3. The theater experience. Moviegoers above 30 are weary of noisy fanboys and girls. The annoyance of talkers has been joined by the plague of cell-phone users, whose bright screens are a distraction. Worse, some texting addicts get mad when told they can’t use their cell phones. A theater is reportedly opening which will allow and even bless cell phone usage, although that may be an apocryphal story.

I agree with all of his reasons and I’ll add one of my own. Actually, it is sort of an addition to one of Ebert’s reasons. He says that ticket price is a problem. Ticket price wouldn’t be a problem if the movies (and the theater experience) was really, really good. When I see a movie trailer I usually ask myself – “Is that worth driving to the theatre and spending $30 to see?”

The answer to that question could be “No” for several reasons. The movie may not warrant “the big screen experience”. The movie may look funny or entertaining but I’d just as soon watch it in the comfort of my home, on my couch, in my PJs, on Bluray. Or, the movie is in 3D or XD or EXTREMELY OVERRATED ACRONYM – which means I’ll likely not care to see it at all.

I don’t think the theater-going movie industry has a chance to remain as large as it has been in recent past. I think it will see a slow and steady decline and level out right where they should be. People will still watch “larger” movies in theaters or on first dates and will see “smaller” movies at home where they are most comfortable. And that should be OK. The industry simply needs to adapt.

“And lots of DF readers on Twitter are telling me they use Apple TV just for AirPlay and Netflix streaming.”

That is exactly what I use the Apple TV for. I do not buy or rent TV shows or movies from the iTunes store. Ever. Although the Apple TV integrates with the iTunes Store, Home sharing (for sharing files from a computer), the NBA and MLB (and others), Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr, etc. etc. the two features I use on my Apple TV are Netflix with Airplay.

I use Airplay to put videos I find via my iPad on the TV. I do this a lot. (Thanks Devour) Even if the source of these videos is from YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, and other outlets – the integration with any of those platforms goes unused by me since I simply use Airplay. I suppose if I didn’t own an iPad my use of Airplay wouldn’t be nearly as significant. It is just so easy. I’ll also, on occasion, use Airplay to play some music via my Apple TV (this replaced my Airport Express’ purpose) and very, very rarely put some vacation photos on-screen.

Another note about Airplay; if you, like me (and obviously Jason Kottke), sometimes acquire a few TV shows you couldn’t get otherwise by grabbing them via Bittorrent you may be interested in Erica Sadun’s Airflick. Airflick is an application that lets you stream video, audio, or photos from your Mac to your Apple TV. Very handy application.

But all-in-all my Apple TV might as well just be a Netflix box. I’ve used Netflix on the computer, on an Xbox 360, on iPad and iPhone and on Apple TV. By far the very best Netflix application exists on the Apple TV. It is easy to use, looks great, and works nearly every single time without hiccup. I don’t know if I’d even be subscribed to Netflix if I didn’t own an Apple TV.

“Well from my perspective, a film costs a lot of money. You could build three hospitals with the cost of one film and I take that very seriously. I take the responsibility of being a person involved in a piece of that product. The only way to be decent about it is to make that money back so at least you don’t feel that money is wasted.

If it’s cost a hundred million dollars and that money is completely wasted – it never even makes its money back – that would be so mortifying to me. What a waste of money. Better to put it into a hospital. Do you see what I’m saying?

So I feel it’s my responsibility to help the investors – and the investors are often you and me. We don’t realize it, but it’s our pension funds. Through that bank or company that’s investing in this hedge fund, that is investing in the film. So I feel a fiscal responsibility to help the investors.”

I know the resources for larger budget films typically come from multiple sources but I suppose I never realized how the failure of a film could have an effect on some of these funds. Go see a Helen Mirren film.

Looks like a great place to work for an artist of almost any type.

/via TheOneRing.net.

The Hobbit: Part 1 is coming in 2012 but it is being filmed right now. How can you keep up with the news? Here are a few resources I’ve tucked away to check in on now and then.

• The Hobbit Blog – Official blog
• The Hobbit on Facebook – Official Facebook page
• The Hobbit Movie – Fan site
• The Hobbit Movie News – Fan site.

Don’t let the titles and URLs fool you – each of these are different sites. Here is hoping these sites and others do as good a job digging into the making of this movie for the rest of this year as they did for Lord of the Rings and King Kong.

These guys are thoroughly crazy. Wow.

/via Devour.

Every since seeing Tron Legacy I’ve wanted Flynn’s computer. From what I’ve heard on the Interwebs it runs Sun Solaris. Since I’m a Mac guy maybe I can have my Terminal look like The Grid’s UI without needing to run an entirely different OS.

