Movie Review -- Gone Baby Gone

"Gone Baby Gone" is the news story that makes you ask, "Why do I watch the news?" It's the 60 Minutes feature on sex tourism. It's the home invasion on a sunny, weekday afternoon. It's the store owner who kills two intruders after enduring 20 robberies in the previous 6 months. "Gone Baby Gone" shows you the things you didn't want to see, asks you the questions you didn't want to be asked, and forces you to reconsider your basic understanding of right and wrong.

What can you say about the cast and crew for this film? In my opinion, this movie should capture Best Director, Best Lead Actor, and Best Supporting Actor (Ed Harris) without blinking. Whether or not the winds in Hollywood will blow that way, who knows. Regardless, if you see this movie, you'll see a promising new director, an up and coming actor at the top of his game, and a seasoned veteran delivering another stunning performance.

Directed by Ben Affleck and starring his brother Casey Affleck, "Gone Baby Gone" is the story of the kidnapping of a 4 year old girl, her family, the police, and the private investigators hired to find her. Casey Affleck plays Patrick Kenzie, a PI with connections in the neighborhood where the abduction took place. He and his girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) are hired by the kidnapped girl's Aunt to help in the investigation. From there, the movie takes you on an emotional roller coaster ride following the search for the little girl.

With enough f-words to make Ozzy blush, it was hard not to count each expletive in expectation of the movie setting a new record. Whether I adjusted to the pace or it slowed down, I don't know, but I became so engrossed in the movie and its characters that I soon forgot about the cursing altogether. Had I left like the man in front of me, I would have missed out on an interesting experience.

Interesting experience...that's about the best way I can sum up "Gone Baby Gone". During the movie, I felt uncomfortable, angry, sad, disgusted, and confused. I can only think of one movie I've seen that had a similar impact, "Million Dollar Baby". Though unrelated in terms of plot, both movies leave you wishing a moral compass was more than just a clever literary device.

Movie Review: The Bourne Ultimatum

For the 3rd straight time, the Bourne franchise brought a nauseating ride on the shakey cam train. Why the director chooses to do this is beyond me, and it brings a truly great movie down to average status. Not only are the fights shakey in this one, but the director seems so obsessed with the hurl inducing effect that he even gives it to us on standard fare like sitting at a table talking.

In this episode, we catch up with Bourne digging further into Treadstone accompanied by some of the usual suspects along with a few new faces. Pamela Landy returns to inject some sanity into the chase, and Nicky Parsons manages to get tangled up in the story as usual. Ezra Kramer and Noah Vosen assume the mantle as Bourne's foils, and a new crop of agents work under their direction in this new pursuit.

Except for the shakey cam, this is a great movie, far better than the 2nd movie and equal to the first. Through a clever series of events, the movie manages to make you believe every character is fair game when the bullets are flying. It even throws some surprise twists and turns and ultimately brings the franchise to a satisfying conclusion. My only caution is that you should sit as far from the screen as possible.

Weinsteins and Blockbuster Screw Consumers

What the hell is the deal with exclusivity arrangements? I've been supportive of Grindhouse both financially and around the Internet, and what do I find out at Blockbuster last week? The Weinsteins have given Blockbuster an exclusive rental arrangement on all of their films. Of course, as you probably noticed, I was in Blockbuster so I am a customer, but I'm only a customer when I have a weekend where I want to watch several movies (very rare). Netflix is my normal rental company, and before you ask, I don't like them much better than Blockbuster. You can read more here:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2006-11-15-blockbuster-weinsteins_x.htm

So how is this bad for me? Or the Weinsteins? Or Blockbuster?

It's bad for me because I don't much like Blockbuster. They're basically a brick and mortar monopoly around here, and they're overpriced and deceptive to the extreme. Netflix isn't much better, but at least it keeps some competition alive. Aside from that, I might not find out about good Weinstein movies because they aren't available at Netflix.

