Ogwaros Iwenâl

I bought a new computer with a Bluray drive on Saturday.  By Sunday, I was ruined on DVDs.

I wasn’t too impressed at first.  The first thing I popped in was Stargate Continuum.  Overall, not too shabby looking, a definite improvement over DVD.  But I wasn’t wowed at all.  In particular, the all CGI shots of the Goa’uld motherships in space had enormous amounts of noise in them.  Didn’t really make any sense to me.  The live action shots looked fine and, occasionally, really good.

Then I watched Gattaca.  I had only ever seen it on cable before, so the added resolution brought out new details I couldn’t see before.  But they only put so much effort into restoration effort.

Batman Begins was next, and it looked shockingly good.  Of course, it has the luxury of having been filmed fairly recently and of being a big-name title.  So of course it looks great.  And then I noticed they included the opening bank robbery scene from The Dark Knight as a bonus.

…

Absolutely gorgeous.  Unbelievably gorgeous.  Not a hint of noise, not a hint of film grain.  Stunning.  Insert more adjectives here.  If the full release of the Dark Knight can hold up to that image quality… wow.

The menu systems Bluray uses are also a lot more fluid than DVD.  I don’t really care if I can access it while the movie continues to play, but not having to put up with transitions and loading times every time you want to use the menu is definitely a bonus…

Now if the movie companies could release some more worthwhile content.  And no, Jumper and Under Siege 2 do not count.

It’s no secret that I hold a great love for lame completely awesome 80s and early 90s movies.  Goonies, Short Circuit, you name it.  Particularly the Gremlins series.

So imagine my joy when I came across this video of Gremlins spliced into other movies.  Done in the style of the Gremlins 2 joke cut away sequence no less.

1408 understands the idea behind the Silent Hill series far better than the Silent Hill movie did: a malevolent presence, represented as a place, feeding off the psyche of its victims.  1408’s greatest strength is the build up - Samuel L. Jackson is nice as the hotel manager, for what little of the movie he is in.  And the very slow burn of things going wrong within the room keeps things nice and tense without resorting to sting scares.  The room has this devious habit of giving the victim exactly what they want and then ripping it right out from their arms.  It’s sort of like the bad endings to the Silent Hill games - the victim doesn’t find redemption or penance for their past misdeeds, only sorrow and death.

Contrast this with the Silent Hill movie.  There were scenes that were done right (the bathroom scene) but for the most part any sort of psychological terror is thrown out the window.  It’s all about the monsters out to get our hero, be they otherworldly or stupid cultists.  Really disappointing overall.

Unfortunately, though, 1408 goes off the rails about halfway in and never gets back on track.  In the end, the “evil fucking room” is just that.  Early on it’s ambiguous if any of what is going on is actually real.  Towards the end, it starts interacting with the real world, making it clear that this is just another run-of-the-mill poltergeist horror film.

Not recommended.

Take my love, take my land,
Take my $90 at the TV stand.
I don’t care, I’m now free
To watch Firefly in HD

Seems quite steep, no matter how worthwhile the content may be. $90 for 14 episodes? Not even Paramount was crazy enough to try that with Star Trek.

(Except, you know, the original individual releases which were $15-$25 for two episodes.)

Still, I really want this set. Just will have to wait for it to come down to a more reasonable price. Oh, and getting a Bluray player might be helpful too…

WANT!

You think you’ve seen everything on the internet and then something like Limbo of the Lost comes along.  It’s not the overall crappiness of the game, or even that they stole assets to create the game.  It’s the sheer audacity and scale of the theft.  12 separate games (and counting!) that were cannibalized to create this magnificent failure.

I’d buy the game but that would be supporting theft.  I’d pirate the game but that would be theft.  In all likelihood even if I did get a copy (through whatever channel) I wouldn’t want to punish myself by sitting through it.  Just try sitting through the trailer.

The Humans Are Dead - Flight of the Conchords

We no longer say “yes,” we say “affirmative.”

Yes, affirmative.

Slays me everytime.

Memory is a funny thing.  I’d be lucky if I could tell you what I was doing 4 hours ago.  However, while watching Monster Squad last night, I could remember over 80% of the exact details, scene by scene.

A silly movie I saw exactly one time as a kid.  And I could remember it all so lucidly.  And about 5 minutes ago I came to the site to write this post and forgot what I was doing.

So stupid.

That makes me a sad panda.

Seriously, having my home page for, what, 9 - 10 years being offered up as sacrifice to the Void is quite unsettling. Not even a clue as to what has happened. I’m going to have to guess that it was hacked into oblivion and there were no backups.

It was a tight-knit community, small and sadly growing smaller each day.  It was home.  And for the moment it seems to be gone.  And no, watching B5 episodes on Hulu is no substitute for talking to Ranger, Ethne and all the rest.

Sigh.

Wherein we learn Ben is actually human. Maybe.  Spoilers behind the cut.

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