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This week's purchases

A bunch of good stuff this week:

Books:

  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. A cow-orker lent me this to read last week and it was fantastic. A must read, review coming soon.
  • Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and Stranger than Fiction; all by Chuck Palahniuk. Author of Fight Club, Mr. Palahniuk’s writing style is very unique, and Stranger than Fiction are some non-fiction stories from his time on the road.
  • A Spell for Chameleon, by Piers Anthony. An author near and dear to my heart from my childhood. Last year I picked up the Incarnations series and Bio of a Space Tyrant series from my favorite used book store. A Spell For Chameleon is the first Xanth novel, published in 1977. I’m going to re-read it and see if Alex is ready for the series.

Music:

  • Gorillaz, Demon Days: Special Editon. From one half of the team formerly known as Blur, Gorillaz’ Demon Days is a fantastic alternative rock album flavored with a bit of hip-hop.
  • Audioslave, Out of Exile. The sophomore effort from Chris Cornell and the former bandmembers of Rage Against The Machine.

Movies:

  • In Good Company. Topher Grace is Dennis Quaid’s boss, and tries to date his employee’s daughter as well.
  • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) third film, with an ensemble cast. I think the Royal Tenenbaums was one of the final straws for my friends in movies I recommended and made them watch that they hated.

Lost Season Finale.

I watched the Lost finale last night, including last weeks and this week’s 2 hour finale.

The finale was well done, I especially liked the multiple flashbacks for each character. Hurley continues to crack me up, and the show did a very good job tying the characters and stories together.

This website looks to continue the finale, and starts more questions than there are answers.

Episode III

I got home from Seattle Sunday around 3, played with the kids for a few hours, and headed out after dinner to watch Episode III.

It was easily the best of the prequels (which wasn’t hard to do), and I need to watch it a few more times, but my gut says it will come in at #3 out of the six in my list of favorites.

(Empire, New Hope (nothing beats the rush of the first one, though it’s a bit rough at times), Sith, Clones, Jedi, Phantom).

The lightsaber battles were fantasic, the pacing was well done, Anakin’s conversion and fall were well handled, and even Obi-Wan defeating Anakin was nicely done. I was disappointed with the de-emphasis of Padme, especially as she was such a strong character in the first two, the love scenes and dialogue was rough as usual, and it seemed to break continuity with two minor points. Other than that, it was excellent all around.

I highly recommend it, Lucas brought it to a fantastic finish.

And in other news, Lucas doesn’t like hands.

Playstation3 Unveiled

Trumping Microsoft in the aesthetics department, the Playstation3 was unveiled tonight.

Gorgeous, sleek design (with the exception of the controller, blech), in 3 colors, with more connectivity than you’d ever think you need: 6 USB, 3 Ethernet, 6 Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (for PSP!) and best of all…2 HD outputs.

Check it:

Speaking of video, Sony Computer Entertainment’s Chief Technical Officer Masa Chatani was on hand to show off the PS3’s panoramic video functions. Since the console has two HD outputs, it is can be hooked up to two side-by-side HDTVs to projecting video in a 32:9 extra-widescreen format (think Cinemascope in your living room). Like a gigantic version of the Nitnendo DS, the dual digital outputs also allow for an extended game display, with the action on one screen and either game information or video chat on the second.

With just a little less system memory than X-Box 360, and launching 4-6 months later, it will be interesting to see the big bad mega-corporations duke it out.

Liz Phair Discography

Trying to track down a track list for the copy of Liz Phair’s bootleg album, Girlysounds, I came across a local guy’s Liz Phair discography site. Probably the most complete site I’ve seen yet, if you’re a Liz Phair fan.

Unfortunately, my copy of Girlysounds doesn’t sync up with any of the ones he has listed, but he has all the lyrics linked in the songs, so should be able to figure it out, just have to take the time to listen to the album. Which I won’t mind doing at all. 🙂

Best X-Box 360 Preview Yet

HardOCP has the best X-Box 360 preview I’ve seen yet.

While I’m not a fan of the color or the aesthetics, I am very intrigued by the new X-Box Live features, and the rumors of Media Center integration. HardOCP’s article also touches on the ability to plug in a portable MP3 player or digital camera and stream content right to your TV through your X-Box – pretty cool stuff.

The horror that is Blade III

I watched the travesty that is Blade III last night. Oh, how the mighty has fallen.

Blade I & II we’re good comic book adaptions of an interesting character. Not great movies per se, but good action, decent one lines, and interesting plots. All three were written by David Goyer, but with Guillermo del Toro, who directed the second one, moving on to Hellboy (and it’s sequel) they gave the director’s chair to Mr. Goyer. We’ll blame him for this horrible piece of work.

What did Blade III want to be? A horror film? Because the last half tried to do that. A hard-boiled mystery of what the vampires were up to? An action flick?

