I was looking forward to seeing Cloverfield for a while now. So, of course we went to see it opening night.

My summary for this movie is that the concept was great, the effects were awesome, but the movie stumbled at points because of bursts of horrible writing. Basically, we get to see a Godzilla movie but from the perspective of a video camera carried by a 20-something and his friends trying to rescue someone trapped in the city. The movie starts of slowly, almost lulling you into boredom when, Wham!, the action starts with only a few pauses. The perspective is awesome, and the film really captures the chaos and terror of being on the ground if something like that were to happen. The details are awesome, too. Of course folks, early on during something like this, would probably stand around trying to capture pics on their cell phone cameras. I loved the perspective and the taste of what it would be like if you were there for a monster attack.

The film had two recurring writing problems. First, the characters weren’t very sympathetic. You weren’t rooting for them in any way. The film works simply by making you a witness of the event, but it would’ve been better if I wasn’t impartial to the main characters. This was a relatively minor problem.

My bigger problem with the writing was some laziness in the details. Characters, when they need to be, are gravely injured (for example, impaled on rebar), but then can run carrying someone else 20 minutes later. There were a few of these moments in the movie that jarred me out of suspending disbelief. Again, not what you want in a monster movie.

I still loved the concept, though, and recommend seeing it. This is one to see in the theater if you love monster movies or pulp science fiction. It’s definitely a rental otherwise. The concept is unique (Heidi mildly disagrees) and that alone makes it worth seeing.

We saw The Kingdom two weeks ago, but I forgot to write it up. The movie was part action schlock and part cultural drama. The thing is, the two parts work together very well. More importantly, the movie has spawned several deep and long conversations about the film, about Saudi Arabia, and the role of film in helping Americans relate to the Middle East. Any time a film can do that, I consider it worth seeing.

A unique feature of the film is the quick history of Saudi Arabia presented at the start of the film. In about 3 minutes, they cover the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the influence of outsiders, and the discovery of oil. Good stuff.

Worth seeing in the theater and a don’t miss if you wait until rental.

If you love Wes Anderson (I Heart Huckabees, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore), you’ll like this. It’s not as good as my favorites, The Royal Tennenbaums and Rushmore but that’s because it feels too similar to his other movies. In other words, it doesn’t feel that fresh and you’re left wondering if you saw this movie already.

It’s well acted, the story is interesting enough, and there are some great moments. Recommended, but a rental unless you really like Wes Anderson. Before you see it, be sure to catch Hotel Chevalier, the prequel to Darjeeling. It’s a short film available for free on iTunes. If nothing else, you get to see a naked Natalie Portman (she’s truly all bones… still cute, though).

Update: One other thought: I was a bit worried about the fact that it took place in India. Films can sometimes be insensitive without meaning to be, and I was just waiting for something. It never came. With the exception of one goofy scene, the movie managed to just “be” in India rather than making a spectacle (positive or negative) about it. Well done, actually. So, if you’re the type that thinks about that, don’t worry about this issue.

Update 2: Heidi points out that he didn’t do I Heart Huckabees… She’s right. Corrected above.

The Bourne Ultimatum matched and perhaps exceeded expectations. A solid bookend to the original trilogy, though the story has little resemblance to the original books. That was inevitable considering the changes to the story in the first two movies (I don’t believe Marie dies, for example, and she’s French Canadian in the books, not German). The action is intense but tighter than the first two movies, including a great sequence set in Tangiers.

The film was surprisingly political, though it didn’t hit you over the head with it. The small CIA counter-terrorism team that forms Bourne’s primary opponents in this episode have unlimited powers, including the authority to capture or kill anyone, including U.S. citizens. The abuse of that authority to protect some senior government officials forms a core part of the story. Numerous dossiers of Blackbriar targets (the covert op Bourne is trying to unravel) contain the clearly visible stamp “U.S. Citizen.” I’m also a political nerd with a particular attention to surveillance and civil liberties issues, so maybe it just stood out to me.

Short version, don’t miss it, especially if you liked the first two. Whether it’s worth seeing in the theater or not depends on how much you liked the first two. I really liked the last two and had to see this one on the big screen.

Update: forgot to mention that the Moby song Extreme Ways (iTunes link) has stood up well across all the movies. Does anyone know if the opening to that song is sampled from another movie soundtack? I have this vague recollection of those violins in a older movie from the 60s or 70s, but can’t place it.

Also, I feel like I should suggest the books if you like this sort of storyline (spy/intelligence/intrigue). The The Bourne Identity remains one of my favorite books, and it and The Icarus Agenda are among my favorite Robert Ludlum books. Both worth a read and a quick library visit.

Walt Mossberg reviews the iPhone. This is sounding better and better (and I already have AT&T/Cingular anyway, so coverage isn’t an issue).

(via Jason Calacanis’s blog)

A quick review because I promised Josh I would write one. If you liked The 40-Year-Old Virgin, you’ll probably enjoy Knocked Up. It’s pretty much the same cast with the same style of writing with the same uneven pace throughout. There are great laughs in the film but the film relied too much on a couple of jokes. Too many pot jokes for my taste. I didn’t like it as much as Virgin, to be honest. The biggest problem is that Seth Rogen’s character’s transformation took too long. They make it to week 24 before he realizes she doesn’t like the fact that he’s broke, smokes a ton of pot, and is a bit, uh, vulgar in public. And then, in the last 12 weeks, he suddenly realizes what’s wrong and changes everything about his life. It’s forgivable, because his being normal kind of ruins the foundation of most of the humor.

