Sunday, February 24, 2008

Evil Dead: The Musical

There are plenty of days I'm glad I don't live in New York City.

Today is not one of them.

I wish I could have seen this one, no matter how far off Broadway it might have been.

I give you EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL.

Groovy.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

President's Day Movie-thon 2008

Over the past few years, I have developed a personal tradition of attending as many Oscar nominated films as opssible on President's Day.

It all started under a previous employer who insisted we all take the day off - even though it was in the middle of sweeps.

By far the most interesting edition was the year I saw SIDEWAYS, MILLION DOLLAR BABY and THE AVIATOR in succession and learned that broken noses appeared prominently in all three films.

But I digress.

This year's marathon consisted of THERE WILL BE BLOOD, ENCHANTED and CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD was underwhelming for me. Didn't care for it - and I usually like Important Films. More on Daniel Day Lewis' performance at the end...

ENCHANTED was sweet. It was surprising to see Disney poking fun at itself. Nicely done, but I don't see the nomination for Amy Adams. It wasn't a very complicated role. Loved her, but wouldn't have nominated her for it.

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR was fun. Anyone who was born after 1980 should probably see this film - just to get a taste of the Cold War. I liked it a lot - even though it was written by Aaron Sorkin. the 'true events' nature of the story prevented Sorkin from preaching too hard, allowing his crisp dialog to shine.

Tom Hanks was great as usual, but the actor of the day for me was Phillip Seymour Hoffman. His CIA operative was a dead pan marvel. Loved it.

Meanwhile, was it just me, or was Daniel Day Lewis channeling SMALLVILLE's Lionel Luthor in THERE WILL BE BLOOD? I'd bet a meteor rock enhanced milkshake on it.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Strike Over, Blu-Ray Wins

Not sure if the announcements are related, but both are certainly welcome.

First, if you've been living under a TV rock... the Writers' Guild of America has settled their strike, scoring a share of income from new media sales. Production companies all over L.A. are now falling all over themselves, ramping production up for the April returns of SOME of your favorites. some of your favorites (well, MY favorites) won't be back until next season.

And Jack Bauer will be sitting things out until January '09. Boo,

The worst of it is that now that all of this production frenzy is underway, unagented writers (like myself) can forget about getting anyone's attention for about nine months. Such is life.

The other development in the world of home theatre is the death of HD-DVD. Seems along aboutTuesday, Netflix announced they would no longer be carrying HD-DVD copies of any future releases. It got worse. Wednesday, Wal-Mart made the same announcement.

Toshiba, the creator of HD-DVD, promptly folded the format into a tidy little ball and tossed it into the dumpster next to Sony's BetaMax.

Sony wins the format war this time. Blu-Ray DVD promises oh-so much. And with prices for the Blu-Ray players orbiting at about $600, that $399 Playstation 3 (which doubles as a Blu-Ray DVD player) is looking more and more attractive.

And who doesn't want to play a little Madden '08 in HD?