Well I ended up caving into temptation and I purchased a Sony Blu Ray system this morning at Best Buy. I paid $399 for the system, received 5 blu ray dvd's in store. The only caveat was they couldn't be more than $34.99. Which wasn't too bad since most of them were in the $20 range. I also filled out the mail in rebate thingie so that I can receive an additional 5 blu ray movies.
Why didn't you go with a PS3 for the same price? Even if you're not a video game guy the PS3 serves as a nice media center and can browse the web.
Mostly because I'm not all that interested in gaming. Plus, I wasn't able to find a system for less than $499 out this way.
3:10 to Yuma - A new telling of Elmore Leonard's western tale. Down-on-his-luck farmer, familyman, and Civil War veteran Evans (Christian Bale) joins a posse to take captured notorious stage robber and badman Wade (Russell Crowe) to a distant town in order to put him on the train that will take Wade back to the Yuma penetentiary...and a hanging. Wade's bad-ass gang rides in pursuit. The gang's second-in-command is played effectively by a very flamboyantly-dressed Ben Foster--does he like Wade a little too much? Some great action pieces here, but the film is more of a character study. Does Wade really grow to respect Evans' uprightness and refusal to flee as the odds turn more and more against him? The conclusion may make you go , but I think if you pay attention to Wade's character, it makes sense--the Lord knows the heart, as Wade says. Gretchen Mol () is Evans' wife, Alan Tudyk (WASH!) is a veterinarian who rides with the posse, and Peter Fonda is a crusty old bounty hunter. Luke Wilson has an interesting cameo, too. Good transfer on the disk. There are lots of shots where the camera observes people or stagecoaches in the distance and the detail that HD brings really gives these scenes depth. Also some great scenic vistas; this is a western, after all. You won't be disappointed with the look of this one. There are some terrific extras on this disk! There's an audio commentary by the director (I haven't heard it yet, though). There's a small feature where Elmore Leonard discusses his early career and the writing of '3:10 to Yuma.' There's a 'Guns of Yuma' feature that shows and describes the weapons used in the movie and how the moviemakers selected each gun to match the character who uses it. There's a short documentary on the transcontinental railroad. There's a history of the west timeline feature that presents a TREMENDOUS number of historical facts, with an evolving map of the U.S. that shows where each event happened (I spent half an hour playing with it and I didn't come close to seeing it all). There's a theatrical trailer. There's also trailers for about half a dozen movies (Rambo, Lord of War among others) all presented in HD. The movie is good, the transfer is excellent, and the extras are top notch. Highly recommended. 8.5/10.
I just love some of the extras that come with these Blu-ray releases. The history of the west extra you talked about makes me want to go out and buy this one. From my other review, the Werewolves and Vampires documentary found on the Underworld Blu-ray makes it worth the purchase price.
Like Pinchlord said, Discovery Channel made a version for the American market that replaces the narration. Good to hear you have the original version.
Both the Discovery Channel AND the BBC versions are available in the U.S. market. If you're interested, BUY THE BBC VERSION. The BBC version has a substantially higher quality transfer. You can read reviews of both at HighDefDigest.com.
Today I watched two of the five movies that I received with the new blu ray player. I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3. It was okay to me, but I am glad I didn't pay to see it at the movie theatre. Than I had to unplug and reset the damned blu ray player because for some reason it made everything on the screen go into the upper right hand corner of the screen after watching Pirates. I'm not sure why it did that. I followed it up with watching Invincible another movie I hadn't seen before and Ladder 49.
Right now, I have Ghost Rider, X3, Pirates of the Carribean, Remember the Titans, Invincible, and Ladder 49.
I borrowed Dreamgirls last night. Don't listen to the reviews. It's not a great movie. Only hottie Beyonce and the acting of Eddie Murphy saved it. Jennifer Hudson can sing, but if you don't like her voice, you will find yourself fast forwarding a lot of the movie.
Sunshine - 'Hard' sci-fi movie. In the not-too-distant future, the sun's output has declined, and the Icarus II spacecraft is sent on a mission to restart it by dropping in a Manhattan Island-sized nuclear bomb. (Not as ridiculous as it sounds if you read about the theory behind it.) Passing Mercury, Icarus II detects a radio beacon from Icarus I, a ship on a similar mission that was lost 7 years earlier. Communications from Earth now blocked by solar radiation, the crew must decide: is detouring to rendezvous with Icarus I worth the risk? The decision is left to Capa (Cillian Murphy), the ship's physicist and designer of their payload bomb. He makes a good logical call--if the bomb is humanity's last hope, isn't it better to have two?--but the course changes soon lead Icarus II into disaster and, perhaps, the same fate as Icarus I. The good: some really cool and realistic sci-fi stuff (realistic depictions of people being exposed to the vacuum of space, the design of the Icarus around an incredible miles-wide heat shield, the effects of moving outside the shield's shadow [poof!], etc.), good effects--in some places quite awe-inspiring as they depict reality; a sweeping pan across the surface of the sun that leads to Icarus II stands out in my memory. The bad: stock sci-fi characters that are hard to care much about, a rather silly lack of redundancy of critical systems for such an important mission, a plot twist you'll see coming 30 million miles away. The ugly: a resolution that makes sense, but lacks much impact; a discovery near the end holds out the possibility of a much different ending, but it's quashed far too soon. The transfer is pretty good; you won't be disappointed. Parts of this film would make splendid HD demo material. There's a commentary (I haven't listened to it, yet), some deleted scenes (pretty much better that they were), a trailer, and a few other extras. All in all, not a bad package. The movie I'll give a 6.5; the good transfer and decent extras merit an additional point for the disk. 7.5/10. Recommended for sci-fi fans, certainly a good rental.