So, go see it if you liked Virgin. You could wait until it comes out on DVD, though, because it didn’t seem to benefit from the crowd much at all.

I just finished watching V for Vendetta on HD-DVD. I read the graphic novel a while ago, right around when the movie came out and enjoyed it. The political overtones and the almost surreal storyline make for a great graphic novel. Clearly influenced by 1980’s British (and American) politics, the book sets up an interesting world in a post-nuclear holocaust Britain that succumbs to fascism. That world was set in the near future then, which I guess would be right now. The story and the society in the novel have some eerie parallels in our modern world. It’s not hard to pull some symbolism out of the novel to our modern world shaped by terrorism.

Unfortunately, the movie takes this idea and kicks it way, way over the top. In general, I’m sympathetic to the idea that societies must be vigilant against those that would offer safety in conformity. The government’s motto in the novel/movie is “Strength through Unity, Unity through Faith”), and I definitely bristle at that. Unfortunately, the film takes the novel, introduces the vocabulary of our modern battle with terrorism, and bludgeons the viewer over the head several times during the movie. It’s almost as if they took a smart novel and tried to dumb it down so that everyone would get the point. It’s especially bad as the style of V for Vendetta is over the top. V, the protagonist, is over-the-top, a theatrical person who speaks in monologues to explain his purpose to a populace that has forgotten it’s own purpose in society. He isn’t written subtly.

Thankfully these moments are relatively few and, assuming you like stylized novels/films like Sin City, the movie ends up being pretty good. A lot of things are different in the film, so if you’ve read the novel, be prepared to reacquaint yourself with a number of the minor characters. The “Fate” computer is gone, as is the entire development of the Chancellor’s character.

The soundtrack to the film is solid, by the way. The closing credits feature a song by Ethan Stoller called BKAB. The version used in the movie had clips of Malcolm X and Gloria Steinem speeches playing over BKAB’s Bollywood influenced beats and samples. Cool piece, especially since I’m a fan of artists that fuse Indian and Western beats/music. Karsh Kale, Cornershop, Nitin Sawhney, etc. are all interesting artists if you’re into that. BKAB is only available from the artist directly, FYI. I also can’t find a version with the speeches overlay. It’s not on the soundtrack and the artist’s web site says that he’s still working on getting rights to those recordings so he can remix the track with them in there. Interestingly enough, the name of the song comes from a Malcolm X speech. Check out the artist’s site for an explanation.

This weekend I finally decided to pick up the SlingBox after struggling with the lack of a TV in my home office. I’ve been in there a lot lately, working late and have been going nuts without the background noise of TV. I’ve ended up buying silly movies from iTunes. I’ve also gone through my DVD collection several times over. I think I just need background noise after growing up in a house that was never quiet.

So, why the Slingbox? I have a house that’s just about 90 years old. That means no cable in most rooms and no phone jacks. As it is, we have an Ethernet cable running across the floor upstairs to connect my office into the router in the other room. The idea of running a coax cable across the floor isn’t appealing. And yes, we’ve thought about having the house wired. That’s coming, but not for now.

To deal with this, and also to get ESPN and live sports into my office, I started looking into IPTV solutions. There was the open source route with MythTV, but that would require another box with a computer’s power supply. There’s enough power getting drawn by devices in the TV room already. Then there’s Sony’s LocationFree. Their devices don’t have a tuner and need a set-top box to control. I don’t really want to interfere with whatever Heidi might want to watch in the other room, so that was a non-starter. On the other hand, Sony has a PSP player and I own a PSP. On the other hand, the Slingbox has a version that has a coax in and has an analog tuner built in, so that’s the one I ended up going with, especially after reading reviews.

So far, it’s been great. The viewer is a bit of a CPU hog (probably because the stream is encrypted) and the box runs very hot, but those are my biggest complaints. Setup was a breeze, installation was painless, and I had TV on my computer within 15 minutes of opening the box. That includes wiring it all up (granted, I’m pretty good around my AV gear).

I wondered a while back whether it would run on a G4 Mac. While it takes up 50% CPU on my dual core Intel-based Mac, Heidi’s 1.25Ghz eMac kept skipping and pausing trying to play the video. Again, the encryption was probably to blame. On my iMac, I can program, run Eclipse, do whatever with minimal impact on the video.

If you look closely at the screenshot of the player, you’ll see what it looks like in it’s smallest mode. It’s tight. Click one button and a remote control pops up where you can punch in any channel. Quick channel buttons are included right at the bottom, and clicking the little inverted triangle to the right exposes more presets. The most important feature, though, is the “Always on Top” option, something that too many players forget (I’m looking at you, iTunes!).

You also may notice the bit rate on the bottom right of the picture. Yes, that’s 6 Megabits, really. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much sustained bandwidth flowing across my home network. Good thing I’m upgrading to Gigabit at home right now. (OK, Gigabit won’t improve anything, but it sounds good, doesn’t it? Don’t tell my wife…).

The one feature I haven’t had a chance to test is the remote viewing. Slingbox apparently allows me to watch TV across the Internet, even on some mobile devices. I had some trouble with getting this set up with my router (some UPnP issues for the geeks) so no joy yet. Seems like these network apps are still problematic, and it’s not just limited to the Slingbox. The key feature, not obvious unless you’re a techy, is that the player and the box are adjusting the bit rate dynamically based on connection quality. That feature alone enables Internet viewing of this video. It’s pretty much a must have for a consumer device.

