JsARCLIGHT

Strange how it's Comedy "We need another animated hit show, like, now" Central that is ordering up the new eps... I would have put money on Cartoon Network being first to the door with the money demanding new eps. After all, if it wasn't for renewed interest in the show thanks to CN there would most likely be no demand for new eps in the first place. I guess this is yet another case of CN showing the gods of broadcast TV that yet another jem they threw away is still worth something. I wonder how long until other CN "forgotten treasures" get remade... so... who has the rights to The Critic?

I took that scene in the Zor ship to be Bowie simply saying something the thought he'd never get the chance to say... thinking he was going to die shortly. Hell, I have been known to say the same thing to people when I had preminitions of my own death. You don't want to go to your grave with things unsaid.

I thought Event Horizon was fine up until you had Sam Neil ripping his eyes out then the movie basically became Hellraiser in space and all the tension and plot they built up degenerated into a stupid mortal kombat-ish fistfight. The on top of that the ending was totally annoying. Great first 3/4s, terrible last fourth.

I think it has more to do with budget and Hollywood tightening it's belt than anything else. Sci Fi movies tend to be massive money pits with right around half of them (if that) in recent years turning a profit. They are just too costume, FX and set intensive... movie makers these days are thinking about making their investment back first and foremost and unless the sci-fi property is a big name like a superhero comic book or a sequel from a previous hot series then chances are it will not get a second look from the big studios. You also have to take into account the boom in sci-fi in the '80s was all in the wake of the original star wars. Studios where willing to take chances back then in an attemp to get the next super huge property. Add to that that special effects where still in their infancy for all intents and purposes back then so you could have small studios and independent directors like Rodger Corman cranking out sci-fi movie after sci-fi movie with cheap sets, D list talent and sparklers on a plastic model effects. Thanks to the world's voracious appetite for movies and their increased fanboyism and nit-pickery of effects it has evolved so that even a run of the mill sci-fi movie is a massive dip in the wallet to create. And when you have an industry more concerned with the bottom line than telling good stories you get the market we are in today, which is not much more than a string of "hot topic" movies and "flavor of the month" casting and scripting options.

You haven't seen a lot of what passes as "documentaries" lately I'm guessing. Most of them are thinly Veiled op-ed pieces. Unless the History Channel is doing it I would view it with a good sized grain of salt... and even they slant a lot of stuff.

I want them to make a spinoff called KEYTAR HERO so I can play all my favoritre songs from Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Gary Numan and ABC. And why no David Bowie in there? Ziggy Stardust anyone?

I've seen Dougram all the way through several times and most of the times that shoulder cannon fired that I can remember it was done at medium to close range and the Dougram's left hand was holding it. For as many rifles, missles and cannons that the Dougram is seen with in toys and pictures, it does most of it's fighting up close. Large ammounts of ammo for the Dougram are not exactly stockpiled for Deloyer 7 everywhere they go so the big Doug has to duke it out hand to hand a lot of the time.

It's nice to see MW finally going capitalist. Where is the banner ad supposed to be anchored? For me (running firefox) it's behind the posting buttons, which is kind of strange.

From what I have heard and seen 90% of the vehicles in the stands where duplicates of each other, generated proceedurally using some kind of flocking program. Meaning there are only like ten or so actual different cars in the stands, just duplicated and recolored to make it look like a stadium full of thousands of different cars.

KITT would have been out of place, just as out of place as the General Lee, the Starsky and Hutch Gran Torino or Herbie the Love Bug.

No, you are right. Fixing the interlace problems for playback on a digital source is something alltogether different and I would suspect would never be directly addressed by a releasing house. Something that like is quite niche and chaces are they'd encode full HDDVD or Blu Ray if they chose to which would fix those problems roundabout. I was speaking of people trying to glean more detail from exsisting low res materials, i.e. someone trying to "upconvert" exsisting low res masters into an HD relelase... which you CAN actually do. My editing system here at the office can pull a DVD, upconvert it to HD resolution, apply filters to correct the scale artifacts and run it off to our HD monitor in "true" full HD res. Now, while it is in "true" full HD res the quality is abysmal because it was upscaled from low res due to the lack of an actual high res master source. And in the end that is where this whole endeavor falls down, the availability of original high res master source material for all the old Macross items. Who has them, if they even still have them and how they actually go about encoding them into true HD are the core.

But you'd still be dealing with a low res 720 x 486 source with that route. For DYRL to have true HDDVD or Blu Ray 720p or 1080i encoding it would have to come from the master film reels or a much higher than broadcast res source. And IMHO that is the failing of conversion of old anime to HD... most of the time a true, clean high res source is unavailable. Most old anime was laid off to cheap tape or low grade film back in the '80s and has since either been aged to death or transfered to NTSC digital masters and cleaned up (like the AnimEgo set). Sure someone could force a HD release out of those masters but it would not be true HD, unless someone had the foresight to encode the original film transfer in film resolution digitally it would simply be "upconverted 480". With almost all modern movies and TV shows being shot or encoded digitally with HD in mind these days it's as easy as falling off a ladder in modern applications, but the inavailability of the original masters of these old shows massively puts a nail in the coffin of true HD quality releases. I sometimes wonder if the original masters of some old shows even exsist anymore.

