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Monday, April 3rd, 2006

King Kong on DVD

After the success of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson could pretty much write his own ticket. Any movie studio in Hollywood would let him make any movie he wanted. They were willing to throw money at him. So what did he want to do?

He wanted to remake King Kong!

I can almost imagine the conversation...

Movie Bigwig: So, Petey baby! That fantasy flick did good. Did really good. You did real good.
Jackson: Thanks.
Movie Bigwig: But that’s the past. We need to think of the future. That’s where money is, Petey baby, the future!
Jackson: Of course, sir.
Movie Bigwig: So, what’s next? What do you want to do next? Anything you want, Petey-baby, anything you want! You did good!
Jackson: Well, I want to remake...
Movie Bigwig: Remake? Good thinking, Petey baby! Remakes make money. The suckers are eating up this nostaglic fad. Good thinking!
Jackson: ...remake King Kong.
Movie Bigwig: ...
Jackson: See, it’s a classic story, full of adventure, romance...
Movie Bigwig: Uh, Petey baby, are you sure? I mean, King Kong?
Jackson: Yeah! I’ll get Weta working on it again, it’ll look fantastic. We’ll have a sweeping story, great views of 1933 New York...
Movie Bigwig: Maybe you want to do a sequel instead? A Lord Of The Rings 4 - The Return Of Sauron? Or that Habit...
Jackson: Hobbit, sir
Movie Bigwig: Yeah, that Hobbit story.
Jackson: No, I’d like to do King Kong.
Movie Bigwig: ...errm...hruph...well... okay, but only cause you did good. You best know what you’re doing, Jackson!

So, about the DVD: one thing people should be aware of is that the film is over three hours long. Three hours, which is about one hour longer than your pals are willing to stick around watching a movie at your place, cause they have to work the next day. I’ve seen the first two-thirds of this movie more often than the rest of the DVD. Also, there’s a big buildup, setting the time period and locale, setting up New York, taking time to introduce characters and love interests... for those of us who want to see giant monkeys fight T-Rexs, we have to wait over an hour before Kong is revealed.

Is this bad? No, the movie is beautifully shot. The casting is great. I even like Jack Black in this flick, and I’ve always detested Jack Black’s low brow comedy movies. All I’m saying is that you need to schedule a significant portion of your free time to watch this flick in one sitting.

If, like myself, you got the two disc DVD set, you’ve probably gone through the special features, and don’t need me to go over them. :) But for those of you who haven’t, the second disc has three bits. One is a long series of production documentary sorts, many of which appeared on the promo website. These things are great, as you get the behind the scenes look and see how much work goes into these films.

The other two are so-so at best. A bit on New York in the early 1930s is educational, but short, and is only about the history and research. The bit on Skull island is better, but again, rather short. It’s set up as a history film reel, the kind you see in elementary school. It talks about some of the thinking and back history in setting up Skull island, stuff that justifies dinosaurs and savages and crumbling ruins. All cool stuff. Unfortunately, it ends way too early, and, annoyingly enough, plugs an art book at the end.

If I had to choose again, I wouldn’t have bothered with the two disc version, I’d have gotten the cheaper, one disc, widescreen version (does anyone still buy fullscreen?).

Tuesday, March 28th, 2006

Hybrid Vehicles Becoming More Diverse

It started with the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight. Though these are still the most prevelant hybrid vehicles on the market today, the more progressive car companies are starting to get rolling with their hybrid lines. Canadian Driver Magazine is conducting a long term test on the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius Hybrid looking at how hybrid vehicles perform in the Canadian driving environment.

Hybrid Long-term Test: 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid and 2006 Toyota Prius, runs down the differences and similarities of the two cars paying attention to the price as well as general explanations of how the two hybrid engines function to make these vehicles fuel efficient. Honda it seems has taken a hint from Toyota over the last year or two and changing the hybrid engine in its new Civic so that it can run on battery alone. Honda’s previous incarnation of the engine only had the electic engine running as added power to the fuel efficient gasoline engine which did nothing for fuel efficiency at lower city speeds.

It won’t be long now until we see a more diverse hybrid market which will start to push pricing down. The more people who can afford this technology, the better it will be for our environment. An oil dependent society like ours needs to find a way to thrust aside that petroleum crutch, and do that fast. Hybrid technology is only the start though. Once we have that sorted out, we are going to have to keep making those forward steps and hopefully see the day when the only oil we see is cooking oil.

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006

Burning Chrome

I am currently reading a short anthology of short stories called "Burning Chrome" by Canadian author William Gibson. My first experience with William Gibson, like that of many others, was a book titled "Neuromancer" which described a future world dystopia of technology run rampant. His writing style is very visual, which brings images, smells, tastes, and sensations right to the surface of your imagination.

The short stories in "Burning Chrome" and Gibson's other books are the colourful setting of what we call the cyberpunk genre of writing. The Keanu Reeves movie "Johnny Mnemonic" was loosely based on the short story of the same name. A number of the other stories in the book influenced the look of that movie. The coffin motels described with such detail you can almost feel the claustrophobic confines. The future vision that Gibson wrote two decades ago has ironically begun to manifest today. The line between human and machine has begun to blur. Implanted microchips, RFID technology, hacker society, alternative fuel sources, and the destruction of the environment. Sometimes I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I see our world moving inexorably toward that science fiction come true.

Movies like Bladerunner, The Matrix, and Johnny Mnemonic and the Shadowrun RPG were prime influences for me to seek out William Gibson as an author. If I had known about authors like Gibson while I was still in school, I probably would have become a more erudite reader. Needless to say, if you like the cyberpunk genre, you should definitely look up Mr. Gibson.