Overall, after the first few days of actual use I’m really happy with the purchase. I recommend the device if you’re looking for TV over your home network.

A small side note: I’m out of network ports in my living room. Basically, I have 4 ports on the router. One goes to my office (where there’s another 5 port switch), one goes to Heidi’s office, and the Tivo and XBox360 take up the other ports. I’ve had to disconnect the PS2 (no major loss). So, right now the Slingbox is plugged into the switch in my office with another cable running across the floor. Needless to say, the 8-port GigE switch is on the way from Amazon.

There’s almost no chance I would’ve seen Avenue Q if it weren’t for the Scrubs episode My Musical. We loved the episode and, most importantly, thought the songs were incredibly funny and on target with the characters. That’s pretty hard to do, and we wanted to know who was behind the music. Turns out that the folks who wrote Avenue Q worked on the episode. In fact, the female lead in the original cast, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, was in the episode as the patient. After doing a bit of reading on Avenue Q, seeing a number of positive reviews online, and combined with Heidi’s mandate that we go away this weekend, we decided to drive down to NYC and see Avenue Q at the Golden on Broadway. We were happy we did.

It would be fair to describe this as the most unusual musical I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a decent number both as a theatergoer or working on student productions in high school and college. The musical centers around a cast of muppet-like characters who live out on Avenue Q, a street far outside of Manhattan “where the rents are actually affordable.” While most of the main characters are muppets, the actors who manipulate and voice them are visible and as much a part of the cast and action as the muppets. It takes a few minutes to get used to looking at both faces at the same time, but after that, the setup actually just works. It works really well, actually. The actors are exceptionally good at manipulating the puppets. There’s a lot to appreciate just in the skill with which they animate the puppets while singing and dancing. On top of that, almost all of the puppeteering cast voice multiple muppets. This is often accomplished by one actor manipulating the puppet in rhythm to the primary actor singing the part. It sounds confusing but again, it’s pulled off brilliantly.

The story is a fairly typical coming of age story. In fact, it was fairly predictable. The music wasn’t all that original either. Neither of these things matter, though, as the book (the lyrics) was incredibly funny and smart. It’s also raunchy and crass in ways that easily bring back Team America memories (though this is much better). Heck, two muppets even have sex on stage. Unlike Team America, the raunch and the sex, well, everything are actually are funny.

The guys behind the musical and even some of the original cast spent time working on Sesame Street. This “inspiration” is evident throughout the musical. Two characters are obviously reminiscent of Bert and Ernie and two large monitors provide Sesame Street-like transitions between scenes, albeit in a more adult way. You’ll recognize a few of the sketches from Sesame Street, the Electric Company and other children’s shows of our childhood.

The show is a bit pricey (orchestra and front mezzanine run $101.25), but it’s worth it. Odds are you’ve heard one of the songs before, because I’ve (unknowingly) linked up a video in the past. If you’ve watched the Internet is for Porn video, you’ve heard one of the songs. The song is entirely from Avenue Q (though the video is unrelated to the musical). Enjoy!

If you think that song is any good, you really should see this musical.

(P.S. It should be no surprise that the writers of this musical are potentially collaborating with the folks behind South Park on a new musical. Hopefully, it’s as clever as Avenue Q and South Park and not as stupid as Team America.)

I watched most of the new documentary Hacking Democracy on Friday. The documentary covers the poor state of our new electronic voting machines, specifically focused on how easy they are to manipulate. The film also goes through some of the recent recount efforts in 2004, showing how recount laws prevent effective recounts from happening.

The movie clearly features Gore and Kerry supporters, but they make a clear effort to explain that it’s only the Republicans this time because they are the ones in power in the two states most directly affected by these vote count issues (Florida and Ohio).

The most surprising thing to me was hearing about some of the irregularities in the 2000 election. It was either the first time, or I have forgotten the same thing. The biggest was the negative votes given to Gore in Volusia County, FL. While the correct count was discovered and used in the final tally, the movie emphasizes that the investigation into the root cause ended when the recount effort ended.

In fact, my biggest takeaway was the importance of real recount efforts. I didn’t realize how much money and effort is only available when an official recount is underway. When the recount effort ended in 2000, the investigation stopped. When Kerry conceded in 2004, little was done to follow through on a recount investigation. Even when a recount gets underway, the actual recount process presents several opportunities for people to “rig” the recount so that recounts don’t happen, whether out of malice or simple mistakes.

I’m happy to see more people talking about these things. Katrina Vanden Heuvel has a decent article listing some reforms that would benefit both parties (and even third parties). Most of them are pretty interesting, but at a minimum, I would love to see a federal requirement that recounts must be possible by hand using ballots that a voter has personally verified. In other words, you can have electronic machines as long as they output a receipt that shows your votes that you then deposit in a box. The paper ballots, not the computers, are used for recounts. Or, you can just go back to pen and paper. They still do that here in Canada (I’m in Montreal this weekend) and it seems to work well.

You can learn more about reform efforts, including what you can do this election to help, at VerifiedVoting.org and Black Box Voting. This is a non-partisan issue, and one that should be important to us all.

(found the Nation article via Atrios)

We went to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest tonight. I’m a big fan of the first Pirates movie, and Heidi loves Johnny Depp, so this ended up on the must see list for the theater. It didn’t disappoint at all.

