My list of upcoming movies that I’d like to see, based on trailers I watched tonight.  (Told you it was going to be fluff.)

• Che – Not that you can believe everything you see from Hollywood but a movie about the history of the Cuban revolution is something I’m interested in.
• Adventureland – Bill Hader is good in everything and Kristen Wiig just cracks me up.
• 9 – Looks like a cool mix of Tim Burton weirdness (even though he’s just the producer) and action and a neat story.  Great voice actors, too.  The director did 300 so it’s got some pedigree.
• Good – Wow.  This Viggo Mortensen flick about a professor who gets drawn into the Nazi party is right up my alley.  A thinker that makes you ask the question, what would I do?  How can good people go so wrong?
• Astroboy – I watched the cartoon when I was a kid.  I’ll rent this one.  Guilty pleasure.
• Watchmen – The special effects in the trailer look incredible.  I know nothing about the back history but it looks like you don’t need to.
• I Love You Man – Paul Rudd is one of the funniest actors going.  There truly isn’t a role I haven’t loved him in.  He plays a guy who has never really had a guy friend and he sets about trying to find one.  Has Andy Samberg as Rudd’s brother and Rashida Jones, of The Office fame, as his bride-to-be.
• The Wrestler – Looks sad but good.  People think Mickey Rourke might win an Oscar for this one.
• Yonkers Joe – A gambling/con movie with heart.  I welled up watching the trailer.  You just know something awful is going to happen.  Joe is trying to win enough money to send his Down syndrome son to a good school, but he’s going to do it by stealing from Vegas.
• Duplicity – A heist movie that looks like Mr. and Mrs. Smith without the guns.  I like Clive Owen enough to overlook Julia Roberts.
• Seven Pounds – Will Smith could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves.  He sold me as an actor after Six Degrees of Separation.  I have no idea what the movie’s about but it’s intriguing.
• Knowing – Although I’m not really a Nicolas Cage fan, the trailer for Knowing creeps me out and excites me at the same time.  His son uncovers a 50 year old letter that has the dates and body counts of every natural disaster from the past, and some from the future.  Hilarity ensues.  Just kidding.  It actually moves into end-of-the-world aliens/gods territory after that, in a Sixth Sense sort of way.  Awesome.
• Terminator: Salvation – If anyone can reboot a franchise it’s Christian Bale, as he’s already proven with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.  But really, if you’ve seen the previous 3 Terminators, are you going to skip the 4th?  Didn’t think so.
• The Proposal – Total date movie but it’s got Ryan Reynolds in it.  Like Clive Owen over Julia Roberts, I’ll see this one for Reynolds over Sandra Bullock.  A witch of a boss is forced to marry her whipped assistant when she finds out she’s being deported (back to Canada).  There’s just something wrong with the whole Canada angle but I’ll overlook it.  (Perhaps Reynolds should have coached Bullock a little on being Canadian.  We would never say, “but I’m from Canada!”  We’d surely say, “but I’m Canadian!”)
• He’s Just Not That Into You – Another date movie about, well, modern day dating.  This movie features a few people I really like in movies such as Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Justin Long, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Connelly and Drew Barrymore.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine – My only complaint about this movie is that it seems like it might be overloaded with cool characters.  I felt like that was what dragged down the original set of X-Men movies and others like Spider Man.  Wolverine is cool enough on his own to carry a movie.  We don’t need 7 baddies to keep us interested.  I thought Iron Man did such a great job of keeping it simple.  Amazingly, Ryan Reynolds features again.  He’s my favourite actor right now so that is just more goodness for me.  Liev Schreiber looks completely badass in the trailer and, despite my trepidations, I really can’t wait to see this one.
• All About Steve – Sandra Bullock again?  This date movie has Thomas Haden Church and Bradley Cooper in it so that makes it ok for it to be on the list.  Bullock follows Cooper across the country thinking they’re meant to be together.  Hilarity ensues.  Maybe.  I’m sure I’ll have a couple of laughs though.  Sometimes that’s enough.
• Street Fighter: the Legend of Chun Li – Strictly a wire fu filler.  When you’re testosterone level is a little low, like after watching a Sandra Bullock movie, just watch some wire fu.  It’ll have you topped up in no time.  Let’s hope this one is better than the terrible first try at the Street Fighter franchise featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Just terrible.
• Year One – Michael Cera and Jack Black is a bit of an odd combination but Cera’s uncomfortable nerd seems to mesh well with Black’s over the top crazy man in the trailer.  This one may be best viewed in the company of like-minded viewers.  People who liked Nacho Libre or Superbad.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Some people I know won’t have anything to do with a Michael Bay film.  All I can say is that, except for Mojo the dog whizzing on Ironhide’s foot, I absolutely loved the first Transformers movie.  The special effects were truly amazing.  I expect more of the same – pure popcorn fun.
• G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra – Seems like I’ve hit a few movies with colons in the titles.  That might tip my hat a bit to the type of movies I’m apt to pay money to see.  Truthfully, I had no interest in a live-action G.I. Joe adaptation, until I saw the trailer.  I love the direction they’ve gone and again, the special effects look incredible.  I’m nervous about Marlon Wayans in an action role, but I might have said the same about Jamie Foxx before I saw Collateral.  I’ll give him a chance.
• Land of the Lost - I’m all for actors branching out and trying something a bit new (see my Jamie Foxx comment above, and I also loved Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder).  I am worried that this Will Ferrell movie won’t be Will Ferrelly enough though.  We’re pretty used to “non-stop laughfest”s from Ferrell and Land of the Lost appears to have a significant CG component.  Ferrell and his crew stumble into a world with dinosaurs etc.  Hilarity ensues.  Danny McBride, of Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express fame shows up in this so that bumps the movie up my list.
• Crank 2 – Jason Statham seems to only play one character these days: the super tough everyman.  Like a British Bruce Willis in his prime, if Bruce Willis had been an MMA champ.  I caught myself enjoying the first in the series, appropriately named Crank, so I can only guess this one will be more of the same.  The trailer certainly points that way.  Amy Smart was excellent in the first one but I don’t know how they’ll top the sex scene at the newstand in front of a school bus.  The MacGuffin in the first movie was that Statham had been drugged and his heart was going to explode very shortly (just enough time to exact his revenge it turns out).  In this one the MacGuffin is that his heart has actually been replaced by a cheap artificial version which will hopefully last long enough for him to find his real heart and get it put back into his chest (oh, and exact his revenge).  A sequel was inevitable after the original more than doubled its money.  If nothing else, see this one for Statham’s character’s name: Chev Chelios.  Awesome.

