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SHOWNOTES

00:00-Show Intro
11:27-Drunk Dials
21:52-Mailbag
34:58-Dragon’s Lair (Blu-Ray)
41:18-Tilt To Live (iPhone)
45:20-Transformers: War for Cybertron (360)
54:31-Five Things
1:11:57-Show Close

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DGR: 06.27.2010

So what happens when you put all of Battlestar Galactica into one box? Awesomeness, that’s what. The box in question is the Blu Ray edition of Battlestar Galactica the Complete Series; all 4 seasons, the Mini Series and TV film Razor in one box. And my friends, what a box it is! Feast your eyes on all of its glory below:

The show itself is a difficult beast, bearing a name that puts many folk off of even watching it in the first place whilst living on a TV channel in the US that many don’t give the light of day. It hasn’t really been marketed well to pull in new viewers and suffers immediately with the stigma that gets attached to so many other remakes of older shows or movies due to a proven track record of failing to deliver time and time again.

But all of that aside, once you get past all of these initial negative barriers to entry, you uncover a beauty of a show, unlike many others – written to an assumed intelligent audience. A show that never compromises on telling the story, going to places that most TV wouldn’t dare and not trying to listen to what the fans want in favour of giving them what they didn’t know that they needed. It’s a drama about humanity in a Sci-Fi setting. Oh and kick-ass robots.
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I am by no means an expert on Star Trek. My background with the show involves occasional viewings of Voyager while in high school and sitting next to Scotty (my friend, not the Enterprise engineer) as he got baked while watching reruns of The Next Generation. My familiarity with the original series is extremely limited, having only seen one or two episodes in passing during my childhood. I’ve seen a few of the films starring the original crew, but don’t come remotely close to having the knowledge of many of you. I begin with this disclaimer because I think it’s important to note that I’ve never really been a huge fan of the series. But with all the hype surrounding the movie I couldn’t help but get caught up, wanting to know more about the show. And what better time than now, as the “it’s not a reboot” hits theaters and the original series hits Blu-ray?

First with the specifics. The Blu-ray clocks in at seven discs, four episodes per disc. As one might expect, the image is fantastic, despite the forty year-old sets, costumes, and effects. What makes this collection truly special is that nearly all of the exterior shots have been completely reworked in CGI. So, for example, instead of flimsy shots of the Enterprise floating clumsily past a star-covered backdrop, a computer-animated Enterprise glides deftly through space. Now, I know you Star Trek nerds are notoriously hardcore in your loyalty and may find these changes to be downright blasphemous. Well, to you I give two pieces of good news. 1) The new visuals, which include set pieces, entire backgrounds, and most all space craft and planets, all looks remarkably at home when juxtaposed with the rest of the show. The changes were tastefully done and more importantly not overdone. They could have gone nuts with the effects, getting all George Lucas on it, but I never found these scenes jarring or out of place. 2) Purists can choose to either watch the entire episodes in the original format or switch back and forth between the old and new on the fly by using the angle button on your remote. (See the video below).

Also redone was the music, again, quite tastefully. An included behind-the-scenes feature explains that the new audio stayed completely true to the original score and original orchestration, but used 21st century recording techniques to help make the audio pop through modern home theaters.

Speaking of special features, included are the typical “here’s how we did the restoration” segments, along with a picture-in-picture commentary, some “home movies” from the set, and an interactive tour of the Enterprise.

The one complaint I have with the set is the uneven audio. I find myself having to crank my TV pretty loudly when not using my stereo simply to hear the dialog. It’s not a huge issue, but can be irritating when trying to make out what the hell Shatner is saying with his stilted delivery.

Now, as a relative Star Trek newbie, I thought I’d talk a bit about the show from a near newcomer’s perspective. (more…)

My favorite movie of 2008 is now on DVD and BluRay. I picked it up first thing Tuesday morning and have since watched all the special features and viewed the extended cut twice. And not surprisingly, it gets better every time I see it.

First the details. The BluRay and Special Edition DVD both include loads of extras including both Theatrical and Extended Versions of the Film, Commentary with Filmmakers and Cast, Deleted Scenes Extended & Alternate Scenes, The Making of Pineapple Express, The Action of Pineapple Express, Phone Booth, Line-O-Rama, Direct-O-Rama, Gag Reel, Item 9, Saul’s Apartment, Raw Footage, Begley’s Best, Red and Jessica’s Guide to Marriage, Injury Report, Stuntmaster Ken, Rehearsal Footage, First Table Read, and a segment from the Comic-Con Panel.

The best features are The Making of Pineapple Express, The Action of Pineapple Express, Direct-O-Rama, Begley’s Best, and Stuntmaster Ken. Please indulge me while I go through each of them. Mild spoilers follow.

The Making of Pineapple Express, while little more than your typical, “Here’s how we did it” feature, is still an entertaining watch. To hear how the movie was conceived all the way up to its production is actually pretty hilarious in that “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did this” and then “I can’t believe they’re letting us do this” sort of way.

The Action of Pineapple Express is an excellent feature not only showing off how they did all the fight and action scenes, but also highlighting the fact that I’ve been trumpeting since the movie’s theatrical release: this is just as good an action movie as it is a comedy. Again: ninjas!

