The Year In Movies

2008's movies have taken me nearly into February to see the full lot. I didn't quite get up to last year's 53 but still managed to see 49.

The list (with my ratings):

• Gran Torino *** 1/2
  
• Defiance ***
  
• Revolutionary Road *** 1/2
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button **
  
• Valkyrie *** 1/2
  
• Doubt ****
  
• Frost/Nixon ***
  
• Role Models **
  
• Milk ***
  
• Quantum of Solace *
  
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ** 1/2
  
• Changeling ****
  
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno **
  
• W. **
• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist * 1/2
  
• Rachel Getting Married *
  
• Appaloosa ***
  
• A Girl Cut In Two * 1/2
  
• Flash of Genius ** 1/2
  
• Religulous **
  
• Ghost Town **
  
• Slacker Uprising * 1/2
  
• Man On Wire ****
  
• Burn After Reading * 1/2
  
• Transsiberian ***
  
• Mirrors *
  
• Vicky Christina Barcelona ****
  
• Tropic Thunder ** 1/2
  
• Tell No One **
  
• Encounters At the End of the World * 1/2
  
• The X-Files: I Want To Believe *
  
• Step Brothers * 1/2
  
• The Dark Knight **
  
• Mamma Mia ****
  
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army ** 1/2
  
• WALL-E **
  
• Get Smart * 1/2
  
• Bigger, Stronger, Faster* ***
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull *
  
• Iron Man ***
  
• The Forbidden Kingdom **
  
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall ***
  
• Married Life ****
  
• Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who *
  
• Flawless *
  
• The Counterfeiters * 1/2
  
• The Bank Job **
• U2 3D ** 1/2
  
• Cloverfield ** 1/2

The year was a tough one. I'd have to call this a pretty mediocre year in movies. The highs weren't quite as high as last year and there were a lot of lows.

The five best movies of the year for me included Changeling, Man On Wire, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Mamma Mia and Married Life. Each of these films stands out in their own way. Changeling was haunting and really didn't get the credit it fully deserves. Angelina Jolie was tremendous and several scenes are still etched into my mind. Man On Wire caught me completely by surprise. Who could have thought that a documentary about wire-walking could be so riveting and fresh from start to finish? Vicky Christina Barcelona is, in my view, one of Woody Allen's best efforts in many, many years. It's fresh, funny, romantic and nearly flawless. Mamma Mia was definitely the "feel good" movie of the year. The only way I can imagine not liking it is if you just can't stand ABBA music. Lastly, Married Life was just spot-on. Great performances in a thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining story.

Picking the best out of this lot is quite a task. For me though it would have to be Mamma Mia. I can't recall seeing a movie that so thoroughly entertained just about everyone who saw it. Old, young, men, women..... It didn't matter. And anyone who knows me knows I don't like to sing so what does it say about a movie that got me to go to the sing-along version to sing out loud, in public, especially when it appeared we were just about the only ones in the theater singing?

That brings me to the rotten side of the plate. I've seen a bucket full of entirely forgettable movies and even more that I wish I could forget. The worst five films of the year for me were Quantum of Solace, Rachel Getting Married, Mirrors, The X-Files: I Want To Believe and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Here we had a James Bond film that should have taken Daniel Craig's first effort to new heights and instead just tossed that momentum into the garbage. We got loveable Anne Hathaway trying to act her way out of a home movie. We got to see Kiefer Sutherland playing a security guard in such a bad movie that I think maybe he saw a bad investment with Bernie Madoff coming and decided to bank some easy cash and we also got Harrison Ford back in Indie's clothing only to have Shia LaBeouf and a horrific script ruin the party.

But the worst movie of the year was an easy one to spot. It was clearly The X-Files: I Want To Believe. This is a vehicle that ran out of gas in the last season of the TV show and should have been left for dead then. There is nothing memorable about this other than the ludicrous character that Billy Connolly played (and I like both the TV show and Connolly). I already have trouble believing anything in 2009 can be this bad.

