THE 93RD ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS TO BE UNMASKED – PREDICTIONS – #OscarsNotSoWhite – #WinnersNotSoWhite

Posted on April 25, 2021 by mlsentertainment
The 93rd Annual Academy Awards airs Sunday, April 25th at 8pm EST

Article by Marcus Siu

With the COVID-19 Pandemic looming above us during the past year, the major awards season has been rather anemic with its shows having to rely almost exclusively on virtual technology. It would have been just as enjoyable and appropriate for viewers to watch the shows on their six inch smart-phones instead of on their ultra HD television sets.

This year’s venue will be primarily at the Union Station in Los Angeles, where they will be able to treat this as a film production shoot, rather than an event. The event will be like watching a movie. It will even be shot at 24 frames per second just like film, rather than the 30 frames per second that TV normally is shot at. There may be some “simulcast” feeds and “pre-recorded” performances for best songs, but certainly no Zoom.

It will be virtually “non-virtual” with live presenters and audience, as well. It promises to pay tribute to the golden days of Hollywood when the ceremony was just as a small intimate gathering at the Roosevelt Hotel back in 1929. Winners will be able to give their long glorious acceptance speeches to a live audience, without masks. In other words, everyone that you see on camera will be totally mask-less.

And no, we are not at a “Make America Great Again” political rally.

Prior and close to the event, all attendees will be required to be tested for COVID three separate times before entering the historic venue along with its multiple hubs around the globe. When they are not in front of the camera, everyone must wear their mask. So you can assume when the commercial rolls, they will all be practicing safety and distancing guidelines.

The membership of the Academy Awards has gone through some major changes recently. Thanks to the, #OscarsSoWhite” movement which started two years ago causing an uproar that all of the twenty acting category nominees were all white. In addition, there wasn’t enough women being represented in the Academy.

Since then, AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Sciences) recruited filmmakers all around the globe to diversify its members by doubling the number of women and people of color. By looking at this years nominees, it sure looks like they have certainly accomplished this task.

Seventy women received a total 76 nominations, a record for a given year. Chloé Zhao, (editor, writer, director, producer of “Nomadland”) is the first woman to receive four nominations in a single year. Emerald Fennell, (writer, director, and producer of “Promising Young Woman”), becomes the third woman with three nominations in a single year, joining Sofia Coppola and Fran Walsh, who both accomplished that feat in 2003.

Not only has there never been as many diverse nominations in a given year, but this may be the year that the all or the majority of Oscar winners will be of color, if my predictions are correct. Also, for the first time in history and a major leap for #OscarsSoWhite, an Asian woman, a woman who is not white, will most likely win for Best Director.

Frances McDormand and Director/Writer Chloé Zhao on the set of NOMADLAND. Photo by Joshua James Richards. © 2020 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved

BEST PICTURE: The Academy Award for the “Best Picture” category is based on the ranking system; an instant-runoff voting or preferential treatment rather than the typical plurality voting that is done in all the other categories. That means even if a movie garners the most first place votes, it can still lose if it places lower on all of the other voters lists. Such a likely example might have happened a few years ago when the heavily favored “La La Land”, with its record 14 tie-breaking nominations lost to the critically acclaimed, “Moonlight”.

This year is no exception, as the rules for the Best Picture category can be a somewhat unpredictable. “Nomadland” is the front-runner as it won most of the awards during the year, including every single Best Director Award for Chloé Zhao. This will be only the second time a woman has won the Best Director prize since Kathryn Bigelow won for “The Hurt Locker”. It will be the first time an Asian woman has ever won the award, as well.

Considering how diversified the Oscars has gotten to be over the years, don’t be too surprised if the highly regarded Korean film, “Minari” pulls off a surprise upset. It has all the necessary major nominations to win votes across the board, but because Korea’s “Parasite” was last year’s big winner, it would put it at a disadvantage in the voting.

MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (2020) Chadwick Boseman as Levee. Cr. David Lee/NETFLIX

BEST ACTOR: Critics and filmmakers alike are so enamored by Chadwick Boseman performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” that they were thinking it would be inconceivable that anyone else could possibly win this category, even before the Oscar campaign season officially started. When you see his first scene in the movie and you immediately think the studio will use that scene as his “Oscar Clip”, only to discover these scenes gets better and better throughout the movie, especially when he is sharing the screen with the incomparable Viola Davis.

If there is any competition against him who can possibly upset him, it’s Sir Anthony Hopkins, who recently won the BAFTA (British Academy Awards) for Best Actor. However, it probably won’t happen here in the U.S. where many actors were very blessed to have had worked alongside his brilliance before he tragically died. He has virtually won every single award he was nominated for in here in this country.

  • Andra Day stars in THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY from Paramount Pictures. Photo Credit: Takashi Seida.

BEST ACTRESS: Now that there are more films being made about strong and independent women, the scripts have never been better. Whether it would be musical bio-pics, featuring Billie Holliday or Ma Rainey, or just about “everyday” strong liberated women, it will be very difficult to choose a winner, as we haven’t had this many powerhouse performances ever in a given year for actresses.

Andra Day might have the edge over Davis, since she not only embodied the role of her character like Davis did, but unlike Davis, she actually sang throughout the movie. Within a short amount of time with the help of her dialect/singing coach, she recreated Billie Holiday’s unique vocal style. She even took up smoking and drinking which helped put the “gravel” into her voice, creating the nuance that Holiday had in her singing.

Votes will definitely be split across the board between musical icons, strong and promising young, women, Oscar winners and Oscar nominees who haven’t won, and so on. Sometimes, I feel they should just split the award among all five of the nominees when all of the performances are so outstanding.

(Top l-r) DARRELL BRITT-GIBSON as Bobby Rush, DANIEL KALUUYA as Chairman Fred Hampton and ASHTON SANDERS as Jimmy Palmer in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: If there is another “sure” bet in any acting category, it will be for Daniel Kaluuya taking home the statuette for Best Supporting Actor, portraying Black Panther revolutionary, Fred Hampton in “Judas and the Black Messiah”. Many filmgoers were quite surprised that he is actually British, as most remember his Actor nominated performance as Chris Robinson in Jordan Peele’s thriller, “Get Out”, which earned him a Best Actor nomination in 2017. Kaluuya went on to sweep all the major awards during the year, so it will be no surprise for him to win.

Minari – Yuh-jung Youn Courtesy of A24

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: You would think Glenn Close would have an Oscar by now with her eight nomination during her forty year career in film, but her film “Hillbilly Elegy” didn’t garner much support from the Academy voters. Since Yuh-Jung Youn took home the SAG and BAFTA and virtually everything else she was nominated for “Minari”, this should be history in the making for her to be the first Korean actress to win the Academy Award for acting and the second Asian actress since Miyoshi Umeki for “Sayonara” in 1958.