It's bad for the Weinsteins because a lot of their target audience are probably Netflix subscribers. That's a complete guess, but if you're putting out movies like Clerks II and Grindhouse, you might want a more Internet friendly audience.

For Blockbuster...I'm going to do business with them even less now that I know they're using their size and influence to attempt to lock a competitor out of the market.

Now my only problem is figuring out how to watch a couple of the Weinstein movies featured at Blockbuster without rewarding their arrangement...

Movie Review: The Reaping

Starring Hilary Swank, The Reaping tells the story of a Christian minister who lost her faith and now debunks miracles for a living. In a small Louisiana town, her faith in science is challenged when confronted with what appear to be the Biblical plagues.

Swank and Elba deliver solid performances, and if you close your eyes at the right time, you might think Liam Neeson was playing Doug, the town's science teacher. It seems David Morrissey conjured Neeson's Nell performance or something when preparing for the roll.

It's not all that scary, but it has a few moments. Swank's character's lack of belief actually justifies some of the silly things horror movie characters do so that was unique. And then at the end, we do get a bit of a twist. Beyond that, though, there's nothing much to say. Signs by M. Night Shyamalan might be a better choice if you're looking for a story about belief and faith.

You can see the trailer below:

Movie Review: Grindhouse

It's been only 2 hours since I emerged from the first Grindhouse matinee of the day. Only a few minutes ago, someone said to me they heard Bruce Willis and Kurt Russell were in a movie so bad it was good. At least, that's what the local newspaper review led them to believe. Apparently the reviewer was out of the loop because this work is so good, it's incredible.

If you don't know, Grindhouse is Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's homage to the B-movie, drive-in double-feature of the 70's. This includes Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof. Adding to the authenticity, they were nice enough to scratch the film, lose some scenes, and even break the projector here and there. That wasn't enough, though. They took it a step further and gave us throwback commercials, fake trailers, and even some blurry credits. The entire package is designed with one goal in mind...entertainment. And to that end, it delivers.

First up at the Grindhouse, the fake trailer for Machete. Rodriguez staples Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin deliver the best looking trailer of the bunch. Trejo walks some familiar territory as Rodriguez filmed one scene almost straight from Desperado. The end result is so good I wanted to see the movie, and based on some of the comments around the web, that just might happen.

After some antique ratings and feature presentation banners, we get the first full-length movie, Planet Terror. Rodriguez hauled out the fake blood and body parts by the truckloads, and with tongue fixed squarely in cheek gives us lines like "I never miss," in a classic zombie romp. The missing reel was timed so beautifully that the audience groaned audibly in disappointment, but it wasn't long before Cherry (Rose McGowan) had a machine gun for a leg replacing disappointment with laughter. If you took Planet Terror seriously, you would think it was absurd, but knowing the intent, it's genius.

At intermission, Grindhouse gave us some fake food commercial along with 3 more trailers. Unfortunately, the facilities beckoned so I really only saw the fake trailer Werewolf Women of the SS. The cameo (can you call an appearance in a fake trailer a cameo???) toward the end is the payoff and had the audience in stitches. Eli Roth and Edgar Wright deliver the other two trailers which I'll leave alone since I didn't see them in context.

Moving on...we finally get Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Make no mistake...this is a Quentin Tarantino movie even if it's also paying tribute to a genre. What does that mean? It means the movie might seem to be moving slow because he's building characters through dialog. But make no mistake, there will be a payoff in the end.

Death Proof is about Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) and his "death proof" stunt car. To say more might spoil it for you so I'll leave it at that. You can infer more from the trailer, but it would be great to go into this one knowing nothing about it. Again, we get hit with a missing reel at a key moment eleciting another set of groans from the mostly male audience. One can only hope they find all of them for the DVD release...

The real focus, though, is the car chase. Tarantino wanted to make a great car chase without CGI, and he did just that. Casting a real stuntwoman (Zoe Bell) as herself in the movie was genius, and lets Tarantino get away with whatever camera work he wanted during the car chase as he's not trying to hide anyone's face. The chase was so good, the entire audience applauded...something I haven't seen here in a theater for years.