The Final Ride In Gran Torino

This week I got out to finally see Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. It's been said that this will be his final movie as an actor. We've heard that a lot of previous older actors only to have them change their mind later. We'll see.

The movie really is a complete vehicle for Clint Eastwood. It showcases just about every facet of his allure from throughout his career and underscores why it is he's been so popular and successful. You get to see the raw testosterone of Dirty Harry, the wisdom of Million Dollar Baby, the compassion of Bridges of Madison County and the laughter of Any Which Way But Loose.

Here we get a story about a man whose time has very much passed him by. Little in the world makes sense to him any longer and he even has trouble relating to his own family. He tends to have a disdain for everyone except for his most superfluous relationships. When a family of Vietnamese move in next door this veteran of the Korean War can only wonder how much worse things can get.

It is from that perspective that we are taken on the final journey of the main character. Eastwood gives the audience everything they want and yet does it in a skillful way that doesn't feel cheap or beyond reality. His character, he tells us, is all about finishing things. It's what he does. The irony is that his own life seems impervious to this very fact.

Gran Torino is not a perfect movie. The ensemble cast is spotty. Some of the acting is less than stellar and some of the writing could have been better. However, if this is Eastwood's final movie as an actor, it's one he can be entirely proud to go out on.

FiOS Notes

So it's now been a couple of days since FiOS went in. A couple of observations have emerged:

1. The DVR needs major work to get into the same realm as the DirecTV DVR's. DirecTV actively interfaces with their own customer base via sources like DBSTalk to get not only direct feedback but to openly test continually updated DVR's. As a result the same DVR's that have been out for years are now dramatically improved over the state they shipped.

2. The inability to be able to set a default Guide is either something I haven't found yet or, more likely, a major oversight. I can set up favorites and continually hit a favorites key but is it really that hard to allow for an option to choose the preferred Guide view each time?

3. The duplication of many channels is a major distraction. In a way it's a good thing. It gives the impression of endless channels but I also can't get a grip on what I have here and it ends up being a bit frustrating.

4. Customer service needs massive improvement to compete. First I couldn't get the movie channels I wanted right away and had to wait another day. Then there's all this process and bureaucracy that makes things ridiculously difficult. Case in point: On a plus side I was able to swap out a standard definition receiver today for an HD receiver by going to a local Verizon store. This is a specific store distinct from their cell phone stores that just handles FiOS issues. That was cool. However, the lady in front of me experienced exactly the sort of lunacy no one wants to deal with. She had called to move from a non-DVR to a DVR. Everything about that part of it was kosher. However, the rep couldn't make this swap because she never took the time to "authorize" her non-DVR at her house by setting it up and going through an authorization process (which also can be laboriously long). The rep literally was unable to help. The answer was that the woman had to turn around, take the receiver back to her house, install it, authorize it, disconnect it and then bring it back in.

Are you kidding me? It's this sort of ridiculousness that drove me to get rid of Verizon as a landline phone company. I'm getting the impression that harder times still haven't sunk in deep enough with them.

5. The Actiontec router, as I mentioned in a comment to the previous post, is proving to be pretty good so far. Nothing negative to report except that setting up some port forwarding was a bit less intuitive than it could have been.

6. For a second time I had to go through accepting all the terms of service for being a FiOS customer via their website. Not sure why twice but let's hope there's not a thrice.

7. I'm still impressed with the number of HD channels and the quality of the picture. The same goes for the quality of the Internet service so far. They do seem a bit confused by my disinterest in using their e-mail services but at least they allowed me to have my own e-mail address that isn't from them for customer service queries. I fully expected them to insist on only sending such correspondence to their own provided e-mail accounts.

8. I tried to order their 20/20 (download/upload speed) service and was told that even though materials and their website refer to it that currently no rep is able to select this option in the software they use. The reason they gave is potentially interesting--that a better bundle price is just around the corner and they don't want disgruntled customers choosing it only to find a much improved deal a week later. We'll see. What I saw was that for just $10 more a month I could go from 20/5 to 20/20 and that, to me, is a decent deal.

