Local author L.J. Sellers’ Detective Jackson series shines a spotlight on the Emerald City. Five novels later the fictional Eugene Detective enjoys a growing popularity.…
Apr 15 2011 / Comments Off / Read More »
Deathly Hallows is out on Blu Ray, here’s something maybe you didn’t know… 😉
Ok, so what can I say? It’s been almost 10 years since I placed hands on my first Apple product… An iPod… An old gray one with the wheel and a grayscale screen… Remember the wheel? Ahh… I can… it was my friend’s iPod, they let be borrow it and I immediately took to it. The iPod was to be the end of my CD Walkman days, and man I had carried that thing everywhere. I had just gone back to school and the iPod changed my life. Not only did I have dozens, hell even a hundred albums, on a pocket-sized piece of hardware… But with it came iTunes– simply put, a revolution in music.
I don’t remember how long it took me to burn my ENTIRE music collection into the computer, but gone were the days of rooting through cases and carrying tons of CDs around. Now it was possible to carry TOO many albums… It wasn’t because I didn’t have to stand in front shelves of albums trying to find that one I wanted to listen to, nor was it the fact that I could have hands-free access to my tunes- it was the fact that I could have almost all of the music I needed in one spot. The age of the Playlist was here, and no longer were we constrained by the shackles of an LP, no now we could make mix-tapes with a click and a drag.
WAIT! Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the concept of “the album.” As a musician myself I know that the implementation of iTunes has only fed the fast-food music we have today, a hollow shell of the once great “industry” that had so much control… all brought down by Napster and Apple. I still buy CDs. If one of my favorite bands puts out something new, I want to hear it like it’s supposed to be heard, start-to-finish, clear-as-a-bell. Take for instance the new Foo Fighters album Wasting Light. Soundcloud.com is currently hosting the entire album for preview before it comes out tomorrow (Tuesday 4/12). The Foo Fighters also just put out a feature documentary in theaters, online, and on Paladia (it’s brilliant, watched it Friday night). This multi-media promotional technique is par for the course with today’s bands. It all also coincides with the 17-year anniversary of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death (the immortal band the Foos’ Dave Grohl played drums in). The marketing strategy has worked, no ripped copies have leaked on the internet (except for the webrip from the stream) and I personally plan on picking up the CD tomorrow. It will be the first CD I’ve bought since September of 2010 when Alice in Chains’ new album dropped.
But of course I will rip it into iTunes so I can have it on my iPhone! I listen to music on all kinds of devices these days. Whether it’s from the iPhone speaker/armband I designed and built myself (great for bike rides and having on while working, it’s music with no earbuds), or plugging it into one of the seven i-ready stereos we have (two in cars and five in the house!), music from the internal iPod App or from Pandora is ALWAYS playing. Have I mentioned I love music? My parents were huge music buffs and I’ve probably been to 50 more concerts than the average person due to my dad dragging me to Grateful Dead shows, Neil Young concerts, and Bluegrass Festivals all before I was even 15 (also explains the partial deafness- but I don’t hold a grudge).
When I got my first 5G iPod Video in 2006 I thought I was going to die. 30 gigs of music and video, I didn’t know it was possible to fill it up… until I got all 6 seasons of Family Guy (there were only 6 then). I’ve always loved movies as much if not more than music, and a portable video player that I could pre-program with my favorite movies or shows to watch on the go?! I was in heaven! Little did I know… That 5G was my last Apple product for a long, long time.
I watched the fury of the iPhone and the iTouch come and go, 3G, 3GS, etc… I was busy with other obsessions at the time (Playstation 3 had just came out). Apple’s marketing campaign got so obnoxious that I started in with the haters even before the iPhone came out. I didn’t see what the big deal was at the time. I just saw it as a fancy and expensive waste of time. Boy was I ever right. My honey came back from a business trip with an iTouch 4G two summers ago, right after it had come out. It was my first experience with the new touch screens, it humbled me, it made me eat every word I’d spoken out of envy, I immediately turned around and got a refurbished iPhone 3G, the second model.
