Random News for a Friday

Good afternoon, everybody!

I watched my first Blu Ray movie last night. Anybody want to guess what it was? If you guessed Transformers, well, you'd be correct. It was a great experience, watching that movie in true HD glory. Some of the effects stood out in a way they hadn't before (even on HD DVD), but it was still a great ride.

Having watched the movie earlier this month on HD DVD, it was pretty obvious to me why BD won out in the format wars. The picture and sound quality was miles better on blu Ray than it was on HD DVD, and the metric ton of extra features (including some very spiffy downloads from BD Live) was an added bonus.

And, of coruse, the movie kicked serious ass too. As always.

I also watched Serenity. The PS3 is good enough to upconvert standard DVDs to 1080p for anybody using an HDMI cable (and really, why wouldn't you?). Watching Summer Glau kick tremendous amounts of ass in full 1080p glory was, for lack of a better term, glorious. the special effects were definitely showing their age, but the humor and fascinating story/characters were more than enough to make up for the dated CGI.

I ordered Blu Ray versions of both The Dark Knight and The Da Vinci Code from Amazon yesterday, as well as The Greatest Game Ever Played and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints on standard DVD. I'm a Prime member, so I get free 2-day shipping. I was surprised to find that my package was delivered this morning, however. I lvoe Amazon.

I had never heard of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints until a friend and fellow Shia LaBeouf fan told me I just had to see it. Can't miss movie, he says. So, I picked it up for a small fee on Amazon, and I'm holding it right now. Quite the cast this one has: Robert Downey Jr of recent Iron Man fame, Shia LaBeouf, Channing Tatum of soon to be G.I. Joe fame (assuming the movie is any good... here's to hoping), the lovely Rosario Dawson, and Chazz Palminteri (his dirty bastard cop character in Running Scared always comes to mind when I think of him). The movie took Best Director and Best Ensemble awards at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, which pretty much means the directing and cast rock face. I plan on watching the film this weekend, so expect a review soon.

Speaking of Amazon and Movies, both Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are up for pre-order now. They've got the release date for Star Trek set at November 19 with no scheduled date for Transformers. November can't quite get here fast enough.

In other news, fellow magic player and humorist extraordinaire Kyle Sanchez posted the following Tweet: Left my windows down and a bird white dirrhea shit three times in it.

Good times. His spelling is awful, I know.

I also watched Disturbia last night. That's another movie that people generally think is bad that I've got a soft spot for. The movie is deliciously suspenseful, and it manages to walk the line between teen romance comedy and suspense thriller rather well. The typical Shia gushing aside, my favorite part of this movie has to be David Morse. Morse plays such an amazingly badass bad guy, I could just go on and on about it. He's got hardcore serial killer down pat in this movie. I'm not terribly familiar with his work, but he was in six episodes of House as the narcissistic Michael Tritter, a detective with a lust for getting revenge on everybody's favorite M.D. This is also the only movie I've seen in which Carrie-Anne Moss is even remotely tolerable (OK, she was all right in Memento too, but still).

Anyway, Magic tourney tomorrow, followed by a weekend of movie viewing. I'm running a Warp World combo deck that I haven't figured out a sideboard for yet. Wish me luck, I'm probably going to need it!

Heroes Volume 5 "Redemption" Revealed

A few months ago, I blogged my thoughts on the current state of NBC's show Heroes. After a disappointing 4th volume (season 3.5), the ratings for the show were slipping, and NBC barely renewed it, and only renewed it for a short season at that. It was obvious that Heroes needed to step up to the plate to become the show that all its fans know it can be.

It seems they are taking steps in the right direction.

NBC has posted the trailer for Heroes Volume 5, which will officially kick off on Monday, September 21 with a 2 hour season premiere. You can watch that very trailer below.

