Futuristic Vending Machines Adding Convenience and Profitability

       New York -   Long before McDonald's, coin operated vending machines served pies and sandwiches to armies of workers.  But the United States has since not kept pace with Europe and the Orient, where futuristic machines offer a vast array of goods.  After five straight years of decline, revenue for the United States vending machine industry is poised to rise.  Experts say 2014 is a comeback year for the vending machine sector. High-tech vending machine versions are popping up at gas stations and shopping malls, peddling edibles more commonly found at restaurants or speciality stores.   Innovations in vending machine technology and the convenience machines provide have made them more popular in 2014. Some machines offer free Wi-Fi and touch screens that entertain shoppers while the shoppers wait a short time to receive their item, versus enjoying the full food court experience.  Vending machines now give patrons the choice of  standing in line if they want to, or of saving time for customers that don't want to stand in line to eat at the food court.  The variety of machines starting to seen around the country include everything from outrageously expensive items such as caviar and jewelry to common ordinary things we need like burritos and hamburgers. At one automated boutique at Hollywood and Highland Center tourists can spend up to $1,000 on fine caviar.  Tin cans of the rare delicacy are dispensed from the machine after pressing the payment button.  Many vending machines accept credit or debit cards.  L'Oreal tested a vending machine in New York during the previous holidays that scans the shoppers clothing outfit and recommends complementary make-up.  Some of these new virtual stores give store owners the ability to turn over some of their operations to the vending machine.  Sometimes this allows store owners to turn their stores into 24-hour operations and at the same time save money on the costs of human salaries and the costs of managing human employees.  Vending machine use is up 7% over 2013.  See also, www.popularmechanics.com.

ESPN'S New "120 Sports" Network

      Chicago - Streaming video highlights, pumped -up hosts, flashy graphics, and score updates make it seem like a lot of other national sports cable networks - except this is not cable.  The all digital "24/7" network aims to be an online re-invention of ESPN's "Sports Center" for multi-taskers with mobile devices.
     MLB.com, the NHL and the NBA teamed up to deliver video-driven sports reports with social interaction related factoids in two minute segments, hence the name 120 Sports (a two minute sports update).   "We want to create a daily habit, where you will check us multiple times a day and have as long a viewing session as possible," said Jason Coyle president of Chicago-based 120 Sports.  The network will sream live from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 3 to 11 p.m., on Sunday.  A morning show is also in the works, according to executives.  During downtime, 120 Sports will offer video on demand, giving fans a chance to catch up on the days big stories.          
     A free applet unlocks the service on tablets and smartphones.  The live schedule of 120 Sports puts it up against prime-time TV, but Jason Coyle, president of Chicago-based 120 Sports, says "its more complementary than competitive, with 120 Sports steering users to  play-by-play action on other networks.  If you're not in front of a television or you don't have a television, we are a great primary experience.  If you're sitting in front of your television, we're going to help you navigate the whole sports landscape."  The essence of 120 Sports is to reach an audience that is socially- media-engaged and for whom multi-screen viewing  is second nature.  Of the staffers that have been hired since the network was announced in February 2014, many have track records at other sports networks.  Geographic diversity is a prerequisite to being hired at 120 Sports.
     The company aims to avoid a home-team mentality.  "We wanted to have a work base that is very diverse in every way - diverse in the sports they follow and diverse in the teams they follow," said Mat Carstens, executive vice-president of 120 Sports.  The 120 Sports network recently announced that it had expanded its roster with former NBA All-Star and Chicago native Antoine Walker and former MLB All-star pitcher, Danny Graves, who will serve as analysts.  The 120 Sports network has no plans to let itself migrate onto ESPN's turf.  "You can watch television and 120 Sports on the same set, if you're television is new enough, by just pressing a button.  Coyle says "For us, our rights are only digital, our audience purview is only digital, and our scope is only digital.  We're not looking to compete against TV".  See also, www.120sports.com.

Transformers International Sales Gets Small Boost From Relaxed Rules

     Beijing - In the first half of 2014, eight Hollywood films debuted in China the same day they opened in the United States, compared with just three in the first half of 2013.  "Transformer's":  Age of  Extinction", one of those "day-and-date releases, looks to be on pace to shatter China's all-time box office record, which is held by "Avatar."  China's box office grew more than 22% in the first half of 2014 to $2.2 billion.  United States titles such as "Transformers" helped imports (motion pictures produced in the United States) take more than 50% of ticket sales in the world's second -biggest movie market, China.  Rance Pow, president of Artisian Gateway, says Hollywood studios are having increased success at securing permission to simultaneously release their movies in the United States and China.  The balance between imported motion pictures and domestic productions is closely watched in China, where the government limits the number of foreign films shown in the country each year, release dates are controlled by the state-run China Film Group.  So far, 34 imported films have been shown in China in 2014.  The motion picture calendar for the next few months shows no major Hollywood picture titles on tap to be released in the Chinese film market.  "Striking a balance on box office remains important.  They're trying to allow in the best foreign content but not allow it to dominate," said Chen Shaofeng, deputy director of the Institute for Cultural Industries at Peking University.  Chen predicted that regulators will try to keep imported motion picture restrictions in place for the "forseeable future," said restrictions could be eased.  "If domestic films don't keep pace and stay competitive,"  he said, authorities "may allow more foreign content into the county to allow box office to continue to grow".  See also, www.paramountpictures.com. 

