December 2005 Archives (21 posts)

Philips DVP-642

Best Buy has the Philips DVP-642 DVD player on sale for $74.99 (CDN) so I picked one up yesterday. I already have a good quality DVD player in the Panasonic S97S that works fine so why get another player?

Aside from the sale price, the Philips DVP-642 has excellent support for DivX playback and it is a region-free player. I have several documentary films in DivX that aren’t available yet on DVD or haven’t had a theatrical release. Watching them on a computer screen is a drag and not as comfortable as watching in a home theatre.

The Philips DVP-642 will also play DVDs encoded for PAL quite easily. One of my favourite photographers, Charlie Waite, did a television series for Grampian TV in Scotland. The series is called Seeing Scotland and is now available on DVD (PAL).

If you’re looking for a cheap DivX DVD player then you can’t go wrong with the Philips DVP-642. The LG LDA-530 is another good DivX player as well.

There are also several hacks for the Philips DVP-642 at videohelp.com that you’ll want to check out if you own this player.

Posted in Home Theatre at 1:53 PM | Comments (0)

Syriana (2005)

Just before Christmas I went to see Syriana (2005) with Paul the insurance adjuster. I found director Stephen Gaghan’s political thriller a little confusing but I enjoyed all of it.

Multiple story lines in this film slowly come together and show how complex and corrupt the oil industry can be. CIA agents, corporate lawyers, oil workers, terrorists and oil sheiks make up an ensemble cast that had me scrambling to keep track of the different subplots. After learning that Warner Brothers, emailed film critics a guide to the various characters in this film, I feel a little better.

Syriana is an important film in that it raises a lot of questions about the oil industry in relation to greed, power, US military, China as a rising economic power and terrorism in the middle-east. It’s the type of film that you can watch with a friend and end up discussing for hours afterward.

I plan to see it again and I’m sure that I’ll enjoy it even more the second time. It’s not often that you get a chance to use your brain when watching a film.

Posted in Movie Reviews at 9:41 PM | Comments (3)

Titles Designed by Saul Bass

I just came across Titles Designed by Saul Bass on notcoming.com (which gets a permanent bookmark in my web browser).

Titles Designed by Saul Bass has an interactive gallery that lets you view the titles Bass designed for a number of films. Great site!

Posted in Motion Graphics at 9:11 PM | Comments (0)

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

I am loving Steven Jay Schneider’s book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Hardcover, 960 pages, 4.5 pounds and impossible to put down.

This isn’t a book of the best 1001 films ever made. It’s a compilation of some really great and interesting films that you’ve probably overlooked or never heard of. If you’re a film buff then you’ll want a copy of this book right away.

If you’re a Netflix or Zip.ca member then you’ll have plenty of films to add to your list. I’ve seen a lot of the films in this book but I was surprised by how many films I haven’t seen or have trouble remembering. Here’s a sample:

Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Nashville (1975)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Breaking Away (1979)
In The Year of The Pig (1969)
No Man’s Land (2001)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

The layout of the book is similar to a film festival guide. It has a small review of each film, and in the sidebar it contains the country of origin, language, director, cast, writer, producer, director of photography, music and awards. Quite often there is a photo with each film as well.

Posted in Books at 8:59 PM | Comments (3)

A Bucket of Porn

I just returned from Blockbuster with Vanessa the step-daughter. She wanted to rent a chick flick to watch with her mom. That’s why I’m upstairs updating my blog.

Morgan, the 17-year-old guy behind the counter knows Vanessa’s boyfriend. When we were checking out our movies he asked Vanessa what her boyfriend got her for Christmas. Then he asked what she got him for Christmas. After he handed me my receipt he looked at Vanessa and said, “you should have given him a bucket of porn, he’d like that, trust me.”

I thought this dorky kid said, “a bucket of corn.” It seemed like a weird suggestion but I didn’t really think twice about it.

As he handed me the movies Vanessa said, “by the way Morgan, this is my step-father Jay.” This poor kid turned bright red and politely said, “oh… I wasn’t aware of that.”

What a goof.

Posted in Personal at 8:32 PM | Comments (0)

DVD Journal Top 10

The DVD Journal has posted their list of the top 10 DVDs released in 2005. I was suprised to see that Team America: World Police made it into the top 10. I didn’t care much for this film but I seem to be in the minority here. Most of the people that I’ve talked to found it to be hilarious.

