TV And Films

The shows and movies I like (or don’t).

Dig  al T  evis on

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A few weeks ago, Prairie and I got our TV Converter Box Coupons from the government, so that we could happily continue to pump propaganda into our brains watch our favorite shows after the analog stations are turned off in February. I wandered down to the seventh circle of Hell Best Buy and picked up two of the converter boxes (the Insignia NS-DXA1). Rather than hooking both up right off the bat (tempting as that was, since I was a geek with new toys), I just hooked up the larger living room TV. This made sense, as it’s the one that has all the other fancy gadgets on it and requires me being home to successfully juggle five remotes — Prairie just sticks to the little one in our bedroom that only uses two remotes.

After a few weeks of using it…well, much as I like the idea of digital TV, the reality — at least as far as over-the-air broadcast goes — is definitely a bit of a mixed bag.

The box itself is fairly nice: simple to set up and use, with only a few minor caveats. For some reason, in addition to the blue ‘on’ light that’s quite standard for electronics, this also has a bright red ‘off’ light that looks oddly like there’s a Cylon staring at you when you’re not watching TV (incidentally, this is another reason we’ve not hooked one up in the bedroom yet). The on-screen guide doesn’t always seem to be accurate, though that may be the fault of the local broadcasters. Aside from that, I’m quite happy with it — the image quality is nice, and a noticeable step up from analog broadcasts, and the audio, while limited to standard 2-channel stereo (one of the requirements of the coupon-eligible boxes), seems good enough to my ears. The box also allows you to choose how it sends the video to your TV screen: letterboxed to preserve the widescreen aspect ratio; cropped to fill the square screen at the expense of information on the sides; or ‘squeezed’, where the widescreen image fills the square screen, making everyone look really really skinny. This is actually my preferred method when a show is broadcast widescreen, as my TV (a Sony Wega KV-27FS17) has an ‘anamorphic’ mode that ‘squishes’ the ‘squeezed’ signal into a 16:9 area, increasing the resolution and quality of the displayed image (geeky tech-speak for “it looks better this way”).

However, our one big issue is simply this: when analog TV signals dropped or had some form of interference, you got a little bit of snow or static, but you could still watch the show. When digital TV signals drop or hit interference…well, if you’re lucky, you’ll just get some ‘blocking’ in the image, like when a video DVD has a fingerprint. More often, though, the signal drops so far that first the audio, then the video cuts out entirely. This ends up being far more frustrating than the old analog issues, as it’s a total disruption of the signal. As interference seems to depend a lot on weather, Prairie and I have taken to watching TV on the little 13″ TV in the bedroom that still gets analog signals on rainy nights rather than even trying to watch the big TV with the digital receiver. A crystal-clear signal is only good when you get that signal, after all!

I keep finding myself wishing they’d tweaked the digital transmission standard so that the video was the first thing to go with a bad signal, rather than the audio. If the video cut out but the audio was still going, you could still follow along pretty well while the video did its little dance of cubist surrealism, but when the audio craps out, it’s just frustrating (especially when watching, say, a show like Jeopardy).

I’ve heard that a good antenna could alleviate the problems, but when we’re living in a rental apartment, there’s not much we can do on that score. Good old-fashioned rabbit ears will have to do.

So, in the end, it’s a mixed bag. It’s great when it works, but when it doesn’t work, it’s a lot more frustrating than the “old-n-busted” system ever was.

The Queen’s own English, base knave, dost thou speak it?

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A bit of pseudo-Shakespearean silliness, originally by ceruleanst:

ACT I SCENE 2. A road, morning. Enter a carriage, with JULES and VINCENT, murderers.

J: And know’st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
   Are strange to ours, with their own history:
   Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
   I visited no inn it could be bought.

J: My pardon; did I break thy concentration?
   Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
   Allow me then to offer a response.
   Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
B: What?
J: What country dost thou hail from?
B: What?
J: How passing strange, for I have traveled far,
   And never have I heard tell of this What.
   What language speak they in the land of What?
B: What?
J: The Queen’s own English, base knave, dost thou speak it?
B: Aye!
J: Then hearken to my words and answer them!
   Describe to me Marsellus Wallace!
B: What?
JULES presses his knife to BRETT’s throat
J: Speak ‘What’ again! Thou cur, cry ‘What’ again!
   I dare thee utter ‘What’ again but once!
   I dare thee twice and spit upon thy name!
   Now, paint for me a portraiture in words,
   If thou hast any in thy head but ‘What’,
   Of Marsellus Wallace!
B: He is dark.
J: Aye, and what more?
B: His head is shaven bald.
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: What?
JULES strikes and BRETT cries out
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: Nay!
J: Then why didst thou attempt to bed him thus?
B: I did not!
J: Aye, thou didst! O, aye, thou didst!
   Thou hoped to rape him like a chattel whore,
   And sooth, Lord Wallace is displeased to bed
   With anyone but she to whom he wed.

