Day: June 24, 2010

I chose not to see Joel Schumacher‘s Twelve at Sundance 2010 for what I felt was a pretty good reason. As much as I’d like to see Schumacher proverbially bounce back with another Tigerland, which I thought was better than decent, I’m very suspicious of moral-crisis-leading-to-moral-wakeup dramas about jaded rich kids doing the old Less Than Zero, or an approximation of same.

I’m not saying Twelve is one thing or another, not having seen it, but the milieu, which I feel I’ve come to know from previous films mining the same turf, is fairly repugnant. Plus I’ve developed an aversion to any films starring any Culkins. Plus I’m a a little afraid these days of Ellen Barkin. (And this was before I’d seen Shit Year, of course.)

In a piece called “Is Joel Schumacher’s Twelve Worse Than Batman and Robin?”, Cinematical‘s Eric Davis wrote that “you know something is off when [a] gritty, drug-fueled ensemble drama premieres at the Sundance Film Festival to a crowd full of critics who can’t stop laughing. I happened to be one of the folks in that first press screening for Twelve, and I can tell you straight up that this flick is a mess. Not only are there too many characters and too many random storylines, but you don’t care about any of it.”

A 6.24 CNET report by Erica Ogg about the dropped-call complaints dogging the iPhone 4 explains the basic beef — i.e., touching the metal antenna band that runs around the iPhone 4, especially if you’re holding the iPhone 4 in your left hand, “interrupts reception, slowly causing the phone to lose its signal.”

There’s a solution, apparently, in the rubber bumper (which costs about $30 bills) that fits around the phone. I was given one and I haven’t had any dropped-call issues…yet. But it is rather sickening to consider that a highly touted device like this would actually drop calls due to touching the lower left part of the metal band with your naked skin. I mean, I spent most of the day in line to buy this device and a development of this kind is appalling. The Apple guys should be brought up on charges.

I have a complaint about the iPhone 4.0 that nobody’s mentioned yet. It won’t synch with your computer unless you use the new white cord that connects the phone to a USB plug (which also fits into a square wall-socket plug) that comes in the 4.0 box. In other words you can’t synch the new iPhone to your computer, or so I’ve discovered (and have been told by Apple techies), with the identical white USB cord that worked just fine with the previous iPhone models (3GS, 3G, etc.).

So the four USB cords I’ve bought over the last couple of years — I like to have extras just in case — are worthless with the new model. Thanks, guys!

Fox News anchorperson Jane Skinner, famed worldwide for that hilarious 2006 Freudian slip, is leaving her job to become a traditional wife and mom. That’s nice, but imagine if a male newscaster had said that his life “over the last twelve years has changed significantly in wonderful ways…I added a wife who’s become [a serious big shot], and who has a job even busier than mine. I have twin daughters, so to do justice to this new life I’ve decided to take a break from the business.”

You’re not supposed to say this, but professional women in pretty much any realm have this great escape clause they can turn to if they’re so inclined. And it seems a little weird that these drop-out decisions are completely accepted some 40 years after the launch of the women’s movement. Society is totally cool with highly competitive, generously compensated, top-of-their-field female professionals doing a sudden 180 and becoming June Cleaver at the drop of a hat. I mean, nobody blinks an eye.

I’ve been waiting in line to buy the iPhone 4.0 since 6:55 am this morning. Currently at 14th and Washington, or about 200 yards from the Apple store at 14th and Ninth Avenue. 200-plus people ahead of me. It’s 9:23 am right now and the line is nudging along. I’ll have the phone and be heading home by 12 or 12:30…maybe. Free Smart water bottles being passed out. The advance-reservation phone line is two to three times longer than the impulsive walk-in line, and the latter line is nudging along also. Is that fair? Doesn’t seem to be. I talked to a guy who got in line at 4 am. What is our life? I don’t know but this my life right at this instant — a T-shirt-wearing sidewalk monkey tapping out Twitter posts and now a column item. Thank God and nature for the breezes coming off the Hudson.