Glad to see François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim listed here. The Criterion Collection almost always releases interesting films with great extras. The two disc set of Jules and Jim is no exception. It is packed with extras and also includes a few essay’s about the film.

Some of the DVD releases that didn’t make the top 10 include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Browning Version and A Very Long Engagement.

Martin Scorsese’s documentary No Direction Home was also on the short list. I don’t know, I watched this Bob Dylan doc last week and wasn’t impressed. I thought D.A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back (1967) was much more interesting. This is probably why Scorsese uses a lot of footage from Dont Look Back in his own film.

Posted in Web at 7:54 PM | Comments (0)

Christmas Day

Christmas Day has come and gone.

It started with Daniel, the 6-year-old waking up at 7:30 AM to discover that Santa dropped by the night before, delivered some presents and answered some mail. Star Wars lego, a Darth Vader mask, Hot Wheels cars and and more! Daniel got some cool stuff too.

Seriously, I didn’t want anything for Christmas and didn’t ask for anything. I hate this pressure of having to find the perfect gift. I don’t see the point of exchanging gift certificates with each other. I also don’t see the point of giving someone cash so that they can go an purchase what they really want. All of it is pointless except to the credit card companies and the retail stores.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be Scrooge. I picked up a number of gifts for people in our family and received some really nice gifts—I can’t put down my new copy of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (thanks Vanessa).

I don’t know where I’m going with this, except to say that I dislike the commercialism of Christmas or what Christmas has become for many of us. A lot of us get so caught up in shopping and gift giving that we forget where this “happy holiday” came from. Okay. End of rant.

We spent some time with my side of the family in Maple and had a great time. Then it was time to head back home and prepare for Christmas dinner. I made a batch of candied sweet potatoes in the afternoon. As soon as they were done we packed up the car again and headed across town for a turkey dinner with Lissa’s family as we do every year.

I’m blogging because Vanessa received a couple of seasons of The Gilmore Girls on DVD. I can’t get near the TV. She beat me to it.

Did I mention that the HD projector was fixed? I picked it up on Christmas Eve. The main power board was defective and replaced at no cost. Phew!

Merry Christmas.

Posted in Personal at 9:45 PM | Comments (2)

HD Projector Woes

There won’t be many DVD reviews here in the next little while. My Panasonic HD projector decided to go on strike after 1500 hours. The bulb seems fine but it keeps powering down after a few minutes.

This is a major drag as the holidays approach. I guess I’ll have to spend more meaningful time with the family, read some books and take a lot of photos. Life is harsh.

Posted in Home Theatre at 2:20 PM | Comments (0)

Layer Cake (2004)

I finally got around to seeing Layer Cake (2004) on DVD. Directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Daniel Craig (the next James Bond).

Layer Cake is probably the best British gangster film in the last five years. It has the same style and coolness of a Guy Ritchie film like Snatch—great cinematography, good music and get this, it has an intelligent plot that makes sense! Regrettably, Guy Ritchie forgot to include this in Revolver.

I didn’t find the characters as interesting as the cast from Sexy Beast or Snatch but the story is pretty good, the acting is great and direction is excellent. Some of the scenes are quite interesting in the way that they are shot and the editing tries to push the envelope a little bit which is always a welcome change.

My only complaint about the film is that the dialogue was often difficult to hear. This made it difficult to follow a few scenes and I found myself skipping back to try and make out what some of the characters where whispering or mumbling at the time.

There are also a couple of alternate endings on the DVD. The ending in the film is the best one. I always like when a filmmaker includes extra material like this because it draws you into the whole movie making process a little more.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:44 PM | Comments (0)

Arnaud Frich Photographs

Arnaud Frich has taken some amazing panoramic photographs of Paris. I think I mentioned his work a while back. If not then you have to take a look at some of his photos. They are spectacular.

Posted in Photography at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003)

Fragile, Andy Warhol look alike, Rodney Bingenheimer is the Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003). If you have no idea who radio DJ (KROQ in LA) Rodney is then you’re in for a treat.

This documentary takes a look at Rodney’s rise from rock fan, journalist, club owner to radio DJ. Since 1976 he’s been known as a DJ—the first one in the US to play and promote several bands such as Coldplay, Oasis, The Smiths, Blondie and Joan Jett.

