Category: Entertainment

The Watchmen was an absolutely superb 12-part comic book series that ran from 1986 to 1987, and I had no idea they were making it into a movie until I was in the movie theatres watching The Dark Knight and the trailer came on. The trailer gave me shivers – the cinematography is breathtaking, and the music they picked (Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins) sent shivers up my spine. No surprises there: it’s from the director of 300. The comic book series was a wild, sprawling tale that had great depth, so I’m really interested to see if they can condense it into a two-hour movie and have it still make sense.

There’s not much up at the official movie site, but they do offer HD downloads of the trailer. I downloaded the 1080p WMV trailer, put it on my Windows Home Server, and played it back on my Xbox 360 attached to my TV. One word: wow. It looked fantastic! There’s also a 720p trailer if your computer chokes on the 1080p.

Now this is a great movie. Released in 2004, it’s perhaps my favourite Denzel Washington movie (Glory is right up there with it). Great action, believable acting, and a storyline that centres on the very un-Hollywood concept of sacrifice. Well worth watching!

I’m a comic book geek, and few things get my blood pumping faster than seeing characters bought to life that I’ve envisioned in my head for years. Iron Man, being released on May 2nd, looks amazing…I sure hope the movie lives up to the coolness factor that the trailer is generating!

The new trailer looks so cool! It’s under VIDEO > TRAILER. I dig the Chris Cornell tune they use in the trailer – hopefully it’s in the movie as well…

When I watch a movie, the single biggest thing I look for is impact. If it’s a comedy, does it make me laugh? If it’s a documentary, does it make me think, and perhaps change my viewpoint on something? If it’s an action movie, does it make my pulse quicken? If it’s a thriller, does it make me nervous and jumpy?

I Am Legend, starring Will Smith, is an action/thriller/horror hybrid that does the job quite nicely. I won’t ruin it for anyone, but the basic premise that the trailer reveals is that Will Smith’s character is the last human left on Manhattan Island, his only companion is his dog, and he has to find the cure to something…something that, when night comes, causes very bad things to happen.

Maybe it’s because Ashley and I went to a late afternoon matinée, so when we left the movie theatre it the sun was setting, or maybe it was because I was dropping Ashley off at her parent’s house and I was going home along to a house with only my dog…but I sure felt jumpy on the way home and for a while afterwards! The movie really got under my skin, but in a good, entertaining way. Will Smith pulls off the nearly impossible feat of not being boring when pretty much the only thing the camera focuses on for the bulk of the movie is him. About the only negative thing I have to say about it is that the CGI “creatures” didn’t look all that believable, but not comically so. It’s still a gripping, tense movie – a movie worth watching. [Web site / HD trailers]

Tonight I saw The Kingdom, and it’s a fantastic movie – given the current world climate, it’s highly relevant to everyone. The first couple of minutes give a great summary of the history of Saudi Arabia, oil, and its link to the United States of America. The story in The Kingdom is solid, the acting is great, and the cinematography is excellent – many times throughout the movie it felt like I was watching a documentary. The gun fights and explosions looked particularly realistic – everything was simply brutal. The last 30 minutes of the movie was being billed as “can’t miss” and it’s not an exaggeration – the pacing is relentless and refuses to let go until it winds down. The ending isn’t your typical “rah-rah America!” ending either – I won’t ruin it for you, but it paints a very realistic picture of how the cycle of violence is perpetuated.

Ashley and I had an interesting conversation on the way home about what it will take for the violence in the middle east to finally come to and end – and neither one of us was able to come up with a solution. That’s not surprising mind you, as many greater minds than ours have tackled this issue, but it’s always good to ponder such things. How do you break the cycle of violence? When it involves one person against another, death or prison tend to be the cycle-ending points. When it involves people of a certain belief system that number in the tens of thousands or millions, ending the cycle is much harder. The Kingdom is a movie worth watching – it might not help end the cycle of violence, but it gives us a glimpse into why the cycle keeps churning. And perhaps, armed with a bit of understanding, we can inch forward toward a solution.

I’m probably the only self-confessed comic-book geek on the planet that missed a big, mainstream super-hero show like Heroes. When season one started last year, the TV tuner in my Windows Media Center PC didn’t record the first few episodes properly, so I gave up on the series and figured I’d pick it up on DVD before season two started. I have to say, it’s a great TV series – Ashley and I are really enjoying it. As I tell anyone who’s sceptical about watching Battle Gallactica, good drama is good drama, regardless of the setting. Great characters and a gripping storyline can exist anywhere, whether it’s in space or in Las Vegas. Heroes is a highly-serialized show where almost every episode is tightly strung together in a “To Be Continued” fashion. Like 24, once you start watching it’s hard to stop. And the HD-DVD version looks pretty damn good – though my digital-noise-sensitive eyes have noticed a few screwy things here and there.

