U2 continues to embrace leading-edge technologies, as evidenced tonight at Sundance with the second screening of U2 3D, a 90-minute concert film that, with the latest/greatest use of 3D effects (mostly the work of 3ality Digital, albeit with a National Geographic logo and a chunk of change from Best Buy), puts the movie audience both in the concert audience and on the stage with the band, apparently quite convincingly.

Though it’s hardly a subjective opinion, Bono was quoted as saying, “It’s not the usual remove that you have with a concert show. It’s total immersion. You are right in the middle. You are not just in the best seat; You couldn’t be closer.” With a wink he added, “And if you don’t like this band, I can’t imagine a more horrible experience.” Frank Miller, who wrote “Sin City” and “300,” both critically-acclaimed graphic novels that were adapted into visually groundbreaking feature films, says, “I saw U2 3D and I thought the special effects were not just remarkable … but historic … the film has ushered in a new era for 3D.”

Here’s the trailer, which gets me excited, yes, but I should say that I’m a fan since “October,” first saw the boys perform on Thanksgiving night 1987, and missed only one tour since then. Without those goggles, I think the trailer, while technically competent and slick, is unfortunately hamstrung a bit, an example of how difficult it remains to give a taste of a 3D film in a 2D medium. Nonetheless, I’m there when it hits select theaters in two days … hello, hello … yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah, yeah.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

OK, so it was a safe bet that the new Will Smith/Warner Bros. sci-fi thriller would bank big over the weekend, but with a $76.5 million take at the box it’s the biggest December opening in history. Talk about boffo. And just look at the likes that got leap-frogged: King Kong (version 3.0), The Chronicles of Narnia (not Riddick), the Fockers (meet ‘em) and all three of the Lord’s Rings.

No doubt Smith is a veritable Ali in the theatrical ring these days, especially overseas; Entertainment Weekly even called him the “No. 1 movie star in the world.” But clearly he wasn’t really alone in New York. Warners et al. pumped a lot of bucks into promoting the flick. And I must admit that I Am Stoked to say that we, too, were in on the action (view our “I Am Legend” :60 spot, currently airing nationally, here).

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Thought I’d mention that yesterday’s blog title was a riff on the movie Good Bye Lenin!, a fun little German film from 2004. As the story goes, it’s 1989 in East Germany, just months before tourists (like me, in July 1990) took hammers and chisels to snub the Hammer & Sickle and crack up the graffiti-skinned Wall for souvenirs. A proudly socialist mom has a heart attack watching her son being arrested for protesting against the Party. She falls into a coma, and wakes up with a dangerously weak heart eight months later when the regime has fallen.

To keep his mother alive, Alex creates an elaborate ruse to turn her apartment into a time capsule of sorts, effectively shielding her from the shocking news of spreading capitalism that might wind her ticker down. At one point he goes so far as to videotape fake newscasts to show her as live TV.

It’s mostly hijinks-with-a-heart (and subtitles), but I found it to be pretty good fun, and the critics gave it a decent boost with 84% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Alles gut, dasvidanya….

Posted by: Colin Mangham

The clock on the official Harry Potter website (www.harrypotter.com) is now at t-minus seven days and counting till Harry the 5th hits the endcaps at Wal-Mart just in time for frenzied Muggles to stuff their stockings.  Anyone who’s not been sleeping under a rock for the past seven years is intimately familiar (for better or worse) with Mr. Potter and his rocketing brooms, shifting staircases, nemesis who cannot be named, and the death and rebirth – physical, spiritual, allegorical – of our hero in a tradition umbilically attached to, yes, the Phoenix. All bundled up into one of the biggest marketing machines popular culture has seen this decade, and only rivaled by the likes of its elder Star Wars.