My recommendation is get out and see Grindhouse. It's quite an experience. You can watch the trailer below:

DVD CCA vs. Kaleidescape

Slashdot reported the great news that Kaleidescape delivered a TKO to the DVD CCA in the case brought by the DVD CCA regarding Kaleidescape's media server business. If you've been reading long (yeah, like I have regular readers), you'll know I first blogged about the battle over 2 years ago. Unfortunately, the judge only decided this based on the fact that the contract was poorly worded and ommitted an important part of the Content Scramble System specification. This basically means that the DVD CCA just needs to modify its agreement to eliminate future media servers. I don't believe the article linked by Slashdot when it says more companies will enter the market.

The Anti-300 Petition (Spoilers)

Over at Filmstalker, Richard tells us that a certain Dr. Nasab has created an online petition against the movie 300 for its portrayal of Xerxes and the Persian army. Let's take their objections one-by-one.

They write:

It is a proven scholarly fact that the Persian Empire in 480 B.C was the most magnificent and civilized empire. Established by the Cyrus the great, the writer of the first human right declaration, Persians ruled over significant portions of Greater Iran, the east modern Afghanistan and beyond into central Asia; in the north and west all of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the upper Balkans peninsula (Thrace), and most of the Black Sea coastal regions; in the west and southwest the territories of modern Iraq, northern Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, all significant population centers of ancient Egypt and as far west as portions of Libya. Having twenty nations under control, encompassing approximately 7.5 million square kilometers, unquestionably the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity.


Now, does this have anything to do with the movie? No. The only part of Persian history addressed in the movie is the Battle of Thermopylae.

Moving on:

Based on the Zoroastrian doctrine, it was the strong emphasis on honesty and integrity that gave the ancient Persians credibility to rule the world, even in the eyes of the people belonging to the conquered nations (Herodotus, mid 5th century B.C). Truth for the sake of truth, was the universal motto and the very core of the Persian culture that was followed not only by the great kings, but even the ordinary Persians made it a point to adhere to this code of conduct.


In reading a little about the Zoroastrian Doctrine, it does not appear that killing to expand an empire and rule its people meshes with its core ideals. But again, it's nice to know these things about Persia, but they aren't part of the movie.

Finally something on-topic:

We did not expect Warner Bros. Picture company, as one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment to ignore the proven obvious historical facts, and damage its own reputation by showing the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae as some monstrous savages, and thus create an atmosphere of public mistrust in its content, and hurt the national pride of the millions of Persians while doing so.


So the only relevant grievance we see in this entire letter is that Persians were represented as "monstrous savages". It's obvious Frank Miller took some creative license with the appearance of the Immortals along with a couple of deformed, monster-like Persians. In both cases, though, the appearance was to an extreme that seemed fictional.

Who did the movie really portray as monstrous savages? It seemed to me the Persians kept trying to reason with the Spartans, and all but once, the Spartans bloodied them for it. We also saw deformed people living amongst the Persians whereas the Spartans discarded them as infants. The Spartans also tolerated and followed religious figures who seemingly kidnapped and raped Spartan women. Spartan law required male children to leave their parents and go out into the wilderness to kill or be killed.

So, who left the movie thinking the Persians were the savages? I didn't. I think the real problem here is that the movie sets it up for the Persians to be the bad guys, and you know what? They were. As savage as the Spartans were, it was the Persians who were the goliath trying to conquer Greece, and most of us are wired to root for the underdog.

Pan's Labyrinth Limited Release

Update: My city is now listed on the official website even if I can't find a theater claiming to run it. We'll see what happens, but maybe the studio is making some progress on getting the movie out for people to see.

