Rainbow Six Vegas

Rating: R16 - Contains Violence and offensive language.
Genre: First Person Shooter.
Developer: Ubisoft.
Release Date: Available Now.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six franchise redefined first person shooters way back in the day, and now with the arrival of ‘next gen’ the Rainbow team is here to re-define your experience once again.

Anyone familiar with the franchise will know what to expect – squad based tactical realism, with real world tactics and locations.

So what’s new with Vegas besides absolutely stunning eye candy graphics?

Well, quite a lot really. First off there’s only two skill levels, and being sensible I chose the easier of the two, but in saying easier, I don’t mean easy.

Normally you’d get a real easy, build your confidence whilst getting your men killed training mission. Not here, you’re dropped in on your own, having to recon your way to your team-mates. This showcases a couple of new features.

You have to plan your route to your objective – there is always more than one way to get to where you are going, so as in Brothers In Arms, you can out flank your enemy. But be warned, if you can out flank, so can your enemy. If you stay put for two long, expect some hostile fire coming from your six.

One shot kills, or at least wounds, and there are no medical packs to pick up. That’s old school Clancy. In Vegas they’ve utilised the Gears of War type system where by there are visual clues if you’re taking too much damage and need to take cover to recover.

Which brings us to another new feature; the ability to take cover, blind fire from cover, or target fire from cover.

Cover fire is essential, ‘cause once you find them; you have to look after your team-mates. If they go down you have to get to them and give them medical aid to get back on their feet. No body but the terrorists can die in Vegas.

Another neat feature is the ability to pick up fallen weapons. Run out of ammo? Pick up a dead terrorist’s weapon and keep on killing.

Planning will get you further, especially with the increased AI of the enemy, who as I mentioned before will try and flank you, corner you, and kill you. The biggest help with planning is your snake cam, that lets you see under the doors into the room behind, allowing you to spot and target the terrorists before going in. Ordering your team-mates to breach, clear or frag will help you complete the missions, and with no manual saves, gun-ho run and shooting from the hip will only get you killed, and sent back to the start of the level.

Of course, some times you won’t use the door. You can now rappel down the side of buildings, and enter through windows, shooting the bad guys as you go.

And you’ll never be alone; you have constant updates through a HUD video feed from your angel in the sky. She’ll let you know anything and everything you need to know. Listen to her; she has a finger on the pulse.

You’re going to need all the help you can get when you finally get to Vegas after the first mission. This Rainbow Six game has some very determined terrorists, who have literally hired an army. At times you’ll be literally swarmed by the bad guys, who carry all manner of weapons, and can do as you do, and slide down ropes from the roof and come in from behind you.

Intense, face paced action, explosions, flash bangs, and plenty of hot lead overloads your visual and auditory senses. And because it’s Vegas you’ll have all the sounds that go with the city that never sleeps. Along with this assault on your senses, you’ll have to keep an ear out for voices. Hear some one talking and take note, it probably means there’s some one with a gun nearby!

In short, Rainbow Six Vegas is the most complete first person shooter available, no competition. If you want action that forces you to think on your feet and make snap calls, then Vegas is for you.

Rent or Buy?
Buy, this is more than a one night stand, and even after you finished it, you’ll be tempted to run it all over again just because.

WWII The Complete History

Rating: M – Contains War Footage.
Duration: 1800 mins.
Genre: Documentary.
Actors: N/A.
Director: N/A.
Release Date: Available Now.

This would have to be the most-complete WWII documentary collection I have ever seen, with 30 hours of footage over 10 discs; it has a huge amount of information about the war.

And by complete, I do mean complete and in roughly chronological order. The quality is also very good. Not quite George Stevens good, but as good as black and white archival footage gets.

It’s been put together in small 5-10 minute segments with background music and a voice over. The only problem being that the back of the individual DVD cases only list the main points, where as each DVD probably contains 40-50 segments.

But it’s all here, from Hitler’s rise to power and Chamberlain’s inability to stand up to him, to D-Day and beyond, with Africa, Russia and the Pacific all covered.

It does have a subtle propaganda feel, but this is mainly due to it being from a purely American point of view. It would be interesting to see something of this calibre done by the BBC, to get a British point of view to some of the aspects, and even a few interviews from the German side would have rounded the whole thing off.

But that’s just me being picky. If you’re interested in World War II, then this is what you want – stay clear of cheap imitations at the Warehouse as they will only give you parts of the story, and you’ll end up spending more.

One hundred dollars might seem like a hefty price tag for a black and white documentary, but remember this is 10 whole DVDs, collated and presented as a whole package.

Food for thought:
Can evil ever be defeated?

Rent or Buy?
This is a definite purchase, I doubt that many, if any rental shops will stock this massive box set!

Mission Impossible 3

Rating: M – Contains Medium Level Violence.
Duration: 120 mins.
Genre: Action & Adventure.
Actors: Laurence Fishburne, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Billy Crudup, Ving Rhames, Keri Russell, Simon Pegg, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Maggie Q.
Director: J.J. Abrams.
Release Date: Available Now.

J.J. Abrams kicks off his foray into movie making in style with Mission Impossible 3. The man behind Alias and Lost is right at home with big screen visual candy, and as in his TV shows isn’t afraid to kill people off.