I loved my 3G. It was slow as molasses and dropped almost every call, but it was a touchscreen, it surfed the web, and allowed me to carry any movie (or music) I wanted and on a big screen! When the iPhone 4 dropped I drooled, I saw people with them everywhere… I wanted one so bad I could taste it (tasted like strawberry strangely enough). I jailbroke my old 3G and explored the world of 3rd party apps, but it was too slow in the end… and when iPhone 3GS’s went on sale for $49 this last Christmas I knew my time had come. Sure enough I managed to squirrel away 49 bucks and bought myself a 3GS for my 34th birthday. It is lightning fast, I can only imagine how fast the iPhone 4 is. I can watch Netflix on the fly, listen to Pandora Internet Radio, update my Twitter and Facebook, post blogs, write music, schedule appointments, anything! (Well, not anything… but I love this phone).
So almost a decade, 250 million iPods, 100 million iPhones, and a $65 billion dollar net worth later, Apple is doing ok for itself. What was once a dying computer company has revolutionized the way people buy, organize, and listen to music and movies. Not bad, not bad at all.
Here’s my look at what’s in theater’s today!
Well the weekend was beautiful, and the weather was short! It’s Tuesday and that means New Releases on DVD/Blu Ray. If it’s a movie fix you need, then this week Disney has got you covered. New releases today are some of their mega-hit blockbusters from last X-Mas.
Including the elegant sequel and trilogy-opening Tron: Legacy. If you’ve never seen the original, it’s out on Blu-Ray today for the first time in 1080p HD, so get them both. These movies are worth the time and the money. In 1982 Disney brought us a little-known (surprisingly) movie called TRON. It came out when computers were new and mysterious– and it banked on that fact. It told the story of Kevin Flynn, a recently-fired software engineer who had all of his prized games stolen by a co-worker who published them as his own… Flynn gets digitized by the Master Control computer while trying to hack into the system to clear his name. He is transported to The Grid, a “digital frontier” where the evilMaster Control Program controls everything and forces to programs to compete in gladiator-style games. Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) fights against the MC program and to free The Grid for all. It’s a beautifully filmed movie that was a staple of my childhood.
Tron: Legacy picks up where the original left off, with Kevin Flynn telling his son about The Grid, and how it’s a real place that is going to change the way we see ourselves and the universe… He then tucks the boy in, goes outside, gets on his motorcycle, and disappears. 20 years later, Sam Flynn, son of Kevin, must reconcile his missing-daddy issues with his own desire to head his father’s company (Encom). Sam claims he doesn’t care, yet breaks into Encom Tower to plant a virus that will put its recent itteration of an operating system (a jab at Microsoft) on the web for free. He is a young man torn, between his need to grow and his inability to move on from his father’s abandonment. One night after Sam is arrested for the break-in, his father’s friend (and character from the original) bails Sam out of jail. He tells him he’s received a page on his old pager… from his dad’s office line at the arcade that’s been closed for 20 years. Sam investigates and gets lasered into the Grid like his dad before him. He must battle an evil power-hungry program to free his father from exile and save the world.Tron: Legacy is a totally breathtakingmovie. If you have the ability to catch it on Blu Ray- do it… The effects are astounding, the look and feel of the movie stay very close to the original… all-in-all it is a great ride for the whole family.Tron and Tron: Legacy are rated PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and brief mild language.
Next up is Disney’s Walden Studios’ The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader… another wholesome family adventure with heavy religious undertones. The younger siblings from previous films star in this continuance of the Narnian mythology. This time with an adorably priggish cousin in tow. There are some good effects, and it held my attention better than either of the last two movies… apparently this is the last of the movies with the original children in them. Didn’t C.S. Lewis put any cohesive plot arcs in these things or are they all just sequels? Either way, The Dawn Treader is rated PG for some frightening images and sequences of fantasy action.