You know, there's nothing more annoying than the pathetic movie studio system where they milk every penny they can get out of the theaters, then move to pay-per-view, and finally pick up the scraps with DVD sales/rentals. I really would like to see Pan's Labyrinth, and it's one of a very few movies I want to see at the theater. But as far as I can tell, it's not going to be showing where I live...ever. By the time it comes out on DVD, I may not care about seeing it anymore, or maybe I will care. Either way, it's a stupid move by the studio to alienate potential fans who could earn it more money by good word of mouth and positive reviews.

Movie Review: The Departed (Spoilers)

Starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin, you just knew going in that this movie would be something special. The only question mark was Martin Scorcese. I know, I know...he's a legend in the business, everything he touches is brilliant...blah, blah, blah. I just want to know if I'm going to see wonderfully directed boredom like Gangs of New York or something interesting like The Aviator. Not only was this not another outing like Gangs of New York, in my opinion, this movie surpassed The Aviator and rose to the level of Goodfellas or Raging Bull.

The Departed tells a not unfamiliar story of the mafia and the police, but in this story, we have moles on both sides of the fence. Nicholson plays the mafia boss forward-thinking enough to work a neighborhood kid into the police force and up the chain of command. Martin Sheen, Mark Whalberg, and Alec Baldwin work in the police force trying to catch Nicholson's character using Billy Costigan, an undercover cop played by DiCaprio. The story devolves into a battle between the moles to uncover each other and survive attacks from both sides.

Each performance in The Departed is brilliant in its own right, but two actors really elevated it beyond the usual fare. DiCaprio played the role of Costigan, the undercover cop, so unhinged that you literally had no idea what he might do next. Would he kill his contacts in the police force and join the mafia permanently?
Who knows? On the screen less than most, Baldwin turned in some well-needed comic relief by creating an extreme characterization of a Boston detective. With lines like "Patriot Act! Patriot Act! I love the Patriot Act!" you have to believe Baldwin added a little of his own sarcastic flavor to the role. Aside from that, I think that was his only line without an expletive so I had to use it.

If you can handle lying, stealing, cheating, murdering, stabbing, cussing, etc., I highly recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Bloodrayne

Being a fan of vampire movies in general, the first glimpse I caught of Bloodrayne came through its teaser trailer. While it definitely wasn't going to be Oscar-worthy, the teaser still caught my interest. At the time, I had not seen an Uwe Boll movie nor heard reviews of any. In fact, I had no idea who he was. Starring Kristanna Loken from Terminator 3 alongside Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Billy Zane, and Udo Kier, it came as a surprise to see all of the negative press.

For quite some time, Bloodrayne has been hanging out at the bottom of my Netflix queue. After a while, it seemed a good idea to drop it, but Dave at Filmrot had to write a review about how funny he though the movie was (unintentionally). So, I decided to join the game by watching a Boll movie.

My first Boll movie got off to a smashing start. The silly thing wouldn't even play in my Myth TV system. For some reason, the DVD drive couldn't read the disc. I should have taken that as a sign and sent the movie right back to Netflix. But, no...I just had to pull out the laptop and give it a whirl. To my horror, it played.

Now, let's be clear right up front. This movie is bad. Unlike Dave, I don't think this movie is bad in a funny way...it's bad in a sad, pathetic way. That's because all, or most, of the actors took it seriously. If they thought they were making something like Evil Dead, this might be a different review.

Anyway, how about some positives before we dive into the negatives? The locations and, to a lesser extent, the sets looked very good on screen. While I didn't spend a lot of time reviewing them in detail, they definitely did the best acting in this movie. I'm sure the Romanian countryside is thankful it didn't have any dialog.
Though I don't know the source, the background music always seemed reasonably appropriate for the action on screen. There were also a few actors in the movie attempting to do some good work. Loken tried but failed. Rodriguez and Zen pulled off the only non-cringeworthy performances albeit with one exception, Rodriguez horrible "keep your friends close..." line.

Did it seem like I was stretching for positives? Well...I was. Let's move on.

