20 Minutes into the Future is here

When I was in high school my favorite shows were often old reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel, (before they all 80's hair metal and started spelling their name wrong) and my favorite of them all was the cyberpunk drama Max Headroom.

It definitely says something about my teen years that my favorite show was one that had been canceled 10 years earlier.

With it's rather prescient take on the future of technology and media in society, it's amazing more hasn't been made of a show so ahead of it's time.

It's also amazing that the creators behind Max Headroom never really did any major after that.

Nothing you can mention in polite company, anyways.

However I never really expected Max Headroom would ever be released on DVD. Fortunately, I was wrong.


As for the show itself, the picture looks as good as mid-80's TV can be expected to look, which is actually pretty good.

Plus the episodes are the full cuts that ran on ABC and later on Bravo and I always went to great lengths to track down tapes of those instead of the cut-down ones that ran on the Sci-Fi Channel and the butchered ones on Tech TV.

The special features are more than thorough; more than 2 hours of interviews with writers and producers and actors. The big disappointment is that they couldn't get an interview with Matt Frewer, which casts rather gray shadow over the whole ordeal. You couldn't get Max Headroom for your Max Headroom DVD?

It's also too bad they couldn't have put the original British movie on this set as well. I doubt it'll get it's own release so I'd have gladly paid a few extra bucks to have tossed it in here.

If you've never seen Max Headroom, give it a rent. The future isn't as distant as you think.

The lynx has been found

I got a pleasant surprise this morning to see that the Spanish animated feature The Missing Lynx which came out in Europe at the end of 2008 was released on DVD in North America today and is available on Netflix Watch Instantly.



I'm really only mentioning this for people like me who feel compelled to watch every animated film that comes along, (assuming there are such people) because it's such a skippable movie.

The only notable thing about this film is that Antonio Banderas was a producer on it. Literally the first thing you see in this movie is his name. And as far as I can tell he didn't do a voice in it, not even the Spanish version.

I also got word that WB is releasing a complete series set for Batman Beyond almost 3 years after their single season releases. I assume this is for milking out some more money rather than tying in to another property.

Framing Device

Scoping out the comedy section on Netflix I couldn't help but notice a recurring... motif if you will in the covers:
Shots of an anonymous woman's ass with the characters between her legs.
I know this has been done before, but when you can effortlessly find more than dozen covers like this, attention must be paid.

Poor Photoshop skills are a pre-requisite for this work.

Holding a bra seems to be a sub-motif.


So is Kal Penn looking freaked/grossed out by what he's staring at.


Sometimes these shots are added years after the fact; just so you know that's it's a comedy apparently.

Why she has Swiss flag on her ass is a different matter entirely.

National Lampoon seems to be the biggest offender.


And why should guys be the ones having all the fun?

He really wants that bra.

Plus I have to give credit to Booty Call for trying to reinvent the style somewhat.


So, Adobe, if you're listening and wondering what features to work on for Photoshop CS6, the clear answer is a button that generates an anonymous woman's ass into a picture.

Hollywood thanks you in advance for the time saver.

Didn't any tell you it's not polite to double dip?

With M. Night Shyamalan's live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender hitting theatres in July, Nickelodeon/Paramount is doing what any studio would do: fill the shelves with DVDs to tie-in to the release.

I should point out that I don't actually know what's different from the previous release. I knew this set has 7 discs and the other only had 6. it sound like that extra disc has a new documentary.This new set also contains a book full of designs and artwork.

The price is really good. $26.99 for a 20 episode TV series. isn't too bad, especially with all the goodies. The Original Book 1 box set cost $40.

But as much as I loved the show (and am rather dreading the movie) I can't see myself drop over $25 bucks on something I already own.

And for me this would actually be a triple dip. Nickelodeon first released Avatar¹ in single disc releases that I had to sell once they were doing box sets.

So if you've never bought any Airbender DVDs, now's the chance to get the best deal on them.

And you want to make five bucks, I'll totally buy that book off of you.

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¹If there's one thing I begrudge James Cameron's movie for it's that I can't mention the cartoon without saying the full name or saying "Not that Avatar, the other one."

I didn't even know you could nominate.

There's a new nominee for really, really, really bad idea: Ghost in the Shell 2.0

The makers of this anime classic apparently decided to go all George Lucas and "enhance" the visuals with new CGI graphics.

Most of the changes are to secondary things like the helicopters and computer displays. Things you never really pay attention to and don't really matter if they look a little more detailed or not.

Progress!

They also took a couple of the landmark scenes (including the opening sequence) and redid it all in CG, Kusanagi included. On top of her looking like a Poser model and it being really awkward when they cut back to her in her original drawn form, the redone versions are composed terribly. Iconic shots now look really cheap. Often there's just more artistic freedoms in 2D.

