Iron Man

This movie will rock.

Academy Awards

I finally, as one of only a few people, can say that I watched the Academy Award winner before the film actually won the award. Heck, I can make the claim that I've seen it period - as most people never end up watching these.

I've also thought up which ones I've seen. I've compiled a list:

1927-1928: Wings
1930-1931: All Quiet on the Western Front
1939: Gone with the Wind
1943: Casablanca
1948: Hamlet
1949: All the King's Men
1953: From Here to Eternity
1954: On the Waterfront
1955: Marty
1956: Around the World in Eighty Days
1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai
1959: Ben-Hur
1961: West Side Story
1962: Lawrence of Arabia
1964: My Fair Lady
1965: The Sound of Music
1967: In the Heat of the Night
1968: Oliver!
1970: Patton
1971: The French Connection
1972: The Godfather
1973: The Sting
1974: The Godfather Part II
1976: Rocky
1977: Annie Hall
1978: The Deer Hunter
1982: Gandhi
1986: Platoon
1987: The Last Emperor
1988: Rain Man
1989: Driving Miss Daisy
1990: Dances with Wolves
1991: The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Unforgiven
1993: Schindler's List
1994: Forrest Gump
1995: Braveheart
1997: Titanic
1999: American Beauty
2000: Gladiator
2001: A Beautiful Mind
2002: Chicago
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004: Million Dollar Baby
2006: The Departed
2007: No Country for Old Men

46 out of 80. Not bad.

Vantage Point

Vantage Point was a film using very interesting concepts. I went into this film interested, but did not know too much about the film - I've been so busy at work the last few weeks that I just haven't had a lot of time to read up on what's coming out in the theaters - I get a few hours to watch my TV shows and try to catch up on the movies I own - but that doesn't leave a lot of time.

I figured that the film had a good cast - and sometimes that's enough. The script still has a number of clichés, but to be honest after years of rediculous 24 plotlines - are people really that jaded about "plot twists" or over the top action/violence in action films? I don't mean "This is a Michael Bay film so all reasonable semblance of story development is thrown out the window" kind of movie - but one that stretches the believability with the number of events that get thrown into such a short period of time.

The "gimmick" of the movie is that the same events of an attack on the President of the United States is shown over and over again from different points of views - giving the viewer another additional piece of the puzzle each time.

The one thing that I thought they could have done better was the "rewinds" that take the viewer back to 11:59:57am multiple times - a cut to black would have been far more effective in my opinion - at least it would have kept so many of the viewer from snickering and talking like the film somehow took a pause that allowed people to stop and discuss. It would be nice if people had an attention span, but alas.

Once the final act started up - I don't think there were any complaints. It made all the previous frustrations that the audience have with the pacing of the film just go away.

The be perfectly honest this would probably have worked better as a miniseries - with more back story to each of the story lines, but as a 90 minute film, it's fine. Nothing spectacular - but compared to the schlock action films that get released these days - it was a nice change of pace.

*** 1/2 / *****

Snakes on a Plane

I can still vividly remember going to see this film all the way back opening night on August 18th 2006. What a night.

Although I had not kept up with what this film was about, nor did I know that there was this huge internet following behind this film, my friend Matt had been keeping up with it.

The theater was packed, all walks of life were in there, young and old, anticipating this film. The enthusiasm was higher than when I saw Revenge of the Sith - probably because most of the people seeing that had already been disappointed twice before.

Watching the film was a completely new experience to me.

It was schlock at it's best. Snakes biting nipples during the mile high club, a guy peeing has a snake jumps out of the bowl to attach itself to his - um, leg - and so many other hilarious moments that just worked so well. A shoestring plot that may only be bested by "Shoot Em Up." When the villian of the film says "Don't you think I've exhausted every other option?" in response to why he decided to put snakes... on a plane to kill the star witness against him, you know it's gonna be good.

The film is called SNAKES ON A PLANE. So saddle up and sit back and relax watching Samuel L. Jackson fight off a boatload (erm, planeload) of snakes in a camp filled, terribly awesome film.

Movie quality: **/*****
Enjoyability: ****/*****

Toshiba bows out

Toshiba announced today that it will stop all production and development of further HD DVD players.

With that said, I love my HD DVD player and now it will last me years and years to come.

With that said I'm not jaded enough not to ever consider buying this format, however I do require a few things:

Either:
-Toshiba or an equivalent company sells a combo player that supports both formats.

Or:
-Now that there isn't competition, the average price of the BluRay discs themselves don't skyrocket past $27.00. When they settle at around the $20.00 mark that HD DVD was at, I'll consider it.
-Along with the above, a stand alone player (I have no interest in playing a single Playstation game), which is actually 2.0 Profile compatible, AND has the ability for firmware updates must be on the market for less than $200 dollars. I'd also prefer to purchase a non-Sony player - as I like my products to last more than 4 years before they stop working.