Michael Madsen, unpredictable as ever, looked like he knew Bloodrayne was in the toilet at the outset. He delivered his lines so poorly as to imply a contempt for the material. But how can you know for sure with him? Was he trying in Species? Some of the same stilted dialog showed up there. In Kill Bill 2, he was amazing, but he fell back to kindergarten reading style again in Sin City.

Madsen probably spilled the beans to Kingsley before filmming because the guy just looked miserable the whole time. Instead of a powerful Vampire villain, we have a despondent, bored, old guy sitting on a throne. You can see Kingsley thinking "what the hell have I done" as he recites lines Terminator-style (fitting, given his co-star) for the camera.

Beyond the performances and dialog in general, you have some really goofy special effects, terrible editing, and a difficult to follow story. Blood sprays all over the place during every fight scene, and limbs are hacked off in a way reminscent of a famous Monty Python skit. Flashbacks disturbed the flow of what story there was by confusing you as to whether you were watching the past or the future. Several times, characters seemed to move too slowly, especially Loken. It makes one think Boll was playing with the film speed to get the fights to look right and just didn't spend enough time on it. And the story, good grief. I seriously have no idea why Kagan needed to kill Bloodrayne. And at the end, the violence montage...who in their right mind told Boll that was a good idea?

Anyway, that's enough for Bloodrayne. If you want to have a good laugh, remember that you may need to put some effort into it.

Great New Trailers

There were some pleasant surprises at the Apple Movie Trailers site when I visited today. First is Crank. Crank stars Jason Statham and Amy Smart and centers around a hitman (Statham) who is poisoned and has only an hour to live. Needless to say, it looks like good, turn-off-your-brain fun. See the trailer here:


http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/crank/


The second is called Children of Men. The plot involves humanity's end due to women no longer being able to bear children. This film includes Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Julianne Moore not to mention Michael Caine. You can see the trailer here:


http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/childrenofmen/hd/

Movie Trailer: America: Freedom to Fascism

The Movie Blog posted an article recently about the trailer for America: Freedom to Fascism. The trailer starts off talking about the legality of taxes, and it seems to evolve into a movie about the slow erosion of the basic liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

This should be an interesting documentary whether you're conservative or liberal. What I'm most interested to see is how the government responds to the content. Will it vocally oppose it, or will it silently ignore it? The reaction should speak volumes about the content of the film.

X-Men: The Last Stand Thoughts

**** SPOILERS ****

I was able to catch X-Men: The Last Stand at a Sunday Matinee during the opening weekend. While I was somewhat lukewarm about the first and second installments of X-Men, I still found them enjoyable films that stood up to repeat viewings. Trailers for the third, however, grabbed my attention. My only disappointment was that the third didn't last longer.

Most objections to the 3rd installment of the X-Men franchise center around fans of the comic book and the film's lack of adherence to the comic book story of its characters. As has been stated on other sites, comic books movies shouldn't necessarily stick to the source material just as novels rarely follow the exact sequence of events of the book. The reason? They are different mediums. For instance, what would have happened to the Fellowship of the Ring had Peter Jackson included Tom Bombadil? Many Tolkein fans would have been pleased, but the rest? I would argue that people would have left the theater and asked for their money back. Peter Jackson's work, not Tolkein's, helped me push my way through the Bombadil chapter.

Comic fans also praise the work done by Bryan Singer in the first two films. That praise is, in my opinion, distorted. While I will grant fans that the Magneto backstory and Wolverine introduction were extremely well done, everything beyond those two pieces of the two previous movies fell short of or matched what was found in X-Men: The Last Stand.

There were cheesy lines just like the new installment. Example? "You're a dick." Wolverine to Cyclops proving his identity. Need I go on?

Both movies had the same hyperfocus on Wolverine and the love triangle with Cyclops and Jean. Don't get me wrong, I like Wolverine...I'm just saying those same distortions of time allotted to characters existed in the previous two movies causing other stories like Rogue and Iceman's relationship to take a back seat.

