Jonathan Poritsky

Perhaps I’m a cur­mud­geon — okay I def­i­nitely am — on the sub­ject of tech­no­log­i­cal social eti­quette, but hon­estly, the nag­ging iPad ques­tions have to stop. The thing has been out for three months now, and there are Apple Stores aplenty to go and did­dle with the thing for the overly curi­ous. Still, I get odd looks and uncom­fort­able ques­tions from strangers all the time. In week one, it was cool; now, not so much.

Let’s be clear here: I’m not talk­ing about a mutual friend, a coworker, a fam­ily mem­ber or a mem­ber of your social graph com­ing over to stroke your alu­minum and glass baby. Those folks can play all they like. I’m talk­ing about com­plete strangers who want you to sell them on the iPad just because they noticed you had one. On the sub­way, in a cafe, stand­ing on the street; strangers have shown no mercy in their quest to learn more about this “mag­i­cal” non-computer computer.

Enough. I’ve had it. Here is a guide to avoid mak­ing iPad users uncom­fort­able, surly and want to go home and write a blog post about how much you suck.

1. Don’t Ask if I Love My iPad

I do love my iPad, for a num­ber of rea­sons, but they are prob­a­bly dif­fer­ent from yours. I don’t love your wife, but I’m sure you think she’s the tops.

2. Don’t Ask Me What I Use it For

That’s none of your beeswax.

3. Don’t Mention “I’ll Get the Next One”

If you’re jazzed about the iPad 2, which doesn’t exist, then don’t ask me about my iPad. You’re mak­ing two social blun­ders when you bring this up: 1) You’re wast­ing my time because you don’t actu­ally give a crap about the iPad and 2) you’re pass­ing a judge­ment on my early adoption.

4. Don’t Tell Me About Your Kindle

I had a Kindle and I returned it, but that’s not the point. I don’t care about your Kindle, and you don’t care about my iPad. Haven’t we cov­ered this?

5. Don’t Say “Sorry to Interrupt You”

Just don’t inter­rupt me.

So some joker cre­ated a hash­tag today that jumped to the top of twit­ter trends and caught my atten­tion: #film­food­eat­ing. The game seems to just be to incor­po­rate food into movie titles. Well, of course I latched on and haven’t let go. Here is a com­pendium of my con­tri­bu­tions. And please, do a search over at twit­ter to get in on the fun.

• @repressd Whoops! Good job! Too many to read, great minds think alike.. Chew on this: Bedtime for Garbonzo #film­food­eat­ing NOW I’M DONE!
• My final #film­food­eat­ing Spider-Flan, Grouperman, Cat on a Pot Pie Roof, Beauty and the Feast, Cracker, Gumbo, Free Chili, Meat Streets
• Oklahomefries! #film­food­eat­ing that one’s for you @deadcenter
• Canard Boiled #film­food­eat­ing adden­dum to John Woo Edition
• Lard Target, A Feta Tomorrow, Face Froth #film­food­eat­ing John Woo Edition
• Purple Chrain #film­food­eat­ing @kashrutnews @Jewishtweets I know you’ll get this.
• Spinal Frappe, Henry Portrait of a Cereal Killer, Boureka (baraka), Black Nar-tzimis, Gentlemen’s A-quiche-ment #filmfoodeating
• Passion of the Slice, Greatest Story Jello Mold #film­food­eat­ing Jesus Edition
• Fiddler on the Stew, The Cholent (the cho­sen), Lentil #film­food­eat­ing Jewish Edition
• Husbands and Chives, Shadows and Nog, Brine and Misdemeanors, Bananas #film­food­eat­ing Woody Allen Edition
• Wages of Pear, Á Bout de Soufflé, Elevator to the Shallots, The Seventh Veal #film­food­eat­ing @CRITERION Edition
• Last Bite at McCool’s, Lawrence of Arrabiata, Cakes on a Plane, The Graviator, Meringues of New York, I Am Ham #filmfoodeating
• While You Were Eating, Juarassic Tarte #film­food­eat­ing con­tributed by my twit­ter­less girlfriend
• Leaving Lox Vegas #film­food­eat­ing this one is sort of a repeat, but I couldn’t resist.
• Guacstoppers, Blue Chips , Leaving Manchego, Vicky Tortilla Barcelona #filmfoodeating
• You’ve Got Kale #filmfoodeating
• Detroit Guac City #film­food­eat­ing that ones for you @NachosNY
• Bakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo #filmfoodeating
• Gourd of the Rings #filmfoodeating
• I don’t know why this is trend­ing, but I love it #film­food­eat­ing Schindler’s Grits

This is only a test. Do not adjust your, uhhh, com­puter mon­i­tor. If you are read­ing this, it means that I can now blog from my iPhone. While no great feat for mas­ter blog­heads, it took a lit­tle work for me to fig­ure this out. It’s great. I love to blog and I love my iPhone. Now noth­ing can stop me from telling you cool stuff. Read on…

Back in 2005 when Jim Jannard took off his brightly col­ored and pre­sum­ably shiny Oakley CEO hat and set out to start a rev­o­lu­tion in dig­i­tal cin­ema, most of us scoffed, writ­ing off his inten­tions of build­ing a 4K tape­less cam­era at an “afford­able” price point as the ludi­crous rav­ings of a mil­lion­aire seek­ing his extra 15 min­utes. We ate our words a year ago, at NAB 2007, as the first Red Camera footage was put on dis­play in a short film by mega-director Peter Jackson. As the year went by, and the fledg­ling com­pany started to ship the cam­era in small doses, again, we started to feel the rum­blings of a rev­o­lu­tion as Stephen Soderbergh pro­claimed his love for the new format.

But now it’s NAB 2008. So you’d think maybe this Red thing would pick up and start get­ting adopted.

Nah. Read on…

Outside, the writ­ers’ strike rages on. Going into its sec­ond day, it has now become clear that the bat­tle between the WGA and the AMPTP is unques­tion­ably an uphill one. And I can­not write about film with­out men­tion­ing it. But now that I’ve done that, let’s put our think­ing caps on.

As many of you may know, Robert Zemeckis has been on a mis­sion for most of his film career. A stu­dent of Spielberg’s (read P.T. Barnum’s) school of larger-than-life-cinema thought, Mr. Zemeckis has made a point of uti­liz­ing cut­ting edge tech­nol­ogy in nearly all of his films. In this sense, among oth­ers, he has left a pro­lific foot­print in the annals of film history.

His Back to the Future series pushed our imag­i­na­tions to a new limit, while his Who Framed Roger Rabbit? changed the pos­si­bil­i­ties of live actors mixed with ani­mated char­ac­ters. (Remember that last film, it’ll be impor­tant shortly.) Toning down the kid in him, he earned an Oscar for his American opus, Forrest Gump, the first film to take advan­tage of the more real­is­tic pos­si­bil­i­ties of dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy. When you sit and think about it, the scope of his con­tri­bu­tions is far-reaching. Read on…