Star Trek (****)

Most people that I know that saw this in the theater said it was good, but then again they all loved spiderman, which I thought was ok, but not great. Last weekend I picked this up on Bluray , and headed down to the basement theater and gave it a go. The young actor all gave good performances, and the plot and writing was pretty good. They last few star trek movies had gotten a little to cheezy for my liking. I hope they keep this series going.

A definate rental, and probably even a buy recomendation.

Streaming movies from the PC to the PS3

After years of ending up with empty DVD cases or DVDs rendered unusable from scratches, Ive decided to take my whole DVD collection digital. Well I guess digital isnt the correct word, since they are technically allready digital. But Im backing them all up onto a hard drive and streaming them to my pc when I want to watch them. The original disks will still sit up in the bookcase, but wont get all scratched up. In a sense they have now become the backup for my electronic copies. This is considered a grey legal area on whether you are allowed to do this, but since I own the originals and have them within 10 feet of the dvd player, I feel Im in the clear.

There are probably 10 different was to do this, but this is the way I am doing it.

This is a step by step tutorial if the conversion and the streaming.

What you will need

1. ripbot264 - also requires (ffdshow ,Avisynth ,ffdshow)
2. ps3 media server
3. A computer
4. A PS

A step by step will follow shortly....

Still watching movies

Ive been watching a bunch of blurays in the basement theater, quite a mix of titles, and enjoying every minute of it. More to come.. on recent events like the back yard movies weve been showing.

Polk Audio RM75 Speakers

For christmas, I bought or I should say I received a set of Polk Audio RM75 speakers. This set consist of 4 small surround speakers and a center channel. I also bought the 10" Polk audio sub to go with it. I have a non-dedicated home theater in the basement and was slightly worried about the room size, and If the speakers would fill the room. The room is about 40x15 with the theater to one end probably a space of 17x15, but open all the way. I hooked them up to my sony-720 reciever threw in the Blu-ray copy of Wall-E I recieved for chrismas also, and WOW was I blown away. The sound was awesome, everthing was crisp as could be, no muddled sound at all and the sub was shaking the house, with no distortion at all.
These are a definate buy.

21

We watched 21 in the basement theater last week. It was ok, not great not terrible. It might have been better if I hadnt seen the one based on the same story on the history channel or discovery or one of those. I think I prefered the one on tv better. 2.5 out of 4. Worth a rental, but I wouldnt buy it.

Movie review - Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I had high hopes for this movie since the other movies from the creators were pretty damn funny. I did find myself laughing out load a few times, but for the most part I kept waiting for it to get funny. It just seemed to drag between the few funny parts. 2.5 out of 5.

Finally getting super hero movies right.

For the most part most of the super hero movies have been pretty disapointing to me. All my co-workers seems to like spiderman, but to me it was just ho-hum. They were just ok. Lately they seem to be doing things right, the last 2 batman movies are great as well as ironman, which I loved. Lets keep or fingers crossed that this is the new norm, and that the days of electra and daredevil are over.

The Cinemascope dilemma

When I initially bought my projector and screen, I was under the impression that most movies that said widescreen were 16:9. So that is what I bought. An Elite Silver Frame. Its a great screen and I love it, but after hooking everything up, and enjoying numerious movies, Im starting to realize most of the newer movies are 2.35:1(Cinemascope). So after spending all that money, I end up with black bars still.

Before I go out and buy another screen, Ive been thinking about building my own with 1x4’s and some blackout cloth. I don’t have an dedicated home theater, and the 2.35:1 wont fit great where the other one was, but I really want to watch the movies in that larger format. What’s a guy to do?

Im back

Well its been quite a while since Ive updated this blog. Work has been really busy and summer always seem to take me outside and away from the computer. Ive watch a few movies down in the theater, but have a stack I still need to get to. Ive also been pondering making a 2.35:1 DIY screen and playing around with that.

