Archive for movies
March 9, 2007 at · Filed under internet, movies
this is an excerpt from the FAQ page from TiVo regarding their new partnership with Amazon.
What is the "Pay-TV Blackout Window"?
Due to restrictions from the video rights holders, most newly released movies will occasionally become temporarily unavailable for re-download from Your Media Library—even after they’ve already been purchased.
During this "Pay-TV Blackout Window" certain programs will be temporarily unavailable from the Unbox catalog and Your Media Library. This happens during the program’s run on a pay-cable channel.
The video will be automatically replaced and made available to you through Your Media Library once the "Pay-TV Blackout Window" has ended.
if i get it right what they are saying in this cryptic explanation is that lets say i bought a movie and kept it in the Media Library i may suddenly find out that i can't watch it because there is some sort of blackout?!
i am sure this was not the idea of anyone at either TiVo or Amazon, but rather some twisted minds (probably a lawyer) in the media industry. it is amazing that they still don't get it. trying to find new (and clearly stupid) ways to make it hard for people to get their content.
i am quite sure that people trying to watch a movie they already paid for who will get the bizarre error message will go to bittorrent for good, never looking back.
insane.
December 2, 2006 at · Filed under movies, religion
mel gibson’s new movie apocalypto is coming out December 8th.
as i was driving to the airport today i saw billboards promoting the movie, and i also caught a couple of TV ads for it.
i am amazed that the marketing of the movie is “the new mel gibson movie”. i thought that after he exposed himself to be an antisemite that the studio will try to bury his name rather than promote it.
since i don’t believe they are trying to market to the antisemite niche, i can only assume that mel had enough muscle to make them put his name out front.
in any case there is no way i am going to the theatre to watch this movie. i have no intention to put another dime into his pocket.
so if the reviews will be good, i intend to download the movie over the internet rather than going to the theatre. in the case of this movie, i believe it will be a “mitzvah” to get a pirated version 
November 22, 2006 at · Filed under movies, religion
i saw jesus camp last night.
The film focuses on an evangelical Christian camp of rare devotion. Twelve-year-old Levi, who was "saved" when he was five, is a shy boy except when he is filled with the Holy Spirit. Nine-year-old Rachael is outspoken in her love for the Lord. They are home-schooled by their Christian parents and interact with their peers at church and church events. In the summer they travel to Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire" summer camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota, to intensify their devotion to the Lord.
it's very clear that the makers of this movie wanted to scare the secular liberals about the dangers of fundamentalist evangelicals. i think they are doing a good job of showing that these guys are nut cases brain washing kids with ignorance, division, blind obedience and more.
some highlights:
- becky fischer's (a minister focused on brainwashing kids) explaining her rational for pumping these kids with christian dogma is that our enemies (the muslims) are doing it, so we better do it to especially that our religion is the true one..
- home-schooling parent explaining to her kid why science is a ridiculous concept and how to argue on behalf of creationism
- becky talking in tongues and blessing the conference room in the camp against satan. she blesses the chairs, the audio system, microsoft powerpoint… in her world the "blue screen of death" is the devil's work, rather than bill gates's bugs
- ted haggard preaching against gay acts (this scene was shot before he was outed by a drug-dealing male prostitute who had sex with haggard for the past 3 years…) and waving at the camera telling viewers he knows what they did last night, and that if they'll send him $1,000 he will not tell their wives..
watching this movie strengthen my view that
(a) religion's negative sides are far greater than any benefits it may have (if any)
(b) these christian brainwashed kids and adults are not much different from the muslim fanatics sending their children to become martyrs, and that given the opportunity will fit very easily into a nazi-like regime.
the movie is not very engaging and its agenda is way too clear, but worth viewing for the shock value.