So what does the television man bring to the big screen? Well for starters he brings two hours of almost non-stop action, intrigue, suspense, double agents and good old-fashioned fun.

The storyline departs from MI normality with Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise, or is that Tom Cruise playing himself under the guise of being Ethan Hunt?) having taken himself off active duty, preferring the safety of training new recruits whilst getting engaged to the woman of his dreams. It seems like hunt wants to settle down and have a family.

Trouble is, Hunt’s young protégé gets herself captured by an infamous international weapons dealer Owen Davian (play with gusto by the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the IMF calls Hunt back to active duty to go in and extract her.

Not all goes to plan however and protégé Lindsey Farris is killed during the rescue, pushing Hunt over the edge and into vendetta mode.

Things however go from bad to worse and it starts to get really personal, when Hunt finds his fiancé drawn into the equation.

This action packed thrill ride shows that the Mission Impossible franchise still has plenty left to offer, though one does wonder if Hunt’s day are over and there needs to be a new hero, played by someone who can act convincingly.

Food for thought:
Should you ever keep secrets from your loved ones?

Rent or Buy?
This double disc special edition has enough action to want to have it around for a while, buy it!

The (Apple) Year in Review

January
At Macworld, Jobs releases the first Macs with Intel chips: the iMac and 15-inch MacBook Pro (Apple's top-selling machines, not coincidentally). They're six months ahead of schedule. Apple shares soar to a record high.

February
New Mac minis -- but no TV/DVR features as rumor sites had predicted. Jobs is not yet ready to take on the living room.

March
Apple celebrates its 30th birthday -- with a press release. Jobs doesn't like to look back.

April
Hell freezes over: Jobs announces Boot Camp, which allows his new Intel Macs to boot into Windows.

May
The Beatles lose their lawsuit over the Apple name for music sales. Jobs reportedly uses the defeat to negotiate an exclusive deal to sell the Beatles' catalog online.

The 13-inch MacBook is released, completing the laptop line's move to Intel.

Apple and Nike collaborate on the Nike+iPod -- a wireless iPod pedometer and matching sneakers.

June
The stock option scandal grows. A terse statement says an internal probe has uncovered "irregularities," including a grant to Jobs. But Apple says Jobs didn't benefit financially and is working with the SEC. Dozens of other companies are conducting their own backdating investigations.

July
The iPod craze is far from over. Customers snap up 8.1 million iPods in the July quarter, boosting profits by a hefty 50 percent. New Intel Macs sales aren't too shabby, either: 1.3 million Macs are sold, up 12 percent.

August
Jobs gives a weird tag-team keynote at Apple's annual developers conference, prompting speculation about his health following a cancer scare last year. He gives a preview of Leopard, the next major revision of Mac OS X. There are bells and whistles, but the biggest rumored change -- a major UI overhaul to compete with Microsoft's Vista -- is left out.

September
For perhaps the first time ever, Jobs gives a public sneak peek at an unannounced Apple product: the iTV -- a wireless router for beaming video from a computer to a TV. He also unveils iTunes' first feature-length movies. The movie shelf is initially bare, but more are expected next year.

October
The stock options scandal claims a victim. Fred Anderson, Apple's long-time chief financial officer, falls on his sword and resigns from Apple's board. A statement says Jobs knew of irregularities but not their import. It's a strategic mea culpa that's allowed him to skate -- so far.

November
IPhone mania grips the nation. There's nary a week when the iPhone isn't a major story. The speculation is fueled by patent filings and a lot of wishful thinking.

Apple's stock reaches a new high at $93.

December
The iPhone becomes a slam dunk, even if Apple has never officially admitted it's working on it. Wall Street starts issuing iPhone investor advisories.

But as Jobs himself says: "Looking forward, 2007 is likely to be one of the most exciting new product years in Apple's history."

Hustle & Flow

Rating: R16 – Contains Violence, Drug Use, Offensive Language & Sexual Themes.
Duration: 118 mins.
Genre: Drama.
Actors: Anthony Anderson, Taraji P. Henson, Elise Neal, Taryn Manning, Terrence Howard, Ludacris , Paula Jai Parker.
Director: Craig Brewer.
Release Date: Available Now.

Written and directed by inexperienced Director Craig Brewer, Hustle & Flow stays true to it’s name. It flows all over the place trying to hustle up some sympathy for the main players.

It’s a violent dirty movie that offers not an ounce of hope, so possibly the week leading up to Christmas wasn’t a good time to be reviewing this movie.

Based in the gritty urban world of drug dealing and pimping, Brewer seems to want to glamorise one pimps rise above the poverty level when he decides he’s gonna be a rapper. The boy does have some talent, especially when he brings in and old school buddy, but we soon learn that the only way out of the ghetto is over the bodies of other people.

Pain and disappointment is the main theme for this movie, and though some may argue that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and what cost has this light been to the lives of everyone involved?

Food for thought:
Should society reward vengence?

Rent or Buy?
If you think you’re way too happy after all those Christmas presents, rent this movie to bring you back down a couple of notches. If you’re borderline suicidal, leave it alone, it might just push you over the edge!

I've Moved to Blogger2!

Expect some changes over the next couple of days, especially with the header as it is a tad too big for the new template.

UPDATE | Designed a new header. It fits the space better, but I'm not totally happy with it.

