Category: Movies & Books

January 2, 2009

GearBits' Predictions for 2009

Once again, here are GearBits' prognostications for the coming year. If you're interested, check out how our predictions for 2008 panned out, or previous years' predictions.

1) Microsoft Launches Windows 7 to Fanfare, Skepticism
Microsoft's two pillars of financial solvency -- Windows and Office -- have been standing on shaky ground recently. Office 2007 was a decent hit, despite it not offering much new and causing significant backward compatibility issues. But Windows Vista, on the other hand, has been an unmitigated disaster. Microsoft even had to resort to tricking users into liking Vista (Mojave, anyone?), it had developed such a bad reputation. Windows 7 will be launched late in 2009 to a general consensus of "it's better," but will not be the "wow" that Microsoft needs to regain the market share it has recently ceded to Apple. But maybe that's a good thing...having strong competitors is usually a good thing for consumer markets.

2) Blockbuster Declares Bankruptcy
This may be a bit "out there," but I see exceedingly tough times at Blockbuster. And this isn't vindictiveness...I've been a reasonably happy Blockbuster.com customer for several years, now. I just think that, given the state of its business (poor), the weakness in the economy (near-critical), the nature of its service (luxury), and the rapidity with which that industry is transforming, I think Blockbuster will file for bankruptcy protection to get out of some of its debt, sell off some property (store locations that aren't faring well), and reinvest that into developing newer and more attractive services. So, they aren't going away...yet.

3) Palm Launches New OS to Fanfare, Skepticism
We've all heard the rumors that Palm will be launching "Nova," its replacement for the ancient Palm OS, at CES 2009 in a few days. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen. I'm also pretty sure that Palm will have at least one new device, if not several, running the new OS available by the end of June. While launching phones can take a while, given the carriers' lengthy testing requirements, launching a PDA doesn't, so Palm could certainly come out with two (or more) non-phone PDAs running Nova pretty quickly. And it needs to...the TX is older than my grandmother (at least in technology years). Generally, I predict there will be more nice things said about Nova, and the new devices, than critical, and it will stack up fairly competitively with Android and WM 6.5. What I do not have a lot of faith in is Palm's ability to develop and deliver the ecology of services (e.g., app stores) that customers are now expecting their smartphones to be integrated into. Time will tell on that front.

4) Blu-Ray Players Hit $99
During 2009, I think we'll see a raft of Korean and Taiwanese off-brand manufacturers launch budget Blu-Ray players. Just like the 2008 holiday sales saw BD players hit $149 in some stores, 2009 holiday sales will see them hit $99...if not sooner.

5) Apple Launches a Tablet to Fanfare
This has been a persistent rumor for years, but I think 2009 will see it actually happen. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple is looking to multi-touch as a key differentiator in its product lines, and having a full-screen, large-display MT device would make total sense. Second, it fits perfectly with the needs of the "creative class," Apple's core customer base. And third, it fills out a hole in their mobile product line that netbooks and other devices not running OS X fill nicely, and that's not a good thing for Apple. So, the technology is ready, the market is willing...and now I think Apple will be able to meet the demand.

6) Consolidation in the Entertainment Industry
2009 will be a strange year on a lot of dimensions. Not only will the stock market be hard to predict, there will be a lot of odd relationships come out of the mess. One industry that is still poised to make things happen is the entertainment industry, where I expect we'll see larger firms (e.g., major movie studios) start to acquire smaller, but very successful, examples from the newer media (e.g., game producers). A good example of the type of transaction I'm imagining would be Vivendi acquiring Ubisoft. I think Time Warner would love to swallow up Electronic Arts, but that might be a bit too big a bite unless something untoward happens to EA's stock price over the next year.

7) Steve Jobs Announces Transition to New Role
I think concerns over Jobs' health have more merit than most of us want to admit. In 2009, I expect him to announce that he's transitioning into a different role than President and CEO of Apple (and CEO of Pixar). Something that keeps him out of the spotlight while he deals with his health issues will be valuable to keep Apple's stock price up and customer base intact. The move towards reducing his presence in near-term product launches is consistent with this strategy. But, he's far from gone...his influence will still be felt behind the scenes, but we'll see less of him in his traditional role as Apple poster boy.

8) Facebook Membership Growth Flattens; Twitter Surges
Signs are pointing towards Facebook's popularity beginning to peak. Just as with everything social, when moms and dads begin to frequent the coffee shop, the kids need a new place to hang out. Facebook currently has almost 40 million members in the US. While that number has been skyrocketing since it opened up membership to anyone in September 2006, I think 2009 will see a marked deceleration in its growth. The loss of perceived exclusivity and the hassle of the relatively unprotected app space will combine to make it less appealing to many long-time users and new prospects will find fewer people urging them to get on board. Twitter, however, will see continued growth as it continues to tweak and adapt its environment to meet its core users' needs.

9) App Stores Dominate Mobile Software Delivery
iPhone's app store, Android's market...these types of bazaars, managed by the sponsors/manufacturers of the mobile operating systems, are coming to be the dominant mode for software distribution to mobile users. It marks a significant break from the traditional model, where mobile developers could sell software from their own sites, through 3rd party aggregators, and through carriers. This new approach is more streamlined, making it easier for users, but also more controlled, which can make it harder to accommodate large and complex ecosystems. The fact that each of the existing app stores serves a relatively small market is why we haven't seen these problems emerge to a point where they start driving users away. 2009 will see continued movement towards these controlled markets and away from the free-form/multi-channel models that previous mobile generations (e.g., Palm OS, Windows Mobile) relied on.

10) Line Blurs between "Netbooks" and Notebooks/Laptops
Netbooks are currently a fairly homogeneous, and well-defined, niche of laptop computers. Most of them have an Intel Atom processor, a screen from 8.9" to 10" in size, no optical drive, weigh between 2.2 and 3 lbs, and cost $300-$500. There's a big gap in pricing then between these netbooks and the subnotebooks/ultraportables that often have slightly larger screens, way more RAM and processing power, and cost $1,500 or more. To paraphrase the old adage, markets abhor a vacuum, so I expect we'll start seeing all manner of new small notebooks come into the market in this $500-$1000 range sporting screens in the 9"-12" range with anything from 512MB to 2GB of RAM, a variety of operating systems (XP and Linux will continue to be most popular), and a range of processing and display capabilities. Not everyone needs to play Crysis on their notebook, but not everyone can get by with a 1024x600 screen and do everything inside their browser.

So, there you have it...GearBits' predictions for 2009. Some are probably pretty safe bets, and some are bound to be wrong. What do you think will happen?

Posted by Craig in Computing and Gaming and Home A/V and Industry and Internet and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Phones and Popular Media and Technology
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August 1, 2008

Blockbuster Testing New Movie Download Service

Here's a sneak-peek at Blockbuster's beta test of its new movie download service (I just received an invitation to try it out). Not thrilled about the movie they offered me, but hey, it's free.

So, it looks like you have 2 weeks to watch the movie, but only 24 hours to finish it once you start watching.

Apparently, you will also need a special player app (a remnant of the Movielink service Blockbuster acquired last year), as this helpful note indicated on the download page:

YOU NEED THE BLOCKBUSTER MOVIELINK PLAYER The BLOCKBUSTER Movielink player is a free program that allows you to download and watch movies. Click on the button below to start installing the player.

The MovieLink player looks to be using Microsoft WMV DRM and it requires the massively bloated .NET Framework 3.0 to be installed as well. Gee...thanks.

So, DRM-laden, non-portable (other than on a laptop), time-limited, doesn't work with Firefox, and can only be played on Windows PCs...I'm having a hard time figuring out why someone would subscribe to this download service instead of just getting DVDs via mail (something Blockbuster already does quite well).

Here's a screencap of the BB Movielink app UI:

Download speed so far is quite impressive...I am averaging 2100 kbps on this trial download.

I'll comment on the video quality after I've watched part of the movie, so stay tuned.

Update: Video quality is quite good...nearly DVD-quality, I'd say. Clearly not HD, but very watchable with minor, if any, artifacting. Download size is 1,243 MB for a 115-minute film.

I then tried copying the download file (a protected WMV file as expected) to another Windows machine on our network and, upon attempting to play in Windows Media Player, got this error:

So, there you have it. If you (a) watch movies only on one PC, (b) always finish them within 24 hours, (c) and have no desire to share or keep a copy for future watching, BB's new download service may be just what you've been looking for. For me, it's not a good fit at all, so we'll keep renting DVDs.

Posted by Craig in Internet and Movies & Books
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July 23, 2008

Star Wars in Real Life: Funny are Spike TVs Shorts

Posted by Craig in Internet and Movies & Books and Popular Media
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July 22, 2008

LifeSpoke is a New Startup with a Familiar Goal

A week-and-a-half ago, I spent all weekend (well, about 34 hours of it) in a habitrail of meeting rooms with about 100 other people trying to do something pretty incredible: invent, build, and launch a new Internet startup in less than three days.

The event, InOneWeekend 2008, was the inaugural entrepreneurial exercise by this new Cincinnati organization, which hopes to jump-start new-venture creation in the technology-based services space (i.e., dot-coms).

After lots of thinking and working and coding and sweating (not to mention eating fast food and swilling highly caffeinated beverages), our concept was outlined and mocked up to a degree that we thought the world should be invited to share in its evolution from beta concept to fully operational service.

I, er, we give you...LifeSpoke.

Go on...click the link and check it out...it won't hurt, I promise.