(via Boing Boing)

Spy Hunter 2008

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Generally, I’m not a fan of car commercials (there are a few exceptions, but they tend to be few and far between). However, this one from Pontiac…

…is just all sorts of awesome.

I Am Legend Original Ending

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Last weekend, Prairie and I went out to see I Am Legend at the local second-run theater, and we both came out with the same opinion — not a bad flick, until the end. For some reason, the last ten minutes or so of the film completely diverge from everything that had been set up until that point, taking what had been an interesting apocalyptic zombie film and ruining it for us with an ending that didn’t make any sense.

When we got home, I did a little poking around, and read on the film’s Wikipedia entry that the theatrical ending was actually (and unsurprisingly) a studio-mandated reshoot, and differed drastically from the ending as originally shot. Prairie and I were planning on renting the DVD release to see the original ending, but now, it’s been leaked to the web…and it is so, so much better than the crap that was released to the theaters. Obviously, you shouldn’t watch this if you haven’t seen the film and/or are worried about spoilers, but if you weren’t happy with the film as released, you really should check this out.

The Last Galactica

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Battlestar Galactica Last supper

Battlestar Galactica Last supper, originally uploaded by kidddrunkadelic14.

The fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica approaches, and even though they almost lost me during season three (they went a bit too much into boring soap opera, with too little progress towards anything interesting), that season rebounded well and ended so strongly that I’m really looking forward to BSGs return.

I need to pick up the Razor DVD sometime soon, too, I still haven’t seen that.

This photo was originally published in an Entertainment Weekly sneak preview of the upcoming season of BSG. No major spoilers, but a few intriguing hints (and yes, the missing figure that should be apparent to any art student is intentional)….

John McClane for President in 2008

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Now here’s a presidential candidate I can get behind.

McClane was fighting the war on terror before it even had a name — and he’s proven he can win it.

John McClane believes in strong health care — he just doesn’t have time to get to a doctor when he’s being shot at.

McClane gets that technology creates as many problems as it solves. Relying on a gadget is no replacement for doing it yourself.

McClane knows that patriotism isn’t about waving a flag while you sit on the couch watching ‘American Idol’. It’s about getting off your butt and fighting for what’s right.

McClane is the American cowboy for our times. He gets how important action-packed portrayals of true heroism are.

Since he hasn’t announced a running mate yet, given that I’m not in entire agreement with his stance on technology, may I suggest Angus MacGyver? Equally as able to get out and get things done, but his willingness to use and adapt available technology would be a nice balance to McClane’s ‘hands-on’ approach.

(via nyquil.org)

Star Trek Optimism

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When I first heard that work was beginning on a new Star Trek film, I suppose you could have described my first response as ‘cautiously optimistic’ — however, that reaction would have swayed far more towards the caution side of things than the optimism side.

However, as more and more (non-spoilery) details appear, I’m moving more and more towards the ‘optimism’ side. While there are still a few little details that raise warning flags (for instance, that the script was written by the guys who wrote Transformers), overall, things are looking good.

Recently, director J.J. Abrams, writer and producer Roberto Orci and a fair chunk of the cast and crew spent a little time between shots doing a couple of Q-and-A sessions on the Trek Movie fan weblog. Full transcripts are posted here and here, but they’ve thoughtfully provided an ‘executive summary’ list. All in all, I think there’s a lot of promise here.

