Some Television

Well, not a single movie was watched this past week, and you may in fact ask yourself what has replaced them. And all I can respond with is: nothing and television. You are aware that new programming - fall programming - has begun for quite a few shows and that means that I now have another use for the television aside from catching up on old shows I missed the first time around. We can start off with Fringe, which was sold to me as a modern X-Files but with a more attractive Scully. Such promotion is proven true and I'm now committed to watching at least four more episodes.

If a show is terrible I have no qualms about shutting down viewing pretty quickly. This has happened numerous times in the past, most notably last year, where a show could not hold my interest for two episodes, it was done. And in all cases, these shows have not been renewed for another season. Read: Journeyman and....that show about the nuclear bombs. You know the one, where fans brought it back from the dead by sending in bags of peanuts? It was terrible, and I think even the fans who were happy it came back realized this the second time around. It would be akin to reviving a month old corpse and having it do a final dance for you, rotting flesh and all. It's just sad.

There have been some shows I gave up on that did well, like Reaper. Unfortunately these shows only grab about fifty percent of my attention, and it's just a matter of if something else is on that is more worthy. If I recall correctly something else was on that night and Reaper just died for me. Which brings me to an issue I had last year: I could only watch one show per night. This is probably going to be true this year too, but I'm working on it. I can talk about that more some other time.

Fringe. Good season opening, but it did feel a little rushed and nutty. I read somewhere that a show really picks itself up in episodes two through five, where it can find a groove and it's inner self. If this is true that I have high hopes for Fringe as the opening was solid. I'm going to watch the second episode tonight, I think.

House also premiered this past Tuesday. I finally got around to watching it on Thursday. It was good. I will continue to watch House because it's typically the same thing every week, and this kind of reliability is comforting. Kind of like watching The Office. Every week is just good comedy and you can go to sleep Thursday night happy. You can count on a good Thursday night.

What else...Entourage. One of those shows I got completely addicated to because I watched the first few seasons within a couple of weeks. Now it's slowing down cause I can only watch one per week, and it airs at odd times. Well, it seems to be starting with the rest of fall television, which is nice. And it doesn't look like the show is going to slow down itself. Just so we're clear, the season opening was great.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll be watching more television this weekend.

Movies for the week ending September 12

I'll have to include some movies I've watched in the past couple of months as my movie-watching habits have died down quite a bit recently. There hasn't been anything really jumping out at the theatre for me, and without the movie channels to watch anymore, times are tough. I've been watching The Wire a lot over the past month, which really takes away from movie time. And with the new TV season starting, expect even fewer current movie reviews. I'll try to write about older stuff as it jumps to mind.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS - Honestly, I'm not even sure what to think of this movie. Did you enjoy Superbad and Knocked Up? This movie was entertaining but not up to those other movies' "level." There were plenty of laugh out loud moments that got the crowd in the small theatre going, and even had myself going. There was an odd amount of gore in this movie, although not entirely out of place like The Happening, it did seem a bit odd. Franco is great, and Seth is, well, Seth. I wasn't super excited for this movie and got what I wanted out of it. 6/10

More Movie Reviews

Wow, so much for the weekly movie review update, eh? July 11, you say? And now it's early September and surely, most definitely I have seen a large number of movies during this period. This is true, but I feel as though I could argue that it is not.

THE DARK KNIGHT - It is of course with absolute certainty that this movie was really, very, quite good. However, I'm not getting as excited for it as many others, and I can't pinpoint why exactly that could be. The movie basically had everything you could want out of it, including a perfect Joker performance by Heath, lots of neat gadgets, good action scenes and all the other fun Batman stuff. But really, it was lacking Bruce Wayne. He definitely took a backseat in this plot line. But still, I would give it a 9/10

THE LOST BOYS - This one I saw recently, twice. Now you may think that if I saw a movie twice within seven days that would indicate you know what, but that is not true. I tried watching this movie - probably about ten years ago or even more - and got nowhere with it. I stopped watching it. I don't know why. The movie is watchable and fairly entertaining, but I cannot determine why it was supposed to be so "great." Perhaps it wasn't. But you know people talk about this movie, and while watching it, you can completely understand why this was big in the eighties. So really, I enjoyed the movie but it fell a little short of my expectations. 6/10

DAY OF THE DEAD [2008] - Was anybody else aware that they remade this movie? In fact I have to check the IMDB just to confirm this movie exists. ... Check, it does exist, I did not dream this up. It also stars Mena Suvari...what? I'm in disbelief because this movie was really bad. While the remake of Dawn of the Dead was quite superb, this one really falls flat. Is this even in the same continuity or universe as the others? The original takes place in an underground military base where experimentation on the zombies leads to a reveal that zombies are still capable of thought, learning, and problem solving. They make this happen in this version too, but instead, the movie takes place in a cliche small town with all your standard, flat characters. Boring. But the most offensive bit of this movie is that they explain that people become zombies because of a man-made virus. What?! The mystery surrounding why the dead walk never needed this before, even in the previous remake, so why would they put us through an explanation now? It's downright offensive. The only thing this movie does is turn Romero's "classic" into another run-of-the-mill zombie movie. For crying out loud, we even have zombies performing Spider-Man wall-climbing maneuvers. Terrible. 3/10

Movies for the week ending July 11

In the past seven days I've had the pleasure of watching even MORE movies than the previous seven days before that.



CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK - Of course, I saw this in the theatres when it first came out, as I was a big fan of PITCH BLACK, and consequently, somewhat disappointed in the direction this movie took. That is, of course, a fairly standard action movie. But, since, it is in space, is full of hardcoreness and entertaining scenes, it's a movie that I can watch in small doses time and again. A few days ago I caught the middle of this movie, where they take Riddick to that crazy prison and they manage to escape the exploding surface of the planet itself. I mean, that was fun. I've probably seen this movie about four times now, and I would have to give it a rating of 6/10.

BLADE RUNNER - Do I really need to say how awesome this movie is? This time around I could truly appreciate the classic special effects and how they've held up over the years. It really makes me depressed that we depend upon CG so much, and how quickly that stuff ages. This movie, specifically, the final cut, is solid all round. Great picture, great sound, fantastic story, sets, acting. This movie has it all. 9/10

DAWN OF THE DEAD [1978] - I keep watching this more often the past couple of years and it just keeps getting better. I still can't comprehend how the "consurmerist" message is still relevant in this day of age, but I guess it would have been when malls were these new, overwhelmingly large things, and the idea of surviving in one was absurd. Now, we have no problem imagining such things as they seem to be complete cities under one roof. This is just classic cinema; nothing much more to say on it right now. 9/10

WALL-E - Yeah, a kids movie, but, it's Pixar, right? Pixar has never done wrong and I'll always contend that these are as much for adults as the young'uns. I loved how this movie played out with no (English) dialogue for the first half. The technical aspects of the film blow me away and the whole "look what has happened to society" is fantastic stuff. The movie is very cute; the robots are great and the messages being conveyed are pretty simple. Fun movie to watch, definitely. 8/10


Ahhh dammit. You just can't win. I had this great review of American Psycho typed in here, then Blogger crapped out on me, erasing everything. Well, just so you know, I love the movie. I gave it a 9/10 and had some real intelligent things to say about it. Ugh, Blogger

Recently seen movies

Is anybody still out there? It's been over a month since I've posted last; I'm so bad. It's also been decided that I shoudl update more often but perhaps with a little less writing. Like really, what may be dissuading me from writing more often is the thought of trying to write something long and intelligent about a movie. Specifically, when that movie is quite terrible, or even quite good, words don't jump out at me. And perhaps that's all insane, so just forget it.

Movies I've seen recently:

NEXT - Do you recall seeing the trailer for this a while ago? Did this movie come out a year or two years ago? In any event it was part of that whole thing where celebrities would wear their hair long for no good reason (Tom Hanks in Da Vinci, and now Nic Cage here). So Cage can see two minutes into the future except when around the obligatory love interest, which adds an interesting tidbit to the ending of the movie, but in the end, this movie wasn't great, although it was entertaining. Perhaps it could have been better had Nicolage Cage not had stupid long hair and been twice the age of Jessica Biel, who still can't act. Overall: 6/10 (above average, worth watching).

INCREDIBLE HULK - Great stuff; let's keep this new Marvel ball rolling, please! This movie had to be exactly the oppositie as HULK five years ago: that is, not intelligent, more action and basic. I still have a soft spot for Ang Lee's vision but this one really cleans things up and just gives you a movie worth getting into and rewards you for doing it. Apparently Norton wasn't happy about the final edit, he wanted something "smarter" or whatever. Good! Let's see a multi-disc Blu-Ray with each version on it. The only thing I wish about this movie is that I was more into the whole Hulk universe so I could pick up on the subtleties sprinkled throughout. Overall: 8/10 (solid movie)

THE DEVIL'S REJECTS - Saw this one again for the third time in as many years (potentially). I appreciate this type of "horror" movie moreso than what has been littering the cinema as late, simply because it is shocking but doesn't stop there. It's not out for the cheap thrills. Whereas HOSTEL (or any of those other torture-porn flicks) would throw in a scene for sheer shock, this movie likes to build the scenes. A scene finishes and you think these monsters couldnt' get worse, but they do, and it scares you, cause these people are somewhat believable. I'm interested to see what else Rob Zombie can do. And for the record, I saw this one before the first one, which I'm not convinced makes a lick of difference. Overall 7/10

Indiana Jones

Last Thursday night was going to be huge. Well, perhaps not huge but adequately large. I purchased the tickets on the night before, although truth be told, they should have been purchased days before that. That was precisely what happened with Iron Man, and perhaps because of this fumble, the Thursday night premiere of Indiana Jones was doomed.

We arrived at the theatre the pre-requisite one hour before showtime and promptly sat down. The regular movie magazine (not sure what they call it nowadays) provided little entertainment. But we kept ourselves amused, until approximately five minutes before six, the emergency lighting in the theatre flickered on and a calm fell upon the crowd. In a few moments we had normal lighting back on, and we could see the projector/computer booting (Fedora Linux, interestingly enough) and then the standard trivia track stuff running. This occured for a minute before an official arrived to tell us they were working on a power problem.

Another ten minutes go by and the same official arrives, this time with goodies, which is not a good sign. Indeed, she reported that they were experiencing brown-outs, of all things, and the movie would not go on. This is just after my friend had purchased an extraordinarily expensive bucket of popcorn that while delicious, has lost some of it's purpose and pricey justification. I feel his pain.