Speaking of epic trilogies, (hopefully) the finale of the Ben Stiller/Rober De Niro clash that started withMeet the Parents,comes to DVD and Blu Ray with Little Fockers. I’m not sure if Fockerhas made it into the Oxford Dictionary yet, but it’s certainly part of the modern lexicon. It may not have started with Meet the Parents, but these sequels have beaten a dead horse… well… deader. It’s been 5 years since the last movie (in the story) and De Niro’s character is looking to hand the reigns of the family over to someone, will Ben Stiller measure up to his torture and testing? More importantly, do we care? People ask me why I like every movie I see… it’s because I choose not to watch rubbish like this. Little Fockers is rated PG-13 for mature sexual humor throughout, language and some drug content.
Also out on DVD and Blu Ray this week is a little-known Jim Carrey/ Ewan McGregor movie called I Love You Phillip Morris. It is a brilliant flick that tells the true story of Steven Russell, a man whose world is turned upside-down when he admits to his family he is gay. Russell (Carrey) lives a life of fraud, cons, and eventually prison- where he meets and falls in love with Phillip Morris (McGregor). Russell devotes himself to springing Morris from a Florida prison, pulling a series of impossible cons. I saw this movie almost a year ago and absolutely loved it. I realize that some people will have preconceptions due to its subject matter, and that’s a bummer for them. I Love You Phillip Morrisis a charming, hilarious, and unbelievable story… a must see. It is rated R for sexual content including strong dialogue, and language.
Have a great week Eugene!
So, you’re a cold-blooded killing machine from the future.. Does that mean you can’t be hot? Take for instance Summer Glau, the teenage ass-kicking cyborg sent back to protect the great John Connor. You know the story, in the future an artificial intelligence called Skynet becomes self aware and realizes mankind is a threat to its existence… So it nukes us. Afterward the machines, most called Terminators, rule the world. Skynet controls everything, and humans are being hunted to extinction. From the ashes, a hero, John Connor, rises to lead the resistance on a successful campaign to destroy the machines. In its desperation, Skynet sends a terminator back in time to 1984 to assassinate Sarah Connor before she can have the future leader of the resistance. In the future, John Connor sends his best-friend and soldier (Kyle Reese) back in time to protect his mother… Kyle ends up sleeping with her before getting killed, and actually BEING John’s father.
I’ve been a Terminator fan from, oh, let’s see mom was a huge Sarah Connor fan- so i guess 1984. I remember seeing Terminator 2: Judgement Day (the movie that the entire decade of the 80’s built up to) in the theater when I was a wee lad of 13. It was one of the last R-Rated movies I got into without parental units actually coming with me to the theater… and it changed my life. All that metal and killer-cyborgs-from-the-future turned the promising young man into a Judas Priest, Guns N Roses, and Metallica freak (for a year at least… until Seattle happened).
Is James Cameron responsible for my adolescent rebellion and macabre obsession with the dark side? I’m not saying he’s the reason… I’m just saying everything was fine until I saw his movie- played backward it says “In the name of Lucifer, spill the blood of the innocent” you know… (sorry, Judas Priest joke).
Linda Hamilton - 'The Movie' Sarah Connor
Since that quintessential movie there have been a campy sequel (T3: Rise of the Machines, just had the wrong cast- simple as that– but a brilliant twist ending) and an action-packed “super-sequel” (Terminator: Salvation, a movie that begins another Terminator trilogy, this time surrounding John Connor in the future and the fight against the machines & Skynet).
Lena Headey as Sarah Connor
Somewhere in between trilogies, came the FOX television show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (or SCC). I’d caught the first episode when it aired a few years ago, but laughed it off (like most things on FOX) and forgot about it. Leave it to Netflix… since they started their instant streaming service, I’m never without some sort of fictional escape. So in between seasons of 24 and Trailer Park Boys I decided to give Sarah Connor Chronicles a shot.