Everything about the movie is bigger than the first. It feels longer, has more special effects, and even more action sequences. Overall, the movie captures the same irreverent feel of the first film but has a few small niggling drawbacks. The first is that the love triangle of sorts in the first film becomes an unnecessary love quadrangle. It was a distraction, though it may have provided the “reason” that Jack needed help finding this movie’s treasure.

It was also obvious about halfway through that we were getting set up for a five hour story. In other words, it’s obvious that they already shot the third movie. Think Back to the Future II.

Beyond that, it’s a good movie. If you liked the first installment, you’ll enjoy this. It’s just as fun and goofy as the original. I’m looking forward to the third film.

Rating

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest:

(Note: Standard disclaimer applies.)

Update:

I’m shocked at the low scores this movie got from MetaCritic and RottenTomatoes. I would expect them to be in the mid 70s or 80s. Here’s the direct link to both:

Other Reviews

• MetaCritic reviews of POTC:DMC
• Google Reviews
• Rotten Tomatoes

(Editor’s note: Eric left this as a comment in my post, but I think it’s worth having as a top level post. I’ve republished it and I hope Eric won’t mind.)

Ok, I saw this movie last night with my girlfriend. I was really hesitant at first. My impression going in to it mirrored a professor of mine (retired army) at the military school I am attending. Basically, we thought 2 hours was long, so they must do what most all movies that depict real life do: they pick out a few characters, show their background (both truth and fiction), and follow them through a set of true events that are sensationalized. This is the exact reason why I did not want to see it. I thought to myself, if I ever want to watch anything like it, it should be a documentary that tries to capture the true essence of the events, not some Hollywood interpretation playing on fears and emotions.

But, I wasn’t set against seeing it. So, my girlfriend, who was more curious about it at the time than I was, and I went last night. When we first arrived (about 30 minutes before the movie), it was empty. I figured it would have a small crowd, but to my surprise, it filled to almost capacity. Then it started.

To tell the truth, I was very surprised and completely wrong about my previous assumption. This movie was a documentary. Not a conventional one. It wasn’t narrated as clips of events were shown. It was a glimpse, as true as they could make it, of 6 different places the morning of 9/11 (the flight, 3 regional air traffic control centers, FAA headquarters, and a military air defense station).

They didn’t follow any ‘characters.’ They didn’t show any background. They didn’t show crowds or civilian reactions. They didn’t use Hollywood theatrics (as we have come to know). And what is more surprising is that they used the real people that were there that morning. You did have your share of actors (mostly unknowns), but where they could, they used normal, everyday people. You could tell, it wasn’t ‘scripted,’ as in the normal Hollywood sense. The lines weren’t meant to create superficial tension (they let the events do that), but to just reflect peoples actual thoughts in the situation. And, it was in real time.

I am sure had you been in any of the regional air traffic control towers, the FAA headquarters, or the military air defense, it would have been as close as a mirror image as you could get. The actions, reactions, and speech mimicked what I believed happened at that time at those places. As far as being on the plane goes, it is only a guess to what happened, although their interpretation is as probably as good as any others. The hijackers were portrayed as real people with real fears and hesitation. The passengers were as you would expect to be in a crisis, not as those in a Bruce Willis film or Oliver Stone interpretation.

To tell you the truth, I did get a little sick. I thought about leaving, half way through, but I was able to stay. Others did leave, but not as many as I had expected. The camera work was shaky (intentionally), which can cause some motion sickness.

Overall, I don’t think there was an intended message, be it political, patriotic, etc… I think the scenes were a series of events that were put together to (as best as possible) be unbiased to the events that happened that morning. I think whatever you take from it, is solely from where you stand going in. Some will take it as a political message, some as a patriotic one, some as over-hyped, and some as too overwhelming. It becomes your own manifestation of feelings towards that day, and towards the events.

I am not trying to convince anyone to see it or even give it a good review. It struck me as a recreation, as best as could be shown, not as a movie attempting to give insight we didn’t already know or a new interpretation to something already familiar. I didn’t feel as someone was trying to capitalize on a tragedy, but I do still believe in the best of mankind. Entertainment Weekly said in its review:

“Do we need to see this? No. There’s no right or wrong way to remember 9/11, no shame in skipping the movie-fied sight or prize for those who dare to look.”

I just wanted to let people know, that the thoughts I had going into it were wrong. I am not necessarily glad I saw this movie or upset that I did. I think in the coming years, it will be a good movie to have for people that were too young to remember what happened that day. And a good reminder, down the line, when I am ready to watch it again.

I saw the musical Rent with my mom and sisters while it stopped in Philly on it’s national tour. It remains, to this day, one of my favorite musicals ever. I even have the Playbill somewhere. The story about artists in the Villiage struggling with money, AIDS, and the threat of eviction kept me leaning forward in my seat for both acts. And, as a theatre geek, I was amazed at the staging, the sets, the lighting, the singing and acting, everything. It was all perfect for the script and the story.

So you can imagine my trepidation watching the 2005 film version of the play. I was surprised that they got most of the original Broadway cast back to do the movie. The one exception, and I don’t know why (yet) was the original actress that played Mimi. I was also curious about whether they were going to sing everything, or whether they would remain true to the story.

There’s always that tendency to screw up a good thing. We’ve all seen treasured books and plays get taken to the big screen and get ruined. There are exceptions, of course, like Six Degrees of Separation, West Side Story, or Fiddler on the Roof. In general, though, things don’t always make it to film intact and as vibrant as the staged version.