Well, that’s it.  I got a little carried away and wrote way more than I intended.  Hopefully you made it this far and dug what I had to say.  If you did, leave me a comment with your 2009 movie list.  If you didn’t, leave me a comment and tell my why my list is terrible.

Cheers everyone!

J

The PS3 is an incredible DVD upconverter.  So good that the night I plugged in my PS3 I watched 4 movies in a row because I was so blown away by the visual quality of the image (Saving Private Ryan, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, 300, and Casino Royale).  If you have a large DVD collection and have purchased an HDTV lately, don’t bother buying an upconverting DVD player, buy a PS3 – you get native BluRay support, too.

The PS3 has built-in WiFi.  Within a few minutes of powering up I had the PS3 on the Internet and I was browsing with their (admittedly limited) browser.  Being connected to my wireless network has benefits beyond surfing though.

The PS3 can access media servers on your network.  That sounds like something you’d need a degree to set up but if you own a PS3 just install TVersity on your PC and you’ve instantly set up a media server.  Now I can stream songs, videos and pictures to the PS3 (and thus onto my big screen and home theatre) quickly and extremely easily (even from iTunes now that Apple is removing DRM from all their songs).

Oh yeah, and the PS3 plays amazing games.  So far I have owned Guitar Hero, NHL ‘09, Little Big Planet and Metal Gear Solid 4.  I had to return MGS4 because it was too good but the rest are really, REALLY good.  “Too good” you ask?  The immersion, graphics and story were so good that I knew that I would need to devote a lot of time and effort to really enjoy it and, with 2 kids and 2 jobs it was unlikely that something wouldn’t fall through the cracks.  I’ll try MGS4 when I have more free time – it really is amazing.