Movie Review: Charlie Wilson's War

I havent had much luck with the movies I have choosen lately. Im a huge tom hanks fan, so I had high hopes for Charlie Wilson's war. It was an ok movie, just not great. It was one of those movies where you keep waiting for good part to happen and it never seems to get there. Tom hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman do a good job, and the dialouge is somewhat witty. Its worth a rental, but dont waste too much money on it. 2 out of 4 Stars.

Movie Review: The Golden Compass

When I saw the previews for this in the theater, I thought it had a change to be good. From what I hear the books were really good.

The movie did pretty poorly at the box office, and I heard some people say it was because the movie was anti-christian. People need to get a life, its a movie. It did poorly because its a terrible movie. Im pretty easy to please when it comes to movies, but I just about turned this one off. They give hardly any back story, make everything too complicated, and its just really boring. Maybe I was spoiled by Chonicles of Narnia.

I would give it 0 out of 4 stars, but it did have a whiskey drinking polar bear in it. So 1 out of 4 stars.

Blockbuster adds in store kiosks

Blockbuster will introduce new in-store kiosks that let customers download movies directly to media players. The only player that will work initally is the Archos players. They are looking to add more device partners.

I dont think having them in-store is a good idea, I mean whats the point, Im allready at the store Ill get the dvd and put it on there myself. Maybe at the mall, 7-11's or in airports would be a better idea.

Maybe its just me, but I dont get it.

Indy and I are back in action.

I have been absent for a little while. I took a little vacation and then just got a little lazy, but Im back and so is Indy.

The wife and I took the kids to see the new indy flick this weekend. I thought it was great, it was fun, exciting , and a little bit over the top. Everything you would expect from a good indy flick, it was much better than the last one. The wife thought the inclusion on aliens was pretty lame, I thought they tied it all in nicely. I think Shia lebouf did a pretty good job, but I dont think he can or should be the new Indy.

All in all it was a good flick, and will definately get a play or two in the home theater.

Ironman vs. Speed Racer

Ironman destroyed Speed racer at the box office this weekend 51 million to 18 million. I think it was really stupid for speed racer to be release the same week as ironman. I think a lot of people want to see both, but ironman is clearly the better of the two. In the long run speed racer should do fine, with rentals and the such. I can't wait to see them both.

Answers to Movie Screenshot Quiz #2

1. Freaky Friday
2. Parenthood
3. Little Man
4. Lawrence of Arabia
5. Mighty Joe Young
6. Romancing the Stone / Jewel of the Nile
7. A Fish Called Wanda
8. Minority Report
9. The Perfect Storm
10. Stir Crazy

Chronicles of Narnia Theater Idea

My kids are big fans of the movie chronicles of narnia. It is being released on Blu-ray on the 13th, and that got me thinking about an idea for a themed theater based on the movie.

My idea is to have the doors to the theater look like a wardrobe from the outside. Then just inside the door have branches coming out of the wall.
In the theather intead on colums you could make statues out of paper mache' or something like that to hide the speaker. Maybe a stuffed lion, and other trinkets from the movie.

Any thought or suggestions.

POTC Theaters

Im a huge disney fan, and I have seen this theater on the avsforums, but I found a writeup done here.

http://gizmodo.com/374864/pirates-of-the-caribbean-themed-theater-set-sail-for-some-movie-booty

Cool stuff.

Court upholds Netflix "throttling" settlement

A California appeals court has upheld a 2006 settlement of a consumer lawsuit against online movie rental company Netflix Inc over the objections of four Netflix subscribers who challenged the terms.

This doesnt really surprise me. If people didnt get 8 dvds every two days and rip them, the rest of us wouldnt end up screwed.

Am I being targeted

After my post about going to the Bose factory outlet, I started receiving Bose ads in my email. The funny thing is that I didnt give them my email while I was there. It could be just odd timing, but its got me wondering...

Movie Screenshot Quiz #2

This is episode #2 of my movie screenshot quiz. All screenshots were taken from
moviescreenshots.blogspot.com.


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