Wow! It's been a long time guys but we're back. In this episode Shane and I discuss the future of Internet Television and the bargain bin Blu ray player. Please excuse any audio issues; I recorded my half in a space ship.













Listen here.

Or listen on iTunes.

This is a blog after all. It's been a slow news week. No celebrities passed so there's no reason for huge retrospectives or top ten lists. So, what to do? You guessed it, more random thoughts from yours truly.

The Promise of the Internet.
I remember watching a quirky not-very-funny PBS special about HDTV. It was called Digital TV: A Cringley Crash Course and it was released late last century (1998). It was a awkward little documentary with a host who bounced around the screen touting the amazing possibilities of digital TV. While digital television is indeed amazing, it never quite reached the realization that Cringley, among others, predicted. For example, during the show he visits every one's favorite chef Julia Childs (she couldn't possibly care less about HDTV mind you) to discuss the interactive possibilities of DTV as well as prepare a delicious salad. The idea is that while your watching a cooking show, there would be an option to click a button and an onscreen menu would display the recipe; A baseball game, stats. etc.
But this never really happened. I'm sure there's some technical reason this feature never developed. But the fact that I've never seen or heard of anything remotely like this ever being implemented is pretty amazing. Were we just day dreaming? Anyway, I've emailed Cringley to see if he could shed a light on the subject.
Speaking of stealing bandwidth (and T.V.s for that matter.) The issue of DTV multi channel bandwidth image degradation was just brought to my attention. Previously over the air broadcast were the best way to get high quality broadcast because of the minimal amount of compression. Now, because of the DTV transition, many networks have split there broadcasts into two or three channels which basically stretches the bandwidth reducing overall picture quality. Satellite might be the best option in this situation

Bravia with Netflix Sony finally landed Netflix, though not on their prized media box game console. Instead new Bravia's will be able to stream flicks
directly from Netflix. It would work similar to the Xbox service, that is, you would queue it on your computer and watch it on your TV. I've watched Netflix from my computer on my TV before and my only complaint is the picture quality. It's at best sub DVD and at worst choppy VCD. Though, it's really dependent on your connection. It's really to bad that the PS3 didn't get any love. But net incorporation is a smart move on Sony's part. Here's to the future.

Sub 100 Blu-ray Player: Finally, the news last week was that Wal-Mart planned on "rolling back" the price of their cheapest BRD player to 98$. Which could possibly increase adoption. But I'm curious to see how this affects Sony's "hold your ground" price point. These race to the bottom just officially started. But with average consumers as well as enthusiasts still baffled over profile types, I don't think sales will soar immediately.


And finally, I've played about 200 rounds of SF4 this week and as a monument to that absurdity I thought i post a video of some character swaps from the PC version. Enjoy.

We're less than three weeks away from getting our sweaty reptilian hands on the Turtles in Time remake for Xbox Live Arcade and there still hasn't been a ton of high fidelity footage shown.

Does this video offer glimpse of how the pizza dudes will fare in glorious high definition?



I still cant decide on whether this remake does the original justice.

Decide for yourself. Here is the same level from the original game.



I'll shell out my final verdict on Turtles in Time Re-Shelled in my review in just a couple of weeks.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the epitome of celluloid crap. A movie that is so safe, so creatively impotent and inherently lame that it is certain to be a product of stockholder movie-making.

We pick up where we were last left off with this dreadful cast of prehistoric bores. The same focus-tested and downright unpleasant characters from the last two films are back, and are as irritating and depressing as ever.

Ray Romano manages to be even more of a downer than his sitcom counterpart as the “hero” in this animated family feature. Queen Latifah resumes her role as mastodon Raymond’s lover, the only female character with a speaking role. Unfortunately she never has anything interesting to say but an occasional sassy quip, rendering the character more of a 21st Century mammy than leading lady. Dennis Leary is back as the crestfallen sabertooth who is the movie’s security force. Anytime the other pathetic characters are threatened by temperamental toons, Leary’s cat sweeps in to save the day. This is the full extent of the character. Sulk. Rescue. Sulk. Rescue. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The list of useless, disposable characters goes on. How could I forget the creepy pedo-sloth voiced by career movie pest John Leguizamo. Don’t forget the two weasel brothers, whose lines are always bookended by exclamations of “Dude!”, “Awesome!”, and “Totally!” You know, stuff that cartoon characters said 17 years ago. Ninja Turtles don’t even talk like this anymore.