Lastly, the PS3 on screen interface is pretty slick.  The XMB, or CrossMediaBar, is really well thought out.  So well thought out that I’ll probably try to copy it in an upcoming web project…

I wish I had more time to write about all of the things I’m learning in the home theatre field but I’m too busy doing…

Crank it to 11, everyone!

J

Myth #1: 1080p is much better than 1080i (720p).  (i – interlaced vs. p – progressive scan is briefed at the bottom)

Fact: In tests after tests experts have proven that the human eye just isn’t sharp enough to see the difference at screen sizes and distances typical of North American homes.  So while you may feel like you’re slumming when you ’settle’ for a 720p HDTV to save a few bucks, know that your picture will likely look just as good as your neighbour’s 1080p (all else being equal).  And don’t forget, your incoming Satellite or cable HD signal is coming in at 720p – that’s a perfect match!

Myth #2: You need expensive new HDMI cabling to take full advantage of your HDTV.

Fact: Well, this one is about 50/50.  Yes, you’ll need HDMI cabling to get a higher than 480p picture but you don’t have to spend a lot on it.  There are only two standards when it comes to HDMI: standard and high speed.  If you are being asked to pay more than $10 CDN for less than 2 metres then you’re overpaying.  PMP: Packaging + Marketing = Profit.

Myth #3: 7.1 Surround sound is the best way to recreate that in-theatre experience.

Fact: Guess what?  The audio you’re listening to wasn’t even recorded in 7.1 surround sound.  Even on Blu-Ray.

What’s the difference between 1080i and 1080p?
That’s a good question.  Well, the 1080 is the number of horizontal lines of resolution.  That’s the same on both.  The “i” stands for interlaced and the “p” stands for progressive scan.  Interlaced means that only half of the lines are being refreshed during every other scan while progressive scan means that all 1080 lines are being refreshed on every scan.  Theoretically it means a smoother picture during fast moving action but in the real world, viewers have a really hard time picking out which set is “i” and which set is “p” on typically sized HDTVs.  480p is the maximum that a good DVD player can produce.  Oh yeah, and 720p and 1080i are basically the same – you can choose to have the entire screen refresh 720 lines at once, 720p, or you can have the entire screen refresh 1080 lines every other scan.  Experts say that fast moving sports like hockey sometimes look better on 720p.  I’ll let you know what I think soon.

What’s the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz?
Yet another good question.  60Hz and 120Hz (pronounced hertz) are the refresh rates of LCD TVs.  Not to be confused with response rates, which are how fast the screen can display the signal from the source, refresh rates are the hot topic in 2008.  Film movies and television are shot at 24 frames per second (as opposed to digital which is 30 frames per second).  If your TV has a refresh rate of 60Hz it means that some fancy footwork has to be done to try to show those 24 frames evenly.  Thus the 3:2 pulldown.  Your TV has to adjust the content to 30 frames and this can cause ‘jaggies.’  A 120Hz TV can handle 30 frames per second as well as 24 frames, without having to adjust anything (both 24 and 30 divide evenly into 120).  Jaggies are bad.  Choose 120Hz if you can.  This is not an issue with plasma displays.  Which brings me to my final question.

Plasma or LCD?
Personal preference.  Take your favourite movie into your favourite big box store and ask them to show you on both.  It really is just down to personal preference now.  Don’t let anyone tell you that burn-in or brightness are issues with either – those days are long gone.

Get ready for something completely different, coming January 2009 – jacobkennedysolutions.com – trust me, it’s different…

This weekend was a highlight for me as I got to watch my daughter ‘perform’ in her first figure skating gala.  Since this is her first year her performance was little more than some shuffling of a hula and some circle skating but it was clear to see that she has a knack for the spotlight.  We were also treated to some fantastic displays of showmanship from Peter O’Brien, Shawn Sawyer, and Joannie Rochette.  Suffice it to say that I was impressed with the production quality of the show.  I did feel bad for Joannie and Shawn being put on the spot to comment about the Olympic torch coming to Prince Edward County (they both handled the task admirably).  Oh yeah, and the attendance?  Packed house for both shows.  Great job everyone.