Update: My plans are a lot more complicated than what I previously posted - there's an intricate collection of films that I'll be waiting on before I finally purchase one.

'Awesomely Hypocritical' Michael Bay - Shill? Or Stupid?

http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=595#top

"Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads" said Bay. "That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray."

That was Michael Bay on December 4th, 2007. What's he up to now? Touting the "awesome" speed at which you can upload and download files off of Verizon FiOS - while viewing a download of Transformers, one of his very own movies, in the commercial.

I really can't wrap my head around this. How can a man speak up about how there's an active campaign to see both formats die - so they can be replaced by digital downloading - and then partake in an advertisement that is nothing more than an advertisement for digital downloads?

This is why people hate him. He's done as much damage as any director could have done - filling his films with explosions and outrageous action scenes - while actively allowing the actual story and dialogue to suffer. While not busy destroying cinema behind the director's chair, he's producing crap remakes like "The Amityville Horror", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Hitcher" and upcoming remakes such as "Friday the 13th", "The Birds" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." All of which spit on the spirit of the original works.

It seems awfully hypocritical of him if he's fully supporting something like Blu-Ray, to the point where he's seeing "differences" between the two formats that frankly he could only see, and then turn around and advertise for the very thing he claimed all this doom and gloom about. Guess what Bay, you've just initiated the slow death of your beloved BluRay format.

Why does it seem like I'm the only one who's picked up on this?

The "next gen" high def war - only a pyrrhic victory?

As many of you may know by now, Toshiba's HD DVD is on life support, and it's not looking good. I'd like to point out right now that I'm a HD DVD owner/"supporter," I will be as objective as I can be about this.

I'd like to take a quick look at some things that people may be overlooking about this entire joke of a "format war." A few quick musings/facts (I don't attest to the accuracy of what I post here - as most of the values are approximations from everything I've read over the last months)"

HD sales make up less than 5% of all disc media sales at the moment, while this is expected to increase over the next years, don't expect the explosion that DVD had in 1997. DVD had little competition from VHS - which was inherently inferior compared to DVD. DVD was a huge leap in technology and quality over the VHS. You could skip to any point in the film in seconds, the image quality didn't degrade after each viewing, and they took up less shelf space.

Most people don't even have a high definition television (less than 25% of households) at the moment and even fewer have screens that really benefit from high definition treatment (a large portion of these televisions are smaller than 32 inches).

The success of DVD (image quality, extremely long lifespan - thanks Toshiba!) have just made it unlikely that most people will pay to replace their discs for quite a few years. Sure they may start buying new releases exclusively on a high def format, but the costs of mastering (or remastering) some older films will be almost cost prohibited on Blu-Ray (or will extremely expensive to sell). Who cares about the increase in "quality" if you can't even see it? The tens of thousands of films that haven't even gotten the proper treatment for DVDs after a decade is a perfect example. Some can't really get any better - as the source material just doesn't benefit from the transfer, and some of the HD films do have a sharper picture and richer colors, the faults are almost even more apparent when it comes to pops, crackles, and hair. Grain can even be a huge deterrent, as it becomes even more obvious with the high def transfer.

DVD players are cheap - even the budget 15 dollar ones produce a decent picture, remember most people aren't video or audiophiles. While it's true that VHS players were cheap as DVD was rising to prominence - the quality that I mentioned above was a larger factor to this. Trying to sell a $350 dollar BluRay as a good alternative to a DVD upconverter (which you can get for a good one for around 75 dollars) just doesn't make sense.

Americans are close to a recession - sensible people will spend their money on what they really need - not a $250+ Blu-Ray machine. The slowing economy might do more harm than anything else listed. The idea that people would throw their $600 government "hush money" wouldn't surprise me. The American public doesn't manage money well at all.

DSL/Cable internet was in its infancy in 1998, now it's the norm. People thought T1 line speeds would never make it to home use. It took 30+ minutes to download a song, now it takes just seconds. People can now view digital downloads/streaming content with high quality image quality, something even Blu-Ray cheerleader Michael Bay now shills (see Bay's "Fios is 'awesome' ad"). He warned against "digital downloads" in December - even concocting a conspiracy theory that evil Microsoft was trying to hurt good and kind Sony and stupid Toshiba by keeping the "war" going on. I can only guess Verizon threw enough money at him for this change of heart.

While *I* see the merits of high def films, most people frankly don't see the huge difference that was fully apparent with the advent of DVDs. Give people unlimited streaming movies via Netfix at "sub DVD" quality - and I guarantee you that a huge portion of the people won't care (every person who has Netflix that I know attests to this).

In the end both are niche formats that will lose out to DVD and whatever digital download service grows fastest. Heck, I could be entirely wrong about this, and am even willing to purchase a BluRay player - if and only if a number of films come out (I've written them down and kept the list in a safe place.