And it turns out to be the entire neighbourhood that was experiencing this brown as, because my house was affected too. It's such a strange thing to have happen: lights on at half power and some devices refuse to power on at all. Quite simply, not enough juice. So we went over to Cales's and watched The Last Crusade to fulfill our Indy fix. And it was glorious. It has been such along time since I've sat down to watch one of these movies that it was quite a treat, and of course it's made better as you pick up on stuff that you have long forgotten.

So it's Sunday night before we wonder over to see Indy again, this time, a last minute decision and arriving a scant ten minutes before the showing. Indeed, the experience has already been sullied.

And the movie was good; I can't go so far as saying it was great, or at the level of the other movies (at least, the first and third). It's difficult for me to draw these conclusions since it's most likely been fifteen years since I've seen the first two. The first time I saw The Last Crusade was in some giant dome in Toronto, on a screen that subtly wrapped around your entire field of vision. As a child this was heaven.

I can accept a fair bit of supernatural and unworldly elements in Indiana Jones, as it has always been present and handled properly, but the sheer amount of unbelievable moments in this movie had the effect of destroying my immersion in it. And unfortunately, I think it had quite a bit to do with the level of CGI in this movie; something we have blamed on Lucas entirely, although Spielberg has been using quite a bit of it too (although more effectively). I really don't want to see CGI monkeys and groundhogs in my movies. Especially this one. Like really.

But really, I enjoyed the characters and Harrison Ford as Indy again; with a bit more harshness in his voice than usual, and Shia, who doesn't a decent job of respecting his acting elders. The humour is good as was the length of the film, and of course, there were the action sequences. In this day of age I can appreciate just about any action scene that doesn't cut two hundred times a second, or at least to such a degree that you're imagination has to fill in for what you should be able to see but alas, cannot.

So that's that; I really enjoyed the movie and was entertained. It was not everything I had hoped it was, but really, what is? If I were to score the film, it would receive a 7.5 out of 10.

Subway Points

It came to my attention today that Subway has introduced Subway points. More than likely I'm very far behind the curve of this but it's news to me today as I treated myself to an overpriced sub.

She handed me a card and I didn't have to sign anything, which is a big plus. This means you can steal it from me and it won't have my information on it. It also means you cannot say no to accepting another piece of plastic into your already overwhelmed wallet. So now it's in there and I have eight points.

You get one point for every dollar you spend at Subway. This is pure devastation, as I like the system but not the rewards. It costs ten points for one cookie. That's a ten dollar cookie you are eating. A full length sub will set you back seventy-five dollars.

It probably wouldn't be so bad except the conversion from your dollar to a Subway point is blisteringly obvious and very easily calculated. With the stamps before, you could never be certain how much that six-inch cost you. It may have been a combination of expensive subs, cheap subs or what have you. But you certainly couldn't buy one meal and say "I just netted a free cookie. Just one though."

A quick trip to the Hock Shop proved quite fruitful. As I don't usually frequent these establishments I was pleased to find Forza Motorsport 2 there, for a very low price of five dollars. I thought it was a mistake. Fifteen perhaps, but five? They had three copies in, all of which had perfect cases and intact manuals free from harm. So I looked at the other games there, and none hit the single digit dollar mark. Even those Burger King games started at ten dollars a piece (didn't we just pay seven for those new?).

So I had to pick it up. I had wanted to play the original FM for the XBox a long time ago but just could never bring myself to it. And we probably have Project Gotham to blame for that. And Gran Turismo. A man can only handle so much racing, especially racing simulation. So I was also tempted to get FM2 when it came out a while back but wisely settled not to, and spend the money on more useful things (but probably not).

With the recent trend of renting games at the relatively inexpensive price point of ten dollars, I thought I would just rent this game sometime down the road when there was nothing else. But when you cut that price in half and tell me I can keep it forever, well, sign me up.

So yes, I did start playing, which means the Orange Box will have to be put on hold. And I'm pleased to say I'm very happy so far. The game is much easier to get into than Gran Turismo, and it doesn't look like it's going to suffer from the same issue where you just get stuck at a certain point as you have to re-race the same track hundreds of times just to afford a decent ride. The difficulty is adjustable all over the place, and the only penalization for taking on easier settings is a percentage hit on your income. If you ramp up the difficulty, you get more cash. Simple as that.

But what really gets me is the whole start-up process of "new" games, and by new, I mean games you have never put into your system before. Every game I have ever put in requires an update of some kind. For a while it seemed like every HD-DVD I put in required that too, which just blows my mind into the back of the couch. We are forced to wait for the download as it installs, doing who-knows-what to your game, and then reboots the system. Today it took me about seven minutes just to get to the title screen.

Call of Duty 4

In the past eighteen months I have played through both Call of Duty 2 and 3 and walked away feeling as though I had a great video gaming experience. What really got me with these games is the sense of awe, and the excitement of playing out certain scenes throughout the game. I would swivel my character's head around with my mouth wide open in wonderment at the insanity; the detail in the world, the characters, explosions and sound. It constantly made me appreciate what our veterans went through, as I know what happened in the game cannot be any real close approximation of what the true events were like, but if this was even a fraction? Well, that's just insane.

So number four didn't really have the same effect on me. There were some great scenes, but nothing mind-blowing like the previous ones. The weapons? I don't keep up on this stuff so they all look futuristic and crazy to me. The weapons from the previous games are so well established and iconic and that is somewhat lacking here.

