Monthly Archives: April 2006
Cube
A couple of strangers wake up to find themselves imprisioned by an unknown force. A frantic race against time to free themselves from their prision. Hidden traps and cruel contraptions, that kill, if handled wrong. One wrong step, and your body gets sliced into little pieces. During the course of events – they learn about the meaning of life, and the life that is worth living or dying.
Reminds you of Saw?
Well, this is the grand daddy of Saw – its Cube (1997) - a little canadian indie movie which the makers of Saw undoubltely saw.
Armed with a miniscule budget and a 14″x14″ room with a group of 7 actors – debutant director Vincenzo Natali weaves a fantastic sci-fi/horror thriller.
A group of unrelated people wake up one day in a weird room with little doors on all sides, they have no idea where they are or why they are here. They soon find out that rooms are randomly booby trapped. Then starts the 90minute thriller which keeps you at the edge of your seat all thro. The movie, doest try to explain some big picture things (why? who put them there) but tries to explain some small details some of which are incredulous. It sports the highly geeky mathematical mumbo-jumbo like Darren Aronofsky’s Pi. A very surreal atmosphere and the errie background score sets the stage for this very enjoyable thriller.
A must see if you are sci-fi or horror fan.
5/5
JVC upgrades HD100
HD100 when it was released last Oct – ran into rough waters with its split-screen issues and lack of 60P (for reality look & slowmo). Now it has updated its lineup to offer 2 more cameras based on HD100 design. The left column is the old camera, and the 2 right columns represent the 2 new cameras announced today.
| Features | GY-HD100U | GY-HD200U | GY-HD250U |
| Price | $5200 (w/lens) | $8000(w/lens) | $9000(no lens) |
| 720/60p [MiniDV Tape] |
No, only 720/30P (6GOP) | Yes at 4:2:0 (12GOP) | Yes at 4:2:0 (12GOP) |
| 720/60p [component out] |
Yes at 4:2:2 | Yes at 4:2:2 | Yes at 4:2:2 |
| (3) 1280×720 1/3″ CCD |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Colorspace | 4:2:0 (tape) & 4:2:2 (thro digitizer) |
4:2:0 (tape) & 4:2:2 (thro digitizer) |
4:2:0 (tape) & 4:2:2 (HD-SDI or digitizer) |
| HD-SDI | No | No | Yes |
| Word Clock | No | No | Yes |
| Gen-Lock | No | No | Yes |
| Flips Image | No | Yes | Yes |
| Enhanced Cinema Gamma | No | Yes | Yes |
| Accessories | DR-HD100U (Hard disk) KY-HD250 (studio adapter ) HZ-CA13U (Lens adapter for PL Lens) CCU connection (wire-remote) to control power, genlock, R/B gain, black level and intercom up to 330 feet |
||
| Availablity | Available Now | Oct 2006 | Oct 2006 |
RED1
RED camera has finally announced its price – $17,500. This is a true 4k resolution camera (equivalent of Super 35mm film camera).
The price includes a Super-35mm sensor (the CMOS CCD), S35mm PL lens mount (popular film lens mount), LCD, HD-SDI output (4:2:2 capability), dual HD-SDI outputs (4:4:4: capability), battery and charger. HD-SDI is the digital uncompressed data link out of the camera. The price doesn’t include Lens, storage modules and other accessories.
With its modular design, there is no need to buy another camera for the next 10years if you have 20K lying around.
More info at http://www.red.com/
Format table: http://snipurl.com/redmatrix
Boeing 747 house
Some frequent business travellers complain that they almost live in a hotel or an airplane. But Francie Rehwald, owner of a successful Mercerdes-Benz dealership in CA, will have the rare distinction of making that boast – not figuratively, but literally. She is building a house made entirely out of a scrap 747-200 jet!
After buying an old TowerAir jet ($100K), the builders began the task of cutting the jet down with medical precision to carve out individual rooms, and other living spaces. The nose became the meditation chamber, and the majestic wings will be the roofs, the distinctive camel hump of 747 will become the loft, and the toilets, I guess, will used as toilets (pretty uncomfortable toilets for a $2million dollar home 
FAA has asked her to paint special numbers on top of her home, so as not to alarm commercial pilots flying overhead mistaking it for a crashed jumbo jet.
Total cost? $2 million, still a bargain considering a 747 jet costs about $200mill.
Now she can boast “Yeah, I own a 747 jet, its parked right in my house!”
New HD camera – SI-1920HDVR
Silicon Imaging has announced a 2/3CCD 1080p cam with interchangable lens for under $20K(!!). More info in their FAQ. They have a bare bones version for just $12,500!
2/3 chip camera is as good as it gets! All the cams I’ve mentioned before here are 1/3 chip cameras… 2/3 is usually really high end stuff reserved for the Rodriguezes and Sodenbergs…
Can’t wait for the weekend to see more announcements in the upcoming NAB (April 22-28 Las Vegas)
Home Depot Usabilty
How usable is Home Depot? These two frogs review it
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Delicious.
A whirlwind romantic classic – saw it for the first time today and understood why it still regarded as one of the best romantic movies ever. Audrey Hepburn was divine..!
4/5
Aus on the edge
Australia hasn’t lost a test match since last year. Now they are struggling to avoid a follow-on to *gasp* Bangadesh!.
Yup – Bangladesh, the same team which was famously fried by Sharne ‘big mouth’ Warne. I love it when minnows stick it up to Goliaths – let see what Richie Bernard says now…
Bangladesh 427
Australia 145/6
Gripping test match! I have no doubt that Aussies will pounce back like a wounded tiger in the 2nd Innings – like they did to hapless South Africans – but little joys like this makes cricket worthwhile..!