Both movies introduced mutants with little to no backstory who mainly served to advance action sequences or plotlines. Sabertooth and Toad qualify in the first. Deathstrike and Jason in the second.

The other knock on X-Men: The Last Stand deals with the story. Fans of the comic and critics alike tell us that there is no story and that this is all about action. I disagree. The fact is that there's a much deeper story here than there has been before. The problem for most is that it asks questions and doesn't spell out the answers in big letters written in crayon.

All of the films have dealt with fear and hatred of a minority by the majority. They also touched on government decisions toward threats, real or perceived, and some of the moral and ethical issues involved in addressing those threats. Where this film goes a step further is in asking, what would happen if the minority had the chance to become a member of the majority? The Human Stain is an interesting movie that takes a look at this topic in more depth.

The movie complicates the issue further through Xavier's discussion of Jean and her split personality Phoenix. In a conversation with Wolverine, the Professor discusses his psychic work to build walls between Jean and Phoenix because Phoenix was too powerful, the only class 5 mutant he ever found. Because of his own fear and sense of responsibility to others, the Professor "cures" Phoenix by caging her in Jean's mind. When thinking of the government's action to weaponize the cure, is it really any different than Xavier's action to cage Phoenix, one he attempts to repeat without hesitation upon learning that Phoenix has been unleashed?

Adding even more depth to the story, Xavier makes a decision on a moral/ethical question posed to his students at the beginning of the movie. The question deals with the responsibility of great power. Magneto and Phoenix, in Xavier's opinion, wield it without any sense of responsbility or greater good. However, Xavier uses his power in a way that makes us question his own sense of responsibility.

Make sure you stay after the credits to understand.

Now, would I have liked a longer movie? Unequivocally, yes. Did I think some of the dialog was stupid? Yes. Regardless, though, it was a solid action movie with a story that prompts some interesting discussions.

Movie Trailer: RV

Check out the RV trailer for a good laugh. The movie stars Robin Williams and Jeff Daniels and looks like it should be a riot.

MPAA Violates Copyright

This is just too funny not to post...

MPAA admits to unauthorized movie copying

The best part is that they cite fair-use because there is no monetary gain. And why can't I rip a DVD to a computer hard drive to play on my HTPC again????

Movie Review: Wimbledon

Even as an avid tennis player and watcher, Wimbledon never struck me as an interesting movie. In fact, it took a boring day of work and absolutely nothing decent on the television to get me to sit down and watch part of it.

Watching Wimbledon left me with one distinct impression...this was the Paul Bettany show. Mr. Bettany demonstrates what a great actor can do with mediocre material. It's unfortunate that the director soured his performance by borrowing Kevin Costner's "Clear the Mechanism" special effects from For Love of the Game during some of the matches. While Peter Colt, Bettany's character, does not actually say "Clear the Mechanism", the editing used would remind anyone of Costner's movie.

Overlooking the lack of originality introduced in editing along with a couple of exruciating dialog moments by Kirsten Dunst, Wimbledon turned out to be quite watchable with a sappy, yet poignant ending.

Movie Review: Alfie (Spoilers)

Life has dealt me an unfortunate curse...the inability to quit watching a movie.

While Alfie offers some impressive actors with great performances (Jane Krakowski for one), I just didn't find it remotely entertaining. Sure there was a lot of attractive female flesh on the screen, but watching a story about a womanizing guy screwing over everyone including himself just isn't entertaining.

My wife fell asleep after about 15 minutes of the movie (a fitting review), but I just kept on watching.

Movie Review -- AVP

Growing up, I was always a fan of the Alien movies. It seems like a lifetime ago that the first Alien popped up on HBO and scared me to death. Even though R movies were a no-no in our house, I still found time to catch a few minutes of the Alien movies here and there.

