Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Apple TV has arrived!

My bright and shiny new Apple TV arrived today.  I’ve been looking at them ever since they came out, and decided I wanted one after the Take 2 software was released.  Finally the day came to actually purchase one.  I have to say that initially pairing it with a computer can get a bit wonky.  Right off the bat it wanted to suddenly synch all my media files via iTunes.  I had to cancel that and dig throuhg a few menus to eventually figure out what I wanted.  The synching is quite like it is for my iPod Touch.  After clicking through a few menus I was able to synch only what I wanted, and keep it from displaying the items that I didn’t synch (it does this in case you want to stream files from your computer directly from your computer).  If you’re going to be syncing via a laptop I suggest you have both the laptop and the Apple TV plugged directly in to your router rather than using wifi as the wireless connection can be slow if sync’ing an entire media library.

Once I had some shows on it, it ran like a champ.  Denise and I watched National Treasure 2 which I purchased through the iTunes store on my laptop while we were in Maui.  It ran smoothly and both the picture and audio were great.  I didn’t get the lagginess some people say they experienced during action scenes in movies.  There was no pixelization either, just clear DVD-looking quality video.  Now we’re watching an episode of Torchwood that I converted with a great program called VisualHub.

My initial reaction to it are pretty positive.  The biggest cons I’ve found is the limited selection of video formats that it can play (this can be fixed by hacking the machine.. something I’ll be looking in to), and the fact that you can’t simply plug in a big external hard drive for additional storage (again, something that can be accomplished with a little hacking).  I’ll follow up more after I’ve played with it more.

Grand Theft Box Office

In just over a week the most anticipated game release of the year will take place, Grand Theft Auto IV.  If you haven’t heard of the Grand Theft Auto series then you haven’t been paying any attention over the last several years.  Even if you aren’t inclined to play video games, this series has been making waves in the mainstream news – there’s been a strong of lawsuits ranging from hidden sexual content in it, to it being blamed for children committing acts of violence.  Love it or hate it, its release is going to have a major impact across several markets.  It’s currently estimated that in the first week alone its release will generate over $400 million dollars.  This is the same amount of money generated by the opening of blockbuster motion pictures.  In fact, some people are already saying the movie industry needs to watch out.

Over the past couple of years the television industry has had to contend with major game releases.  In one of the hardest to reach demographics (18 – 24 year old males) there are noticeable downturns in viewership during the release of hotly anticipated video games.  People are speculating that with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV this might affect the start of the movie industry’s big summer release push.  People who would be going to the theaters may now be staying home playing a game that offers hundreds of hours of content.  This could translate in to less than stellar returns on high budget summer films.  With the growing trend in the popularity of video games, and the down turn in the economy causing people to take a hard look at their expenses, the movie industry is going to have to face the fact they need to find a way to contend with this.

Personally I feel the way to bring people in the theaters isn’t through gimmicks, or special offers, or product tie ins.  The way to get asses in seats is to actually make movies people want to see!  This summer is already packed with sequels, spin-offs, and remakes of past classics.  A look in to the future shows more of the same from Hollywood.  While the video game industry is continually evolving and seeking to offer fresh content (even when sequeling a popular video game they manage to add so many new dimensions to it that its more than a fresh coat of paint, its a complete rebuild of the game from the ground up) the movie industry is serving us the entertainment equivalent of cold left-overs.  It’s been rare for a movie to come along lately that I have felt compeled to go see in the theater.  Even the things that show some promise generally have me waiting until I can NetFlix them.  There have been some rare gems that make me want to actually pack myself in to a theater to see the film, but for the most part the movie industry has failed to inspire me (and this is saying something coming from someone with low movie standards who was averaging watching two movies in the theater a week for awhile).  I don’t feel I’m alone in this.  Other of my movie inclined friends have been seeing less and less in the theater.  However almost all of them have been spending time playing new video games, or online ones such as World of Warcraft.

Really, I do love movies.  But it’s going to take a lot more than the current crop of Hollywood offerings to break me free from my movie going apathy.  And yes, on April 29th I’ll be one of the throngs of people sitting in front of my XBox 360 enjoying the computer generated mayhem of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Hacking Classic.

I forgot how fun Wargames is.  Such a classic 80′s movie and as far as I can tell the first movie about computer geekness.  I almost wish I had a copy of Real Genius to put on now.  It’s one hell of a double feature!

I also watched Ultraviolet earlier today thanks to Netflix. Yup, it was a pretty cheezy movie.  It didn’t make any sense right from the beginning.  But there were lots of people dying, some vampires, and some weird people who couldn’t figure out what the hell they were.  It was mindless fun – perfect for a weekend after an insane work week.

The Simpsons.

So tonight for Denise’s birthday we went out to see the Simpson’s movie.  I was really worried about this film as I love the Simpsons.  I’ve adored the show ever since the first time I caught an episode of it.  When I lived with Brian and JC it was one of only a couple of shows that we could both agree on.  So of course I was worried the film would fill like they were trying to drag out one long joke for 90 minutes, or that it would be a rehash of things they’ve done a million times.  Maybe the jokes would be stale, or the transition to the big screen would just fall flat.I’m happy to report that everything turned out all right.  The wit was there.  The stupid humor, the deeper jokes referencing all aspects of pop culture were carefully woven in to the script as they have been through the past nearly two decades of the show.  The slow moments were perfectly timed to give me the chance to catch my breath before breaking in to the next marathon of laughter.  The best part was they didn’t try to be a big screen movie.  They were the Simpsons, pure and simple.  They were the four fingered yellow family that we’ve come to love for their dysfunctional values.  Right from the beginning FOX studios intro until the last credit finished rolling up the screen it was pure Simpsons. 

Night Watch::Nochnoi Dozor

Saturday night I went down to Cinemapolis to see Night Watch. It’s a Russian film that was released a couple of years ago there, but has just been released in to limited distribution under the Fox Searchlight Pictures label. I had seen some previews for it last summer and had been highly intrigued by it. It’s the first movie in a trilogy (Day Watch, the second movie was released in Russia in 2005, Dusk Watch, the third movie will be released this year in Russia) about the classic Good vs. Evil. It also has vampires, witches, shape shifters, and a kid with a perpetual nose bleed.

This movie certainly lived up to my expectations. In fact it exceeded them. It’s a subtitled film, but they worked the subtitles in to the movie. In some scenes where the subtitles are in red they sort of drift away like blood in the water. It’s pretty clever and ads to the entire feel of the film. Continue on to read more with some minor spoilers.
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