I’m basing this style solely off of this screenshot from the Tron Legacy movie trailer. Here is what my Terminal looks like now.

There is still more to do. First, I have to find the font that they are using (font experts, help?). If you want to contribute to this I’ve put the style up on GitHub.

Recently Eliza and I signed up for Netflix. Ever since moving into our new apartment I haven’t had the Xbox 360 connected to the Internet because of the location of my cable modem/router and because the Xbox 360 does not come Wifi-enabled by default.

This hasn’t been too much of an issue since I haven’t been playing any games using the Xbox 360 (we’ve been playing a lot more Wii though) and haven’t needed any of the Live features. But, Netflix has an Xbox 360 application that makes it simple to stream any movies directly to your TV in HD. Daddy wants.

I didn’t want to spend the money for the “dongle” or whatever it is to give the Xbox 360 Wifi capability so I was very pleased when I came across Alex King’s blog post about using the Airport Express to provide a wired connection. I already have an Airport Express that I use for Airtunes to my surround sound set up which is right next to the Xbox 360. I’ve had Alex’s tutorial ‘starred’ in Google Reader for weeks and today I finally took the time to get it set up.

It works great. (And the Airtunes capability remains.)

Alex links to an Apple Support article that, inexplicably, isn’t complete. Where the article lacks Alex provides some tips so be sure to read both the support article and his blog post in full before you begin to help alleviate any headaches.

“It’s by far James Cameron’s finest pieces of work and although I’ll be one of the many to grab a Blu-Ray copy, seeing it in theatre is an experience you should not miss out on regardless of how big your Hi-Def TV is. Even the 3D-glasses supplied were a considerable upgrade from the tradition paper and plastic ones so I kept them as a souvenir.”

Agreed, I will too, yes you should, and I did too (twice).

/via Every Star Wars geek I subscribe to.

PS. There is a lot of backstory that goes along with this link. An example of which is that Damon Lindelof, the major creative driving force behind LOST and the recent Star Trek film, watched this and said: “Your life is about to change. This is astounding film making. Watch ALL of it.” That is why I’ve decided to leave my link to this video as simple as possible and just say watch it.

It is unfortunate that I have little faith in Tim Burton these days. I was very disappointed with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I didn’t like the remake as much as I didn’t like the fact that they remade what I felt was a nearly timeless classic. Why remake something that is great and can stand on its own still?

I believe a live action Alice in Wonderland remake is warranted. But why give it to someone who botched his last two remakes? Lets face it, Planet of the Apes was not a good remake. Its only redeeming quality was its look.

But, as always with directors who disappoint – I always hope for the best.

Like the guy on I Watch Stuff said: “This film looks like warm Krispy Kreme donuts taste.”

Via: Chris Coleman on Facebook.

Update: TrailerAddict got killed into submission due to this trailer. Here is the YouTube version. Hat tip: Andy Baio.

Update 2: And now, ladies and gentleman, the trailer in HD on Apple Trailers. Hat tip: Dave Martorana.

Sameer Barkawi, friend and film-student (oh, and actor), has written his thoughts on the movie after seeing it opening night. He compares the movie to 1994′s Forrest Gump, in a rather bad way. I loved Forrest Gump, btw. Oddly, he didn’t enjoy Brad Pitt’s performance even though he’s been nominated for a few awards because of it.

I would still like to see the film, but I trust Sameer’s judgement – and so I may wait until the DVD is released and I get to see it for free.

Source: Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine in X-Men Origins – Wolverine, coming May 1st 2009. Here is the trailer for this movie (the first I’ve seen it online) and unfortunately it is only available in a rather junky format on DailyMotion ((When the high-def trailer is available on Apple Trailers I’ll link that up too.)).

Guess who makes an appearance? Gambit. Win, win.

Source: Trailer: X-Men Origins – Wolverine.

Everyone and their mother has linked to this, so you’ve probably already seen the photos that Jeff Bridges took when on-set for Iron Man. But, if you haven’t, you can say you heard about it here first.

As I “thumbed” through Bridges’ book I can’t help but think that more people, like Jeff Bridges, should do this sort of thing. Keep a photo log of interesting things that they work on. All too often the only time we see celebrities is when they are on the red carpet or, worse, when they are doing something they’d rather not be public.

Source: Making Iron Man.

