Posts Tagged → media

Coyote vs. ACME Lives

After Warner Bros. tried to shelve the Coyote vs. ACME movie for a tax write-off in 2023, the finished film is finally getting a release. The trailer dropped a few weeks ago, and it hits theaters August 28.

The movie is based on Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorker piece, a deadpan legal complaint filed by Wile E. Coyote against the Acme Company for selling him products that malfunctioned in spectacular and humiliating ways. The piece is short, dry, and very funny. If you have never read it, that is the place to start.

James Gunn, Dave Green, and Will Forte made the movie in 2022 and 2023. Warner had a finished product on their shelf. The plan was to destroy it for an accounting move, which is roughly the inverse of what a movie studio is for. After enough public pressure, Warner sold the rights so the film could actually see daylight.

For people like me, of a certain age, the Road Runner cartoons are foundational. I watched the trailer and thought, I sure hope they don’t screw it up.

As an aside, anytime the Roadrunner cartoons come up, I’m obliged to link to Chuck Jones’ 9 Rules for Coyote & Road Runner. My favorite is Number 3: The Coyote could stop anytime—if he were not a fanatic. But you should read them all.

Vision Pro Notes: Media Consumption

This is the third part of my series on early notes from the Vision Pro. This one is focused on media consumption—earlier entries covered the hardware and interface and productivity.

  • Media consumption with photos and videos is fantastic. There’s nothing like it. Watching movies on it is even better. I’ve never had a particularly good home theater system. Now I do.
  • I started by watching Moana in the Disney+ app in their theater environment. It is like having your own movie theater. I got so absorbed in the movie’s climax that I teared up a bit. Since I couldn’t wipe my eyes with the Vision Pro, it made me cry a bit, but the story about watching Moana and coming to tears without being able to wipe my eyes, my light seal cushions got wet, which was kind of funny. Hippie.
  • 3D videos are impressive, but at this point, more like a demo. When I have older videos of my family, they’ll start ruining light seals like Moana did.
  • Panoramas look great. I will be shooting a lot more of them going forward. I can tell newer vs. older panoramic photos based on their fidelity. I want to be able to make some of them the equivalent of a background wallpaper so I can put apps in front of them. My guess is Apple is more focused on Environments.
  • I watched a Netflix show in Safari. It was also great, but app-specific media is better.
  • The big asterisk with media consumption is that it is a solitary experience. There are shows I watch without my family, and it’s great for that. The device does not enable any joint viewing experience.