One of the biggest issues I noted with Heroes is that it lacked a definitely evil bad guy. The elder Patrelli was killed off, and Sylar is just not cutting it any more. Low and behold, the writers went out and found themselves a potentially very dark, very evil villain in Robert Knepper. Astute readers will remember Knepper for his vicious and depraved character T-Bag in Prison Break. He was despicable, and, more importantly, audiences completely hated his character (while people still cared about the show, that is). I mean that in a good way. T-Bag was slimy, filthy, and just a heinous person. Knepper is one of the best people at what he does, and that's creating evil characters that fans love to hate. With luck, we will have an equally despicable villain for Heroes.

Knepper plays the role of Samuel, the leader of a carnival that recruits the super-powered folks for mysterious, and likely nefarious, means. He has powers as well, as we see at the end of the trailer, likely something telekinetic. Expect the character to be smart, manipulative, and full of bad guy charm.

We are also treated to our first real look at the tatooed lady, who can read the past based on what tattoos form across her skin, or so it appears. We see Claire's long-rumored lesbian lover as well. I'm curious as to what brought about this particular change in her character, so here's to hoping they actually touch on this rather than create a confusing Heroes dialog moment. WE also see that Nikki will indeed be a factor in Volume 5, as we hear her telling Noah Bennett about how she recreated herself with a thought and now only wants to kill the people responsible for trying to kill her. We see a possibly dead Noah Bennett (god, I hope not), and given the line of his brief conversation with Nikki and the water bursting into his car, he may be embroiled in some kind of feud with her. We also see Sylar, whole in body if not in mind, going after Matt Parkman and little Matt Parkman.

I am going to say it: this trailer makes me very excited to see where Heroes Volume 5 goes. It seems like the writers have their heads on straight and are moving the show in a positive direction. So long as they can avoid stagnating the story with the stupid Heroes Reset Button, I think positive things are coming for the series.

Anyway, enough talking. Behold, the trailer.

Florida Police Officers Caught on Tape Making Up Story About Accident

It was about a month ago that the here blog discussed a police officer who shot a 5-pound dog three times. That was a particularly grisly abuse of the power that we entrust to the men and women who are charged with protecting us. This is abuse of power on a much different, perhaps even worse, level.

In February, a Florida woman, Alexandra Gabriela Torrensvilas, was rear ended by an on duty police officer, Joel Francisco. She was charged with four counts of drunken driving and cited for an improper lane change.

Under normal circumstances the person who did the rear ending would be held at least partially responsible for not maintaining minimum safe distance between the vehicles. In this case, nope. The cops covered for themselves, and there's video to prove it. In this video (NSFW - lots of f-bombs), you can clearly hear the four officers concoct a story about how everything went down to place all the blame on Torrensvilas and absolve officer Francisco of everything. The video catches one police officer with this little gem:

"I don't want to make things up ever, because it's wrong, but if I need to bend it a little to protect a cop, I'm gonna. We'll do a little Walt Disney to protect the cop, because it wouldn't have mattered, because she is drunk anyway."

I think we can all agree that drunk driving is wrong, and this woman was obviously driving drunk and should be punished accordingly. However, these officers, by making up their little story, have virtually assured Torrensvilas a free pass - the report given by the officers is tarnished, likely inadmissible now, throwing the whole case into question. So, she skips out on her punishment, and our respect for the force as a whole is diminished.

Perhaps even more so than the shooting of the dog, where police officers can at least attempt to claim "following policy" as the excuse du jour, there is nothing that justifies the perpetration of fraud to make an officer look innocent. This is a blatant abuse of power, a snubbing of the nose at the respect we show the men and women who are supposed to be upholding the law, and it makes me sick.

This blogger firmly believes that all of these officers should promptly be stripped of their badges. You cannot have this sort of disregard for the people you are supposed to protect and serve and still be considered worthy of holding the badge.

Period.

Company Suing Woman Over Tweet - $50,000 Lawsuit For Expressing an Opinion

No, I'm not joking, as much as I wish I was. I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect something like this to happen sooner or later anyway.

Horizon Group Management is suing Chicago resident Amanda Bonnen for posting the following Tweet to her Twitter account:

Bonnen has 20 followers on Twitter. Now, her account has been closed down. Whether this is her doing or Twitter's, I don't know.