MLS Entertainment’s Oscar Predictions:

Best Picture: “Nomadland”
Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
Best Actress: Andra O’Day, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”
Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, “Judas and the Black Messiah”
Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn, “Minari”
Best Director: Chloé Zhao, “Nomadland”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “ Nomadland ”
Best Original Screenplay: “ Promising Young Woman”
Best Cinematography: “Nomadland”
Best Costume Design: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
Best Film Editing: “Trial of the Chicago 7”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
Best Music (Original Score): “Soul”
Best Music (Original Song): “Speak Now” from “One Night in Miami”
Best Production Design: “Mank”
Best Sound: “Sound of Metal”
Best Visual Effects: “Tenet”
Best Animated Feature Film: “Soul”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Another Round”
Best Documentary (Feature): “My Octopus Teacher”
Best Documentary (Short Subject): ”A Love Song for Latasha”
Best Short Film (Animated): “If Anything Happens I Love You”
Best Short Film (Live Action): “Two Distant Strangers”

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DOLBY ATMOS ON WHEELS – COMING TO A CAR NEAR YOU

Posted on March 31, 2021 by mlsentertainment

The interior of the Lucid Air – the first vehicle to integrate Dolby Atmos, which incorporates a 21-speaker Surreal Surround system. Courtesy of Dolby Labs.

Article by Marcus Siu

With the strictest list of COVID pandemic regulations that was forced on us, disrupting our normal lives in the past year, (i.e. six feet of social distancing, restrictions on indoor activities, and keeping ourselves within our “social bubble”), we now fully seem to realize how much we rely on our cars as a safe haven during these stressful times.

In a way, our car has become part of our social “bubble”, as many of our outdoor events and special activities have revolved around them. Occasions such as birthdays, graduations, even art exhibits and political events were all celebrated and performed from the safety of our cars instead of in person. Even drive-in movie theaters staged an impressive comeback.

It’s times like these when we are reminded how much time we love to spend in our cars. We treat them like a “second home”, as we always seem to find safety, reliability and comfort in them. Even with its confined space, (unless you have a trailer or a camper), it’s still our “home away from home”.

So what would make it as comfortable as being at home? For me, I would want to include an audio entertainment system where I can just sit down comfortably and listen to pure music without any other extraneous noise around me. Also, as an audiophile, I would want to have an immersive sound experience comparable to the one I have at home, as though I was sitting on my living room couch surrounded by multiple speakers, all perfectly calibrated to my Denon 7.2 channel Dolby Atmos receiver.

Panasonic, Klipsch, and Dolby Atmos at CES 2021. Courtesy of Klipsch.

THE PANASONIC PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT AT CES 2021

Now the exciting news!

At CES 2021, earlier this year, Panasonic showed off a proof-of-concept in-car system capable of playing Dolby’s immersive audio format, Dolby Atmos. After not wanting to really want to become part of the automotive business until the right moment, Panasonic found the perfect partners who shares their values and have joined forces to change the way we listen to music. According to Panasonic, “the proof-of-concept result is an impressive listening experience that features an immersive soundscape for the automotive cabin.”. The in-car system was made by Panasonic, in partnership with Klipsch and Dolby.

“Dolby Atmos Music are leading many of the innovative approaches to bringing Dolby Atmos music to the home, on-the-go and now, working with Panasonic Automotive to bring the Dolby Atmos experience to the road…we’re focused on making the cabin of your vehicle like a second home.”, says Scott Kirchner, the President of Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America.

This sounds promising to the future of car owners who want to make their car their second home…given they have the car to equip the system.

However, there was no mention of Panasonic releasing this as a consumer product…

Dolby Atmos places you in the center of an immersive soundscape that allows you to feel music in a whole new way which is where I want to be.

LUCID MOTORS – AIR UNVEILED AT SXSW

A few months after the CES announcement was made by Panasonic, it didn’t take too long to notice that auto manufacturers were taking advantage of the latest in immersive audio technology.

On St. Patrick’s Day, at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW), startup EV manufacturer, Lucid Motors showed off their Lucid Air luxury sedan and unveiled it as the first vehicle to integrate Dolby Atmos, which incorporates a 21-speaker Surreal Surround system consisting of a front, rear, side, and height speakers as part of their upcoming Lucid Air Electric Vehicle.

Yes, I did not mistype this. It has 21 speakers….not to be confused with 2.1 speakers. What is even more impressive is that the speakers are discreetly concealed into the car. There are no signs of speaker cones or grilles anywhere in the car’s interior.

This will immediately please the wife who dislikes large speakers invading the living room space in the family home.

“The Lucid immersive system is really about this further evolution of dimension and depth…we always look at the automobile is like a captive environment…short of having a sound booth at home or wearing a high end set of headphones. The automobile is really like a captive sound chamber so to be able to partner up with a technology partner like Dolby means a lot.”, states Senior VP of Design, Derek Jenkins.

A RECORDING STUDIO ON WHEELS

According to Lucid, “the intention is that the Lucid Air interior will be like being in a recording studio, and was tuned and perfected like that of the Capitol Records Studio C”.  Courtesy of Lucid Motors.

When the Tesla Model S came out, CEO Elon Musk said that it is not a car but a ‘sophisticated computer on wheels’. If that’s the case, then the people at Lucid Motors can say with confidence that the Lucid Air is also not a car but a “professional recording studios on wheels”.

“We designed the Lucid Immersive Studio System to be like a recording studio. It can handle hundreds of sounds and sources simultaneously,” says Antonis Karalis, Senior Product Manager, Audio Infotainment. 

According to Lucid, “the intention is that the Lucid Air interior will be like being in a recording studio, and was tuned and perfected like that of the Capitol Records Studio C”. 

If the sound is any indication as it is in the most sophisticated Dolby theater systems, I imagine this will be quite immersive, especially with so many speakers designed specifically in a confined and intimate space where the speakers are optimally integrated and precisely positioned in the interior cabin. We won’t just hear the music, but we will feel it pass through us, as well, since the individual sounds move around the cabin.

I certainly can’t wait to hear the demo in person.

Unfortunately, it is not quite available to the public just yet. However, you can pre-order the Lucid Air for a mere $70,000 after federal tax credits, as the car goes on sale next year. Not a bad price for a “professional recording studios on wheels”.

Now with more electric vehicles hitting the road with its battery quiet and motor-less autos, it only makes sense that the cars of tomorrow come up and re-imagine the car’s sound system to take advantage of the almost noiseless environment of the interior of EV’s.

Audi and Sonos announced prior to the Lucid Air announcement, that are also teaming up together on the new Audi Q4 e-tron EV, as well. However, it does not include Dolby Atmos.

I can imagine one day after hearing the Dolby Atmos demo at a Lucid showroom that I may never want to listen to my car stereo ever again. It’ll be similar to never wanting to watch a CRT tube television after experiencing an HD for the first time.

I just may need to make a down payment on a new recording studio very soon.

Introducing Surreal Sound – Lucid Air – Lucid Motors

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THE LED+ SPEAKER PRODUCT REVIEW: THE GREATEST IDEA SINCE THE LIGHT BULB

Posted on February 28, 2021 by mlsentertainment

“There’s a way to do it better – find it.”

– Thomas Edison

One bright idea on top of another. The LED+ Speaker Bulb. Courtesy of GE Lighting, a Savant Company.

Article by Marcus Siu

Over the years, the GE brand has been synonymous with Thomas Edison, America’s greatest known inventor. Though he wasn’t the original inventor, he improved on the original light bulb and took it a big leap further. He modernized it to last much longer compared to any of his other counterparts could have done, thanks mainly with his brilliant idea of the development of a more durable incandescent material, better elimination of air from the bulb by the creation of a vacuum, and a filament material with a higher resistance which promoted economically efficient power distribution.