If you haven’t watched Heroes season one, you should rent it before season two starts in a few weeks. 😉

300 was one of the most anticipated “must see” movies on my mental list, but it took three attempts at going to the movie theatre before I finally saw this movie. My jaw was on the floor much of the time. So much has been said about the movie, I won’t repeat it all here, but if you’re the kind of person who’s heart starts pumping when the action starts, this is a movie for you. There are movies that re-define genres, and in the same way that The Matrix re-defined the cyberpunk action movie, 300 sets a new high bar for old school, hand to hand combat movies. The plot, while not thin, isn’t overly complicated either. There are no real surprises here, though all parts are acted out ably enough. The real gem in this movie is the cinematography, special effects, and choreographed fight sequences. It looks like the graphic novel is was pulled from. The movie has the touch of true mastery, where nothing is out of place and everything is executed with a perfect clarity of vision that is lacking from so many movies. I don’t say this often, but I may very well go see this again in the theatres, and will certainly be picking it up on (hopefully) HD-DVD when it is released.

A couple of months before Christmas, Ashley and I were watching season six of Star Trek: Voyager. We were on disc six, and took it downstairs to my office to watch an episode there (I think I was re-formatting a PC and needed to baby-sit the OS install). When we were finished watching the first episode on the disc, we removed the DVD and it stayed downstairs. A few days later when we wanted to watch the next episode, we went looking for the DVD and couldn’t find it anywhere. My office is already fairly well-organized, so it was baffling that the DVD went missing. Over the next week Ashley and I searched the house, and could find no trace of the DVD anywhere.

I turned to Google and searched for any information on what the procedure was for getting one DVD replaced – I couldn’t find anything, but it seemed ridiculous that I’d have to buy a whole new box set for one DVD. Giving up on that approach, I then tried to contact Paramount Home Pictures directly. The box sets themselves are no help, offering no contact information, so I found a phone number on Google (the number I ended up calling was 1-323-956-3010). I can’t remember exactly what department I got transferred to, but I believe I got the operator and asked to be transferred to someone that could help me replace a lost DVD. I left a voice mail on the system I was transferred to, and after more than two months passed without hearing back, I had given up on having it replaced. Then, much to my surprised, I received a phone call from a woman from Paramount Home Pictures on Friday. When I explained what I was looking for, she took my address and said she’d send me the DVD I was missing, free of charge. I was quite surprised that it would be free, so I asked her if they sent it out for free because it was so hard to get in touch with the right person – she laughed and said “Pretty much.”

I haven’t received the DVD yet of course, but I’m fairly confident I’ll see it before the end of the month. While I wish Paramount would have some process in place for the replacement of a lost DVD from a box set (Star Trek or not), it’s good to know that if you find the right person to talk to, they’re willing to help. I’m hopeful that this blog entry will show up in the search engines if anyone is looking for the same solution I was. Live long and prosper. 😉

Last night Ashley and I watched this movie, and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect – I never saw it in theatres, and didn’t recall much about it. Originally a comic book series by Alan Moore (now collected as a graphic novel), the Wachowski brothers (of The Matrix fame) adapted the comic into a screenplay, and the movie was directed by James McTeigue (who was an assistant director on two Matrix films). Starring Natalie Portman as Evey Hammond, Hugo Weaving as V, Stephen Rea as Inspector Finch, and John Hurt Chancellor Sutler, V for Vendetta is a gripping movie with significant political ideas that are very relavent in our current times. I didn’t know who was in the cast other than Natalie Portman, so when watching the film I kept trying to place V’s voice – which had tremendous character and power – but couldn’t. It wasn’t until the last 20 minutes of the movie, when V gives a particular speech that falls into a more drawn-out delivery of vowels (Mr. Aaaaanderson), that I figured out it was Hugo Weaving behind the mask. He does a superb job of delivering emotion without relying on facial expressions, a feat not many actors can achieve. Natalie Portman does a credible job as well, though I never quite believed her British accent. The cinemetography was superb, the music was excellent, and the action scenes were gripping.

This is definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen in some time (Ashley concurs) – and, interestingly enough, the HD-DVD version is $3 less expensive than the standard DVD version on Amazon.ca right now. Unfortunately we watched this in standard definition, but I’ve added the HD-DVD version to my wishlist and my second viewing will definitely be in HD-DVD!