"Thrones" Sees Success on HBO

     England - Advancements in digital effects have made it possible to conjure up the incredible magic we see in "Game of Thrones,"  for example Daenerys' dragon.  But, as always it is the stories underneath and their emotional underpinnings that are so fundamental to capturing the crowds.  The adventures and the worlds they visit are often so complicated that Hollywood's creativeness sometimes need more time to connect with motion picture and television audiences.  Brilliant casting, gripping stories, and stunning creativity all work to make the New Age fairy tale for grown-ups, "Game of  Thrones," as successful on television as George R.R. Martin's print version "A Song of Ice and Fire" that inspired HBO's show "Game of Thrones."
     The success is good, though, there is some tension between HBO's interpretation of the "Thrones" dream and George R.R. Martin's.  The "Thrones" averages more than 18 million viewers per episode and this season surpassed "The Sopranos" as HBO's most-watched series.  With the show climbing the ratings chart, in a recent telephone interview with Dana Jennings of the New York Times, George R.R. Martin talked about the transition from print in "A Song of Ice and Fire,"  to television in HBO's "Game of Thrones."  Mr. Martin said, the transition to television has not been difficult "because they have done a wonderful job of it", referring to HBO's "Game of Thrones" team that created the series for HBO.  One thing that would make Mr. Martin happier was if his creation had more elbow room on HBO.  Each season HBO runs 10 chapters.  "I wish we had more episodes", he said speaking from his home in Santa Fe, N.M.  "I'd love to have 13 episodes.  With 13 episodes we could include smaller scenes that we had to cut, scenes that make the story deeper and richer."  As for those missing scenes Mr. Martin cited a scene from the first novel, "A Game of Thrones," that didn't make it into Season One.  The Starks are traveling to King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, with the royal family.  The sisters Sansa and Arya Stark are invited to tea and lemon cakes with Queen Cersei, but Arya wants to go hunt for rubies with the butcher's boy.  And the sisters argue about it.  Mr. Martin says, he misses the scene because it adds texture and helps establish, early on, the characters and the relationship between them.  Though not in the show, the scene was used as part of the successful auditions for Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa, and Maisie Williams, who is Arya.  Though he has worked in television before, as a story editor for "The Twilight Zone" on CBS in 1986, and a writer producer with "Beauty and the Beast" which debuted on CBS in 1987.  "There was some frustration when you have to fight the Hollywood power equation."  The Hollywood power equation in television is the television network and the production studio that has hard ware to produce the project (trucks, lights, cameras, cables, etc.).  Mr. Martin is always concerned about the ration of action pages to total page count, and says "I cannot fathom how you could fit so much action in to so few pages.  In the "Ice and Fire" series, Mr. Martin has been all about lots of action and lots of pages - some 5,000 and counting so far - starting in 1996, when "A Game of Thrones" was published.  It has plenty of fantasy elements, in many ways it's more like an epic 19th - century novel with fantasy filigree on the pages, often more Tolstoy than Tolkien.  Mr. Martin said he never imagined it could be tailored for TV.  There are those who would have bee pleased if it hadn't come to HBO.  With "Thrones" increased popularity, some critics have complained about the show's depictions of sexual violence.  Mr. Martin says, it was an inescapable aspect of the "Thrones" ear-world.  "Rape and sexual violence have been part of every war fought, from the ancient Sumerians to our present day."  "To omit them from a narrative centered on war and power would have been fundamentally false and dishonest."  Mr. Martin was quick to point out in this latest interview that his role with the HBO series was secondary.  He's a co-executive producer and has written one episode each season.  He says, he tries not to fret over television revisions.  "But", he said, "small changes can lead to big changes."  The musician Marillion, from Season One is maimed - his tongue plucked out - at the whim of King Joffrey and then vanishes from the show.  This isn't the case in the book, where he served as the fall guy in Lord Petyr Baelish's murder of Lysa Arryn (shown on HBO this season).  "So, that has to be changed" for the TV version.  Of Lysa Arryn's murder, Mr. Martin said "The butterfly effects are accumulating."  One crucial element that could be better is the portrayal of the cruel throne and monumental Iron Throne.  It's not the Iron Throne I see when I'm working on "THE WINDS OF WINTER."  It's not the Iron Throne I want my reader's to see.  The way the throne is described in the books...HUGE, hulking, black and twisted, with steep iron stairs in front, the high seat from which the king looks DOWN on everyone in the court room. My throne is a hunched beast looming over the throne room, ugly and asymmetric...the HBO throne is none of those things.
     But what about his dream, his vision?  Has HBO fulfilled it?  He said he was pleased over all by the costume and set designs and special effects.  See also, ww.hbo.com. 