What I do know is that it's a little ridiculous for a woman to be sued over posting her opinion. The lawsuit, which claims she "maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter," is for a whopping total of $50,000 dollars.

Really? Because 20 people saw a sarcastic remark made on a social networking site? This seems quite extreme to me.

For starters, I'd like to talk about the utter stupidity of this company. I'm not sure they realize it, but one very quick way to get consumers to hate a company is for said company to sue an individual. Just look at the RIAA, which is likely one of the most hated companies on the planet due to the fact that they find it entertaining to sue people for tens of thousands of dollars. Same thing here. They are earning themselves far more bad press - and I mean far more, search for this on Google if you'd like to find out just how much more - than they would have had by 20 people reading a single Tweet.

Aside from the idea that suing your customers is probably not the best business strategy, there are better ways to handle customers criticizing your company in public. Let's look to Comcast. They, well, Frank Eliason and team specifically, actively search social networking sites like Twitter for customers complaining about them. Then, instead of suing them, Frank's team resolves the issue. It's quite remarkable, really, the idea of taking a poor customer experience and turning it into a good one. Frank's approach breeds loyalty in the customer base, while Horizon's approach will likely garner them only an angry customer base that is much less likely to use their services.

Perhaps at the root of this issue, what is a Tweet really? Does writing a 140-characters-or-less blurb about a person/company so 20 of your friends can see it really count as publishing something? I'd relate that more to having a conversation with a friend, or group of friends, and having a representative of the company overhear the conversation. We all know that conversation cannot be the basis of a defamation lawsuit, so why should something as tiny as a Tweet? But then again, where do you draw the line?

I've never really agreed with the idea of defamation lawsuits anyway. It goes back to that whole idea that everybody cares too much about what other people think of them. If what the defamer is saying about you is untrue, prove it with your actions. The public will see that the defamer is obviously wrong, and that will be that. If the defamer is correct, well, that's hardly defamation then, is it?

Besides all that, this kind of lawsuit sets a dangerous precedent for censorship on the Internet. Should Horizon be awarded the victory here, the stage will be set for companies across the country to take folks to court for expressing their opinions, factual and otherwise. Given the Internet has long been a pillar of ideas without restraint, the ability for companies to actively censor what can and can't be posted, and sue you for crossing that line, is truly a threatening one.

Lawsuits are not the be all, end all answer to everything. This holds doubly true for companies suing individuals. In trying to "protect the company image," Horizon has brought a viral avalanche of crap down on themselves. It will be interesting to see what ends up happening to this one.

More LOLing

I love Venn Diagrams!


see more Funny Graphs

An LOL for the Day

see more Political Pictures

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - The Review

Let me start this off by saying that I have owned my PS3 since Tuesday. Over the course of Tuesday night and Thursday night, I beat this game. that should tell you two things: First, the game is not very long. Second, and most importantly, it rocks face.

I had a friend come over yesterday; we were supposed to play RE5 til the wee hours of the morning. He finished dinner before me, so I said, "You should try Drake's Fortune." He didn't put the controller down again until 4:30 in the morning when he beat the game.

I first heard about the game while reading Game Informer. They had a huge preview thing in it, and suffice it to say that I almost wanted to go out and get a PS3 just to play it. It looked that good.

Well, in this case, my expectations were met, and in some regards, even surpassed. Having done nothing with my PS3 yet other than play Drake's Fortune, I can safely say the game justifies my purchase all by itself.

Where do I begin? Graphics seem like an easy place to start. They're gorgeous. What else can I say? The vistas are jaw-dropping in many areas of the game, the water looks gorgeous, the art direction is spectacular. One of my fondest memories of the game is one part where Drake is on a jet ski riding up a jungle river. The river itself, put together with the surrounding areas is so beautiful, so realistic, it's impossible to describe. I felt like I was watching a movie.

