Archive for August, 2010
DVD New Releases – 8/10/2010
These are my DVD and Blu-Ray picks that are getting released this week.
- Date Night – Carell and Fey show their obvious talent by covering up for the Hollywood summer cliche of mega-comedy-stars as a couple who need a wild night to become closer. It has some real laughs, but it’s a rental at best.
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Crumb (The Criterion Collection)
– I’ve been struggling to define what makes a good documentary, and this one is one of the best. I’m still not sure why this wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award because it is equal part beautiful and melancholy, while always being compelling. (p.s. Has Criterion always priced Blu-Ray discs at the same MSRP as DVDs?)
- In the Shadow of the Moon – After Life and Planet Earth you thought all the good documentaries would be narrated by David Attenborough, but the voices here are 100% all-American. All the men who’ve been to the moon reminisce along with some rare NASA footage.
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Under the Mountain
– We saw this at Fantastic Fest last year. Sam Neill is the father of twins down under who find scary creepy things going on underneath a house in the town they just moved to. It’s not perfect, but it’s entertaining and I think tweens would like it a lot.
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National Lampoon’s Vacation; National Lampoon’s European Vacation
– Summer is almost over, but squeeze the last drops by spending time watching the Griswolds in HD. I’m not sure we needed an upgrade for these, but they are some of the most-quoted films.
- Scream Franchise Collection – It’s only available as a Canadian import, and you get stuck with Scream 3 (which has a 38% freshness rating), but Scream and Scream 2 (both with 80% freshness ratings) did a great job riding the line of homage and parody. (Canada is in our region for Blu-Rays so the discs will play in any U.S., Canada, or East/Southeast Asia Blu-Ray player.)
Hamell on Trial is back in town! Saturday night at ND with…
Hamell on Trial is back in town! Saturday night at ND with Joanna Barbera and Austin’s premiere 70’s cover band, Skyrocket.
From NDVenue.com:
Skyrocket! plays at 10pm, and Hamell on Trial at 8pm on Saturday August 14th.
My Thoughts On Last Night’s Shed Break-in
Since it doesn’t appear anything of significant value was stolen when my shed was burglarized early this morning, I cease being worried and start contemplating the nature of the criminal element in my neighborhood. If a person has committed to a life of crime, and they’re taking it seriously, I doubt that breaking into sheds is a market with a lot of appeal. So, whoever invaded our shed has probably not chosen crime as a primary occupation…yet. They are certainly amateurs.
Reconstructing the crime — as best I can from the evidence provided — they pried with a lever near the latch between the double doors that face my driveway. The hasp and combination lock held strong and the inside edges separated the pressboard door and trim from the solid wood that squares the door and holds the latches that keep it all closed tight. When those popped apart the two magnets that comprise the sensor on the nuisance alarm would have come apart, too, setting it off.
When we installed the shed earlier this year, I looked for battery powered door alarms, and they exist but are very expensive — particularly in relation to the cost of the shed itself. If you need an alarm that can be set with a delay (so you can set it from inside the shed, then get out before it goes off) they can cost as much as the power tools I’m trying to protect — $120 to $350. However I found a “pool” alarm for $20 that is designed to alert parents if kids wander into a gated pool area. It came with a button to press that gives you 30 seconds to get through the gate before it activated. It was cheap, durable, battery-powered and easy enough to adapt to the frame of the door. Because it’s designed for the pool area, the housing is sealed watertight with the battery inside.
Imagine the criminal(s) standing outside the shed with the muffled pool alarm going off inside. Frantic to silence the alarm, they grabbed the top edge of the door that was still locked but hanging loose, and they yanked on the door until the screws came out of the hinge on the right side. That would take a lot of exertion and even in the relative cool of the night the criminal would be soaked with sweat due to the Texas summer heat. The alarm would no longer be muffled. It was very loud and annoying. They followed their first instinct and grabbed the alarm and pulled it off the wall, separating it from the wire that connected to the sensor. Of course, like any decent alarm system that only ensured the alarm could never be turned off again.
So there’s the sweat-soaked criminal standing in my driveway next to the shed with the door ripped off the hinges holding a watertight alarm sealed in an unbreakable plastic housing that is playing an ear-shattering noise.
I work for a major computer company — you won’t have trouble guessing which one — and after only being in bed for a couple hours I was paged at 2:15 this morning when half of the console that controls our IVR inexplicably went offline. (IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, as in “Thank you for calling…please speak or enter your account number.”) The IVR console is hosted on a Linux machine utilizing an Apache web server. The server responded to pings. Apache was offering an error page instead of the console. I could log into the server with SSH but I could not access root privileges. So, nothing could be done remotely. Those last five sentences consumed over two hours of troubleshooting (which I’ll be glad to bore you about in person) but in brief: I was not happy by the time I sent a request to have someone physically go to the data center to reboot the server manually — around 4:30am. I was seriously contemplating how I ended up in the IT field and if I had made the right choices that put my career here at this time.
So there’s the sweat-soaked criminal standing in my driveway next to the shed with the door ripped off the hinges holding a watertight alarm sealed in an unbreakable plastic housing that is playing an ear-shattering noise. Since I would have heard the alarm or the dog would be barking, it had to either be between midnight and 2:00am, or after 5:00am (when I finally made it back to bed) and the criminal was probably contemplating how he ended up in the crime business and if he had made the right choices that put his career there at that time.