Edit – Aussies won by 3 wickets… 
Brokeback Mountain
An uneasy love story – sans the usual melodrama with measured performances. The whole movie could have worked as well for an adulterous romance between a married man and a married women.
Any film that crosses 22 years in 2 hours is bound to have an epic feeling to it – where u see the characters & their conflicts grow, this is no exception, what we saw in the first 20 minutes (that is just an hour back) comes across as very distant history… sort of like “remember the time we spent in Brokeback? ” – that takes both you and the characters in a sweet nostalgic trip, effectively punctuating the climax to a satisfying end. An overall well made, well paced film.
Question: How does those 1000s of sheep follow just 2 shephards and a solitary dog thro the spawning landscape? Heard mentality? Maybe the producers banked on it too much in the Oscar Best Picture race, then cried sour grapes when the voters voted otherwise…
3/5
Rang De Basanti
I have been out of touch with Hindi movies for almost 6months, and when this movie released I was so eager to see it – thanks to the glowing reviews it got from everywhere.
And, I saw it yesterday – What a crappy movie!
In the guise of character building, the editor has slept during the movie - since when does showing 30minutes of the same thing amounts to deep characterization? Aamir Khan and his friends are yuppies and don’t have much attachments to their homeland – there… it fits in a sentence – but to show it repeatedly over and over was taxing!
All this time the main turning-point-boy Madhavan is nowhere to be seen – the director remembering that he forgot to build this character – drags another 15minutes thro cheesy scenes… only a fool wouldn’t guess what happens next (Hint: his friends enact a mock funeral – just so that the footage/audio track can be reused when he actually dies)
Until this point - no cinematic crime has been overtly commited. But all that is about to change.
So he dies.
What happens next is classic B-grade stuff – cheap tricks, unbelievable turn of events, an absolutely horrible fake climax shootout… its certain that the director didn’t know what to do next his though process must have been something like this
- Oh Gosh! I wasted 12 reels with all my characters fooling around - i need a turning point - hehe.. none will expect this..hehe… kill one of them!!
- make all characters sit on some sort of historical fort (make sure one of them is lying on the edge) on a windy day..and throw in some fake confrontations… and tight closeups… that will justify the volte-face of the characters….
- We need a villain – ok, make the defense minister talk some crap on national TV about a dead pilot – surely he is pea-brained that badmouthing a national hero will get him sympathy among his voters.
- We needed an parallel with British massacre – to the hell with reason, with superslow motion and ar rehman crooning in pain, we can show anything – so make the police beat the hell out of a peaceful crowd sitting in the street.
- Why stop at defense Minster when we can make a politician also his buddy – Get Mr.Mishra (dang it.. I should have named him something to rhyme with Bal Thackeray..and give him some prayer necklace – oh my god I am sooo creative… Tal Bhackery….!) hmm…we need sympathy for Pandey… make his fellow followers kick him on the floor for effect…tea? ok throw some tea on his face too….
- do we have a stereotypical Muslim scapegoat? oh yeah, throw some blood on him, and make his family Pakistani….
- we need more sympathy – hey you… do we have a elderly character we can push into ICU? his mother? perrrrrfect – ok put her in coma… how? give her a heart attack or something… kill her? no no… she has to move her fingers in climax…so just put her in coma… also see if u can get her a family song.. no no.. wait i got it.. tie this black string around her fingers…I am so clever!
- folks, we need more blood – and some sort of wound in the stomach…yes, stomach, so the hero can clutch it while delivering the final lines…that has never happened before!
- we need more bad guys….. we have one defense minister, one politician, we already ran out of police… how about….black cats? great idea!… just give them some crazy order like “there should be no survivors”…ah… don’t be silly…..Aamir wont tell the whole nation on radio that we are trying to kill them….. why? because I didn’t write it in the script… they can’t make up their own lines… can they?
- who gives the order to kill?.. make it some mysterious voice… no yaar.. don’t give make him a Pakistani general… audience are ishmart these days… they will ask logical questions like how can a Pakistani general order Indian blackcats - I don’t want the audience feeling like I am making up all these scenes…. there needs to be some ground rules we need to follow….
- ok now, make his coma mother move her fingers….
- show a TV shop with lots of TVs.. and in each TV there is a different channel… in different channel.. yeah… yeah… I think u get the idea… revolution…!
- what??? we need to end the movie?? oh man… it is only 3hrs…i was just starting to have fun…. sigh.. ok, then show some kid playing in the field… make his hands run thro grains…like we saw in that DVD pichure… gladiator? yeah that’s it..gladeater… then play some happy song… we don’t want the audience remembering the our climaxx… and dont forget to put copyright Om Prakash Mehra… i dont want someone copying my movie… i already burn my fingers once when my Aks was copied by Danzel Washington
*sigh* if this movie is what critics call ‘Intelligent’ they must have the same IQ level as the director Om Prakash Mehra….or seriously starved….
2/5
A Mac with a Window
If Apple had announced 4 days back that it is going let Microsoft Windows officially run on the new Macs - I would never have believed, as history clearly shows that big corporations have not exactly been truthful on April the First (with classics such as the BBC report on ‘Farmers growing Noodles on trees’, Burger King announcing ‘Left Hand Burgers’, Tacobell purchasing and renaming Liberty Bell… Ford Lincoln Memorial… Google Romance… Google Rooms).
But today, April 5th, Apple announced Bootcamp – an official installer which lets you install Windows on a Mac (dual boot). Maybe they did it because it was unofficially hacked anyway – an underground group of programmers have successfully hacked new Macs last month to run Windows. So it was just a matter of timing and face saving.
Personally I have been waiting for fast video editor which is as good and as fast as the mac only Final Cut Pro HD. Now I can get one of those superfast supersleek mini macs without worring about my other windows investments.