All the John Connors
It’s classic FOX TV by the way. If you’re a fan of any FOX show, you know what I mean. Heavy on melodrama, not a lot of character development, political undertones… and that distinctive FOX Filter that makes everything a little darker and grainier… basically right up Terminator’s alley. Everything that makes the Terminator series GREAT (the bad-ass cyborgs, the time-travel, the mythology) is given a TV treatment, and while it’s not the best show I’ve ever watched- It definitely leaves something to be desired when it comes to actual production. The dialogue is atrocious at best sometimes, other times the performances are so over the top that cheese actually spills out of the HDMI slot on the front of my LG… but the rest of the time it’s not bad, seriously!
The plot follows Sarah Connor, John Connor, Derek Reese (brother to Kyle, John’s father-from-the-future), and the brilliant Summer Glau as ‘Cameron’- a female Terminator known as an Infiltrator– sent back to protect John. The timeline starts post-Terminator 2 with John and Sarah on the run, evading the FBI and any cyborgs that might pop up (even though the time-travel-device was supposedly destroyed in the first movie there is a HELL of a lot of time-traveling going on in this series). They are quickly joined by Cameron, the Infiltrator, and soon become wrapped up in continued efforts to stop “Judgement Day,” the day Skynet becomes self-aware and destroys most of the human population with nukes. They time-travel from 1999 to 2007 in the first episode, that way the series can take place when it was filmed, and exists on a separate timeline than that of T3: Rise of the Machines.
The show brings a depth that most cookie-cutter action shows don’t have, mostly in part to the amazing performances by Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, and Summer Glau as the three on the run. It boils down the essence of the Terminator universe, stripping away the big action-sequences and explosions (of which there are still PLENTY), and revealing more of the humanity that lies there.
One thing I’ve always loved about the Terminator series is the parallels it draws between the machines and us humans, how when our civilization is destroyed and our humanity is strained, how much different are we from these machines? James Cameron did an excellent job in T2 to make us question where the line is between human and machine, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles expands on that. We get to see what these characters are pushed to do, how they love, fight, struggle, and ultimately (because we know the future) die…
If you’re a fan of the Terminator trilogy and haven’t checked out The Chronicles yet, do it! FOX TV made only 31 episodes (2 seasons), but this highly rated show is definitely worth kicking back with.
I’ve got lots more content over at EDN, like these movie reviews:
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!
-Toomb
Sooo… strange things are happening in your house. From late night security alarms going off, to objects moving by what seems like themselves, and what’s worse? No one believes you. It’s shrugged off as some kind of stress reaction to the recent move… or perhaps an accident in the family. Your husband starts staying at work late because he doesn’t want to deal with what is becoming a grueling home life, and you are hearing things… Like whispering voices in the baby monitor, or shuffling around in the attic. Then one night, after a fight, you roll over in bed to stare at the empty space beside you to see a man pacing back and forth on your balcony- then he’s in the room with you, coming after you, and you are alone.
In James Wan‘s latest thriller Insidious, out this last weekend, we meet Josh and Renai (and their three kids) after they’ve recently moved in to a new house. Josh is a teacher and Renai is a stay-at-home mom/songwriter who has primary daily-duty when it comes to their two older sons Dalton and Foster, and baby sister Calli. The house is a beautiful old 2-story with a full attic and basement, and Wan films it creepy from the first frame. I love a good haunted-house movie, and there haven’t been that many good ones in recent years… however Insidious makes up for all of that waiting. A movie that is so well put together and so goddamn scary, that I was periodically checking over my shoulder to see if there was an uber-creepy-old-lady-with-a-candle behind me.
When I was a kid, I watched
Poltergeist fairly early. It’s one of the first movies I remember watching besides Swamp Thing or Star Wars. It was also one of those, “I was just old enough to be severely scared” moments in life that tell more about me than 10 minutes with my analyst. I will have the image of that guy peeling his face off burned into my memory forever (thanks mom and dad). The better part of my adult life has been spent watching scary movies and horror films trying to get that same scare I got when I was a kid. There have been a few films that have truly scared me (and I’m talking jumping out of my seat, uncontrollable utterances of “Oh my god!”) over the years, like A Tale of Two Sisters, The Orphanage, The Shining, or The Devil’s Backbone… and now Insidious.
