Author: Mike P. Lewis

Hi-Def DVD's – Hate to Love Them

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The DVD world has done a super-duper “bait and switch” on me. It sucks. When I thought I was purchasing my final definitive copy of Braveheart for the rest of my life, i was dead wrong.

The studios have been working on Hi-Definition DVD’s for the past 5 years and they are finally here. They look great and it sucks. I have a very large DVD library (as do many) and was pretty happy with it. Now, I realize that my DVD’s our inferior and especially for my favorite DVD’s, i’m going to have to update/replace them so I can have the best, most beautiful version of these classics. Who wants to see Lane Meyer take the K12 down in lame Enhanced-Def which is what DVD’s are now? Not me. I need to see every possibly pixel of his $2-oweing ass.

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Today marks the day when my old babies are officially out of date as Sony announced the first 7 DVD’s to come in the new High-def format. Of course, the old battle that raged in the 80’s of Beta vs. VHS is back in the form of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. They represent 2 different formats that are essentially the same thing: a DVD in Hi-Def quality. The reason for the battle is that whoever owns the format makes a lot of of money. The movie studio Warner Bros. owned many of the patents and technologies around today’s lame-version DVD’s and I read that they make roughly $1 Billion a year on the royalties. So, not wanting to miss out on the next round of DVD’s – many companies are competing to own the next DVD format.

Both are basically the same but the supporting cast is different. Blu-Ray is a format created by Sony and is backed by Apple, MGM, and Disney. And, HD-DVD is a format created by WB and Toshiba and is now backed by Microsoft NEC, and Intel. Note: Blu-ray refers to the type of “laser beam” used to read the DVD. Of course HD-DVD’s also use a blue ray but they thought they’d use the super sexy “HD-DVD” name instead.

Who will win? Well, my theory is that Blu-Ray will be the victor simply because of the Playstation 3. The initial players are going to be very pricey and most people will be hesitant to purchase one as who wants to own a player for the losing format. However, the PS3 will also be a Blu-Ray player so immediately there will be over 10 million people with a blu-ray player in their home. If Microsoft has used HD-DVD in the XBox 360, it would have been a better fight but they couldn’t wait for it to be ready and botched HD-DVD’s chances.

Oh well, i guess we’ll just have to wait and see. What do you think?

Google Spreadsheet Coming

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As i've stated before, i really believe that Google's looking to offer their own browser-based PC (past article here).  And, to strengthen their browser suite, they announced today that they'll be launching a browser-based spreadsheet application

I for one, couldn't be happier about this.  Quite often i've emailed around a spreadsheet for comments and discussion. To be able to share and solicit comments on it is a great thing.  Let's just hope it delivers.

X3: Cool, But Doesn't Deliver

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x-men-26.jpgI just finished seeing the latest X-Men men movie, X3: United. My take: the super mutants didn’t make a super movie but on the flip side, a pretty lame director didn’t make a lame movie. X3 is alright and i give it a 7.5 out of 10.

My main complaint of the movie is its failure to do more with the plot. After the movie is finished you notice while almost all the scenes are cool, they never really deliver. It took me a while to figure out why this is. I believe this is largely due to the fact that the plot isn’t pushed or really developed. Any good comic or writer knows there are 3 parts to every good joke or story: 1) the premise, 2) examples, 3) the punchline or finale. The punchline is usually key to wrap up a joke or story and make it all work – and this is what separates merely clever people and uber-funny folks. A punchline can deliver by taking the premise to the next level or a totally different and unthinkable directions or by simply exploring/deconstructing the premise with some new facts or new perspective. Some examples:

Caddyshackcaddy_danny.jpg

  • Premise: odd goofball golfers have fun on the course and local caddy Danny mingles with upperclass and worries about his uncertain future
  • Examples: golfing events, pool party.
  • Punchline: A hysterical battle between goofballs and straight golfers where the entire course is blown up and destroyed, which also determines the future for young Danny boy.

Jawsjaws_fl.jpg

  • Premise: big-ass shark is discovered and terrorizes a small east coast sea town
  • Examples: woman gets eaten, families on the beach are scared over Memorial Day, big shark teeth are found
  • Punchline: Two guys track and actually find the shark, battle it, have their entire boat demolished in the struggle while managing to kill it in dramatic mano a mano final moment.

