HD-DVD Take 3

Remember all my wranglings with Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD? It was chronicled extensively a few posts ago. I'll wait here while you go back and re-read it.

Back? OK, well, forget all that. Turns out that the format war is juuuust about over. Basically, two major studios who were staunch supporters of HD-DVD just jumped ship to Blu-Ray.

That's OK, go back and read it again. Yes, I agonized and finally bought an HD-DVD player a few weeks back (Yes, I'm also the guy who bought the snow blower and caused a New England winter without snow a few years back).

I never really liked the whole "Play movies on the Xbox" experience anyway so I did a little experiment. I had gotten "300" in HD but it came on a dual format disk - one side was HD and the other was SD (regular DVD). I played them both and basically couldn't tell that much of a difference. So, the HD-DVD player went on eBay and I got most of my money back from it.

God I love technology.

Another Movie Review

I'm not trying to make this a movie review site but I just watched "Stranger Than Fiction" and I thought I would give it an endorsement. It's Will Farrel in a more serious role and he does a great job in it. Here's a little snippet.



I also watched "300" - the "epic" movie about the 300 Spartans who held off the Persians in ancient um, Sparta I guess... Stupid. I think the toughest part was accepting the Scottish accent of the Spartan King. Go ahead, scream "Spartans, Chaaarge!!!" in your best Sean Connery accent.

See what I mean?

Oh heck, I can't resist. Here's a mashup to prove it all. Just loop this little 8 minute clip about 12 times and you'll have basically recreated the movie. Think of the money you saved in movie theater popcorn alone.



Wasn't that just wonderful? The only thing I'm confused about is that I thought that this movie was completed *before* the writers strike but I just don't see how that could be.

Sounds like a Super Hero or Something

I just watched Donnie Darko. It's little known movie that has developed somewhat of a cult following. I got it because Netflix recommended it based on other movies I had rented. The fact that I liked it is in itself kinda scary. How are those Netflix programmers getting into my head???

The movie is about an emotionally troubled teenage boy who sees and talks to freaky man in a rabbit suit.

And then it gets weird.

Let's see, we've got time-travel, worm holes, Watership Down, Graham Greene, God, destiny, free will, Star Search with Ed McMahon, and, of course, there's that man in a giant bunny suit. I'm not going to bother trying to explain it. Wikipedia has the best, concise explanation of the whole movie and there are about a billion fan/discussion sites on the web that argue and debate what it all means. That's actually part of the fun. After the movie ended, I couldn't wait to go online and see how other people filled in all the holes. Here's a YouTube homemade trailer that gives you a sense of this baby.



Speaking of Netflix, I don't know if I've mentioned that I subscribe to it or how it works. Basically I pay about $7 month and I get as many DVDs as I can watch (one at a time) sent to me. I go online and go through the catalog and add movies to my "queue". They send me the first movie on my queue and after I watch it, I just drop it in the mail in the prepaid envelope that came with it. About a day or two later, I get the next movie in my queue and so on.

Ain't technology grand!