And as if this series didn’t have enough characters, they added another furry tuft of dread to the stuffed animal heap. I can see the CEO of Fox sitting in on the story meetings: “Could we work in Johnny Depp’s character from the pirate pictures?” They couldn’t afford Jack Sparrow so they settled on Shaun of the Dead. Simon Pegg lends his voice to the casts third weasel character: a mad frontiersman who leads the other characters through the movies mundane “save our friend that we really don’t even like that much” plot. This character reaches new heights of being annoyingly in your face: anytime Pegg’s character says anything that’s supposed to be funny or important, the camera crash zooms in on his ugly one-eyed mug.

I don’t mention the names of the characters in this movie because I don’t remember them. Characters from Pixar movies (and occasionally Dreamworks) stick with you. You remember their charm, quirks and names. The only memorable character in the Ice Age universe is Scrat, a saber-toothed squirrel whose life ambition revolves around catching a stray acorn.


As in the past two movies, his dialogue free screen time is limited to vignettes here and there that proceed when the writers hit a brick wall. Scrat is relatable and actually, ahem…funny. A character that channels the sadness of Chaplin and the slapstick grace of Buster Keaton.

Scrat’s misadventures clearly display that the talents behind Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs are capable of crafting an endearing and thoroughly enjoyable movie experience, if only the stockholders allowed them.

Oppo, an American based manufacturer of dvd players, has made the availability of their latest product nation wide. It's the Oppo BDP-83. That's right it's a Bluray disc player! This should come as excellent news to anyone who's familiar with their top of the line players. Their DVD players were considered among the best. I wonder how this one will stack up. Apparently it's supposed be compatible with all blurays. Nice. It's a little pricey though. Punching your wallet in the heart, it's priced at 500$.

What could it be? Word is we'll have to wait until after EVO. But, I'm guessing it's a joystick of some sort. TvC maybe? Dunno. For now nobody's spilling the beans with the exception of a few photos. Hmmm...All this after I bought two new SFIV sticks this summer. Better get a second job, I hear this surprise is going to be extremely limited.

Via capcom blog

On the eve of the world's farewell to the king of pop I thought I'd take a look at MJ's arcade. Anyone can, there's a virtual tour of his enormous arcade.

DDR of course. Is that an MK I machine I spot?
Street Fighter II. Nice.
OMG Sega RX360!!! And for those of you who don't know what that is...
Again, nice. Marvel Versus Capcom.
Han Solo Frozen in carbonite. Mike has a super Star Wars collection. That Artoo looks awesome.
I remember that T2 cab.

This is pretty much my dream basement. Of course it's not exactly the same setup that I would want but the sheer amount of fun included here, makes me lust after it. Here's to you Mike! You sure knew how to have fun!

I recently downloaded and used the Hulu Desktop Beta. And right off the bat I want to mention how sleek the interface is. Cable companies take notice. It's easy to cycle through movies and television shows, but the bast part is the full screen capabilities and its functionality with the mac remote. I watched a bit of Field of Dreams, which didn't hold up that well, and a bit of a newer HD episode of the Simpsons which was very comparable to DVD quality. Say what you will about Hulu's selection, but it is nice to be able to catch recent episodes from the couch. Internet TV's on its way in.

Battle Fantasia, the delightful little fighting game from Arc Systems (of Guilty Gear and Blaze Blue fame) is set for release on the Playstation 3 via PSN this fall.

The game was made available for XBOX 360 exclusively last year in retail form, leaving PS3 2D fighting enthusiasts out of the loop, until now. Details regarding the price of this digital download release have not been mentioned, but I'm guessing that it will come in around the $20, which would be a total steal considering how good this game is.

I own both the imported PS3 disc of Battle Fantasia and the U.S. XBOX 360 version. I cant recommend this game enough to people who are interested in a light, easy to pick up and play fighting game, with a simple (and very forgiving) controls. Battle Fantasia is also gorgeous to look at. The art style is reminiscent of Hayou Miyasaki's European-fused anime works, and the cell-shaded 3D characters look more cartoon-like than Street Fighter 4's roster.

Keep you eyes peeled for Battle Fantasia on the Playstation Network this fall. It'll be the perfect game to play between white-knuckle matches of Street Fighter 4, King of Fighters XII and Blaze Blue.

The documentary I Got Next details life within the Street Fighter tournament community. Which, niche as it may be, is an ever-growing community, especially with the release of street fighter 4. It was screened live on UFRAG last week and has since been released to watch. It's not the full version but is still pretty lengthy. It's neat to see these personalities interacting on such a small scale since they've been enlarged to such mythic proportion.