After watching Heroes last night (since we went on vacation we had two episodes to catch up on) I thought about the actor who plays Sylar, Zachary Quinto, who is also going to be playing young Spock in the upcoming Star Trek film by J.J. Abrams and Co.

Turns out the official site has some wallpapers on it, thought they were a bit of alright.

A few ear tips and a quick eye brow shave and he’s into character!

Source: Star Trek Movie.

My friend Sameer. At the midnight premier for The Dark Knight.

We’ve used iron-ons in the past, for the Star Wars prequel premiers, so we had some laying around (yes, from that long ago!).  Here is my tshirt design that I quickly did in Adobe Illustrator.  If you like it, you may download it here.

Eliza really likes the “Why So Serious” campaign that they’ve done for The Dark Knight. So her tshirt is made from the top portion of the poster from it.

Update: Here is what the shirt ended up looking like, taken by Eliza.

We’re really excited, especially based on all of the good reviews and press this movie has gotten, to see The Dark Knight tonight.  Are you going?

“I can go and make half a dozen ‘THXes.’ I’ll lose everything I put into them, guaranteed. But I can have a lot of fun doing it.” — George Lucas

Ugh.  This is the same drivel that we heard from George Lucas while he was making the Star Wars prequels.  He kept saying, and I’m quoting loosely here, that “once I’m done with these prequels I’m free to make whatever movies I want, even if I lose money”.

As it turns out, “whatever movies I want” is turning into more Star Wars projects. A lot more.  Currently Lucasarts has created a full-length computer-animated feature-film (like the overuse of hyphens there?), a follow-up episodic computer-animated TV show (of which there are a reported 100 episodes in the bag), and a live action TV show that is currently in the works.

These are a lot of work, even with a staff of thousands that Lucas can beckon any time he needs them.  Producing a film is no small task.  So I think it will be years before we see a THX-esque style film from Lucas.

This isn’t to say that I’m complaining.  I’m a Star Wars fan to the bone marrow. More! More! More!  Oh, the reason I’m writing all of this is to tell you that this is a pretty good article in the New York Times.

Source: Free to Follow His Heart Right Back to ‘Star Wars’.

Just a side note about this article:  The title of the piece is “Free to Follow His Heart Right Back to ‘Star Wars’” while the page title on the Web is “George Lucas, Free to Follow His Instincts Right Back to ‘Star Wars’”.  I found that sorta interesting.

REJECTED!

You’ve got a love these script spoofs that have been popping up lately.  Recently we saw The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull parodied, and now we’re seeing the upcoming Batman epic flick The Dark Knight being written as if Michael Bay were set to write, produce, and direct it.

There are some gems in here, here is one of my favorites which appears in the opening sequence:

We open with a shot of The Pentagon: nerve center of the entire free world.  An American flag (CGI) flies proudly in the central courtyard.

Yep, it is a Michael Bay film alright – complete with unnecessary CGI.  The script is pretty well done, as was the Indiana Jones spoof, so check out either one of them.

Source: Michael Bay’s Rejected “The Dark Knight” Script.

A few of the more notable omissions on this list, since they nearly mentioned them but somehow failed to mention them are:

• Harrison Ford never really read for the part of Han Solo but was filling in to help out with the casting of the other characters.  Lucas and Co. couldn’t find anyone better than Harrison and he agreed to play the part.
• George Lucas, although he managed to get funding through 20th Century Fox via Alan Ladd, Jr., managed to pen an unprecedented deal for marketing rights.  This included the creation of toys, tshirts, and other products based off of the movie.
• ILM, or Industrial Light and Magic, the foremost experts in Special Effects and used for a large portion of the movies that continue to be made out of Hollywood (including a division that was spun-off, bought by Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, and is now named Pixar) all came to be during the filming of the first Star Wars film.

Yesterday I saw a link from Jason Kottke’s blog to a trailer for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a new movie starring Brad Pitt.  I immediately watched the trailer and was intrigued by both the style of the movie and the story.  Jason also linked to a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald of which the movie is based.

So, I grabbed my laptop a fresh drink and went to the couch and read the entire thing.  It isn’t long ((Hence why it is called a short story, duh.)) but it is a great read and now I’m really looking forward to watching this movie.

Trailer: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Short story: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
IMDB: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on IMDB.
Hat tip: Jason Kottke.

Slight update: It turns out that Fitzgerald’s short story is riddled with typos. I didn’t notice when I was reading, but, ok.  So this Jonathan McNicol is going to proofread each chapter and, over the next 11 weekdays, release a chapter a day as a downloadable PDF.  Maybe I will reread it when he’s done with all 11 chapters.