Bond Bashes Borat

Well, at least at the NZ box office he did!

01 Casino Royale
02 Borat
03 Flushed Away
04 The Departed
05 The Holiday
06 Santa Claus 3
07 The Nativity Story
08 Crank
09 Children of Men
10 Unaccompaned Minors

Prison Break S1

Rating: M – Suitable for a mature audience 16 years and older.
Duration: Aprox. 45 minutes/episode
Genre: Television Drama.
Actors: Stacy Keach, Peter Stormare, Robin Tunney, Dominic Purcell, Robert Knepper, Marshall Allman, Wade Williams, Paul Adelstein, Amaury Nolasco, Sarah Wayne Callies, Wentworth Miller.
Release Date: Available Now.

Prison Break had a lot going for it, but then it went too far. And this seems to be a problem with American TV of recent years, with a host of new, big concept TV shows that have been coming out, turning into hits and being milked for many seasons to come.

Prison Break started out well. An interesting concept, that even though it was full of plot holes and required huge stretches of believability, it was riveting TV. Written in fact with near perfection for the TV minded viewer. At the end of every forty-minute episode was a real cliff-hanger, an edge of your seats event that had you desperate to see the next episode.

But it was setting a pace, and a plot that couldn’t be maintained for it’s 22 episode season and eventually imploded with the weight of it’s own over-inflated ego.

Then there was the darkness. Prison Break starts out as a bright happy programme that has a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel, a candle of hope burning that could be reached at the end of the season. But that hope quickly gets snuffed out when you realise, just after the half waypoint that the writers are going to do everything within their powers to milk the plot for all it’s worth. You know that there’s not going to be a happy ending, and with the body count and destroyed lives climbing higher than Everest, you start to wonder what the point of the whole thing is.

And then they treat you like idiots. In the later half of the season, the writers feel the need to explain every situation through mini-flashbacks. He’s doing this, because this happened two episodes back. This might be nice if you’ve only just started watching, but for the loyal fans who started at the beginning, and have watched every episode, re-arranging their television viewing to accommodate Prison Break, it’s like a slap in the face with a rotten banana skin.

Maybe it’s just me, but some of these big concept, 22 episode television series would be much better as a standalone, 12 episode mini-series. Anything that runs for more than one season needs to be constructed along the lines of Firefly, a series that had a bigger picture, but was basically a series of independent stories that could be viewed independently, but worked together as a series.

Food for thought:
Every action has a consequence, but how many people care about such consequences?

Rent or Buy?
Renting a 22 episode series is a bit of an ask, but to be honest if you want a prison drama buy The Shawshank Redemption.

Previously on…

I’ve pretty much given up on TV, the fact that I watch way too many DVDs along with the lack of decent TV programmes, has seen my TV become nothing more that a visual display unit for the DVD player.

Not that that precludes me from having some favourite TV programmes, you see I can live my TV addiction vicariously through DVD. My current addiction of choice is the rather cheesy but thoroughly addictive Prison Break.

My only complaint however is the lack of thought that so often goes into bringing TV to DVD. The worst thing for me is having to sit through five minutes of recap (previously on Prison Break…) every episode. Hello, I’m watching this on DVD, I’m not actually going to wait a week between episodes, I mean each DVD even has a ‘play all’ feature, so why can’t they just cut the ‘Previously’ segment out, before mastering the DVD?

X-Men 3

Rating: M – Contains Violence & Offensive Language.
Duration: 99 mins.
Genre: Action & Adventure, Sci-fi.
Actors: Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Hugh Jackman, Vinnie Jones, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Aaron Stanford, Shawn Ashmore, Ellen Page.
Director: Brett Ratner.
Release Date: Available Now.

When scientists stumble upon a ‘cure’ for the mutant gene, Professor Charles Xavier and his small group of X-Men must battle the vicious and violent Magneto and his brotherhood of mutants and stop them from wiping out the human race, and fight against the humans who would force the cure on all mutants.

It’s a mutant battle royale, with plenty of action, humour and new faces. Perhaps a little too much for one movie, but Ratner does a formidable job in concluding the X-Men trilogy.

Complaints that the sheer number of new mutants meant that their characters could never be fully explored is valid up to a point. It’s necessary that we have the number of new characters for the storyline, but possibly we could have gotten to know one or two of them a little better.

The storyline in it’s self is a little too neat, it’s almost as if someone said, lets put an end to the X-Men franchise so we can do a Wolverine movie, but lets go out in style.

The special effects are what we’ve come to expect from the series are we mind-blowing good, though the much-hyped Golden Gate Bridge scene left me somewhat un-impressed. Jean Grey’s new powers under her resurrected name Phoenix were spectacular, and the touching finale was somewhat predictable, but a worthy ending to a great trilogy.

If you loved the first two X-Men movies, then you’re going to enjoy this one, just don’t believe all the hype, and you won’t be disappointed.

Food for thought:
Can death bring freedom?

Rent or Buy?
If you’re a collector, this will complete your collection. If you’re not, then this is a good place to start!

