Posts for 'Movies' Category

I think it's safe to say we're past the point where contrast ratio measurements mean anything to any of us. Take Samsung's 8500 series of LED-backlit LCD HDTVs which have a claimed 7,000,000:1 contrast ratio - that's more contrast than the OLED sets we're promised are still coming!

The 8500-series is available in either 46in or 55in (measuring just 1.6in thick) with, it should surely go without saying, 1,920 x 1,080 pixel panels. Despite having claimed with the 8000-series (see: the UE46B8000 that edge-lighting was as good as direct lighting the latter method is employed this time around - with local dimming employed to hit that impressive contrast ratio claim.

Staying on the image front, Samsung as adorned the 8500-series' panels with a 2ms response time and 200Hz processing powered by Samsung's Auto Motion Plus technology, with a number of tweaks available for users to adjust judder and motion blur should they so desire.

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Any good children's film director will tell you that computer animation is a means to an end, not a genre in itself. The best animated films in recent years would have been successful as two-dimensional cartoons, pencil sketches or acted out with sock puppets. The worst ones throw up a random collage of action and hope that technology will take care of the rest.

"The Tale of Despereaux" has a few book-to-movie translation problems, but the animation augments the story so successfully that it's always enjoyable to watch. Even though the movie must have come together in rooms with endless rows of computer servers, it never loses its fairy-tale roots.

Based on Kate DiCamillo's 2003 book, the plot is in danger of tripping over "Ratatouille," last year's superb Pixar film about an epicurean rat who takes the French foodie world by storm. Both films star an outcast rodent protagonist, feature cooking themes and take place in Western Europe.

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Based on Danny Wallace's novel Yes Man.Yes Man is a memoir that follows Wallace's life after his girlfriend dumps him.

He stays in and avoids other people, not taking to the single life very well. Then mystery man on a late night bus tells him to say 'yes' more often. Wallace takes the advice and stars saying yes to everything. His life changes overnight and he finally finds romance and happiness.

Movie information
Release Date (USA): 2008-12-19
Rating (USA): NA
Release Date (UK): TBA
Rating (UK) : NA
Director: Peyton Reed
Producer: David Heyman, Jack Black and Mike White
Studio: Warner Bros.
Writer/s: David Iserson (screenplay) and Danny Wallace (novel)

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Life's lessons. You can learn them the hard way; by making your own mistakes or you can learn them through the mistakes of others. I personally recommend the easier option of picking up on wisdom through movies. For the sake of this article, we’ll categorise movies which expound on life’s lessons as Life Movies.

Life Movies are movies about life. Arguably, all movies are, but unlike other movie genres, movies like these explore the measure of a life’s worth. They employ plots that revolve around life’s lessons and sometimes also the lessons we learn from the acceptance of death.Life Movies offer us the opposite experience of other genres like sci-fi, action and epic movies. Instead of escapism, we watch Life Movies to examine our own lives and get to discuss lessons applicable to the things we face on a day to day basis.

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Details of AOL's streaming radio application for the Apple 3G iPhone have surfaced after it was revealed that the application won an Apple design award for "Best Entertainment Application" at this year's WWDC. The free application will be available for the 3G iPhone next month, allowing users to stream 200 AOL online radio stations and 150 terrestrial radio stations over both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular connections.

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Amazon and Wal-Mart are two more companies joining the multitude of companies including Best Buy that are rebating their customers who bought an HD DVD player just before the end of the high-definition format war. This war is over with Blu-ray emerging victorious in the format battle.

Though many people were tempted into buying an HD DVD player by the extremely low prices toward the end of the war, the retailers don’t want the consumers to get a bad taste in their mouths for them by just being stuck with a DVD player that is now almost obsolete and relegated to playing only regular DVDs for the rest of its mechanized lifespan. To make nice with their customers many of the retailers have taken to giving rebates back to their customers that have purchased these HD DVD players.

Many of the rebate offers vary, but Amazon is issuing a rebate to those customers who bought an HD DVD player before February 23 with an Amazon.com $50 credit, with no strings attached. Wal-Mart is issuing a full refund to any customer that bought an HD DVD player before November 1 of last year, but the offer expires on April 30.

As reported, Best Buy is offering a $50 gift card to anyone who bought their HD DVD player before midnight CST on February 22nd. This includes most Toshiba models and also the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive but Best Buy is letting customers keep the HD DVD player and letting them keep the gift card too.

The latest firmware for Sony's Playstation 3 has added powerful audio features. In addition to an updated interface, the firmware 2.30 adds DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio features for Blu-ray movies.

"We are extremely pleased that Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) is adding the full spectrum premium DTS-HD Master Audio codec into the PS3 so that more than 10 million owners of one of the best selling computer entertainment systems can have the best sounding, most efficient and flexible audio technology available system as well. DTS-HD Master Audio is fast becoming the must-have feature for high definition entertainment enthusiasts," said Brian Towne, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Division at DTS.

In late February, Sony announced two new BD-Live (Profile v2.0) ready Blu-ray players, priced at $400 and $500. The BDP-S350, which will ship sometime in the summer for $400, will feature 1080p24/60 output via HDMI, one Ethernet port and decoding of 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD.

The high-end BDP-S550, which will ship this fall, will cost $500 and will feature in addition to the slightly cheaper S350 1GB of persistent storage and decoding of DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS-HD Master Audio, as well as 7.1 analog outs. Both models have an external port for adding local storage and will support Bonus View for viewing picture-in-picture content.

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Miley Cyrus, known as the popular character Hannah Montana, wore gorgeous, long chandelier earrings that perfectly matched her red dress. Miss Cyrus wasn't the only glammed up gal with long drop earrings strutting her stuff on the red carpet on Oscar night. Screenwriter Diablo Cody wore stunning gold skull earrings that definitely stood out from the rest. "Project Runway" host Heidi Klum's long pink-and-red jeweled earrings matched the pink handbag she carried. But you don't have wear a Valentino gown to look great in long earrings -- you can put them on to glam up any outfit, even a cute pair of jeans.

With a new year upon us and my top 10 of 2007 officially last year's news, it's time to take a look at the films I'm most excited for in '08. This doesn't mean these'll be the best movies, of course, but they're the ones that I, as a fan of film, have been reading and hearing about for a long, long time.

10. Star Trek:  I have never considered myself a Trekkie, or even a knowledgeable fan of the genre, but thanks to my good buddy Hyla, from Yo on E!, my mind has been opened to the world of Captain Kirk. J.J. Abrams (Lost) is behind this franchise relaunch and has made some great casting choices, like Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. Opens on Christmas Day, so we've got some time to see how Abrams can keep it up.

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