9. DirecTV DVR's tell you the first air-date of the show you've recorded and that's great for applying an extra check to whether a show is first-run or not. I miss that feature.

10. While the boxes don't support what is known as "native pass-through mode" (or the ability to tell the box to just send whatever it gets without up/down scaling it to a set resolution) it does at least allow you to determine how specifically to deal with SD shows. That's nice because my current TV has exceptional stretch modes that I prefer to use and now I can still do that.

11. I really wish I took the time to stop by Verizon's booth at CES but I didn't really see the need at the time. Doh.... If I had I might have possibly seen what might be coming that most aren't aware of.

12. Is the discussion forum at broadbandreports.com the best place for discussion of all things FiOS?

Going Towards the Light (of FiOS)

After well over a decade as both a Comcast (Internet and very limited TV services) and DirecTV customer I've been contemplating changes. Comcast has been on my list for a long time. I left their TV service for DirecTV 15 years ago because I felt like I was always paying more and getting less with them. For a brief period Comcast's Internet service was great but they also charged a premium. Then, over time, it started to degrade. Things I could do when I first started no longer worked. Support got spotty. Service became irregular. Limitations grew.

DirecTV has been a better, but in ways, more disappointing road to travel. When I first got their service is was nothing short of amazing. Then, about 5 years ago, things fell into a major decline. Everyone else had more channels, better quality and similar pricing.

Things improved about a year ago and DirecTV dove into becoming the true leader in HD television. I thought they'd finally turned a corner but then the company was sold and it all just stopped. Leaving DirecTV will be difficult because their service is really impressive. I've become what they call a "best customer" which gets my calls answered more quickly by better reps and those reps will meet just about any concern I put before them.

Then Verizon, whom I'd excised previously from the house for my phone service, developed FiOS or Fiber Optic Service. They promised better picture quality, more bandwidth, lower pricing, etc. They also seemed rejuvenated by the service.

My neighborhood finally got wired for it a few months ago and service became available just now so I decided to give it a look. My first impressions will, no doubt, heavily focus on those things I find concerning. QA (quality assurance) people are like that. We don't point out the positives much. They're to be expected. It's what's not expected that counts for us.

Anyway, the installer showed up today and was a really nice guy that seemed to know his stuff and care about my home. He was clearly dedicated to meeting my needs and made no excuses for anything that was even potentially questionable. He started around 10 am and stayed a bit past 7:30 pm. The latter few hours were spent on solving a single nagging problem with my son's setup in his bedroom that turned out to be a faulty cable connector outside on the other side of the house.

On the Internet side I've read nightmare stories about Verizon's forcing customers, especially those getting TV service, to install their own ActionTec routers. I'd never even heard of them before Verizon and good quality routers can be hard to find and a blessing when you do find one. However, after much hand-wringing, I decided to let the tech just install things the way he best saw fit and then, if needed, re-arrange the install later.

The install starts with installing an "ONT" or network box somewhere inside the house and then running a battery backup system to it (so it requires access to an outlet). This is the new version of their older boxes you have around your house for phone service. The battery backup is only for their new phone service and even though I wasn't getting it they still insisted on setting this up. For those who get phone service it keeps the dialtone up for 8 hours in case of a power outage.

After that the tech will prefer to hook into any existing cable wiring you may likely already have. While some mentioned costs for additional wiring my installer didn't mention that at all and seemed quite ready to run whatever was necessary to do the job right. In my case it made the most sense to just tap into the existing Comcast lines which ran to all but my son's room.

