It was warm yesterday, and to tell the truth there are a lot of interesting looing movies out at the moment. I’ll admit that there are a lot of people who will calaim that there hasn’t been a ‘good’ movie out in a while. Oddly enough I’ve seen several good movies this year. At least movies I think were pretty good. In the past two months I have seen Iron Man, Indian Jones, The incredible Hulk. Friday I went out and saw Wanted. Yesterday (Sunday) I saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Dark Knight, and Hancock. Either today, or possibly tomorrow, I’m planning on seeing WALL-E.
No, I won’t be doing ‘rating’ reviews, or try to tell you about plot, or special effects. And no, there will be no spoilers here. (If I see comments that include spoilers, the will be deleted.) I very much enjoyed each of the the movies, for a variety of reasons, some in common.
Imagine a superhearo that can’t remmember who he is, how he got his powers, and really doesn’t care if people like him. See Hancock. Considering the history of films that Will Smith has been working in, I think Hancock is probably one of the movies that won’t be talked about as much, but will probably help his career more than perhaps Independence Day did.
If you haven’t seen Iron Man, I would suggest it as a movie to see with fans of the Iron Man comic book. Are there differences between the comic book history, and the movie history? Yes. That said, I think it was very well done.
The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and Hellboy II are all movies that I think would work well for dates. Guys, you will like them, lot’s of action. Your dates will like the personal interactions between the characters.
Wanted is an interesting variation on the hero theme. Personally I think there are holes in the plot you could drive a Death Star through, with clearance, for a couple of stars, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did enjoy the movie, and would recommend it to people who’ve been with each other long enough to know what each other’s tastes are in action and drama. It’s not a good first date movie. Which doesn’t mean it’s not a good movie. I particularly liked the ending, if not some of the bit’s leading up to the ending. I don’t think this is a spoiler, but it is a technical issue that puts the major hole in the story as far as I’m concerned. The weaver’s have been using binary coding to read ‘names’ from flaws in the weaving paterns of textiles. OK, that part I’m OK with. However the coding used in the movie is ASCII, which was developed in the 1960’s. (Actually it appears to be 8-bit ascii which would be an even later development.) Yet ostensibly the Weavers have been reading this for about a thousand years. The excuse could be made that the Jakard Loom was involved, but even that does not go back far enough.
If you’re reading this, and have not seen The Dark Knight, and it’s showing within a 20 mile radius of where you live, then this blog is a waste of your time. That movie is a better use of that time. As with a few other critique’s, there are potentially better uses of your time yet. Personally I think that Iron man was a better movie, but then I went to see it twice.
OK, a better se tof critique items might be what I plan to buy, rent, and in what format. Since I own a PS3, that means I have an Blue Ray player. As a result, I have additional choices to make now. Do I buy the movie or rent it, and if I buy, or rent, do I get the standard definition or blue ray edition. In a moment I’ll get to what will make that decision moot.
Movies I expect to buy. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted and The Dark Knight. I may buy Hancock and Hell Boy. If I have a reason to show the movie for someone, I may rent Indiana Jones.
For one reason I want to buy Wanted in Blue Ray. I tend to suspect that down sampling the video for dvd is going to make carching the binary coding samples difficult to read. I’m not talking about trying to read the fabric, not even with blue ray will you be able to do that, but to read what has been collected, and verify that there wasn’t a ‘creative’ artist involved might be interesting. And yes everyone will think that I bought it to see Angelina Jolie. Whatever.
Iron Man on Blue Ray sounds enticing. I’ve heard of some interesting effects in the heads up display that I’m interested in checking out. Everything else on standard definition DVD works for me.
What would make the decision between SD and BD moot? Selling the content at the same price. At that point, I would just buy BD editions. But that’s me, and you may have different views.
Time to get ready to go see WALL-E though.