Ooooh, purty

I believe that is the effect Naughty Dog was going for in this game. The game feels like a movie. I think that's probably the best way to describe it. From the way the gameplay unfolds to the camera angles to the music... it all screams Hollywood experience. I've never felt like I was playing a movie before in a video game, but that's exactly what this felt like, and it's a pretty darned cool feeling.

You play as Nathan Drake, direct descendant of Sir Francis Drake, the famed explorer from the 16th century. The game opens with Nate discovering the underwater coffin of his famous relative, only to find it empty. Inside is a journal that contains the clues he must follow to find the treasure of El Dorado. The hunt leads through dense jungles, dark caves, and ancient cities. Like I said before, the surroundings are breathtaking. The vistas will demand you stop and stare, the jungle feels claustrophobic as the foliage darkens everything around you. The abandoned ruins are at once majestic and derelict. Along the way, a very interesting story unfolds, one that feels much like an Indiana Jones movie. Don't let the bad taste of the last Indy flick color your opinion of this game though, I'm talking Raiders of the Lost Ark good, not Crystal Skull bad. You've got Nate hunting the treasure with sidekicks Sully and Elena, then you've got the murderous bastards who are hunting them. And then...

Oh wait, I don't want to give anything away if you haven't experienced it for yourself yet.

The characters, something you don't usually see developed too well in a game such as this (given only about 10 hours of play time), are great. Nate is witty and sarcastic, and he will keep you entertained from start to finish, either with his banter around others or as he talks himself through the various situations in which he finds himself. Elena is the awesome lady of the story, who is not afraid to stand up and do her own thing. Finally, Sully is the (also) sarcastic old man who is never short on hilarious things to say. Put the fantastic scripting together with their amazing-looking onscreen counterparts, and well, it's like movie magic.

This impression is certainly helped by the animations. This game is chock full of them, particularly where facial expressions are concerned. I have never seen a video game that took so much time and effort into showing you how a character's face looks. Usually, in video games, you have to rely on the voice acting or other broad gestures (like slumped shoulders) to tell you how a character is feeling. Here, you get the voice work, the animations, and you get a ridiculously large suite of facial expressions to match. Nate face can go from excited to surprised to terrified seamlessly and realistically. You can put the game on mute and have a general understanding of what Nate is feeling just by looking at his face. As far as I have seen, this has NEVER been done in a video game before, and it is (among a long list of great things this game does right) my favorite thing about the game. I am a sucker for great characters, and these facial animations bring Nathan and company to life like nothing I've ever seen in a video game.

Great facial expressions = great characters

In terms of gameplay, this feels a lot like a combination of Prince of Persia and Resident Evil 5, just harder. PoP, in my experience tends to have a lot of hand holding, which always drove me nuts. After the first mission, Drake's Fortune turns you loose to solve puzzles however you want. There is an option for the game to give you a hint if it feels that you are stuck, but I turned that off immediately. The platforming elements are challenging and fun. Even when I died trying to find the correct solution to a puzzle, I was never frustrated.

Whether you are platforming or doing combat, the gameplay is intense. Particularly on the platforming segments. The devs throw Nate into some pretty precarious situations. One part has you hopping boulders and the edge of a cliff to get to the other side of the waterfall. On your way across, the camera jumps to a point above you, looking straight down at you... and all the way down the fall. With graphics as good as Naughty Dog is squeezing out of the PS3, let me tell you about how much vertigo I felt. The sense of height was dizzying. And that's just one small part from a game full of moments such as these.

This is the side of a mighty big fortress

There is a wide variety of gameplay here, which is part of what made it feel like RE5 to me. You have platforming sections, action sections, vehicle sections... Yet the variety in gameplay really feels cohesive, because it feels like you are on an adventure!

This is probably the games second biggest success (behind bringing the characters to vivid life with facial animations). The game is immersing as hell, which is also part of the reason the game feels so movie-ish. There were many times when I thought I might be in a jungle, or in a cave, or an abandoned ruin. Between characters I cared about, impressive graphics, intense gameplay, great music (Greg Edmonson put together one heck of a score that I finally managed to track down. Snag this one if you get the chance) and camera choices, and great 5.1 support, this might be the most immersing video game I've ever experienced.