I did a lot of the internal work. I plugged in the router, removed my redundant equipment upstairs and fired up the Internet. It was instantly better. Pages snapped into life whereas previously they'd appear in pieces. I did notice a slight issue with sending e-mail (sometimes it would fail where it hadn't before) but that feels like a tweaking issue that will get attention later. What's more is that in the current setup I was able to remove quite a bit of extraneous items and cables. Another unforseen positive is that we use our laptops on the first floor, and with the new router being on the same level, wireless connections are now much stronger.

On the TV side things were not quite as cut and dry. My TV setups are complex and we did a lot with them. Various trade-offs and concerns materialized but so did a few major benefits. Right off the bat the picture quality is dramatically better than what I'd been getting with DirecTV. Standard definition programming is quite impressive and their HD offerings both out-number and out-perform DirecTV's. I also immediately noticed that volumes between HD and SD channels remained about the same where with DirecTV HD channels are much quieter causing a lot of volume bouncing and some startling wake-ups after unplanned sofa naps that span a change from an HD to an SD channel.

The biggest concern with FiOS TV is that they're still using the same equipment they've been using for four years. For their DVR's that means you're still limited to a measly 20 hours of recordings. For some, that's plenty, but it's not even close for us.

They do have a couple things things that improve situations. They support, for example, multi-room viewing with specific equipment. Since they rent their equipment (I own my DirecTV boxes) I decided to try and be frugal where possible. Previously I had three DVR's on our three main TV's (family room and two bedrooms). I changed this to a DVR for the family room, a DVR for my son so that he can record what he wants without impacting us and a non-DVR in our bedroom. The benefit is that the non-DVR in our bedroom has the ability to pull shows from the family room DVR to watch upstairs. Nice. However it's also strangely limited.

You can't, for example, tell anything to record from the bedroom. It can only play things from the family room and that's it. On the down side if the shows downstairs are in HD then the box upstairs needs to be HD even if the TV isn't or else you can't view them. Our bedrooms are still both SD TV's.

Another odd limitation is that this is the only direction things can work. My son, with his own DVR box, cannot watch anything from the family room in his bedroom. That seems strange to me. Nor can we watch, in our bedroom, anything from his DVR.

A very slick positive is that all Verizon's DVR's are HD boxes even if your TV isn't. So, for the first time, my son is able to watch HD channels in his room and they're just converted to SD on his TV. I'm so impressed with this benefit that if multi-room viewing doesn't work out as planned then I'll move our bedroom over to one of those as well.

Probably one of the biggest features of FiOS TV is that I once again have access to Comcast SportsNet Philly. DirecTV doesn't offer it and I thought I'd seen the last of it. FiOS offers it in both SD and HD. For this market that's a huge positive. DirecTV has always had a harder time drawing customers from this area as a result.

The receivers themselves are nice but they're laden with shortcomings. Things that I took for granted on DirecTV's equipment are missing here. Recording shows is harder. There's no support for fast-forward auto-correction (where the program backs up automatically to account for overshooting while fast-forwarding shows). The strangest thing is in their channel line-up. There is, for example, no channel 29 (Fox in Philly). It's on channel 16 and the HD version is yet another channel higher up. On DirecTV boxes if you go to 29 you get it in HD on HD boxes unless you tell it otherwise. It all just makes more logical sense.

I just had something strange happen while typing this. I'm was sitting here with the TV on and it just suddenly powered off, recycled and then powered on once more before finally going off. I guess it just did some sort of update. I'll have to ask about that later.

On the service side I expect I'll be dealing with the same battleship mentality as always. On install I found I had no premium movie channels even though I asked for them. I called support, and after speaking with several reps, I was told that new installs take up to 24 hours before they can alter the service in any way. DirecTV can make any necessary change, instantly, moments after any install.

A call this morning put all the channels right and the representative was head-and-shoulders better than what I'd encountered yesterday. She got everything going correctly and even got me a deal on the pricing.

A word about pricing. I haven't said anything about the costs yet because I want to see a bill but this is supposed to be quite a bit cheaper than what I had been paying previously for these services from two different vendors. Time will tell.