LifeSpoke is, and soon will be more of, a place to save, organize, and share all your personal memorabilia and life's memories (assuming they come in handy digital format, of course). With an innovative, patent-pending interface (that we're not quite ready to share yet) and a family-oriented content model (that includes loads of privacy, security, and convenience), we're pretty stoked at the idea that moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and close friends will finally have a place to share their intimate memories and most precious media in a rich new environment.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Actually, you're thinking "I'm hungry...I wonder what's in the fridge." Hey, focus...there's just a little more to read here. You were also thinking "But aren't there a bazillion other media-sharing websites out there, like YouTube, most with sharing features?" To that I say of course! But LifeSpoke is different and will be the best solution for families and close-knit groups of friends to share their memories. While those other sites are great for stuff like watching someone's dog ride a skateboard or having anonymous 15-year-olds "friend" you, LifeSpoke focuses on the relationships in your life that mean the most.

So...go sign up for one of the limited beta invitations at LifeSpoke.com and join us as we ride this idea to wherever it takes us. Should be a fun trip.

If you're interested in reading more about the InOneWeekend adventure we had, check out these stories:
• Official LifeSpoke press release (Marketwatch.com)
• Cincinnati Business Courier article (bizjournals.com)

Posted by Craig in Family and Industry and Internet and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Other and Photography and Photos and Popular Media
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June 5, 2008

Mitch's Hot/Not List

Mitch, seeing my Hot/Not list from yesterday, compiled his own, so here it is:

HOT

• iPod Touch - I tried the Archos 605 Wi-Fi first and its mediocrity makes the Touch that much more delightful. I really love well done user interfaces and this one is first rate. My only complaint is its picky eating habits when it comes to video formats.
  
• iMac - I waited longer than any other tech purchase to finally go with Apple's all-in-one desktop PC. I opted for the top of the line 3.06 GHz 24" model and have been completely blown away by it. So far I have found no flaws. It is stunning.
  
• High Gas Prices - Innovation rocks and if it takes $5/gallon gasoline to get us out of this oil addiction then I'm more than willing to pay my dues. Fewer SUVs and pickups, electric cars, solar energy, alternative fuels, more big butts on bicycles, less traffic congestion; I'm all for it. Let's drop our consumption by half and let OPEC drink their devalued crude.
  
• Synology - A NAS will soon be as ubiquitous on a home network as the router is today. The clever, feature-filled offerings from Synology are the best of the breed. I'll have a DS508 please!
  
• Subaru - Totally agree with Craig here. I've been
  in Imprezas now going on six years and I still feel like I'm cheating when I share the road with normal cars. Scoobys are fabulous.
  
• Ken Follett's Historical Novels - "The Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End" are two of my favorite books of all time and I just took them in this Spring. I listened to both on my iPod (over 40 hours each) after downloading them from Audible and they made a month of 1000 mile weekly commutes totally enjoyable. Masterful stuff.
  
• CrossFit - I was in good shape 20 years ago and at 44 I can wipe the floor with my 24 year old self (if that was possible). I've been CrossFitting for almost a year now and some of the things I can do now would have seemed outlandish back then.

NOT

• General Motors - If you Google dinosaur, out of touch, lethargic, and unimaginative you should pull up GM's home page. I used to be a fan, but they have been disappointing me for 25 years now and don't seem to be planning any big changes. The sooner they finish themselves off, the better off we'll be.
  
• Labor Unions - Working in the industrial world I cross paths with unions
  of all sorts way more than I would like. I completely understand why our manufacturing sector is fleeing to other countries. I have never seen such a lazy, selfish, destructive, regressive bunch of people in my life. They can't all be like that, but the ones I've met surely are.
  
• Sheeple-Filled Corporate IT Departments - My 26,000 strong corporation is going to switch to Vista because they don't want to be left with no anti-virus support for their XP platform. Goodbye nice warm frying pan and hello fire.
  
• Cable/Satellite TV - I'm SO tired of paying $80 a month for a bunch of
  garbage that I would never watch even if I had the time. It won't be long until I cut that cord and start rolling my own TV. If I could just decide which way I want to do it!
  
• Global Markets - I realize that even the lowliest trader in/on most investment banks/trading floors/commodities exchanges is smarter than I am, but I would really love to see them use those brains rather than run with every emotion that riffles through the world markets. Do investors even pay attention to P/E ratios or supply and demand or is it all about what the hot analyst is saying or the sheeple are doing?

Posted by Craig in Cars and Computing and Health & Medicine and Home A/V and Industry and Internet and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Science & Nature and Society / Politics and Technology and Wireless
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April 26, 2008

Famous Look-Alikes: Steve Ballmer and Peter Boyle

Why does Steve Ballmer (photo borrowed from Gizmodo)

keep reminding me of Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein?

Seriously...is it just me?

Posted by Craig in Computing and Industry and Movies & Books
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February 17, 2008

Archos 605 WiFi Portable Media Player

The 605 WiFi, a fifth-generation portable media player from the French electronics firm Archos, is an impressive device. It boasts a vivid, high-res 4.3" touchscreen, 802.11g Wi-Fi (more on that later), and the ability to handle a reasonably broad array of media formats (although the larger, more expensive Cowon A3 handles far more). Plus, the 605 WiFi is available with hard drives of 30, 80, and 160 gigabytes or with 4GB of flash storage (the flash model also sports an SDHC slot for unlimited expansion). This review focuses on the 4GB flash version, which can be had for under $200 online and at a few brick-and-mortar electronics retailers.

After using the 605 WiFi for about two weeks now, I've come to appreciate it quite a bit. It's certainly not perfect, but it offers good value and some of its attributes that seem like weaknesses at first blush actually turn out to be strengths.

The Physical Unit
The 605 is 4.8'' x 3.2'' x 0.6'', about the same overall dimensions as an old PalmPilot, which is fairly compact for having such a large screen. The 4GB flash model weighs in at 5.3 ounces (the hard drive units weigh more, up to 9.2 oz. for the 160GB). The buttons to the right of the screen are two-way toggles (one function on each side, left and right), which take some getting used to. Thankfully, the touchscreen makes using the buttons unnecessary (although they're preferable in a few situations, such as changing volume). Two hardware buttons on the top of the unit include On/Off and a button to send video out via the docking station (when attached). The SDHC card slot is also on the top (nicely recessed so as to avoid any chance of accidental card eject). On the left is the headphone jack, and on the right is the pull-out kickstand (a very nice touch). The bottom of the unit has Archos' proprietary connector (which, of course, requires Archos' proprietary USB cable or dock to attach to it). The unit charges and syncs data through these connectors. The front also includes a very loud, clear mono speaker. The back is completely plain. In a departure from the 4th generation units, the 605 does not offer a user-swappable battery. But none of that really matters, for the 605's pièce de résistance is its screen. This 800x480 resolution beauty is simply stunning. It has an amazing angle of view and, at over 200 pixels per inch, gives every bit of clarity and detail you could hope for. Colors are well-saturated and there's no hint of screendoor or other effects that low-quality LCDs can have. Everyone I've showed this to has remarked almost immediately how good the display is. In the box, the 605 comes with headphones, a USB cable, a rudimentary slip-case, and some documentation.

The User Interface
You may have read somewhere (OK, everywhere) that the Archos user interface is terrible. It's not quite terrible...just very bad. But, I'm happy to say that (a) the touchscreen makes it a LOT easier to navigate, and (b) once you get used to certain conventions, it really isn't that bad (certainly no worse than Office 2007's new menu structure!). For example, the [X] button always takes you backwards (or back up a level) from wherever you are. Some have contrasted the 605 with the iPod Touch and come away saying the Touch is easier to use. I agree...for one main reason: the 605 has way, way more options, settings, and customizability than does the Touch, and all that requires a bit more complexity in the menus. For example, you can separately set the gamma, contrast, brightness, and backlight level of the 605's screen. The Touch, by comparison, doesn't even know what gamma is. So, if customizability is a desirable thing for you, the 605 will have you covered. But, if you're afraid of menus, then it may be a bit daunting until you read through the manual (a few times).

Media Performance
Overall, media playback is superb. Audio quality is high and videos look and sound awesome (even ones where the 605 has to up- or down-res to match the screen's resolution). The audio interface provides all the tag-based organization you'd expect -- Artist, Album, Genre, etc. -- with full album art support. The video interface even has nifty full-motion thumbnails, which is nice. Out of the box, the unit supports a variety of common formats (such as MP3, WMA, MPEG-4, WMV, and others; see the product webpage for complete info). Additional media formats (e.g., h.264 and MPEG-2) are supported through extra-cost plug-ins. One comment about the plug-ins: Archos takes the controversial approach of charging a fairly rock-bottom price for the hardware, but then charged non-trivial sums for plug-ins that provide additional functionality, such as the web browser ($30). If you don't need these plug-ins, then you'll likely feel like your 605 is a true bargain out of the box. However, if you do need several of the plug-ins, your sense of value will be diminished significantly. In the end, my feeling is that the 605 with all the plug-ins is competitively priced, just not the huge bargain it is bare-bones.

A couple of nifty things about media playback include the use of bookmarks (locations within individual files to go back to from the main screen) and playback at 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1X, 2X, and 4X normal speed. Plus, when playing back video, you get several options on how you want the video to be fit to the dimensions of the 650's 1.67:1 aspect screen (which is nice if you're picky about that like I am). Also, when viewing photos, you can use touchscreen actions to manipulate the images: a single swipe left-to-right (or right-to-left) advances to the next (previous) image; a swipe up (down) rotates the image counter-clockwise (clockwise); and holding your finger on a point on the image causes the 605 to zoom into the image until it reaches 100% resolution. A quick double-tap of the screen or a tap of the [X] button returns you to normal view.

Other Functions
Nobody buys a PMP mainly for web-browsing capabilities; that's always an afterthought. Thankfully, the 605's Opera-based browser is quite good. It provides Flash compatibility (for playing streaming video, such as from YouTube) and tabbed browsing (an Opera trademark). Rendering performance is so-so, but the screen's resolution means that typical pages are readable without a lot of side-scrolling. You cannot rotate the screen, so as long as you're OK with viewing webpages in landscape, you won't be disappointed.

