entertainment

14 April 20063 September 2011

Internet TV gaining momentum

It was previously reported that some hollywood studios are following the example of the adult studios in putting their contents on the internet for sale and burning onto DVD. The subject of online content is gaining momentum as the availability of broadband access becomes more commonplace.

Initially, I understand that these studios are offering their content on a purchase basis which allows the user to download and burn onto DVD – once only, or something like that.

Now, Fox is planning to upload its TV reruns on the internet. They have signed revenue sharing agreements with 187 stations to allow reruns to be made available online. The article has been placed on digg.com.

What is key, though is this:

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC television network announcement earlier this week that it will offer some of its most popular shows, including “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost,” for free on an advertising-supported Web service.

Free man! And the possibility of watching the whole series in one go!

28 February 200625 January 2016

A pointless waste of time

Once again tonight, I stumbled around in a slow and weary manner.

I’m tired. I’ve lost much of what I would call a normal life. Why? Work. Stuff. This and that. So I arrive home at around 9pm. Have a quick dinner… not savouring much because my taste buds have gone. Then I glance at the newpaper I brought home and groaned… “not more reading” — I want to see some pictures and humour. I want to put a small weary smile on my face.

So I stumbled. On the net that is.

And I came across a site which put a small smile on my weary face. The site’s call Pointless Waste of Time – the only news source you’ll ever need. Quite true. It’s a waste of time, but one which gives me a completely whacked out point of view which makes it an interesting read. Yeah, I am still reading and my eyes are bloodshot… but this is funny stuff. Pointless. But funny.

Being a sci-fi buff, the guy’s article about the best sci-fi films never made is a great read. It’s a great shame that there are so few truly great sci-fi films of late. A lot of them concentrating more on the looks of the film rather than the people and the story. Oh well.

Anyway. This is what weariness does to you. You become aimless. Good night.

21 January 200625 January 2016

Getting zonked out every 24 hours

Been very busy with lots of things.

My schedule just fills up as quickly as toilet cistern. Whenever it is empty something just fills it out without asking. One of the madness that is currently consuming my wife and I in our toilet cistern life is our addition to the TV series “24”.

We’ve been watching the seasons 1 to 4 on DVD. Can’t really bother with the free-to-air Astro broadcasting because –

i keep forgetting the schedules
i cannot commit my time to the scheduled airing times
one week is too long to wait for the next episode
if I miss one episode, I’d be frustrated
censorship

The thing about 24 is the pacing is incredibly taut. Excellent stuff. Each episode ends with a cliff hanger, and the speed the story moves is frantic. Imagine getting home from work at 9 or 10pm and catching 2 or 3 episodes a night. I wake up in the morning like a zombie.

It doesn’t help that work is sometimes equally mad… like meetings that start at 0830hrs and end at 2130hrs!

20 December 200524 April 2017

Nostalgia Anime! Blocker Corp Machine Blaster

Was watching some cartoons with my kids this evening and the subject of giant robots came up. Told my son that when I was a kid my first giant robot series that I saw was Blocker Corp Machine Blaster (1976). I found the website which brought waves of nostalgia. I was around 8 years old at the time – about the age of my son now. I remembered as a kid and sharing with my friends in school drawings of the giant robots and stories about the latest episode. This was all just before my family moved to Tokyo -thereby unleashing further waves of anime mania. One of the early anime (anime at wikipedia) that my brothers and I enjoyed as kids were the Time Bokan series which includes Yattaman and its various permutations. Those were hilarious slapstick anime which we enjoyed. And then there was the Dr Slump / Arale series.

19 December 200524 April 2017

Comics to films – The Watchmen and others

Many years ago (in 1987), I picked up a graphic novel (comic book) titled “The Watchmen“. Along with Frank Miller’s intepretation of Batman in “The Dark Knight Returns“, Alan Moore’s The Watchmen led me to an interest in comic collection.

The Watchmen is a dark tale of superheroes, governments, war & conspiracy. In a nutshell, superheroes (ie Watchmen) have been outlawed unless they work for the Government. And as is often the case, power corrupts… and superheroes are not exempt from such temptations. All this in the context of a world run by fascist politicians and morally lost superheroes heading towards apocalypse. To a lesser extent, the themes from The Watchmen were even carried over in the recent Disney / Pixar flick “The Incredibles”.

The news that Warner Bros has now obtained the film rights to the Watchmen is exciting. I hope that the translation of one of the most influential comic books of all time to the silver screen would also become one of the most influential films of all time.

This news also fills me with dread that the silverscreen adaption of what is a great piece of work could bomb spectacularly – both critically and financially. To date, we’ve had mixed outcomes from superhero films. The best ones are clearly the first two Spider-man films, and to a certain extent X-Men. I love the work done on Spider-man and it deserves the best comic book film of all time.

The world’s most well known superheroes, Superman and Batman have had mixed outcomes. The recent Batman Begins, I think was a good outcome. One that I believe had mixed reviews was The Hulk. I thought that Director Ang Lee’s technique on The Hulk had some merits and the story was pretty good. However, it was not for everybody and the storyline was pretty standard comic book story. Then there are the bombs like Capt America, The Punisher, Daredevil etc. Sadly, my favourite comic book character Daredevil had been poorly adapted to the screen.

Daredevil, in my mind has all the ingredients for a great screen character. Miller’s run on the book and especially the “Born Again” saga, the “Elektra” books and subsequent limited issue runs on Daredevil. Then there is also the recent Marvel Knights treatment of Daredevil which I believe is doing fine.

So I look forward to The Watchmen film and hope that it will be a strong critical and box office success.