Needless to say, he practically changed the world “overnight” as electric lighting became widespread everywhere.

By the flick of a switch it was “night and day”.

Thanks to dramatic improvements of LED lighting over the years, smart-lighting technology has been catching on with consumers everywhere. People are ditching traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of LED lights that last up to fifty times longer, use less energy, and do not contain any mercury. More recently, the traditional incandescent bulb has been banned by many governments around the world as they are not energy efficient and is unsuitable for the environment.

GE Lighting, a Savant company, purchased General Electric’s Lighting Company just less than a year ago and introduced the LED+ Collection line. Just like Thomas Edison did back 129 year ago, Savant, went to the drawing board with their engineers to design and improve the GE LED light bulb. The LED + line has improved on the solo light bulb, as each bulb in the LED+ series has one extra feature to make life a little better. What makes this collection unique is that the features are built right into the lights, eliminating the need for apps or additional hardware for seamless set-up and ongoing use.

The LED+ Collection offers the quality and value of LED light plus one standout feature, from an embedded speaker to color control to battery backup and more. The features are built right into the lights, eliminating the need for apps or additional hardware. Simple choices, simple setup and one key outcome. Truly as simple as screwing in a light bulb!

The LED+ Collection:

There are six different LED+ products so far in their lineup: LED+ Color not only remits white light, but also has the option to light ten different colors with the use of a remote. The LED+ Battery Backup is quite practical when your electricity goes out, the bulb will go to a battery backup and you will have light for at least five or more hours. You can even use it as a flashlight backup and take it where you need it. The LED+ Dusk to Dawn bulb automatically turns on your bulb in the evening at sundown as it gets dark and turns off when daylight approaches, perfect for porch lights. The LED+ Linkable Motion turns on automatically when it detects motion outside for safety, as well as scaring off intruders for security purposes. The LED+ Timer turns on and off at any time you set it to.

GE Lighting’s line seems to just put one bright idea on top of another for the home connected space.

The product I was most thrilled about reviewing from the LED+ line was GE’s LED+ Speaker Bulb, It comes in the traditional A-line bulb and a BR for recessed can applications. My review is based on the A21 bulb.

THE SET-UP

It certainly didn’t take much effort or time to set up the GE LED+ speaker bulb up; perhaps, about a whole minute. There are basically three simple steps: screw in the light bulb in the light socket, pair and connect the Bluetooth to the GE speaker bulb, and stream whatever media you would like from your device, such as a smart-phone, tablet, or laptop.

Using my smart-phone, I immediately found myself playing songs from my favorite musical apps like Spotify, Pandora, and Amazon. I was even able to stream my favorite local radio stations on radio.net. Of course, if you have music files on your phone, you can play those, as well.

I was pleasantly taken with the sound quality of the bulb. The speakers produce a very nice respectable sound considering how they are built right on top of the bulb with its circumference being about the size of a half dollar coin.  The LED+ speaker also has a remote that comes with it so you can turn on/off the light or adjust the volume on it. Regardless of whether you are increasing or decreasing the volume, the clarity of the speaker is very clean with no hint of any distortion, which is quite impressive. The remote also allows you to connect and disconnect your Bluetooth, as well as being able to dim or increase the brightness of the light.

One advantage of having an LED+ speaker is when you are at home with a group of friends and want to share media from your device. For example, a typical situation might be when you are trying to share a video on your smart-phone, but unfortunately, even though everyone is gathered around it closely, not everyone is able to clearly hear the dialogue clearly enough due to the sound limitations from the smart-phone’s speakers. Of course, it also doesn’t help when your environment gets a little noisy.

With the LED+ speaker bulb, you won’t have to suffer through this type of scenario. It’s astounding how clear and audible this speaker can get. Some may confuse it as being primarily a Bluetooth speaker that also contains an LED light bulb instead of the other way around. The party continues.

For those with multiple lamps or light fixtures next to each other in a room, you have the option of putting up to ten speaker bulbs across the room all at once. While these aren’t multi-channel or stereo speakers, the more you have, the more robust the sound, especially coming from a ceiling space. With these built-in speakers camouflaging as a light bulb, I love the idea that they aren’t taking any additional space in the room. Watch for house guests to glance around the room wondering where the sound is coming from.

Given how simple these are to setup without any complex configurations, GE Lighting made me a believer that everyone should install LED+ speaker bulbs in all the rooms in their homes. I just love the idea of knowing I can just stream anything from any device in any room in the house and and knowing I can have instant music without having to turn on any electricity from something plugged into an outlet, like a radio, stereo, or even Alexa. It’s instant gratification at its best.

Thomas Edison would have been proud with the GE LED+ speaker, if he were alive today. It’s as close as you can come to with two of his greatest inventions that were invented within two years of each other: the light bulb and the phonograph cylinder. The LED+ speaker is basically the combination of one great Edison invention built on top of another. The fact that you are able to reproduce music through a light bulb instead of a phonograph cylinder may be one of the greatest inventions that Edison has never seen. If he was alive today, it would be music to his ears.

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DOLBY TAKING SOUND AND VISION TO AN ENTIRELY NEW LEVEL

Posted on January 30, 2021 by mlsentertainment

Article by Marcus Siu

At the CES Pepcom “Digital Experience” show online, I was fortunate to spend some considerable time at the Dolby virtual booth learning about the company’s recent announcements at CES, as well as the company’s rapid progress during the last few years.

It was just a mere four years ago when I wrote about the launch of Dolby Cinema which dramatically changed the movie going experience with its immersive combination of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos with their collaboration with AMC theaters wowing audiences around the world. In movie houses around the world, nothing looked or sounded better.

Dolby Vision has also been the benchmark for TV’s since its introduction. It is the HDR standard that uses dynamic metadata which will give you better visuals and improve the image quality.  The main difference between Dolby Vision and HDR10 is the colour depth and brightness the content and equipment is capable of achieving, with Dolby Vision giving you the darkest of darks and the brightest of brights.

In 2015, Vizio was the first company in America to release Dolby Vision TV’s. Two years later, LG was the first company globally to utilize Dolby Vision on their top of the line OLED TV’s. Every year since, LG won the “Best of CES” awards for TV’s, including one for this year’s CES. During that span, the majority of TV manufacturers have jumped onto the Dolby Vision bandwagon; TCL, Sony, Panasonic, and Phillips, to name just a few.

Within the last year, with the help of the pandemic with people staying home, the adoption and demand of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos in the home has been widespread, and not just exclusively associated to TV’s, but also mobile devices.

As the pandemic worsened during 2020, Dolby conducted a global survey and discovered a significant shift in consumer behavior. Fueled by a majority who uses their smartphone, tablet, PC as their primary device for consuming entertainment over the past few months, Dolby found out that the majority of them wanted, desired and planned to upgrade and pay for more immersive experiences. The survey also noted that 82% of the respondents in the survey said that they were planning to purchase a new device in the next few months to upgrade their entertainment experience.

“That’s very exciting for us!”, Cairon Armstrong, the PR Manager at Dolby exclaimed, “because with our partners there’s a lot of new devices coming out that support Dolby Atmos and Dolby vision that they can use to get those great experiences”.