The built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi is quite handy. The 605 not only includes a standard file management utility, it also lets you move and copy files from one location to another on your 605 and between your 605 and a computer elsewhere on the network you're on. Plus, it will stream media from locations on the network to the 605. I was able to watch an entire movie streamed wirelessly from a PC to the 605 without a single hitch...and it looked great! Fast-forward and rewind don't work when streaming, but pause does. Also, the 605 will talk to any UPnP media server active on the network, so if you're running Orb or TwonkyVision or something like that, the 605 will happily stream from it. You can also buy or rent content online through CinemaNow directly via the 605, which might be handy if you're stuck in an airport without a laptop and absolutely gotta have something to watch to pass the time.

Finally, the 605 offers a set of other functions that are nice touches. An Acrobat PDF viewer is included. Firmware updates can be done either via USB (after downloading to the PC from the Archos website) or directly to the 605 itself via Wi-Fi. If you purchase the additional DVR (digital video recording) dock and hook it up to a cable or antenna feed (via something else, though, as the dock only has S-Video and RCA inputs), you can schedule your 605 to record TV shows straight to MPEG-4. Of course, you can also record line-in audio and video as well, but that's not quite as trick as having your 605 emulate a mini-TiVo.

Conclusions
Overall, I like the 605 enough that I elected to keep it. It does what it does very well and tosses in some extra tricks in a fairly well-polished package. Sure, it has some rough spots -- the menu system and buttons are still a bit nutty and the codec support could be more extensive -- but it has met my rather modest needs 100%. Battery life is fair; I get about 4-4.5 hours of video playback on a charge (without Wi-Fi). I wish the unit had a regular USB port and that some of the codecs were included rather than handled via plug-ins, but these are all nitpicky details. The main thing that really matters, and the primary reason I'm happy with it, is the gorgeous screen. One look, and it was a done deal.

I'm sure I haven't covered everything here, so if you have questions about the 605, please ask.

Update: Mitch wrote in with a few comments and clarifications (thanks, mate!):

Very in-depth. A few things I would add:

Existence of the mini dock and battery dock. These will allow direct interface to USB disk drives and industry standard cables. They also give you the ability to keep the unit playing indefinitely as they allow more charging current from external battery packs.

The Archos file manager will also allow you to move files between two other computers on your network. Nice if you're already in bed and remember that you need to put something on your laptop for the next day.

The MPEG-2 plug-in activates the digital audio out for 5.1 AC-3 surround sound.

Also includes 2 styli (yay!)

The DVR dock turns it into an Apple TV with a screen allowing you to wirelessly play content to your big screen as well as browse the web, rent or buy videos, etc.

Update #2: A few other things that occurred to me after I finished up the review:

• SD card reading/writing via the 605 is much slower than it is via a card reader, so only use it for that in an emergency.
  
• The unit is mostly stable except when updating the firmware. Both times I've updated it, it's reset itself and/or behaved weirdly until after I did a full shutdown (complete "off" versus the "standby" mode it typically resorts to when you hit the Power button).
  
• The browser is quite good, actually. If you've used Opera on one of the Nokia Internet Tablets, you'll know what I mean (same res screen).
  
• Charging the 605 via the USB cable is sloooow; it takes 5-6 hours to go from empty to a full charge. Charging it via A/C using one of the docks Archos sells, however, takes about half that time. So, getting a dock has benefits beyond just a bigger variety of outputs and inputs.
  
• Accessing the bookmarking feature from the main screen only works on the most recently played file, so you can't easily jump between videos or songs without manually selecting each and entering into the menus to go to where you left off before.
  

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Technology and Travel and Wireless
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January 14, 2008

'American Idol' Meets 'Monty Python'

And the results are horrifying. I guess it's about time to pack that show up.

I've only met two people who didn't "get" the humor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and they were both about as smart as a bag of hammers.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books and Popular Media and Society / Politics
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December 28, 2007

Most Popular Media on Peer-to-Peer Networks

Wired has an interesting article that shows the media (recording artists, TV shows, and movies) most popular on the P2P networks (i.e., BitTorent). I was surprised...surprised by (a) two of my favorite shows were on the list, and (b) I'd heard of nearly nothing on the music list. I guess aging has its consequences, eh?

Anyway, here are the lists (for the full details, check out the Wired story):

Top Songs of 2007
1. Shop Boyz - "Party Like A Rock Star"
2. Akon - "I Wanna Luv U"
3. Sean Kingston - "Beautiful Girls"
4. Mims - "This Is Why I'm Hot"
5. Akon - "Don't Matter"
6. T-Pain - "Bartender"
7. Soulja Boy - "Crank Dat Soulja Boy"
8. Justin Timberlake - "My Love"
9. DJ Unk - "Walk It Out"
10. Jim Jones - "We Fly High"

Top Music Artists of 2007
1. T.I.
2. T-Pain
3. Akon
4. 50 Cent
5. R. Kelly
6. Lil Wayne
7. Justin Timberlake
8. Fergie
9. Ludacris
10. Snoop Dogg

Top Movies of 2007
1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
3. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
4. Ratatouille
5. Superbad
6. Beowulf
7. Transformers
8. American Gangster
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
10. Stardust

Top TV Shows of 2007
1. Heroes
2. Prison Break
3. Top Gear
4. Smallville
5. Desperate Housewives
6. House, M.D.
7. Lost
8. Grey's Anatomy
9. 24
10. Dexter

Posted by Craig in Industry and Internet and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Popular Media and Society / Politics
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December 24, 2007

Corporate Doublespeak Makes You Look Silly

I just received a notice that my Blockbuster.com subscription pricing would be increasing at the end of the year. My original plan price was $14.99, then was increased to 17.99 earlier this year, and is now going up to $19.99. So I went to the Blockbuster website to see about alternate plans.

Upon reviewing the currently available plans I noticed that none of them seemed to offer the two monthly "e-coupons" (good for one free movie or game rental each) that I get now. Upon searching their FAQs for clarification, here's what I found:

Question: Why don't I receive e-coupons? My friend receives an e-coupon each month.

Answer: We recently enhanced our plans to provide our subscribers with more options. As part of this effort, e-coupons were eliminated from most of, but not all, our plans. If you have friends who still receive e-coupons, it may be because they are on one of the older plans that still include e-coupons.

Hold the fort. When they "enhanced their plans" to "give more options," they eliminated coupons good for one free anything in the store? What's more flexible than that? How can the elimination of a great feature like this be either an "enhancement" or "give me more options?" This kind of doublespeak makes Blockbuster look silly, if not downright disingenuous.
C'mon, Blockbuster...you can do better by your customers than this.

So, in the interest of honesty, here's what I suggest as an alternate FAQ:

Question: Why don't I receive e-coupons? My friend receives an e-coupon each month.

Answer: We recently changed our plans to better serve more customers in a cost-effective manner. Coupons were confusing to some customers and were not used by most, suggesting that we could do better by focusing on other aspects of our service.* As a result, we eliminated e-coupons from all plans available to new members. If you have friends who still receive e-coupons, it may be because they are on one of the older plans that still include e-coupons.

* I made this sentence up just to give some reasonable justification for their decision. In my experience, customers are much more willing to work with you and accommodate your pricing/terms if the rationale behind them is clearly explained and reasonable (i.e., not overly advantageous to the provider).

Posted by Craig in Industry and Movies & Books
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August 21, 2007

Do NOT Read This Blog Post!

Instead, why not read a book? Chances are that you're not reading as much as you used to...or should.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books and Society / Politics
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July 18, 2007

Do Not Tell Me About Harry Potter!

I do NOT want to know what happens in the final book until I read it myself, thank you very much.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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July 4, 2007

Transformers

As most any avid fan knows, the Transformers movie is opening today.

I was a huge fan of the toys and cartoons when I was a kid. That fact was reinforced when I happened upon this old Polaroid of me on my 14th birthday.

My buddy Greg also has a kick-ass Transformers collection, so I know where to go when I need a fix. But until I can visit, the movie will have to sate my appetite. If you see it, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Posted by Craig in Family and Movies & Books and Other
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May 1, 2007

Ziova Clearstream CS510 HD Network Media Player

This is a review of the new Ziova Clearstream CS510 High-Definition Network Media Player. Ziova (nee Zensonic), a small Australian consumer electronics firm, announced this puppy at CES 2007, but just recently (i.e., last week) started shipping units out for review. After I submitted a review request to the company a few months ago, one landed on my doorstep on Friday and I put it through its paces over the past few days. Here are some initial thoughts.

First, what it is. The CS510 is a home A/V appliance that streams/plays content located on your home network (via Ethernet or 802.11b/g) or attached storage (USB 2.0) to your home theater (TV and/or stereo system). The CS510 differentiates itself from the unwashed masses of network media streamers by virtue of a few unique (or uncommon) features:
• It serves up HD-quality video output (720p and 1080i) and 5.1 surround sound
• It has the ability to play content directly from an attached mass storage device (i.e., no PC is needed to decode the content)
• It offers up Windows network browsing via SMB

I will not enumerate the unit's specs here because that information is available from the Ziova website: overview, features, and reasonably complete technical specs

Below are some photos of the CS510 hardware and screen shots of its on-screen interface and output (if some of the screen shots look a little off-kilter or skewed, realize that I simply took handheld snapshots of the TV...the CS510's output was always completely orthogonal ;-):

The box. Sturdy enough for a 21-lb toddler to stand on.

Inside the box. This is definitely not Apple-style packaging here.

Contents. From upper left is: power cable, CS510, composite audio/video cable (wha?), installation CD (UPnP software, manual, etc.), Ethernet cable, remote control and batteries (woot!), and very decent printed user manual. A single USB 2.0 port is located on the front of the unit (why not one on the back, too?) along with the display and power button.

