Archive for the 'Film' Category

New DVDs

Published
by
DP
on January 16, 2006
in Film
. 0 Comments

So for Christmas — hold it. I must be watching too much Colbert Report, because every time I let it slip that I celebrate Christmas, I feel like I’m alienating prospective readers, or at the very least being politically incorrect. Anyway.

For Christmas I got several DVDs. More or less alphabetically: 8 Mile, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Batman Begins, Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and War of the Worlds.

Of all the extra DVD features, I’ve looked at two things: Episode III deleted scenes and a documentary on the new Batmobile.  Both of those movies are awesome, but I feel like the primary Batmobile sequence didn’t grab me like it did in the theater.  Maybe it’s the newness when you see a movie for the first time.  I still cringed when Anakin turned to the Dark Side, but this time I knew how he was going to do it.  I still enjoy all the parts of War of the Worlds, but it’s still missing a climax.  At least when I watch it in my apartment or my parents’ house there isn’t a lady with her three noisy kids sitting 4 seats away.  (I shushed them, FYI.)

I think out of them all I want to dig deeper into the Batman stuff.  Star Wars is great, but I’ve been watching making ofs of that for six years now.  Yoda looks better now than ever, by the way.

Batman Begins and War of the Worlds

Published
by
DP
on July 1, 2005
in Film
. 0 Comments

Within the last four days, I saw both War of the Worlds and Batman Begins with Steph. Four words.

Batman. Begins. Was. Awesome.

Now I’m not gonna rip on War of the Worlds (necessarily). It was good. But I just didn’t think it was great. For one, I think it was missing basic plot elements, like a climax.

Batman Begins, however … I loved it. Halfway through the movie, I was watching one particularly good sequence, thinking, “This movie is awesome.”

The sequence I speak of was when Batman was driving the batmobile (with a passenger) back to the batcave, and he had to go through a tunnel. The sequence through the tunnel … made me want to play the tunnel level in Halo 2. I have never before watched a scene in a movie that made me want to play a video game. One sequence in Batman Begins made me want to play one level in Halo 2. All I can say is … awesome.

I actually have no complaints about Batman Begins. I have questions about the ending, which I believe was the filmmakers’ intent. I don’t want to spoil it, which may lead me to create a Batman Begins discussion page on par with my Star Wars discussion page. (I may do the same for War of the Worlds, but for fewer reasons and with less enthusiasm.)

So … if you’ve seen Batman Begins, go see War of the Worlds. If you’re choosing between the two … go see Batman Begins.

I’m going to lightsaber your ass like General Grievous

Published
by
DP
on May 25, 2005
in Film
. 0 Comments

I just set up a Star Wars Discussion page.

As I explain on that page, I’ve discussed Episode III with Steph, Brown, and the old man. But way back in the summer of 2001, Smiz had the WCIFT forums up, and Morash and I discussed several films over that forum, including American Pie 2 and Planet of the Apes.

I’d like the Star Wars page to use a threaded comment structure. I found a plugin for it , but I want to maintain the traditional, nonthreaded structure for the majority of DP.com, and that plugin implements the change system wide (from what I can tell). Maybe someone knows of a method to implement it on a case-by-case basis.

Anyway, check it out or Brown will come and get you.

Episode III

Published
by
DP
on May 19, 2005
in Film
. 0 Comments

Last night Steph and I went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at the midnight Wednesday (first) show.

There were a lot of dorks. The theater was packed. We got there around 10:45 and the theater looked to be half full by then. And it was showing on two screens. There were a lot of lightsabers. There were also a few people in Jedi robes, one guy with a Vader mask. No stormtroopers.

The row in front of us was filled entirely with one group of high school kids that knew each other, and they had one more person than seats. You’d think they were in a foreign country the way they didn’t know what to do.

Once the movie started, there was a lot of clapping. People clapped for A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … People clapped for the yellow-outlined Star Wars logo. There was applause for when the yellow introduction text scrolled up and away from the audience, but it quickly died as hundreds of dorks with glasses leaned forward to read everything, and to see over the head of the person in front of them becaues they were doing the same thing.

People clapped when they saw wookies. They clapped when Yoda did anything. I’d say everyone in the theater missed three lines of dialogue due to applause, but I don’t think that they were crucial lines.

The movie. Before I discuss any specifics or details, let me just say that the entire time I was awake in bed both before I fell asleep last night and after I woke up today, all I could think about was Episode III. And it’s not like I was making an effort, either. I just keep thinking about it. And now that all the films are done, there is no more, “I wonder if” or “I wonder how.” Now there is stuff like, “So in Episode IV, when Obi-Wan says …” Also, the movie clocked in at 2:10 or 2:20. There was a lot to see, and a lot to take in. I’ll admit that toward the end, my butt was getting uncomfortable in my seat. But at that point in the film, I don’t feel that there was a lot of boring exposition, and I was genuinely interested in how everything played out.

It’s rated PG-13. I noticed right away that the actual physical lighting was darker, and that stayed true throughout. There is definitely stuff in there that is more frightening and intense than in the other five films.

Did I say specifics and details? Maybe I’ll save them.

Matrix Reloaded and TechTV

Published
by
DP
on June 5, 2003
in Film and Television
. 0 Comments

Geek post today. I came across two short articles at Cnet News.com today.

The first article is about The Matrix Reloaded. In the film, Trinity hacks into a Unix machine with actual open source programs rather than with cheesy visual effects often used in film. The cool part is, the haXXor who wrote one of the programs didn’t know his work was going to be used until he saw the film in a theater. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you wrote a program and it showed up in a Matrix movie?

The next article was about TechTV. It says that the channel reaches 40 million homes, but only about 40,000 people watch it every day. Forty thousand? During my senior year of college I watched Call for Help almost every weekday. Morash would often watch it with me … I know Smiz likes it. So that’s three. There’s got to be about 1,000 people who go to RIT who watch it every day. At least. Then there’s the cast and crew … that’s gotta be another hundred. Then there’s all their parents. That’s like another 200. I’m already up to 1,300. How many people go to RPI? Ten thousand? Well there’s another 10,000. So that’s 11,300 people. And that’s only a couple people in New York and California. If I were to keep this up I’m sure I could get to a million daily viewers.