Apple Gives Movies A Face Lift

Deep inside an industrial building in Burbank, California, stands the Great Wall of Macintosh - a humming barrier of 700 Apple Power Mac G5s, all meticulously stacked, one atop the other, in a U shape 8 feet high and 100 feet long. Alongside sits an equally imposing server bay, which stores a staggering 700 terabytes of data. Upstairs in a hypersanitized, temperature-controlled chamber, a technician wearing white silk scrubs hovers over two mammoth, $300,000 digital film scanners.
Wired Test

This monumental collection of gear provides the mathematical brawn behind DTS Digital Images, the world's premier image-processing and -restoration house. This is where Hollywood films come for a face lift - where torn, faded, dirty or otherwise imperfect footage gets surgically enhanced, whether for the archives, a DVD release or a blockbuster opening weekend.

The human brain behind the operation is John Lowry, a bespectacled, auburn-haired man who, at 74, doesn't look a day older than 60. Over the years, Lowry has become known as the film industry's Mr. Fix-It. The movies he has rescued range from the 1933 Boris Karloff vehicle The Ghoul (in which nitrate film base decay had caused excessive flicker and image distortion) to Michael Mann's recent adaptation of Miami Vice (in which a few shots suffered from low light). Even George Lucas sought out Lowry's expertise for the re-release of the Star Wars trilogy ("Lucas hates grain," Lowry says). And MGM hired Lowry to restore all 20 James Bond films for its new set of DVDs.

Many specialists go about restoration manually, cleaning each frame by hand. But as those 700 G5s suggest, Lowry works with computers, faster and more accurately.

"We started out as software developers, but with a very clear direction: to make pictures better," Lowry says as he clicks around the desktop of a Linux machine, picking and choosing from the 50 or so examples stored on his hard drive to show off the technology. "Since each film has its own unique set of problems, it took us about 60 movies to get comfortable."

Today, DTS is a well-oiled machine. As Lowry whirls through a series of before-and-after clips, the differences are obvious. While Sean Connery looks youthfully limber in You Only Live Twice, the 1967 film stock has been ravaged by time, resulting in dirty, jaundiced footage. After a run through Lowry's digital rehab, however, the images are artifact-free: Colors are deeper, detail is better and the images look as fresh as anything shot today.

While Lowry isn't inclined to give up his trade secrets, he admits: "Most of what we do, in the broad sense, is track frame-to-frame differences." Essentially, technicians scan the original film stock onto the server, then proprietary algorithms figure out what shouldn't be onscreen - scratches, discolorations, dirt, mold - and digitally remove it, frame by frame. Think of it as an automatic, high-speed Photoshop retoucher.

But Lowry was doing this long before Photoshop came along. He pioneered image enhancement in the '70s when he processed the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 moon footage. "Because we'd taken the noise out of the pictures," he says, "the geologists were seeing stuff in the rocks that they'd never seen before."

That sounds like a slightly higher calling than Miami Vice. When asked how he landed here, Lowry's expression turns serious. "I have dyslexia," he says. "I didn't read my first book until I was 30." He pauses, and then smiles. "I'm a picture person."

Source Wired

Live Free or Die Hard

Bruce is back baby, oh yeah. Check out this little teaser for Live Free or Die Hard. I wasn't execting much from this baby, but now I'm kinda excited.

One question I do have though, is why can't there be one central place for movie companies to release their trailers? Apple have a great format and a well set up website, but to see all the latest trailers you have to go all over the place, hoping that the media player will work on you particular computer and browser set up. And if it does work, as it fortunately did with Die Hard, the quality is poor and there are no size options.

The content you've selected can not be viewed in this player.

Over at Film Junk they have a short post about the Shrek 3 teaser trailer being available at Moviefone. Would have been better at Apple I thought to myself, not realising just how true my thoughts were about to turn out to be.

But hey, I love Shrek, so put my prejudices aside and visited Moviefone. The first thing the site did when I clicked on the play Shrek 3 teaser button, was my entire browser window was instantly shrunk down to the size of a small media player window. Gee, thanks. The next thing I notice is that there is nothing playing, only a message in small print proclaiming The content you've selected can not be viewed in this player. No explanation, just a kind of stuff you.

Thanks Moviefone, I'll be sure to recommend you to my friends.

Final Destination 3

Rating: R16 – Contains Horror Scenes & Offensive Language.
Duration: 82 mins.
Genre: Teen Scream.
Actors: Ryan Merriman, Patrick Gallagher, Texas Battle, Amanda Crew, Sam Easton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Director: James Wong.
Release Date: Available Now.

The first Final Destination was a damn good movie for it’s minuscule budget, and the second carried on the tradition rather nicely.

Final Destination 3 however is like going back for your third serving of dessert at a smorgasbord, and then regretting eating so much after you’ve finished.

It’s not that it’s a really terrible movie; it’s just that the formula has been flogged and now it’s nothing more than a carcass. Having said that, it does get one thing right – it ends well.

So for those who have yet to see either of the previous films, the plot goes like this: lead female has a premonition that something really bad is going to happen, freaks out major time causing some of her friends to be removed form the situation and consequently saving their lives.

Death however is not happy, and starts arranging horrible deaths in the order that they were originally supposed to be killed. There is an out clause however; if your ‘second’ death is prevented by the actions of someone else, then you’re sparred.

This in it’s self is an interesting concept, most of us like to believe that we are in control of our lives, but Final Destination lays it out that whilst you have the responsibility for your own actions, when it comes down to life and death, you’re not in control, indeed a complete stranger may have more control that you would like to think!