Insidious is a masterwork of low-budget film making (it was made for under a million and earned $13 million it’s first weekend, you do the math). James Wan has hit his stride as a director. After causing a huge splash with his first movie Saw, Wan made a few R-rated movies (Dead Silence, Death Sentence) that were… ok… and frankly I didn’t think he had a movie like Insidious in him. From the opening moments of dark silence Wan gives us what most Hollywood genre-makers don’t anymore, TIME. Slow-moving cameras, no Saw-like edits, and not a drop of blood (barely) is spilled… and yet it might be one of the scariest films I’ve seen in 5 years.
It’s made me think a lot about what scary is… and I don’t mean the BOO factor either, it’s more than that. Anyone can drop the camera down, pause long enough, and create a loud sound effect to get a quick scare… but creating an ever-building sense of dread and suspense where I’m riding the edge of my seat and chewing my nails frantically? That’s something else entirely. Through the use of tricks we’ve seen and heard before, Insidious crawls underneath your skin and keeps you terrified, and while there are plenty of BOO moments, they aren’t forced or due to an over-active soundtrack.
The story starts simple enough, with the family getting used to their new house. While working at home, Renai finds a wooden-ladder in the attic with a broken step (the light bulb’s string is just out of reach) and a door that won’t lock shut. Of course later that night, son Dalton fearlessly explores the house with his LED-lantern- only to come across the open door of the attic. He walks up to the attic and sees the light bulb, carefully climbing the ladder to reach the string he doesn’t see the broken step. When he climbs up to the fourth step he reaches for the next one only to have it give way in his 
hands, and he falls. Mom and Dad and Co. are downstairs playing with the baby, and Dalton sits up on the attic floor to hear a noise in the corner… We hear his shrieks as Josh and Renai run to his rescue to find him with a bruise on his forehead but otherwise okay. That night Josh dreams of his son sleeping, and when he tries to wake Dalton up for breakfast- he will not wake up. This scene is vital to the movie, and Patrick Wilson (Lakeshore Drive, Watchmen) handles it perfectly. His cheerful taunting of the boy while he believes he is sleeping that gives way to panicked shakes as he finds his son will not wake up… I don’t know if Patrick Wilson has kids, but that is exactly how I would react. The doctor tells Josh and Renai that Dalton has no signs of brain damage, and no trauma of any kind, he isn’t technically in a coma- he just doesn’t wake up. We cut to 3 months later, and Dalton is home in his own bed, still unconscious. The situation has become extremely stressful, Josh works late, Renai is stuck at home with all of the kids, and things start happening… out of the ordinary. The film ramps up from here and despite Act III being a bit… “Ok…?” Insidious comes in as a straight-up horror-film, in the vein of The Others, The Haunting, or El Habitante Incierto (a genre-busting Spanish film that is beyond creepy).
What are a parents worst fears? The death of a child? A horrible accident or disfigurement? What about a coma? Or perhaps the sneaking fear that you are losing your mind? That, despite your best and loving intentions… You can’t trust yourself? Insidious captures the old-school haunted house movie and frames it with current popular horror themes and tricks (it feels like a “real” version of Paranormal Activity in some places- but in a good way) to make a solid horror film. Take your date, take yourself, just go see this movie. If you like bumps and shrieks and long, dark hallways, run out to see Insidious.
It is rated PG-13 for thematic material, violence, terror and frightening images, and brief strong language.