Compared to other films, X3 has a great premise and the examples of it are pretty frickin’ awesome, but you’ll see it all falls apart on the punchline…

  • Premise: There’s a mutant cure developed by humans who are weaponizing it to wipe out the mutant race. The mutants can react diplomatically or violently. Parallels between curing mutants and modern-day homosexuality are lightly drawn. Also, there’s a schizo mutant who’s also the most powerful who threatens to do bad things – either destroy the world or kill everyone (nobody really knows)
  • Examples: Some mutants are “cured” by humans. Schizo mutant kills some of the main characters.
  • Punchline: battle between mutants and humans is interrupted by good mutants who stop it by “curing” some bad mutants. Schizo mutant starts mis-behaving is killed.

As you can see, this punchline does nothing to address the actual premise. The concept of what to do with the “cure” isn’t addressed in the finish. The battle doesn’t solve anything or isn’t even between two ideologies. One could argue that the final battle was whether there should be a cure offered to people. Of which you could say that the movie answers “yes, there should” but nowhere in the movie was it revealed that the good X-Men (Wolverine and company) actually cared about that fact. And to make it even more shallow, Jean Grey’s power is never fully explained or realized or solved in an interesting way.

So, all in all, a good flick but no way is it a classic.x3.jpg

Some other thoughts… Why is every mutant American (or even Canadian)? What about other countries, do they have mutants?

Also, imagine an Iranian or Iraqi or some middle eastern mutant who was both extremely powerful (on par with Magneto and Xavier) and a political terrorist for his nation – and he/she started committing acts of violence on the US citizens. Would the good X-Men protect the US? I have to imagine they would. Would then the X-Men be the sort of mutant army wing of the US government? If that was the case, would each nation have a stable of mutants protecting their country in case other nations used mutants in their army? Now, here’s a premise for a movie. Exploring the loyalties of a mutant is interesting. Are these people first American, and then mutants – protecting first the country and then their mutant race? Or, do they identify themselves as mutants who happen to be American? What if mutant terrorists were being hunted down – would good mutants have sympathy for them? Thoughts?

 

CD Baby's Hilarious Shipping Message

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I just ordered a new CD from CD Baby (Matty Charles – a very chill country band from Brooklyn) and as with any company, i got a nice message that they have shipped my CD. Check this out….

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Thursday, May 25th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369 email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
http://cdbaby.com

Awesome

The Biggest and Baddest Bear Ever

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Here’s a great story I read a few years ago that i thought i’d share with y’all:

The following picture is of a guy who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear. He was out deer hunting about a year ago when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy unloaded his 7mm mag semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head.

The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12′ 6″ high at the shoulder, 14′ to the top of his head. It’s the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.

Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep the big guy as a trophy. Instead, the bear was stuffed, mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport (to remind tourist’s of the risks involved when in the wild).

Based on the contents of the bear’s stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours. His last meal was the unlucky nature buff (picture is here if you have the stomach). The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker’s 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol were the remains of the hiker. The other body has not been found. Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (they ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear’s dead body) it only wounded the bear – and probably angered it. The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear’s own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker.

Think about this. If you are an average size man; you would be level with the bear’s belly button when he stood upright, the bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

Update: I just posted another cool story about a bear on my blog here

Fight Club Revisited

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fight_club.jpgI read about some people recently discussing Fight Club (here) which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I'd like to take a moment to discuss some of items currently brewing around the classic….

  • First, The are creating a musical on Fight Club. Yes, you read that correctly – a musical, as in Broadway. When did they start making musicals based on successful movies? I saw that there's a musical for The Wedding Singer – wft? Apparently David Fincher and Trent Reznor (from Nine Inch Nails) are involved in the project to direct and create the music. (Playbill News, BBC)
  • There a great site here which talk about Calvin and Hobbes relates to Fight Club. Apparently Hobbes is reborn as Tyler (Brad Pitt) to rescue Jack which is a grown-up Calvin (played by Edward Norton). Some good points:
    • Hobbes, like Tyler, are completely imaginary to Calvin/Jack/Norton
    • Similar to 7th grade, Calvin in the movie encounters real life which is threatening and forces him to abandon
    • A passage:
      • Calvin has always idolized Hobbes. In Weirdos From Anotherfightclub_photo2.jpg Planet, he dresses up like a tiger and attempts to live in the woods. Like Hobbes, Tyler is cool, collected, and incredibly cerebral. Given this evidence, one can conclude that Tyler is Hobbes, reincarnated after being trapped inside Calvin/Jack’s brain for so many years. Just as Calvin is Jack, Hobbes is Tyler.
    • Marla Singer is the avatar of Susie. Similar to the reason Calvin hates Susie – she advocates everything he is not and embarrasses all that he can't – Jack loathes Marla.
    • And many more….worth a read. It makes me miss college where these kind of thoughts are actually encouraged.
  • It's interesting to read the script for Fight Club (here) and see line for line how the movie comes to life through Norton and Pitt. Say what you want about them (Norton's latest Down in the Valley sucks and Pitt's gone off the deep end with Angelina, but then again, who wouldn't), but they rocked this movie.