So with this storyline repeating it’s self over the three movies, the only thing left for originality is the location and types of death. All are splatter movie fare, with no real concern for believability. I’ll even go as far to say that thus incarnation of the franchise is the most unbelievable when it comes to the delayed dispatch of the mortal few.

To say that it’s entertaining would be a lie, but suffice to say that really is nothing left for a Final Destination 4.

Food for thought:
Does death have a plan for you?

Rent or Buy?
Rent it; it’ll help pass away an hour or so.

NZ Top Ten Movies

01 Borat
02 The Departed
03 Crank
04 Children of Men
05 Santa Clause 3
06 The Nativity Story
07 Deck the Halls
08 Unaccompaned Minors
09 Dhoom 2
10 A Good Year

Depp buys books

Joblo has a story about Johnny Depp purchasing the film rights to four books, but what I found much more interesting is the little McDonalds toy he used to illustrate the story.

What I want to know is why the heck don’t we get cool Jack Sparrow toys at McDonalds in New Zealand, or did I miss this??

If there’s anything that would make me buy a Happy Meal it’s a Jack Sparrow Beanie Toy!

Casino Royale

Rating: M - Medium Level Violence.
Duration: 144 mins.
Genre: Action, Adventure.
Actors: Judi Dench, Daniel Craig.
Director: Martin Campbell.
Release Date: On Now.

Kiwi boy Martin Campbell gets his second chance at Directing Bond, but this time with a much more capable lead actor, and a great modern take on Fleming’s classic Casino Royale.

Though the story has been change considerably, the spirit of Fleming’s story is captured precise, and we get to see James Bond in his formative first real mission.

Daniel Craig with his icy blue eyes is perfect for the role, traditionalists who claim Bond shouldn’t be blond with blue eyes have their heads in the sand, and have obviously not seen Craig in action before.

And those who say the new Bond is more an action movie than a Bond movie need to re-address exactly what they ever liked about Bond. For me, and a kid, growing up with Bond, it was the excitement and action that started from the get go. The preliminary action scene that bought you to the title credits and let you know that Bond was all about action, was as much a part of band, and the hinted sexuality in the silhouetted ladies in the same title sequence, which for once was peculiarly absent in Casino Royale.

So, gritty and cold, the new Bond is a full on action movie that rarely slows down, which is a big ask seeing as it clocks in at a massive 144 minutes. And Daniel Craig brings his mongrel pedigree and puts some credibility back into the franchise after Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan almost destroyed the double ‘O’ concept.

With huge set action pieces, plenty of heroes and villains, and more plots twists than you can shake a martini at, the thundering pace keeps you glued to the screen, whilst the audio and visual onslaught puts your brain on overdrive.

Perfect this movie isn’t, but the best Bond movie ever it is. Even Judy Dench as M seems to have found her groove, trying to rein in the loose cannon that is Daniel Craig’s Bond.

The other thing that puts this Bond above all the others is what made On Her Majesty’s Secret Service so damned good – and that is the love interest.

So if you want to be wowed and entertained, and you love guns and explosions, Casino Royale is your thing. If you’re a die-hard Connery fan, go buy Dr. No. on DVD.

HBO Finds Religion

Yahoo! is reporting that HBO are developing a new mini-series based on the Third Crusade, which will detail the 12th century fight between Islam and Christianity from the perspective of their two leaders, Saladin and Richard the Lionheart.

Writer Kario Salem (The Score, Don King: Only in America) envisions it as a “medieval gangster epic” and plans to direct at least one of the 8 episodes. The series, which is currently untitled, will be a a co-production with Britain’s Channel 4.

Yet Another DVD Format Launches

Just when you were sick of hearing about the high-definition format war and feeling pressured to buy new technology, along comes yet another DVD format to further muddy the waters. Last week Chinese electronics firms unveiled 54 prototype players for a new format called EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc).

The format boasts more efficient video compression than regular DVDs, better anti-piracy features, and could potentially store HD resolutions. Now, before you get too worked up about the idea, let me just say that this is a format specific to China, and most likely will remain that way.

Apparently licensing fees for the regular DVD format were quite prohibitive to Chinese distributors, so they were seeking their own format to save money. China plans to switch over to the EVD format completely by 2008, and will start exporting the players to other countries early next year, although no U.S. studios have announced plans to support it.

I guess the only effect it may have in North America (and New Zealand) is that it throws a bit of a monkeywrench into the foreign bootleg market. Will I have to buy an EVD player just so I can continue to get $2 DVDs from the Pacific Mall?

Source Film Junk

Apple's Got Game

Apparently it's all over the internet, again. Sparked by a report by Prudential analyst Jesse Tortora, who offered his opinion that Apple is considering entering the gaming console market. This is not the first time we've seen this particular rumor. Perhaps it keeps coming up because the notion is so very tantalizing. I mean, who wouldn't want to see underdog Apple go up against Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo with some sort of slick, innovative new game machine?

Even thought it's nothing but speculation, Tortora makes a solid argument for, pointing out that Xbox and Sony are already encroaching on iTunes' territory as king of digital music and movie downloads. The 360 and PS3 are ready to battle it out with Apple's iPod and upcoming iTV devices, but the games consoles offer more capabilities. By this logic, not entering the console market could actually harm Apple more.

