film

Beside You in Time

Posted on by grahams

Went out to the Middle East last night to see a screening of the new Nine Inch Nails video release Beside You In Time.  It was gorgeous, but I ended up leaving after just a handful of songs…  The problem was that the Middle East’s downstairs has a really low ceiling, therefore, the screen wasn’t placed that high, therefore, I spent most of my time looking at the backs of heads as opposed to the screen.   The video quality was really good, especially considering they were using a Dell projector, which probably wasn’t tuned as well for video as a nice HDTV set would be.  The sound was amazing, the one big plus for doing the screening at a club as opposed to a theatre.

There was a deal where if you preordered the DVD, you got a lithograph, but I passed on it..  Their preorder prices were way too high ($18 for the DVD, vs. $14 on Amazon), and since I’ll be getting an HDTV in the near future, I’d rather buy one of the HD formats.  Unfortunately, I have no idea which HD format (HD-DVD or Bluray) to support, so I think I’ll just hold off on buying this one until I actually have the gear available.  But once all those questions are answered, there’s no doubt that I’ll be buying this release, it is simply gorgeous.

Marketing Anarchy

Posted on by grahams

People in Boston are freaking out because “mysterious packages with circuit boards” have been found mounted below bridges in Boston.

It turns out, it’s looking more and more like a guerrilla marketing for the new Aqua Teen Hunger Force film:


(from Vanderlin)

And it’s not just Boston, Here’s one in Philly:


(from xjohnpaulx)

I’m not a fan of the show, but this is awesome…  I predict this will be a HUGE to-do, since the bomb squad was deployed all over the city to dismantle and destroy these “IEDs”.

Update: Here’s another closeup of one of the Boston “Devices”:


(From MyFoxBoston.com)

MPAA Ratings

Posted on by grahams

I decided to use a Christmas giftcard to purchase the final two installments in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Previously, I only had Fellowship of the Ring).  They arrived today, and I when looking over the packaging, I noticed the notes associated with their ratings.  A few years ago the MPAA started including a blurb of text along with the rating to describe the reasons they came to their decision.

Both films are rated PG-13, and most people would probably agree that the films are cut from very similar cloth, but I noticed subtle differences in the notes between the two films:

  • The Two Towers: “Epic Battle Sequences and Some Scary Images”
  • Return of the King: “Intense Epic Battle Sequences and Frightening Images”

This led me to wonder where “scary” ends and “frightening” begins. Are they measuring the same value? If so, which term represents a larger value?

The Movies I Saw in 2006

Posted on by grahams

Keeping up the tradition of the past few years, here is the list of flicks I watched in 2006. This was a strange year for me, I saw more movies in the theatre, but (relatively) few on video. I can only attribute that to all the home improvement stuff
coco_b and I had to deal with this year… Our plan is to move to a new home in 2007, so it’s possible that this trend could continue for another year. In a few weeks I will put together my “best of 2006” list, but I want to give myself an opportunity to catch some of the things from 2006 I haven’t seen yet.

The list is pretty much in the order I saw the pictures, and I tried to italicize films I had previously viewed.

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2006” →

RiffTrax

Posted on by grahams

Last night I watched Episode 1 with commentary from RiffTrax. RiffTrax is the brainchild of Mike Nelson, formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  If you were a fan of MST3K, you already understand the basic premise behind RiffTrax:  Mike (and friends) record a snarky commentary track to a film and release it as an mp3 file.  Simply load the file into whatever media player you choose, press play and follow the audio directions.  I understood this all in principal (especially since I beta-tested the same concept a few years ago when

[info]patrickwonders

 was experimenting with DVDTracks), and I loved MST when it was on the air, but I couldn’t tell if this would work or not.

When I saw that they had done Episode 1, I couldn’t resist..  The first thing you notice is that the commentary is delivered in a zip file containing an unprotected mp3 and a text file.  The text file contains some basic information and also a guide to mapping “movie time” to “audio time” with some dialog snippets to help you in case you pause or stop the film for whatever reason and lose sync between the two.  My biggest concern was the issue of sync, but the RiffTrax guys handled it very well…  At the start of the audio file there is some introductory matter, and then there were instructions to pause the audio track after a countdown and to un-pause it after “A long time ago…” faded off the screen.  In addition, they have a “robot” named DisembAudio which occasionally recites a line of dialog so you can tell if they were in sync.  In practice, I found that it didn’t really matter if they were out of sync, even if it was by a second or two, but also that unless you were pausing or whatever, you didn’t have to worry about sync at all.  

As far as content goes, Mike has Kevin Murphy at his side for this one, who you may recognize better as the voice of Tom Servo on MST.  Other tracks feature Bill Corbett, who voiced Crow and was also a writer on the old show.  While the commentary for Episode 1 started off a little slow (just like the movie!), once they got into a groove it was like old times again.  It was a great experience, and if you are an MSTie, you owe it to yourself to grab one of their tracks and give it a go.   Obviously with my small sample size, I don’t know how much the quality varies, but for 2-3 bucks, it’s a pretty good deal.  I might even consider renting some REAL stinkers and just buying the RiffTrax that go along with them to make them watchable. :)

BSG OMFG

Posted on by grahams

Spoiler-free: The past episode of Battlestar Galactica may have been the best of the series. It blew my mind with just how awesome it was… That is all about that subject.

Saturday (after we gave up on the door fiasco) I caught loudQUIETloud: A Film About Pixies, which was great. It’s strange to see how dysfunctional that band is dysfunctional in a completely unconventional way… Tim came out to watch the flick too, which was good, as I don’t get to see him much anymore. Sunday we caught The Prestige with the film club last night, which was pretty good.