Yes, I think it’s true. HD-DVD, my friends, is dead, or at least in the last of its death throes. Being an early adopter, I went out a few months ago and picked up a HD-DVD player, thinking that at the bare minimum both formats would exist for a year or more. It turns out my timing was rather poor.
A few of the major studios moved from HD-DVD to BluRay last month, and the move was so dramatic that the HD-DVD guys cancelled their talks at the CES show in Vegas (which actually probably did the most harm to their effort). Reuter’s is reporting that HD-DVD is basically dead, and a leak from WalMart ...
There are a bunch of guys over at my place right now, messing around with blogs, media, podcasts, and of course, beer. Right now it’s John Bollwitt, John Biehler, and Boris Mann is downstairs with the next shipment of beer. I’ll update this as the day/night goes on.
We all have a few projects we want to do. I’m currently moving all my websites over to Media Temple, which is basically easy but requires a bunch of grunt work to pull off. After that I’m going to attempt to make really awesome movie/mp3 player for WordPress.
John Bollwitt making scrambled eggs, photo by John Biehler
Wow, ...
Tonight I ended up down at the Paramount theatre in Vancouver for a premiere of Cloverfield. For those of you who keep up with such things, Cloverfield has been somewhat of a mystery, relying mainly on word of mouth and a few minutes of raw footage released as a trailer for promotional means.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Going into the movie, I basically expected something similar to the Blair Witch Project, and for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Granted there are a few more effects in this movie, and it is set in the heart of Manhattan, but for the most part it’s just the regurgitation ...
Photo by miss604Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I’m heading out to watch this tonight with Rebecca, John and John. Rebecca had tickets to the Vancouver premiere and invited me along, which is totally exciting. I’m going on the record as saying I’m pretty sure this is going to suck (the trailer reminds me of a techy Blair Witch Project), but it’ll be a fun suck with a bunch of friends. That sounds dirty, I know.
Check out the trailer below:
I’m pretty sure the entire budget for the film went into the funky Independence-Day-looking poster, just to attract more people. ...
I have attended a few photowalks in the last year, most of which have been in or around the Gastown area. These events have typically brought together anywhere from 5 to 50 people, and have usually involved people walking around and snapping shots for an hour or two. They are a lot of fun, and always a great chance for people to improve their skills or just get out and stretch their wings a bit.
I’m organizing one down in my neck of the woods for this Sunday. It will be mostly along the beach, eventually ending up near English Bay and the famous Inukshuk. Hopefully we’ll even manage to catch ...
About four years ago, the push for new television technologies first emerged, supported primarily by advances in LCD and plasma technology. Many of these new televisions supported high definition (HD) content, at least in the traditional 720p variety.
While Europe is ahead of North America in this regard, we have slowly been migrating most of our North American television services to digital, and in most cases, HD. I believe the US has a target date of around 2013 to be completely digital.
HD content looks, quite simply, amazing. Which is why Hollywood has spent the last few years humming and ...
7:36pm – So John and Brennen just arrived for the Friday night nerd-a-thon. We’re debating what movies to watch right now while waiting for pizza to arrive. We have a big list of geeky movies here, some of which are on HD-DVD. Right now the short runners are:
The Matrix in HD
Dark City
Gladiator
Desperado
Heat
Ocean’s Thirteen in HD
So we’ll see how it goes. Jeff will probably show up in a bit, and I’m not sure who else. I’m guessing The Matrix will be first just to kick everything off with a bag of kick-ass. My copy of Dark City has seen better days, so I’m trying to rip it to ...
Surprisingly, I have never seen this before.. It’s an old opening scene from Star Wars: A New Hope. I thought it was a complete fake at first, but it looks like it was real footage that was intended to be included at one point.
What’s weird is that it’s sort of processed and seems to have been scored, which is unusual for anything that hits the cutting room floor. Possibly some fan added some Star Wars music to those scenes, but the music fits rather nicely which sort of makes me think it was in the movie up until the last minute.
I’m having a small HD-DVD movie marathon at my pad tomorrow. ...
2007 is officially in the past now, and today was basically the start of a whole new year, at least in terms of my routine again. I spent the day at work today getting back into the groove again. Tomorrow I will most likely dive head-first into a fairly large new project, which should be pretty exciting.
I still have some unpacking to do from my trip, and will most likely take the tree and decorations down this coming weekend. At that point, the holidays will be completely behind me. I think tomorrow Dustin and I are going to get together and hang out for a bit, and this weekend there will probably ...
I read a few articles last night on what 2008 holds in terms of new movies. Most of the list was fairly yawn-inducing for me (even though they author was clearly excited about them), but a few stood out. The movie 21, for example, about six MIT students who battled Vegas, seems fairly cool, even though I’m sure they’ve completed deviated from the real story.