I'd like to point out the last boss "battle" for a moment here. The final battle in Drake's Fortune exemplifies a trend in certain really good video games lately, and that's the idea of the final boss battle not being just some hard ass fight, but rather the climax of a story. The "boss fight" here is no harder, per se, than the rest of the game, but it is the climax to an edge-of-your-seat story, and so the intensity is ratcheted up. This feels better than a more traditional last boss where you battle some overpowered, steroid addicted, hulking thing. It makes the experience of the game as a whole more fulfilling, and I wish more games would use this method. Other great games that have gone this route are Mass Effect, Halo: Combat Evolved, and Halo 3.

Punch in the gut! Check out the water effects.... gorgeous!

That's not to say the game is perfect or anything. No, not quite. My complaints are, however, really small. More like quibbles really. First, there were some small oversights on certain things. In one part, for example, Nate is in a room with a window. There is a desk between Nate and the window, yet when we see Nate from the outside looking into his room, it appears as though he is right against the window. These types of occurrences are relatively minor and rare, but they were certainly head-scratching moments when they appeared. A far larger problem is the aiming. It's a bit jittery, and there were many shots I took throughout the game that missed but in any other game, would have hit. One of the most common examples of this, and this happened rather often, would happen when an enemy was shooting me from behind cover. I would shoot them clearly in the head, with say, a sniper rifle, but instead of hitting the enemy in the head, I'd see a little spark in front of their face, like I'd hit their cover instead of their head. Given the scarcity of ammo on the higher difficulties, this was immensely frustrating, and I look forward to this being resolved in the sequel.

Anyway, this review comes very late, as this game's been out for almost 2 years now, but it also gets to be my first PS3 review, and what a way to kick things off. I think this game by itself justifies the fact that I own a PS3 now, and there's a sequel coming soon to boot! I can't wait for that one; it's at the top of my PS3 must play games list right now. You can check out the trailer, which I posted to this here blog a few days ago.

Anyway, time for the score. 9.8/10.0

Pandora No Longer Free, Imposes 40 Hour Monthly Cap

The Intertubes are abuzz with the news that Pandora, everybody's favorite free online personalized radio service is no longer completely free. It's long been known that Pandora has been up the financial creek thanks to ludicrous Internet radio royalty fees imposed by greedy record execs. But, they claim to be on "safe ground" now, and have implemented a new plan for increasing revenue.

Pretty much, it works like this. There is now a 40 hour monthly limit imposed on the folks who are listening for free (it does not include Pandora One subscribers). Once you reach that 40 hour limit, you can pay a fee of, get this, $0.99 to continue listening for the rest of the month, or you can upgrade to Pandora One for $36.00 a year for unlimited listening and a slew of other perks.

Pandora expects this to impact only the "top 10% of users,"so most folks won't even notice this. If you are in that top 10%, you most likely received the following email:

Hi, it’s Tim -

I hope this email finds you enjoying a great summer Pandora soundtrack.

I’m writing with some important news. Please forgive the lengthy email; it requires some explaining.

First, I want to let you know that we’ve reached a resolution to the calamitous Internet radio royalty ruling of 2007. After more than two precarious years, we are finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates – thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our listeners who voiced an absolute avalanche of support for us on Capitol Hill. We are deeply thankful.

While we did the best we could to lower the rates, we are going to have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web. Because we have to pay royalty fees per song and per listener, it makes very heavy listeners hard to support on advertising alone. Most listeners will never hit this cap, but it seems that you might.

We hate the idea of capping anyone's usage, so we've been working to devise an alternative for listeners like you. We've come up with two solutions and we hope that one of them will work for you:

Your first option is to continue listening just as you have been and, if and when you reach the 40 hour limit in a given month, to pay just $0.99 for unlimited listening for the rest of that month. This isn't a subscription. You can pay by credit card and your card will be charged for just that one month. You'll be able to keep listening as much as you'd like for the remainder of the month. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable - the same price as a single song download.

