A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – Mini Review

I just got home from seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street. This is the new “reboot” version. If you are a fan of the original movie you MUST see this. Overall I was very impressed with the movie. It was not cheesy. In fact it was quite intelligent.

In my own mind I always hope people would give themselves super powers when they realize they are in a dream, like Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid. Of course that does not happen, but this version of Nightmare was very well done.

It follows the same basic plot of the original. A bunch of teenage kids are being haunted by Freddie Kruger in their dreams. They start dying in their dreams. Then the few kids that are left are trying to figure out who Freddie is and why he is after them. That why is the biggest departure from the original movie. In this movie one of the kids dreams the events of Freddie being hunted by the parents, and pleading that he did not do what they think he did. This element of Freddie possibly being innocent and going after the kids for their parents bad deed is really well done. Of course I can’t tell you if Freddie is a falsely persecuted man looking for some twisted sense of justice, or if he is some kind of psychopath with the ability to continue his destruction in an afterlife/dream world. You will have to see the movie to know which turns out to be true.

And that is why you should see this movie in the theaters. Don’t let anyone tell you the truth. Learn it for yourself. If you are a horror film fan or a Nightmare fan… go see this movie. You will like it… maybe even love it. It begs for a sequel in a way that I want to see more. I have never thought that about a horror movie before. I just hope if/when they make a sequel to this version of Nightmare they do it with as much intelligence as this one.

Recommended.

Please leave a comment if you have seen this movie and whether you liked it or not.. and why. Thanks!

Cheap 7.1 Surround Sound

As part of Life 2.0 I wanted to have the best home theater system I could afford. Unfortunately, I could not afford much. However, I managed to put together a 7.1 Surround Sound system for less than $300.

I only bought one component, a Sony STR-DH800 7.1-Channel Audio Video Receiver from Amazon. If you follow that link you will see the receiver selling for $214. Damn… I paid $261. I don’t regret it one bit. I was surprised I was able to find a receiver that had everything I wanted for so little.

My requirements were simple:

• 4 HDMI inputs, 1 HDMI ouput
• Dolby TrueHD & DTS Master Audio
• 7.1 speaker support

What about the speakers? I dug those out of a closet. When I bought my first DVD player in 1998 I also bought a HTIB (Home Theater in a Box). It happened to be a Sony. Well, the receiver that came in that box is still in use at the house I moved out of. We bought high end, in wall speakers for the house. So the speakers from the HTIB were sitting in a closet… along with the sub-woofer.

That’s only 5 speakers and a sub. Where did the two rear channel speakers come from? Well, I bought a cheap ($60) Creative Labs 5.1 speaker system for my computer back in 2003. At the time our house was a zoo… literally, with a dog and a cat and a rabbit. The rabbit loved the wires to my computer. It ate the wires to the 5.1 sound system so many times I gave up fixing it. I eventually got a monitor that had built in speakers. The Creative Labs sub-woofer stopped working and got thrown away, but I saved the other speakers. I don’t even know why, but now I am glad. I took two of those speakers for channels 6 & 7.

So, how does this super cheap system sound. Surprisingly good. I do not have a great ear for this stuff, but at moderate volumes it is wonderful. I plugged in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan since it was remastered in 7.1 sound. It sounded fantastic. You definitely hear things on the sides and behind you. It’s like being on the set.

I can always buy better speakers later and slowly upgrade this system. I don’t know if I will do that. It sounds very good to me. Plus I am in an apartment. I can’t crank the volume up too much without disturbing my fellow tenants. Besides, I was after the surround part of surround sound… not massive volume.

Cheap is good!

Star Trek

I took my two sons (11 & 14) to see Star Trek yesterday. We were all thrilled. I would have to say the worst thing about it was the theater. The surround sound would kick off all during the movie. You would here a character’s voice come from the left and two or three words into the sentence the sound would cut out and you would here it from the front. This happened mid-sentence at least a dozen times through the movie.

As for the plot of the movie… I am a long time Star Trek fan. Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan goes down as an all time great movie with lots of repeat watchability. Many of us old time Trek fans compare all Star Trek movies to it. It is the yardstick by which all other movies must be judged.