Google PC, Continued

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A few weeks ago i posted about the liklihood of a Google PC of of their browser-centric focus and the cost of PCs. Well, i have discovered a few more items since then.

  1. 1. Check out this $100 PC. This is just like what i described previously. All flash, all browser. The PC is sponsored by MIT Media Labs and developed by a non-profit who's using them for educational purposes. (link)Blue-front.jpg
    • The specs for the machine are: The machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports.
    • The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able toLaptop-crank.jpg talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data. (specs link here)
  2. I discovered many more Google apps. Let me list them:
    1. *NEW* – Google Notebook.  A notepad that stays in your browser that lets you keep notes and track other web stuff.  Pretty neat.
    2. Google Mail
    3. Google Calendar
    4. Writely
    5. Picassa – sophisticated photo editor
    6. Talk – phone
    7. WiMax

What am i missing? 

New Summer Movie Schedule

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I'm updating the summer movie schedule. Kevin Smith has a very funny quote on his blog (no-joke) about why he's moving Clerks II up:

In a ballsy move that says “Fuck you: we’re a five million dollar flick and we’re coming out in the fucking middle of the summer, bitches!”

So, the schedule is now:

  • May 19: Da Vinci Code
    • Up in the air. Tom Hanks was a bad choice and i don't think they can wedge all the cool code cracking stuff into 2 hours. But Ron Howard is usually pretty awesome so we'll see.
    • Also coming out is Over the Hedge which looks pretty funny.
  • May 26: X-Men: The Last Stand (trailer)
    • Looks awesome! I couldn't be more excited about this one although i've heard that Brett Ratner has totally destroyed it (early review here)
  • June 2: The Break-Up (trailer)
    • This looks really funny because Vince Vaughn in clearly in his comedy prime. I also heard that in the original they actually breakup, but test audiences have so much sympathy for Jennifer Aniston that they wanted her to get the guy at the end so they reshot it so they end up together – which is pretty lame. But, on the other hand they reshot Casablanca 4 times and it ended up pretty good.
  • June 6: The Omen – looks scary and i loved the original 1976 Omen, so i'm excited for the latest. (trailer)
  • June 9: Cars – Pixar is batting 1.000, can they continue to rock? Everything has to come down sometime and i wouldn't be surprised if this movie is sub-par – the trailers look stupid. But then again, you never know with Pixar they always pull it out somehow. I guess we'll see. UPDATE: Actually, the just released a trailer that doesn't look half bad – check this out.
  • June 16: Nacho Libreda-nacho.jpg
    • This looks so damn funny. Jack Black is fan-tas-tic! Napoleon mixed with Tenacious D. Can't wait. The trailer is hilarious
  • June 23: Click – If it wasn't adam sandler, i wouldn't even waste my time writing about it. Chances of this being good: 3%
  • June 30: Superman Returns
    • This looks really good. I just saw the new trailer: Spacey looks great as Lex, Bosworth is good. I also like how the story now has Clark Kent and Lois once being together and then him ditching her – and then returning. Some good spice there. Matt Lewis had a good point: could be a bad idea to make it retro. Why make it take place in the 50's and 60's? I like superhero movies that are more modern.
    • Also coming is Devil Wears Prada – a lame chick-lit book turned into an even lamer chick-movie only without any romance, just an old boss yelling at an assistant – wow, sounds great.
  • July 7: Pirates of Caribbean: Dean Man's Chest
    • Johnny Depp nails this character and i think this looks like a fun ride. Let's just hope they don't make the plot too screwed up.
  • July 14: Pulse – japanese horror movie that will scare the crap out of you – originally done by Kurosawa.
  • July 21: Lady In The Water
    • This is the latest M. Night Shyswe*an…movie. I liked The Village more than most, and thought Unbreakable was very underrated and, of course, Sixth Sense was awesome. At least he tries to be different and original
    • Super Ex-Girlfriend – Uma and Luke Wilson. Uma has super powers. Could be cool, could be Prime. I think it'll be pretty lame. Luke is a great 6th man (Old School, Wes Anderson movies) but can't carry a movie and this just feels too weak for me. Then again, Ivan Reitman is directing and he's done mostly good (Old School, Stripes, Animal House) but also some bad (Beethoven's 2nd, Evolution) flicks.
    • Clerks II. (moved up from August!) Not sure what i think about this. My guess is that it probably has some funny dialogue but fails pretty hard as a movie.
  • July 28: Miami Vice – NOW we're talking. In case you weren't aware, this ismiamivice.jpg made by Michael Mann who made the amazing movie Heat and did the original Miami Vice tv show. And, it has Jamie Foxx who's probably the coolest actor going right now. I mean how many actors can you think of who were probably the cool kid in high school? That's what i thought. I want the cool kids of my movies to have actually known what it was like to be cool.
  • August 4: Talladega Nights – Will Farrell being a total Nascar moron. Could rival Nacho Libre as the funniest movie of the summer
    • Also coming – Flags of Our Father – Clint Eastwood's latest written by the same guy who did Million Dollar Baby. War movie of Iwo Jima – could be sweet.
  • August 18: Snakes on a Plane. I must admit, the hype (and blogs) have totally worked for me. It's absurd, it's stupid – but so am i – and i'll see it. If fact, one of the few movies with a Wikipedia entry