Rear ports. Most everything you might need.

The unit's serial number and both MACs are pre-printed on the user manual, a nice touch.

The remote is decent: big, squishy buttons, mostly in the right place, and a grippy texture.

Startup splash screen. Re-booting takes about 1 minute.

Main menu.

Main music menu. This allows you to select the source of the content you want to play (similar screen is used in Photos and Video). You cannot pull content from multiple sources (e.g., USB drive and a network share) during a single playback session.

List of folders (in this case, artists) containing music on a network share. And before you critique my taste in music, some of that is my wife's (all the non-cool stuff...yeah...that's it).

Video setup. Extensive options available for playback and output depending on what is hooked up to the unit's A/V ports.

Screen-shot of 720p output (this is shown on a 43" Samsung 720p DLP set) of an upconverted near-VGA-resolution (624x352, 132 kbps) Xvid file. I know it's impossible to get much information from this because it's a 600-pixel image down-rezzed from a 5MP digital camera image of a 720p TV's output of an upconverted stream of a compressed, resized video file transcoded from a recording of an OTA HDTV source. Suffice to say that the on-screen image quality was very, very good given the limitations of the file it was playing.

Another shot of different source material (640x352, 215kbps Xvid).

Yet another source material (640x288, 192kbps Xvid). The reason I didn't bother testing HD content as an input is that (a) I didn't have anything on hand better than 480p that was DRM-free (this unit doesn't handle DRM-laden HD video content), and (b) I assumed it would look better anyway (less upconversion going on). For me, the true test was how well it displayed the same content I play on my Treo and laptop when out and about.

Fast-forward 8X (see upper left of screen). FFWD goes up to 32X (way better than 11).

The dreaded hourglass...get used to this as you'll be seeing it a lot (more on that below).

Wha?! But...you were playing it perfectly well just a moment ago...

Yes, a weather channel (just in case you can't get the weather on your TV, your phone, your game console, your PDA, your laptop, or your AM/FM radio).

THE GOOD:
The unit has many desirable qualities, including:

• Upconverted video quality is excellent. Even VGA-resolution MPEG-4 looks quite good at 720p (what I tested). Sound quality seems good, although I will be the first to admit that I do not have an audiophile's ear (all our MP3 music is encoded at 160kbps or 192kbps anyway).

• Hardware offers good connectivity and lots of flexibility. Network connection can be wired (although not Gigabit Ethernet) or wireless (802.11g/b). The A/V outputs provided represent what most people would need/want. There are multiple ways of getting content into the unit, including UPnP media server, direct network share browsing, connected mass storage, and (in the case of music) Internet streams. Lots of options should satisfy nearly everyone.

• Massively compatible with DRM-free content. The device decodes and/or streams nearly every common audio and video format. I know of no device short of a full PC that can handle such a wide variety of formats.

• Menu system easy to navigate and understand.

• Direct network content navigation via Windows SMB means that you can play content on the network without running TwonkyVision or any other media server software. That's a very handy feature and sets the standard for other network media players in terms of accessibility.

• The remote feels good. It has a rubbery coating very similar to that on good D-SLR cameras.

• Future promise. The unit seems capable of doing a lot of interesting and useful things. The weather channel seems like a preview of that. Plus, firmware upgrades could resolve a lot of the things that weren't so appealing about this unit...

THE BAD:
In my opinion, there are several ways the unit fails to live up to my expectations or could stand improvement, such as:

• For all but the most basic use, you need to use the TV to interact with your music collection. There are no navigation buttons on the CS510 itself and the unit's front display, which only shows a single line of 12 characters, is quite irritating to use as the only means of navigation. Scrolling through options is much slower when you can't see a few items ahead. This makes it a relatively poor audio player (at least compared to the reasonable 4-line display on the SMC EZ-Stream) since there's really little reason to have the TV on when you're just listening to music (and many reasons to want it off). Some may find a 1-line display adequate; I did not.

• Sloooooow, especially when managing large media collections like ours. Our music collection includes some 16,000+ tracks, and bringing up a menu of all artist folders via the network took roughly 5 minutes. Doing the same task via USB took almost 3 minutes. That's unusable in my opinion. Plus, there are lots of little delays, like the 5-6 seconds between pushing the remote's "Menu" button and the main menu actually appearing on screen, which further impair the user experience.

• Can be flaky when interacting with UPnP servers other than TwonkyVision (e.g., likes to lock up when trying to get content via Orb). To be fair, Ziova doesn't claim that the CS510 will work with Orb, so that's probably an unfair and inappropriate complaint. I only mention it because many people have their favorite UPnP server software and don't want to have to switch to something else if they don't have to.

• Fast-foward and Rewind on streaming video takes FOREVER to actually engage. Hitting FFWD twice on the remote to go to 4X forward resulted in the video pausing for 57 seconds before it actually started fast-fowarding. I asked the Ziova rep about this and he basically pointed to the limitations of the Sigma EM8620L chipset that handles most heavy lifting done by the CS510. That chipset contains a rather meager 166MHz processor (!), only 64MB of RAM, and is neither upgradeable nor can it address any additional external memory. So, the unit is less responsive than ideal and you get situations like this. Ziova did engineer in both a "seek" feature and a "skip ahead X seconds" feature to help overcome this FFWD/RWD malaise, but they aren't exact substitutes.

• Exiting from 16X and 32X FFWD (by hitting Play) often results in the player locking up. The only recourse I found in that situation is to cycle the power.

• Inconsistent 802.11 connectivity. The CS510 often lost connection to our router despite the router sitting just 3 feet away from the unit (it was the only device in network to exhibit that issue). The Ziova rep said this was an issue they were currently working on and should be resolved in a future firmware update.

• No detailed media information shown in lists. For example, no ID3 tag info (e.g., year, artist, genre, album, etc.) is displayed for MP3 tracks when scanning through lists of songs.

• Currently no way to concoct a playlist of music on the device itself. Moreover, content can't be streamed from multiple sources in the same session (e.g., you cannot tell the CS510 to intersperse music from a USB directory and a network share during the same continuous play session; instead, you must play content from one source, switch sources, and then play content from the other source). This seems like a very silly limitation.

• Interface is utilitarian and generally not very inspired. Compared to more innovative interfaces like Apple's Front Row, the CS510's interface is very me-too in the same vein as Windows Media Center and Myth TV (functional but unexciting). A minor quibble for someone who favors function over form most of the time.

• Lots of setting changes require rebooting the unit. Want to enable UPnP support? OK...reboot. Want to change your LAN connection mode? OK...reboot. That gets old pretty quickly, especially when the unit I tested seemed to occasionally lose its ability to find UPnP servers on network and the only way to re-enable that was to go into Settings, turn UPnP support off, reboot, turn it back on, reboot, and then scan for UPnP servers. Not the most fun way to spend 5-6 minutes.

SUMMARY
I was pretty excited about this device when I heard about it. Now that I've had some hands-on time, I'm optimistic that the next version of the CS510 may be something I would be willing to purchase for home use. At a $249 MSRP, I can't say I heartily recommend this unit -- it just has too many niggling deficiencies for me to say it's a good choice. But, it's close. If you're desperate to play back digitized content on your home theater, want lots of flexibility, willing to put up with some strange behavior and waiting time, and don't already have an HTPC set up, the CS510 might be just what you're looking for.

Posted by Craig in Home A/V and Movies & Books and Music & Audio and Technology and Wireless
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April 12, 2007

G'bye, Kurt

You'll be missed.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books and Society / Politics
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December 19, 2006

Archie Comics Transmogrified

Wired's headline -- Archie Comics Gets Horrible New Look -- needs no elaboration by me, especially when one sees the new style of "artwork" the venerable comic just unveiled (new on the left, old on the right):

Image courtesy of Wired.com

In a word: BLECH!

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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May 29, 2006

Review (with spoilers) of X-Men: The Last Stand

Warning: This review includes movie spoilers.

X-Men: The Last Stand is unsatisfying fare for all but the most indiscriminant of movie-goers.

The plot goes something like this:

1. Cyclops goes to sulk at Alkali Lake. Jean Gray comes back to life as Dark Phoenix and kills him. Everyone mourns.

2. A company announces it has developed a "cure" for the mutant gene. A range of emotions are expressed. Storm continues her tradition of silly and/or obvious statements.

3. Charles Xavier and Magneto go to the childhood home of Jean Gray to try to convince her to not destroy the planet accidentally. She gets angry and kills Xavier. Wolverine cries like a little girl. Everyone mourns.

4. Rogue goes off to get cured so she can make wild monkey-love to Iceman.

5. Magneto continues recruiting his Brotherhood to fight the cure and hides out in the woods. Wolverine goes to find Jean, who has joined Magneto, and Magneto kicks his ass.

6. The Brotherhood takes over Alcatraz, which is where the cure is being produced and stored.

7. The X-Men stop them with a big battle. Magneto is "cured" of his powers and runs away. Wolverine kills Dark Phoenix/Jean Gray and cries like a little girl. Everyone mourns.

8. Magneto makes a metal chess piece wobble (implying the cure is temporary) and the movie ends.

After the credits, there's an additional short bit that suggests Professor X might have transferred his consciousness to a new body, but that's a pretty lame attempt at reconciliation.

So let me sum up: Three of the founding X-Men get killed, Wolverine cries TWICE, and there were at least three incongruencies with the comics (e.g., according to the film, Juggernaut is a mutant).

The whole film seems rushed -- we never get the chance to think about what's going on before we're bombarded by a new set of explosions, gun battles, or general violence and mayhem. Nobody gets any real opportunity to act (except Storm and Wolverine, and those attempts were pitiful), let alone develop characters beyond what we learned in the previous films. Sure, the special effects were fine and dandy, but the writing and overall plot just didn't do the finale justice, especially when compared to the excellence exhibited in the first two movies. Brett Ratner was true to his history -- this movie is a big-time action movie. The problem is, the first two were all that PLUS so much more.