He’s obsessed with being in the company of famous musicians and actors. In the 70s, Robert Plant claimed that Rodney had more “action” with the groupies and band-aids than he did. Hard to believe when you look at Rodney now and see him in the film.

You can’t help but feel sorry for Rodney when you watch this film. His mother divorced when he was very young. He spent most of his childhood alone, became very popular in the 70s but now finds himself alone again. He knows everyone and is friends with no one.

He’s still looking for the girl of his dreams. His radio show now airs on Sunday nights from midnight till 3 AM. When I look at Rodney today I see a sad and lonely man who is fading away. Watch the film and you’ll see this time and time again.

Mayor of the Sunset Strip is fascinating. Rodney is a great subject for a documentary and there is a huge celebrity factor to the film that I think most viewers will enjoy. If you enjoyed something like The Kid Stays In the Picture (2002) then you can’t go wrong with Mayor of the Sunset Strip.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 12:02 PM | Comments (3)

The Buffalo Bills Suck

Yesterday I went down to Orchard Park, NY to see the Buffalo Bills with my buddy Paul the insurance adjuster. We had great seats—11 rows behind the Bills bench which gave me some great photo opportunities. At least until the blizzard started in the second half.

The Bills got pounded 35-7. Quarterback Kelly Holcomb endured most of this pounding and sustained a severe concussion. I have a great shot of him getting popped on Bombippy Photos.

Posted in Travel at 5:01 PM | Comments (10)

Hearty Beef Stew Recipe

This hearty beef stew recipe is perfect for a cold winter night. Just give yourself plenty of time to allow it to cook!

Preheat the oven to 250°F.

Finely cut the onions and celery. The potatoes, carrots and potatoes can be cut into cubes. Quarter the mushrooms. Use a press or grater for the garlic. Combine the vegetables and beef into a large ovenproof pot.

Season with all of the spices. Pour in the wine and water. Give it a good stir and cover tightly with aluminium foil.

Bake for 5 to 6.5 hours

20 minutes prep | 6.5 hours cooking | Serves 10

Recipe is from Magnotta’s 2006 Calendar.

Posted in Recipes at 3:22 PM | Comments (2)

More Zip Value

I was just looking at my Zip.ca account to see how many movies I’ve watched in the last few months. Part of the reason is to see how much value I’m getting out of the service.

I pay $28.70/month to have out 4 DVDs at any one time. Here’s what I found:

• September – 7 rentals ($4.10/DVD)
• October – 7 rentals ($4.10/DVD)
• November – 13 rentals ($2.21/DVD)

Now that my work load has returned to normal I should be able to average about 8-10 rentals a month. I still think the service is outstanding. I always know what is coming in the mail but there is something nice about getting “real mail” delivered to your door.

Posted in Movies and Web at 4:01 PM | Comments (0)

Another Day in Paradise (1998)

Directed by Larry Clark. Unfortunately the DVD copy I had of this film was a full screen pan and scan version! Fortunately, the film was so good that the incorrect framing wasn’t an issue (I had pretty low expectations).

The cast of this film is great. James Woods was born to play his role as a small-time thief. He liked the role so much that he signed on as a producer.

Melanie Griffith is perfect as Woods’ junkie girlfriend with too many Botox injections. I haven’t seen Vincent Kartheiser since he played the lead in The Indian in the Cupboard (1995). He plays a young junkie that Woods and Griffith befriend to pull a few robberies.

Then there is Natasha Gregson Wagner who plays Kartheiser’s druggie girlfriend. She is Natalie Wood’s daughter and Robert Wagner’s step-daughter. Lou Diamond Phillips does an uncredited performance that will make you do a double-take.

I saw Larry Clark’s first film, Kids (1995) and didn’t think very much of it. I was surprised by how much I liked Another Day in Paradise (1998), mainly because all of characters in the film are low-life drug addicts. They do a couple of robberies hoping to get rich and lay low but each time disaster strikes and things go from bad to hopeless.

It’s too bad that James Woods has drifted into obscure TV roles and voiceover work because he’s a lot of fun to watch onscreen. This is probably the best film he’s done in the last seven years. Now if only somebody would release this film in its proper aspect ration of 1.85:1. It deserves at least that much.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 8:11 PM | Comments (0)

New York Doll (2005)

One of the best films I’ve seen this year. New York Doll (2005) is a documentary film about Arthur “Killer” Kane—a recovering alcoholic, a Mormon, and the bass player for The New York Dolls.