On Sunday I took my Ella to the Sears family Christmas party.  It’s an annual event that Sears puts on for its employees and it reaffirms the reason why I stay here.  While the pay could be better (who doesn’t complain about their pay?) the effort to please the employees is stellar.  My Ella received a gift, was entertained for the morning, watched a movie and played her heart out.  She is already looking forward to next year’s events (there’s a summer party, too).

To top it all off, this morning in the drive-through at Tim Horton’s I was attacked with a random act of kindness.  The woman in front of me must have liked my singing along to the radio because she anonymously paid for my breakfast.  This is the second or third time I’ve received this kind of RAoK and I’ve given it twice and it amazes me each time the rush and the joy it brings to both parties.  If you get a chance, and are feeling adventurous, give it a try.  You’ll spend the rest of the day wondering about the person behind you and how you’ve surprised them.  It puts a smile on your face the whole day through.

Oh yeah, and I saw the Dark Knight on the weekend.  One word – wow.  I’ll never forget the image of Heath Ledger in the nurse’s outfit walking away from the hospital.  Scary.  And the lip-smacking.  Agh!  Ultra creepy.

PS – The happy faces?  Those are the results from the Acid Test 2 in IE 7 (the first image) and Chrome (the second).  What are the good people at Microsoft doing?

My boss is really into post-apocalyptic movies and books.  If it’s dark and dreary (or has vampires in it) he loves it.  He recommended that I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a long time ago but it wasn’t until I saw the movie No Country For Old Men (based on a McCarthy novel) that I decided to pick it up.  I hate seeing a great movie knowing I could have read the book first.

You see, the movie The Road comes out this fall.  I know it will be good because it stars Viggo Mortensen, and he doesn’t make crap.  I’ve tried to steer clear of any spoilers because I’m now reading the book but what I do know is the general story.  It is, of course, a post-apocalyptic story about a man and his son heading south to avoid the freezing cold of the coming winter.  From what I’ve read in the first 25 pages, the event occurred several years ago and the man has survived much longer than most.

The book very quickly goes from dismal to scary.  On page 5 is a phrase that so closely aligns with how I feel about my kids that I wish I’d written it.  The man is watching over his son while he sleeps and he says, “If he is not the not the word of God God never spoke.”  At this point I was very in touch with the man and thought how much we are alike.  I put the book down for a break when the man asks himself on page 29, “Can you do it?  When the time comes?  Can you?”  Clearly this is not the world I live in.  The thought of saving your child from unspeakable horrors by ending his life – that deserves a break.

It’s another one of those, “what would you do in the same situation” type of books that I love and love to talk about.  Feel free to leave me your impressions of The Road.  I promise not to read them until I’ve finished the book (which will likely be very, very soon at the rate I’m reading it).

Update:
Finished the book in one  day – a new record for me!  I do recommend it but it is not for the faint of heart.  Very emotional for fathers of young kids anywhere.  The large print and style of writing makes for a nice quick read – you could probably get through the whole thing in one transatlantic flight…

My dad is what you would call a voracious reader.  He is reading the library in Parry Sound (insert your own, “all two books?” joke here).  When he spotted my copy of Atlas Shrugged on my nightstand on a recent visit he said, “you reading that?  Let me know how it was because I couldn’t get through it.”  That basically steeled (no pun intended) my resolve to finish the tome when I was struggling with a particularly wordy chapter.

I’m proud to say that I have finished the book and can now provide an informed summary.  But that would be irresponsible.  Reading a summary of Atlas Shrugged won’t do the message justice.  What I do want to share with you is how it has changed the way I feel and act almost daily.  I don’t know if it would have the same effect on everyone or if I was in the perfect target audience but it truly did change my way of thinking.

I used to be the kind of guy who would say about a McDonald’s or Petro Canada law suit, “why don’t they just pay up?  They can afford it.”  Ayn Rand takes that kind of attitude and extends it to its logical, if upsetting, conclusion.  She gives strength to unions and charities and basically brings a form of People’s State/dictatorship/Communism to the entire world.  After reading the book I can safely say that I will never look at unions or taxing the rich the same way again.

