Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz

Ratatouille : the next Pixar movie

me & Benjamin Rassat

Sepulveda Schulz & Rassat, originally uploaded by codordog.

Ben is one of the guys whom you can't forget once you meet him. And he makes sure you don't forget him as we blogs with email :) He keeps sending you all the great reasons why brazilian girls make better love than anyone else in the world, why Becker played fantastic tennis, why French girls can't kiss, why Grand Chelem - his tennis media title - is great...

Last year, he interviewed 50 French Internet entrepreneurs about Bubble 1.0. He's made that into a 2 * 52 minutes program for French TV, coming up in April.

We had a private screening of the first cut at Codor's place on Monday night, in a pure geek delight : xbox 360, pizza, coca cola and DVD movie on a flat screen :))))

Well done.

My previous interviews of Ben : One, Two.

I did not like the latest James Bond movie: Casino Royale

I finally had a chance last night to watch Casino Royale in a theater in Paris, with the new James Bond guy, Daniel Craig. Let's say it, I did not like it, got bored, thought they had stolen the spirit of Bond.
With over 20 James Bond films seen each at least 5 times, (yeah, I know, Bondophilia will kill me), I am expressing the following comments:

The good:

* the title animation is not bad. Not great though.
* the 2nd Bond girl is gorgeous: Eva Green. and played her part as she should have
* Bond drives an Aston Martin again.
* we're back to a more human Bond. In OHMSS, Geroge Lazenby did a similar job: no extraordinary space rocket, no underwater HQ for the vilain, just a plain spy movie between superpowers. Almost no supernatural gadget.

The bad:

* I didn't like the title scene. This is not a John Woo movie, is it ?
* they are killing all the characters: no Q, no Moneypenny...  M looking desperately older (I really like Dame Judi Dench). And Felix... How can he be young, old, black, white, in all the different movies ?
* this is supposed to be the first Bond movie. Craig is too old to play that part of a younger Bond. Wrong casting. They should have hired the other man, Clive Owen.
* some scenes are way too long: the running in the beginning, the romance of Bond ? It doesn't really add to the story.
* the first Bond Girl is useless, and serves no purpose. reminds me of Denise Richards (big boobs, no added value in the movie).
* the title song will not be remembered
* still some crazy error: why on earth would Bond have a defibrillator and the right medicine in his car in Montenegro ? Standard equipment makes more sense.

The ugly:

* There's no story. One bad guy has too much money, looses it, tries to regain it. Really too thin a plot. They should have tried much harder. This is probably one of the world scripts ever.

* WAY too much product placement: got it: a couple of times Nokia, even more times Sony Ericsson, a cameo appearance of Richard Branson, Virgin Atlantic, the whole Ford range: Range Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin... Sony Vaio's a few times, Bollinger... This is not a commercial. If you have to show a brand do it, but this was over the top. Even the last scene looked like a commercial for the car, not the story.

* making Bond too human is a MISTAKE. We all remember scenes where we say to ourselves, "only 007 could do that". We laugh at the craziness of situations.

Somehow in this movie, the spirit of Bond is gone. There's no wit really (except that funny: "shaken or stirred sir ? I dont give a damn") as Samantha Bond had introduced with Pierce Brosnan (probably the best Bond with Connery). Bond is a:
* womanizer: here too, but too soft
* has lots of class: here he doesn't even have a properly tailored suit ?
* is invincible or almost (the title scene in the previous movie in North Korea was fantastic.) : not here. Showing scars and blood is OK, as long as you don't break the myth. The risk here is making him a bit like a "Die Hard" hero.
* has a very British attitude: here Craig shuts up most of the time like if he were dumb. Some say he looks like Putin...

Guyom Corp wins Grand Jury Prize at Satis this week

Video taped a couple of minutes after Guyom heard about the news on the phone :) for this short-length movie, "Demain La Veille"

What are you doing on November 22nd ?

I seldom go to the movies. But I'll be at the 8pm screening of Casino Royale, the latest opus of James Bond :)
Now... if any kind PR soul would have me invited to a premiere the night or the week before... I'd LOVE IT.

Have a look at the web sites: very nice atmosphere. Or to the latest trailer.
Let's see how good Craig is, in impersonating double-O seven...

Looking for some office space in Paris

Time to move offices again. At my company, we’re looking for office space between 400 and 600m² in Paris. I’ve been to many places, met with professional agencies, but have not yet found the space that clicks! If you know about a great deal, please let us know by emailing me or calling me, or leaving a comment.

Thanks for your help !

demain la veille: le film

 

La 3e production de Guyom

Launch of a DVD

Front cover of the DVD case, originally uploaded by rsepulveda.

Aha ! it's Christmas day again today, as I also got the latest DVD on the market from buzz agency Culture-buzz, orchestrating a buzz campaign about the launch of the DVD.

Thanks Emmanuel for including me in the program. I read the book when I was a kid, missed it totally when the movie came out on big screen (did you know I haven't been to a movie theater in at least ONE year...)

Who's seen the movie ?

Huge mobile party this week in Paris for the MobileFilmFestival

Jamil Hijazi (Services Mobiles) & Rodrigo, originally uploaded by rsepulveda.

I was amazed at the huge crowd this week at the Rex Club (we got there around 10:30pm) for the party of the Mobile Film Festival held this month in Paris.

Somehow I had the impression of being back in the crazy years of 1999-2000.

Open bar for everyone for a few hours, live orchestra, waitresses behind the bar *stripping* (and I can tell you, well guarded by a HUGE security guy), many people you know showing up and even more people that you don't know...

And all this to promote the mobile industry and a 'happening' mobile film festival.

It was nice, well spirited, and glad to have been invited by the organizer, Bruno Smadja. Nevertheless puzzled by the economics behind it (although he told me, that the place more than makes a profit when they close the open bar).

I have some pictures here, but make sure you watch the winning videos here.

 

Live from Las Vegas #025: the Yahoo! keynote

Download clip (.mov)

Back from Las Vegas, I was wondering whether I should put up the footage of the keynotes I filmed. They were public performances, in front of tons of journalists, photographers, and cameras. Now that I spotted that videos of keynotes were up on cnet’s news.com, I guess there’s no reason not to publish my own footage (I'll take it down of coruse if I'm given a good reason to do so).

So here’s Yahoo’s CEO Terry Semel Keynote.

Shownotes:

• 12:40 – Jokes by Ellen Degeneris
• 18:45 – announcenment of Yahoo! Go
• 41:45 – appearance by Tom Cruise and trailer of Mission Impossible III
• 48:15 – Appearance of Intel’s CEO, Paul Ottelini announcing Viiv
• 54:30 – Final jokes by Ellen Degeneris