Your second option is to upgrade to our premium version called Pandora One. Pandora One costs $36 per year. In addition to unlimited monthly listening and no advertising, Pandora One offers very high quality 192 Kbps streams, an elegant desktop application that eliminates the need for a browser, personalized skins for the Pandora player, and a number of other features: http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one.

If neither of these options works for you, I hope you'll keep listening to the free version - 40 hours each month will go a long way, especially if you're really careful about hitting pause when you’re not listening. We’ll be sure to let you know if you start getting close to the limit, and we’ve created a counter you can access to see how many hours you’ve already used each month.

We’ll be implementing this change starting this month (July), I’d welcome your feedback and suggestions. The combination of our usage patterns and the "per song per listener" royalty cost creates a financial reality that we can't ignore...but we very much want you to continue listening for years to come.

Please don't hesitate to email me back with your thoughts.

If you ask me, paying a whole dollar to continue listening to a great online radio service is fine by me, especially if it allows them to stay in business. I love Pandora - I listen to it all the time, so I expect to be shelling out $12 a year to continue listening all the time. I think that Pandora is one of those services that the people who use it love. I doubt we'll see any kind of backlash against them for this move. Not only is this a ridiculously fair price, but I think the community will have few problems paying to keep the service alive.

I Finally Bought a PlayStation 3

So, I finally broke down and bought myself a PS3. I snagged a nice deal with a 160GB model, extra controller and 2 games (Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Infamous) for under $500. Woot.

But why? I've been an Xbox 360 loyalist since day 1, and I still believe it is the better system with better games. BUT, it does not play high definition movies. I've long been able to just not care that much, as I've been content with standard definition. However, after last weekend watching Transformers on my outdated HD DVD player and the slew of good HD-worthy movies that came out this summer, the time has come for me to invest in a BluRay player. And since I'm also a gamer, the PS3 seems like a logical option for that. It should be here the end of this week or beginning of next week. I can't wait.

In the world of gaming, there are very few games that I want to play on the PS3 that I can't already play on my 360. Simply stated, I still think the 360 is a better system, because it has more of the games that I want to play. That being said, there some games that I've been tempted to buy a PS3 just so I could play. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was certainly one of them. In fact, ever since I saw the first preview for it in Game Informer, I've wanted to play that game. Story and event driven gameplay, graphics and physics that showed us what the vaunted PS3 hardware could do, and STORY driven gameplay. Few things are cooler than that. Now, I get to play it, and the forthcoming sequel to boot.

Who saw the E3 trailer for the new Uncharted game? It looked jaw-droppingly good, and by itself it might've been enough to push me to buy a PS3 when it came out. Talk about intense gameplay! It looks remarkable, and here it is.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves at IGN.com

Anyway, the only other PS3 exclusive that's come out so far that has me interested is Infamous, which is supposed to be similar to Prototype (you are a badass with special powers running around an apocalyptic city killing things) but better. Sign me up. Expect reviews of both that and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune soon after I receive them.

Transformers Climbs to $339M

Steve Jablonsky's score for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has been dominating my music listening time. In the almost 3 weeks that I've owed it, it has become the second most listened to movie score on my computer, according to my iTunes play counts. It comes in behind only the score from the first Transformers film. Go, go Steve Jablonsky.

The movie slipped to 3rd place after a two week run as the top movie in the country. The new Ice Age maintained its hold on second place, and Bruno dangled his wang all the way to number 1. Imagine that, full-on frontal nudity, apparently a lot of it too, as the number one movie in America... Penis much?

Anyway, money time. Transformers brought in another $24.2M this weekend, bringing its 3 week total to $339.2M. Harry Potter comes out this weekend, which means the numbers will probably take a dip. I plan on tracking this movie until it becomes the lowest critically scored movie to break the $400M mark. Just because that will be awesome. Back to the real world, the movie brought its international take to a stupefying $333.1M, which brings it's global total through 3 weeks to $672.3M. These numbers push Transformers ahead of Angels & Demons as the top grossing movie globally, and it maintains its number 1 spot domestically also. Take that Bruno and your craptacular mockumentaries.

