I’ve not read one bad review yet.
Well, except maybe for this sour puss (although, less review, more rant or something).
Expectations are high to say the least. I hope Peter Jackson gets proper honors this year. He certainly deserves it.
Showtime is at 12:01 A.M., roughly 1 hour, 21 minutes from now…
I’ve recently bought the super-duper edition of Memento. It’s one of those movies that keeps you thinking about it long after the credits roll. And one that you’ll want to watch a few times to make sure you caught everything. Anyway, I bought the special edition from my Amazon Gold Box offer and it is replacing the plain jane edition that I already have (thanks, Hollywood). So now I have an extra copy that I’d like to sell. But, instead of going to eBay and paying a fee for playing, I thought I’d try to sell it here.
This is an experiment, so bear with me. You can bid on this movie by placing a comment. Bidding will start at $1. So if no one has bid yet, you can leave a comment with “$1” in it. If someone outbids you and you wish to bid again, just leave another comment, increasing your bid by an amount you deem appropriate. All bids must be made with a valid e-mail address so that I can contact the winner.
Bidding on this item will close at midnight Eastern time this Monday (that is Monday, 12:00 A.M.). The winning bidder will be contacted by e-mail. I will pay the shipping cost — unless it’s an international purchase (in which case I would ask to be reimbursed for half the shipping cost).
According to Amazon, their current price for this movie (new) is $21.49. Any bids over this amount would just be silly, so I won’t consider those as legitimate bids. So go ahead and bid $1,000,000 or something else as silly, I’m sure it will be amusing to yourself.
The rules are loose — obviously bids can be placed in any order, so I will be sorting by bid amount and then by time upon the end of the auction to determine the winner. And there’s also little accountability with this system. I trust anyone who participates to be honest. The first person that I contact and Paypal’s the amount bid will be the winner.
Update: Auction is over. Thanks to Ashutosh Kadakia who placed the winning bid. And I should add— thanks to everyone for particpating in the experiment. Went pretty well I think.
Not that I actually watched the Superbowl, but if I had, it would a rare occasion: I would use my TiVo to skip through the show to watch the commercials. Kinda sorry I didn't because I missed the TV broadcast of the new Matrix Reloaded trailer. I downloaded it from the official web site instead. Drool.
Maybe someday the Superbowl will be hours of high-quality commercials interspersed with some highlights from the football game.
I missed this Netflix press release about them opening new distribution centers in Connecticut and Texas. This is great news for me since I'm a Netflix subscriber and I live in Connecticut. :) Previously, it took anywhere from three to five days to receive a movie by mail. Now it will only take one or two days. I can live with that. This basicly doubles the potential savings I get from using Netflix (assuming Georgia and I watch movies non-stop). Which means we could have 1 movie per night every day of the month for the $20 monthly fee. Compare that to $4 per DVD from Blockbuster. Blockbuster now offers their own subscription program, but the one in our area is a franchise store and isn't participating in that corporate program. Besides, their selection isn't near as good as what you get from Netflix (12,500 titles), and you have to shuttle discs to and from their place which would get old.
Uh oh. My friend Ron scored tickets for a midnight showing of The Two Towers. Yes, that means I won't get home until something like 4 A.M. Yes, I think it's worth it. I knew about this earlier today so I've given my office notice that I may not be in by 9. I'll save myself some time and give it a 10 right now. Peter Jackson is genius.
Update: Well, it was wonderful. I'll probably watch it a few more times before it leaves the theater (which won't be for months I'm sure). Gollum was particularly impressive -- especially because they had so much to lose if it was done poorly. Once you've had a chance to see it yourself, let me know what you thought.
Well, even though the reviews haven't been too great, I'm going to a late showing of Nemesis tonight. My sci-fi gland just won't allow me to miss a Trek film.
I was pleasantly surprised with Episode II. Some friends and I went to see it last night at a 12:15 AM showing. While it was not Jar-Jar-less, it had less of Jar-Jar, so that was an improvement right there. The action sequences were fantastic. The Yoda fight scene was very cool but too short (probably because Yoda is all digital in this movie and every on-screen second of him probably costs a fortune just by the look of his hair). The scenes with Anakin and Padmé weren't very convincing and shallow. And there were a lot of annoying holes you have to look past (Why would an assassin try to kill someone using exotic, poisonous creatures instead of a trusty lethal laser beam?). All in all though, it was very entertaining and therefore got the job done. The last half of the movie is definitely better than the first.
The theater was packed-- we even saw some die-harders in full costume. The theater we went to was one of the two DLP (all-digital) screens in Connecticut. Unfortunately, the 12:05 was the all-digital show where the 12:15 was not... oh well, perhaps I'll see it later on a digital screen or maybe just wait for the DVD.
We arrived almost 2 hours before showtime to make sure we got decent seats. It wasn't a dull wait though-- a news van was even there to record the goings-on. And on a side note, a guy in our line was having a 'good-old-time' and got a bit tipsy (being kind here). Thankfully he wasn't allowed into the movie-- by the time we were going in he was being escorted to a police cruiser.
To my surprise, I received a package today from Amazon. It was the Criterion Collection edition of
Brazil, a great movie from Terry Gilliam (also very good: 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits and Baron Munchausen). It's a favorite Georgia and I share. We already had the movie on DVD, but it's another one of those that had to be re-released in a "collector's" edition -- so frustrating (e-mail me if you'd like to buy a slightly used DVD of Brazil!). Georgia ordered it for me off my Amazon wish list. How sweet! (Now, did she really order it more for me or for herself? j/k)
Now that we own this edition, I will sit back and wait for the next release which will offer a DTS soundtrack or something... grr.
I'm just glad Peter Jackson doesn't share Bruce's enthusiasm. Bruce proudly presents The Lord of the Rings, Lego style. (You should still see the movie in theaters-- the Lego edition isn't finished yet and leaves a few story elements out.)
Be sure to check out his other productions: Moby Dick, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Robin Hood. Bruce aspires to be more like Tom.
There's a whole Lego sub-culture on the net. Goodies include: more movie recreations like Star Wars and The Matrix; there's the BrickShelf (with a user gallery of over 80,000 pictures), BrickBay (Lego marketplace), Cool LEGO SotW... the list goes on. There's even a site that shows you how to make a Lego casing for your Palm organizer.
The web is still interesting.
This whole "Disney Vault" thing frustrates me. Take Snow White for instance... at the end of this month, Disney is taking it out of retail for the next ten years.
I understand that they do this in order to build public demand, but from what I've read, the last few re-releases they've done have been less than spectacular. So do they really think that a re-release in 2012 will make up for 10 years of lost sales?
By then, we'll probably just download it from the ether.
On the one hand, I'd like a copy of Snow White-- it's a classic and it would be nice to have it in my library. On the other hand, I hate being pressured into something. Besides, when they eventually do re-release it, I'm sure it will have a few new features compared to what's being offered today. So, I'm a little frustrated.