One last interesting issue. When I signed up apparently you agree to some things that you wouldn't expect. For example, not long after signing up I got an e-mail asking me to download and install my agreed-up security suite for which I'd be charged $5.99 a month. What?! The rep I spoke to this morning removed it immediately.

When Projectile Vomiting Can Be Funny

I woke up at 4am Thursday morning to a dire urge to purge. I rushed to the bathroom and somehow managed to compose myself before anything happened. However, nausea dominated me for the next 18+ hours (still there) and I lost the battle around 10am.

It was a pitched struggle as it should be. I hadn't vomited--let alone like that--for quite a long time and I saw no reason to restart the process again. Visions of a Seinfeld episode come to mind.

So there I am, perched over the bowl and what comes into mind but good old George Carlin and his many wonderfully creative ways of describing the act of vomiting. I would start to laugh only to be interrupted by more spasms.... The conundrum made the whole event even funnier. I still felt (and still feel) like hell but at least, for once, there was a modicum of relief in the form of the terms.

So without further adieu I give you the phrases that helped me get through the day:

"Calling Ralph on the big white telephone."

"Driving the porcelain bus."

"Praying to the porcelain Gods."

"Technicolor yawn."

"Engage in an involuntary personal protein spill."

I miss you George.

Easy Content Sharing With Windows

For Windows users sharing content between friends, family or co-workers is often a bit of a pain.

Say I have a large video I need to share. E-mailing it is an annoyance. It's just too big. It takes me too long to send it and likewise for someone to receive it. There's even a decent chance the other connection will refuse it meaning I've wasted all my time bothering to try to send it in the first place. You can zip the content but in the case of video you're not saving any space.

Another option is having it hosted somewhere. I would copy it to a my own website space or put it up on a file sharing service but neither of those is optimal for many.

What I really had been looking for was the ability to just right-click on an object and allow it to be shared, at least temporarily, by just giving someone a URL directly to it.

A while back I found a nifty little utility that does just what I wanted. It's called HFS or HTTP File Server (get it by clicking either of the links).

One of the amazing things about HFS is that it's so amazingly small for what it does. It's just over a 500K single file. That's it. Nothing dramatic to install. You just drop it where you want it and run it.

Once you set it up sharing files becomes pretty easy. You can use Windows Explorer and when you see a file to share you just right-click on it and select "Add to HFS" and it'll be available to anyone you desire. You can also run HFS and drag and drop files to its user interface. You can share entire folders, groups of files or a full PC if you want. HFS can also act as a minimalist web server if you so desire.

Here's what HFS looks like with some shared files in it:



You can click on the image above to see a bigger, more easily-readable version of it. What you see above is my sharing two work videos with co-workers. The two files appear in the left window. I can drag more files to the upper left window, remove files, right-click in the window to get a menu to browse to groups of files, etc.

The right window shows the co-workers downloading the videos. You can see that they're done now and that the activity was a little while ago (the pink spikes on a black background running across the top of the windows).

Active downloading appears in the window at the bottom and lets you know who is downloading and how long they have to go.

HFS also supports User accounts. You can set up files to share and only specified users will be able to access them according to rights you set up beforehand.

Okay so how does someone get to these shared files?

Users (either with accounts or otherwise) can either be given specific URL's that take them directly to a specific file or you can give them a more general "system" URL that will take them to a site that presents all available files to them.

If you give someone the URL to a specific file they'll never even see anything. They'll click the link in their browser and the file will be sent to them. It can't get much cleaner than that.

The system URL is, by default, the IP address of your PC along with a port number. This might look like this:

http://64.12.48.110:3546

Don't let that scare you off. First, HFS will tell you what the URL is so you don't need to figure it out. Second, you can make it even easier.

By using various domain name services like no-ip.com, you can make the URL something more approachable, so that you don't ever need to remember your IP address. Instead can just use a common name. If you look closely in the above image you'll see my address (partially blurred-out) ends in myvnc.com. That's much easier to remember than my actual IP address. Services like no-ip.com provide you with a program that watches your IP address and ties it to a more memorable URL. no-ip.com has a free service and more robust paid options. I just use the free solution.