A good true HD encoding would require a very high quality, high resolution original film print of the source materials, which most likely does not exsist for many of the Macross properties. DYRL might be the easiest to encode if they still have the original master film reels. If they would actually do it would be another question.

I find it sad that CARS is being marketed for children only in the US, there is virtually no marketing of this movie to an older audience. I feel that is a failing of Disney's marketing department... they have never known how to properly market a movie. This same marketing influence is spilling over to the critics as well. If you read any of the so called "bad press" reviews that CARS has been getting lately almost all of them are calling the movie "bad" because it does not fit their narrow idea of what a "kid's movie" should be. But judging by how popular and money making Pixar's last few "more mature" efforts have been perhaps someone in the marketing department will finally wake up for Ratatoule and market it accodingly.

My guess would be there was no obvious car wordplay name for Jerry Punch... plus Bob Costas is a whore, he'll do anything for cash. Then again I have a very nasty personal history with Costas and my opinion of the man is about as low as you can get. He did a voiceover narration for a client of ours for a captial campaign video once. You should have heard all the condescending and downright mean and cruel comments he made between takes that we have to this day on the audio cut. Costas is a galactic inflated ego azzhole. Edit to sidestep the filter.

Well, when you think of all the terrible "celebrity name play joke" characters they had like Jay Limo and Bob Cutlass, the actual race driver cameos where not that bad as most of them where not "obvious" in the movie and where only on screen for a few fleeting seconds. Dale Jr. didn't bother me... Bob Cutlass bothered me.

Now that I'm rested and coherent I'll give my traditional Good, Bad and Ugly style of review for Pixar's CARS: The GOOD - The visual look of the movie is outstanding. From the glint on the car paint to the lush, rolling southwest countryside the appearance of the movie is grand. Every little detail is in place, prooving once again that in a market that is becoming saturated with cheap, quick turnaround CGI movies, Pixar is still the king. - The cast is well chosen and well acted. Much like just about every Pixar movie, the voice cast fits perfectly. I felt that the main cast (Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt and Paul Newman) delivered their roles well, and when I say "well" I mean I was able to forget that Lightning McQeen was Owen Wilson and Sally Carerra was Bonnie Hunt just as I was able to forget that Woody was Tom Hanks, etc. - The story, while being a tad on the cliche side, is also classic Pixar. It has several layers of "where are they going with this?" in it that all wrap themselves into a nice package at the end. While by no means as emotional as Toy Story 2 (which I consider to be their best writing effort to date) it does not come off as contrived as Bug's Life did (which IMHO is their weakest effort to date). - The inside jokes are EVERYWHERE. Not just the typical Pixar fare either, this movie is jam packed with automobilia inside jokes, pop culture references and all manner of hidden goodies that reward the observant viewer with a good "oh hey, that's pretty neat" when you notice them. - I found the concept of an entire "car centric" world to be great. Pixar went to so much effort to sell us on this world that revolves only around cars. Everything is car themed, even natural landmarks and insects. - Also in traditional Pixar fashion, DO NOT LEAVE THE THEATER when the credits are rolling. Cars has a good extra 5 minutes of original animation during the first part of the credits as well as a "stinger" segment after all the credits have rolled. Stick around for the John Ratzenburger "Good Luck Charm" tribute, it's well worth the wait. The BAD - This movie, while colorful and happy, is probably NOT best for kids. Unless your kids are just soooo into racing and cars they will be squirming in their seats and asking "is it over yet?" within 45 minutes... which is sad because at that point the movie has well over an hour and fifteen minutes plus left to go. - The movie takes a massive plot speed downshift halfway through which basically takes the movie from the breakneck pace of the Piston Cup race to the plodding, slug pace of Radiator Springs. While this massive thematic story speed change IS INTENTIONAL it will jar some people, esepcially those with ten second attention spans. You better hope by this point you are into the story and the characters (like I was) or you, just like all the kids in the audience, are going to be squirming in your seat praying it gets back to the race soon. - A lot of the dialogue humor in the movie is cute at first but after about an hour and a half of the same "style" of jokes, you start to get tired of it. Certain background characters started to actually piss me off after their fourth or fifth carbon copy scene with roughly the same jokes. This is actually a testiment to how LONG this movie is in that Pixar probably started to run dry on material for their less developed characters and just decided to let them keep spouting the same things over and over. The UGLY - Larry the Cable Guy. If You enjoy him and his humor then you are in for a great time... for people like me who he wears thin on within ten seconds it was a fork on a chalk board. I think that Pixar went a little TOO overboard with this character and half of the time he wanders into stereotype and just plain unfunny idiocy. Out of all the Pixar characters to date, this one grates my nerves the most... and seeing as he has so much screen time, I found myself focusing on other characters a bit too much trying to ignore him. In a nutshell, that is about it. I would seriously tell everyone who is interested in seeing this movie to go see it in the theater. This is definately a big screen movie... if for no other reason than to allow you the large image size and high film resolution so you can see all the tiny details Pixar painstakingly put into this film. A true automotive fan will find something somewhere in this movie to love... HOWEVER if you are NOT a fan of cars, Route 66, NASCAR style racing or Pixar in general this movie will wear thin on you like a set of bald tires. ESPECIALLY children... I have to give Pixar a hand for making this movie as it is right up my alley, but I know for a fact that there are herds of kids out there (their intended audience) who are going to squirm in their seats, ask "Is it over yet?" and generally not like this movie. This movie is simply not "for them" as much as it is one long 2 hour love letter from Pixar to the heyday of Route 66 and cars in general. If I had to give this movie a rating, I would have to actually give it THREE different ratings depending on who you are: If you are a automobile nut, a Pixar fan or an adult with a childlike whimsy and wonder, this movie is easily a must see with a 8/10 score. If you are NOT a fan of automobilia, like the occasional Pixar effort and prefer movies like The Matrix, you are not going to like this movie and would give it a score of 5/10. If you are a typical American kid with an attention span of twelve seconds and only a fleeting interest in automobiles or NASCAR style racing then this film will be 2 hours of "time out" for you and you would give it a 1/10.