The interesting thing to note about this game is that it is actually the third title from Infinity Ward, as Call of Duty 3 was developed by somebody else. And it shows. Call of Duty 3 suffered from a major amount of inivisible walls, bad clipping and generally annoying AI. Number two and four have a much more polished feel to them, with spot-on gameplay (I never played the first one). As well, the achievements seem to make a lot of sense, and after playing Modern Warfare, I was left with just 290 points.

It was time to jump into veteran difficulty. I tried this one Call of Duty 2 and only got through a couple of levels before I had to call it quits. With this one, I managed to get through a few more levels, bolstering my score a bit, and I didn't feel like I was going to throw the controller through the window. But, I know my limits, as I reached one level in particular, and cannot last until the first checkpoint. So now the game goes back to the store and I get ready for another first-person adventure: The Orange Box.

I Am Iron Man

It's been a long time in the making (or has it?) and it's finally upon us: Iron Man, the movie. Now this could all be fabrication, but I swear this movie was announced back in 2002 and has switched hands so many times in terms of direction and star power, that we all blew it off as something that's just not going to happen, and really, why would we want it to happen?

I recall because I traded this movies stocks on the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a fun little site that allowed you to trade fictitious shares of movie stars and movies. When a movie was announced, you could grab the IPO and sell it a few days later. I was eager to pick up as many super hero movies as was available, which were quite plentiful in those days.

The big news and the motivation to get excited about this movie was that it's Marvel's first true film, in that they are the sole studio behind it's development. They've partnered with Paramount for distribution, but as Nathan puts it: this is Marvel without any outside interference. And they did not go wrong.

I could spend some time talking about the movie and how good it was, but the bottom line is you just need to go out and see it. I very much appreciate how they've catered to both comic book fans and everybody else. Indeed, I kind of felt like I was in the latter grouping as I know practically nothing about Iron Man, as he and his kind (re: The Avengers) were part of that other corner of the Marvel universe I never bothered with. So you're not going to feel lost, and I'm sure they threw in enough to satisfy the craving of the average comic book geek. The only negative of this movie that could have made me much angrier if the movie itself was no good, was the showing. Galaxy just can't handle it: the movie was out of focus and noticeably so throughout. It became distracting in numerous scenes but was bearable, considering the content. I'm excited to either see it again (and hope it's in focus) or view it at home in high definition later this year, in sharp glory.

So why could I not get excited about this movie before it's release? X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil. These were all movies, among others, that I felt a genuine excitement for from the time of ticket purchase to leaving the theatre after viewing. Not so much with Iron Man. And really, there's no reason for it because it stands among the best comic book movies out there.

Perhaps it's because we've been burned so many times with these movies you can't trust the pre-release hype. Perhaps I'm just getting older, or there are more exciting things going on in life now. In any event, it was a good feeling (not an excited feeling) of purchasing the tickets days in advance for a preview screening (just a night before release, really) and then showing up entirely way too early to stand in line with nobody else there. And that's what it's all about: the movie experience.

Assassin's Creed

It is next to impossible for me to NOT compare this game to Splinter Cell; specifically, Chaos Theory. Made by the same folk, it has a somewhat similar feel, and a similar concept. That is being, of course, the sneaking around and assassinations. While both games are quite different, I can't help but to continue to draw this comparison. You interrogate people; you can dispatch people with different weapons/tools, you sneak, and you kill.

So I'm disappointed that with Assassin's Creed, you can't assassinate in more ways than just a couple. The first option is to just be standing next to someone, tap x and he does the animation. You can also run and jump on someone, putting your blade in them, but that gets peoples attention. Can you hang from your legs above someone and assassinate? Not to my knowledge, no. Am I missing something? You can drop in behind someone, which of course gets their attention and you can attempt the kill, but in all likelihood he will stop you, and you'll have to "assassinate" with one of your swords.

I just thought there would be more ways, is all. The game is still a lot of fun as long as you do it in small doses. There are only a few different tasks you have to do repeatedly, such as doing the dirty work of lazy informants, eavesdropping and interrogations. Repeat these over and over for each major assassination.

It is very fun to climb around on buildings, throwing knives at unsuspecting guards and tossing around "the poor." It's extremely gratifying jumping out of a hiding spot, doing an assassination then jumping back to that hiding spot (specifically using a bench) and the guards just have no clue. They get upset and pull out their swords trying to find you, but you're invisible. Great stuff, really.

The cities are big and somewhat interesting. They all feel somewhat the same, as do most of the buildings. But these cities have life; people wonder the streets and go about their business as they should. It's that these cities feel alive that really complete the experience. And the viewpoints; some of them are just spectacular, and it makes you feel good knowing that if you can see a spot, you can probably climb to that spot, without loading screens.

So I decided to rent the game instead of buy; many reviews noted that it doesn't take too long to get through everything. And I'm glad I rented as I've gotten through most of the game in less than a week. However, I haven't been doing all the tasks, just the requirements in some of the memories and more when I feel like it. And of course it helps that you can rent a game now and keep it for a month with no penalty, and if you keep it longer it only costs a minimal restocking fee.

The Invasion

It appears as though I watched the original, and by original, I mean the '50s version, not the Donal Sutherland snatch-fest (I have yet to see) Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. I'm always a little wary of these "older" movies as they can be quite slow, terrible and really...just painful to watch. But Invasin of the Bodysnatchers was an excellent movie, and it makes one realize that a truly good movie is a good movie for a reason. But, I won't get into too much detail on that movie; all you need to know is that I thorougly enjoyed it.

