I’m actually excited about going to the movies again

Intro

On 3/5/2011, you would think a guy of my ilk would be pretty excited about the fact that the NFL owners have not locked out the NFL players. Excited? No. Optimistic for the first time? Yes. Strangely enough, I am excited about the movies this morning. I was not excited about movies throughout the majority of 2010.

Folks, they never should have held the 83^rd Academy Awards ceremony. They should have canceled the Chicky-Super Bowl this year. Hollywood did not deserve any gold statues for what happened during 2010. The fact that they held the ceremony was travesty and miscarriage of justice.

What we should have done is round-up all the heads of each major studio, and all the major Hollywood producers, taken them out behind the woodshed and kicked them in the nuts 20 or 30 times each. That is what they deserved for last year’s cinematic output. It was a fucking lousy year for the movies. The movies of 2010 stank, by and large.

Better still, let’s get Adam Vinattieri to kick them in the nuts 30 or 40 times each. I’m talking about a full soccer-style kick too. After that, we’ll get Deacon Jones to stuff them all into a burlap sack and beat the sack with a baseball bat. Or we could stuff them in a food processor and then an industrial microwave oven…

Now it’s 2011

As I surf to movies.Yahoo.com and look up my favorite local theater, I am absolutely astounded to find a fairly exciting list of choices here. Two movies just opened up yesterday that are on my must-see list: Rango and The Adjustment Bureau. There are several other reasonable choices also.

Rango looks like the first brilliant 3d movie since How to Train Your Dragon, and I think it’s going to be considerably better than that. The animation art looks truly awesome. I have high hopes. This is basically western with anthropomorphized animals, with a Looney Tunes style of humor. The preview looked good. I hope it does not disappoint.

The Adjustment Bureau looks like the bright star on the horizon. This movie has a chance to windup on my short list of all-time favorites, if everything works out as it should. I was intrigued by what I saw in the preview, but more so by the NPR interview I heard last night on the drive home.

The Adjustment Bureau is a heavy existentialist and mystical piece, wrapped up in the look and feel of a modern Sci-Fi movie. The question is deep: can a man control his own fate, or is your destiny controlled by something else? Is the leaver controlling your destiny in your own hands, or are their unseen--but keenly felt--beings or forces in an unseen realm, pulling strings and punching buttons, making things turn out the way they see fit? If there are such shadowy figures manipulating your outcomes, is it possible for you to resist them, and re-set your course as you prefer it to go? Is it is wise thing to resist them, just because you don’t like what they are doing?

At its core, this is actually a sweet romance about a man and woman who really love each other, and want to be together. She’s a ‘dancer’ and he’s a politician. It’s difficult to determine which profession is more slimy, but the politicos don’t want their bright star muddied-up with this greazie girl. Forces conspire to push them apart. They resist.

It’s a good thing that the casting directors chose a pretty Pisces girl (Emily Blunt) to play the love interest. That’s one way to catch my attention. Pisces is on my 7^th House.

Folks, this is the kind of movie I really go for. Neptune is in Scorpio in my natal chart. I am part of a 14 year group of people who are attracted to and fascinated by strange, weird, unusual, mystical, macabre and bizarre subjects. The weirder and more paranormal it is, the more entertaining it is also. This is reflected in the music, art and fashion of our age cohort. We’re the guys who love Chariots of the Gods, UFO stuff, 2012 documentaries, the X-Files, Lost, and Unsolved Mysteries.

Uncle Broonmee

In spirit of the last paragraph, I should include the 3^rd interesting release of the week. If it weren’t enough that they opened two must-see movies this week, there is a third option in very limited release. It’s called Uncle Broonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. That is quite a mouthful.

Evidently this is a Philippine movie about man who is dying. He has decided to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside, away from the public. He’s a good man, and better than Al Davis. Didn’t I mention this subject recently?

He has a number of very strange supernatural visitors. The closer he gets to death, the closer he gets to the other side. The more contact he makes with those on the other side, the more he learns about his past incarnations, and accumulates hints about his next incarnation.

Wow… sounds pretty damn weird, macabre, paranormal and entertaining. I want to see this one for sure. As Spock would say: “Facinating!”

But wait! There’s more!

As if it weren’t enough that there are three must-see movies opening this week, there is still more! I Am Number Four has been getting pretty good word of mouth inside my circle of friends and associates. Those who have seen it have praised it as a good adventure.