I have a review of Disney produced DVD's. I hate the fifteen minutes of advertisements they place at the beginning of each of their dvd's that force you to click the chapter button in order to accelerate through them. They like to disable the top menu feature when their discs first load in. I hate that!!!
Just got 2001 on Blu-Ray from Amazon.com today. I've been dying to see it, but I'll probably end up put off watching it until sometime this weekend when I get a new HDTV. My current one is kind of rinky dink.
I'm upgrading apartments, the new one has a huge living room that can be blacked out, I'm considering getting a projector instead of an HDTV and moving my current HDTV into my bedroom. Any thoughts?
I'd say good idea if you are going to spend a lot of money on a good 1080p projector, given your frequent talk about video quality I think going to anything less would be just annoying. For day to day use is it practical though to have the room darkened whenever the tv is on?
That's what is holding me up, I don't really watch TV during the day at all, but every once in a while I do, and I don't know if I want to have to black out the room every time.
Epson's new 1080p projector is reasonably priced (around $2400), throws a 100" (!!!) image, and is said to be a stellar performer. Get it and I will turn GREEN with envy.
That sounds doable, but does it need complete darkness or is it one of those projectors that will even work in a lighted room?
Then I think the only real thing you can do is go into a store that has the projector you want and see what it performs like under the sort of ambient light your living room has.
After reading up on it and projectors in general I don't think this would be the right move for me until I have a place with a dedicated media room. I'll stick to flat panels for now. I want something that gets more than 3000 hours of life. Without that I'd probably end up putting my current TV on a different wall and leaving the old CRT in the bedroom. Basically I'd have my LCD and the projector both in the living room, and while that'd be cool, I'd rather have an HDTV in the bedroom.
If you use it as a regular TV, a projector can wear out quickly. 3000 hours doesn't take long to add up if you use it as your TV and have it running 5-6 hours a day. I've basically quit watching TV so my HDTV rear projection set is only being used for movies, probably about 20 hours a week TOPS. So I expect it to last for--GASP--100 weeks before I need to consider a bulb change.
In my current apartment I don't have cable because it's 100 a month with zero HD channels available and I don't have satellite because I don't face south. The new apartment will face south, so having TV again becomes an option. Honestly though, I'm so accustomed to only having my HD Antenna and watching Blu-Rays and DVDs(my preferred method of TV) anyway that I may stick to that. I don't log more than 3 or 4 hours at day unless it's a weekend and I'm playing Resistance or watching the limited amount of sports I get through the antenna. I still think I should probably wait on the media room for a projector though.
Invincible - 8/10 - good movie, good Blu-Ray, it only loses 2 points because not everything can be a great movie, we have to draw the line somewhere.
I find I need to come up with a better basis for reviewing disks here and movies in general. I give out an awful lot of 7s, which essentially means "pretty good but nothing to write home about" and virtually no 1s or 2s. Also, I think I need to review the disk and the film separately...how do you score a really good movie with a crummy transfer? Or a crappy movie that has a beautiful transfer and abundant extras? My thinking is that a good system should give out VERY FEW 10s, and only an occasional 9. An 8 should be considered a very good movie. For myself, I need to recalibrate the lower end. I tend to give a movie a 5 just for showing up and go from there. It's like grade inflation. Something like: 10 - ABSOLUTELY UNMISSABLE 9 - Extremely good 8 - Very good 7 - Good 6 - Entertaining 5 - Time-passing 4 - Unrewarding 3 - Poor 2 - Wretched 1 - Abysmal 0 - Unwatchable I'll think on this further...
I enjoyed Invincible as well. But, I think that Remember the Titans is better. I also watched Glory Road tonight which I thought was pretty good. If I were to rate the three "sports" movies based on true stories, I'd rate them as follows: Remember the Titans 9/10 Invincible 8/10 Glory Road 8.5/10
The Rock - fun if simplistic thriller that buddies up a nerdy FBI chemical weapons expert (Nicholas Cage) and a for-decades-wrongly-imprisoned British spy (Sean Connery) to combat a legendary general (Ed Harris) and his group of renegade Marines, who are dug in on Alcatraz Island and plan to hit San Francisco with rocket-propelled nerve gas if their demands aren't met. Highly improbable but enjoyable action ensues. After all, it was directed by Michael Bay. Now 12 years old, the film offers us Cage at his gosh-golly nerdiest best, a still-commanding action hero in Connery, powerful acting from Harris, and a terrific supporting cast. Yes, the dialog is stupid. Yes, the situations are ridiculous. Yes, it's ridiculous to put the guidance control chip for a rocket INSIDE a chemical weapons warhead. Yes, willing suspension of disbelief requires a Saturn V booster in a few places. But stuff does get blowed up real good and the Cage/Connery pairing works. What more do you want? The transfer on the disk is pretty good, if not quite top notch. Still, it is a 12 year old film. I'd say it's a considerable upgrade over the earlier DVD. And there's a pretty decent set of extras: commentary, outtakes [mostly Ed Harris getting really pissed off about blowing his lines], a mini-documentary on Alcatraz, a featurette on the SEALs who trained the actors in the movie, and some trailers. Movie: 7/10 (Good; not great, but more than just entertaining) Disk: 8/10 (Good; falls just a little short on the transfer, some decent if uninspired extras, $20 price tag is just right) Overall: 7.5 (Recommended)
