Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on January 26th, 2007
Bela Lugosi has certainly had his share of collections and box sets hitting the stands, but now, belatedly, Boris Karloff has some sets of his own, and we’re not talking cheap public domain films from late in his career.
Universal, where Karloff became a star with Frankenstein, has released, as part of their Franchise Collection, The Boris Karloff Collection. There are five films here: Night Key (1937), Tower of London (1939), The Climax (1944), The Strange Door (1951) and...
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 24th, 2007
Halo 3 Beta, Wii at a Loss, and a Link to the Past - Welcome to the mortgage that’s been refinanced too much and drowning fast known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I’m your host that is having a rough week, but the looks on the horizon are quite good and I might come out of my current situation alive. Thank goodness I have my job to fall back on and thanks to my friends too for they provide me an outlet to let go my mental ...
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on January 24th, 2007
This CNET article wishfully prophecies that HD-DVD will surrender mid-year. This prognosis is based on the the fact that there's a 5:1 ratio of Blu-Ray to HD-DVD players in households - driven mainly by the PS3. Of course, the verdict is still out on whether the PS3 will ever get traction in the marketplace, so take that with a grain of salt.
Personally, I'm going to skip the next-gen physical media ratrace entirely and skip right to HD downloads via A...
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on January 20th, 2007
The next time someone talks about The Sixth Sense having an original twist ending, sit them down and force them to watch Carnival of Souls (1962).
Spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen either of these films, or generally have no idea what I’m talking about, stop reading now. Go away. Come back next week. You don’t want to be hear. God knows, I might spoil the twist in The Crying Game while I’m at it.
Your humble correspondent waits one for one more paragraph in case some unfort...
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on January 19th, 2007
Yes, its coming. And yes, it plays both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, although apparently for the HD-DVD's you can only watch the movie - no menu access just yet.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 17th, 2007
A Symphony not so small, too much Wii Wii, and a just right Morgan Webb - Welcome to the column that makes the playoffs every time only to miss the bus to the big dance known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. Well another what could have been year if you are an Eagles fan. True, with McNabb out most didn’t expect us to make the playoffs. But we did, and truth be told, the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the Saints game we were in contro...
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on January 15th, 2007
This may take a little while.
So did we enjoy our thoughts and impressions of what CES 2007 held and brought? Well, let’s take a look at things that didn’t relate to Apple, shall we? First off, it appears the new color to speak of is purple. You’ve got word of the Warner Total Hi-Def disc, which is a dual format disc. The packaging is even a compromise too, with the HD DVD red on one side, and the Blu-ray blue on the other. It costs slightly more than a HD/SD combo, but does certainly provide for some inter...
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on January 12th, 2007
Greatness can be aspired to. Its achievement can be the driving goal behind a film. But its realization comes down so often to the kinds of intangibles that frustrate efforts to control or create. And this applies to greatness whether the work is good or not. That’s right, today, we’re musing about greatness in the negative (but therefore curiously positive sense): the films that are so bad they’re great.
I don’t think anything more clearly illustrates the difficulty in reaching this special kind of greatne...
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on January 10th, 2007
PS3 Shipping Tomfoolery, MsPacman goes “Live”, & 360 Gets a Hero - Welcome to the column that only wants to be dugg so Morgan Webb can file a restraining order known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. New and improved with more digging than that time I was with this Japanese girl and we had shovels and well I was 5 years old, you can figure out the rest. Anyhow, I am actually in a decent mood for once. A quite jovial mood even...
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2007
What kind of oil is used on stripper poles again?
OK, this round of activity should be pretty bland, as all the rage and anticipation is saved for the coming days, as CES has just started (or about to start) as you’re reading this. Lots of announcements are forthcoming, with the speculation apparently that Blu-Ray will be the king of new news, with many new releases and perhaps the revelation of a second-generation Samsung player. The HD-DVD camp is a mystery at this point, but we’ll have a roundup and spec...