Which do you prefer?

On top of changing graphics that didn't need changing, they also redid all the sound effects, and not for the better. All the guns now sound kind of out of place.

The weirdest part of all is that they've completely changed the prevailing color scheme of the movie from blues and greens to orange. Not only have I no idea why they would got through the effort to do something like that, it really changes the mood of the film from cool and mysterious to just sorta toxic and burned out.

Again, which would you rather look at?

I should point out I've never been a big fan of Ghost in the Shell. I do own it and recognize its influence on anime and on me as an animation fan, but I still think it's cold and confusing.

But despite all that, there's really no point trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

Milking it for all it's worth

I was surprised to look on Amazon today and see Avatar show up for pre-order. For a film that's still in theatres and still making well over $5 Million a week after three months, (over 6.5 this past week in the US alone) I wasn't expecting a release for months. But one is set to hit shelves on April 22nd.

Earth Day, natch.

But it turns out the release coming out next month is just the movie and nothing more. For someone like me who's only real interest is in the special features that's of no use. Well, except for Rifftrax.

The pimped out version I was expecting isn't coming out until November, and even that won't include the 3D version of the film. (Fine by me, but some people are sure to be angry.) That probably won't come out until next year. By then Avatar will likely be re-released in theatres, if it ever leaves in the first place.

And of course they're also planning a 3D re-release of Titanic.

Multiple DVD releases is a pretty common Hollywood trick, (I'm annoyed enough about re-buying a couple favorite films in Blu Ray) but I've never seen anything like this.

Maybe this will encourage someone to take the next step and only sell the first half hour of a movie and make people buy the rest a month later.

A guy can dream.

Squeezing out a few more Tunes

With the yearly Looney Tunes Golden Collection releases drying up in 2008, I was wondering if there would be a chance for the cartoons that never made it on to a Golden Collection set to get released on DVD.

The answer is.... kinda.

In April, Warners is putting out two 1-disc releases of 15 cartoons each, one for Bugs Bunny and one for Daffy Duck.


Obviously these aren't the cream of the crop, or else they would've made it on one of the earlier sets. They all appear to be from the 50's to when the studio shut down in the mid 60's. The only cartoon the stands out to me by name is Lumber Jackrabbit because it was made in 3D during the time when WB shut down animation for a year to feel out the 3D fad.

Cartoons like these might seem second rate to most people, and they probably are, but to

The Looney Tunes have the luxury of still having a fair amount of marketable stuff to sell, just not enough for a 4-disc set anymore. There are scads of Walter Lantz cartoons that'll never see the light of disc because they're not Woody Woodpecker.

Hopefully there'll be more little releases like this that can wring out as many classic cartoons as possible.

Goin' Gnomon

Animation and visual effects-types are probably familiar with The Gnomon Workshop. Their training DVDs cover all manner topics in the film, effects and game creation worlds, with discs by industry professionals covering topics like matte painting, character design, 3D modeling and sculpture.

One common theme amongst the design discs are these alien bug-beast things. I know a lot of the instructors are concept designers and invented creatures are sort of their stock and trade, but how many crab/spider-monsters do you need?

Sexy

I've wanted to get my hands on some of these fro a long time. I even feel a desire to get the ones that teach things I'd never use; like tattooing. The downside is the cost. Each disc runs $60-80.

Since these things are so unbelievably expensive I'm constantly scanning eBay to find people unloading their copies on the cheap, which there are plenty, usually going for about half the original price. I recently picked two discs for $50 that would've cost me $110 new, both coming from a guy selling about 70 discs in a two hour period.

In fact there's often someone selling a bulk lot of 100 or more. I can't fathom spending the 10+ thousand dollars it would've taken to acquire that stack of DVDs. For that money you could've gone to college and learned some of this stuff.

Anything's Possible

I never in a million years would have expected this show to come out on DVD:


This is one of those long-dead shows that the Sci-Fi Channel would play all the time back when I was in high school. (Also back when Sci-Fi was spelled right) It kinda sucks becoming a big fan of a show after it's already been canceled for about a decade.

But for a 19 year-old show that went downhill pretty fast by turning a gritty supernatural drama into a goofy romantic comedy (it was like turning The X-Files into Moonlighting... but with werewolves) it's still coming out on DVD.

I really think someone at Universal was scanning their list of properties for something to cash in on the Twilight/vampire craze and came across this.

There are numerous titles that only made it to DVD because there was a big movie to jump on for. I'm convinced that's the only reason Aeon Flux got a decent DVD release.

I wonder what kind of Hollywood tie-in there'd need to be to get Max Headroom on DVD. Neuromancer? A re-make of Blade Runner?