll be free to explore the many and varied “attractions” of both the castle itself and the surrounding countryside.

Could it be done poorly? Of course. But could it be done extraordinarily well? I think so, and not for an inordinate amount of money.

What would such a development mean for the British tourism industry, particulary the north of England? You only have to consider what (improbably) “The Lord of the Rings” has done for New Zealand to get excited about the prospect.

Tom Rothman, a co-chairman of Fox, said the studio consciously took advantage of the summertime action-movie gap in its decision to release its fourth Die Hard on June 27, five days after Universal’s Evan Almighty and a week before Transformers, from Paramount and DreamWorks. A surfeit of fantasy and computer-generated visual effects has left a hunger in the audience for real things, Mr. Rothman added. Over the next few weeks Fox will tease that perceived appetite with a marketing campaign that promotes John McClane with the words: No mask. No cape. No problem.

Of course, the studios invariably “jockey for position” with respect to release date and genre, but this campaign marks a rarer case of more directly positioning a film against its competition. Nicely done.

Disclaimer: I often do work for 20th Century Fox, but I wasn’t involved in this particular promotion.

Now that the Lakers have fallen on hard times (short-lived, I hope), I’ve temporarily transferred my play-off loyalties to Horry’s new team, the San Antonio Spurs.  Imagine my outrage when Horry was universally branded the bad guy in Game 4 of the current Phoenix-San Antonio series!

In the interest of fairness, I feel about the Suns — who have now knocked the Lakers out of the play-offs two years in a row — like I felt about the 1980s Celtics.  They’re whiny cheaters … and an incredibly talented team who have redefined basketball.  In short, they’re the perfect arch-rivals.  Why couldn’t the Lakers have drafted Leandro Barbosa when we had the chance?

That being said, I think Nash is more to blame than Horry for the suspension of his teammates Stoudamire and Diaw and therefore for the Suns’ loss to San Antonio in last night’s Game 5.  Here’s my man Rob’s woefully under-reported account of the controversial foul, buried beneath the Phoenix reaction:

Meanwhile, Horry said he was an old school guy and that in his early years, his foul would have been no big deal. He said he bumped Nash when he realized he wouldn’t be able to get in front of him to draw an offensive foul. 

‘If it would have been anybody but Steve Nash, it probably wouldn’t have been two games,’ he said after the Spurs shootaround. ‘But you know Steve is a great player, MVP. He’s a focal point of the NBA now and they just have to protect their players.’

Horry said Nash over-dramatized the bump when he went flying into the scorer’s table.

‘I thought I’d just bump him a little bit,’ Horry said. ‘As you know, the great acting skills Steve has, when he hit the floor, then flopped and did ‘Oh, I’m dying here’ it happens. I really wasn’t trying to hurt him. I had no malicious intent to hurt Steve. I like Steve. He’s a good person.’

Horry already was a target for Phoenix fans. When he was with the Suns in 1997, he tossed a towel in the face of then-coach Danny Ainge.

Now Phoenix fans have changed Horry’s nickname from ‘Big Shot Rob’ to ‘Cheap Shot Rob.’

‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he said. ‘I was already hated here in Phoenix anyway, but the messed up thing is the boos were kind of disappearing. Damn, now I’ve got to start all over.’

Now if you watch the replay carefully, that’s exactly what happened — Nash was bumped into the scorer’s table, then he threw himself on his back to dramatize the foul.  But that doesn’t fit the “narrative”, does it?  The Suns are supposed to be the brave, scrappy underdogs, and the Spurs are known as the wily, boring old guard. The Nash side makes a better story, whether it’s “true” or not.

No, I don’t think Stoudamire and Diaw should have been suspended for violating the letter (rather than the spirit) of the “don’t leave the bench” law. But I also don’t think Robert Horry, of all people, should be branded a dirty player because of a Steve Nash flop.  If you ask me, the league should be looking for flops as well as dangerous play — Raja Bell got away with another acting job last night.

The bottom line is that the Suns are the story this year, and just about everyone would rather watch a Suns-Cavs final than a Spurs-Pistons match-up. Me, I can’t wait for Game 6 tomorrow!

Stories are really based on lot of properties. Language, imagination, but most important for me is empathy, the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else on screen. Actors are emotional avatars. We can inhabit that person and feel what they’re feeling. Film deals with this rich emotional palate because they have actors. Games tend to appeal more to the reptilian brain, the basic instincts of fear and aggression.

But games have a different emotional palate, not that they don’t have an emotional palate. Pride and accomplishment, guilt, these things are felt in games, but are not felt in watching a movie. I once beat the hell out of my creatures in Black & White, I felt terribly guilty. I’ve never felt guilty watching a film.

The circuit in our brain that makes stories appealing to us is empathy. Whereas in games it’s more agency, the fact that I’m causing what’s going on on the screen. Movie: What’s going to happen next. Games: Can I accomplish this?