Coca-Cola jumped on the Hogwarts train early, paying $150 million way-back-when for worldwide sponsorship of “Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first Harry Potter movie. Notably, Coke approached AOL Time Warner with the unprecedented eight-figure licensing deal well in advance of the movie screening in theaters. This effectively put the film “in the black” with a profit of $30 million before the first ticket was sold. In return, Coca-Cola could co-brand with the “Harry Potter” logo in its packaging, advertising and promotions, but could not use any of the names or likenesses of the cast of characters.

According to Keegan and Green (2005), three principles were used to measure the viability of the licensing deal: 1)  relatively equal value for both parties, whereby Harry Potter gained more worldwide exposure and Coke enjoyed a nice boost in goodwill; 2) synergies in brand value, with both brands marketing on “ideals of friendship, honesty and optimism” (their words, not mine); and 3) what they refer to as ease of understanding, meaning the two brands are a relatively natural fit together — as opposed to, say, the Marlboro Man hanging out with Ariel, our Little Mermaid. For that matter, we should probably keep him away from Hermiony, too, or at least till she’s 21.

Posted by: Colin Mangham (aka Cuthbert Von Cronkshanks via the Whomping Willow name generator)

This is the third season of the series. Last season a favorite of mine was the pairing of actress Isabella Rossellini with Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway. (You can download this episode and others on iTunes for a buck-ninety-nine.) One thing that really resonated with me in a total Daily Brand sort of spirit was this quote from Kamen:

“I think sometimes the press or the media expect when you have a choice between what’s politically correct and what’s correct, you go with what’s politically correct … and I can’t do it, I can’t do it. When I said people should get water that’s pure and healthy everywhere in the world, and they should get it now, they shouldn’t have to wait 20 years to build infrastructure, people will depend on historical precedent to say you’re wrong instead of depending on current technology. The technology development is easy … changing people’s attitudes is really hard. That’s the problem.”

If you’re here reading this, you know that he and you and me and anyone else like-minded and committed to making even the tiniest quote-unquote difference on a daily basis is the solution to that problem and many more. Hats off to him and you and us and them. Godspeed….

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Just watched another episode of Iconoclasts tonight. If you haven’t seen any of these shows I highly recommend setting aside an hour (or 48 minutes with TiVo). Sundance describes it as a “series of intimate, unpredictable portraits of creative visionaries whose passion for what they do has transformed our culture.”

Really the concept is to get two remarkable people (celebrities in their respective industries) from disparate backgrounds and career paths talking to reveal their commonalities … typically world views, inspirations, driving motivations and, more often than not, intriguingly spun yarns of humble beginnings and proverbial hard knocks on their yellow brick roads.

Tonight’s episode (well, TiVo’d from whenever it actually aired) paired Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz with legendary TV producer Norman Lear (”All In the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Sanford and Son,” “Maude,” and others). You can check out video clip highlights here, including their trip to the original Starbucks in Seattle and Lear showcasing his original copy of the Declaration of Independence, which he has toured around the country to encourage 18 year-olds to register to vote (the “Declare Yourself” campaign).

Pairings this season:

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Though there isn’t one single way to divide people into age cohorts for the purpose of citing behavioral and attitudinal commonalities among consumers within a defined time period, the most commonly referenced are the major categories of Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y.

I was born in 1967 – ah, yes, 40 years ago today – which puts me in the Generation X cohort of people born between 1965 and 1980. Many people point to author Douglas Coupland as having coined the moniker “GenX” in his book of the same title, but it was also the name of musician Billy Idol’s punk band in the early ‘80s. This is important to note because ours was a generation profoundly shaped by the launch of MTV and the proliferation of music videos.

Never before had there been such a powerful combination of sight and sound to tell us what to wear and do – even who to ‘be’ to be cool. The ‘beautiful people’ cluttered the screen on MTV, riding subways, dancing in the twilight, dressed in tuxedoes shooting (poison) arrows. It was all about fashion, and took our consumerism to the next level as, arguably for the first time, product placement took center stage.

Posted by: Colin Mangham