This also means the #1 thing us long timers wanted to see was Kirk beat the Kobayashi Maru, the no-win scenario test that is played out in the opening of The Wrath of Khan. It is the Kobayashi Maru in the new Star Trek movie that leads to two minor complaints I had with the movie. First, Kirk is too lax in beating the test. I suppose his pulling out an apple and eating it during the test is derived from the Khan movie when he describes how he beat the test while eating an apple. I thought the Kirk character would have made it look more plausible and not beat it with such ease. The next problem with the movie was that Spock was the one that programmed the Kobayashi Maru test, and I don’t recall that ever being the case in any reference with the original cast.

These are two very small points. Overall I liked the movie a lot. I will buy it on DVD (or this may be the movie to justify getting a Blu-Ray player). Only time will tell how well this movie will hold up to being watched 20-30 times.

Will Blu-Ray Survive?

David Carnoy over at CNET recently wrote a column extolling the Blu-ray format/discs and how he expects it will survive despite some other opinions that Blu-Ray’s future is in jeopardy or even worse.

Although I agree with Carnoy, I have to wonder about his column and those that he mentions. Are all these people desperate to write about something.

Yes, Blu-ray will eventually succeed. The players and disc will continue to drop in price. Eventually people will replace DVD players with Blu-ray players. There, I said it… in three sentences.

Digital downloads are going to take off someday, but not for a long time with too many restrictions and formats. Don’t expect that to impact Blu-ray much.

The real kick will come when a movie studio releases a movie on Blu-ray and not on DVD. That’s when you can start counting the days when DVD is on its way out and Blu-ray is here to stay.

The question is not if or when Blu-ray will replace DVD, but why bother writing about it? Oops, I just did.

I’m out of here.

XBox 360 as Media Extender

Well, my sons got an XBox 360 for Christmas. I just wired it into my network and set it up as a media extender to my desktop PC running Vista Home Premium and Media Center. I was a little worried at first. The first time it tried to launch Media Center on the XBox it crashed. It took three tries, but it has been working very well ever since.

I have ripped some movies from DVDs using DVDFab Platinum 5.1. I used the XBox 360 settings with minimal adjustments (WMV, 1500 kbps, 702 x ??? resolution). The files are about 1.6-1.7 GBs (so far). The video quality has been excellent. To find the movies in Media Center I have to navigate to Pictures + Video and then to video library. I created a folder called Movies on my Seagate FreeAgent 1.5 TB drive to hold movies and Media Center displays that folder. I don’t even have to run Media Center on the PC after adding a movie. Media Center on the XBox 360 finds newly added movies just fine, even before Media Center on the PC.

I plan to rip all my movies this way so I can have all my movies ready to watch without leaving the comfort of my couch.

Netflix Keeping Profiles

Hooray!

I posted on this blog that Netflix was removing its profiles feature. I also wrote an e-mail to Netflix. Apparently I am not alone. I just read that Netflix is keeping its profile feature after protests from its customers… of which I was one.

I found it annoying that there was no place on their web site to contact customer support through e-mail. Every single link that says contact customer support points to various FAQ questions and answers, and a phone number to call with a wait time. But no e-mail address. I think I eventually got through with customerservice@netflix.com, but I don’t know for sure. I tried 3 or 4 addresses and finally gave up reading the delivery failure notices.

Profiles is a means of dividing up your movies into separate “mini” queues. I use this feature to allow my son to rent movies without me worrying that I will have 8 cartoon DVDs laying around the house. My son can only rent one at a time. This reduces my own 8 at a time movie queue to 7 at a time. I also use another profile for myself to watch oldies. This further reduces my main queue to rent 6 at a time, with the benefit that my family is not waiting on me to watch a bunch of oldies when they want to see current movies.

I appaud Netflix for listening to its customers, I just wish it was easier to reach them.

HBO on Zune Part II – The Success Story

If you read my last post, you know I was not able to watch any movies recorded on the analog HBO channel because Media Center put some kind of rights management on the file. This also prevented me from syncing a HBO movie to the Zune.

I used the WinTV Scheduler that came with my Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 TV tuner card to record a movie on channel 14, the analog HBO channel. The WinTV software records shows in .mpg format, which the Zune software will not recognize. I loaded up a file conversion utility I have for converting files for the Zune  (Daniusoft Zune Video Converter) and changed the file to a mp4, which should work on iPods as well as the Zune.