The only saving grace was Ryan Reynolds – his humor and lines were the one spark that kept the movie interesting. The only other things I appreciated were the nods to Blade II through the anatomy of “Dracula” and the vampire dogs, and some nods to past movies.

Other than that, the cinematography was horrible – the scene where Blade is on the roof chasing the baddie, and the camera pans (and later, they did a similar pan around Blade) was bad, the pacing of the movie, especially after the attack on the compound, and the dialogue was terrible. Early in the movie when Blade & Whistler are talking before the FBI storms in, it’s as if Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson aren’t even trying – their acting is wooden and all the chemistry is gone.

And what happened to Parker Posey that she would sign up to do this? The indie flick queen of the 90’s is in this? What a waste of her talent.

If you appreciated Blade I & II for what they were – mindless action movies with an interesting take on vampires, stay away from Blade III. Worse than the Matrix Trilogy, it will leave you with such a bad taste in your mouth you won’t want to watch the first two ever again either.

This week in music

This week’s purchases:

  • DVD:
  • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (I dig Wes Anderson of Rushmore / Royal Tennenbaums directing fame)

  • In Good Company

  • Music:

  • New Order: NO (Was out of stock last week, but they had it this week)
  • Weezer: Make Believe (Great album, listened to it 3 times already – much more similar to their first disc, than their last disc, Maladroit)
  • Depeche Mode: The Singles (25-30 & 31-36). Released a year or two ago, the follow-up to the box sets released 10 years ago. They have multiple (sometimes up to 7) versions of the same songs from their 7″ and 12″ singles releases, with unreleased remixes and live tracks. A must for the collector, though they break the bank. Unfortunately, I got home and realized I don’t have 19-24. Grrr.

Yahoo Music Service Launches

Via Slashdot:

Betanews has the story that Yahoo has launched their music service to compete with Napster & iTunes. Yahoo has quite an interesting strategy in the music business. With pricing 60% less than Napster & Rhapsody ($4.99 / mo with an annual fee), 79 cent downloads (99 cents if you’re not a monthly subscriber) (and at 192k WMA!), a media player that integrates with other Yahoo services with support for other formats, and support for Janus portable players just like Napster2Go.

The first user post on the Betanews story, is a link to one of the developers’ blog, who has a ton of information on the Yahoo service and player.

What’s interesting to me about Yahoo right now is their focus on their users. Including their acquisition of Flickr, the launch of Yahoo 360, and now music, they’re very focused on tying these services together, and user communication between members (look at your friends music list for suggestions, or Flickr tags and friends lists). While Google is focusing on web and desktop services applications, Yahoo is going in a different direction in creating communities, and tools for these communities to share and grow closer together.

Now if only their music engine / services worked on Linux…dammit, I’d buy music online if I could.

TV Stuff

I was disappointed to read in USA Today yesterday that ABC has pulled Eyes for Mays sweeps. I was really enjoying it, it had great humor, a good plot, and good pacing.

24 this season has been excellent. Instead of switching antagonists halfway through, they’ve done a good job with the plot and the focus on the current villian. The latest plot twist with China has been well done. Best of all, what they’ve done with Jack this season has really given me pause as you can see the stress of the job, the effect and toll it takes on his personal life, and how it effects him. I was surprised to read today that NBC is making a strong bid to steal 24 away from Fox next year.

I’m very impressed with Lost, which gives Desperate Housewives a run for it’s money as best new TV show this season. (Worst? American Dad). The plot has been very well done (how long can you have a show about plane crash survivors on an island?), and the way every charater is inter-connected is fascinating. With Lost, you have more questions than answers… (Though I do have some concerns with some of the rumors about casting changes for next season. They’ve focused on 14 of the 48 survivors this season, which gives them the ability to bring in other actors, but it will be interesting to see how the chemistry and the plots will work).

And damn Fox for yanking Arrested Development. Just like Alias, which we’ll get to in a second, the network needs to commit to the show, stick it in a time slot where it can be successful, and drive it. They also need to pick this show up for next season. The comedy in this show is one of a kind.

I’m glad Alias has found it’s viewers being after Lost. I’m all for what FOX & ABC did with 24 and Alias respectively this year, in starting the seasons late, so they can show a new episode every week. With episodic shows like these, that have major plots that continue, breaking them up (like Lost or Desperate Housewives) sucks when you’re waiting a month at a time for new episodes. I was pretty skeptical with Alias at the beginning of the season as they rebooted…again, but Alias has really found it’s voice in the latter two thirds of the season. They’ve kept the Rambaldi stuff topical, Sidney’s sister hasn’t been a bad addition to the cast (not great, but done well), and they haven’t overplayed the Vaughn / his dad angle too much, while keeping Sloane and Jack in the mix as well. Kudos to JJ Abrams and ABC for a good job. It’s sucked me back in as I was about to give up on it.

And Desperate Housewives? I dig it, it’s a good solid soap opera, and I appreciate it for what it is.

Here’s to all the upcoming season finales!