This film, however, falls into the exception category. Though not as strong as the others I listed above (except perhaps Six Degrees), the musical remains true to the original play and captures the essence of the film. Bringing back nearly the entire original cast helped, of course. Especially since I know those voices for those parts from countless hours listening to the soundtrack. The direction and sets were true to the play with a few minor exceptions. The opening sequence with the fire was a bit too much, and I wondered how Maureen could afford all the TVs and lighting in her protest piece, but beyond those details, the movie was really good.

I also missed the original Mimi. Rosario Dawson is a good actress and a decent singer. Her voice, however, lacked the power and pop of the veteran Broadway actors around her. Her version of Out Tonight just lacked the power and raw power and sexuality of Daphne Rubin-Vega rendition. I think they had to alter the mix of the song to compensate for her voice, which made the whole thing a bit flat. That song is one of the highlights of the movie. I know several people who have it mixes and love to blast it in their cars, singing along. It’s an awesome song. Except in the movie.

Contrast that to Idina Menzel, who plays Maureen. She has clearly had dance training. It shows during Tango Maureen, which, by the way, was a very cool sequence in the film and a good change from the musical.

I’m also embarrased to say that I didn’t realize that Jesse L. Martin and Taye Diggs were both in the original Broadway cast of the film. I told Heidi that I didn’t think Martin did Broadway and probably only got cast because of his TV credentials on Law and Order. Silly me. He’s actually really, really good. It was amazing to see him playing something so different than the city cop he plays on the TV show.

This movie is worth seeing even if you’ve already seen the musical. The changes are mostly welcome and well worth it. If you haven’t seen the musical, then you really ought to see this. You may or may not like it (hey, not everyone likes musicals, even ones that are all rock music), but you’ll walk away with a couple of good conversations and some great music.

In what has to be a record, I’ve just finished filing my 2005 Federal Tax Return. It’s amazing what owning a home can do to motivate you to file that return as early as possible. That, and well, there’s that looming wedding which makes the refund check more than a nice thing.

One problem I ran into this year was that H&R Block discontinued TaxCut for the Mac. I’ve happily used that software for the last 3 years and was looking forward to using the new version this year. So, I was faced with the choice of either switching over to TurboTax or going the web route with H&R Block.

Ultimately, I chose using the online tax preparation tool, TaxCut Online Premium. A word of warning, I had trouble getting started using Safari. For some reason, I was unable to launch the application and I don’t think it was the popup blocking in Safari. I switched over to Firefox and had smooth sailing from that point on. There were some visual glitches in the interface. For example, some of the buttons seemed to only show their top half (they’re the green slivers you’ll see). I was able to get through the whole preparation interview, though, and file my federal taxes.

Overall, the online offering felt a lot like the Mac program from last year. It offered all the features I needed at a reasonable cost. The help was as robust as the desktop application and the UI made smart use of JavaScript and DHTML. I wish that they had a desktop application, but I’m sure I won’t miss it. Hopefully, filing my state returns will go as smoothly and I’ll have a successful experience with the product.

One nice thing in the report at the end of the product shows you your effective tax rate vs. what bracket you’re in. My effective tax rate was 12% lower than what it should be according to the tax schedule. Had I donated another huge chunk of money to charity (something like $8K more), I would’ve actually dropped a bracket. Something to ponder when comparing our tax brackets to those in other countries.

The Connecticut software hasn’t come out yet, but once that’s out, I’ll be done my taxes earlier than ever. Gotta love it.

My mom just bought a Samsung HL-R5067W 50″ DLP HD-Ready Projection TV this past week and I got a chance to go down and set it up for her this past weekend. I’ve been slow on the HDTV bandwagon… I’ve been waiting for the new HD media to come out (either Blu-Ray or HD DVD) before really investing in an HDTV because I figure I should get it all sorted out at once.

After playing with this TV, I might go ahead and change my mind. The 50″ Samsung has the following basic specifications:

• 720p resolution
• Dual HD tuners for PiP (though you need two sources, more on this in a sec)
• All the inputs you desire including “3 composite, 3 S-Video, 2 component, 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 PC (D-Sub), 2 Firewire, 1 Monitor, and 2 RF inputs” plus some proprietary ones
• DLP technology

There are other odds and ends that you’d expect (stereo speakers, digital audio out, remote, etc.). The TV is extraordinarily light (under 80 lbs.) which makes it easy to find a stand that you like that can hold the TV. It’s lighter than my 220 lbs. 32″ Sony Wega (at least 4 years old). The picture quality is excellent and because the tuner is built in, over-the-air HD programming is a snap. Just plug in an antenna and go.

My folks have a rooftop antenna that worked right out of the box. I had to re-aim it a slight bit to pick up all of the HDTV channels offered by the major networks in Philly, but once that was done I had ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, WB, and a lot of random local channels in digital and analog format. I don’t think we were able to tune in Fox DTV, just analog, but I’m going down there later this week to set up their DSL service, so I’ll work on that next.

The Samsung looks like a single-chip DLP solution, but I saw none of the problems that people indicate with single-chip solutions. Don’t even know, quite honestly, whether 3-chip DLP Cinema TVs exist in a similar price range, but regardless, I didn’t see any picture quality issues typical of early single chip solutions.