NOT JUST FOR MOVIES ANYMORE…

With consumers having more time than ever before to engage with entertainment on their mobile devices, the survey also showed that most consumers, many for the first time, are interacting with friends and family while enjoying entertainment, such as talking on the phone, texting, and video chatting while watching the same content simultaneously, as well as spending more on premium subscriptions in order to receive a better quality and shared experience.

Certainly, at least for now, our mobile device has become our new “best friend” that connects are friends, given the COVID-19 stay at home orders. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to “socialize” with the people we know, as the pandemic has pretty much dissipated the large groups of social gatherings that we used to have.

However, the stark reality is that most consumers are still stuck at home with the technical limitations of their mobile devices and will never be able to replace that real-life experience of, for example, going to a live concert with their group of friends.

Watching a streamed pay per-view concert on any mobile device is certainly dwarfed in comparison to experiencing a real live concert, but if you add Dolby Vision or Atmos, it will significantly boost the the enjoyment level a big notch. This is an example of what users want as a more personal and immersive entertainment experience.

Dolby have made lots of announcements in a lot of ways for consumers to get content both in the movie and TV space, as well as the music and games, and even in content creation that allows them to experience Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.

It was just last year when Dolby launched Dolby Atmos music at CES, not just with Amazon Music and Echo Studio but also with titles from Universal Music Group. Soon, new tracks and albums will be launched by huge artists like Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Post Malone, and The Weeknd in Dolby Atmos.

“On the gaming front, Microsoft announced the new Xbox with support for Dolby Atmos, but more importantly it was the first console that also supported Dolby Vision,” Armstrong continued, “There were a lot of big game titles, such as “Cyberpunk 2077”, and “Call of Duty – Warzone” that support Dolby Atmos…we’re excited this year to see the first Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos game titles coming out”.

“On the mobile front, with the launch of the iPhone 12, we launched Dolby Vision capture together with Apple giving consumers a way to create, share and watch Dolby Vision content on their own without all of the complications and difficulties that they used to take,” Amstrong explained, “and so taking this really premium high quality experience allows them to capture their worlds and share it in a much easier way.”

Though Dolby was primarily at CES to promote the wonderful products in the home entertainment space, they were also here because of a new innovation in the PC audio conferencing space from one of their PC partners.

One of their partners, Lenovo announced and unveiled three new innovative and redesigned ThinkPads at CES; the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga (their thinnest ever), ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 and the X1 Yoga Gen 6. Though their entire line of X1’s and Carbons all feature Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, this line is the very first to support Dolby Voice.

Dolby Voice delivers a supreme conferencing experience that feels more natural, reduces listener fatigue, and sounds stunningly clear to make meetings more productive. It also optimizes speaker and microphone performance with features such as dynamic levelling to automatically adjust for voices that are quieter or further away and noise suppression that reduces unwanted background noises and echo no matter what meeting platform you use. Productivity is further enhanced with improved speech recognition for voice assistants.

“We’re particularly excited about how we can bring our Dolby technology to bear on making PC video conferencing an even better experience.”, Armstrong said.

Whether at work or play, it looks like our global landscape will continue to improve for the better as we will soon be able to see and hear Dolby just about everywhere we go. 

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CES – CONSUMER ELECTRONIC SHOW GOES ALL OUT DIGITAL

Posted on December 31, 2020 by mlsentertainment
Last year’s CES in Las Vegas with 171,268 attendees now seem like a blur. This year the show will be virtual. Virtually no one there to see the amazing products in person…only online. Photo by Marcus Siu

Article and photos by Marcus Siu

With less than two weeks to go, the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show returns to Las Vegas on January 11th thru the 14th. With its continuous record breaking attendance year after year, attracting 171,268 attendees in 2020, they have gotten to the point where they have simply outgrown the Las Vegas Convention center and its side venues due to lack of space.

COVID-19’s pandemic may have solved this problem temporarily, as CES had announced that the show will be completely digital and exclusively online.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise to any of us considering how COVID-19 has completely turned our lives upside down. With most of the restrictions that the pandemic has given us, it at least keeps everyone safe at home rather than to try to accommodate its massive crowds in the finite space that they have to roam around in.

This year for returning CES attendees, there will be no need to keep tabs of travel expenses. There will be no need to book a flight or a hotel in advance at absorbent rates. There will be no need to compete for limited ground transportation from hotels with other attendees who are all stressed to get to their destination on time. Nor will they need to deal with the cold freezing temperatures early in the morning to get to the convention floors before the doors open up.

With the strict stay at home in orders preventing us not to be there in person, the show must go on. In any event, the CES show will continue to thrill us with major new announcements from all the top consumer companies in the world, as well as give us a preview of their latest technological lineup of gadgets on the “virtual” showroom floor. It gives us a preview glimpse into the future.

Expect companies, such as Toyota to announce next generation vehicles and next generation cities that will be here before you know it. Photo by Marcus Siu.

Several keynotes will be given: Hans Vestberg, the CEO of Verizon will be discussing 5G as the framework of the 21st century and how they will plan and develop smart cities into a very real possibility; Mary Barra, the Chairman and CEO of General Motors will be speaking about GM’s transformational strategy to advance mobility for communities around the world and how they are leveraging new trends to drive the adoption of next generation vehicles and next generation cities; and Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft, will be discussing “the promise and peril of the digital age”. Several other companies, such as AMD, Best Buy, and Walmart are also expected to attend.

In addition, there will be more than 90 conference sessions an incredible lineup of speakers and surprise guests.

This year, expect many of the TV manufacturers to announce their latest 8K lineup, including Sony, pictured here from the 2020 CES Show in Las Vegas. Photo by Marcus Siu.

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NEED A CHRISTMAS PRESENT IN A FLASH? THE DATA TRAVELER MICRO DUO FLASH DRIVE BY KINGSTON

Posted on November 30, 2020 by mlsentertainment

Article by Marcus Siu

It’s astounding to me how many of my friends come up and inform me that there is something drastically wrong with their smartphone, deeming it nearly useless. After handing me their smartphone for inspection, the first thing I look for is whether or not the phone is near capacity Most often, I find this to be the case, but even after freeing up some space as a temporary fix, the users continually still insists that more media needs be added onto their phone since they can’t help stop taking photos or videos on a daily basis.

These are atypical users who aren’t accustomed to transfer and download their media from their phone onto their computer on a needed regular basis. In most cases, they never have learned this process and probably never will. Most of them will just go through their entire media on their phone and start looking at each individual photo or video, deleting one by one, the photos and videos they can live without, even though there was a viable a reason for taking and keeping them on the phone in the first place; downloads and apps included.

It’s a shame they end up not keeping some of their personal history by deleting their media from their smartphone to free up space. Much of that documentation will be lost forever. The idea of deleting never should ever have been a viable option. Unfortunately, out of pure desperation, this is not an common thing for many users.

It didn’t have to be this way. Not if they owned a Kingston microDuo traveller.

Kingston just recently released their latest addition to the DataTraveler® microDuo Flash drives line. It’s dual purpose flash drive that has both the USB OTG (On-The-Go) and a USB-C that attaches to your smartphone or tablet charger port, but instead of your smartphone thinking it’s a charger, it recognizes it as a USB storage device. From your phone, you will be able to see a folder with all your data from the flash.