Hi out there, I’m Matt Toomb, and I’m a flickaholic. I got started when my parents introduced me to movies when I was young. I remember being strung out on Star Wars way before I could even read or write. In my 20’s I had it real bad, sometimes watching up to two or three movies a day. It was the heyday of Blockbuster Video’s Movie Pass program, where you pay a flat fee for unlimited rentals… ah the days of tangible media. When you could take your hard earned cash to the Wal-Mart on Tuesday mornings and buy the new releases on DVD, or fish a few $5 movies out of the bargain bin, then take those plastic-wrapped beauties home and open them up, read the inserts and the giveaways, and then watch the disc! My DVD collection consists of over 300 movies that I purchased between 2001 and 2009, Role Models was the last movie I bought on a disc. Now that’s all gone. Now it’s all files. No discs to hold, no collection to flaunt. You used to be able to tell a lot about a girl by her movie collection, now… well it’s just weird if she catches you rooting through her Netflix Queue or rummaging in her laptop for .avi files… anything to give you a clue as to what makes her laugh, cry, etc…
I sat through all 4+ hours of Lawrence of Arabia and was thoroughly entertained the entire time. I’ve watched theLord of the Rings movies in a row, and I’m talkin the EXTENDED versions, not those pussy theater cuts. I eat, sleep, breathe, think, and talk movies, all the time. I can’t help it. I can quit anytime I want though. I used to have to watch a movie everyday, a few times a day, just to feel normal and keep from getting sick… but now I just watch movies on the weekend.
I want to start off bold because this movie got to me- This might be my new favorite horror film. I must also clear up the distinction between “scary movies” and “horror films.” This is a fine example of the later. Aside from the PG-13 Prom Nights and Shutters as well as your typical R Saw, Hostel, and any other of the recent remakes of 80s flicks, sits a genre of film so close to my heart- horror. When I go to a scary movie I want to jump in my seat, I want to see awesome and gross special effects, I want to shove popcorn in my face. On the other hand, when I see a horror movie I’m signing up for something different. I want to be on the edge of my seat, I want to be disturbed, I want to feel the panic that characters feel, I want to be scared. The House of the Devil does just that, and without any of the tricks and CGI that accompanies so many movies these days.
Released in 2009 HOTD looks like it was shot in 1983- straight down to the grainy film stock and the huge cassette tape player with big black headphones. (Although, during the pizza place scene toward the beginning the sign in the background says “Margarita Pizza” on sale- did they have that in ’83?) It is set sometime in the early 80s, and the detail is painstakingly dead-on. I literally could not tell that this movie was made a year ago, I was convinced it was some gem I’d never caught when I was a kid, and was blown away when I found out. HOTD manages to pull off sheer terror with simplicity.
A broke college girl takes a babysitting job in the middle of nowhere and, of course, at the wrong house. Turns out there aren’t any kids, just the old lady sleeping in the upstairs room. I guess no one responds to “elderlysitter” anymore? Anyway, some time during the night the strange noises start coming from upstairs, while outside there is a full lunar eclipse. There are no quick-and-flashy edits here, no thundering sound effects to try to scare us, just a lot of long and stable camera work that follows the heroine around the house. There are a few instances where the camera lingers beyond the girl’s frame of sight, revealing to the audience what the heroine doesn’t know, and they are shocking and effective.
Toward the end all hell breaks loose, literally, and where any other movie would spend the last half of the film with a never-ending chase scene, HOTD picks up fast, and leaves off just as quick. Once the blood begins to flow, the climax of the movie is upon us, and the burner gets cranked up to HI. All the while the subtle-yet-scary scraping of strings soundtrack slowly grates away at our ears… what else do you need in a horror movie?!
In my opinion, House of the Devil is one of the great horror films in the last few years. It’s a horror film disguised as a scary movie from 1983. I strongly recommend it for any fans of suspense (there is little gore and only at the end) no matter if you are a horror buff or not. See this movie soon!! THIS MOVIE IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN UNDER 14 AT LEAST (AND THOSE 14 YEAR OLDS WILL LOVE IT I’M SURE)
“House of the Devil” Directed by Ti West Starring Jocelin Donahue and Tom Noonan Rated R for Some Bloody (good) Violence
TOOMBLOG 