The Invasion, with Nicole Kidman, was a horrible movie. Can you recall this movie hitting the theatres? Did it make anything at the box office? Is Kidman capable of bringing in a crowd anymore, and was Daniel Craig enough to get people to see this movie? Apparently not. Cause it sucked.

Where do I begin? We can start with the insane editing. This movie is edited with tons of quick cuts, and editing that takes you through an akward amount of time in a very stilted fashion. Flashes of Requiem for a Dream type edits popped into mind, yet not nearly as affective, or useful, for that matter. One scene did catch my attention with the editing, where discussions of the plan of escape were underway, the actual escape was quickly cut in. It was neat, although odd.

Then there are the terrible explainations of what is going on: very detailed and completely unnecessary. Do they think we're idiots? We can't piece together what is happening on screen? And everything is given away very early on in the movie, for no real good reason: it's not like it focued on anything in more depth later on. If anything it felt forced, poorly written and showed some terrible acting.

Anything redeeming about this film? Not that I care to mention. We got some good laughs out of it at least, and it was somewhat entertaining, but that can't be a proper excuse anymore. Now I have to go see what Donal does about the body-snatchers!

Halo 3

Many years ago I got right into Halo 2. It was great fun, and by great fun, I refer only to the online play. The single player campaign mode was just terrible. I had played a bit of the first Halo, co-operatively of course, and found the levels to just plain out suck. They were very repetitive and uninspired. In the second game, the repetitive levels came back, but to a much less annoying degree; however, they decided it would be fun to play as the Arbiter, which it was not. Those levels really broke up the flow of the game and I just lost interest.

So I bought Halo 3 out of boredom last November. With no games to play at the time and a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket, it was an easy decision. In fact, I decided to return the game and even left it in its wrapping for a couple of weeks. But then I got bored and opened the game, and started to play.

Halfway through the first level the power went out in the neighbourhood and I was out of luck. I wouldn't even put the disc in the system again until last Sunday. There was just no interest in playing at all! However, after my "hardcore-ness" of gaming came into question, I knew it was time to step into the shoes of Master Chief and blast some aliens. So I did. And it was good.

No longer were the levels terrible and repetitive, but somewhat interesting and concise. It just feels like they cut the crap and just let you play the good stuff. I particularly enjoyed the vehicle levels, except when they became frustrating because your driver is stupid AI, however, it became enjoyable again when you just went on foot and took down an enemy tank all on your own. It's fantastic.

What really gets me about playing this game is that you are often followed around by fellow marines, and they just love you. Always complimentary and in awe of your presence, it just makes you feel good. The marine banter is funny and just adds to the game. And of course the scale at which you are doing things makes it interesting: giant, beautiful worlds and big technology. It's good.

So I was really confused with items and equipment. I kept pressing the X button early on and it just seemed like a random effect would happen. Unfortunately the little icons in the top left of the screen were not overly descriptive of what item you had. Indeed, I didn't use equipment once for anything productive the entire game.

And man, is it ever short. I started last Sunday, played probably...seven or eight hours in total throughout the week and it was done. Not that I'm complaining about the length: I have no issue with short games, as long as the experience was good. And it was good. Is it worth going back to? Not really. I'm not going to spend the time trying to find all the skulls and make the game even harder than it was. And the online? Not for me anymore. With Halo 2, I would play at least an hour or two every night. In fact, the Chronicles of Ryebone were started just to log stories of my Halo 2 experiences.

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds on Blu-Ray

When I got home from work Friday there was a package from Amazon that I had completely forgotten ordering. In the package was the Blu-Ray of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds Live at Radio City.

I like music on DVD, mainly because you get a higher resolution sound and in most cases, surround sound. The Flaming Lips have put out two great discs so far with very aggressive 5.1 mixes. I was thinking that a Dave Matthews live performance in 5.1 would be pretty fantastic as well. The thing that I did not expect was a full acoustic performance with the rest of Dave's band. Just Dave and Tim. It still sounds great, although focused entirely with the front speakers, and of course the hi-def looks fantastic.

The performance runs about two and a half hours; I've made it through about an hour already and have been quite impressed. These guys are excellent guitarists and hearing Dave Matthews' songs are always great.

Years ago I was a huge fan of Dave Matthews Band and couldn't stop listening to them constantly. I must have gone a little overboard because I have slowed down quite a bit, even to the point where they're not in the regular rotation. What really killed it, I think, was the plethora of live performances coming out on CD, and the fact that they were all so identical. Listening to their marathon jam sessions at the end of some songs (with tracks reaching twenty minutes long) does not make for good random-play music, hence the removal from casual listening.

But, with this recent acquisition, their music may be played a bit more as I try and get all of their albums (I think I only own two, plus a live performance).

Rescue Dawn and Skating

Last night I watched Rescue Dawn; a movie that I had looked forward to seeing but just never got around to it, neither making the effort to go see in theatres or renting from the video store. Or even downloading, for that matter. But it's a good thing Nathan has it, although I question his motives because the last movie I watched there was also a prison movie.