November 4, 2006 at · Filed under movies
we went to see Borat last night. maskit came with very low execrations, i came with rather high.
i think we both came out satisfied.
unlike the Ali G movie this one doesn't lose its edge after 10 minutes. there is an attempt at a story line between scenes making fun of dumb/racist/insane people living in fly-over-country.
there is a disgusting scene of borat and azamat wrestling naked. this one should have stayed on the editing floor in my opinion, but it was probably left in because of its shock value. other than that i wish they would have left in some of the "deleted scenes" you can find on youtube.
highly recommend to download (or go to a theatre to see if you're old school…)
August 10, 2006 at · Filed under internet, movies, politics
this is a story i missed over the weekend (either because of work, or because i am reading too much about the middle-east crisis and neglecting other news items), and was amazed to read today.
ABC reported that a supposedly amateur video on youtube that is making fun of al gore and his message about the dangers of global warming has actually been produced by a PR firm that counts among its client ExxonMobil.
the PR firm (DCI ) and Enron refused to comment on whether this indeed the case. but when the WSJ tried to reach out to the supposed amateur the email could be traced back to servers belonging to the PR firm..
youtube, blogs, myspace and more are used more and more by corporates to promote their products and message, but it seems to cross the line in being disingenuous. it is one thing to create a blog or a youtube video and even make it look amateurish, but deceiving the users to believe this was done by some 29yr old guy from california just for the fun of it, is something else.
July 8, 2006 at · Filed under internet, movies, television
veoh a video sharing site (ala YouTube) was sued by Io Group a company that produces adult video.
the lawsuit claims that veoh has allowed users to upload Io produced videos to its site, generating significant traffic and revenues out of content that was illegally uploaded to the site.
this could end up being a very important case for the video sharing industry, as it may set a precedent to the liability these sites have for the content that is being uploaded by the users. today most of the copyrighted content that is being uploaded are short clips from TV shows, movie trailers, sport highlights, etc. in these cases i believe the uploads while violate the copyright are actually serving as a great promotional tool.
in case of adult content the story is quite different. these companies have been hit hard by the file sharing phenomenon (much harder than the big movie studios), and are now losing audience to these video sharing sites. the average porn user does not need a full 1hr film to get-off, but can use a much shorter film easily uploaded to the likes of veoh or youtube.
so i guess the lawsuit has merit. the movie/tv studios are likely to follow very closely as this has implications on them too, sooner rather than later it will be easy to upload and consume full length tv shows and movies in this way, and this is a serious threat to the studios.
the major studios are likely to end up coming with deals with the leading video sharing sites, splitting ad revenues. the porn industry will have a harder time, since they work in a different model.
will be interesting to follow this lawsuit and see where it ends.
July 7, 2006 at · Filed under internet, movies, television
replayTV has announced a version of their DVR for Windows. users can download the software (30 days free trial) and use it on their PCs to watch and record TV shows. buying the software will cost $100 for a year and will include the EPG (electronic programming guide).
what i don't understand is why do they even bother. Microsoft Media Center PC is offering the same functionality for free, and if you want an even better experience you can download one of the open-source versions. i think MediaPortal is the best choice.
replay has lost its battle with TiVO, which lost its battle with the cable/sattelite companies (ala EchoStar and DirectTV). these companies need to re-invent themselves, but offering a PC DVR is probably too little, too late for these guys.
a better direction (which i believe TiVO is pursuing) is the internet, rather than try to bring the TV content to the PC, how about making it simpler to consume internet video on the TV? and i don't mean just bringing YouTube stuff, there are video blogs and there is also a lot of professionaly produced video content that just does not make it to the cable channels and/or video-on-demand catalog.
May 17, 2006 at · Filed under movies
i know it's so last year, but i didn't get to watch it till last week.
it's an amazing story of love and determination (although the penguins probably see it differently). what these small creatures go through is really unbelievable.
the choice of morgan freeman to tell the story was awful. this the thing the ruined the movie a bit for me. beside making it a bit cheesy, they guy is so full of himself and it spills from every sentence that comes out of his mouth. next time they better choose someone that is more interested in telling the story then being the star of it.
April 27, 2006 at · Filed under movies
Jim Emerson put together a list of 102 movies you “must” see before you can call yourself a “movie literate”. i never claimed to be one. but here is the list with ‘*’ marking a movie i have seen.