The main complaint I had centered on usability and on DVD picture quality. The DVD issue I think is actually related to the source, the DVD player, and not the TV. DVDs are only 480i at best coming into the TV as an analog signal. Even with component inputs, the image was a bit blurry if you were closer than 8 ft. to the TV (not a recommended distance, to be sure, but that’s how close I was when I was working on the wiring). They make upconversion DVD players that will play a DVD and output a digital signal (say over HDMI) to the TV at 720p, improving the image quality. That might be something to try, but it’s not important to my parents. It is important to me and if I get a TV like this, I’ll be investigating DVD players that have this feature.

As for usability, I found the menus a bit annoying, especially when it came to adding or deleting channels into the programmed channel list. For example, when I first set the TV up and told it to auto-program the channel list, it didn’t find the NBC and CBS DTV channels. I knew they existed and checked the stations’ web sites to confirm that they were indeed broadcasting. The TV offers this nice signal strength meter to help you fine tune the antenna position, in fact. The problem was that I couldn’t get the TV to tune into that channel so I could mess with the antenna to find it. In fact, I couldn’t figure out how to tune into a channel that didn’t exist in the list so I could add it without going into the auto-program feature. It was the most agonizing part of the setup and something that shouldn’t be so hard to figure out. If I tune into 3-1 and it doesn’t exist, just tune me in and tell me that it doesn’t exist. I suspect that there’s some reason related to way these signals are broadcast that makes this kind of interface better, but damn it stinks.

I also thought that the PiP feature was a bit lame. There are dual tuners, but they have two different input sources on the back. Which is fine when you have two sources, but sucks when you only have the antenna. There was also some restriction on which coax source I could hook the antenna to, which is why I couldn’t just split the antenna source into both inputs. I was also worried about confusion for my folks. The TV autodetects sources with connect devices and would then show both Cable/Ant and Ant in the source list which would be odd. The PiP feature is nice, though, for checking on the game while watching a DVD. Any of the input sources can be used for the PiP feature. Switching between sources for the PiP view was cumbersome. I didn’t find a convenient button on the remote that would do it, so I had to go into a menu two choices deep to switch sources.

Overall, though, I really loved this TV. So much so that I’m considering breaking my HDTV plan and getting one sooner rather than later. Perhaps as a Christmas gift for me. Heidi will kill me, though, especially considering the cost of our upcoming wedding, so I’ll probably wait. But, if I were getting a TV now, this 50″ TV is nearly perfect for a casual home theater buff like me.

I didn’t only watch movies on my trip out to California. I was also able to finish Freakonomics on the flight back. After hearing a number of coworkers and friends absolutely rave about this book, I picked it up a few months back. Because of a little thing called football, I wasn’t able to read the book until last week. The book was a very quick read. I was able to finish it without reading that fast on the trip from CA to CT.

The subtitle of the book is “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything” which pretty well sums up the premise of the book. He approaches common social problems from an economist’s perspective, using statistical analysis and large data sets to challenge conventional wisdom. The book really is a more accessible version of some of the research papers Levitt has produced over his academic career. Pop economics blended with typical current affairs stuff, if you will.

If you’re easily offended by hard questions, this book probably isn’t for you. The most controversial segment of the book, which recently got Bill Bennett in trouble, was a study by Levitt that suggested that the legalization of abortion seems to have helped the reduction of crime in the 90s, more so than the reasons commonly cited, including the strong economy and alternative policing tactics. This is a tricky subject to broach, but an interesting analysis.

Another interesting chapter, titled “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms,” uses a unique set of data acquired from a Chicago gang to draw interesting conclusions that show that the local crack dealers are more like the burger flippers at McDonalds than the image we have of wealthy drug dealers. The story about how they got the data is as interesting and as central as the conclusions they were able to draw. Not that the conclusions are anything to sneeze at:

By the 1980s, virtually every facet of life was improving for black Americans, and the progress showed no signs of stopping.

Then came crack.

While crack use was hardly a black-only phenomenon, it hit black neighborhoods much harder than most. The evidence can be seen by measuring the same indicators of societal progress cited above. After decades of decline, black infant mortality began to soar in the 1980s, as did the rate of low-birthweight babies and parent abandonment. The gap between black and white schoolchildren widened. The number of blacks sent to prison tripled. Crack was so dramatically destructive that if its effect is averaged for all black Americans, not just crack users and their families, you will see that the group’s postwar progress was not only stopped cold but was often knocked as much as ten years backward. Black Americans were hurt more by crack cocaine than by any other single cause since Jim Crow.

That’s a pretty powerful statement.

My main complaint with the book is that it is pop economics. I would’ve liked a bit more detail into the numbers. Or, perhaps, a clear footnote (not endnote) for each section that indicated where the study was published. That way, someone like me who is actually interested in how the numbers work out and some extra detail is encouraged to look up the data. While the book begins with a warning against believing conventional wisdom, and not trusting experts blindly, the book does little in a practical sense to encourage readers to take that next step: challenge the data, the assumptions, and try to understand it. It’s a little nitpick in an otherwise very entertaining and informative book.

BTW, the authors have a web site and a blog, too.

I have to admit that this week’s announcement from Apple (while impressive) left me disappointed on one major front. I was really expecting Apple to do something clever with the form factor of the iPod Video in order to get a larger screen on there. Yes, I know it’s physically larger than the standard iPod Photo screen, but I’m talking another inch or so each way, perhaps in a widescreen orientation.