While Papillon was a long, tumultuous look at prison life in France, Rescue Dawn takes a much speedier look at being held captive just before the Vietnam war. They are both excellent movies, and they both re-affirm the fact that I do NOT want to go to prison for anything; avoid it all costs. Papillon was almost depressing as you see some of the questionable things these guys went through: the hopelessness of the situation is back-breaking.

Rescue Dawn was really interesting because it brought the latest craze of survival into the fold, as when the characters escape from the prison, they are faced with the even more daunting task of just making it out in the jungle. It's quite scary out there.

So yeah, everything was pretty solid, I didn't question anything and I'm pretty satisfied with the movie. It gets a 7.5/10

And skating, of course. A few days ago I purchased some skates, which was an ordeal on its own, and today I finally strapped them on and went on the ice. Perhaps the lake isn't the greatest spot to start again, as it was a little bumpy, but the good news is that I did not fall, although it was close. The last time I went skating was in either 1994 or 1995. I know this because we had, in grade eight, walked over to a nearby arena from school and went skating, and on the way back I was discussing moving to Kingston, which happened in the summer of '95. At that time my skates barely fit, and I never did get another.

But people are getting excited by it lately and actually doing it, which gives just the right motivation to go out and grab an inexpensive pair and take to the ice. It was great, and it should get better as I learn to control myself a bit more. Good times!

End of One Hi-Def a Week?

I actually looked at the calendar in research of this "project" of mine and have discovered that this is actually week six, and I have basically failed. I've bought, what, four hi-def movies thus far? Where is five and six? They may be months away. I just can't bring myself to pay money for some of the stuff out there right now. And what makes it really tough is that there are no great releases coming out now, or in the foreseeable future, for that matter.

And it's all the fault of the main rule: don't buy crap. Just buy quality; can't be that hard, but it is. In the past few years my movie tastes have become much more refined: gone are the days when I would instantly go out and purchase every edition of Terminator 2 or various other "great" action movies of the eighties and nineties.

A movie has to really stick with me; it has to be good and all that, although some of my purchases are questionable. But it all comes down to: am I going to watch (and enjoy) this movie again? So perhaps this is just a lull in releases and more good stuff will come out later on, but for now, the project is on hold.

The National

Not a big post today. The other night I was wondering around CD Plus in the local mall and for the first time, was impressed with the selection of music contained within. Typically one can never really find what you're really interested in, but sometimes the store pulls through and has some non-mainstream album you would actually purchase. I kind of feel like I'm borderline here, as a lot of the "indie" stuff I listen to is carried here.

The National is one of those bands whom I can purchase any of their albums and be completely satisfied in the pick-up. I managed to snatch a two disc edition of Alligator at the same store here a number of months ago, and the other night I grabbed Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. The clerk was impressed with the album and said they should be getting even more of The National in sometime as more people request it. Good news because they're definitely my favourite music at the moment.

Going back a step, I was also impressed, standing at the front of the store and marvelling in the rows and rows of CDs, that they would have so much music there. Sure, they have a lot of DVDs, but they are somewhat crammed together and pushed to one side of the store. I was taking in the site because a recent trip to an HMV revealed that the majority of their sales is not from music anymore, but DVDs and now video games. You could even buy a Wii there! Which just does not seem right to me at all.

HMV was the go-to store for hard to find music. Although their prices were jacked up ridiculously, they would have what you wanted. Not so much anymore. So I'm now happy we have a CD Plus whose focus is still music (they even have a used section), although for the truly hard to find stuff, we'll have to depend on the online realm.

Oh yeah, if you haven't listened to The National yet, please do so!

We Love Katamari

Yes, Katamari has consumed my life again! A few years ago Katamari Damacy came out and rolled through the world; everybody was praising it and you just understood that it's a game you should be playing, but you don't, in actuality. Besides, it was for the pitiful PS2, which is a section of the gaming stores I typically just float by without showing much interest.

But there were games to be had: namely, Shadow of the Colossus. It was getting enough positive reviews and buzz on the internet that I was compelled to pick it up, and it was glorious. Then, a number of weeks later Toys 'R Us had a great deal on games: $15 even! Katamari Damacy was one of the, so I had to pick it up. And I never looked back. All of a suddent the PS2 was this great system with some great games for it.

The world of Katamari sucked me in, although not for a long time. Unfortunately it is quite short, but I did play it quite constantly for a number of days. When it was over, it was over. I was able to re-experience the game through some friends, but generally, I haven't gone back to it often. Then the sequel came out and I just couldn't justify at the time spending over forty dollars for a game that was most likely only going to give a few hours of entertainment.

My mistake at that time was only counting the hours, not the quality of the hours, because as I play the game now, I can say that the time spent playing this game is without a doubt worth more than many other games out there now. I managed to find We Love Katamari for $19 at Blockbuster, which coincidentally is the only place I've seen it in the past year and a half. It was a much higher price until now.

The game is great, with the same bizarre sense of humour, but now with a wonderful self-referential twist added. You're rolling to appease the fans of the first video game, and each fan has different needs. This introduces levels with different goals than to just roll a big of katamari as possible. While these existed in the first, they are refined here. And to me, they are still better than the 360 version (Beautiful Katamari). I found the first game relaxing and this one as well, while Beautiful is much more stressful. This is most likely because the goals are more lenient and you're allowed to pass a level without actually working too hard, or even reaching the goal (there is one level where you have to collect a thousand origami cranes; after numerous tries I've only gotten about nine hundred thirty). While this may seem silly, I think it's great: you can go back and improve your scores and skills, or just roll through the game to the parts you actually enjoy.