What does HFS look like to a user? That's another amazing thing. For such a small app it looks great!


Here you see the two videos as they're shown in any browser. You'd just click on the one you want and it starts to download. Notice the Login button in the upper right which is used for those users you give accounts to.

HFS is also a two-way tool. Users can, if you allow it, upload files using this interface directly to you.

Note that all the files you share remain available for as long as you keep HFS running. Once you stop HFS then all the shares disappear. You have the option of saving that set of shares for later if you so desire. Most of the time I just share some files, get the intended user to grab them pretty quickly and then close out HFS thus ending the access.

The biggest catch with HFS is that it can be a bit daunting to setup for novices and even non-novices will find the settings interface to be a bit less than intuitive at times. A big tip to remember, if you get this, is that all settings you make are temporary unless you specifically choose the option to save all settings.

There's a forum for HFS as well where you can get all the help you need including a useful FAQ.

I've only scatched the very surface of what HFS can do for Windows users. The bottom line is that once you figure it out, sharing anything with anyone becomes a breeze.

Historical Dow Jones Redux

In the past I presented the opening and closing numbers of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for each President back to 1960. Now that we're at another milestone I can finally put a finishing number on the past eight years (I also caught a couple math errors and corrected them). While I was at it I added a few more entries for completeness (taking the data back the the Great Depression):



I cannot imagine being a Republican and having to admit that you sold your soul to support Bush. The economy is at the heart of all things Republican is it not? George W. Bush presided, with your full support, over an administration that saw the Dow go down 22%. That's more than the despised (by the Right) Jimmy Carter. That's more than the disgraced Richard Nixon. To find one worse you have to go all the way back to the Great Depression and the administration of Herbert Hoover.

How many more excuses are you going to come up with for this failed administration? The numbers don't lie. The argument that the other candidates up against him would have been worse doesn't hold any water. When you're the worst economic President since Herbert Hoover it's pretty hard to argue the hypothetical that someone else couldn't have done as well. But hey, at least we haven't been attacked right? Well, I believe we have been. It just wasn't by an outside terrorist group. Instead it was by our own President against our own future. Thanks for that. Next time you want to speak up at the family barbecue about politics think about this and do us all a favor and shut up.

When Is The Coronation?

Okay, in 44 years on this planet including the inauguration of eight previous Presidents (though I don't really recall the ones for President's Johnson and Nixon) I cannot recall a spectacle the likes of which we're seeing now.

My recollection is that Presidents won the race, stayed in the news, and then took the oath of office on the 20th followed by a crazy party that night. Never before can I recall a week's worth of events leading up to the swearing-in ceremony.

To be blunt, I don't like it, at all. It sets the wrong tone and it's one that's starting to concern me. The first one was "The Podium". I never before saw a President-elect stand before the press in front of an adorned sign stating his title in such a flamboyant manner--"The Office of the President-Elect".

Now we get a full week of events leading up to the ceremony. The last time a train ride got this much attention was President Lincoln's funeral procession. Schools are closing on the 20th here. People are going nuts. It's not a good sign and the fact that Barack Obama is not only allowing it, but seemingly reveling in it, does not start this administration off on the right foot.

The country is reeling and that, in part, probably plays into the situation at hand. However, President Obama (I think it's safe to call him that now--at least before we have to call him "Your Majesty") should be the first to see this for what it is and how it comes off and refrain from it.

I had a small pebble of concern with the podium thing. Now it's grown into a much larger doubt with this procession. Time will tell if this is a fad or a trend. Let's hope it's a short former.

A Revolutionary Defiance

This weekend I managed to sneak in two more 2008 movies even though the latter one was officially released on December 31st.