Previously, Kingston released a dual purpose flash drive that has both the USB OTG and a microUSB that worked well with Android smartphones that had microUSB ports on them before they came out with USB-C. They even have on for Lightning devices, as well from their earlier versions, which was called “The Bolt”.

Their latest dual interface works with both standard USB and USB Type-C with fast read speeds up to 100MB/s. It provides additional storage, from 32 GB up to 128 GB, in a very small form factor, perhaps the size of a digit of your finger. You can than move or copy your files onto the device by going into your folders/files on your phone.

This is so much easier than having to either manually take the microSD card from you smartphone and inserting it into a card reader so you can put into the USB port of your computer or even moving the media into the cloud.

You basically need one device as opposed to five. In a typical scenario, you would need to find your metal pin to open up your smartphone, a microSD card reader and a USB cable. Most likely, time will be lost in trying to locate these items, as well. Many times, I get frustrated because I cannot locate the smartphone pin, so I just grab a paper clip and bend it into a pin opener. Even if I don’t have to deal with this step anymore, it saves me grief.

With innovative products like the DataTraveler® microDuo, we become less dependent on the need to have immediate access with our computers or laptops and we can continue to take photos and videos from our devices with no worries about not having enough storage…at least up to 128 GB.

It also makes it a much more affordable option for consumers who just can’t justify the extra cost for the additional incremental upgrade capacity on their smartphone at the time of purchase, which we know can be a high premium to pay for.

I would highly suggest this as your “must have” computer accessory, if you don’t have one. You will thank me later.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M59PHE4/ref=twister_B01179M6DQ?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

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VOICE-OVER ACTORS HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY STREAMING FROM THE ORINDA THEATER

Posted on September 30, 2020 by mlsentertainment
Inductees : Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray, Mae Questel, Jim Cummings, and Pat Carroll

Inaugural Induction Ceremony October 10th

Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame to open at the historic Orinda

Article by Marcus Siu

It has been well over a year since the California Independent Film Festival Association conceived the notion of crafting a special public live event that would recognize the true artistry of some of the great voice-over actors of the past. Whether from animated feature films, animated TV shows, or just cartoons, the work from these voice-over actors are indelible and should truly be recognized and appreciated. Despite these memorable characters these great artists have portrayed, they never seem to receive their due acknowledgment or appreciation that they should have.

With California Independent Film Festival (CAIFF) founder, Derek Zemrak, this situation will soon change, as he plans to open up a newly created Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame in Orinda which will also have a museum exclusively dedicated to their art and craft and to the inducted artists themselves.

“As you may know voice acting requires extreme talent. Sadly, voice performers are often overlooked.  As a result, I am starting the Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame in the historic Orinda Theatre, located in East Bay of San Francisco, to preserve and educate individuals on the history of Voice-Over Talent.” Zemrak continues. “It is time to celebrate this beloved art form that has entertained so many over the years.”

The inaugural class includes Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, June Foray and Mae Questel.  True pioneers in the industry.   In addition, Legacy Characters, Ursula (Pat Carroll) and Living Legend Jim Cummings (Winnie the Pooh, Tigger) will be inducted.

Originally slated for May 16th and 17th of this year, but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zemrak and the organizers of the theater reset the new date to October 10th planned for their induction ceremony, and in conjunction will open the new Voice-Over Hall of Fame museum inside the historic Orinda theater, which is located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The museum will include stunning plaques of the inductees with their bios. Plus a museum of memorabilia on display from their careers. One piece is a 1937 Productions cell from Mel Blanc’s first cartoon, Porky the Wrestler.

Here are the details of the event:

The Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony held October 10th a 1PM to 3PM PST. The event will kick off with a Q &A with voice-over actors Bob Bergen (Porky Pig) and Debi Derryberry (Jimmy Neutron).  The event can be seen streaming online at www.VOHOF.org, the Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame Facebook page and the Orinda Theatre Facebook page.  

Many national and local personalities have come onboard to support the Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame including Emmy Winner, Rob Paulsen (Pinky and the Brain), Film Historian, Leonard Maltin, Noel Blanc (Mel’s son), Tara Strong (The Powerpuff Girls), Disney animator, Dave Woodman, and Film Critic, Jan Wahl.

With all of these “characters” participating in this event, animated or not; it’s sure to be an unforgettable and comical event not to be missed.

From Disney’s 1989 classic, “The Little Mermaid” – Ursula voiced by Pat Carroll, will be inducted into the Voice-Over Actor’s Hall of Fame as a Legacy Character

THE INDUCTEES:

MEL BLANC: (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality. After beginning his over-60-year career performing in radio, he became known for his work in animation as the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and most of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons during the golden age of American animation.

DAWS BUTLER: (November 16, 1916 – May 18, 1988) was well-known through many Hanna Barbera cartoons, including Loopy De Loop, Wally Gator, Yogi Bear, Hokey Wolf, Elroy Jetson, Quick Draw McGraw, Baba Looey, Peter Potamus, Snagglepuss, and Huckleberry Hound.

JUNE FORAY: (September 18, 1917 – July 26, 2017) was an American voice actress who was best known as the voice of such animated characters as Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Nell Fenwick, Lucifer from Disney’s Cinderella, Cindy Lou Who, Jokey Smurf, Granny from the Warner Bros

MAE QUESTEL: (September 13, 1908 – January 4, 1998) was an American actress and voice actress best known for providing the voices for the animated characters Betty Boop and Olive Oyl from 1931.

JIM CUMMINGS: (born November 3, 1952) is an American voice actor and singer, who has appeared in almost 400 roles, including Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and the Tasmanian Devil.

PAT CARROLL: (born May 5, 1927) is an American actress and singer. She is known for voicing Ursula in The Little Mermaid as well as having a long acting career, including appearances in CBS’s The Danny Thomas Show, ABC’s Laverne & Shirley, NBC’s ER, other guest-starring and series-regular roles on American television as well as voice-acting in several cartoon series.

Some of the items on display at the “Voice-Over Actors Hall of Fame Museum” in Orinda.

Spanning many generations, from the golden era of the early thirties to today’s modern day animated features, it seems fitting to celebrate the greatest voice-over actors and actresses who brought to life some of the most iconic and loveable animated cartoon characters and honor them into the iconic Orinda theater that is no stranger to history itself.

The museum will open to the public when the Orinda Theater opens to the public.

Donations can be made at https://www.orindamovies.com

That’s all folks.

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TIVIC ClearUP – SINUS PAIN RELIEF PRODUCT REVIEW – A MUST HAVE DRUG FREE ALLERGY RELIEF GAME CHANGER

Posted on May 31, 2020 by mlsentertainment
Tivic ClearUp at the Pepcom show in San Francisco. A real game changer. Photo by Marcus Siu.

Article by Marcus Siu

I vividly remember my very first personal bout with allergies. I was sitting in a movie theater for the highly anticipated movie, “Topsy Turvy”, which was getting lots of buzz. Unfortunately at the time, I was also suffering from post nasal drip, which I had never experienced before. As I sat among the full capacity crowd, I was doing my best to suppress my cough to not disturb them, but failed. There were times that I was so disruptive that I imagined the crowd probably wanted to throw me out of the theater for disturbing them every time I had an abrupt cough attack. After the movie ended, I was never happier to leave the theater as I ran into the men’s room just to clear out my throat as though I was gagged. This was not symptoms of a simple flu or a cold, but sinus allergies, which I never thought I would ever get.