My conclusion is that this is a sad way to end what would have been by far the best comic book film trilogy ever produced. Now, I don't even expect I'll buy the DVD of X-Men: The Last Stand when it comes out.

My Rating: 6 (out of 10)

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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May 25, 2006

X-Men Quiz on MSNBC.com

Whereas most web quizzes are trivially easy for any reasonable fan of the topic, this X-Men quiz on MSNBC.com is fairly tough. It even throws in a couple of questions that have little to do with the X-Men, just to test your mettle.

I got a 77%...how did you do?

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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May 13, 2006

X-Men: The Last Stand

Less than two weeks now until X-Men: The Last Stand hits movie theaters!

[cue girlish scream of joyful anticipation]

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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January 24, 2006

Upcoming Movies for 2006

CNN.com has a nice review of the major films slated to come out in 2006. Read the article: X-Men, Superman and the impossible (CNN.com).

The most depressing statement in the whole piece is this: "Jackman said 'X3' would conclude the 'X-Men' trilogy." NOOOOO!

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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January 18, 2006

Why Are All Movies the Same Price at the Theater?

I think about this and it makes no sense.

I go to the movie theater and every movie playing there is the same price (too high, mind you, but that's a different issue). Why is this so?

Surely the independent/international documentary that cost $7 million to make should be cheaper to see than the latest Hollywood special effects-spectacular with a production budget of $100 million. Surely a ticket to the 8-person cast, 92-minute romantic comedy should be less expensive than one to the 3-hour-plus mega-blockbuster sci-fi-fantasy adventure. Yet they all cost the same. How can this be?

Is it a function of distribution economics? The cheap documentary is only showing in 500 theaters, so it needs to charge more per seat than what would seem to make sense?

Or is it a function of commercialization and franchising? The disposable romantic comedy won't get the added revenue from lunchboxes, action figures, and playing cards, so it needs to charge more per seat than one would otherwise expect?

I don't know the answer...do you?

Posted by Craig in Industry and Movies & Books
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December 13, 2005

X-Men 3 Trailer...OMFG!

This looks awesome! It's going to be hard waiting another 5+ months.

If you're a fan of the first two X-Men movies, you've probably already seen this, but if you haven't, check it out now:

X-Men 3 Trailer (Apple Quicktime website, requires Quicktime plug-in)

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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December 8, 2005

The Funniest Movies of All Time

A friend and I were debating this very question: what are the funniest movies of all time?

By that, I don't mean what are the best comedy movies. I mean which movies made me laugh the most.

We agreed on some and disagreed on others. Here's my initial short list, in chronological order.

Blazing Saddles (1974)	Young Frankenstein (1974)	Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)	Airplane! (1980)
Caddyshack (1980)	A Christmas Story (1983)	Ghostbusters (1984)	This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Raising Arizona (1987)	Fargo (1996)	Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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October 31, 2005

Should Movies Appear in Theaters and on DVD at the Same Time?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, M. Night Shyamalan ('Sixth Sense' and 'The Village') says he'll stop making movies if the industry adopts simultaneous release.

On the other hand, Steven Soderbergh ('Traffic' and 'Ocean's Eleven') is already ramping up production of several films for just such a distribution model.

Some blame it on the theaters (crappy, overpriced experience) while some blame it on the rise of home theater setups (which may be a reaction to the theater's crappy, overpriced experience).

What do you think? Should movies come out in multiple media on a single day, or should the current distribution model (or some variation of it) continue to dominate?

Posted by Craig in Industry and Movies & Books and Popular Media
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October 15, 2005

The Open Source Collaborative Novel

Imagine this: someone crafts the outline for a new novel -- characters and a detailed series of plot elements -- and then invites a bunch of people (hopefully writers with a modicum of talent) to craft the actual content using some of the same collaborative techniques that have been honed in the open source software community. Then, the novel continues to evolve as future contributors come up with better writing to replace, or enhance, existing text.

Is this possible? I think it is. Imagine running it like a software project. The main architect sets up the parameters (key characters and their important attributes, signature plot devices, milestones for each chapter, etc.) and the coders (writers) fill in the details. There'd need to be checkers for consistency and continuity, and that's where the user community (readers) could hopefully help a lot ("hey, here in chapter 2 on page 32, you said Bob is wearing a Yankees hat when we know he's a National League fan.")

Perhaps a more important question is whether or not this approach would be desirable. I think it could be a unique way to construct a novel, or, perhaps even the foundation for a completely open source (i.e., copyright-free) foundation for fan fiction and amateur writers. Who knows...if it were successful enough, maybe even professionals would enjoy using some of its elements in their own writings.

Does anybody know if something like this already exists?

Posted by Craig in Internet and Movies & Books
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July 7, 2005

Preview: 'Fantastic Four' (Opens July 8, 2005)

I was able to see a sneak preview of Fantastic Four, the latest of a long line of movie adaptations of Marvel comic series. Given the heritage of the venerable FF comic, expectations for this movie have been exceedingly high.

Without giving away any of the plot, and without going into any depth about the characters (you can find that many other places anyway), I will say this: it is not a fantastic movie.

The casting/acting was variable -- I thought Torch and Thing were OK, but Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic were awful. Dr. Doom was nothing special either.

Special effects were OK, but certainly nothing cutting edge or new.

The script, and writing in general, was perhaps one of the more awful things I've seen on screen. It was sophomoric and completely without nuance or subtlety. The audience is bludgeoned over the head with every piece of information -- even the foreshadowing is nothing but stale and obvious plays on words, generally eliciting groans when it's even acknowledged.

My brother-in-law, who runs FFPlaza.com, a Fantastic Four fansite, gave it a 6 out of 10. I think when your most ardent fans pan it like that, the rest of us schlubs don't have much to look forward to. At least it ain't Daredevil.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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May 20, 2005

Movie News: SW3 Box Office and X-Men 3 Casting

From Rotten Tomatoes come excerpts of some interesting news regarding movies I'm excited about:

"Sith" Breaks Single Day Record with $50M Debut
"According to Exhibitor Relations, "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" did a record-breaking single day gross of $50M at the box office on Thursday. This includes the $16.5M from midnight screenings, which is also a record."

I'm glad because, you know, it breaks my heart to see Lucas bumming smokes outside the 7-Eleven.

Kelsey Grammar to play Beast (in X-Men 3)
"...TV's Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) will be playing the fan-favorite Beast in Matthew Vaughn's "X-Men 3." Those who doubt the connection between TV's longtime psychiatrist and a 400-pound hulking blue brute need only remember that Beast (a.k.a. Dr. Hank McCoy) is the resident super-genius within the X-Men lair."

As long as Stewart and McKellen come back, it should be good. I'm not sure about Vaughn as director, so we'll just have to wait and see. While the Dark Phoenix storyline isn't a bad choice, I'm disappointed that there won't be any Sentinals roaming around (how I loves them big robots).

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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April 15, 2005

My Blockbuster.com Movie Rental List

I don't know if this is a new feature or not, but I just found out that I can pull up a list of every movie I've rented from Blockbuster.com, when it was sent to me, and when I returned it. This is pretty nifty info to be able to pull up. Here's the list of what we've rented since we joined last November:

Elf [P&S] (2003)
Godfather (1972) 
Last Samurai [WS] (2003) 
Mean Girls [WS] (2004) 
13 Going on 30 (2004) 
Donnie Darko (2001) 
Jersey Girl (2004) 
Raising Helen [WS] (2004) 
I, Robot [WS] (2004) 
Nightmare Before Christmas [Special Edition] (1993) 
Bad Santa (2003) 
Control Room (2003) 
United States of Leland (2002) 
Minority Report [WS] (2002) 
Casablanca [Special Edition] (1942) 
Elephant (2003) 
Mona Lisa Smile [WS] (2003) 
Dr. Strangelove [40th Anniversary Special Edition] (1964) 
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood [WS] (2002) 
Modern Times (1936) 
Terminal [WS] (2004) 
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004) 
Soylent Green (1973) 
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) 
School Ties (1992) 
Night in Casablanca (1946) 
Saved! [WS] (2003) 
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [Special Edition] (1975) 
Terminator [Special Edition] (1984) 
Amelie (2001) 
Army of Darkness [Limited Edition] (1992) 
Top Gun [Collector's Edition] [WS] - Bonus Disc (1986) 
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle [Unrated] (2004) 
Cutting Edge (1992) 
Taxi Driver [Collector's Edition] (1976) 
Andromeda Strain (1971) 

What I wish they'd do is offer up a little RSS feed of what I currently have out so I could add that feed to my blog's index page. Instead of a "Now Playing" showing what I'm listening to (as many people have), it could automatically show what movies we're watching.

Posted by Craig in Internet and Movies & Books
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March 24, 2005

E-books Come to Cellphones in Japan

For some reason, CNN thinks it's just incredible that the Japanese are reading entire books on their cellphone screens [Read "A mobile page turner".]

People have been reading novels and books on small-screened devices, like PDAs and phones, for years. Back in 1996, I purchased the 1MB memory upgrade card for my Pilot 1000 so I could have enough room to take three entire e-books with me on my honeymoon (I'm not unromantic...it was a long flight and my wife prefers to sleep on planes). Where did I get them? MemoWare. Of course, back then, it was called the Pilot MemoWarehouse, since most of the content on the site was in the form of importable text documents ('Memos').

To this day, I prefer to read books on my handheld than real books. Why? I don't need the light to be on, I never lose my place, and I can carry virtually unlimited books around with me without adding bulk to my bag or pockets. While the Japanese do have one feature that we don't -- downloable chapter-at-a-time subscriptions -- doing that isn' necessary when you can stuff a 1GB memory card in your smartphone.