Of course this wouldn't be the first time Apple have looked at Game Consoles...

Mel Gibson Kills Penguins

Ok, so I could be accused of blatant sensationalism, or outright lying, but hey, it sounded so good in my head! The real truth to the matter is that Apocalypto has done what Casino Royale couldn't - and that is knock Happy Feet off the US number one spot with Sony's The Holiday claiming the number two spot. Happy Feet and Casino Roayle both dropped two spots to 3 and 4 respectively, with Bond on track to claiming moore moolah that any other bond.

Yet Another Jesus Movie?

Film Junk has news that Brian Grazer has set up a deal with Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment to produce Prodigal Son, a romantic comedy about a single mother who goes on a date with a guy that actually turns out to be Jesus Christ.

While he awaits the Apocalypse, Jesus it seems has decided to make a living as an Ikea carpenter. Seriously. The movie is being written by Mimi James and Grazer’s wife Gigi, who apparently had the idea while driving around one night contemplating signs of Armageddon. “You see something basic like Britney Spears showing her crazy monkey to everybody, you find yourself thinking, is this the fall of the Roman Empire?”

Although one’s first instinct would be to see the potential for controversy here, it sounds like they’re going to make it fairly inoffensive and light-hearted in tone. I am guessing it will be similar to something like Bruce Almighty, and I could actually see it being very successful. On the other hand, Kevin Smith’s Dogma did manage to cause quite an uproar, so who knows…

At World's End

With only five months to go before its release and with the record-shattering US release of Dead Man's Chest on DVD, the media onslaught for Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End is now starting to take shape and will only grow in intensity in the ensuing months so in no time you'll be up to your eyepatch in At World's End imagery.

To start off with we have a poster and pic courtesy of Joblo.com. I suppose if you haven't seen Dead Man's Chest then the picture below could be considered a spoiler but, really, at this point, you should have at least heard that Captain Barbossa makes a return to the Caribbean to help Jack get into more trouble.

Dead Man's Chest

There are movies that absolutely kill at the box office, and there are movies that only find their audience later on DVD. And then there are movies that do both.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is apparently one of those movies. Disney has announced that the Pirates sequel sold an amazing 5 million copies in its first day available on DVD, and that it is on pace to break the record for best-selling live action movie on DVD.

That record is currently held by — you guessed it — Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which sold 16 million DVDs (plus another 2 million on VHS). The current record holder for all-time DVD sales is Finding Nemo, with a staggering 27 million.

Anyway, I guess now those rumours of Pirates of the Caribbean parts 4, 5 and 6 aren’t looking so crazy anymore.

Joyeux Noel

Rating: M - Contains Violence & Sex Scenes.
Duration: 115 mins.
Genre: Festival & Foreign.
Actors: Benno Furmann, Gary Lewis, Guillaume Canet, Daniel Brühl, Diane Kruger, Dany Boon.
Director: Christian Carion.
Release Date: Available Now.

Joyeux Noel is a considerably fictionised story based on a true event that happened in the middle of the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen. As the Scottish and French regiments faced off against there German enemy in the pointless war of attrition that was trench warfare in the First World War. The men were given hope by their superiors, safe behind the frontlines that the war would be over by Christmas.

But as Christmas Eve came upon them, the men on either side realised that the war would be longer than expected as they opened their merge presents and drank or ate whatever festive fare they had.

But then a miracle happened. The Germans started to sing Silent Night, and the Scots who recognised the tune, played along on their bagpipes. Soon enough the spirit of Christmas overtook them and they gathered in no mans land and agreed on a Christmas Eve ceasefire, and traded gifts, talked, played football, before returning to their trenches.

It was a moment of pure joy for most involved, one that showed that the human spirit could transcend the ugliness of war.

The nature of trench warfare meant that most of the movie could be shot on a single set, but this doesn’t take away from the attention to detail, as the movie focuses on the everyday, forcing the viewer to realise that even in the face of extreme hardships, men will hold on to any and every piece of humanity that they can, be it an alarm clock that rings to remind you that you used to have tea with your mother at 10am, or a picture of your wife who you haven’t seen for a year.

It’s this focus on the everyday, the mundane that slows Joyeux Noel down from time to time. But it’s this same focus that give the movie it’s distinctiveness and reality that sets up the emotional roller coaster of the impromptu Christmas Eve cease fire and the consequences that follow.

And it’s not to say that the slowness of some parts of the movie will have you any less in its grip, as it’s the storyline and the personalities that attach themselves to your heart, and make you hold out for their survival.

With the movie being about three different regiments, all hailing from different countries, Joyeux Noel is a mixture of English spoken dialogue and French and German with English subtitles. This works amazingly well, and lends an air of authenticity to the whole affair.

Beautifully filmed with a subtle score, Joyeux Noel is a movie that is bound to become a Christmas classic, offering an air of hope in a time of darkness.

Food for thought:
Could you put your grievances aside for just one night and celebrate with your sworn enemy?

Rent or Buy?
Buy it; this is one movie you won’t regret watching at least once a year!

iTunes NZ Now Open!