I actually just got back from seeing the 10:30 show here. Wife actually went with me this time. I'm too tired to give a review but I will say this much, this movie follows in the trend of The Incredibles in that it is a more "mature" Pixar effort. I bet kids will not follow half of this movie... add to that that it is 2 hours long. I loved it myself. My thought it was "cute".

I have not bought a comic book since 1993 so I have no real appreciation of the "new style" that people are going on about. I liked my old comics but you have to admit that even back in the early '80s / mid '80s some of those comics where complete ass. I have a few old back issues of GI Joe that come to mind with characters off model, colors all messed up and other such wonderful errors. Not printing errors mind you, color errors... stuff like you'd only see in vintage '80s comics.

Revenge is a strange thing... all of this over a chunk of plastic. ... and 3... 2... 1... that's a lock.

Well I guess when they have a whole premise that is bullsh!t from the start they can do whatever they want, can't they? And acutally the Statue of Liberty is mostly iron framework, the copper is only the skinning.

True but most bullets are copper jackets over lead cores... copper is non-magnetic. Some very rare iterations of ammunition are steel alloy jacketed, but nothing common or in use by any police departments or military units to my knowledge.

For what it's worth I thought the whole final fight between the Brotherhood and the Army/Xmen was decent enough. When you figure in the following things the fact that it was for lack of a better term "a generic brawl" it makes sense: - Magneto had sort of planned on the Army having conventional weapons, hence his line "Humans and their guns, they never learn". When it turned out they had cure weapons I imagine a part of Magneto's plan went into the toilet and he had to improvise. - For the most part the Brotherhood is a gaggle of regular sub class 3 mutants who have no formal training or experience... They are pretty much a rabble and Magneto uses them as such (pawns as he says it). Giving them practical weapons would not have helped matters much. You can hand an untrained person a rifle and they are usually no more deadly than they where with an axehandle in their hands. - When the Xmen show up, they show up completely unprepared. Wolverine is really the only one with any real fight experience and he pipes up and lays down the "no one crosses this line" tactic. At that point the thing devolves into a frenzy with both sides fighting man to man with no real attack plan. - I can fully accept certain people like Magneto and Storm not using their "full force powers" since the island was crawling with friendlies as well as hostiles. If Magneto where to just start throwing shrapnel around like confetti he'd kill his own people. And if Storm where to call down a few tornadoes she'd blow away her own teammates and the Army guys as well. The actual battleground they fight in is very compact and large scale displays of power would have wiped out both sides. While it seems Magneto was just fine with his "pawns" being eliminated in combat, I don't think he'd deliberately kill them himself. In a nutshell that final battle on Alcatraz was one big soccer riot. Magneto went into it with a plan, which may or may not have went into the toilet when he realized the Army had cure weapons instead of conventional arms. The Xmen come screaming in after seeing it on the news and pretty much arrive with no tactical plan other than to "stop the Brotherhood" and "protect Leach". In real life combat encounters when neither side has a decent plan the engagement degrades into a mess quickly... and for what it's worth I thought they did a pretty good job of conveying that on screen.

Mego toys are notorious for reusing things, chances are it came from something else... what else it could have come from is beyond me though. The only other 3 3/4 licenses Mego had before it went under that would sport weapons like that where Buck Rodgers and perhaps Micronauts. The only problem is that the entire Buck Rodgers toy line didn't come with guns (Buck and a few others had guns molded into holsters but they weren't removable) and the micronauts weapons where white L shaped blobs for the most part. Who knows... Mego was not exactly "dead nuts accurate" in their sculps, nobody really was back then.

I really liked HL2 and I plan to buy this extra piece when I get a chance... but I'm still not "done" with ES4" Oblivion yet. I still have the theif stuff to do as well as a few other odds and ends before I'll officially call that game "done". Then again I only get a few hours every few weeks to play games so it takes me forever to finish one.