There’s a current situation in Ontario (the Canadian province I live in) where General Motors is closing a truck production plant and the union of workers is fighting to keep it open.  What’s amazing is how disturbing the situation is after you’ve read this book.  You just want to tell the union leaders to give their collective heads a shake.  How is forcing the company to keep the plant open going to help its employees?  The company will be weakened, demand for trucks will not be increased, workers will be stuck in jobs that will have less meaning and they’ll have less incentive to improve themselves to find new jobs (which they’ll eventually need anyway).

Please don’t misconstrue my interpretation as having no feeling for the workers – once you’ve read the book you’ll understand that it’s not about not caring – it’s quite the opposite.  But forcing the big companies to take losses only for the temporary benefit of its employees is a recipe for disaster.

While I think that this book should be required reading for any high school-aged student, I do think that they could do with an abridged version.  1084 pages is too much.  I got the point after about 400 and only continued for the satisfaction of having said that I had completed it.  The fact that there’s a movie adaptation coming out soon had something to do with it too.  I always want to read the book first before I’m stuck with the vision of Angelina Jolie in a role that I think she’s both physically and ethically completely wrong for.

– spoilers follow –

The one aspect of the book that I thought was misrepresented was love.  Yeah, a good phone company commercial might choke me up and that damn Cinderella song by Steven Curtis Chapman makes me cry when I think about it, but I still choose Bruce Willis over Hugh Grant, if you catch my drift.  I just thought that poor Eddie Willers, who loved Dagny Taggart (as three other men in the book appear to at one point or another), got a really rough deal.  His only crime in the book seems to be his unflinching devotion to Dagny.  While he appears to be living for her approval, which is against the moral of the story, he is smart and he does try to make decisions and improve things.  He should have at least warranted a happy ending instead of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with a busted locomotive.  Maybe in the movie he’ll get the train running again – Hollywood, you know.

For those who didn’t know, Lesley and I are going to be parents again come Mayish.  We haven’t totally decided on names yet but we’re not going to tell a lot of people lest they steal our good ideas.  It wasn’t 3 months after our first, Ella Grace was born that we started seeing a lot of Ellas, and even Ella Graces showing up in the birth notices.  Oh who am I kidding, we’re going with Bertha for a girl and Leonard for a boy (copy that!).

Our tile drainage system appears to be working exactly as planned (wood being knocked).  Our well is quite high but just lower than where I’d expect our tile to be sitting.  Either we’ve had just enough rain and water to push the well to that point or our drainage is carrying away the excess and actually working.  Either way, I’m extremely happy to not be pumping.  At this point last year we’d already been pumping for a full month and a half straight… 2 pumps, 24/7 (does anyone even say that anymore?).

My truck is knocking when there’s a weight transfer from side to side.  It’s only 2 years old so that’s pretty annoying.  I’m told that GM is aware of the issue and claims that it is normal for this ‘knuckle’ to produce a certain amount of noise.  Why it had to start almost exactly 500km after my warranty ran out is completely beyond me.

Been playing some of the worst hockey of my recent life in the last month or so, so that’s not good…  I was blaming it on rust after hunt camp but I think it’s more the suckage.

Haven’t caught The Office in weeks – total bummer.  Watched The Island on Friday night – not as bad as everyone says.  Some definite leaps of faith but Ewan McGregor impressed me again, as did Sean Bean.  Buscemi was his usual awesome self and Nelix was good too.  The premise was a little bit frightening.  It’s easy to see that scenario actually playing itself out – body parts harvested from clones who are grown rather than raised, ignorant of the ‘real’ world.

Anyway, just thought I should write… don’t you hate blogs that grow stale?

I… am… outta here! (Dennis Miller – SNL Weekend Update circa… you figure it out)

This past weekend, while my three year old Ella was on “bay-cayshun” with Grandma and Fishing Papa, my wife and I decided to buy her Happy Feet for when she gets back. We also decided that it would be fun to watch it first, together, since we rarely get to watch Ella’s movies in their entirety. After drywalling and priming was finished we finally sat down and popped it in. All of the previews were for Christmas movies, which I found strange, but it got me stoked about seeing Fred Claus. Love that Vince Vaughn. See Clay Pigeons for a different side of a great actor.