In a recent Eurogamer article Cliff Bleszinski confesses that the limitations of designing games on current-gen, or otherwise affectionately known as "now-gen," consoles is probably the reason there are so many bald space marines floating around these days. Or rather, this gens specialty is rendering, grungy space heroes. He says,

"At the same time, in this generation the translucent effects are very hard to pull off. That's why everybody sees a lot of these bald characters and wonder why games feature so many f***ing space marines. Well, the tech is good at showing off armour and it's not that good at doing hair. That's why we have bald space marines. There's your answer people."

Polytroncorporation.com confirms that Fez, the lil' indie that could, is coming to the XBOX 360 courtesy of LIVE Arcade in early 2010.

Why should you care? We'll if your that cool dude at the party who likes to talk about how groundbreaking and ingenious Braid is then you'd be good to RSVP a seat on the Fez bandwagon.




Fez will be the "it" game of 2010. Mark my words.

I'm so jealous of my older brother...


He ordered this amazing Land of the Lost themed t-shirt that was only available to order for 24 hours from teefury.com (that's the sites gimmick, which I must admit is pretty damn clever and enticing).

The artist responsible for the Sleestak and baby Chaka shirt is Jared Moraitis who has one hell of a knack for pop culture puns.

I particularly like these...

Pac Samurai

Warning: Potential spoilers!

One might suspect when entering the cinema that they're about to witness the rise and fall of the infamous bank robber, sociopath, and all around scumball John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp). But this plot presumption would be wrong. We see no rise, only the fall. The film begins in September of 1934, Dillinger's first prison break, and follows him until his demise eleven months later. Everything starts going wrong for him, basically, from the beginning of the movie.
John Dillinger likes fast cars, movies, woman, and money. And he's not the type of fellow who is "thinkin' bout tomorrow". That's about all we get about the man. There's no real insight into his past and why he is the way he is, and why he has this obsession with living on the edge. In this universe he's somewhat of an enigma. Some, after seeing the film, might view this lack of character development as grounds for some deserved negative criticism, but I didn't care. He more than makes up for these ambiguities with his humor, charm, and cockiness. Perhaps the real Dillinger was a mystery as well.
Those who are also anticipating a non stop thrill ride of murder, sex, brutal gangster violence, and bank robberies might also be disappointed. Although the highlight for the film, for me, does involve a car chase and a shoot out between cops and robbers, the action is very sparse. Mostly a lot of chit chat between thugs in jail cells, restaurants, and hideouts. The character of Dillinger spends nearly half the film falling for a dame he meets in a club in Chicago. Their ultimate goal is to go away together after Johnny makes his final big score. You already know what's gonna happen, don't ya?
The film looks great though. Obviously a lot of work went into the costumes and sets to make it look like 1930's midwestern America, rural and metropolitan. I read somewhere that they did a lot of the filming for this movie where the real events actually took place. That's always great for authenticity.
Now comes the part where I tell you if I liked the movie or not: yes. I did. Overall, a solid picture. It was entertaining. The 2 hours and 20 minutes flew by without me looking at my watch. Is it an amazing film? Of course not. Very rarely do I ever see, or expect to see, and amazing work of cinema that totally blows me away. I suppose, now, I'm a little cynical when it comes to movies. Especially Hollywood movies.
This picture gives you the basic hollywood gangster movie package: a little action, some drama, decent performances, and a love story. Nothing new under the sun. And that's just fine by me.





Also: since I'm reviewing a biopic about Dillinger I might as well mention another biopic I saw last week about another 2oth century hero to some, and fiend to others: I'm talking about last years Che. Part 1 and 2. If you can handle a four hour movie I'd very much recommend it. I think I actually liked it more than Public Enemies. It was more of an intriguing film, for me, because of the fact I knew close to nothing about it, or its main character, Che Guevara. So there was an element of genuine surprise. Plus, his story is more compelling than the story of Dillinger to me. Benicio Del Toro gives a fine performance, which is important considering the film focuses entirely upon him, plus the visuals and the locations where they shot it were quite beautiful. Check it out if you get the chance.

So you've seen all the Pixar movies and bought all the merch. You're a regular Pixar aficionado, aren't you? Not so fast...have you read Pixar's Pixarpedia? Most likely not, because it's not scheduled for release until August 17th and will retail for $26.40. It's worth it, it's the completed guide to the Pixar universe with facts, trivia etc. Reach for the sky!!