* “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) Stanley Kubrick
“The 400 Blows” (1959) Francois Truffaut
“8 1/2″ (1963) Federico Fellini
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) Werner Herzog
* “Alien” (1979) Ridley Scott
“All About Eve” (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
* “Annie Hall” (1977) Woody Allen
* “Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola*
* “Bambi” (1942) Disney
* “The Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) William Wyler
“The Big Red One” (1980) Samuel Fuller
“The Bicycle Thief” (1949) Vittorio De Sica
“The Big Sleep” (1946) Howard Hawks
* “Blade Runner” (1982) Ridley Scott
“Blowup” (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
* “Blue Velvet” (1986) David Lynch
* “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) Arthur Penn
“Breathless” (1959) Jean-Luc Godard
“Bringing Up Baby” (1938) Howard Hawks
* “Carrie” (1975) Brian DePalma
* “Casablanca” (1942) Michael Curtiz
“Un Chien Andalou” (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
“Children of Paradise” / “Les Enfants du Paradis” (1945) Marcel Carne
* “Chinatown” (1974) Roman Polanski
* “Citizen Kane” (1941) Orson Welles
* “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) Stanley Kubrick
* “The Crying Game” (1992) Neil Jordan
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) Robert Wise
“Days of Heaven” (1978) Terence Malick
* “Dirty Harry” (1971) Don Siegel
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) Luis Bunuel
* “Do the Right Thing” (1989 Spike Lee
“La Dolce Vita” (1960) Federico Fellini
“Double Indemnity” (1944) Billy Wilder
* “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) Stanley Kubrick
“Duck Soup” (1933) Leo McCarey
* “E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) Steven Spielberg
“Easy Rider” (1969) Dennis Hopper
* “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) Irvin Kershner
* “The Exorcist” (1973) William Friedkin
* “Fargo” (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
* “Fight Club” (1999) David Fincher
* “Frankenstein” (1931) James Whale
“The General” (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
* “The Godfather,” “The Godfather, Part II” (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
* “Gone With the Wind” (1939) Victor Fleming
* “GoodFellas” (1990) Martin Scorsese
* “The Graduate” (1967) Mike Nichols
* “Halloween” (1978) John Carpenter
“A Hard Day’s Night” (1964) Richard Lester
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith
“It’s a Gift” (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Frank Capra
* “Jaws” (1975) Steven Spielberg
“The Lady Eve” (1941) Preston Sturges
* “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) David Lean
“M” (1931) Fritz Lang
* “Mad Max 2″ / “The Road Warrior” (1981) George Miller
“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) John Huston
* “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) John Frankenheimer
* “Metropolis” (1926) Fritz Lang
* “Modern Times” (1936) Charles Chaplin
* “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955) Charles Laughton
* “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) George Romero
* “North by Northwest” (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
“Nosferatu” (1922) F.W. Murnau
“On the Waterfront” (1954) Elia Kazan
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968) Sergio Leone
“Out of the Past” (1947) Jacques Tournier
“Persona” (1966) Ingmar Bergman
* “Pink Flamingos” (1972) John Waters
* “Psycho” (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
* “Pulp Fiction” (1994) Quentin Tarantino
“Rashomon” (1950) Akira Kurosawa
*”Rear Window” (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) Nicholas Ray
“Red River” (1948) Howard Hawks
“Repulsion” (1965) Roman Polanski
“The Rules of the Game” (1939) Jean Renoir
“Scarface” (1932) Howard Hawks
“The Scarlet Empress” (1934) Josef von Sternberg
* “Schindler’s List” (1993) Steven Spielberg
“The Searchers” (1956) John Ford
* “The Seven Samurai” (1954) Akira Kurosawa
* “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
“Some Like It Hot” (1959) Billy Wilder
* “A Star Is Born” (1954) George Cukor
* “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Elia Kazan
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) Billy Wilder
* “Taxi Driver” (1976) Martin Scorsese
“The Third Man” (1949) Carol Reed
“Tokyo Story” (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
“Touch of Evil” (1958) Orson Welles
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) John Huston
“Trouble in Paradise” (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
* “Vertigo” (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
* “West Side Story” (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
“The Wild Bunch” (1969) Sam Peckinpah
* “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) Victor Fleming
