First Word

The movie Disconnect is coming out soon. It is about true disconnect -- our ability to disconnect with technology from each other and desensitize ourselves from true human interaction. The Smart Phone and email and texts take us away from human interaction. The computer and Smart Phone make work ubiquitous so we can't ever truly escape the office. My fiancé Kirk Donnelly said employers love it when employees have home offices where the lines between work and private life blur. He's right. I'm never but a room away from my work. I am reachable 24 x 7, which is not good for work-life balance. You have to make a concerted effort to turn off your phone or leave it behind if you want true downtime. At the same time, the Internet and email have given rise to a generation of haters -- people who hide behind the computer screen and feel no social consequence from being completely devoid of good manners or sensitivity to other's feelings. What consequence is there to mean-spi...

So my favorite Swedish delight Alexander Skarsgard has repeatedly acknowledged that he could be unemployed as quickly as he has been employed (see Wet Paint article). He has said this in dozens of interviews in just different quotes and ways to acknowledge what happens in La La Land with the meteoric rise of stars and the often disappointing and unceremonious crash to "planet reality". Now here is what Skarsgard is doing right that will make it much less likely that he will find his career nothing but a crater pit. He has focused more on quality than quantity, having starred in some terrific indie flicks including Melancholia and the okay Straw Dogs .  Outside of the mega popcorn flick Battleship, he returns to smaller and more artistic fare with the release of What Maisie Knew , The East and Disconnect -- all of which sound immensely interesting. I even saw a picture where he padded up in an ugly "gut" suit for Disconnect , which demonstrates his complete lack ...

I figured right from the beginning of the trailers for Battleship that my favorite actor Alexander Skarsgard would not last the entire film. Now other reviewers are suggesting the same thing ( click here ). Why did I think this? Because the star of the film is consistently in the trailer and there is a scene where they supposedly blew an air cannon right at Skarsgard's face. Since we didn't get to see much of him in the rest of the clips (well, no appearances at all), I just put two and two together, which equals someone kicks off. Now I'm slightly annoyed at this prospect because I am only going to see the film to watch my famous Swede. I mean, Battleship is not really shaping up from the previews to be a film I'm eager to see. Hey, but here is my major complaint. Skarsgard appears in the enticing film Melancholia , and wham! Half the film he isn't in it. Now he's in another big film, and I suspect he isn't in most of it, too. Hey producers out there, we ...