Success! I was able to record Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from HBO and convert it to mp4. It took about 1:15 to convert a 2:30 recording. I then synced the mp4 file to my Zune 80 and all is working.

I setup about 6 or 7 movies to record over the next two weeks.

HBO on Zune

In the “old” days we used to be able to get HBO on channel 14, an analog channel, if you paid for HBO in the digital channel section. We do have HBO, channels 320 – 333. However, quite some time ago channel 14 stopped working on the analog TVs in the house. It said that if you still wanted HBO you should contact Time Warner and upgrade to a digital receiver (necessary to receive any channels above 99 anyway).

I tell you this story because Media Center shows HBO on channel 14 through my Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 TV tuner card. Cool!

Well, not cool. I recorded a couple of movies on HBO this way. When I went to play them in Media Player it claimed I do not have the proper rights to play, copy or sync the movies. Oops! I double checked Media Center, not Media Player, and sure enough it would play the movies. I tried playing the movies in the Zune desktop software and it gave the same message about not having the rights to play or sync the movie.

I checked the “guide” that Hauppauge sets you up with (really just a web site) and it did not list channel 14 like Media Center does, so I manually recorded a movie with the WinTV Scheduler.

I will update you when I get the results of that recording. I already know I am in for trouble as the WinTV software does not record shows in a format compatible with the Zune. I will have to dig out some conversion software for that.

Stay tuned.

Netflix Losing Profiles

I just received an e-mail informing me that Netflix is not going to support profiles anymore. Profile are a way of dividing up your movie queue into multiple queues. I currently pay for 8 movies, which means 8 movies at a time. Normally you put all your movies in a queue and they send you 8 at a time. With the profiles I was able to “redirect” part of the main queue to another queue. I let my son use a 1 movie queue, so its like he has his own 1 movie at a time subscription and I have a 7 movie at a time subscription. I further divide my queue into a second 1 movie at a time queue (dropping my main queue to 6 movies at a time). I use this last queue to rent old movies without impacting the new releases I rent for my family.

But why aren’t they reducing the price with this reduction in service? Good question. Maybe I should ask BlockBuster.

Die Hard on iPod Touch or Zune… NOT!

I just got home from Target where I picked up a copy of Live Free or Die Hard. If you will recall, this latest installment of the Die Hard series comes with a downloadable copy. I read the jacket and the download works with Play4Sure portable devices. Well, that makes my decision between the Zune and iPod Touch even harder as neither of these devices works with Play4Sure. In fact, the jacket for the movie specifically says it will not work with video iPods, Sony PSPs or Zunes.

This did not stop me from buying the movie. I am buying it on principle. I hope this helps promote more movie studios putting a PC & portable device compatible version of a movie on the DVD disc.

Maybe I should rethink the Zen and Sansa View, over the Zune or iPod Touch.

Speaking of movies on portable devices, I did a little math today. The iPod Touch has a 480×320 resolution screen. All the other devices I am considering (iPod Nano, Zune, Zen, Sansa View) have a 320×240 resolution screen. Aside from the fact the iPod Touch is a higher resolution, it is also the only one that is in the wide screen format

320×240 reduces down to 4:3 format screen, which is the same as standard television. That means Die Hard on any of these devices with be displayed in letterbox with black bars on top and bottom. So the Sansa View and the Zen which are Play4Sure compatible are going to show the movie very small.

The iPod Touch’s 480×320 screen reduces down to 16:10.6. This is a little more square than a true wide screen display’s 16:9, but is a lot closer than the other devices. Did you know that when watching a movie on the iPod Touch you can double tap the screen and the movie switches between “mild” letterbox and full screen.

The iPod Touch is getting closer to the choice at hand. I still like the idea of 80 GB in the Zune, especially with a music subscription. PC Magazine is not helping enough. I just read their review of the Zune 80 GB and they gave it an Editor’s Choice. That should have helped me, but in the Zune review was a link to their review of the iPod Touch which also received an Editor’s Choice. PCMag had this to say about the iPod Touch regarding the high price, “The relatively hefty $300 and $400 price tags for 8GB and 16GB, respectively, don’t bug me either. Why? This is probably the best portable media player ever made.” They also gave the Touch 5 out of 5 starts. Wow! Their review plus the new screen resolution information is swaying me toward the iPod Touch.

