Year in consumables: 2007 movies

Even though I made a great headstart on this series for 2007 (see music post), I fell off the pace and I am now behind my awful showing last year. So, I figured on this dreary, rainy Saturday night, I would blast this one out and then… go watch a movie.

So, unlike last year, I watched a good amount of Netflix movies too. (Just prior to last year’s post I was inspired to reactivate my long dormant membership.) Now, I have a tough decision to make… do I include those here? Obviously I am going to speak to the movies released in the theaters during the year, but what about those I missed there and caught on Netflix instead? I think I will include those, but of course, only those I have seen so far. I won’t come back here and update as I do so.

Wait… this is supposed to be a top 5 list… argh. Well, here’s what I’ll do… I’ll do the top 5 and if anything breaks in there, I’ll post an update somewhere… as its own post or update here and announce in an aside or something. Yeah… plan is set.

Because I was a lazier blogger this year, I didn’t post “thoughts” on most of the movies this yea... Continue reading »

Blu-ray wins

So, did everyone that doesn’t own a HD DVD or Blu-ray player yawn like I did?

Toshiba blinked and conceded defeat in the HD optical disc format war today. This wasn’t that big a surprise I guess, although, it still shows that Sony has some weight left to throw around. That said, Sony just ended up on the winning side this time. After all, they lost on Betamax, DAT and MiniDisc. Wow, that’s three failed formats before producing another winner.

Okay, okay… they partnered with Phillips to produce the CD in there somewhere, but those same partners did lose out to Toshiba and others on the DVD front. I guess they turned the tables this time, but failed to avoid the format war that DVD did.

Yeah, shocking… I actually did a little wikipedia research for this one. I thought they were also the Laserdisc losers, but no, they didn’t invent that one either. Glad I checked my facts. I don’t want to be an interwebs fool.

Too late!

So, it is now done… and, I don’t care. If I have a Blu-ray player, it will because it is in a PS3, and even then, only because I couldn’t resist the need to play Metal G... Continue reading »

Shocking

What a weekend!

(Now, what a week too!)

I started writing this post on Monday night, but I got sidetracked by one of the topics, which I will get to in a minute. Funny thing about the post was everything (five things) revolves around the word shock, hence the title shocking. I find it even funnier that an event happened on Tuesday to add a sixth, so the word of the month is now shocking. Anyway, I’m trimming some of the fat since I have more to add on…

I was going to talk further about the Pat’s spying scandal because some of the other information that came out during the weekend (losing draft pick(s)?!, leak of tape, even more penalties if Belichick doesn’t turn over all data), but there is just too much and I am just too sick of it all. Now, don’t we have the Mangenius being accused of something by the Ravens? Oh, and can we stop referring to every scandal as a “Gate”? It was just Watergate. Let it go already! Anyway, I’ll just leave this one as disappointing on many angles, but particularly because it tarnishes, right or wrong, the home town team’s image, history and coach. No matter what, it just sux.

Shock... Continue reading »

Red ringed

Well, it finally got me. I am now a victim of the so-called Red Ring of Death.

Of course, this has already happened to both Ed and Jason, so it is not exactly new, just new to me. Kind of funny that it would happen just after I posted about going over 10k with my gamerscore and so did my Xbox. Of course, one wonders how it continues to post blog entries.

Perhaps it is when I can get it to run for a about a minute before it freezes. You see, after getting the ring, it hasn’t happened again, but it will freeze almost exactly a minute after booting up. I have tried the suggestions on support page for both issues with no joy. I am going to have to finally contact Microsoft about this as my hopes that it will go away on its own don’t seem to be working out. I figured I’d wait a few days and keep trying it to be sure. I thought maybe it was just the heat we’ve had recently, but I don’t think so now.

