what’s up with streisand? · psychologists call these games “impression manage-ment,” a field...
TRANSCRIPT
Psychologists call thesegames “impression manage-ment,” a field whose rules havebeen transformed now that somany people communicatethrough technology ratherthan a handshake and a conversation. In some ways,the e-mail that arrives at 11p.m. is the definitive modernsign of a dedicated worker.
But others see all this as yetanother legitimate technologythat has been hijacked by peo-ple with skewed ethics. “You’reout playing golf, and you looklike you’ve spent four hours inthe office. . . . If everybody doesthat, the company goes bank-rupt,” says Stuart Gilman, director of the Ethics ResourceCenter in Washington, D.C.
Even some lower-tech tools,such as call forwarding, havegrown more sophisticated,making it a snap to answeryour desk phone from yourson’s soccer game or the pedi-cure chair. Services such as Ya-hoo By Phone also let you pickup your e-mail from afar, evenwithout a hand-held gadget —a computerized voice namedJenni will read your messagesaloud over the phone.
Wireless e-mail gadgets
such as the Palm Tungsten Wand the BlackBerry also can betinkered with to help cover thetracks of an office absence. E-mails sent from a BlackBerry,for example, automatically signoff with the phrase “Sent frommy BlackBerry Handheld,” adead giveaway that you are out.
“It’s the classic sign of a com-plete BlackBerry neophyte,”says Alex Levine, co-founder ofthe text-message companyUpoc in New York City. “Theonly reason to keep it on is tomake people acutely aware thatyou’re not at your desk.”
Desk in the parkLevine has configured his
BlackBerry so that messages hesends from it have the exactsame format as those sent fromhis desktop e-mail; it has al-lowed him to set up his “desk”in New York City’s Central Park.
Some companies say thesenew tools are dangerous because they play into employ-ees’ increasing willingness tofudge the truth about theirwork life. The case of formerNew York Times reporter Jay-son Blair, who used e-mail anda cell phone to suggest he was
writing from locations that hedidn’t visit, is one example.
A recent ethics survey by theSociety for Human ResourceManagement found that 59percent of human-resourcesprofessionals said they person-ally observed employees lyingabout the number of hoursthey worked; some 53 percentreported that they saw employ-ees lying to a supervisor, ajump of 8 percentage points insix years.
Still, some employers notonly tolerate the technology,but use it themselves. “If you’rea boss, and you send e-mails atall hours of the night, the sub-tle message you’re sending em-ployees is, ‘I’m working — whyaren’t you?’ ” says Anne War-field, a career coach in Edina.
Skip Coghill, who runs atrucking company, does a lotmore than send e-mails in themiddle of the night. When herecently took a cruise off thecoast of Acapulco, Mexico,many of his clients never knewhe had left the office. Betweencasino visits and midnight buffet runs, Coghill used theGoToMyPC.com software tooperate his office computer byremote control.
He could even spy on hisemployees from the deck of theship: He brought up Global Positioning System maps that showed him the preciselocation of each of his trucks,down to the intersection. If an
employee was off-track, hecould fire off a text message tothe truck. “I was drinking a pinacolada, sitting in my swimsuit,having a total ball,” Coghill says.
Of course, not all managerspay much attention to thingslike what time an e-mail is sentor where it is sent from. CraigPrickett, a vice president atCharles Schwab in San Francis-co, says he is more concernedabout the work being complet-
ed than the time stamp on ane-mail. “I’m not thinking nothing’s getting done here,but they sure work hard at 2 a.m.,” Prickett says.
Die-hards see nothingwrong with any of this. “Youdon’t have to actually lie,” says Don Pavlish, host ofDonsBossPage.com, a Web sitefor slackers. “You just let youre-mail program suggest you’reworking late.”
But it is easy to get a littletoo comfortable with thesenew powers — and they canbackfire. Wiskus, the Denvertech worker who manipulatedhis computer from a nearbydiner so he could take three-hour lunches, says he waseventually fired for habituallateness.
TUESDAY, JULY 8 • 2003 STAR TRIBUNE • E3★
SLACKERS from E1
Even some lower-tech toolshave gained sophistication
By Randy A. SalasStar Tribune Staff Writer
abs is back in the “BarbraStreisand Collection.” Thefour-disc set (Warner, B
$69.92; $19.98 each) contains “What’s Up, Doc?” and three mov-ies whose biggest fault is that theyaren’t that charming 1972 film.
Howard Hawks’ classic “BringingUp Baby,” starring Katharine Hep-
burn, was the pri-mary inspiration for“What’s Up, Doc?”— which starred
Streisand as a happy-go-luckyknow-it-all who intrudes on the or-dered life of a musicologist playedby Ryan O’Neal. Mixed-up identicalluggage and inspired wordplay leav-en the wackiness, as does MadelineKahn, playing O’Neal’s prim fiancéein her feature-film debut.