I am trying not to let the iPod Touch’s web browser effect me. I don’t think I will use it much at all. I try to console myself that Microsoft could always update its WiFi enabled player with a browser, but then its low resolution screen would be more of an issue.

My wife told me I better make up my mind or she is just going to get me the one she thought I wanted.

Take Back the Future?

I just saw this on my lunch break. There is a countdown on the takebackthefuture.com web site. It looks like something to do with the Terminator series of movies. I will have to do some digging tonight and see what it means. Are we going to get a new movie on Jan. 18th? Or are we going to get a new TV series in Jan?

Live Free and Die Hard… Especially Live Free

I just read that the DVD of Live Free or Die Hard, the latest in the Bruce Willis Die Hard series, is going to have a “downloadable” version on the Special Edition disc. The PCMag article mentions it as a DRM-Free feature, but then says it will work with Play4Sure devices. I thought the Play4Sure was a version of DRM.

Regardless, I will buy the movie. I am a Bruce Willis and Die Hard fan, so I don’t have any trouble buying this one to test out this feature. If it only works with Play4Sure devices that will effect what music/movie playing device I get next.

Stay tuned.

Fracture

I have wanted to mention more movies, so I will mention this one. I rented Fracture with Anthony Hopkins. He kills his wife and get off on a technicality. Now I did not give anything away there… it was on the Netflix sleeve. So when you watch it you actually see him do it, and see him clean up the scene before the police come. He even confesses to the police. As I am watching this I am thinking how can he possibly get of on a technicality. But he does… and it is cool to watch. End up figuring things out just about as hey are revealed.

Now for the big BUT… it is very slow to watch. Not a lot actually happens and you could put all the important scenes into a 25 minute show. But if you are not paying attention during those critical 25 minutes scattered through out the movie you will not enjoy it.

So… it is slow but good. If you like mind game style thriller you should see it.

The Simpson Movie

Unless you are already a fan of The Simpsons, avoid this movie. It was crude and stupid. Too stupid for me. Although I laughed out loud a couple of times, it was not worth the price of admission. I have only ever watched one episode of The Simpsons, and never saw the appeal. I went because I took my sons. Otherwise I would prefer to get back the 87 minutes of life that cost my about $45 in tickets, popcorn, Icee and soda.

Harry Potter – and the Order of the Pheonix

O.K. I am a nut. I took my oldest son to see the latest Harry Potter flick at 12:01 AM. The movie was very well done. Obviously, you are either a fan of the books & movies or not. So there is little to tell except that if you are a fan you will not be disappointed. I was impressed by the actor playing Harry. He is growing up nicely in the series of movies. Gary Oldman was excellent, and his part was entirely too small. I really liked the calm manner he played his role. This works well with the story as he has been out of prison for some time and need not act half crazed like he did in the 3rd movie. I liked it. We should have had more scenes with the two of them.

I did find the main battle scene a little too short. There were other compromises to the story line to help with keeping the movie short (if a 2 hour 28 minute movie can be called short). One clear difference was the way Harry saw a memory of Snape’s. In the book we know Snape takes memories out of his head and puts them in the pensive, and we conclude it is to protect those memories should Snape’s lessons enable Harry to see into Snape’s mind. In the movie Harry does see into Snape’s mind for a memory. It is a subtle difference, but I think an important one. In the book it is Harry’s act of looking into the pensive and seeing a memory he was not supposed to that upsets Snape and has Snape end the lessons between them. In the movie you could almost conclude that Harry successfully blocked Snape and further went into Snape’s mind. Someone who had not read the book might conclude that Harry came far enough along that he did not need Snape’s help anymore. After all, what Harry did in the movie would be the goal, would it not? However, Harry never does learn to control his mind well enough and this is made very clear in the book.

The length was fine. In fact, the overall pace seemed about perfect. I had a hard time finding a place to leave to use the bathroom. I ended up missing “the kiss,” which I can guess was a good point to leave.

I think this movie will also have the most replay value. For some reason as I watched it I saw more clearly how this will lead to the next movies while simultaneously enjoying this movie a great deal. I did not get that feeling with the 2nd and 3rd movies. The 4th movie was too much of a larger than life movie and took more liberties with the book to movie story (Mad Eye Moody’s role was reduced far too much in The Goblet of Fire).