I’ve been building an interest in this movie all week long. It also helps that this movie features an absolutely ravishing (and I mean ravishing) Pisces female named Teresa Palma. You want to talk about a knock-out bombshell… Believe me, she puts about 850 foot-pounds of torque on my crankshaft. One of the interesting things about Teresa is that she was born on 2/26/1986; just 2 weeks, or 14 days, away from my theoretical max birthday of 3/12/1986. This is close enough to give Teresa a very impressive set of scores. Believe me, I’m feeling that synastry.

But wait! There’s more!

As you all know by now, Liam Neeson opened a new mystery/thriller a week or two ago called Unknown. We can describe it as a drama about identity theft on a whole different level. Of course, it helps that he has a stunning Cancer woman named Diane Kruger in that movie. I don’t mention it often, but Cancer and Virgo are very good together. We don’t have particularly good scores, but I admire her anyhow.

The general forecast for 2011

I spent a good part of last week hauling down some 63 movie previews from trailers.apple.com. If you own the pro copy of Quicktime, you can export these .Mov files as .Mp4 files. There is no transcoding, it’s just a different meta-wrapper. Once these files are in the .MP4 package, I like to drop them on a USB2 memory stick, formatted in Fat32, inside a directory called “VIDEO”. I can then plug that memory stick into my PS3, and watch all the previews I want on the big screen.

There are many other ways to do it, but this is how I like to do it. The speed of the flash memory means instant starts and instant stops. It’s very cool.

Looking at these 63 previews suggests that it is going to be a very interesting year indeed.

Surprisingly enough, it looks like they have done a re-origin and reboot on Marvel’s Thor, and it looks like it just might turn out to be entertaining after all. I sure hope so. The information about Captain America is currently too sketchy to determine whether this might be good or bad. It looks like they are playing it close to the comic book origin. No reboot here. That’s all I can tell you right now.

Kill the Irishman is actually based on a completely outrageous true-crime mobster story. I’ve seen several documentaries on this epoch of Cleveland history, and it’s truly a case where truth is stranger than fiction. If they do that story well, it could turn out to be one of the all-time mobster classics.

The Bleeding looks like the next hilarious grindhouse comedy. I am convinced that they didn’t have a serious bone in their bodies as they made this movie. This is camp stuff, and played for laughs. I loved Planet Terror, John Carpenter’s Vampires, and Black Dynamite. Machete disappointed me, but I hope this one won’t.

I am deeply worried that Green Lantern won’t turn out well, but still, I hold out some hope. It looks like they have spent quite a bit of money on special effects, and they won’t dumb down the Sci-Fi journey’s of the Green Lantern Corp. Still, I worry that this will be the next Fantastic Four. That one didn’t come together or work out well.

These are just a few of the movies that have caught my attention. There are many others.

So I am compiling my Best Movies of the Decade list

So for some reason, everybody seems to be publishing their Best Movies of the Decade List. This despite the fact that the decade will not be officially over for another year. Anyhow, I thought I would join the fray. My list currently contains about 70 movies, and it isn't quite ready. I will publish it when it is pruned and blossomed.

Just to prep you for the list, here are some of my criteria:

1. Art films need not apply
2. Emotional Meltdowns need not apply
3. Inspirational movies need not apply
4. Chick Flicks need not apply
5. Most Oscar winners are suspect
6. Heavy preference is given to Sci-Fi
7. Strong preference is given to animation
8. Horror is considered, but frowned upon
9. In short, this is a guy's list of entertaining movies.
10. I am not doing this to please he academy.
11. My objective is to compile a reliable list of good entertainment for guys like me.
12. I want any ordinary guy to be able to pick an item of this list, see, and be glad he did.

70 over a decade produces and average of about 7 per year if you count the year 2000 (which you should not). When you stop to think about it, that really isn't very much entertainment for guys like me. An average of 7 movies per year leaves us high and dry for good entertainment much of the year. No wonder we watch so much football.

From whence comes this rubbish about Blu-ray failing?

One of the most persistently irritating aspects of CNET.com is their twice a week habit of publishing prophesies of doom upon Blu-ray. From whence comes all this rubbish?

Does it come from sour grapes? Is Blu-Ray just too expensive for these pee-ons to afford?

Does it come from a long-standing alliance with Microsoft? Let's remember that Microsoft backed the looser in the highdef war: HD-DVD.

Does it come from mis-predicting the outcome of the war? Let's remember CNET told us HD-DVD would win because of price advantages. This multi-component false prophecy yielded multiple black eyes. The entire basis was false. HD-DVD was never really cheaper than Blu-Ray... At least not during the war.