Revenge of the Fallen can also claim:

• Best Wednesday opening ever
• 2nd best opening day ever
• 8th biggest worldwide opening ever
• 5th biggest opening week ever
• 2nd biggest single day gross ever
• Biggest opening weekend in June
• 7th biggest opening weekend in the summer
• Biggest 5-day gross for a movie opening on a Wednesday
• 16th highest grossing movie (domestically) ever

I've recently discovered that I'm utterly fascinated by box office statistics. For those interested, all my statistics come from BoxOfficeMojo.com. I'll likely be back next Monday with another recap as we approach that awesome $400M mark.

World Soundtrack Academy Fan's Choice Award

Every year, the Ghent International Film Festival concludes with the World Soundtrack Academy's awards ceremony, which honors the best film scores from the previous year. One award given every year is the Fan's Choice award, where we, the fans, get to vote for our favorite score and the most voted composer wins the award. Simple, right?

Anyway, I just finished my voting - can you guess what my vote for the best score of the last 12 months was?

This was a very easy choice for me: Steve Jablonsky's score for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It's easily the best score released in the last 12 months; nothing else really comes close. Heck, it's one of the best scores in recent memory. For anybody that has an appreciation for good music, you should definitely check this album out.

Now it's your turn. Use the link below to submit your vote for the best score of the past year. I'm not going to tell you how to vote, but you should definitely keep Transformers in mind :)

http://www.worldsoundtrackacademy.com/awards2.cgi

More Transformers Goodness

So, I saw the movie again this weekend. Couldn't help myself really. I watched the first movie on my Xbox 360 HD DVD attachment, which I bought specifically so I could watch Transformers in HD. Oops. Don't get me wrong, the movie is phenomenal in HD, but the HD DVD went the way of the Dodo shortly thereafter. Anyway, Transformers was the only HD DVD flick I bought, and I decided to check it out again, since I was bored off my behind. Suffice it to say, the movie was just as awesome as I remembered it being, and I had the sudden urge to go see the sequel.

It was almost 11 at night, so I hopped online to see if there were any showings left. Fortunately there was one, 11:05, so I jumped in my car and hauled ass to the theater. The obnoxiously bad light timing in Colorado Springs coupled with the suffocating presence of cops out on holiday patrol stifled the "haul ass" quite a bit, but I still managed to make it to the show after only missing most of the previews. I did see an interesting trailer for G.I. Joe. I really hope that movie is better than I'm currently thinking it's going to be. We'll see.

Anyway, cue Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Like all the movies I've seen so far this summer, it was far better the second time around. Perhaps it was that I had just finished watching the first movie, so I was already involved with the characters, but I had a hell of a time at the show. I came out of the show positively giddy at the awesomess.

Taken as a whole experience, Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the two make up probably one of my favorite movie experiences ever. Both movies are just so good.

So... financials time. Transformers took in another $42.5 million this weekend, tied with the new Ice Age movie for weekend gross. The extra cash bumped Transformers into the highest grossing movie of 2009 slot, surpassing Up after just its second weekend of release. After a mere 12 days, the movie has brought in $293.1m domestically and a ginormous $591.4m globally. Revenge of the Fallen is now the 31st highest grossing (domestically) movie of all time, and you can probably look for it to climb significantly higher on that list before its box office run is through. I think it's possible we'll see Transformers break the $400m barrier, which would make it, amusingly, the lowest critically scored movie to break that barrier... ever.

Given my love for the movie, I would love to see this happen, as it's just a slam in the face of the critics who bashed the crap out of the movie.

Go, Transformers!

