Want to Watch Hulu Outside the US?
I’m a huge fan of digital delivery of movies in general, and of streaming video service Hulu in particular; they were the first video on demand supplier of commercial content that I think really got it. Unfortunately if you live outside the U.S. you can’t access the video content. I know there’s a variety of [...]
Let's Have a 5 Year Limit on Movie Copyright
Look at the shot above. It’s great. Strange and mysterious. A man and a young boy, dressed alike, stand contemplating a door. There’s something odd in the image. The poster on their left is mounted upside down. And what’s that attached to the bottom of the door? Ahh – everything in the room is inverted. [...]
Benjamin Button Special Effects – The Uncanny Valley was Crossed – Shame The Film was Rubbish
As we mentioned on the show: The Film Talk – Part 46 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the Best Films of 2008 there’s no question that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a digital effects triumph, (at least when it comes to Brad Pitt’s CGI head; we don’t believe in that [...]
Jinni – New Movie Recommendation Service Any Good?
OK – as per previous posts: How Long Till Blu-ray is Declared Dead? The Death of VHS Ben Kingsley Doesn’t Do It For Me / Transsiberian The 2009 Oscar Nominated Films: Pirated Copies Available Everywhere I think the future is instant digital download/stream of movies – often suggested by some sort of Learning Algorithm/Artificial Life [...]
The Death of the Newspaper / Newsprint – All the President's Men
Context changes everything. Yes, yes, deconstructionism. OK. Fine. But while streaming ‘All the President’s Men’, (released in 1976 detailing events earlier in the 70′s), I was distracted repeatedly by the amount of paper present everywhere – palpably present – in the film. OK, sure it’s a film about a newspaper – the newspaper business – [...]
The 2009 Oscar Nominated Films: Pirated Copies Available Everywhere
Via Metafilter is Andy Baio’s always interesting spreadsheet detailing the spread of pirate versions of Oscar Nominated films: Pirating the 2009 Oscars Looking at the data it seems that it’s taking longer for films to leak on to the Tubes – which doesn’t jibe with the feeling I get that everything is available online – [...]
Sundance Short Films Available for Free on Apple's iTunes / Netflix / Xbox
Via Digg user AmyVernon comes the news that at least 10 short films being seen at Sundance this year are available for free on Apple’s iTunes: Sundance from the Comfort of Your Home If you have iTunes and want to go directly to the Sundance Shorts download area then click below: Sundance Film Festival 2009, [...]
The Presidential Inauguration Sponsored by Paul Blart Mall Cop
In this age of media industry collapse folks are scrambling to find business models that will pay for our new, far more diverse and flexible means of consuming media. Hulu is one of the new media delivery platforms that gets it right, in terms of presentation to the user. I’d much rather use Hulu than [...]
10 Movies Hollywood Should Convert to 3D Immediately
Via Digg associate, Mike T., aka Mr. T, aka Turkman182, comes a post on eight mainstream pics that could benefit from being in 3D: Eight Movies Hollywood Should Remake in 3D The list is fine, but of course it course it practically forces one to come up with some more suggestions of films that, perhaps, [...]
Old School
Have been watching the ‘revamped’ eps of Star Trek on Netflix recently. Now, I’ve got no problem with folks re-doing the special effects of the show. In fact one can imagine a time in the near future when, using an extrapolation of technology developed for shows like Benjamin Button all the sets are replaced, not [...]
How Long Till Blu-ray is Declared Dead?
How long till Blu-ray is declared dead? The New York Times – Blu-ray’s Fuzzy Future Have always been a bit skeptical of the latest revolving disk media = with the ease of digital delivery, (yes, I’m hooked on Netflix’s Watch Instantly, soon with added goodness), the idea of having a physical piece of material, that [...]
U.S. National Film Registry Adds 25 More Films to the List
Via Metafilter comes the news that 25 more films have been added to the U.S. National Film Registry, (here’s the takeaway from the press release: Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the National Film Registry that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant, [...]
Oh aXXo – Show Us the Way
Nice little article in the Independent about online film piracy, with Number 1 Pirate aXXo used as the story hook: Scene stealer: The aXXo Files Posted below my favorite passage from the article: In an article written for Torrentfreak.com in January, Matt Mason, author of The Pirate’s Dilemma, wrote that “when pirates enter our market [...]
The Death of VHS
Ok. That’s it: VHS Era is Winding Down Back in the Day, future-directors like Scorsese imagined that films would be as easily accessible as paperback books, (to view their favorite films they had to hole up over a weekend and screen 16mm prints – it was a big deal to find a favorite film, or [...]
Some Thoughts on Crank / Crank 2
So there’s a Crank 2 trailer online, (warning the link contains copious nudity, swearing, absurd levels of violence and the absence of love and compassion during the sexual act) (double warning – the vid is not formatted properly = a 16×9 pic shown in 4×3 – that drives me nuts) : Crank 2 – High [...]
Perkins' 14 – First Feature Film Created Via The Web
Perkins’ 14 is being hyped as the first film ‘created via the web’ – meaning the creative aspects of the film were selected/voted on by the members of Massify. Now, I have to tell you – this sounds like a recipe for dire cinema. The problem with the corporate cinema culture today is that it [...]
Ben Kingsley Doesn't Do It For Me / Transsiberian
I’ve never liked Ben Kingsley. In the movies I mean. He’s always comes across as precious, self-important, condescending – in short, for him, acting in your movie is slumming. Now, with this in mind, the trick to working with the Kingsley is to cast him in a role that utilises his disdain for being in [...]