That's the summer. Should be one of the best in a long time. A few good sequels, a few funny comedies, and some mindless fun. Bring it.

Subscription Music Breakdown

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In the past few months, i've had quite a few questions about what "subscription" music is. This is my attempt to explain it.

Napster, Rhapsody, MusicNow, MTV, and Yahoo! all offer services where you can get unlimited music for about $10 a month. The one caveat is that the tracks you download with these services are all "rented" – meaning that as soon as you stop paying for them, you can no longer play them. The way this works is that each file requires a license to play. When you download a track you get both the file and the license. For a track to play in a player the license must be valid. Whichever service you use, they automatically renew all licenses every 30 days. If you're no longer a subscriber, the license doesn't get renewed and the files don't play. Another company, EMusic, is a little different – you get 40 downloads of mp3's for $10 bucks a month. While you don't get as many files, you get them in mp3 format and can keep them forever – you truly own them.

Why it hasn't worked? This model hasn't worked for two BIG reasons:

  • Can't find enough music to satisfy $10 a month. What do you want for your birthday? Tell me now. It's hard isn't it. Everybody knows they want something for their birthday, but when they have to think about it NOW, it's tough. It is the same with subscription music. Everybody knows they like a bunch of music and want to download it, but when you're at the front page of Napster, it is hard to remember what you want. Trust me, i've done countless focus groups – this is a big problem. If you can find what you want to download, you don't download and the value of an unlimited download service lessens.
  • iPods and iTunes. iPods are not only pretty to look at, with the iTunes player, they are insanely easy to use. As a device, they are so much easier to use than other subscription compatible devices. Using them, users don't have to ever worry about licenses and they don't have to worry about other media players or connections or anything. An ipod works with – and ONLY with – iTunes which means that it is designed to be simple. Microsoft is a platform company. They make platforms that any vendor can use to sell devices or services. Which is great, but it means that both the devices and the WindowsMedia format itself is going to be much, much more complex – and unfortunately for them, it shows. Until that extra functionality MS allows is really useful, it's only a hindrance.

Will subscription ever be a good way to get new tunes? I believe it will. It is very easy to create music now, and the amount of music being created is only going to keep growing. There is a need for people to find and explore the expanding universe of music. Once there are better searching techniques, I believe the utility of subscription music will rise.

Ian Rodgers, who works at Yahoo Music provided (in this podcast) a great way to think about the advantages of subscription music. It went something like this….

users care about 2 things regarding music: playing music and owning music. If you want to own music, you're best bet is to purchase the CD. You get the music in a lossless format which can be burned into any format at any bitrate indefinitely and also receive associated images, liner notes, etc. If you want to play music, your best option is a subscription platform which allows you to play as much as possible for pretty cheap.

I like that thought, but that doesn't account for iPods, nor the convenience of purchasing only a track vs. an entire album.

That's the theory – what do you think?

A funny sidenote that i like. WMA files (non iTunes) are protected by a technology called in the industry Janus, and by marketers "Plays for Sure." Check out a past blog post of mine which describes why this is a clever reference to a muppet.