Now I have to go back and play the first Katamari over again, and perhaps try the 360 version as well. If I get desperate enough, I may have to buy a PSP to get the third Katamari!

Week Two through Four

First was Blade Runner, and now along comes 3:10 to Yuma. Was this movie worth the purchase? That may be debatable, but I kind of felt the pressure to purchase a movie in the second week of January and that was the best choice. When I put it that way, it practically breaks the rules, doesn't it?

The fact is I really enjoyed this movie in theatres. It's great to see Christian Bale do just about anything, and Russell Crowe was perfectly smug. Did you like the ending? Most did not. I did; and I can't really explain it. It seemed very...reasonable. Shall I spoil it for you? Yes, yes I shall. Crowe willingly takes the train to prison, when he doesn't have to. That seems to have upset a lot of people, but doesn't it just make sense that the guy wants to go for a ride? You know he's not going to stay in jail. I may be mistaken but they may have even mentioned that he's escaped from there numerous times already. In any event, there were some dastardly characters and it was fun to watch.

How does the Blu-Ray look? The fifteen minutes I've watched so far have looked great. Reviews indicate that this is a solid disc. I wouldn't doubt it at all, and I look forward to watching it in full.

So that's two weeks taken care of. I also went ahead and bought weeks three and four: Lord of War and Layer Cake. Of all the places in the world, I never thought I would be buying movies at HMV. It was a two for fifty dollar deal, which isn't all that great to begin with, but decent enough to warrant a purchase. I really dug the vibe of Lord of War, and Layer Cake is just a good movie all round. Of course, it's been a few years since I've seen it, so a re-watch is in order.

So what's coming up for week five? It's difficult to say; there don't seem to be too many great discs coming out, so I may have to dig into the shelves to find something decent. For some reason, I'm leaning towards TMNT, most likely for two reasons. One, it is a CG and would look really great. Second, there's a phenomenal fight scene between Raph and Leo that was just awesome.

Cloverfield

Absolutely. Amazing.

That could be it; that could be all I need to say, and you would go see it, right? But then the post wouldn't be that interesting. Alright; it all began last summer when the teaser was released before Transformers, right? That's right. The shaky hand-camera party, the explosion and the Statue of Liberty's head rolling down the street. You had no idea what was happening. Then they insult us by not even giving a name of the movie.

Insulting? Hardly. You know it's from J. J. Abrams and you know the release date. Perfect teaser. And then the questions came; you know the standard ones. I was more concerned about the camerawork: was the whole movie going to be hand-held camera? I was really hoping so. Was it Godzilla? God, I hope not! J. J. wouldn't stoop to that level. But it was definitely a monster movie, and that got me excited enough as it was.

But not enough to really hold my excitement, because there wasn't a plethora of goods revealed about the movie. You knew when it was coming out, the style of movie, and that was it. I avoided everything else, which was basically just speculation.

Then lo and behold, the movie comes out; we go see it. I'm blown away; I can't stop thinking of it afterwards and I can feel my body fidgeting with excitement, even after the credits roll. That doesn't normally happen. The last time I was really excited about a movie was before and during Spider-Man. Not so much during and afterwards, a la Cloverfield. This was a first. So the movie gets a 10/10. We don't need to wait till the end of this post to find that out.

We can, however, talk about the movie itself. Before entering the theatre there were many pink letter-sized papers floating about warning that you may get sick while watching this movie! Utterly fantastic, really! The thought didn't even occur to me before and the idea of having people being sick during the movie, in the theatre, made me giddy. If you were going to endure somebody throwing up in your theatre, this was the movie to do it at. Not at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ugh. That was a terrible experience.

But alas, nobody was sick during the screening; I guess that was ok. Because the movie had me in it's grip from the get-go. The entire party scene, with it's introductions to the characters felt genuine, was pretty funny and mildly interesting. Then the craziness begins and doesn't really let up. The movie is short and sweet. The way the movie is shot, it's impossible not to feel as though you're there. You are in the movie: you see what you're being shown. You look in awe, you run, and you fall and you get back up again. I can't even get upset about the last part of the movie - although predictable - it kept it real.

The monster is terrifying, as are the little monsters that come off the big monster (how genius). But what really gets me is how hopeless the situation is. I can go on and on about this and it's the feeling I get while watching zombie movies: this could happen and just might happen.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score

It was extremely sad and perhaps even more so, upsetting, that Futurama was cancelled. It had been on for a few seasons and was some of the best television on at the time. While I was surprised that it was cancelled, I am partially to blame, as I never watched it every week. Perhaps that was the fault of its scheduling, as it would be on randomly and at slightly different times as it was pushed back if football ran late.

But now it's coming back, and has started with this new movie that came out last year (that sounds weird, as it was just 2007). Straight to "video" is fine for something like this as Futurama has always belonged on the small screen, just like the Simpsons. But what took the Simpsons fifteen plus years to accomplish took Futurama only a couple, and Futurama did it right. This movie didn't feel like an extended episode, but still had the feel of a regular episode.

The plot is typical for Futurama and doesn't get too complicated. Of course, with time travel that may be difficult to do but they manage to pull it off well here. What's really great about this movie is how it integrates and explains into the regular season episodes. What you get is some behind the scenes of your favourite episodes, and some loose ends tied up. Now, I've been told the movie makes much more sense and really wraps things up from the regular series, but truth be told, I have yet to watch every episode, especially the later ones.