Director Greg Whitely hit the jackpot when he chose Kane as the subject of his first documentary film. In 2004, Kane and his bandmates David Johansen (Buster Poindexter) and Sylvain Sylvain reunited for a couple of shows at Royal Festival Hall in London.

Although the film is more about Arthur Kane than a rockumentary about The New York Dolls, there are plenty of clips from Morrisey, Bob Geldoff, Chrissy Hynde, Mick Jones, Iggy Pop and more. If you’re unfamiliar with the band, you’ll have a greater appreciation for them by the end of this film.

Arthur Kane is a goofy, messed up, washed up rock star that you’ll grow to love through this film. His story is bitter sweet one that Greg Whitely does a beautiful job of telling.

The film is a part of the Hot Docs Doc Soup program. Tonight was the Canadian premiere at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. Whitely flew in from Los Angeles to introduce the film and conducted a lengthy Q&A afterward. He mentioned that the film was purchased by Odeon Films and should be in theatres soon.

There is a great website for the film at www.newyorkdollmovie.com that has a trailer, production notes and more.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)

Best/Top/Favourite/Notable of 2005

Here is the first of many lists for 2005.

I never knew that Metacritic had a Best of 2005 page for film that also includes previous years. This is a great way to select quality films for your ZipList.

RollingStone.com has a list of the Top 25 DVDs that some people may also find interesting.

Posted in Web at 8:11 PM | Comments (0)

Safari Icon Manager

I use Safari for web browsing under Mac OS X and haven’t switched to Firefox (1.5). Yet. The only thing I really dislike about Safari is how poorly it handles favicons.

If you’re finding that your favicons don’t refresh in Safari then you should run Safari Icon Manager.

Posted in OS X Software at 8:01 PM | Comments (0)

xXx: State of the Union (2005)

To most people, you’ll think that I have extremely poor taste after admitting that I recently watched xXx: State of the Union (2005) and enjoyed it. First a Tom Cruise movie and now a movie starring Ice Cube. Every now and again we have our guilty pleasures when it comes to film, music, novels.

Once again, I thought this movie was going to suck because of the star—Ice Cube as XXX instead of Vin Diesel. It turns out that Ice Cube is hilarious as an action hero (at least to me). I laughed all the way through this film at the sarcastic one-liners, the constant sneer on Ice Cube’s face and the unbelievable action. Don’t ask me how, but this film works.

It’s directed by New Zealander, Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day, Mullholland Falls) and also stars Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe. I think it was a gutsy move to cast Ice Cube in the lead role but if you give it a chance I think you’d enjoy this movie.

Okay, back to watching serious films by Jaques Becker and François Truffaut.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 5:53 PM | Comments (0)

The Interpreter (2005)

Directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman and sometimes Catherine Keener. The Interpreter (2005) wasn’t bad. It tends to drag a little bit at times but there is enough excitement and suspense to keep you interested in how things will unravel.

The access to The United Nations that Sydney Pollack had in making this film is incredible. The building itself is one of the stars in this film and I have to wonder if the film would be as good without it.

If you’re watching this on DVD then don’t miss one of the extra features with Sydney Pollack discussing the merits of the widescreen format versus the dreaded pan & scan format. Sydney will show a few dozen examples of widescreen—good! Then he’ll show you a few dozen examples of fullscreen, pan and scan video—bad!

Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)

War of the Worlds (2005)

Tom Cruise is an incredibly talented actor. Wait! Don’t vomit. I mean it. I thought I was going to hate War of the Worlds (2005) because of Cruise. Instead, I was blown away.

Okay it helps that Steven Spielberg directed this film but Cruise was not the annoying little weasel that we’ve seen in the press over the last year. He wasn’t a barrier to my enjoying this film and for that I am amazed.

The special effects are incredible and very believable. Try to remember back to the first time you saw Jaws and how real that mechanical shark seemed. War of the Worlds gave me the same feeling of uneasiness to the point that I had to remind myself that, this is just a movie.

If you’re like me and somehow missed this film in the theatre then be sure to watch in on DVD.

Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:34 PM | Comments (1)