Does it come from the vast amount of traffic they get every time they publish one of these rants? It seems that each time one of these hit-pieces gets published, the item rises to the top of news.google.com. Remember this means page views and click-throughs. That adds up to dollars and cents.

Is it because John C. Dvorak no longer yields this sort of controversy and traffic with anti-Mac hit-pieces, and the revenues he once generated have to be replaced? Let's remember John C Dvorak now uses a Mac. {According to rumor he was offered a Dell or a Mac at his new place of work. The company John hates more than Apple is Dell, so he took the Mac.}

Could it be that they own stock in download firms?

Could it be that it is difficult to rip Blu-Rays and trade them on the Internet (although this is done on Bittorrent).

So just what is the substance of their argument and does it have any merit?

1. A year after HD-DVD died Blu-ray still isn't doing more volume than DVD.
2. Blu-ray players are not selling. (At least the ones that aren't PS3s aren't selling)
3. Blu-ray players are more expensive than upscaling DVD players.
4. Blu-Ray discs are more expensive than DVD disks.
5. Downloads will replace DVD. Blu-Ray will not replace DVD.
6. Apple isn't supporting Blu-Ray as they once said they would.
7. I can't rip my Blu-rays, and watch them on 2.5 inch portable LCD screen, as I can with DVD.

This, in short, is the full case they make against Blu-ray. Each time they post these 7 points, and they do so about twice a week, posters knock each other over to make the usual ripostes.

1. Two years into the format's life span Blu-Ray is way ahead of where DVD was in terms of acceptance.
2. PS3 constitutes 70% to 75% of the total installed base of all Blu-Ray players because it is the finest value in the land. It is the best damn media player in the world... for all types of media. Critics are foolish to expect inferior media players (which are often more expensive) to sell in the face of such tough competition. You cannot simply disregard the PS3 because it is not “A true Blu-Ray player” such an argument is utterly false, fallacious and preposterous.
3. Since Blu-Ray players offer 622% better resolution and quantum improvement in audio, we would expect them to be more expensive than upscaling DVD players. Surely you do not believe that much quality comes for free? Do you really expect a 0.0% difference in marginal price and profits?
4. Diddo for the disk. The disks are too expensive on average, but they are remarkably better.
5. Now we reach the absolute balderdash, poppycock and rubbish. How are we to disinfect the ignorant of their ignorance? It is clear to anyone who understands binary bandwidth issues that HDTV and broadband are a mismatch made in hell. The typical broadband connection carries approximately 2.5Mbits to your computer. The typical video image stream on Blu-Ray is approximately 24-35 Mbits. Let's call it 10x higher. That's just the video. Then you have the audio stream. For uncompressed PCM, that is another 4.6Mbits. For compressed, but lossless, DTS-HD MA, we're talking about 1.5 to 2.5Mbits. Remember, we're talking about 7.1 surround sound sample at 24 bits and 96Khz in a best case scenario. A typical Blu-ray movie occupies something like 17GB of space. You try downloading 17GB of anything and just see how long it takes. Now you can compress the hell out of the stream, but then you decimate the quality. You can reduce the resolution, but then you aren't offering HDTV. Some people protest that they are downloading their movies right now. I do solemnly assure you that if you are downloading it now, it certainly is not HD. Even the crap Apple is downloading to you is just 720p. What you see on Netflix is standard def 480p. No crap-hounds, I am sorry to inform you that the Blu-Ray spec was designed from scratch to be almost untouchable. Until the mode, mean and median bandwidth in this country hits a brick solid 40Mbits, you are not going to be able to offer a service that streams Blu-Ray quality video through the net. The consumer market just can't handle it. The business model is not workable. Some fools may try, but they will lose lots and lots of money. Certainly FIOS has the potential to yield Blu-Ray bandwidth. How soon will FIOS become ubiquitous? With the current recession, project 10 years. That is a nice, long happy life span for Blu-Ray to prosper and become the institutionalized standard. If media tech writers understood anything about binary bandwidth, they would not embarrass themselves by stating that downloads will supersede Blu-Ray.
6. So Apple is not supporting Blu-Ray as they said they would...? And...? Let us remember that Apple is a very little company after all. A lot of their Macs are being used to run Windows. That's how much market influence they have. Apple wants to sell you 720p movies through Apple TV, a product which is the biggest market failure they have offered in quite some time. Everybody who owns Apple stock knows that AppleTV is not doing well at all on the open market.
7. Point 7 utterly defies logic. Do you really think you can display 1920x1080 pixels on a 320x240 screen? What made you think that HDTV was made for 2.5inch LCD? Truly, some people do not understand the entire concept of HDTV.