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press clippings |
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Here are some of the swell things folks have been
printing about the 'Pad...
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July 13, 1998 |
A crash pad for cinema lovers
by Dave McCoy
"CinePad is a pretty damn big, uh,
pad. Emerson's organized the site like a visit to his home. When you first arrive, you see his living
room, his Chinatown poster, and videos, LDs and
CDs filling up numerous racks. In the bathroom, you'll find
"Plumbing the Depths," the most comprehensive (and
funniest) article on plumbing in cinema I've ever seen. The mantelpiece has photos and souvenirs from places Emerson visited
like India or the Floating Film
Festival. In the kitchen, you can get the recipe for surrealistic director Luis Buñuel's famous martini, while the library/office has essential references such as film books and seminal
movie lists. There are also collections of Emerson's reviews, rants,
interviews, and wonderful looks at past greats like Buster Keaton, Barbara Stanwyck,
and others.
(Click
for full article)
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August 14, 1998 |
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Website//Jeeem's
CinePad by Ty Burr
WEBSITE//JEEEM'S CINEPAD (cinepad.com)
What do you do when Microsoft closes down the project you've slaved over for years? If
you're Jim Emerson, former editor of the recently canned
Cinemania website, you set up your own movie site, full of info, opinion, humor...and
revenge. The CinePad is modeled on Emerson's Seattle
house: Click over to the bathroom and you'll be treated
to a witty dissertation on movie plumbing, from Psycho
to A Nightmare on Elm Street. In the kitchen you'll find the Dada martini recipe favored by Luis Bunuel. Then there are the porn-style warnings you have to click through to get to the
plot-spoilers section (spoiler No. 2: "Soylent Green is people"). Emerson gets
his digs in against Bill Gates and company, but when all's said
and done, he's a movie fan, and a smart one. And anyone who loves Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused gets a bookmark in my browser.
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(London)
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July 8, 1998 |
Visit the 'films noirs' in Jeeem's Dark
Room
by Bill Pannifer
THIS MOST cinematic of movie sites, complete with fades, dissolves
and iris shots, is the work of Jim Emerson, film critic
and former editor of Microsoft's now discontinued Cinemania CD. "Jeem's"
homepage is just that: a view of his book-laden Seattle pad
with clips from the classics flickering on his TV. The best part of the house is
undoubtedly The Dark Room, a clever composite
still image from various films noirs, that expands into a clickable visual index
for the entire genre. As well as his own reviews
and interviews, there is a library of recommended film criticism and the first phase of a planned on-line film school. The
site is meant for "serious movie lovers", but cannot stay serious for very long:
so there is a history of plumbing in films, and a teasing
so-called adult section which turns out to consist of plot
giveaways for classic titles. So the planet of the apes is really earth, and Rosebud is a
sled -- but you knew that already.
(Click for the clipping)
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March 19, 1998 |
And the Award Goes to...
the Best (and Worst) Sites on the Internet
By Mark Glaser
"Best [Oscar] Handicapping
Site: Jeeem's CinePad (cinepad.com),
with an in-depth array of charts."
(This is from when I first started the CinePad, with my
FREE web space at Tripod.)
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August 13, 1998 |
Braindump on the Blue Badge:
A Guide to Microspeak
By Steven Greenhouse
"The company that has shaped the way hundreds of millions of
people use computers is helping to shape the way people talk as well, with words like
'facemail' and 'self-toast' and new meanings for terms like 'dog food' and 'ask.'
"Microspeak is a slangy company
jargon made up of dozens of words and phrases commonly used at Microsoft.
This Microjargon, which includes word usages unique to Microsoft as well as usages from elsewhere in the high-tech and
low-tech worlds, has been documented in an informal lexicon
written by current and former workers at the company, based in Redmond, Wash....
"More than a dozen current and former Microsoft
blue badges (permanent Microsoft employees) and orange badges
(temporary workers and independent contractors) are among the contributors to the lexicon of Microspeak, which can be seen on the Web at The Microsoft Lexicon...."
(Click
for full article)
... not to mention a lovely color picture of compiler/editor Ken
Barnes
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July 30, 1998 |
Best Locally produced film Web site
Weekly Pick
Jeeem's CinePad
"Jim Emerson, former editor of Microsoft's Cinemania
and local Film Guy about town, produces Jeeem's Cinepad
(cinepad.com), the homiest film site on the Web. Emerson's site takes you on a tour
through his Seattle home: In the library
you'll find his favorite books; in the screening room you'll find a compilation of
Emerson's thoughtful reviews; and of course
there's plumbing, in the form of a long article on great
bathroom moments in film.... Emerson strikes the right balance between the down-home and
the highfalutin. The writing is great, but the writer honors his own obsessions and
indulges his own silliness in a way he might never do in print.
And isn't that the point?"
(Click
for full article)
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August 14, 1998 |
Straight Outta Redmond
By Steve Silberman
"The high-tech industry -- driven, cliquish, dominated by the
young -- breeds buzz-phrases like standing water breeds mosquitoes. During his tenure at Microsoft as senior editor of Music Central, Ken Barnes collected
some of the more colorful specimens of in-house argot into a lexicon of "Microspeak" that delivers a vivid picture of
the notoriously insular corporate culture on the Redmond
campus.
"Music Central [and its sister product, Cinemania] fizzled out
last June, a victim of mismarketing and lack of technical support, Barnes says. But
Barnes' lexicon lives on online at Jim
Emerson's site for film lovers, CinePad.
(Click
for full article)
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