So I can see watching this fifth installment and feeling more compelled to want to see the main story progress. Yet I won’t be bored with this one on repeat watchings like I am with the first 4 movies. I do see trouble for the next movie as it is significantly dark in the book, and I see them making a lot of compromises when it gets to film. The story line in the 6th book requires a lot of time with Harry and Dumbledore going through “acquired” memories. I see this getting far too compressed in a movie, which will degrade the main storyline. We’ll have to wait and see.

Like I said at the beginning you will like this movie or not long before you get in line at the theater… and you will not be disappointed if you already like the Harry Potter franchise. Go see this movie in the theaters… don’t wait for it to come out on DVD.

The Fantastic Four

I took my oldest son to see the Fantastic Four today. I thought the movie was pretty decent. In fact, I would say it was about 3-5% better than the first movie. Of course, it had way to much gunky junk with Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. I mean really, there was never any of that stuff in the cartoons I watched as a kid.

The special effects were good, but the power swapping thing with the Human Touch and the others was a bit much. If you can get past the goofy wedding stuff the plot is decent. I was never a Silver Surfer fan and barely remember anything about him except that he was forced to work for someone, like a slave or something. This part of the story flowed well enough in the movie given the fact that they have to compress the story into two hours.

If you liked the first movie than you need to see this one. If you didn’t like the first movie than this one will not make any difference to you. Simple.

The Pursuit of Happyness

I was really hoping to like this movie. I am even a fan of Will Smith. It took me three times to get all the way through it. Granted, I was doing other stuff while watching it the first two times. I did enjoy it some during the final and complete viewing.

Overall I was disappointed. The movie follows Chris Garner through approximately 6 months of his life. This is the 6 months of his life where his wife leaves him and he becomes homeless trying to raise his son while enrolled in an internship at Dean Witter. The internship does not pay anything and only 1 in 20 will be selected from the program to be an employee.

Of course he makes it, and they go through this part of his life well enough. But Chris is a millionaire, where tons of stock brokers are not. There is nothing here to show how Chris managed to get where he was… it literally ends when he gets his job.

I would have liked to seen a bit more. Certainly it would have been nice to see some of his successes. The movie ends up being depressing instead of a feel good movie. However, the extra footage on the disc where the cast and crew are interviewed… including Chris himself was more uplifting then anything else. Here we see a successful man that tells us stuff we really want to know. I don’t just want to know the struggles, I want to live vicariously though some of Chris’ successes as well.

Rent it if you want, but I firmly believe you can skip this movie and it won’t matter to you.

Sorry Chris & Will.

New DVD Player

I picked up a new DVD player to replace the broken player in my living room. It is progressive scan. I could not get a Upconvert model because my TV only has one set of HD inputs (1080i). Plus my TV does not have a HDMI connector. It is almost 8 years old… but still working great. My stereo receiver does not have Dolby Digital 5.1. That was built-in to the DVD player. Since that is no longer the case I lost 5.1 sound that was part of the Digital Ready aspect of my Home Theater in a Box. Hey, the stereo is 9 years old and working perfectly. Well, maybe it’s time to look for a new receiver.

Star Trek II – The Wrath of Kahn

I was at Barnes & Noble the other day. My wife was looking for a book for our son. She also wanted to check out there DVD selection. I came across Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn and just had to buy it. For true Star Trek fans it is the best Star Trek movie of them all. Granted, there were a lot of movies, but this one takes the cake.

I would have to say it is a toss up which ones come next. Clearly for Next Generation fans the best movie is First Contact with the Borg. This movie paid respect to real fans of TNG in the same way that Kahn paid respect to fans of the original series.

Star Trek IV The Voyage Home was a light hearted movie that was geared toward a much larger audience rather than die hard Star Trek fans. Star Trek Insurrection was to Next Generation fans what The Voyage Home was to Classic Trek fans… a story with wider appeal than First Contact. These four are the only movies that really count. I would have a hard time justify buying any others.

I currently own Insurrection and The Wrath of Hahn. The Wrath of Kahn is the “director’s cut.” I am half way through watching it and so far there are 4 or 5 extended scenes, depending how you count. I will have more when I finish watching it.

The Departed

I watched this movie last night. I liked it, a lot. DiCaprio is turning into a really good actor. I suppose he is trying harder than most to shed his past.

This is definitely a movie worth renting.