For the next twenty years, I have suffered annual seasonal allergies from the late part of April and lasting thru August. During this usual three to four month span, I was completely miserable and had very little energy. It affected my productivity at work as well as my physical mental state. I just wanted to be able to go through life without the usual runny nose, congestion, and exhaustion that came from allergies. For a few years, my allergies worsened and even resulted in me having a bronchial infection which needed anti-biotics for treatment, as I would be coughing 24/7 non-stop for six to eight weeks. Before they were OTC, I used to take medical prescriptions of claritin, allegra, flonase, and codeine every single day, as well as local honey, which I heard was a good way to fight allergies. I also heard about neti pots, but felt that would be too intrusive for me to take as the idea of blowing water out of my nose didn’t sound quite appealing to me.

Last year, I attended the Pepcom show in San Francisco at the end of May. Though, weakened by my seasonal allergies, I was still a trouper and attended the show. I randomly stumbled at the Tivic booth and asked about their new product, though my interest and focus is with personal entertainment technology. When I heard that the product was for allergy sufferers providing instant relief by just gliding the ClearUp across the face, I was very skeptical. I was given a five minute demo and for some reason, my allergies were gone for the evening… with just one treatment. It really surprised me that my allergies last summer didn’t return. It was as though a wizard waved a magic wand and removed my allergic symptoms .

The following January of this year, six months later, Tivic was present at CES Unveiled in Las Vegas. At the booth, I asked if I could obtain a review sample for myself that I could use so I can post a review online. Little did I realize, at that point, Tivic was garnering positive reviews and accolades everywhere. Tivic Health was named an CES 2020 Innovation Awards Honoree. In addition, Time magazine recently called Tivic’s ClearUp as one of the ten greatest inventions for 2019. It was also featured in “Last Gadget Standing” as one of the finalists.

As my allergies returned for the year in late April, I decided that I would go ahead and buy one for myself instead of paying the pharmaceutical companies for OTC products, such as flonase and benadryl, just because I didn’t want to keep injecting drugs into my body. As I started feeling the allergies worsen within the first week, luckily the product arrived at my doorstep during the first week in May, which was perfect timing.

After charging the Tivic ClearUp that just took a few hours, I started using it about four to five times a day for the first ten days or so, about once every four hours using the lowest of the three settings. There is no real strict schedule that is mandatory, which is great, since it’s one less thing you need to worry about. When symptoms arose, such as congestion or a runny nose, I used it on the spot and it would relieve those symptoms fairly quickly…within 30 minutes.

There were times when I would wake up in the middle of the night with my head stuffy and a nasal drip making me cough. That’s when I would reach for the Tivic for a five minute session and within five to ten minutes I would find myself sleeping peacefully again. In the past, I would get up and go to the kitchen to make green tea to mix it with lemon and honey, or perhaps eat raw garlic…anything to relieve my throat and stop it from coughing. However, that would take well over an hour and disrupt my sleep pattern. Not te case anymore.

I have been using ClearUp to relieve my allergies for about three weeks now, about three to five times a day. I am happy to report, I have not been using it for a few days, as my allergies have subsided after three weeks. The product had pretty much dissipated my allergies, though you can tell that some days I was a little more congested on certain days for the first week or two from the sound of my voice. This was the shortest allergy season I have ever had.

My regular lifestyles activities were never affected, as well, unlike the past twenty years taking allegra, flonase, and cough syrup. It freed me from using benadryl, which make me nod off and want to go to sleep. It also freed me from using flonase, which most people don’t know is a steroid, which is very unhealthy.

I also love it’s portability and the fact you can take it anywhere. It comes with a nice blue zippered pouch that has two compartments; one for the ClearUp and the other for the usb-c charger. The charge lasts quite awhile, as I have not even needed to charge the ClearUp for a second time yet.

So how does this work?

Besides being 100% drug-free with no chemical side effects and being FDA cleared and clinically proven, it is so simple to use. You just push a button, choose a level of how powerful the treatment you want and basically circle around from the bottom of your cheekbone toward the nose and below the brows in a “c” fashion around the face. If it vibrates, it has found a location spot to treat the area and applies microcurrent waves at a very low level electrical current to relieve sinus pain. Usually there are about seven to ten areas which need treatment and it takes a total of five minutes.

The Tivic ClearUp is designed to provide temporary relief of sinus pain associated with allergic rhinitis. For me, it seemed that it had gotten rid of my allergies, but once in awhile, my head might feel a little stuffed with my nose getting runny and I would go ahead to go in for a treatment. My allergies are seasonal, but it also helps all-year around allergy sufferers who suffer from sneezing, congestion, runny nose, watery eyes, itching of the nose or roof of the mouth, coughing and sinus pain.

This is a truly innovative product. This is a product that I truly believe in and testify that it is a game changer. It’s non-evasive and chemical free. If you want to control your allergies, you will not regret this purchase. It will help you live your life during the allergy season rather than suffering during it with OTC drugs that come with its unwanted side effects.

https://tivichealth.com/clearup-sinus-relief/

Box contents of Tivic ClearUp. Photo courtesy of Tivic Health.
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PRODUCT REVIEW – NOERDEN’S “LIZ” SMART BOTTLE

Posted on April 30, 2020 by mlsentertainment
Noerden at the Showstoppers booth in Las Vegas. Photo by Marcus Siu.

To those of us with an active lifestyle and always on the go, one of the most basic and essential items that we constantly carry around with us is the “water bottle”. Whether it’s made of plastic or stainless steel, we take it with us everywhere we go; in the car, to the beach, to the gym, to the mountains; you name it. To some people, forgetting to bring their water bottle is like forgetting to bring your car keys.

However, with all numerous “grab and go” handling it gets, no one really thinks about how disgusting and filthy the water bottle and its contents inside can get. Whether it’s in a gym bag full of dirty sweatpants and smelly socks, inside a humid locker room, or just on top of a park bench surrounded with smog and pollution in a big city; it is usually in an environment that is far less than ideal.

Even worse is when people refill their single use disposable plastic water bottle over the course of many days and leave it in the sweltering heat in their car at extreme temperatures. Unfortunately, this is typical usual occurrence that I see all the time.

If you look at the Internet of Things universe there are plenty of “smart” devices just about everywhere you look. Smart-TV’s, smart-watches, smart appliances, but not many companies have ever come up with a “smart-bottle”.

Noerden’s “LIZ” Smart Bottle – 12 oz size. P[hoto by Marcus Siu.

Noerden, a maker of smart watches from Paris, came up with a brilliant concept of putting a self-cleaning “smart-bottle” on the market. They have been primarily selling them in Europe and have recently introduced their products to America in January. This indigo-go start-up company was recently at CES and the ShowStoppers Show in Las Vegas promoting their “LIZ” line of “smart” bottles.

As I was walking past various vendor displays at the ShowStopper’s event, these award winning minimalist designed “smart-bottles” certainly caught my attention. They were displayed next to Noerden’s line of smart-watches, so out of curiosity, I had to stop and ask their reps to find out what made these bottles so “smart” and what makes them any more distinguished from other water bottles.