So, kudos to CNN! You've uncovered a story that would have been interesting nearly a decade ago.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books
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March 10, 2005

DVD on the Treo 650

Now that my daily PDA, a palmOne Treo 650, has a decently high-res screen (320x320), I've been playing around with some tools that let me rip DVDs to the Xvid format at resolutions that behave well on the device's screen. I'm certainly not the first to do this, but in case you haven't tried it, I'd recommend it -- it's not as difficult as I thought and the results are pretty excellent, actually.

Within 10 minutes of starting the installation, I was able to begin ripping Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At 304x240 resolution with 80kbps audio, the resulting good-quality AVI file was only 300MB. That easily fits on, and can be played directly from, my 1GB SD card (it amazes me to think I could have several complete movies in my phone at any given time). The actual ripping time will depend on your PC hardware, and my aging desktop at home ripped the movie in about real-time.

The tools I used to do this are Pocket-DVD Studio (desktop DVD ripper) and MMPlayer (MPEG-4 player for Palm OS). Neither is 100% bug-free -- I've had both crash so far -- but they get the job done and are being improved constantly. At $32 and $15 respectively, they're not expensive, but neither are they free (they do have free demos, so you can try them out without making a commitment). But if it's potentially worth $47 to you to have your movies on your handheld -- or just to make your friends envious -- give these apps a try.

Posted by Craig in Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books
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February 17, 2005

'Hitchhiker's Guide' Trailer at Amazon.com

Everyone's favorite hilarious sci-fi novel, Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has (finally) been adapted for the big screen. Catch the trailer here (looks reasonably funny). Or, check out the film-makers' blog (not so funny).

Since HHGTTG is one of the few books I've willingly read multiple times, I'm happy to see it come out in movie format if only to get more people to read the books.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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December 19, 2004

Crichton's 'State of Fear' too preachy and reliant on bunk science

The meteorologists over at Weather Underground have put up an interesting review/refutation of Michael Crichton's latest book, State of Fear. Crichton, who has made his mark as an author who grounds his stories in actual science, lets his personal opinons about global warming (his take: it ain't happening) get in the way of telling a compelling story.

Apparently, his "hero" in the story spends so much time sermonizing and spreading misguided information in the guise of "educating" the other characters that the overall tempo and storyline leave a lot to be desired.

After the rather unappetizing book that Timeline was, and the laughable depiction of nanotechnology in Prey, it makes you wonder if Crichton has lost his touch.

Read the review

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books and Society / Politics
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November 7, 2004

'The Incredibles' -- go see it...now!

We saw Pixar's 'The Incredibles' yesterday. Jeez, what a fun movie. All the hype didn't even begin to prepare me for how terrific it is.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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March 29, 2004

Get 'Free Culture' for...well...Free!

Lawrence Lessig's new book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity is available as a free e-book download as well as a non-free dead-tree edition. Go for the former.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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March 22, 2004

'Dawn of the Dead' Tops 'The Passion' at Box Office

I guess movie-goers just can't get enough of people coming back from the dead.

Links: full story | Movie site

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January 17, 2004

Banjo Boy Returns

Long before Paris, Nicole and "The Simple Life" confirmed Arkansas to be the center of the hick universe, the world took a pretty dim view of Georgia due to John Boorman's 1972 film "Deliverance". Possibly Burt Reynolds' only decent film, Deliverance struck nerves where we didn't even know they existed. Along with ruining Ned Beatty in any film thereafter (for me), its dueling banjos scene at the gas station remains one of my faves in all of filmdom.

Last fall I Tivo'd an unedited version of Deliverance off of TNT and was perusing through it last night. I watched dueling banjos a few times and started wondering about the sad little banjo kid and what happened to him. Surprisingly I found that after 31 years of anonymity, Billy Redden has returned in Tim Burton's "Big Fish". Read about it in this New Yorker article.

Posted by Mitch in Movies & Books
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January 13, 2004

Ringing in a New Record

A new record has been set by The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of the King....for how long the final credits roll.

Back in 1922, the film Nosferatu credited 11 cast members in 1 minute and 35 seconds.

Star Wars credited 143 people. The Matrix listed 151. The Two Towers credited 559 names, and by the time Matrix: Revolutions rolled around, there were 701 people on the credits. The credits for Titanic lasted all of 7 minutes.

But the final installment of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic beats them all....at a whopping 9 minutes and 33 seconds.

Posted by Sam in Movies & Books
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January 6, 2004

The Lord of the Rings Wireless Games

Wireless software publisher JAMDAT Mobile has announced that it is launching wireless games based on The Lord of the Rings epic. Available through Verizon Wireless' Get it Now service, the games suite include six separate apps:

The Return of the King is an eight-level scrolling adventure game with Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, Pippin and Sam battling Orcs, Uruk-hai, Trolls, the Army of the Dead, Shelob and other foes.

The Lord of the Rings Trivia includes more than 360 trivia questions covering characters, objects and locations and more from all three chapters of the Ring trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings Pinball is a fast two-table pinball game wrapped in a Middle-Earth theme.

Wallpapers offer various Middle-Earth images including characters, locations, scenes, and maps. Finally, The Lord of The Rings Tones Player provides ring tones based on the musical score.

Posted by Sam in Gaming and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Popular Media and Wireless
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January 3, 2004

New Fiction from J. Michael Straczynski

Since early November, Amazon.com has been showcasing exclusive articles and stories by well-known authors and celebrities.

The latest is a short story, The Salvation of Lyman Terrell, by one of my favorite authors and scriptwriters of all time, J. Michael Straczynski.

Set in the near future, this story about a lawyer with a life-and-death dilemma is standard twilight zone fare, but affords Straczynski followers with a piece not available elsewhere.

Straczynski is a Hugo-award-winning writer, and producer for such television series as The New Twilight Zone; Murder, She Wrote; and Walker, Texas Ranger. He is also the writer for Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man and Supreme Power.

However, many will always remember Straczynski as the creator, writer and force of nature behind the science fiction epic Babylon 5.

Posted by Sam in Movies & Books
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December 31, 2003

Adobe's New EBookstore

Software company Adobe Systems recently opened an online store offering customers digital content in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).

The Adobe Digital Media Store offers ebooks from publishers such as Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, and Random House, and includes links to digital publications such as BusinessWeek, Popular Science, the New York Times, and USA Today.

Adobe's move is the latest chapter in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back saga of the ebook industry, which last saw Barnes and Noble exit the ebook market.

Based on Adobe Reader 6.0, digital content from the Digital Media Store uses a digital rights management (DRM) scheme that allows users to view paid-for material on desktop computers and Palm OS-based handheld computers.

Posted by Sam in Industry and Mobile & PDAs and Movies & Books and Popular Media
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December 27, 2003

Monty Python Autobiography

CNN has a great review of the history of Monty Python, the world's greatest comedy troupe, which has written a group autobiography. The Pythons (St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books) was written by the group itself. I expect it may be funny.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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December 23, 2003

The Best Ring Ever

It's no surprise that "The Return of the King," the final installment of "The Lord of the Rings" is racking up $$$ at the box office. According to studio estimates, the movie brought in $73.6 million during its first weekend and $125.1 million since Wednesday when it debuted.

Better yet, the film recorded the global total of $246.1 million during its first five days, breaking the previous record of $202.8 set by the finall installment of "The Matrix."

Now all those numbers are meaningless if the movie doesn't live up to the hype, but it does. I just saw the finall installment over the weekend, and I am thrilled to see that finally someone has done Tolkien justice! Peter Jackson will be remembered forever in posterity as the one who fulfilled the impossible: translating the vision of Tolkien into the big screen. The Ring has been building up momentum ever since the first installment "The Fellowship of the Ring" came out two years ago, and this final installment culminates into a crescendo of finale that is ultimately satisfying. Although the ending has to be compromised in the movie (the original ending by Tolkien is long and winding), it is nevertheless satisfying to see the return of halcyon days, and I, for one, am saddened to see the whole series come to an end. The main theme of "humanity" triumphing over evil through friendship, faith, hope, courage, perserverance, and maturity is both precious and eternal in my book.

The Lord of the Rings has been one of my favorite books, and the movie series is now ranked as one of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen it, go out and see it. What are you waiting for?

Posted by Ken in Movies & Books
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December 15, 2003

Wicked

Three years ago while waiting for a flight to take off or land or board or get de-iced or some other air travel inconvenience, I noticed the guy next to me was reading a book with an interesting name, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire. A conversation ensued and he told me how wonderful the book was and that I just had to read it. I did a few days later and Wicked instantly became one of my all-time favorite books.

The Wicked Witch of the West was my ultimate horror when I was a little kid. She absolutely scared the holy crap out of me and I just loved it. I can remember watching The Wizard of Oz on our old black and white TV with my hand perched on the channel dial. When the Witch made an appearance, I had to quickly change channels and then switch back and forth a little bit at a time. I just could not handle her in large doses and those small doses gave me nightmares for several days. What an awful woman! I was doubly freaked when I first saw her on a color TV and learned that she was green. Ick.

Maguire's book put a wonderfully woven history behind her and creatively explained a lot of the things that I had always wondered about her. Like, where did those flying monkeys come from? Why is she so green? What's she so pissed about? What's up with those slippers?

Now, my favorite book is a musical on Broadway starring Kristin Chenowith as Glinda and Idina Menzel as Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West. It's playing at the Gershwin in NYC. If I can figure out a way to get up there and see it, I'll report back.