Now Open: The New iTunes Store

Visit New Zealand’s newest entertainment superstore and start building your collection of digital music, music videos, audiobooks, podcasts, and iPod games from the comfort of your computer. Simply launch iTunes 7 on your PC or Mac and click “iTunes Store.” Any time, day or night, you can find and buy what you want in mere seconds. And you can even give gifts with just a few clicks.

So came the news this morning, but alas, the front end does look a little bare, and as per our Aussie cousins, no TV shows or Movie downloads...

Source Dave5 and instructions from polg

Halo 3

Hitman Drops Diesel

There’s been talk of a movie based on the Hitman video games for some time now, and it looks like it might be about to get off the ground. The screenplay has been completed by Skip Woods (Swordfish), with Luc Besson co-producing. The director however is still TBA.

The thing that might get up a few peoples noses is the fact that Vin Diesel, who has long been attached to the role, seems to have been dropped from the project. It sounds a bit odd, I mean, Diesel would have been a slam dunk in this role since he’s a gamer, a fanboy fave, and, well — he’s also bald.

In reality however, it’s not like a video game character is that hard to cast. In his place, they have brought aboard Timothy Olyphant, who is best known for his work on Deadwood. Since I still have never seen an episode of Deadwood, I can’t really comment on the choice.

A Very Un-PC Bond

I’d finished reading Saint yesterday so decided to pick up my bought-it-to-take-camping copy of Casino Royale for some lunchtime reading. I’ve only ever read one Bond book, Dr No. a few years back and had forgotten just how un-PC Ian Fleming was…

On page 13, Fleming writes of Bond: Then he lit his seventieth cigarette of the day. That’s right, super spy James Bond is gonna die of lung cancer, smoking his life away at the rate of seventy cigs a day!

And on page 33 Fleming lets off a sexist remark that would have him lynched today, again from the mind of Bond: And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. Women were for recreation. On the job, they got in the way.

Ouch.

Bully

Rockstar felt the need to change the name of their controversial game Bully to Canis Canem Edit for the New Zealand and Australian markets. Maybe they should have been more honest and renamed it Boring.

Loosely based around the GTA game play that made them famous, Bully sounded like a winner from the day it was announced. Of course all the PC cry babies kicked up a fuss even before the game had been created, citing Rockstar’s many incarnations of GTA as proof that this would take homicidal game play to the school yard and therefore teaching otherwise good kids, to kill.

Of course as with most anti-game ranters, there was little in the way of substance to their claims, and in the case of Bully, a whole lot less than little.

Now let me say something up front. I think that Bully is a great premise for a game, and I think that Rockstar is the only company that could do the game justice. But with the delays associated with game design, they should have really jumped ship and launched Bully on the XBox 360.

You see the biggest annoyance with bully isn’t the poor graphics of the PS2, no; it’s the constant waiting around for the next part to load every time you enter a new building. Especially when entering buildings is all you ever seem to be doing.

Having the entire initial part of the campus available without load times would have gone a long way to ease my frustration. But not totally. You see what Bully doesn’t have in spades that its grown up cousin, GTA, does, is plenty to do outside of missions.

The school day exists of doing a couple of missions, attending a few classes and going to bed. Creep around too late at night, and if you manage to evade the ever-present prefects, come 11pm you’ll collapse on the spot from exhaustion.

And if you’re not good at word play, you’ll be even more frustrated when you find your self having to solve word puzzles to pass your English class.

What did make the crossover from GTA however is the humour. Walk around and listen to what the other kids are saying, and that old familiar smile will creep across your face.

And as for the bullying, sure you can go up to anyone and start a fight, but soon enough the prefects will come running and wrestle you to the ground and it will be off to the principles office.

But fighting isn’t avoidable in Bully (that’ll make the anti-game brigade happy), it’s and integral part of the game. One particular mission sees you helping a fat kid get to the toilet by walking with him and dispatching of any bullies that try and, well, beat him to a pulp.

In fact many of the missions require you to be someone’s guardian angel.

But it’s the fact that there isn’t a whole city to explore at will, and that there is next to no option what order you do missions in and the repetitive nature of the game that saw me give up in utter frustration and boredom after three hours of game play.

Another Jesus Movie?

Paul Verhoeven, director of such films as Robocop, Showgirls, and Basic Instinct, recently told Empire Magazine that he is working on a movie about “Jesus the human being”, which would try to portray his life story based solely on historical fact.

“It really goes into the politics of the time and tries to show a lot of things that have been buried and eliminated by Christianity. My scriptwriter told me not to do the movie in the United States because they might shoot me.”

Possibly more The Da Vinci Code than The Passion of the Christ? Apparently Verhoeven is a member of the Jesus Seminar , a group of scholars who are trying to unravel, with as much historical accuracy as possible, exactly what Jesus may have said or done during his lifetime.

Considering that his newest film Zwartboek (Black Book) is a serious thriller about a Jewish girl who hides out during WWII and joins a resistance movement afterwards, could it be that we’re starting to see Verhoeven’s career moving in a more mature direction?

Tokyo Drift

Rating: M - Contains Adult Themes.
Duration: 104 mins.
Genre: Action & Adventure.
Actors: Lucas Black, Lil Bow Wow, Sung Kang.
Director: Justin Lin.
Release Date: Available Now.