After all, to call it a “smart” bottle may be a stretch of the imagination. Sure, they looked “smart”, but there are no other devices or networks or via different wireless protocols that actually connect with it. It does not connect to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or even the internet. It doesn’t operate through an app or connect to any devices.

However, after the presentation I was given, I was convinced you can call this a “smart-bottle”, because these bottles have an integrated UV sterilization function, hydration reminders and a temperature indicator all rolled into one…all without using an app.

Noerden’s smart watches and smart water bottles on display at Showstoppers! Photo by Marcus Siu.

LIZ – WHAT MAKES IT SMART?

After charging “LIZ” with it’s magnetic cable dock for a few hours, I discovered that the real brains of this smart water bottle was really in its “smart-lid”. To turn the power on, you press and hold the center of the lid and the LED indicator light will then flash white quickly. (To turn off the power, press and hold the center of the lid and the LED indicator light will then flash white once indicating that the smart bottle is off.)

Once the power is on, by tapping once on the smart-lid, the LED indicator will blink on the “smart-lid” in the color corresponding to the beverage’s temperature range: blue for cold, yellow for warm or red for hot. If the temperature is above 60°C/140°F the light will be red (hot). If the beverage temperature is between 36.5 and 60°C / 98°F to 140°F the light will be yellow (neutral). If the beverage temperature is below 36.5°C/98°F, it will turn blue (cold). – If the water temperature is over 60°C/140°F the UV function will not work and the lid’s indicator light will flash red to indicate the temperature is too high for sterilization.

By tapping twice on the responsive smart lid, it starts the UV sterilization process. There is a 278 nano-meter UV-C light in the bottle that destroys up to 99,9% of harmful viruses and odor-causing bacteria by breaking down their DNA and rendering them harmless as little as 5 minutes. The LED indicator will stop flashing when the sterilization is complete.

Noerden’s flashing blue light during sterilization process. Photo by Marcus Siu.

However, don’t think you can just go and fill LIZ from any water source, like an open stream by the mountains. Water out in the open still needs to be filtered. Filtering and sterilizing are two different processes. Like previously stated, water sterilization kills viruses & bacteria, whereas filtering water removes other substances such as heavy metals or fluoride.

In addition, the LIZ water bottle will also remind users to drink every 2 hours thanks to its smart hydration reminders. Of course, you can just power it off to save on battery life, which can last up to a month with 1 UV sterilization a day.

However, LIZ can only sterilize water. Its sterilization system is not compatible with dark colored liquids since the UV-C light cannot penetrate dark beverages. Therefore it won’t sterilize Gatorade, Cola, tea or coffee, or beer. If you prefer other beverages besides water after a sweaty workout, then this smart-bottle is not for you. But if you are dehydrated after a tough workout, then you know that there is nothing more thirst quenching than pure water.

Additionally, acidic and/or bubbly beverages can damage stainless steel over time and is not recommended to have those on a regular basis unless you rinse and clean the bottle quickly immediately after use.

The only other beverage it doesn’t support is milk.

I found out that “LIZ” is not actually named after a person, but three middle letters in “steriLIZation”.

RESULTS

Besides being an aesthetically well designed product, the real value here for the active health conscious consumer is for the sterilization feature. Sterilization would be perfect for using in “sketchy” places with questionable water quality, including at home.

There are days when I feel I shouldn’t be using a public water fountain because of all the possible germs there are, so I end up dehydrated and nearly dying of heat exhaust. Of course, I’m exaggerating, but I would prefer to wait until I get to a store that sells bottled water then risk getting sick. Schools are atrocious for water fountains to stay away from. Who knows what these mischievous delinquents possibly might do to them. Probably sticking pens in the spouts to control their aim on getting certain victims wet. I just don’t want to chance it, though I would feel quite safe with sterilizing the water with LIZ, if I knew the water was filtered.

Restaurants, where you can self-serve and pour your own water would fare perfectly. Most likely, these businesses change their filters regularly, so their tap water would be up to standard for their own customers. I would just fill the tap water and have it sterilized in LIZ, rather than drinking it as regular tap water straight out of the cup.

The LIZ manual states that you would only need to charge the battery once a month, but that’s given you just use if for one sterilization per day. I would think that some days you would want to drink more water and would need to sterilize a few times a day, especially when dehydrated. If this is the case, plan to charge more frequently.

The only other issue I encountered with LIZ was when I overfilled water past the inner line in the bottle. I pressed twice to sterilize it, but the LED indicator from the smart-lid flashed red four times and the UV went into safe mode. That confirmed that I went past the fill line and needed to empty some of the water remove the lid to let dry off. The manual indicated that I should wait about ten minutes, which seemed about right. Live and learn.

PROS:

1.) Aesthetically pleasing. Well designed and constructed.

2.) Great for people who live in an area with questionable water quality.

3.) Great for people who want to sterilize water at places besides their home.

CONS:

1.) No “real” scientific way of knowing if sterilization is really working.

2.) Wish the magnetic cable when charging could be more slip proof.

To those who aspire to or have an active healthy and environmentally healthy lifestyle and truly believe that water is “life”, then you need to “contain life” in one bottle. Then this bot is for you.

LIZ Smart Water Bottle

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ARE MOVIE THEATERS LEFT IN THE DARK? THE STATE OF CINEMA IN THE AGE OF STUDIO STREAMING AND COVID-19

Posted on March 31, 2020 by mlsentertainment
Movie theaters around the country may need to change the “Now Playing” signs to “Now Streaming”. Photo by Marcus Siu.

Article and photos by Marcus Siu

It’s 6pm on a Friday night in the East Bay at the historic landmark Orinda Theater, just 15 miles east of San Francisco. With its impressive luminous flashing neon lights on its marquee displaying a spectacular view to those who pass along Highway 24 at night, it gives pride and joy to the citizens of Orinda to have its city name in glittering lights, as not many intimate cities in the Bay Area can claim.

Outside, underneath the retro ceiling before the entrance doors of the theater, newly installed neon lights bounce off eye-popping colors onto the reflective glass cases that display the movie posters of Hollywood’s latest offerings; “Emma” “Onward”, and “Call of the Wild”. Cars full of movie going customers are coming from all different directions from the East Bay while the percolating sounds of the popcorn machine make noise non-stop in the lobby at the concession stand getting ready for the crowds.

You would think this would be a typical Friday movie night for this majestic theater, but it is quite the contrary. No movies are playing at any of its three auditoriums. Nor are there any customers inside the lobby that are normally filled with crowds waiting in line at the concession stand or hanging out at Cine Cuvée, mingling in groups at its attached wine bar.

MOVIE NIGHT IN

Tonight’s event is called “Movie Night In”, an ingenious promotion posted on social media from the theater’s Facebook page, where for a mere $20, customers can get a large bag of fresh popcorn, a box of “official” movie theater red vines, and either a bottle of quality wine or four beers that are normally sold at the theater and wine bar. Best of all, customers need only drive up to the curb where theater owner, Derek Zemrak, would personally deliver their orders straight to their car, just like a the old carhop waiters did in the the 60’s. The promotion is in response to the “shelter in place” order by the county that forced all movie theaters to close its doors in mid-March around the country due to the COVID-19, more commonly known as corona-virus.