Posted by Mitch in Movies & Books and Popular Media
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November 26, 2003

More Marvel Comics Movies on the Way

At the Marvel Enterprises annual meeting last week, the company announced that nearly a dozen movies based on Marvel comics are on the way, including the following all scheduled for 2006 releases:

• X-Men 3, the follow-up to X-Men and X-Men Reloaded...er...I mean X-Men United (which, by the way, came out on DVD yesterday) -- the studio and fans expect that all major players from the first two movies will be back for #3

• Nick Fury, one of Marvel's lesser-known comics

• The sequel to The Hulk will be coming (why? why?!?)

• Captain America, which could be awesome

• Iron Fist -- now if it was Power Man and Iron Fist, then I'd be excited

• Namor, a.k.a. Sub-Mariner -- think Aquaman but fishier and more like Mr. Spock from Star Trek

Other tidbits related to Marvel's movie-making include the disappointing news that The Fantastic Four has been pushed back from winter of next year (2004) to summer of 2005, and Nick Cage has agreed to play John Blaze (better known as Ghost Rider). Man, Stan Lee's gotta be loving life right about now (as if he ever stopped). Let's hope all these are MUCH better than the two stinkers we just witnessed over the summer: The Hulk and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (peeyew)

Comics2Film.com has some really good info and message boards (and an RSS feed to boot!)

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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November 20, 2003

Review: 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman

I just finished Neil Gaiman's 2003 book, American Gods. One might call this 'contemporary fantasy' and would be reasonably accurate, although the novel combines features of a lot of different genres.

I really enjoyed this book. It's pretty long -- it took me about twice as long to read this as Michael Crichton's Timeline (although they're completely different types of novels). Despite its length (I would say "thickness," but I read the ebook version), American Gods entertains and engages from start to finish. I really enjoyed Gaiman's ability to use the style of the text to contribute to the character or event being described. Sometimes the writing is fast and loose and at other times it is detailed and specific, depending on the context. I was also impressed at the vast lexicon from which Gaimain pulls; I found myself using the dictionary built into PalmReader on at least a dozen occasions, and some of them I think he just made up.

This book is fantastic enough that you can let yourself sink into it without questioning the realism of every detail, yet realistic enough that you're constantly amazed by the elements of fantasty. Overall, excellent reading...give it a whirl.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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The Robot Hall of Fame: First Inductees

Carnegie Mellon University's Robot Hall of Fame recognizes excellence in robotics technology, honoring real-world robots and fictional robots that have inspired scientific accomplishments.

Recently, CMU announced the first inductees into the Hall of Fame, chosen by a jury from 32 nominees.

The honorees: Sojourner, NASA's Mars Pathfinder Microrover Flight Experiment (MFEX) robot; Unimate, the first industrial robot; R2-D2, the droid from the Star Wars movie trilogy; and HAL, the ship-board computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jacob R. Matijevic of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory accepted for the Sojourner rover. Joseph F. Engelberger, whose company Unimation installed the first robots on a General Motors assembly line in 1961, accepted for Unimate. Kathleen Holliday of Lucasfilm, accepted for R2-D2. Arthur C. Clarke sent a special message from Sri Lanka, on behalf of HAL.

Also on hand for the celebration were David Prowse (Darth Vader) and Kenny Baker (R2-D2) from the first Star Wars episode.

The public is invited to nominate robots for the next induction ceremony, to be held in October 2004, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute.

Posted by Sam in Computing and Industry and Movies & Books and Other and Society / Politics
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November 16, 2003

Review: 'The Matrix: Revolutions'

After watching The Matrix: Revolutions, the third (and hopefully final) installation of the Matrix trilogy, I found myself trying to choose among three words to describe the movie: tedious, trite, and unsatisfying. Warning: this review contains spoilers (but if you care, you've probably already seen it).

Regarding "tedious," the movie could have easily been 45 minutes long and still contained the same basic plot elements and storyline, and it might have actually been a better movie. The scene with the squids attacking Zion was about 400% too long. Trinity's death speech is about 1000% too long. The scene where Smith is trying to get Neo to guess that he has taken over a human form is just ridiculous -- I expected Smith to next say "It's me, Smith, the program...don't you recognize the voice, you idiot?" And don't get me started on the slow-motion effect (don't you guys have any other buttons on those CGI machines??).

Regarding trite, there were more cliches and predictable one-liners than I could even keep track of. The only two entertaining characters in the whole movie were Agent Smith and the Frenchman -- they had decent dialogue and were sufficiently animated as to actually make you care. In this film, none of the main characters had even as much personality as the machines they were fighting.

Finally, the ending was highly unsatisfying. Suddenly, in the span of about 5 minutes, we go from the end of the world to Paradise. And to add just a slap in the face, the brothers Wachowski made it blatantly obvious that they were leaving the door open for yet another sequel ("who knows, dear, we might see Neo again someday"). Gimme a break.

I was entertained about 30% of the time I was in the theater seat (not counting previews), with the remaining 70% of the time spent alternatively wondering "who wrote this stuff?" and "I wonder if my phone has service." Overall, my rating is a 5 out of 10. The first movie was good, if not great (9.5/10) and the second was somewhat disappointing (7/10), but the third was just a big, fat dud.

I didn't check ratings or reviews much before seeing the movie, but it appears my sentiments aren't mine alone. RottenTomatoes.com's aggregated reviews puts it at a rather lame 34%, and IMDB users rated it a fairly pathetic 6.5 (heck, even Terminator 3 got a 7.0). Here's hoping we've seen the last of Neo and his slow-mo gang.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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November 11, 2003

Mini-Review: 'The Da Vinci Code' by Dan Brown

I just finished The Da Vinci Code by "Bestselling Author" Dan Brown. Eh...whatever.

Don't get me wrong, there are some nice aspects to the book. I'd like to think that a lot of the lore and mythology surrounding the Holy Grail (that's no spoiler...keep reading) contained in the story is true -- if not, well then the book's pointless.

The characters are about 3mm deep and rather generic -- there's nothing all that compelling about them at all. The plot takes many twists and turns, but it's based only on a single plotline -- there's nothing else going on that might help develop the context and enrichen the storyline.

Like his earlier novel, Digital Fortress, Brown leads the reader along a path rich with mystery and totally dependent on completely unforseeable events -- it's like you're driving down a road at night without your headlights on.

Unlike better authors, Brown only creates anticipation in the reader in little spurts. Mostly these brief periods of anticipation happened when I was waiting for the characters (supposedly PhD and genius individuals) to figure out something fairly easy. This type of tedium happened also in Digital Fortress, where I fast-forwarded through about 20 electronic pages to get to the point where they finally deduce the answer to a scientific riddle that was, at least IMO, completely obvious.

To sum up, I think the most valuable and interesting aspects of this book center around the science and history that Brown uses as a back-drop. The characters and the actual plot aren't nearly as compelling. To paraphrase an old saying, when it comes to The Da Vinci Code, fact really is more interesting than fiction.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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November 7, 2003

Mini-Review: 'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood

I just finished Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood's latest science-fiction novel. Man, what a trip. Don't worry, I won't give any spoilers, so feel free to read on.

The story is basically about a post-apocalyptic world (I won't tell you what specific form the apocalypse takes, though), but roughly 80% of the book is spent in flash-backs leading up to the present, post-disaster, where we find the novel's principal protagonist.

This is my first Atwood novel, and I really enjoyed it. The writing moves along swiftly, sometimes choppy and informal and sometimes exquisitely detailed. The science part is really well done -- not so much that it's overbearing, but enough to convince you that she's carefully thought through the issues at hand.

Overall, an excellent book. While the ending was a bit disatisfactory to me, I'll be the first to admit that I like my novels to be wrapped up in a bow, completely and with few, if any, unresolved issues. In this regard, Atwood irritated me, but I'm sure that most readers won't mind it as much.

Feel free to check out the hardcopy version or, better yet, go snag the Palm Reader e-book and save a few trees.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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November 2, 2003

'A Place So Foreign...' is Excellent Fare

Over vacation, I managed to consume a few novels and other literary works. The most fun thing I read was A Place So Foreign and Eight More, a collection of short stories by Cory Doctorow. Doctorow is a writer, general tech junkie, and blogger over at boingboing.net.

A Place So Foreign and Eight More is, as you might surmise, a set of nine shorts covering a wide range of places, times, and issues. However, they all come back to one general theme: how humans and aliens (terrestrial or otherwise) interact and the bizarre sociologies that result.

To make it all the more yummier, Doctorow makes free e-book versions of his works available. I downloaded a version in Palm Reader format and was happy as a clam (the only downside to e-book reading on a trip is that 10 minutes immediately during take-off and landing during which "all electronic devices must be stowed"...oh well, still beats the dead tree version). You can grab all the free e-book versions of Doctorow's various works at his website.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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October 10, 2003

'Kill Bill: Vol. 1' a Pure Adrenaline Rush

I just got back from seeing Quentin Tarentino's latest film, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and I'm still soaked with sweat. Virtually from start to finish, this movie keeps your pulse pounding, your eyes riveted, and your gag reflex on the verge of participation. The main stars of the film are Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Darryl Hannah, Vivica Fox, and an as-yet-unseen David Carradine (yes, Grasshopper).

Be warned, this is no movie for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. More limbs are lost and pints of blood are spilled than perhaps even in Saving Private Ryan. Tarentino thankfully moves the violence beyond the disturbing into the comically surreal, somewhat through the artful choreography, but primarily through sheer volume.

To be honest, I've never been a huge Uma Thurman fan, but this movie has revealed her (to me, at least) as a really talented actress. The angst and pain, both physical and emotional, of her character are portrayed with amazing depth. The other (few) supporting actors are all well-cast, of course.

The real treats of the movie, however, are Tarentino's special talent for telling off-beat stories and the action choreography. The fight scenes are more mature than anything in the Matrix series, and approach the beauty of those in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (note I said approach, not match).

All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot. My rating: 9/10. RottenTomatoes.com has it at an 80% (Fresh). Surprisingly enough, as of me writing this, less than five IMDB viewers had rated the movie (I cast my vote of '9').