I expected I would be envious of the new iPod when I compared it to my PSP, but the screen size is so important to me that I don’t regret having the PSP at all. The device can play games and music, I have an iPod anyway to carry the bulk of my music collection, and I know how to take DVD films and dump them to the PSP. Apple also wasn’t able to seal a deal for movies beyond the Pixar shorts that they got. If they’re able to do that, I’ll reevaluate, but without a legal, legit, and easy way to get mainstream films onto the iPod, it’s not quite good enough. Movies for the PSP (on their UMD format) may be a little overpriced, but the availability of titles makes it easy to grab a movie for a trip.

Which leads me to the next point for this post, a review of how the PSP did on my trip out to California last week. I had a number of movies on UMD and movies from my DVD collection with me on the trip. I ended up watching several on the trip. Overall, the PSP was a great portable video player. I was able to watch nearly two whole movies without running out of juice on both trips. The only reason I wasn’t able to finish the second movie was that the flight was too short. My only major complaint is that the sound level on the recordings was too low. The PSP has a UMD volume feature that boosts the audio to compensate, but it wasn’t enough. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the sound level on DVDs are also set very low. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s universal enough to make me believe that it offers some advantage in dynamic range or something. The UMDs seem similarly “quiet.” Games, on the other hand, are nice and loud. I actually had the captioning on so I could understand some of the quieter dialog. It’s just a problem on planes, really. When I used it while camping, it was perfectly loud enough.

I mostly watched movies I had already seen, but I did get one movie for my birthday from Heidi that I hadn’t watched yet. Based on a recommendation from my sister, she got me Crash. I really liked this movie. The ensemble cast delivers great performances across the board. The story is pretty simple. As the events unfold, we start seeing how racism plays into the lives of all of the characters (good and bad). It’s the story that makes this a great movie. Good actors and a good story… funny how that makes for a good movie.

If you liked Traffic, you’ll like this movie. Like Traffic, the writer has worked in some portions that just kick you in the gut. It’s not a happy movie, really. I think that’s part of what makes me like it. It’s not a happy ending. There’s some authenticity in that and not in a contrived way.

Rating: 8/10

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is the latest film from director/writer Wes Anderson who also did The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore. I don’t have much to say about this flick. If you liked the other two movies, you’ll like this. This one is much more like The Royal Tenenbaums than Rushmore, but even slower. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I fell asleep for 5 or 10 minutes during the movie and I rarely do that.

It really is a decent film if you like the genre. The ending is pretty funny and I was happy I watched it, but I can’t recommend it. It’s basically the same cast from TRT, they all can act, and they do a great job. The story is just not that great.

Rating: 4.5/10

Well, that was not what I expected.

It was better.

So, a couple of honest admissions up front. First, I was really afraid that the movie was going to lose a lot of the charm of the series because it had to introduce the characters in the first 20 minutes. That took at least 3 hours of TV episodes in the series. Second, when I read the Salon review, I was pretty concerned about some of the particulars.

In the end, though, all those fears were unfounded. I think the film tilted a little in favor of fans of the series, meaning that some details about the characters won’t seem as authentic to newcomers. That’s a tough balancing act, but I think Whedon and company chose well. There were some noticeable differences in the characters which I won’t go into now. It all makes sense and not much will ruin this series if it ever comes back to the little screen (please, pretty please, someone pick it up!).

By the way, if you’ve been watching the previews or the sneak peeks on the Sci-Fi channel, they didn’t give away much. Most of the funny lines your remember from the previews happen in the first 20 minutes or so of the flick and the rest is fresh. So, keep watching the sneak previews and the trailers… you’re not getting the best of the film.

The Salon review also mentioned that one character’s death will hit regular fans of the series pretty hard. That’s an understatement. Seriously, my jaw was hanging half open for a good five minutes after. It’s not just who dies, but how. It’s good, though, that they’re not afraid to kill off key characters… it was probably the least predictable moment in the film.

Speaking of predictable, let’s move on to some of my criticisms. The movie is as predictable as a TV episode because, well, it has to be. I mean, beyond the unexpected death or two, the good guys prevail, they have some great luck, a crazy clever plan, and, oh yeah, River does something spectacular. It’s not ho hum, so much as it isn’t all that suspenseful. In fact, it’s the Whedon style that keeps the movie entertaining: the quips, the little twists, and skillful usage of the full cast. It’s basically like the old James Bond movies, if you know what I mean.

Overall, though, this is highly recommended. Even Heidi, who wasn’t a fan of the original series, enjoyed it. It’s not everything I was hoping for and had some small flaws, but I loved it. Go see it.

Rating: 7.5/10

Update: If you want to be scared off, check out the photos on Flickr from folks that attended the many premiere parties.

Heidi and I went to go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Sunday afternoon. Both of us are fans of the original movie and were curious to see how Tim Burton would handle the remake. Of course, Heidi mostly wanted to see it because Johnny Depp is in it, but who’s surprised about that?

The biggest change in the whole movie is, of course, the Tim Burton effect. This movie is darker and stylized in that Tim Burton way. If that’s your thing, you’ll like the movie. If not, you might still like the movie but you’ll probably be weirded out by the Oompa-Loompas. Then again, the Oompa Loompas are pretty damn weird. In fact, if there’s a word that is this movie, it’s weird. The characters say it, you’ll say it when you watch, and the story is, well, a bit weird.