Anyway, I figure this is just karma coming back on me. You see, it failed the same night I busted on Mookie for being, well… here just read it:

He has a commitment to playing more [kid] games on his 360 while leaving... Continue reading »

Ketchup

So, I just wanted to post a little quick hit about not much of anything. Feel free to read anything about nothing.

Let me start with last weekend’s Sox and Yankees series at Fenway… our Sox dropped two of three to the Limping Empire. In case you missed it, that means they have dropped four of the last six, even before Roger rockets in to save their season. True enough, the Bombers — hey… Bombers and a Rocket… never mind — were still twelve and a half out at the end of that, but it has to have boosted their morale, yeah? The good news is we are still up on them seven to five for the season and we won’t meet again until August. Tough for them to make up ground on us if we aren’t playing against one another (and we don’t tank).

Anyway, dropping the first two to a decent Oaktown team — Haren? Yes. DiNardo? Really? — doesn’t have me brimming with confidence. I guess it is just losing the last three in a row is tough to take. Wonder if they’ve done that this year (I’m not checking)?

Speaking of Sox, I’ll get more photos up from the Braves game at some point this week. I also... Continue reading »

Year in consumables: 2006 movies

Continuing my late entry into the traditional year-end slash year-in-review lists, I present my list of flicks for 2006.

If you are interested in my list of music, then click that link and I promise my list of games will be out later this week. If I don’t have it done by the end of February, then why bother?

Whether it be in the theater or on DVD, I hardly took in any movies this past year. To that end, I actually reopened my Netflix account two weeks ago, but that doesn’t help this list. I think I am going to start logging movies I have flixed as such on the blog because it might be interesting to track how many I actually take in over the course of a year… well, interesting to me anyway.

I’m going to give you a top five, but that’s not saying much since I probably only saw ten movies this year! It only includes theatrical releases too. Mostly because I don’t remember what I watched on DVD…

1. Casino Royale: Hands down, easy pick. I can’t believe how much I liked this movie. I never got around to writing a *review* about it, but suffice to say I agree with Stephen King in that this is the best Bond movie of... Continue reading »

V for Vendetta

It might seem like I am following the Joe model on Scooby Speak; blowing my load of content all at once and taking a rest instead of pacing myself with a steady stream. That’s not the case. I am in fact trying to make up for a couple weeks earlier in May when I didn’t post much of anything. Unfortunately, I am doing so with content that is basically stale before it hits the blogosphere since these movies are long gone from the local plex.

At least with V for Vendetta, I have good reason to have not posted earlier on it. After taking in the movie, I decided I wanted to read the graphic novel so that I might understand why Alan Moore wanted his name removed from the movie, per his usual M.O. So, it took me a while to finally remember to pick up the GN and then about a week to finally get thru it, not that the reading was slow mind you. Anyway, I completed that a couple weeks ago and now I am finally ready to write this.

V for Vendetta should be out on DVD this Fall. Netflix it or borrow it from me because I will be buying this one. I really enjoyed it. Make it a two-fer and borrow the GN at the same time because it is also a good read. I wish I had th... Continue reading »

Mission:Impossible III

A few things come to mind as I start to write this one:

1. I am going backwards with my reviews, but I figured for completeness sake, I’d do it that way since the other one I am going to write about is V for Vendetta.
2. Ed is starting to get me in the habit of posting pictures with my posts. I hate the two posters out there because one has too much Tom Cruise and the other has his name too big, plus it’s just a wee bit ugly. However, I decided I needed a picture! Found this one that someone did up as a wallpaper. Works better.
3. I need to come up with some kind of format for my reviews, observations, thoughts or whatever I want to call them. Maybe I ought to tell you how I felt about it right up front and then get to the meat because I am always going to have spoilers. I’m not here to write up some fancy review that is going to dance around plot details in an effort to tell you what I think without telling you exactly why I think it. This is why I don’t read real film reviews. Of course, I’m not stupid enough to believe you would or would not actually go see or rent or buy a film based on what I think or feel about it eithe... Continue reading »