I'll be looking forward to the Toshiba HD DVD/BluRay combo player that they'll most likely start producing. The most ironic thing in all of this is if Toshiba can develop a cheap dual player and beat Sony (et al) at their own game.

Trek moved to May 2009, effectively kills film

Trekmovie.com reported today (through Variety) that Star Trek has been pushed to a May 2009 release instead of the previously "launch" date of Christmas 2008.

Why do this? The film has already been hyped as being a December release - millions of people have seen the teaser which states this specifically during Cloverfield. If they had made the decision before the point I wouldn't see as much of a problem - but they missed the boat already.

I believe Starship Troopers was also hyped long before the film came out and then was delayed and delayed so long that the hype had peaked and then all but disappeared come release date. Sure Starship Troopers wasn't anything spectacular - but Trek ain't Shakespeare either (the fans delusional minds not withstanding).

Principle filming is half complete - if they wanted to blame the writers strike it would have made sense to delay production WHILE the strike was occurring. This smells of major plot problems that could not have been resolved until the strike end granted them the opportunity for re-writes.

Diagnosis: It's dead Jim!

A Brave New World they live in

Tonight Jericho's first episode of the second season aired, and what a premiere it was.

You can thank the legions of fans who sent bags of nuts to CBS' studio executives for this, all because of a quote from the series. Who would have known? Firefly got it's film. Jericho gets it's 7 additiona episodes (with more to come if it proves popular). one must at least be curious as to what would cause anyone to honestly do this for a TV show.

You'd think you'd be unable to follow the plot if you hadn't seen an episode before - but you'd be incorrect. The first season is not essential, but I'd suggest it. Picking up on the second season will destroy the mysteries of the first season - but you could watch the season like one would watch a Greek tragedy - already knowing the outcomes of the characters up to the end. The nuclear detonation conspiracy is in full swing, a new Civil War is looming over what is left of the nation, and the little Kansas town of Jericho is stuck in the middle of it. Now under military control (or protection if you will) of the Allied States of America, based out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, the citizens of the town must figure out if the light at the end of the tunnel is salvation or death.

The show ranks up there with the likes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica in terms of modern, grand writing.

You can watch the episode (and many episodes from the first season) at: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/jericho/

First episode of the season: ****/*****

Wings

Wings is the first "Best Picture, Production" Oscar winner of the Academy Awards in 1929. The film's plot revolves around two men who have both fallen in love with the same person. Wow, well its actually more complex than that so let me try this out:

Jack Powell is in love with Sylvia Lewis. Jack's friend David Armstrong is also in love with Sylvia. Jack's next door neighbor Mary Preston is in love with Jack but Jack doesn't notice it because he loves Sylvia too much. The unfortunate thing is that Sylvia does not love Jack, but loves David instead. Okay, got that? Good.

The United States soon joins World War I, and both Jack and David join the Air Force. To try and stay close to Jack, Mary joins the Women's Motor Corp. Many trials and tribulations follow the characters, as they work their way through the Great War.

To be perfectly honest, the film was brilliant. The cast was stellar and the set and location shooting was suprub. At the advent of sound, it would take almost a decade before films were this wonderfully made again. Remember - without sound, crews could do so much more - once sound films came about, there wasn't much flexibility with the audio equipment, keeping them from doing much more than big screen plays - or films shot wonderfully but with marginal sound.

Anyway, the battles themselves look just as good as what you'd find in Kubrick's "Paths of Glory", which came out 30 years later.

Yep, it's that good.

****/*****

Jericho

With the start of the second season looming over the legions of fans who sent bags of nuts to CBS' studio executives, one must at least be curious as to what would cause anyone to honestly do this for a TV show.

Well I'll tell you. When the show first aired, I was intrigued. I had heard that the film took place in a "post-apocalyptic" world. Heck, I had only first heard of it the day before it aired and the premise instantly pulled me in.

Due to many other things going on in my life, and the trouble of remembering to tune into the series before Lost was on at 9:00 pm quickly caused me to drop my viewership completely of the series. It wasn't bad per se but I did find some of the writing in the early episodes to be a little "Hallmark TV movie" or something you'd find on a show like "One Tree Hill."

After the show finished airing the first season was was canceled, I realized how many of my friends actually liked the series. Again intrigued I made a impulse purchase and picked up the first season. I got through the first episodes I had seen - and quickly realized that I missed out on a fantastic series when I got to episodes I hadn't.

The unfortunate thing about the series is that when it's bad, it's obvious. Some of the dialog is a little silted, and the show still has signs of the "hallmark" feel for quite some time. But when it's good - the story is as amazing as others of it's peer (see - "Lost" when it hits the mark). The show finally gets its stride going around the half-way mark, but it shows a great deal of promise in it's A-story early on (as opposed to side stories - "B stories").

I gratefully look forward to Season 2 of Jericho, and suggest for all those who have not seen the show to watch the re-runs that start on Feb. 11th on SciFi or watch them on CBS's website.

****/*****