21 trailer
Uploaded by mamouang
Check it out. Also on the list was the new Star Trek movie, which is essentially a prequel for the original series. To be honest, I have a hard time thinking that one is really going to fly. I’ll be down ...
This is hot off the presses.
Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have reached agreement to make J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” a planned prequel to the blockbuster trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.”
Peter Jackson is set to oversee the film adaptation of “The Hobbit.”
Jackson, who directed the “Rings” trilogy, will serve as executive producer for “The Hobbit.” A director for the prequel films has yet to be named.
Relations between Jackson and New Line had soured after “Rings,” despite a collective worldwide box office gross of nearly $3 billion — an enormous success. The ...
I hung out with some of my old high school friends tonight at a little Christmas dinner, and a few people brought up my recent blog posts about favourite movies scenes. We immediately launched into a big discussion about which other scenes were pretty awesome from our childhood memories, and I think we ended up with a list of about 20 or 30.
First movie we talked about was one Brennen and I totally loved years ago: Tombstone. Here’s is the scene where Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday have their final battle. Obvious spoilers ahead.
I’m your huckleberry. ...
Heat is a totally awesome movie starring both Al Pacino and Robert Deniro. There are many classic scenes in it, but one that stands out is the coffee shop banter between Pacino and Deniro where we learn a pile about both characters. This type of scene has been used in countless movies since then, but they all basically pay homage to this part.
Why I think it’s so fascinating is that both characters open up to each other and somehow relate, even though they are basically enemies by trade. And let’s be honest, Deniro and Pacino both kick ass. ...
Easily one of my top ten films ever (well maybe top 20) is the rare gem that is Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous.” If you haven’t seen it, you should immediately head out to the movie store and rent it. It’s full of touching moments, laughter, self discovery and even a dash of romance.
Not only is the writing and story telling superb, but the photography and cinematography are both outstanding. I’ll post a few scenes here I really like (obvious spoilers).
The scene on the bus after the Golden God bit is also classic:
It’s all happening folks. ...
There are so many incredible scenes in The Lord Of The Rings, it’s really difficult to single any of them out. The books were pretty influential in my early childhood, as well as shaping some of my literary and cinematic preferences in my teens. I am totally a LOTR geek, and even wore a little ring around my neck for a few months after reading the series for the first time. Actually, the first thing you see when you walk in the door at my Vancouver apartment is a framed poster of Aragorn from The Return of the King (so cool, I know).
When the movies came out, I was totally excited, and ended ...
No, the number 1 doesn’t mean this is my all time favourite movie scene, because I plan to post a lot of these over the next few weeks, and I haven’t even thought about ranking them yet. However, I’ve always really liked this one scene. I could care less if you hate Tom Cruise or think his religion is bogus (even though it is) — this scene is pretty high up there in terms of cinematic perfection in my mind.
As a whole, Vanilla Sky wasn’t that great, but this last scene, with the music, the wisps of romance, the vibrant vanilla sky, the New York landscape, and the thought of what it must ...
The original Star Wars Trilogy really needs no introduction, so I won’t really say much about it except that it totally kicked ass, as would any trilogy involving a bad guy voiced by James Earl Jones.
This scene is a classic battle scene involving Luke and Darth Vadar, where of course Luke loses his hand at the end and ultimately learns who his real father is. And seriously, pretty much every kid who ever watches this scene spends the rest of their lives making lightsaber noises whenever they swing anything. Hell, I even hold out my hand when I approach automatic doors and pretend I’m using ...
Last night, out of sheer boredom, I drove down to Future Shop and picked up Season one of Heroes, on HD-DVD.
Rebecca and John have been recommending this series to me, so I figured I would just go along with their word of mouth and pick it up.
I’m about half way through season one already, and so far I think it’s pretty good. A few of the characters I find a bit annoying, but the Tokyo guy who can bend space and time is always entertaining, as well as the guy who can read minds. I’m anxiously awaiting the Heroes to step up and start being cool, but maybe that’s what season two is all ...
One of my favourite movies of all time is a science fiction flick called “Dark City.” Brennen and Jeff took me to it at the UBC theatre years ago, and we were all blown away. Surprisingly, not many people have watched it or even heard of it. When it came out, Roger Ebert took notice and gave it four stars, even going on to compare it to Pulp Fiction in terms of its cinematic perfection.
If you haven’t seen it, I strongly suggest that you check it out. The row boat scene near the end is one of my favourite all time scenes in any movie I’ve watched (along the lines of the DeNiro – Pacino ...