“M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It’s the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: “Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg … ?” “God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind … ?”

“The problem, of course, is that to have such a conversation, you’d normally have to see the movie, which I believe is an unreasonably high price to pay just to make fun of it. So rather than write a conventional review explaining why you should or shouldn’t see The Happening (trust me, you shouldn’t), I’m offering an alternative: A dozen and a half of the most mind-bendingly ridiculous elements of the film, which will enable you to marvel at its anti-genius without sacrificing (and I don’t use that term lightly) 90 minutes of your life.”

His words, not mine.  Though with an average rating of 4.1 on the movie review Web site Rotten Tomatoes, perhaps he is right on the money.

Source: The Movie Review: ‘The Happening’.
Hat tip: Kyle Slattery, Jason Kottke, Coudal Partners.

I took a quick snap of the poster with my iPhone and now it is my iPhone’s background.

Weighing in at a 13.7mb zip file this update has been one I’ve anticipated for a very long time.  Upon launching Delicious Library 2 I was prompted to update my OS to the latest version.  I didn’t even know I wasn’t running the latest version!  I’m guessing the Delicious Monster crew had to wait until 10.5.3 was released to get this out.

I’ll write more about Delicious Library 2 later – for now, just go grab a copy.

Source: Delicious-Monster.com

Update 8:56am EST:  Turns out that Wil may have jumped the gun here.  According to Software Update, 10.5.3 hasn’t been fully baked yet, or at least it hasn’t been released yet.  It doesn’t appear on the Apple downloads site for Mac OS X updates yet either.

Beat the Nazis!  I believe if you aligned the story arcs for Raiders and Crusade they’d nearly line up perfectly.  Indiana Jones is forced to beat the Nazis to the Holy Grail, just like he was supposed to with the Ark of the Covenant. He has to rescue his Dad from imprisonment, just like he did with Marion.  He is also, unwittingly or not, trying to beat someone else to the treasure – like he was against Belloq.  The similarities are definitely there.

The isn’t too much about Crusade that I didn’t like, besides the blood looking pretty fake in a few scenes.  Somehow it is easier to write about movies you don’t like, than it is to write about movies you do.

All I can say is that I’m looking forward to The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I’ve re-watched Indiana Jones; The Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade!

A young George and Harrison.

As an adult I watch The Temple of Doom and chuckle.  The “over the top” quality of this installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is much higher than that of the other two movies.  I mean come on – the cart scene on the tracks?  You just have to laugh.

The setting for this film, when compared to the other two existing films, is also light years different.  In both The Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade – Indiana Jones begins on an adventure, goes back to his job as a professor, and then joins the race against the clock to find something before the Nazis do.  This format works best for Indiana Jones and I think that The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will end up being a mashup of both of these formats.  In all of The Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones is out of the country, with brand new people we’ve never seen.  The time element is also non-existent.

Ok, the good the bad and the ugly.  The good: The Temple of Doom is, again, a fun ride and has some of the best scenes in any of the Indiana Jones films.  The scene from the Obi Wan bar is classic as is the journey to India.  The bad: The Temple of Doom, in my opinion, pales in comparison to Raiders or Crusade. The ugly: None of the characters that we liked in the first two movies even make a cameo, oh and Kate Capshaw.

I’ve re-watched Indiana Jones; The Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade!

Sure “movie making magic” has improved so much over the years that much of the special effects, dead mannequins, and sound effects sometimes come across as laughable – but at least they are somewhat believable (unlike some of today’s outlandish impossible feats of human nature).  There are some scenes that are undeniably real which sported no visual effects, besides perhaps speeding up the frame rate, which were refreshing.  These were the moments in the film that made Indiana Jones real, gave him character, and made you want to see what he’d pull off next.

I think Andrew was the one who said, while we were watching Raiders of the Lost Ark last night, that a few of the scenes felt very much like James Bond.  I think George Lucas and/or Steven Speilberg have come right out and said that some of the inspiration for the franchise was a Bond-like, American figure, in the 1930s and 40s.  A few scenes feel more like Bond than others.  Like the scene when Indiana is fighting the huge bald guy while the plane is in a perpetual spin and fuel is making its way towards a flame.  The “setup” for the catastrophe and Indiana being the only one aware of what was happening certainly feels like a Bond moment.

End of Raiders. Beginning of Crystal Skull?