Storyline and acting all play second fiddle to the cars and the action in the candy floss boy racer series The Fast And The Furious, and the third installment is no different.

Of course, staying true to the first two movies, the story line and the actors are all different, but that’s ok, cause by now we know enough not to expect an extension to the previous storyline. Having said that, there is however a treat in store for fans of the first movie.

So the basic plot is poor boy street racer Shaun Boswell picks a race with a rich kid in his new school, and it goes horribly wrong. To escape time in Juvenal hall, his mom (it’s American, so it’s his mom, ok?) sends him to live with his dad in Tokyo.

Of course, the boy doesn’t change his ways and soon gets caught up in the world of Japanese Drift racing. Here it’ not so much about straight-line speed, but your ability to control you car whilst drifting (call it sliding if you want) around the corners.

Shaun of course sucks at it, but with the right connections and a whole movie, he soon nails it.

Oh, did I mention that he falls for the girlfriend of yakuza-connected, current drift king, the aptly named D.K.?

Yeah, this brings all manner of pain for Shaun, but nothing can put him off the two prizes he has his eyes set on.

So with some very similar themes to the first movie after all, Tokyo Drift’s real weight lies in the action and cinematography and in these two categories it disproves the you-can-never-keep-making-good-sequels theory. Tokyo Drift has all the action and special effects/cinematography eye candy that you could wish for.

The action coupled with the Japanese nuances make for an interesting and entertaining look into the drift culture that keeps the whole affair fresh.

Tokyo Drift ends up having all the expected elements from the first two movies, and then some, making it easily the best movie in the franchise to date.

Food for thought:
How much of your life are you prepared to gamble?

Rent or Buy?
Buy it; if you don’t like it you can give it to me!

Viva Piñata

Viva Piñata is Microsoft’s foray into family friendly games, and one that has been building up the excitement levels in gamers since details started to come through about it earlier in the year.

Cute, cuddly and colourful, Viva Piñata is a world of joy just waiting to be created. You start off with a barren piece of wasteland, and with a little help from your friends you have to tidy it up and created a living, breathing eco-system that grows before your eyes.

What’s so exciting about cleaning up a bit of wasteland you ask? Well, as soon as you start making a difference, you’ll attract the attention of some Piñata. These black and white Piñata will change to full colour if they decide they like what you’ve done and want to stay.

It’s from this point on that things start to get interesting. You see Piñatas all have needs. These needs range from environmental needs to housing needs. If you don’t keep them happy they won’t hang around.

And then there’s the bad Piñata. All they want to do is destroy what you’ve spent all your time creating. There’s only two ways to deal with these naughty little lolly carrying devices, and that’s whack them with your spade and watch the lollies explode everywhere. Or, you could try and bring them round to being a nice Piñata. But that sounds like too much work for me!

Of course, just because you’ve got a garden of good Piñata doesn’t mean things won’t go wrong. Some Piñata like to eat other Piñata. It doesn’t make them bad, it’s just that they’re hungry and are looking down the food chain. Then there’s Piñata that just don’t get on. Fights will result and medical bills will have to be paid, by you!

Of course, if you’ve been careful in your planning, you will have room in your small beginner garden to put up a fence to keep warring, or hungry, Piñata apart.

Basically Viva Piñata is a micro-management game along the lines of Sim City and The Sims, but with the cuteness and fun factor turned up past maximum!

The game play as with most Sims games is open ended. There’s no defining moment where you ‘win’ the game. No definitive target to achieve. You get to play how you want to play. Sure, the game will try and encourage you along a certain path, and by doing so you will gather points that enable you to unlock new features, but essentially its up to you what speed you want to travel this road.

All in all, Viva Piñata lives up too all expectations, and then some. It’s an addictively fun game, which also challenges the brain. It’s appeal ranges across the board, reaching far past the ‘kids game’ genre it’s likely to be labeled with.

Live Free or Die Hard

This picture from the set of the new Die Hard movie Live Free or Die Hard is doing the rounds, and it looks like poor old Bruce baby, along with having to deal with his arch enemy, needs to take a toilet break...

The latest Die Hard movie will star (obviously) Bruce Willis and the relatively unknown Justin Long who played an uber geek in Galaxy Quest.

When a criminal plot is in place to take down the entire computer and technological structure that supports the economy of the United States (and the world), it's up to a decidedly "old school" hero, police detective John McClane (Willis), to take down the conspiracy, aided by a young hacker (Long).

Shooting is currently taking place in Pasadena and is set for release in the States in June 07 and in New Zealand some time this millennium...

Axel Foley is Back!

You heard that right… Eddie’s bringing back Axel Foley baby! This week the rumours of a 4th Beverly Hills Cop film have been confirmed by Variety, who report that Eddie Murphy is working closely with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Paramount to revive the franchise.

Is it just me, or are they trying to bring back every successful franchise from my childhood? We have Rocky this Christmas, Rambo next year, Die Hard in the works, what's next, Police Academy 56?

It’s definitely a bit of a risk… Beverly Hills Cop III bombed at the box office, despite the success of the first two. There’s also the fact that a lot of moviegoers may never have seen any of the original films, so they’ll have to work at making Axel hip and current, which in turn could go terribly wrong!

The big question I guess, is after all those Daddy Daycare type movies, does Eddie still have any action genes left in him?