In addition to admiring theclever script, whose writers includ-ed Buck Henry, director Peter Bog-danovich regularly cites the influ-ence of screwball comedies of yes-teryear in an easygoing, feature-length commentary on the DVD.The cinematic connection is evenmore pronounced in a silly behind-the-scenes featurette made whenthe movie came out, “ScrewballComedies — Remember Them?”Bogdanovich hams it up with thestars, introducing Streisand as thestar of “Funny Face.” (She starred in“Funny Girl.”)
Streisand provides commentaryon the DVD but only for specificscenes, less than 15 minutes. It’sjust as well, because she adds little.She also comments to varying de-grees on the discs for the othermovies: 1972’s bizarre “Up the Sand-box,” in which she plays a day-dreaming housewife; her dis-appointing reteaming with O’Nealin the 1979 boxing movie “The MainEvent,” and the best of the rest, the1987 courtroom drama “Nuts.” Di-rector Irvin Kershner (“The EmpireStrikes Back”) elevates “Up theSandbox” with his feature-lengthcommentary.
The movies are presentedwidescreen, with the 31-year-old“What’s Up, Doc?” looking partic-ularly fine for its age.
FRENCH CONNECTIONFrench director Luc Besson’s
sharp breakthrough film, “LaFemme Nikita,” is out in its thirdDVD incarnation — this time as aspecial edition (MGM, $24.98)with newly produced extras thatdon’t live up to their billing.
In a decent 20-minute retro-spective, star Anne Parillaud re-calls that Besson laboriously shot82 takes of her first scene — andused the second in the film. Com-poser Eric Serra and others discusshis innovative electronic score in afive-minute segment. But an “in-teractive map” contains only three30-second snippets about themaking of the film (a hidden “eas-ter egg” offers one more), and thegenerously labeled “poster gallery”contains exactly two images.
Absent from the entire affair isBesson.
It’s obvious that the movie discwas re-released to piggyback onthe DVD debut of the cult-hitTV series based on themovie. “La Femme Nikita:The Complete First Sea-son” (Warner, $99.98)
contains 22 episodes on six discswith a making-of featurette, delet-ed scenes and commentary on afew episodes. The show found itslegs when it stopped merely apingthe movie, something that co-creators Robert Cochran and JoelSurnow say became inevitable asthe 1997 season progressed.
EN GARDE!“I’m proud to say this is the best
fencing picture ever made,” actorMel Ferrer unabashedly proclaimsin a recent interview on the DVDfor the awesome swashbuckler“Scaramouche,” one of four 1950ssword-wielding classics now out(Warner, $19.98 each).
Ferrer, 85, says he knew nothingabout sword-fighting before doingthe film, but he did know dancing.So the fencing master gave a num-ber to each move, and Ferrerlearned to duel with co-star StewartGranger as if it were choreography.The results were spectacular.
“We insisted on doing our ownstunts — and it almost killed both
of us,” Ferrer says, noting a timewhen Granger didn’t duck lowenough and Ferrer lopped off someof his co-star’s hair.
An essay on the disc highlightsgreat swordplay in movies, citingthe new “Die Another Day” butomitting the two best recent swordflicks, “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Mask of Zorro.”
“Knights of the Round Table,” theonly widescreen movie in the batch,includes an intro by Ferrer andfluffy news footage from the movie’spremiere. “The Master of Ballantrae”has the exciting addition of trailersfor star Errol Flynn’s better films“The Adventures of Robin Hood”(coming Sept. 30 in a two-disc set)and “Sea Hawk” and “CaptainBlood” (not far behind, I hope). Therousing “The Crimson Pirate” in-cludes a short essay on star BurtLancaster and his frequent movieteamings with boyhood friend andfellow acrobat Nick Cravat, who’s astitch as the sidekick in this film.
Randy A. Salas is at [email protected].
DVD
VIEWS
LESSON 2: WHY ARE SOME FILMS ‘WIDER’?Widescreen movies come in different sizes. It’s
not obvious on a giant theater screen, but it’s readilyapparent on a regular TV set.
The dimensions of a movie’s image are expressedas a ratio of width to height — its aspect ratio. Forwidescreen presentations, the two most common are:
1.85:1 — the image is 1.85 times wider than it is tall, as shown by a scene from “Frida” on a regular 4:3 TV screen.
2.35:1 — the image is 2.35 times wider than it is tall, as shown by a scene from “La Femme Nikita.” Even though this image would have been bigger in a theater, it appears smaller on a regular TV because of the screen’s fixed dimensions.
There have been other widescreen aspect ratios throughout cinema history, including the 1.66:1 of British films and some of today’s animated films.
Further exploration: The Internet’s Widescreen Museum (http://www.widescreenmuseum.com).
Randy A. Salas
What’s up with Streisand? WIDESCREEN 101
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
MGM Home Entertainment
Barbra Streisandand Ryan O’Nealcreated sparks inthe 1972 screwballcomedy “What’sUp, Doc?”
Warner Home Video
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