Raiders is probably my favorite Indiana Jones film, and I think it is only because it was the first.  The Last Crusade, which I’m looking forward to re-watching soon, is definitely in close second.  I enjoy the subject matter of The Last Crusade more than Raiders, I think. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that they don’t make movies like this anymore, and I’m beginning to wonder if The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will pale in comparison to Raiders, Temple, and Crusade.  Chris thinks that they will have a ton of special effects.  I’m hoping they don’t.  The trailer shows some special effects, and I do expect them to use effects in scenes where nothing else would make sense, but I’m hoping there is at least one or two scenes where Indiana Jones does it himself and not some digital double.

I’ve re-watched Indiana Jones; The Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade!

Catching up on Indiana Jones, in style.

The crew over at the Iconfactory, who are the creators of Twitterrific among many other things, are doing a tribute to Indiana Jones this month.  Here is a snap of my desktop, which I took using Skitch, to see the icons and one of their desktops in action:

You too can sport such Indy awesomeness by downloading

• The Raiders of the Lost Ark icon set,
• The Indy’s Desk desktop background image.

I’m looking forward to the next three icon set installments for The Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade, and the new The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  I would have liked to see a desktop image or two for each of these movies included in the icon download.

Source: The Iconfactory presents Indiana Jones.

“Would I recommend this film? I think so. It’s not a strong recommendation, though. Consider it an appetizer for the wonderful bounty that rests in months to come this summer.”

I think my recommendation to see Iron Man would be a little stronger than Sameer’s, only because there isn’t enough to complain about Iron Man to recommend not seeing it.  In other words, I’d leave it up to you whether or not you wanted to see Iron Man.  It isn’t a must-see, in my opinion, but if you see it you probably won’t be disappointed.

“Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is excellent. I laughed out loud way more than I thought I would. I think if you put Downey in any movie as a quick-witted, pompous billionaire, you’d be entertained to some degree.”

Robert Downey, Jr. is great in Iron Man.  In fact, I don’t recall seeing a performance by RD, Jr. that I haven’t liked.  There are moments when the smell of cheese was a bit thick in the air, but – this is a Marvel Comic movie.

To sum up my thoughts on Iron Man: After watching it I didn’t immediately want to rush out and buy the DVD.  I will probably watch it again, simply to be sure I didn’t miss any of the dazzling special effects, but I’m in no rush.  I am, however, looking forward to the next installment (which I am sure there will be one) because we won’t have to worry about the Iron Man setup.

Source: Movie Review: Iron Man.

2007 Movie of the Year

I believe Dragon Wars is going to be one of these movies, so I’m jumping the gun and seeing it in theatres to maximize my loss on investment.

Here are a few select quotes from some of the critics who have seen it so far. I believe these are reason enough to buy an advanced ticket.

“The dialog sounds like it was written by those guys who translate operating instruction manuals from Chinese to English.” — Robert Roten of Larmie Movie Scope

Have you ever had the privilege to read one of these manuals? The kind that of manual written by people whose seventh language is English? I’ve often marveled at these manuals so I fully expect to marvel at Dragon Wars.

“This monster film makes even the remake of Godzilla look good.” — Frank Scheck of Hollywood Reporter

I loved the remake of Godzilla! This must mean that Dragon Wars is going to be awesome.

“This one’s for connoisseurs of the “totally preposterous crap” school of fantasy cinema.You know who you are: You have all the Warlock sequels on Laserdisc, the complete Leprechaun series on DVD, and go see Uwe Boll movies on opening weekend.” — Luke Y. Thompson of
L.A. Weekly

O.K. So I’m not any of these people. But I do love me some Uwe Boll.

And finally, the critical review that I hope rings true tomorrow:

“It is such a breathless, delirious stew, it’s impossible not to be entertained, provided — this is crucial — you have a sense of humor.” — Andy Webster of The New York Times

I consider myself to be one that has such a sense of humor and I’m wholly looking forward to watching Dragon Wars tomorrow. Sadly, I don’t think Chris is going to make it, but the rest of us shall have a grand time I’m sure. I’ll let you know how the movie is in the comments of this post.

“Davy Jones owes me Five Bucks!”

Eliza, being the ultimate Jack Sparrow fan (read: Johnny Depp infatuation), wore her own custom tshirt to the premier.

“Mrs. Jack Sparrow”

I believe in retrospect, Eliza would have rather written “Mrs. Captain Jack Sparrow”, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

We weren’t alone though, as a few friends joined us for the second installment in this three part series. I’m looking forward to the next episode.

Oh as a type of haiku review; the movie was a fun ride, and Davy Jones rules.

[tags]pirates of the caribbean, movies, photos[/tags]