Motion Pictures Should Be Laughing to The Bank More Often

     Hollywood - It is a matter of taste whether we like our television morals and values given to us through comedy or drama.  Humor is a coping mechanism, and laughter, according to the Reader's Digest, is the best medicine.  It has been said that comedy is tragedy plus time.  Some also call comedy, lauging instead of crying, if possible.  It takes fewer face muscles to smile than to frown.
     Television drama is almost always based on an hourlong format.  Comedy is usually more fast paced than drama.  Comedy may be a variety show of three seven-minute sketches or vignettes, or it may be a 30-minute weekly episode.  Modern television drama tends to be exotic, it focuses on people whose lives are bigger than ours.  Comedy, by comparison, is local and lifelike.  Comedy is, by its very nature, philosophical, and attempts to show us a common underlying theme, regarding a sphere of activity or thought.  Comedy often simplifies the basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual, a group, a community, or society on the whole.  Drama uses sex, violence, and drug-use as a shot of stimulation, to make us watch, or to make us continue watching.  Comedy, on the other hand, uses sex, violence, and drug-use to shed light on an aspect of these topics that we neve thought of before.  The nighttime talk show host and comedian Arsenio Hall called it, "things that make you go hmmm."  The things that make us think or something new insight has been given to.
     Some of us be in the habit of regarding tragedy as more meaningful than comedy, probably because comedy is not as heavy, it lets us laugh.  Yet, good comedy addresses everything that drama addresses, as well as a lot things drama ignores.  Comedy makes us interested in the smallest insults of life.  Comedy can put the many small elements of the human physiology (body) or psychology (mind) into proportion and gives us a new persepective on a sometimes old topic, or even a new topic (such as robots or food engineering).  The New Golden Age of Television, or the Platinum Age of Television, depending on whether your point-of-view is from things are as good now as they were when Lucille Ball (Lucy) ruled the airwaves.  Or, whether your point-of-view is that things have never been as good as they are now, starting in 1999 with the launch of the "The Sopranos."  Television has continued to take itself more seriously.  One result of this seriousness is that, what looks most seriously, often gets taken more seriously.  Therefore, the Academy Awards (Oscars) have long overlooked comedy on film.  From "The Sopranos", to "Deadwood", to "Breaking Bad", the New Golden/Platinum Age has largely been identified with drama.  If it is not exactly true that comedy gets no respect, it is true that comedy gets less respect than it deserves.  See also, www.comedycentral.com.    
            

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Start of Robocop

       Hollywood - Robocop in 2014 is a remake of the 1987 film of the same name.  Robocop evolved from the movie Blade Runner, when writer Edward Neumeier saw a poster for Blade Runner.  When Neumeier asked what the poster was about, a friend told him, "A cop that hunts robots."  Then Neumeier says, "But what if the cop WAS a robot?"  As to how the film made it from the writer's room to Hollywood.  Legend has it that the film's writers were stranded in an airport.  Sitting next to a high-ranking film executive, they passed the time by talking about the screenplay, Robocop, Neumeir and a co-writer were working on.  Robocop was started. 
     The motion picture executive got the film to the studio, and one of the first things to do was determine who would direct the motion picture.  As you might imagine, most directors to attach their names to, and take a risk on, the proposed adventure.  Director, Paul Verhoeven, first threw the script away after one reading.  Paul Verhoeven's wife saw the manuscript in the dumpster, took it out, and  read it.  She realized the script was loaded with imagination and was a new twist on an old theme.  Instead of the creation being human body parts re-assembled like Frankenstein (c.1910).  This version uses a human brain, left over from a terrible accident a donor police officer underwent, to direct the movements of a computerized-machine, a robot. 
   Director Paul Verhoeven, then needed to cast a star to be the futuristic Frankenstein-like, Robocop.  Peter Weller was selected because his slender frame could fit into the armor-looking suit that would be known as, Robocop.  Paul Verhoeven also chose Peter Weller, because he felt the exposed lower face of Peter Weller, the part of his face the helmet doesn't cover in the movie, could adequately express the emotion the cyborg (a being with organic and mechatronic parts) would need. to.  That emotion would be used to continually impart to the audience, that what they are looking at in the motion picture,  is part human and part machine.
     Paul Weller had a slender shape but the suit he was wearing doesn't.  The suit was bulky enough that Weller couldn't fit into a police car.  Therefore, most of  Robocop was filmed with Peter Weller wearing only the top half of his Robot suit.
     During filming the temperature was so intense that, during an interview with Roger Ebert, Weller revealed he would lose three pounds of water weight each day.  That's what happens when you wear an all-metal suit, while filming in Dallas, Texas, in warm weather.  The setting of the motion picture is meant to appear like Detroit, Michigan.  The picture was filmed in Pittsburgh, PA and Dallas, TX.  The production company eventually had to outfit the suit with an internal fan.  See also,  www.mgm.com.