Then came Predator. What red-blooded American male wouldn't enjoy watching Predator over and over and over...you get the idea...again? Contrary to most, I even like the sequel starring Danny Glover. It's one of the only movies I've seen that portrays humans as prey for sport.

As you can now guess, I was excited to hear about Alien vs. Predator (AVP). Combining the two alien races into a common story makes perfect sense and provides endless opportunities for interesting story lines and a lot of action. If you've seen the movie, it goes without saying that Hollywood found a way to screw up something good.

Strangely enough, the backstory was one of the most interesting parts of the movie. It weaves the Predator story into human mysteries like the Pyramids and provides intriguing groundwork for how the Predators and Aliens end up fighting each other.

The rest of it was pure garbage except for far too few frames of fight sequences between Predators and Aliens. Even those, in my opinion, were poorly done and seemed more the product of flipping a coin as to who would win what battle.

Its only saving grace was the Alien-style ending which I won't spoil here.

My recommendation...wait for it to hit Saturday afternoon TBS and don't expect much.

DVD Copy Control Association Out of Control

The DVD Copy Control Association (DVDCCA) controls the gateway to any company wishing to build a product around playback of DVD content, specifically Content Scramble System (CSS) encrypted content. While DVD's can be created without CSS, most Hollywood movies employ the CSS technology in what they claim is an attempt to prevent copyright infringement. Consequently, a DVD player becomes largely useless without access to CSS encrypted content.

In truth, CSS does nothing to prevent copyright infringement. DVD's can easily be copied, CSS intact, and burned to new DVD media or distributed through the Internet. As long as the end user has a player capable of decrypgting CSS content, the bit-for-bit copy will work just as well as the original. The ultimate purpose of CSS licensing in the United States is to trample fair-use as defined by the Supreme Court.

So where are we today? While we can have iTunes happily playing iTunes Music Store purchased titles or even MP3's sampled from a legitimately purchased CD, the DVD CCA claims that we can't do the same with DVD content.

During the past couple of weeks, I've been setting up a MythTv system to provide a centralized music library, dvd library, Tivo-like functions, and a variety of other functions. In my research for that project, I stumbled onto Kaleidescape. Kaleidescape makes an absolutely incredible looking product for the sole purpose of building a DVD library. In fact, they're one of the few companies I've seen doing it. They even have a DVD CCA license to the CSS system.

So what's the problem? The DVD CCA SUED THEM!

Mark Cuban has it mostly right. Hollywood better get the message and change their ways or we'll find unencumbered content and technology. And, our democratically elected representatives better stand up and take notice, or they'll eventually find themselves without a job.

Somewhwere, someday a broadcast flag honoring Tivo will prevent a housewife from watching her recording of Days of Our Lives. It will be the beginning of the end for this kind of garbage.

DVD Review -- Shrek 2

While I thoroughly enjoyed both Shrek and Shrek 2, I have 2 major gripes...one of which is DVD related.

1. Can't Skip Promotional Material: The arrogance of Dreamworks has passed to new heights with the introduction of a children's DVD in which you CANNOT SKIP THE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL. In Disney DVD's, for instance, you can skip promotional material by using the Menu button. In Shrek 2...no dice. Use of the menu button, the chapter skip button, and who knows what else is restricted. Your only option is the fast forward button which conveniently slows back down between the Shark's Tale and Madagascar promotions.
   
   
2. Adult Content: Why must Dreamworks continue to infuse adult content into movies primarily intended for children? In Antz, characters used the word "damn" a few times. The first Shrek movie starts off with Shrek sitting on the toilet, reading a fairy tale after which he says "What a load of...", flushing the toilet at just the appropriate time. Shrek 2 adds to this dubious practice with Pinochio's thong and a "mostly true" maiden amongst other things. If this were promoted as an adult movie, I wouldn't have a problem, but Shrek is clearly marketed to children.
   
   

While Shrek 2 is very entertaining, Dreamworks' practices have forced me to seriously consider not supporting their future work.