I’d definitely recommend you read the whole thing if you’re interested in the future of gaming.

After I’d enjoyed the first episode (The German Wife), I decided to watch the included interview with the show’s creator, Anthony Horowitz.  I was plased to hear him spend quite a bit of time talking about two of my own specialties, title development and character naming. Here’s the relevant bits (from an unoffical transcript I found on the Web):

Interviewer: So how did you come up with the name Christopher Foyle?

Anthony Horowitz: Ahh, well, that was of course, … that was, … that’s always a difficult thing to do: to get the title right! When we pitched it, it was called “The Blitz Detective”. I’m very glad we dropped that although I knew at the time it was only a working title, ahh, … and I knew it was going to be “somebody’s War” because you talked about “How was your war?”, you know, something one says about the 40’s, you know, “How was your war?”, and it seemed to me that there was a sort of a slight double play there, that Foyle’s war, this person’s war, was his own personal war which in this case is the war against crime as much as anything else. As to the name Foyle himself: I was doing a lot of research, always buying books, and I nearly always buy my books at Foyle’s, the famous book shop in London and it sort of hit me one day that that was the perfect name for the detective as I was getting the job, there it was in front of me! If you’ve ever been to Foyle’s, what’s delightful about the shop, it is a very 1940’s shop and of course it was owned by Christina Foyle (hence Christopher) who is one feels a sort of a Lady of Letters of the 40’s particularly, and it is still. I mean, they’ve now modernized the bottom floor but if you go through and up the stairs you suddenly find yourself back in time, and so it was just a sort of an obvious thing. And then of course there is a little added extra which is that he foils crime. I mean, that’s very subconsciously…, … I mean, it’s not intentional, but that to me was quite a nice little added thing to it, and so Foyle’s War it was!

Interviewer: That’s nice! Are names very important to your characters? I mean, are they an integral part of the character when you’re working out what they’re going to be?

Anthony Horowitz: Yes, I mean, I’ve always belonged to the sort of Charles Dickens school of names which is that the first thing a character …, … first thing that you know about a character is the character’s name. And therefore, giving the character a certain sort of name will tell you something about that character. And you have to be careful about what not to go into like a Dickensian sort of Wackford Squizz (?) type names which wouldn’t work in a modern drama. But even so, yes, names are very important, and in this one, you know, for Christian names obviously one is using a lot of 1940’s names. You’re into sort of, … into sort of Howards and Alans and Stanleys and Arthurs. Those sort of names which are sort of redolent for 1940 immediately. And then you know, I … , …for the curator, … the art curator who was in there, I always quite liked, in the fourth episode, “Austin Carmichael”. Somehow you just know that a guy called Austin Carmichael is going to be a creepy antique dealer! And it’s rather nice that the actor, Anton Lesser doesn’t actually play it too Austin Carmichael-ish, you know? He pulls back and makes the guy real.

You know, Guy Spencer, in the second episode, I think that’s a good name for a fascist character. I don’t quite know why …, …Guy is …, … Guy and Spencer are so English, both of them. And yet somehow both together …! I just know I’m not going to like this guy. So, yes, names are important and I spent a lot of time thinking about them.

When I have a chance, I’ll share my own thoughts on the subject.

Like many in the theme park industry, Six Flags is breaking the cardinal rule of positioning — don’t try to be all things to all people.  The newly-rebranded park already faces stiff competition from its equally generic cross-town rival, Paramount’s Great America, and it will never “own” the words “discovery” or ”kingdom” in the minds of theme park-goers (SeaWorld and Disney got there first).

What should they do now? My blue sky thinking is to divide the park in two. 

The first park (which would keep the “Discovery Kingdom” name until it can be gracefully changed) should focus on the natural and prehistory of California, including the conservation of our many endangered species and habitats, a ride-based exploration of California’s wonderful Ice Age past (lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my!), and an authentic celebration of our rich Native American heritage.

The second park should focus on being a microcosm of the Bay Area experience, including thrill rides based upon the Barbary Coast, the Gold Rush, the redwood logging empires, Chinatown, North Beach, etc. 

Add a shopping street, a live entertainment venue, and potential partnerships with Lucasfilm and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and you’ve got yourself a three-day destination brand that should appeal to visitors and locals alike.

Easy to do? No.  But it’s better than being a perennial me-too, also-ran in an already-crowded industry.

It literally had all the elements of a great story. The David vs. Goliath build-up. The early hope-against-hope of a nearly unthinkable upset. The sudden turn of fortune, making you think all was lost. A rookie coach who wasn’t afraid to actually use every play in his playbook. The breathtaking comeback. And, of course, a true fairytale ending — running back Ian Johnson winning the big game and proposing to his girlfriend, Boise State cheerleader Chrissy Popadics. If it had merely been a movie, the critics would say it was unbelievable.

If you’re not a sports fan, those are the moments we hope for, and it’s something no other form of entertainment can give us.