The first thing that struck me about the movie was the music. The penguins in Happy Feet are taught that music is what makes the world go ’round, and as such, all of the penguins can sing and spend most of the movie doing so. I really liked how most of the songs were medleys of great tunes I knew all of the words to. Some were really timely and put a big grin on my face – Leader of the Pack comes to mind. Although the tap numbers were very fun to watch for me, I’m pretty sure that Ella would prefer less complicated, copyable numbers. That’s my minor quibble.

When you’re putting together an animated feature, casting Robin Williams in at least one role should be a law. In HF he plays at least two characters but is given a much shorter leash than he was in Robots or with his mold-breaking Genie in Aladdin. Hugh Jackman channels Elvis for his character, Memphis, and Elijah wood plays a Frodo in feathers as Mumble, Mr. Happy Feet himself. Steve Irwin (RIP) has a brief cameo as an elephant seal. The “crikey!” grabbed my attention but I wasn’t able to place the voice until I was watching the special features.

Now here’s the meat of my review, the reason why Ella won’t be watching this movie for a year at least. The “scary” parts of Happy Feet are really quite realistic and truly terrifying. I was immediately reminded of the second chapter in Finding Nemo (where the barracuda eats Nemo’s mom all of the fish eggs except for Nemo). I guess they feel that if they don’t make it scary enough they’ll miss out on the teen market, or something. I don’t know. What I do know is that the harp seal and killer whale parts were enough to make me cringe. The teeth, music, and pace of action all combine to a moment I’m sure would, at the very least, cause Ella to run from the room yelling “Isi, it’s too scary!”

You know, there’s a reason why Shrek 2 set all kinds of records at the box office (3rd on the all-time US domestic gross behind Star Wars and Titanic): it wasn’t scary. Parents had no hesitations about taking their little ones to see the ogre because the first Shrek featured action scenes, not horror scenes. Even the busiest scenes in the first two movies featured upbeat, fun music. [Don't get me started on Shrek 3 - what the heck happened there? Shrek's creepy nightmares were out of place. Although... Eric Idle was fantastic.]

You might point out to me that Happy Feet is rated PG and not G. Well, the rating is appropriate, I can’t argue with that. The problem is that the film is clearly marketed at young children. I almost felt offended as I watched the harp seal chasing Mumble, trying to tear him to shreds. The killer whales and the harp seal served no purpose other than to scare the viewer. At least the sharks in Nemo were amusing. Scaring kids is a disturbing trend, but one that was started before my time as a parent. All you have to do is go back and watch a kids movie from your own youth to know that filmmakers have seemingly always forgotten the youngest of viewers (um, Bambi anyone? No? How about Annie with the alcoholic Miss Hannigan or Rooster trying to kill Annie!).

Oh well, I guess there is a lesson in the whole thing. If you’ve got the time, preview the movies yourself, before you let the little ones see them. Failing that, watch it with them the first time so that you can answer any questions. I’ll never forget the look on Ella’s face when I left her alone with The Incredibles for a few minutes – that movie is probably a few years off too.

I love DVDs because I can skip chapters that I know my Ella will be afraid of. Here’s my list of scenes I regularly skip in films that were clearly marketed towards young children:

• harp seal and killer whale ultra-violent chase scenes – Happy Feet
• barracuda eating the whole family – Finding Nemo
• grasshoppers torturing ants to within and inch of their lives – A Bug’s Life
• sabre-toothed tigers attacking humans – Ice Age
• sea creatures attacking the ‘herd’ – Ice Age 2
• Syndrome dropping baby Jack-Jack from 5000′ – The Incredibles
• Rooster chasing Annie up the bridge – Annie (1982)

Feel free to add to my list by leaving a comment. I’d be interested to know what other seemingly innocent movies have truly terrifying moments. jj

Oh yeah, and after she sees Happy Feet, going to the zoo is going to be a lot different. Yeesh.