If you remember the earlier film with Gene Wilder, you’ll notice some differences in the overall story. There’s a new backstory about Wonka and his father. And it’s a weird little story. Not the general story, that’s pretty straightforward, but the particulars… for example, the father and Wonka both wear latex gloves. You hear the latex gloves squeaking throughout the movie. Or the obsessiveness by both, father with clean teeth and Wonka with candy. They’re just weird.

Beyond that, though, the story is very close to the book. There are a few changes here and there, but they’re mostly details. If you liked the first one or like the story, you’ll like this movie. It’s well done, the acting is good, and, most importantly, it all works.

Rating: 8/10

I finished the latest Harry Potter book this morning and have to say, wow. The book was worth waiting around B&N for, even worth the loss of sleep to finish it in about 12 hours (I slept for about 5.5 hours in there). If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I think you’ll be happy.

I won’t give away anything much about the plot, so this is safe to read if you haven’t read it yet. I will say that the ending was a shocker and I’m still running through the ramifications of it 8 hours later. Without giving away much, a central recurring character is killed at the end of this book. The way it’s set up is stunning, so I doubt you will expect it coming. I think that was it… it was so sudden that I had no preparation.

Fans of the series won’t be disappointed, though. The book moves quickly and there’s little of the brooding downtime that characterized the last two books. Those expecting any sort of conclusion, even a limited one like the second book, will be disappointed. This book is made, like the previous two, to make you want the next book. It’s not forced, but beyond the death of that character, not much progress is made in this book toward the end goal of defeating Voldemort. In fact, the entire book is about two things: Harry growing another year older (which Rowling is very good at writing), and finding out what Harry will need to do in the next book to finally defeat Voldemort. We learn the mechanism without actually learning the details of how he will actually execute it.

Rating: 8/10

Heidi and I finally saw Sideways last night on DVD, complete with a glass of wine for Heidi. The wine was an important touch, since this movie is set in the wineries of California.

The two main characters, Miles and Jack, are heading up to the vineyards for a week long wine tasting and golf trip to get away before Jack’s wedding the following Saturday. Miles is an English teacher, divorced and a writer trying to get a book published. He’s dorky and a wine connoisseur. Jack is an actor who once had a role in a major soap opera who now does voiceovers in commercials. Miles is looking forward to the wines and the vineyards. Jack, on the other hand, plans on sleeping with some woman, any woman really. They end up meeting two women and go out with them. The rest of the movie follows them along the week as we watch Miles try to regain his confidence and Jack come to terms with the end of bachelorhood.

The movie is one of those that you watch the whole way through without consciously wondering what happens next. I had no anticipation about how it was going to end but I wasn’t bored either. It’s like watching a baseball or basketball game where you don’t care about either team and where nothing spectacular happens. It has some good moments, it remains competitive throughout, and the better team wins by a little bit in the end. That’s pretty much this movie. I didn’t really identify with the two main characters, didn’t really care about them much, but because they weren’t plastic and were played by good actors, I kept watching and enjoyed it. The ending, while not your typical happy ending, is still one where things turn out alright for Miles and Jack.

It’s a good movie for a quiet evening at home but there’s nothing remarkable enough to make me say, “You have to go see this movie.” And that’s probably the biggest flaw in the whole thing. If you have an opportunity to see this, you should see it. Don’t feel too bad if you miss it, though. It’ll be on cable soon enough and you’ll get to see it there (though the funniest and most surprising moment of the film will be edited out on basic cable).

Rating: 6.5/10

We just came back from seeing Batman Begins tonight. A number of reviews said that this movie was closer to the comic books than any of the others since the first one and we’d have to agree.

One of the things about the Batman comics is that the character isn’t Superman. He’s not the clean ideal of a superhero that Superman is. He’s motivated by demons and he’s a dark character in an even darker world. It’s why I loved Tim Burton’s direction in the first two movies. He remained true to that character and to that world. Joel Schumacher, for all of his other accomplishments, well… he’s not exactly right for Batman. The third and fourth movies were cheesy and flashy, too much like the goofy TV shows that really had nothing to do with the comics. And I liked the TV shows. Christopher Nolan is a much better choice. If you’ve seen Memento, you know why. If you haven’t seen Memento, go see it.

Batman Begins is more story driven than the last few Batman flicks. I think that kept Heidi more interested in it than she would’ve been otherwise. I think seeing Christian Bale outside his Batman mask a lot didn’t hurt either. Then again, he actually delivered a solid performance, as did Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, and everyone else. Gary Oldman was especially believable as a young Commissioner Gordon. The look and voice were just right.

As for the action, the movie is good but not great. This is my biggest disappointment overall. Like The Bourne Identity and some other recent action films, the camera angles were just too close to really appreciate the action. You got to see the speed but not the skill or the technique. Which is cool in its own way, but not what I like. In Batman Begins, the experience is worse because it’s so dark to begin with. You’re just seeing bad guys fall down and what looks like Batman spinning in circles. Which, I guess, is one way to convey that he’s moving really, really, really fast… but it also looks like a cheap camera trick. Oh well.

As for the mega caper of the story, the ending was not very believable either. Heidi put it pretty well… the action at the end seemed “incredible” as in “not credible.” I’m very willing to suspend disbelief but the ending was a bit convenient. Good thing is that it’s not even that important. The caper gets wrapped up, which is fine, and the main story keeps chugging which is really all that matters about the movie (the caper seems more like an incidental thing on the way to finding out how Batman becomes Batman).

And that main story is pretty damn good. Rating: 8.5/10