Of course, with the “Movie Night In” promotion, customers still needed to provide their own entertainment at home. Despite this, it seems just bringing a few goodies from the local movie theater can certainly make the evening more enjoyable, even if the participants are just stationed in front of the TV right in their own living room on a La-Z-Boy sofa or recliner.

Unfortunately, with the building’s high astronomical rent and utilities due each month, Zemrak was forced to close the theater and lay off his entire staff.” At least they can get unemployment…you can’t make money on zero revenue”, Zemrak noted.

Though “Movie Night In” generates a very small fraction of income, it has now become a regular Friday night ritual for some of the patrons. Some customers have gotten used to the idea. Still every little bit helps. “Not too many people realize how expensive it is to operate and rent a movie theater. People see the movie theater and don’t even think anything about how expensive it is to operate”, Zemrak said.

“We just need to sell a thousand $25 gift cards and we’ll be fine”.

The majestic Orinda Theater’s landmark neon lights.

TO STREAM OR NOT TO STREAM – THAT IS THE QUESTION

Ironically, the movies that had to immediately cease playing at the theater at the time of the “shelter in place” order came into effect are now streaming on VOD (video on demand). While not all of the theaters were forced to shutdown in the country before the federal government stepped in at the time, NBC Universal announced that its own movie studio Universal Pictures and specialty label Focus Features would be releasing their films in theaters and on-demand simultaneously. This was the path taken by the studios to help salvage their box office gross for their current lineup of their theatrical releases if all theaters were forced to close, which it did.

Instead of watching “Emma”, “Onward”, and “Call of the Wild” in movie theaters, moviegoers can now only watch them only on VOD . It seems as streaming services, such as Disney Plus, VUDU and Amazon Prime, overnight has made the “home movie going experience” much more exclusive to the audience as they “shelter in place”.

In addition, NBC Universal is planning to launch a brand new upcoming streaming service called Peacock in mid July. This will make it much easier for Universal to release theatrical movies and stream it at the same time, if they ever decide to. They could completely eliminate or reduce the “theatrical window”, which is typically 72 to 76 days for most movies before it reaches home video or VOD. Nonetheless, the ease of home viewing could continue to be destructive for movie theaters, big or small, struggling to stay afloat in an age of shrinking theatrical window dates, let alone the dreaded, coronavirus. If movie studios decide to follow Universal’s suit, then all movie theaters will be in peril; the movie theater chains, like AMC and Cinemark, as well as the small independent theaters, like the Orinda.

“If you look at the business model that’s the way to go… there’s no question, go streaming…but it’s not the right thing to do to movie theaters”, Zemrak explains. “I would have never expected Universal to be the first studio to do that”.

“If Disney, Universal and Paramount decide to go streaming at the same time… the general population are going to stay home”, Zemrak said.

“The chain theaters are in more jeopardy than independent theaters because independent theaters show art films, foreign films – stuff that you can’t see…so if Disney decides to go streaming the same day the theatrical release is..”, Zemrak continued, “….you have a better shot with the independent and foreign films than the blockbusters.”

“It’s going to be really interesting in the next three months to see really what happens when the theaters reopen – how studios are going to say we’re going on streaming – if that’s the case corporate theaters like AMC and Cinemark – they’re screwed, whereas we can we can survive because we have art films.”

As an independent movie theater owner at the Orinda, Zemrak is also responsible for its film programming, as well as musical and special events. With so many movie theater chains around the area, he prefers to concentrate not so much on obtaining big Hollywood blockbusters for the theater, but the non-mainstream gems that mature audiences will resonate with. One such film was “Parasite”, which was one of Zemrak’s prime choices that he selected to play at the theater immediately after it had won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in early January and before the Oscar nominations were announced. At that time, it was not a wide release film and played a record run for 12 straight weeks at the theater and turned into an unexpected blockbuster due to the Oscar buzz and year-end awards it received, including winning “Best Picture” at the Academy Awards, the first foreign film to ever accomplish this, which Zemrak rightly predicted after the nominations were even announced and even putting his reputation on live radio.

Just like there is an audience for seeing films on the big screen, there is also an avid audience for watching movies at home. Unfortunately, the more streaming movie studios do, it becomes more and more destructive for movie theaters. It becomes a balancing act when it comes to satisfying both the studios and theaters.

“I’ve been talking to all of the independent film distributors because they’re doing things with movie theaters, to say “stream your things online and we’ll give you 40% of the take!”, Zemrak added. “That sounds good but here you have a brick and mortar building and the sub studios are saying we’ll give you money to go streaming. It’s opposite of what your base product is…but if all the major studios are going to go online and stream…movie theaters are dead.”

GENERATION GAP – BABY BOOMERS VS GEN X & Y

Zemrak also noted another major obstacle for movie theaters: the generation gap between the older and younger audiences. Whereas baby boomers want the big screen experience, the younger “i-phone mp3” generation of movie goers are content to watch the latest movies on their mobile device and be done with it. It’s about instant gratification.

“So it’s like you have this crossroad of people… this complete divide of people who say I’m passionate about supporting a theater”, Zemrak continues. “If I’m passionate about supporting a theater, I’m going to support an independent theater. I’m not gonna go the Regal, the IMAX or the Luxe. I’m going to go to an independent theater because that’s what I remember. I remember going to these movie theaters that are special whereas the younger generation have no connection whatsoever to a movie theater.”

“It’s not about the Cinemark with the recliners and the comfort of the room, it’s what I want to reminisce about when I used to go to the movie theater. It was something special – like the Roxy, the Castro, the Orinda Theater. I can go and feel something from my past and go to see a movie. That’s what it’s about…but the other generations – the Generation X and the Generation Z (millennials). – they’re not going to go to the movies. They watch it on their tablets, on their iPhones, and watch it at home.”

HOPE AFTER POST CORONAVIRUS

As “Movie Night In” comes to a close for the evening, Zemrak was pleasantly surprised at the number of incoming online orders for movie gift cards. In these difficult times for small businesses, there is still a glimmer of hope and encouragement from local supporters who actually care, but unfortunately, COVID-19 will still lead the economy into a recession for the majority of businesses, at least in the short term.

Once the pandemic is over however, theater owners will have a difficult time to entice moviegoers to return, especially with the older crowd who are highly susceptible to the COVID-19 virus. Perhaps, the social distancing of six feet from another may still need to be enforced for awhile and the addition of a Hazmat suit until we discover a new vaccine for COVID-19 and will become the new norm. If this were the case, Zemrak believes it would completely eliminate the need for reserved seating, but given the alternative, I believe people will strongly prefer being six feet apart than being six feet under.

Regardless of the outcome, there are lots of moviegoers who absolutely can’t wait to leave their homes and rush into movie theaters. They want the option of being able to dream and escape to the movies when needed. If they can’t do that, it might as well be the end of Western Civilization, as we know it.

However, it’s the major Hollywood studios, like Disney, that would really like to see the dreaded COVID-19 to come to an end immediately. Disney’s lineup for 2020, like most movie studios, has a string of global blockbusters for the entire year and has recently announced an upcoming June 6th release date with “Mulan” which was originally postponed from March due to the pandemic. With the newly revised June 6th release date and the ever increasing number of COVID-19 cases around the world, it may seem overly optimistic by the studio…but when you wish upon a star – your dreams come true.

If anyone knows how to put people back into movie theaters, it’s magical world of Disney.

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