Many Things

Lots of stuff has happened and I haven't been writing or commenting unnecessarily on it.

The Format War

Things look grim for HDDVD right now, as Blu-Ray now currently has 70% of the studios under exclusivity contracts. What does this mean for the average consumer? Absolutely nothing. Both of these formats were created in order to cash in on a minor upgrade in performance and quality and neither matter much in the long run. In five years, there will be something better, with more storage, and it will look even prettier. I'd also be willing to bet that if you look at sales, DVDs are still outselling both of the HD formats hands down.

Movies

I've taken in quite a few films in the last couple of weeks. The top of the list is easily No Country For Old Men, based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, it's one of those films that every man in America should go see. It's violent, it's graphic, and it's bloody, but it also seems to have every good actor they could find in it. The writing is nothing short of brilliant, and the antagonist is easily one of the greatest movie villains in history. He's sadistic, unpredictable, and always on edge, which makes for some truly remarkable scenes of ritual blood bath.

I Am Legend was pretty good, I thought. The ending was a little weak, but as post apocalyptic movies go, it was well filmed and well acted. It's interesting, because for about 80% of the movie, Will Smith only talks to his dog, and yet the movie is still watchable. It's too bad that I won't be able to see any of his movies anymore. Having recently announced his connection with the Church of Scientology (see: crazy fuckers who believe that malevolent alien spirits cause all our problems), I must now add Will Smith's films to a list of those I can't go see. It's too bad, because I really like his movies. Oh well.

I saw some other movies, Alien vs. Predator Requiem being one of them. It only bears mentioning because it was so bad, which is to say, in many ways, it was a worthy sequel to the first film. Though the two have absolutely no connection, and the story is completely different, this is the sequel. There are Aliens. Oh, and some Predators. They fight, but not much. Also, there is an Alien that somehow looks sort of like a Predator. It is a PredAlien, I guess. I played with the toys when I was 9, so I vaguely remember that being one of them. The Aliens and Predators on which the crux of the film is based don't really do a whole lot of interacting, save pounding the crap out of each other in ludicrously dark rooms where the action takes a back seat to the gore, which has been turned up to eleven.

In making this grotesque film, it seems the creators went back to each previous Alien and Predator film and made a list of all the "alien bursting out of a chest" situations they never got to explore in the past films. Father and his 10 year old son? Chest bursted. Homeless people in a sewer? Chest bursted. Hospital wing full of pregnant women? You know they chest bursted those fat bitches.

It seems they have forgotten what made the first Alien and Predator films so great in the first place. It was all about the hunt and the suspense leading up to it. Now, it's a game of "who can we chest burst next, and how violent can this one be?" I can only imagine the conversation that went on before this movie got the green light:

Studio Exec: So, the script looks pretty good, but we just have a couple things we want to ask you about.
Writer: Sure, go for it.
Studio Exec: Why are there so many people with aliens shooting out of their chests?
Writer: I wanted to really explore the medium of chest bursting with this film, really try to get inside the mentality of an alien's motivation to chest burst the shit out of everything it sees.
Studio Exec: But the movie is about humans.
Writer: Well there has to be something for the aliens to chest burst.
Studio Exec: What if they chest bursted cars?
Writer: That could work.

As much as I hate on the film, I will also say this: I would leap at the opportunity to be one of the guys that gets chest bursted in an Alien movie. I feel it would make a perfect addition to my bulging resume.

More later.