Blazers vs. Knicks

Taking a little break from all the Coraline sales numbers to catch the Blazers game. The Oregon Humane Society has a booth at the game and Barbara had a few dogs out on the court before the game.

Coraline World Premier

Thursday night was the world premier of Laika's new animated movie Coraline. We have been helping with the marketing of the film, so we were all invited. The premier was held at the Arlene Shnitzer Theater in Portland. There were kluge lights, a red carpet, tons of press and all the stuff you would expect at a world premier, including stars. The voice talent Dakota Fanning and Terry Hatcher both flew up from LA, of course they came in a private jet.

The day started by meeting the crew from Focus Features, the distribution company that we have been talking to on the phone for five months. It was great to finally meet them, they are all really nice people. After a tour of W+K and a drink it was time to get cleaned up and head over to the premier. I decided to dress up a little even though this is Portland and you can go most anywhere in jeans. It was a lot of fun to stand outside the theater and watch people arrive. Of course we saw the stars show up, but it was also great to see Phil and Travis Knight work the red carpet. I thought we were going to have trouble when a crew of W+K folks showed up in a Hummer stretch limo and tried to go down the red carpet.

Once everyone was in the theater, we heard speeches from Phil Knight, the Governor, Travis Knight and the director Henry Selick. In a very embarrassing moment, Henry included me in his thank yous, which resulted in a lot of guff from the W+K folks in the crowd. Then the moment we'd all been waiting for, the movie started. The last time I saw it there were about five minutes left to animate and none of the music was finished. Needless to say it did not disappoint. The film was beautiful and sounded amazing, which is good because it cost a lot of money to get the 3-D projector and the screen in the theater. If you see this film (and I hope you will) make sure you see it in 3-D.

After the movie, there was a great party across the street at the Performing Arts Center. The room was beautiful. They brought in several of the sets from the film, and had a couple of stations set up where animators and puppet makers showed people how they made the movie. The food and drinks were all pretty great too. I also finally got the chance to meet Neil Gaiman, the author of the book Coraline. He was very nice and had a lot of compliments on the work we had been doing on the movie. To cap the night off, we got the news that the NY Times had given Coraline a great review, which made everyone very happy.

I'll post more pictures on my flickr site next week.

Pink Martini - Hey Eugene!

A little shout out to my favorite Portland band, Pink Martini. I first saw them at my friend Lisa Brown's wedding in 1995. I didn't know then that they were actually pretty famous and had toured all over Europe. I have since heard them play with the Portland Symphony and Thomas Lauderdale, one of the founders of the band, loves the acoustics at the building I work in, so he plays the piano in the lobby a lot. They have a few records out and honestly they are all good, so don't feel like you have to just get Hey Eugene! I only listed that here because it is the newest one and the one I have been listening to most lately. Musically these guys are from a bygone era, but they have a wit and sensibility that is very modern.

Sleeping on the Bus

Seeing this drooling kid passed out on the bus made me think, I would have to be pretty tired to touch my face to the side of the bus. It also reminded me of a time when I was almost that tired. When I lived in London I could not afford cab fare, so if you were out late and the Tube was closed, the only way home was the late bus. As you probably figured out the only people on the late bus are drunk and poor, not a good combination. A lot of people fell asleep (passed out) on the late bus and missed their stop. The only thing worse than being drunk and tired is being drunk, tired and a long way from home. So one Saturday night I saw an interesting sight. A girl was passed on on the bus, but she had the foresight to make a sign and hang it around her neck that said, "wake me in Brixton.". The good news is someone was still awake to shake her (I didn't want to touch my face to the bus).

Pay Your Taxes People

Haven't we learned by now that you have to pay your taxes if you are
going to run for public office? There are no free limo rides,
corporate jets and the easiest one of all, you have to pay the cleaner
and baby sitters withholding taxes. Come on people this is future
cabinet member 101 stuff. Now here we are bogged down with two
embarrassing withdrawals and another near miss (although the
international company one was a little tricky). I think the bottom
line is, if the FBI has to tell you about a tax mistake your CPA is
not doing a very good job or more likely you thought you'd get away
with it. You won't, so let's all cut out the nonsense.

Who is this Guy?

Sometimes I sit on the bus and I wonder what the people I see sitting across from me do when they are not on the bus. This is one of the people I always see when I am a little late. He has a very peculiar style of dress, not homeless but not well dressed either. It makes me think he is either way over dressed for some blue collar job (why does he need a brief case if he is a janitor?) or he is way under dressed for some office job (think the stapler guy in Office Space). Also, he gets off the bus right before the Morrison Bridge at around 9:10 every day. Don't most jobs start at 9:00? I think one day I am going to follow him to see where he goes.

Super Bowl Sunday

You may watch the Super Bowl for the football, but I work in advertising, so to me, the ads are just as important. Here's what stood out (good and bad) to me:

Audi - Nice continuing tie-in with the movie Transporter. I liked the way he passed up the Lexus for the Audi and the 70's and 80's footage was cool.
Pedigree Adoption Drive - "Should have gotten a dog." Inappropriate pets are funny, you can't play Frisbee with a water buffalo.
Coke - My good friend Eric "SuperBowl" Samsel did a nice job with the Avatar spot, and the picnic spot was beautiful, right in the Coke wheelhouse.
Pepsi - Nice spot that juxtapositions Dylan with will.i.am, Gumby and Shrek, Belushi and Jack Black. They asked us if they could put Coraline footage in there, but looks like we got bumped for Shrek. McGruber was funny. In my opinion , Pepsi wins the cola wars.
Carrer Builder - In the battle of job sites, I think the CB.com spots were funnier than the Monster.com ones.
Doritos - The crystal ball spot was funny, but the crunch spot was pretty crass.
Bud - These guys ran a lot of ads, but none of them were very good, although the Conan Swedish ad was a little funny.
Miller High Life - I love the one second commercial and the play they got out of it leading up to the Super Bowl.
Jack in the Box - Jack gets hit by a bus and we're supposed to go to hangintherejack.com to see what happens, but it looks like the server got hit by a bus too, I could not get it to come up.
Cash4Gold - Are you kidding me? You know the economy is in the toilet if these guys can afford a Super Bowl spot. And it was funny.
Some pretty crappy movies - Did you see anything you are super excited about? The Will Farrel (Land of the Lost) and Jack Black (Year One) flicks both looked OK, but not great. Monsters vs. Aliens will of course be a big hit, but who had the 3-D glasses?

I thought there were several good spots, but no A+'s. You can see all the spots again and vote for your favorite at hulu (who made a pretty funny spot themselves with Alec Baldwin). BTW - pretty good game too.