Direct-O-Rama provides hilarious insight on director David Gordon Green’s directing quirks. Constantly barking different directions to his actors (“Say it like you’re taking a dump” or “Try it in a foreign accent”), the best example of which is when he asked Kevin Corrigan (who played the hitman “Matheson”) to do karate moves while he was talking to Gary Cole’s “Ted Jones” and then me realizing that one of those takes actually made it into the final cut of the film.

Begley’s Best is a short sequence following Ed Begley Jr. as he delivers his environmentally-friendly cleaning products to stores around Los Angeles. The guy seems to be trying to be the Paul Newman of cleaning products, and it’s pretty funny watching him pack, label, and ship all of his wares personally while he extols the virtues of biodegradable materials.

And finally, Stuntmaster Ken is a brief feature on Ken Jeong, who was the stunt coordinator and played “Ken”, the head ninja assassin (the one who shouts, “Suck on my balls…two times!” before he blows up the barn). The feature basically involves a camera following him around the studio as he cracks jokes and messes around with his fellow “Asians”. Good stuff.

Having seen the movie a total of three times now, I’m amazed at how well-layered the dialog is, especially in James Franco’s character “Saul”. There are so many lines he mutters to himself or that are barely audible that keep me constantly cracking up. But also worth noting is the genius of Danny McBride, a guy who I hadn’t even heard of until this movie. His “Red” is so hilarious that he’s quickly becoming my favorite character in the movie. Incidentally, in the special features we find out that director David Gordon Green, in one of his signature eccentric director moves, told McBride that “Red” is going to have shaved armpits. When McBride asked him why, Green replied, “That’s for you to figure out”, making the revelation that much more hilarious.

So I guess it’s no surprise that I’m in love with this release, given my obsession with the red band trailer and my fawning all over the movie after I saw it. But I’m glad to say that my love for Pineapple Express has only grown after repeated viewings. Highly recommended.

Ok so here it is, my favourite things of 2008 in no particular order.

Speed Racer
So everyone else here is making mention to the Dark Knight which I agree is a phenomenal film. That said, I’d like to move onto the much overlooked but equally awesome Speed Racer. For me this film is the closest I’ll get to a film about one of my greatest passions: F-Zero. Whilst this isn’t exactly the same there are many similarities to be found and it does have an incredible amount of BOOOOOOST! Folks who know me know that I have a thing for boost… check out this ‘interesting’ little video that the delightful M.C. Wilson took of me during one of the evenings at PAX earlier this year.

So aside from a lot of boost, this film actually delivers a pretty decent story which is intentionally over-the-top super cheese, I think it’d be hard to come away from this without a huge Joker-sized grin on their face. It’s possibly the best looking Blu Ray film I’ve watched to date, brimming with style, incredible colour as well as some of the fastest action scenes you’ll ever see.

Blu Ray
Okay, okay I hear ya! So Blu Ray was released a while back. What I’m talking about here though is Blu Ray winning the format war. Last year it was still unknown which format was safe to buy for which was bad for all of us and in having one set format we can all finally move forward with conifdence and retail can start buying bulk which in turn leads to decent pricing. This is good for all concerned and I’m very happy to be in the HiDef Film generation.

Lost Odyssey
Like others at Robot Panic, this game blew me away. I’m proud to say that I picked it up first as a Japanese import as it was multi-language and boy I’m glad I did. It wasn’t long before my hyping of this game got many of my friends to buy the game including many of the guys here and I was elated to see a near universal agreement about how great this game is. I’m picking this as one of my SOTY nominations due to its mind-blowing story telling. This has been the only game to date which has openly made me cry due to plotline and delivery.

Adding to the great story telling in game though was something much more unique, daring and in hindsight very rewarding. Scattered throughout the game were these wonderfully produced stories penned out buy an award winning Japanese novelist, Kiyoshi Shigematsu, called ‘A Thousand Years of Dreams’. Not only were these unique to videogames but they were also surprisingly deep, involving and emotional way to deliver story content to the viewer on a TV set.
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If there’s anything that George Lucas has taught us in the past decade-and-a-half, it’s that some things are best left to nostalgia. On second thought, perhaps that wasn’t the lesson. Perhaps the lesson is really that sometimes the geniuses of the past are the boobs of the present. Either way, the point is that fans of Lucas’s earlier, brilliant works took it straight up the pooper with the updates to both Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. And now, with Bush-like determination, he appears to be eager to soldier on in both areas. I mean really, do we need more animated Star Wars tales or another Indiana Geezer and the Battle of Arthreitis?

Ok, that wasn’t exactly fair. Of all the problems with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Harrison Ford’s name is on the lower half of the list. And despite the complaints, the best way to make an aging Indy work is to stick him next to a young punk. Was Mutt Williams a bad character? No. Bad name, yes. But as a character and foil to grumpy old Jones he was just fine.

So I guess the point I’m getting at here is that I picked up Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Blu-Ray, determined to give it another chance in the desperate hope that I could convince myself that it belongs sitting on the shelf next to the previous three classics. The long and short of it? My hopes were dashed. (more…)