The first movie is Revolutionary Road starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in their first pairing since the titanic Titanic. This is a story very much about the era that encompassed the 1950's. April (Winslet) meets Frank (DiCaprio) at a party and, like most Hollywood movies of the era, they fall for one another and end up married. Now several years later they're living in a dream house with beautiful children in a neighborhood right out of a Normal Rockwell painting.

The problem is that this is not a 1950's movie. Here we get the "real" story behind the story. April is suffocating and Frank long ago gave up the dreams of youth leaving them only to be going through the motions like everyone else. There's a wonderful line in the movie that goes something like this, "You never forget the truth. You just get better at lying." That is the undercurrent, and a strong one, of this entire movie.

The entire effort is worth the investment. It took just a bit to get going but when it does it does so without ever looking back and neither will you. You'll wish for things to be different because you know either yourself or someone else who has found themselves in this situation or can very much imagine it. The acting is first-rate across the board and the look of the film is flawless.

Why I Wanted To See It:
Not because of the re-pairing but because of the Winslet nomination talk.

Preconceived Notions:
Will it just be a great job from Winslet with nothing else to enjoy?

During The Movie:
Where is this going? Oh! Couldn't they pick someone else besides Kathy Bates to play that role? We don't need anymore Titanic reminders.

Immediate Afterthoughts:
Excellent movie. Might be a bit slow for many but it's deadly accurate and feels it.

The other movie this weekend is Defiance starring Daniel Craig outside his Bond persona.

It's 1941 and the Germans are storming through Eastern Europe. The plan is wholesale slaughter especially with regard to the Russian Jews they encounter along the way. Craig plays a true life character that, in the attempt to save his own family's life, becames entangled in the responsibility of trying to save the many who show up around him.

This is another excellent film and it really is good to see Craig in yet another good vehicle that isn't Bond. He was a good actor before Bond but that role has a tendancy to bring the actor playing him down to a new low. Daniel Craig deserves a much better fate.

The movie is one you need to see to appreciate. My explaining it will only act to trivialize the events simply because we've all heard similar tales a thousand times before. This one is memorable and worthwhile because of the effort put into the details and the sheer power of its emotional tugs along the way.

On the downside it felt much longer than its 2 hour, 16 minute running length and I also had a very strong feeling that its "true" origins have been heavily dressed up for Hollywood here. Aside from that it's a movie that will make an impact and it's one that's worth experiencing.

Why I Wanted To See It:
Craig is an excellent actor and the story sounded just good enough.

Preconceived Notions:
Another Nazi Germany versus the Jews movie? Is there any ground left to go over here?

During The Movie:
How do people persevere through it all? To be reduced to this and still to go on.

Immediate Afterthoughts:
It took me until the parking lot to regain my composure fully. I'm glad I gave this the chance.

2009 CES And Me

I'm spending my vocational days working for a group bringing out a new audio product and that effort landed me at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, known tersely as CES.

I've been to Vegas many times in the past and it's just not my cup of tea. It's a nice playground for adults but I'm not a gambler so there's really little point. The taxis are expensive. The food is often overpriced (though many great deals are still to be found for the intrepid hunters out there) and the city itself is just dirty.

The coolest item I saw at the show was the Palm Pre cellphone. This one looks like the phone for me except Palm signed an exclusive with Sprint. Huh? They finally nail a great phone and then they tie it to a loser like Sprint? Nice job guys. If this thing ever shows up at Verizon I'll be all over it. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

As far as the show itself it was clearly an off year. I noticed nowhere near the foot traffic of previous shows. Many of the halls had tightened up the corners and edges to make the floorspace feel as busy as before and the halls were often devoid of vendors.

Meanwhile suites were more numerous than before. The Hilton told me they'd never booked anywhere near as many previously as they have this year and that makes sense. You can get a large suite for a lot less than the cost of floorspace out in the convention center. That sounds like great news for them but then consider that 6 months ago rooms going for $400 a night were down to $69 a night during the event. Deals were to be had all over Vegas for rooms.

