You’ll notice that my “Overheard” Web log, which keeps an accounting of small interesting quotes and snippets I come across, has been featuring a number of movie pitch lines taken from this year’s Variety-published guide to movies being sold at MIFED.
I did find one trend that was worth gathering together into one big post: That of Reese Peanut Butter Cup-like amalgams of ideas that really don’t go so well together. Allow me to present….
These Don’t Go Together
“Shadows of the Dead: A couple contracts a deadly disease [...] after their car breaks down in the woods.”
“I Heart Huckabee’s: An existential tale of love, philosophy and [...] Shania Twain.”
“Annie the Nannie: A family’s new English nanny turns out to be [...] an orangutan.”
“Cornered: Three distant men are re-united [...] for an underground boxing match.”
“Samhain: A disfigured mutant hunts [...] students on a class trip.”
“Cosmic Rescue: Young men and woman live [...] on the moon.”
“Les Daltons: Unsuccessful outlaw brothers steal [...] a magic sombrero that makes them invincible.”
“I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and my mother was instrumental in keeping me from being so. ... She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us. What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain—it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.”
After over a decade of user testing, it is clear that the way we search the web is similar to the way we would search our home for valuables as it was burning to the ground. Frantically.
“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value ... The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)