The humour is good, the characters are all there and the classic Futurama sentimental moments are there too. The show could be quite touching and I'm glad to see that translated into this movie, without going overboard and still keeping the quality humour.

So in the end, I would rate the movie 8.5 out of 10. Yes, I must start supplying numerical ratings to the movies; after a while I should post a simple listing of everything for easy lookup and for...documentation.

And an update for the "one hi-def a week" campaign: I purchased Blade Runner for Blu-Ray. Really solid film and an awesome five disc set. Unfortunately the five disc is just a reprint of the first disc; if you Google it, the issue is fairly rampant. I was hoping I would get lucky, but I have since returned the movie and exchanged it, only to experience the same problem. Not a great start but Future Shop was very good with the exchange; I just hope they are willing to do a few times if this issue keeps coming up.

One Hi-Def Movie a Week

A few years ago I fooled around with the idea of buying one DVD a week for an entire year. This failed for a couple of reasons, one of which is money. Without really working, it is difficult to afford such luxeries. Second, is releases. It's not every week that a good movie comes out, right? Third, you end up buying movies that you just don't really want to own, quite simply enough, and we shouldnt' be forced to do those things.

I'm glad I didn't follow through with that plan because with DVD on its way out, I ended up selling over one hundred of them at reasonable prices and was quite happy. After that, I didn't buy a DVD for a couple of years as high definition was just around the corner. I did the same for VHS when DVD was coming out.

So on Christmas 2006, I received an HD-DVD player add-on for the 360, and started purchasing HD-DVD titles. I had the silly idea that I would get one per week for the year, but it very quickly fell apart after three weeks when there was just not enough titles coming out and not enough of a catalog to choose from. It was for the best.

Now, I have the capability of purchasing both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies, and there are tons of titles out there now. Many worth owning? Probably not. But I'm going to try again: purchase one hi-def movie per week for the entire year. There are some ground rules though that I will follow:

1. Don't buy crap you don't want.
2. If you buy two in one week, that covers two weeks; i.e. the movies do not have to be purchased in the actual week. One movie counts as one week, regardless of when it was purchased (as long as it's in the same year).
3. Don't buy crap.

It's important to have rules one and three because I bought a lot of crap on DVD that I somewhat regretted, as they were either cheap or just something to purchase to keep me busy. They tie directly into rule two, which gives me the freedom of not purchasing a movie for four weeks, then making up those four weeks later, or purchasing weeks in advance. That takes the pressure off.

I fully expect movie prices to be crazy for quite a while but there are some quality budget titles being released, such as American Psycho and Total Recall (both of which I purchased boxing day 2007).

I will post about the hi-def discs I purchase and give you a running tally of the money I've spent on them and when they were purchased; I do in fact keep a spreadsheet (yeah yeah, I know, crazy). Based on previous purchases I can expect to spend a little over $1,400 on this project. Wow, that may be enough to get me to abandon the project altogether right now!

A Week of Movies

Alright, it's been about a week since I've posted and I have in fact been watching movies. There are weeks where no movies are being watched, as they are cast aside for the delight of other mediums, such as reading, video games and dare I say, life.

First up on the block is Alien vs Predator: Requiem, which I guess is a sequel to the crap that was released a couple of years ago. Does it tie into it at all? Apparently it does, but I didn't pick up on it and it really doesn't matter. If you're into trailers you will have seen the nice R-rated trailer released a few months back that promised much more of this movie than what was really delivered. In the trailer you saw heads being blown up, people being impaled, aliens popping out of chests and generally, lots of gore. And because of this, you've basically seen the movie.

I would have expected more: I really wanted a clean, concise and gory look at some aliens fighting some Predators. Instead we only get one Predator and a number of Aliens, with humans stuck in the middle. Although, they really didn't try hard with the plot and I will give kudos for that. So what went wrong? Not a whole lot I guess. I was pretty satisfied with the movie on the whole, but could definitely have used some more...something. It's impossible to say what. But really, just watch the first film and then this one, and you will be quite happy with Requiem.

Next up is Sweeney Todd, which was a very solid movie all round. Again it pairs Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, but into something that we have never seen before: a musical. How do you get people to go see a musical like this? First, don't tell them it's a musical, and two, add one Johnny Depp. While he may still be channeling Jack Sparrow, I certainly didn't mind and noticed enough of a difference to call him a separate character. Helena was great and so were the other cast members. A simple revenge driven story and a small cast of characters ensured that everybody stayed on track and got business done. There is a good amount of gore and gross things, which is perfect for a film like this, as well as overflowing corsets that are just ready to break open.

As for the singing? I can't tell who sings badly generally unless they are the initial rejects of American Idle, so I thought everything sounded pretty good here. While it's most likely fact that they recorded their singing separately, I could only really tell that was the case with some of Helena's performances. Not a big complaint at all.

The third movie is barely worth mentioning at all as it was just complete and utter trash: Epic Movie. There are so very few words I can invest in this movie that it deserves, positive or negative. It was just terrible. Trash. It was so offensively bad that I feel guilty for having watched at least an hour of it. But, on the other hand, it puts the bar so low it places over really terrible movies in a positive spotlight. If you watch this and then the original AVP, you might be mistaken that the latter was a decent flick.