The wonders of Internet TV

Just a heads up, Hulu is going commericial free for the next 6 hours, thanks to a sponsorship via McCafe. (BTW McCafe is amazing, I prefer their coffee to everyone else's but Coffee Bean).

So, in honor of this auspicious occasion, I'm putting up a couple clips from my favorite shows. I hope you like them!

How I Met Your Mother:

Arrested Development:

Chuck:



You can check out full episodes at Hulu.

Also, this is a Hulu celebration, but if they don't have a show you're looking for you should check out these other sites:

Fancast
The WB

The Hunt for Good Fro Yo

As many of you already know, I LOVE frozen yogurt. I love frozen yogurt even more than I love cupcakes. Now, I haven't been able to find a handy dandy map of fro yo places in LA like I did with cupcakes, so we'll just have to make do with my reviews.

My all time favorite is Yogurtland. With 16 flavors, 32 toppings, and 5 syrups (at least) this has the best overall selection I've come across. It's a chain, so you can find Yogurtlands all over LA (and maybe America?) These are the ones I've been to:

Little Toyko: great selection of toppings, including some Asian ones like Mochi and Lychee that you don't find everywhere. Open til midnight everynight, which is great for it's very USC heavy crowd. Free parking lot to boot! A great find near downtown LA.

La Brea: standard Yogurtland, but no seating to speak of. That's because it is not much bigger than 10ft squared. And parking was horrible, only 6 spaces for the 5 businesses in that mini shopping center.


Sawtelle/West LA: Has the same awesome selection as Little Toyko. Parking can be annoying at busy times, but I live walking distance away so it's not an issue for me. This is one of the few that has water (with fruit in it!) easily accessible and readily available.

There's also Pinkberry. It started this whole trend by has fallen to the wayside in favor of DIY/pay by the ounce places like Yogurtland. The plain is too tart for me and the selection of 4 flavors is never enough variety. Why pay $4 for a small one flavor, 3 topping here, when you could pay $0.30/ounce for as many flavors, toppings, and sauces you can fit into your cup?

Cherry on Top: This one actually isn't in LA, I stopped in at the one in Mission Viejo. It had the same set up as yogurtland, but even more topping options! If this one wasn't so far away, I'm sure I'd go all the time.

Golden Spoon (Torrance): Delicious and simple. Their flavors are more traditional, but taste better and more like ice cream than yogurtland's. I recommend the Heath Bar or Cake Batter.

Penguins: Offers great low-fat, low-carb options that do not exist at yogurtland. Great options for those watching their weight.


And lastly, another great one that isn't really in LA. 21 Choices (Old Town Pasadena): It's like Coldstone's with frozen yogurt! They update their site each day with the flavors they have so you know if they'll have your favorite or not. Worth the trip out to Pasadena if you're grabbing dinner or shopping out there too.

Alright, I've just made myself hungry so that's it for now. Got any good fro yo recommendations? Or what's your favorite flavor?

TIME agrees with me

Twitter can ruin a movie's box office. My last post focused on this, and now TIME has started the week off with a similar article. Check out their stance on the issue: "Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect."

Bruno is a perfect example!

So just yesterday I talked about the power of twitter and other social media tools when it comes to movie box offices. Well, the latest weekend box office figures are in and it perfectly exemplifies what I was talking about.

Bruno had an aggressive marketing campaign starting months ago. It used traditional marketing like trailers and tv spots, but also used Sascha Baron Cohen in a way that only he can do - late night guest spots in full character to stir up controversy and media coverage. He even staged that bit at the MTV Movie Awards where he falls ass first onto Eminem. It was smart marketing and got everyone talking about the film. But marketing only gets you to your opening weekend, and now just to opening day.

Bruno opened to a really strong $14.4 million on Friday, and the industry all thought this would lead to a huge opening weekend nearing $40 million. However, the intake for Saturday had a huge drop off! Word of mouth undid all those millions spent on marketing.

Twitter/Facebook have spoken and they did not find Bruno funny, it was too offensive, and not really satirizing as much as making Bruno the joke and laughing at gays. At least, that's what some people feel.

Here are a couple lackluster responses, just from doing a quick twitter search:

While these aren't scathing reviews, they're not exactly encouraging you to go out and spend $12 to see it.

This weekend's box office does not bode well for Bruno. There's no guarantee it will fail, there are many a number of unforeseen reasons Saturday and Sunday's numbers could have been so low compared to Friday's strong start. But all signs are pointing to Bruno dropping out of theaters faster than originally planned. It will still be profitable, it just doesn't seem to have the legs to be a box office smash hit like Borat was. If the decline keeps going at this rate, I'll be surprised if it makes over $150 million.

(original box office numbers and photo can be found here.)

The Impact of Social Media on Movies

Word of mouth is always an important factor in a movie's success, but today it's becoming THE factor. Before, the opening weekend of a film would be huge and then the drop off the next weekend would be influenced by word of mouth. However, with the rise of facebook status updates and twitter, the first day of the film's release is really all that marketing affects. Everything else relies on the audiences' reaction. While this article has some interesting points, I think it gives too much credit to social media on certain films. For example, Land of the Lost was critically panned before it opened. I know critics don't have as much clout as they used to, but sites like Rotten Tomatoes use an aggregate of critic reviews to rate films. And UP, just by being a Disney/Pixar film, already had a stamp of approval. Disney continues to be the only true brand in film. No one thinks "Oh, a Universal film! I have to see it!" But people do feel that way towards Disney and especially Disney/Pixar.

But while it's flawed, it is becoming increasingly true the more popular social media sites like twitter and facebook become. Before we told only a handful of people what we thought of movies. Now it's posted online for everyone to see at once. I know I update my twitter about pretty much every movie I watch. And new movies are almost always a trending topic on opening weekend.

Do you believe in the power of twitter?