  • First full trailer currently in the works, targeting early- to mid-summer release
  • Principal photography is scheduled to wrap at the beginning of April [about 1-2 weeks more than originally planned]
  • Documentaries on the film’s pre-production and production process can be expected on DVD release; Making of… book also discussed
  • [J.J. Abrams friend and frequent collaborator] Greg Grunberg will not appear in Star Trek due to his commitment to another film
  • About 1,000 effects shots are expected to be used in the film (more than any previous Trek film)
  • Target MPAA rating: PG-13
  • The two biggest challenges for Abrams were getting a handle on the vision of the future and casting the film
  • Humor is a very important aspect in the film (“humor and humanity go hand-in-hand”)
  • Abrams’ goal is to make Trek ‘real’ and is thus utilizing sets and location shooting rather than green- or blue-screens wherever he can
  • The Enterprise “will be a combo of the physical and the virtual”
  • An image of the Enterprise is “coming soon”
  • The doors on the Enterprise will go “SWOOSH!” when they open.
  • The set of the Enterprise bridge will be stored for future use;
  • the movie’s script is about 128 pages long (indicating a roughly 2 hour movie)
  • the script took about four months to write
  • [Orci] and co-writer Alex Kurtzman will not be making cameos in the film
  • James T. Kirk and the film’s villain (Nero) were the most difficult characters to write;
  • the TOS episode “Balance of Terror” and the second, third, fourth and sixth films helped shape the writers’ takes on the characters, as did novels by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
  • Script shoots for many memorable moments akin to the “Never forget the name of the ship…Enterprise” moment in TNG “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
  • Film makers have kept with Trek tradition and brought in academic and scientific consultants (more info on this promised)

Good Action is Geography

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Vanity Fair has a huge article looking at the new Indiana Jones movie, and midway through, there are some quotes from Spielberg that sent two thoughts running through my brain. The first was that what he was saying was making me more excited about this latest sequel than I already was. The second was how desperately I wished more directors would think like Spielberg does here (don’t worry, there aren’t any movie spoilers):

Rather than update the franchise to match current styles, Lucas and Spielberg decided to stay true to the prior films’ look, tone, and pace. During pre-production, Spielberg watched the first three Indiana Jones movies at an Amblin screening room with Janusz Kaminski, who has shot the director’s last 10 films. He replaces Douglas Slocombe, who shot the first three Indy movies (and is now retired at age 94), as the man mainly responsible for the film’s look. “I needed to show them to Janusz,” Spielberg says, “because I didn’t want Janusz to modernize and bring us into the 21st century. I still wanted the film to have a lighting style not dissimilar to the work Doug Slocombe had achieved, which meant that both Janusz and I had to swallow our pride. Janusz had to approximate another cinematographer’s look, and I had to approximate this younger director’s look that I thought I had moved away from after almost two decades.”

That much already had me nodding and thinking good things, and then he went on….

Spielberg promises no tricky editing for the new one, saying, “I go for geography. I want the audience to know not only which side the good guy’s on and the bad guy’s on, but which side of the screen they’re in, and I want the audience to be able to edit as quickly as they want in a shot that I am loath to cut away from. And that’s been my style with all four of these Indiana Jones pictures. Quick-cutting is very effective in some movies, like the Bourne pictures, but you sacrifice geography when you go for quick-cutting. Which is fine, because audiences get a huge adrenaline rush from a cut every second and a half on The Bourne Ultimatum, and there’s just enough geography for the audience never to be lost, especially in the last Bourne film, which I thought was the best of the three. But, by the same token, Indy is a little more old-fashioned than the modern-day action adventure.”

The script, Spielberg says, can provide the blockbuster pace. “Part of the speed is the story,” he says. “If you build a fast engine, you don’t need fast cutting, because the story’s being told fluidly, and the pages are just turning very quickly. You first of all need a script that’s written in the express lane, and if it’s not, there’s nothing you can do in the editing room to make it move faster. You need room for character, you need room for relationships, for personal conflict, you need room for comedy, but that all has to happen on a moving sidewalk.”

Not just yes, but hell yes.

I was skeptical when I first started hearing about Indy 4, but the more little bits leak out (though I am endeavoring to stay spoiler free), the more I’m looking forward to seeing this one.

Condescended

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I’m hoping that now that we’re just about a year away from the transition to all-digital TV broadcasting and the government’s TV Converter Program is up and running, we’ll finally start to get some information and reviews on the various TV converter boxes that are (or will be) available.

I just applied for my two coupons towards the boxes, and then started searching on some of the listed eligible converter boxes to see what they’re like. Unfortunately, much of what I found was brief little snippets from über-geek and audiophile sites with comments like this…

…one of the “digital switchover” converter boxes your stubborn granny can buy early next year with her $40 coupon from the government, in lieu of getting a new goddamn TV.

Okay, sure, that’s from Gizmodo. Still — not every geek out there works for Microsoft and has a gazillion expendable dollars…or sees the need to toss out a perfectly good (and, actually, very nice) TV set that works fine, aside from not having the ATSC tuner.