He left without taking anything other than the alarm. He’s either considering working in a different market, or maybe leaving the crime business altogether.
p.s. I’ll be installing a security system from X10 this week. I remember buying home automation gadgets from them a decade ago. They aren’t high quality (and their web design is like AngelFire with pop-up spam), but they are reliable enough and cheap cheap cheap. For $100 shipped I’m getting 2 keychain remotes, 2 door sensors, an extra siren and the security console (which flashes lights and can call your cell phone.)
I love when Lauren O’Connell does that with a banjo. So…
I love when Lauren O’Connell does that with a banjo. So far the YouTube female super-group is awesome, including this cover of Tom Waits- Diamonds and Gold (via MyTerribleFriend.)
NSFW “…bleak multiplied by grim to the power of Hot…
NSFW “…bleak multiplied by grim to the power of Hot Topic…”
I like this funny review for two games available on Xbox Live, and I’m definitely more in the “patronize the arts” category because I think Limbo is beautiful, disturbing, fun to play and well worth the $15.
(Thanks to @BTSjunkie for the link to The Escapist : Video Galleries : Zero Punctuation : DeathSpank & Limbo.)
I had forgotten how it felt the first time I saw old videos of…
I had forgotten how it felt the first time I saw old videos of The Runaways on late night TV. I’m falling in love again.
I was 11 in early 1982, sneaking into the living room to watch bootleg satellite video of Rock and Roll that would have crushed my conservative parents if they knew. Joan Jett had a #1 hit with “I Love Rock and Roll” from March until May, and freshly-launched MTV would play that video during the day. (I turned 12 while the song was holding the #1 spot.) Then at night, during their more subversive programming, MTV would slip in live concert videos, including The Runaways in Japan. Every one of the band members was hot and powerful, and I was totally smitten.
The movie The Runaways — based on Cherie Currie’s book, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway
I’m obsessed again but now I have an income and don’t have to worry about breaking my parents’ hearts by listening to the devil’s music. I just bought The Best Of The Runaways
There should be more room in this world for girls who rock, because it is one of the most entrancingly beautiful and powerful things that exists.
(video from The Runaways – Queens Of Noise . /via CherieO)
I would say “best infographic ever”, if I were the…
I would say “best infographic ever”,
if I were the type for hyperbole.
Instead I will just say that it’s clever,
and something here rhymes with hyperbole.
Minimalist John Hughes Tribute Posters | Troy DeShano…
Minimalist John Hughes Tribute Posters | Troy DeShano Creative
want
(These are gonna be huge on eBay.)
36 Studio Reels That Will Knock Your Socks Off |…
36 Studio Reels That Will Knock Your Socks Off | Aetuts+
It’s gonna take me a few days to get through all these, but the first few?…wow!
DVD New Releases – 8/3/2010
These are my DVD and Blu-Ray picks that are getting released this week. (Last week was so barren for new releases, so of course this week overflows.)
- Kick-Ass – I loved this movie both times I saw it in the theater. I can’t wait to see it again (and again) at home.
- James and the Giant Peach – This is my least favorite of Selnick’s animated movies (behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline…I pretend to forget he did Monkeybone), but it is absolutely so gorgeous that I can’t wait to see it on Blu-ray.
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The Ghost Writer
– Polanski’s crimes are impossible to overlook, but he makes phenomenal movies and this is no exception. Even with the modern film techniques, this has the classic feeling of old-school thrillers like To Catch a Thief. (Yes, I put this movie up against classic Hitchcock.)
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Blood Simple – A high def version of the Coen brothers’ debut movie is released in time to test the comparisons of Terribly Happy
(that was released just three weeks ago.)
- Elvis: Blu-ray Collection (Jailhouse Rock / Viva Las Vegas / Elvis on Tour) – For my former boss, this transfer of the best of America’s greatest rock-and-roll star.
- The Breakfast Club (25th Anniversary Edition) – I’m always happy about new Blu-ray conversions, and I love this movie, but will this HD version offer anything my DVD doesn’t have?
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Bull Durham
– Smart move to release on Blu-ray the third biggest baseball movie of all time in the midst of baseball season. (Field of Dreams and The Natural are #1 and #2, of course.)
- Road to Perdition – There was a UK cheaply-made version of this stunningly beautiful movie released previously on Blu-Ray, but this is the first official version for the US and it’s got some great extra content.
- A Prophet – I missed this Best Foreign Film Oscar Nominee, so I’m glad to see it get a high def release.
- Piranha (1978) – It’s not happenstance that Roger Corman Classics is releasing the original just two weeks before the 2010 3D remake is released.
- Heroes: Season Four – “The fourth and [thank god it’s the] final season heads to the carnival.”
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Charlie’s Angels [Blu-ray]
– I didn’t think this movie was that good (although Crispin Glover is awesome) and wouldn’t even consider the high def upgrade, but it is cheap.
- Max Headroom: The Complete Series – For some reason, seeing this released on anything other than VHS feels…impure, but it was a staple of my high school years.
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Spike
– The reviews for this independent horror film (that I had not heard of previously) throw out words like “instant cult classic” and describe it as a “modern Beauty and the Beast”, but they all seem to be positive reviews.
- Open House – I am fascinated when a movie co-starring happening actors goes straight to disc without reviews. “True Blood” is riding another peak of fandom, and it’s female lead, Anna Paquin, co-stars in this horror movie alongside the “True Blood” male lead, Stephen Moyer, PLUS Tricia Helfer from “Battlestar Gallactica”. This can’t be good. (p.s. One of you “True Blood” fans should buy this and let me borrow it.) (p.p.s. The writer/director is Anna Paquin’s older brother, Andrew. Factor that in.)