All in all it was a great show for our product but I can't imagine it was a great show for a majority of the offerings there. It'll be curious to see who locks in for next year.

Who Wants To Be A Slumdog Millionaire?

I'm currently on a business trip to Sin City--aka Las Vegas--to attend this year's 2009 CES (Consumer Electronics Show). I haven't been to Vegas in a number of years now after having been here countless times in the past. It lost its allure long ago for me. We have gambling in Atlantic City and that's really what Vegas is about. It's just painted with more artistic strokes here. Speaking of strokes, the one thing that hasn't changed a bit is the ability of the sex trade to ply their marketing on nearly every street corner in the form of questionable citizens trying to hand you cards with the names of dozens of strippers and more.

Thankfully many other things here have changed. It's easier to get cut-rate tickets to shows but I still really don't care for most of them (though I finally did see the Titanic Artifacts Exhibit which now is "permanently" on display--for 10 years--at the Luxor). Instead I went to the movies. This time it was to see the Bollywood film Slumdog Millionaire. While this is a foreign film the dialogue is in English for the most part so don't let that concern keep you from seeing it.

This is the story of a young man, Jamal, who gets the chance to play the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. When he gets to within one question of the big prize the time runs out on both that episode and, possibly, his good luck. He's taken into "custody" and accused of cheating. You see, Jamal comes from the slums. There's no way a "slumdog" can possibly know the answers to these questions, or at least that's the view of some behind the show.

The story focuses on Jamal having to defend his unusual ability. This is done with flashbacks into his formative years and the various experiences that build the foundation for the life of a slumdog. From this comes realization and understanding for the authorities and the audience.

The biggest problem I had with the movie is the show itself. If these are the hardest questions I'm surprised everyone in India isn't a millionaire. Don't get me wrong--I didn't know most of the answers but they're Indian in nature and most of them deal with major popular culture that could be easily known.

The other problem I had dealt with a cell phone scene. Why doesn't Jamal just call back? Anyone who sees the movie will know what I mean. Those who haven't won't know the relevance until they see it.

In the end this is a very well done movie. It's touching. It gives us some real insight into the undercurrent of life in Mumbai (previously Bombay). However, I don't see why it's being touted as a possible best picture contender.

Why I Wanted To See It:
Lots of Oscar talk. It's on quite a number of reviewers "Best of 2008" list.

Preconceived Notions:
Bollywood films often include lots of impromptu singing and dancing. Would this be the same?

During The Movie:
At least there's no impromptu singing and dancing. How can a show get away with this?

Immediate Afterthoughts:
Oops. Singing and dancing during the credits. I knew they couldn't contain themselves. I don't get all the Oscar talk. It was good but not great. Worth seeing for sure.

Hannity Still Slinging BS

In the Minnesota Senate race Sean Hannity has been typically partisan and vocal. In the past he's made statements along the lines of, "Al Franken will do anything to steal this election." He's used completely one-sided arguments to try to make his case. In one instance I mentioned previously he pointed out challenges of ballots from Franken's legal team as proof of this theft. The examples he used were clearly votes for opponent Norm Coleman but Hannity refused to ever point out the myriad of similar examples on the other side or to mention that Coleman's team submitted more of these ballot challenges than Franken's.

His loudest rant was that Franken would stop and nothing and that if the recount, as he (as usual) incorrectly predicted, showed Franken trailing that Franken's team would go to court in an attempt to win the seat regardless of the voter's intent.

I was actually a bit surprised to hear Hannity today continuing this same argument especially in light of the day's news out of Minnesota:

"The state Canvassing Board certified the recount, with Al Franken ahead by 225 votes, but Norm Coleman said it plans a legal challenge."

What was Hannity's response to this? He amazingly still clung to his original point that this shows how far Franken is willing to go. Coleman's going to court, in no way (in his view), equates to the same stealing of an election against the voter's intent as it would if Franken did it.

Oh boy.....