Eagle Eye - The Review

Well, I finally got around to watching Eagle Eye as part of my July 4th LaBeouf binge. I spent the holiday by myself, so I turned to movies to keep me company, watching Transformers, then booking it to a late showing of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, then wrapping up the evening with a shot of Eagle Eye at about 4:00am.

Anyway, the movie was far better than I thought it would be.

As I mentioned in my Revenge of the Fallen review, I am a stupid-huge fan of Shia LaBeouf, and this was one movie that I meant to see, but I just never got around to it. The movie is a cautionary tale, one that shows us the dark side of Big Brother and an all-knowing entity with the power to act on what it knows. As we find out early in the movie, the "eagle eye" is actually a computer, one that has access to every data source in the world - your social networking activities, shopping habits, credit card records, every camera hooked to a network, and, well, everything imaginable that is hooked to any sort of network. Think of this as being a bit like Enemy of the State, but instead of just sending in the troops, this computer has the ability to control anything attached to a network. This becomes readily apparent as the computer changes shipping locations on certain packages, controls the flow of baggage in an airport, fiddles with power lines, hijacks cranes and computers and cell phones, etc, etc.

As a cautionary tale, it is a little creepy, though it is outdated. I mean, Enemy of the State did it how many years ago? But as a movie, this succeeds in spades.

Of course, LaBeouf gives the movie his particular brand of awesome. His primary character, Jerry Shaw (he's also the twin brother Ethan Shaw) isn't the kind of character he usually plays - we see some of the trademark quick wit that's readily available in his movies, but for the most part, Jerry's kind of a dick through a good portion of the movie. We eventually warm up to him as he grows as a person. It was a new direction for one of his characters, but it was interesting. As always, the role was acted exceptionally well. One of the things that makes LaBeouf such an interesting actor is the seeming ease that he covers such a wide range of emotions. In this movie, for example, we see a dick, a brother, an angry son, and a guy with a big heart - we see anger, tears, joy, terror, and exhaustion - we also see immaturity growing into maturity, a disregard for others, as well as a deep and moving compassion. Very few actors cover such a wide scope of emotion as well as he does.

Jerry is thrown in with Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) as they try to find out what is going on. All the while, they are being pursued by Agent Thomas Morgan of the FBI (Billy Bob Thornton) and Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson) as they try to fit together the pieces of a large and convoluted puzzle. There are many interesting twists in the movie as the characters' stories and backgrounds come together to show us the master plan behind it all. Watching the characters desperately try to fit all these pieces together themselves is a joy, and once you reach the end, the movie does a nice job of tying up all the loose ends.

Like I said, one of the things that makes this movie great is the way all the little pieces come together to ultimately show you the Eagle Eye's master plan. This was revelaed at a good pace; I wanted to keep watching just to see how it would all go down. The other thing the movie succeeds admirably at is making the computer scary. It can see you everywhere, can hear anything you're saying, can find you anywhere, and it can act accordingly. This isn't just a computer that's going to send in the troops, as I mentioned earlier. It's creepy in a way that Hal (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) is creepy.

There are some things that made me scratch my head here, and it's one of the reasons I don't appreciate the movie as a cautionary tale as much as I feel I could have. For example, in one part of the movie, the computer is controlling cranes in a dockside construction site. These cranes are apparently hooked up to a network so they can be remotely controlled. I ahve never heard of remote controlled cranes at any construction site, so this seemed a bit far-fetched to me. Of course, I may be wrong; such cranes could exist, but it was a little distracting. Also, at one point, the computer reads the vibrations from a cup of coffee to determine what people are talking about. I know techology exists for listening to vibrations through windows and such, but reading those vibrations?

Anyway, these things aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, even as I watched it in the wee hours of the morning. It's a great thrill ride, backed up by a solid story. Oh, and as an additional plus, it was produced by the brilliant minds who wrote Star Trek, Transformers, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Most anything these two are involved with turns out to be great - they're another reason to give this a try.

I definitely recommend checking it out. It's cheap at Wal-Mart and I imagine Netflix has plenty in stock.

Score: 8.0/10.0

Independence Day

Happy Fourth Everybody!