Rants and Raves...

Rant: I haven’t kept up on the new hurricane Rita, but it does strike me as ironic that after Katrina, the victims of that one went to Texas, and now Rita is about to slam Texas too. What’s up with that? Plus, Rita is starting to hit New Orleans with more rain and water. If I was one of those poor transplanted souls, I think I’d be heading as far inland as possible. Rave: Boy, am I glad I didn’t buy one of those Treo 650’s. I just couldn’t justify carrying a thousand dollar device on my hip, and now it seems like 3 people are suing Palm for a crappy product. Sounds like wishful thinking, but hey, it’s the States and everybody is entitled to a lawsuit apparently. Rant: Coming soon to a church near you – movie trailers and sneak peeks?! Um, ok. The steady march of marketing to everyone, everywhere, all the time continues. I guess there may be pros and cons to it, but it seems odd. And don’t forget – Hollywood isn’t doing this because they want to promote more family value movies. They’re doing this for the money, plain and simple. There’s a political shift afoot as well, and those marketing guys aren’t generally stupid. They know that if you appeal to the right target audience, your product will make more money. They know you don’t market the movie Sin City to churches, and you don’t market The Greatest Game Ever Played to comic book fans. Not if you want to make money… Rave: An Unfinished Life was a good movie. Good story, good acting, and even better scenery. It was set in Wyoming, but shot in Ashcroft, Kamloops, and Vancouver, British Columbia, and Burdett and Medicine Hat, Alberta. No wonder it looked good. Plus, Jennifer Lopez didn’t even ruin it. Besides, I always like stories of the rugged, grizzled, set in his ways, cowboy learning to live again. (Nods to the Garth Brooks tune.) Which reminds me – the odd thing at the end of the movie. As the credits rolled, they played a Shania Twain tune, “Don’t”. Kinda weird playing a pop song after a western movie… Rant: How much are people willing to pay for portability? Thanks to the website Digital Bits for this: “By the way, New Line will release Wedding Crashers on UMD format the same day (SRP also $28.89). Are people REALLY paying the same prices for UMD releases with no extras as they would for a fully-loaded DVD of the same film? Damn.” Is it really worth paying $30 to watch a movie on a two inch screen just so you can do it while you ride the bus? Rave: Something for those Linux fans out there – the DVD for March of the Penguins hits stores November 29th. And no, it has nothing to do with Mario Lemieux. Plus, soon in a theatre near you, the ‘should be good’ flicks Serenity, A History of Violence, and Good Night and Good Luck. Rant: Hockey is back and there are actually crowds at pre-season games. After the NHL basically told the fans they didn’t matter while they fought over how to share millions of dollars, I would really have liked to see what would have happened if they all came back to play a game and no one showed up to watch them. That would have been sweet. Rave: Hockey is back. Hey, I am Canadian after all. By the way, the OHL kids are more fun to watch than the NHL greed-meisters…