Oh, and yes, this is only volume 1...the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, comes to us in February. I can hardly wait...

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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October 5, 2003

'Lost in Translation' Subtle and Penetrating

Lost in Translation is a film for the serious movie-goer. It asks you to be patient and, in turn, rewards you with subtlety and insights that might otherwise be completely indistinguishable in a more plot-oriented film.

This movie, which was both written and directed Sofia Coppola, stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. Both are impeccable in their parts, and the mind draws a blank when searching for ways in which the acting could have been improved.

Fans of Bill Murray's more offbeat recent works, such as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, will find Lost in Translation a tad less funny and a bit more thoughtful. But don't let that confuse you -- this is still very much a comedy. Most of the laughs are from Murray's expertly nuanced, and often subdued, reactions.

The reviews of Lost in Translation have generally been quite favorable so far. As a reviewer from the Toronto Sun wrote,

"A superbly crafted movie, with knowing dialogue, fine performances and characters that you grow to care deeply for."

My rating: 9 out of 10. RottenTomatoes.com has it at 94% (Fresh) and IMDB viewers ranked it an 8.2 out of 10 (both as of me posting this entry).

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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September 16, 2003

'Matchstick Men' Is a Good Time

Nicolas Cage's latest movie, Matchstick Men, is a topsy-turvy tale of two con men trying to pull off a career grift. But there's more than one twist that upsets their plans.

A lot of the movie's best qualities come from Cage's portrayal of Roy, an obsessive-compulsive agoraphobe, who is simultaneously trying to run his cons and come to grips with finding out that he has a 14-year-old daughter by his former wife.

While the movie gets a tad maudlin in a couple of spots, overall, it's primarily a comedic action with a few dramatic and action scenes tossed in for balance. Generally, the story (no spoilers here) is pretty engaging -- I didn't notice that 2 hours had zipped by when the movie ended.

My rating: 8/10. Rottentomatoes.com gave it an 81% (fresh), and IMDB users rated it a 7.5/10.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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September 15, 2003

Getaway In Stockholm 4 On Its Way

The supreme nutters behind the "Getaway In Stockholm" videos are set to release number four in their infamous series this October 15th. The teaser trailer is available now via their website. If your jaw is still a bit slack reading this, let me fill you in. Several years ago, some soon-to-be Darwin award winners in Stockholm thought it would be cool to secure a really fast car, goad the local police into a chase and then film the whole thing. They did. It was very cool and it spawned sequels and copycats galore. At times the calls are so close and the speeds are so great that these videos are almost painful to watch, but impossible to turn away from. Don't try this at home.

Posted by Mitch in Cars and Movies & Books and Popular Media
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August 6, 2003

'Gigli' Sets New Low in Movies

The new Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez movie has just about everyone in agreement: it sucks. Some of the funniest reading I've done recently is the 130+ reviews of this awful flick over at RottenTomatoes.com. Here's a sample:

"Such an utter wreck of a movie you expect to see it lying on its side somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, with a small gang of engineers circling and a wisp of smoke rising from the caboose."

and

"Gigli is so unrelentingly bad that people may want to see it just as a bonding experience; viewers (read: victims) will want to talk and comfort each other afterwards."

Anyway, you get the idea. With a Tomatometer score of 7% (yes, that's really, really bad...even Ishtar got a 25%), there's no shortage of great quips -- the reviewers certainly had a field day with this one. Plus, you get to wonder what the heck the handful of reviewers tthat complimented the movie were thinking.

Update: According to one news story, Sony has pulled all of its TV advertising for Gigli in hopes of cutting its losses. Wow...what a bummer. Now I can't even get a hint at how bad this film is without actually seeing it.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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July 20, 2003

Lara Croft Tomb Raider

After passing on it while it was in the theaters, we rented the original 2001 film Lara Croft Tomb Raider on a whim. What a mistake.

This has to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen (and I've seen some pretty bad ones). The slight connection tying together the various sequences of otherwise pointless violence that some might claim is the movie's plot resembles a dream you have the night before and then try to retell it the next day at lunch -- full of holes, gaps, incongruities, and a lot of stuff that just doesn't make any sense. Add to that a cast of mediocre actors (Angelina Jolie notwithstanding) and the film is a disaster start to finish. At least 10 times during the movie did I say out loud, "my god, this is so bad."

While the special effects are decent, many defy explanation and most seem only there to distract the viewer from the otherwise gaping plot holes and 2-dimensional characters that occupy the screen. RottenTomatoes.com gave this flick an 18% (Rotten) and IMDB Users gave it a 5.2 out of 10 (both might be a bit gracious, IMO).

Based on this experience, we're revisiting our intentions to go see the forthcoming Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life that will be coming out very soon.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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July 19, 2003

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

As the original The Terminator (1984) is one of my favorite movies, and I didn't much care for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), I entered the theater to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines with trepidation. Contrary to my expectations, I really enjoyed it.

Thankfully, there's no "cute kid" in this film (thereby avoiding the Scrappy-Doo effect). While Arnold's trademark quippy one-liners are still present, they've been greatly pared back. Those remaining are there mainly for comic relief, and they work surprisingly well.

All told, if you like the Terminator series, or you want to be impressed by a 56-year-old who still has a rock-solid body, go see this movie...you might enjoy it. Rotten Tomatoes.com gave it a 74% (Fresh) rating, and IMDB users rated it a 7.2 out of 10.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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July 13, 2003

Movie: '28 Days Later'

28 Days Later, from Fox Searchlight Pictures, is a good horror/suspense/thriller film from the UK. Think Stephen King's The Stand meets Dawn of the Dead, but with a good plot and interesting characters.

In a nutshell, a new virus hits that drives people insane with rage. It's highly contagious and within a month it has devastated the UK. The main characters in the story have managed to avoid being exposed to the virus and are now trying to stay alive in a world where "infecteds" constantly try to hunt them down and kill them. The story basically follows the adventures of a small group of survivors to try and find some military personnel who have been broadcasting a radio message with their location.

The best thing about the film was that it didn't try too hard to be scary. Unlike most American "zombie movies," the frightening moments in 28 Days Later were fairly far between, with just enough pause for you to almost forget it's a scary movie. The storyline and dialogue are believable enough to make you care about what's happening, and the acting was good enough for you to share their horror and fright over what's going on.

None of the main actors in the film, including Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris, are all that well-known, at least not here in the US. Murphy's performance as the dazed and confused bike courier recovering from a coma and having to deal with the catastrophe was actually pretty excellent.

RottenTomatoes.com gave this movie an 88% as of today.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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July 10, 2003

Movie: 'Bend It Like Beckham'

My wife started to read the description of this movie and began with, "A coming-of-age story..." At that point, I shook my head and said, "next." However, now having seen Bend It Like Beckham, I can see why the critics have really liked it.

While I'm neither female nor Indian, the film tells a story nearly everyone can relate to: growing up, finding your own thing, and negotiating all that with your parents. In a micro-nutshell, the main character wants to play soccer and her parents don't want her to. Hilarity and heartbreak follow.

Go see the film. I'm usually pretty hard to please when it comes to movies my wife makes me go see (she has yet to live down "Kate & Leopold"), but this one was a real kick (pun intended).

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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July 9, 2003

The Last Person to Finally See 'Chicago'

I don't always get to see the movies I want to, and I don't always see the movies I should -- Chicago is definitely one of the latter.

In case you've been under a rock for the last 8 months or so, Rob Marshall's Chicago is the award-winning film adaptation of the award-winning Broadway musical. I can now see why it has won all those awards. It's loaded with top-dollar stars, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, and Richard Gere, and the music is pretty splendiferous, too.

Bottom line: Even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool "guy movie" person who wouldn't consider seeing anything without guns (this has them), naked women (this almost has them), swearing (this has it), and violence (yup), go see or rent Chicago...you'll enjoy it.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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June 6, 2003

'The Incredibles' -- Nov 2004

I just saw Finding Nemo, that Disney/Pixar (or rather, Pixar/Disney) film about the fish having an adventure. All in all, it was pretty enjoyable -- kids 4-8 will just love it. Aside: For an interesting take on the Disney/Pixar relationship, check out this short piece by Chris Suellentrop over on Slate.

The most intriguing thing was a Pixar trailer for an upcoming movie of theirs called The Incredibles. The trailer, all animated (of course), featured an obviously out-of-shape ex-superhero attempting to put his old utility belt around a now-rotund belly. Pretty hilarious stuff. Looks like it will be great for adults...at least those who can wait till November 5th...of 2004!

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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May 12, 2003

A Mighty Wind

I just saw A Mighty Wind and I loved it. This is the latest mockumentary from the hilarious and warped minds of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Eugene Levy and others. Like their previous films, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, and the grand-daddy of all mockrockumentaries (are there any others?), Spinal Tap, this movie presents a variety of oddball characters engaged in a rather mundane event. Hilarity ensues.

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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May 3, 2003

"X2" Just Bitchun'

I just saw X2, the new X-Men movie, and, well, it totally rocks! All the good guys you love, and the bad guys you love to hate, are back, and several new faces have been added just to spice things up. The plot has enough ups and downs that you'll leave the theater exhausted from your 2-hour, 14-minute, action-packed adventure. I thought it might be hard to make a movie as fun and true to the comic as the first X-Men movie, but Bryan Singer and cast have done it again. Alan Cumming, as Nightcrawler, was perfect, and nearly every other cast addition was just right on. While we didn't get to see much of Colossus, the fellow cast to play him, Daniel Cudmore, seems about perfect -- big, ridiculously muscular, and did I mention big? While the official movie website has all the info you could ever want, the IMDB entry is, of course, much better organized (thanks again, IMDB!).

Posted by Craig in Movies & Books
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