You should find the one threater in your entire city showing this movie and see it immediately. Check the trailer out here, but trust me when I say the trailer doesn’t do the film much justice. I am no expert when it comes to vampire movies, but this was the best I’ve seen, and one of the better ones I’ve seen at a movie theather recently period.

Unfortunately, since it’s subtitled, it won’t get much play in the States. If you need more convincing you can check out the reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes, where it got a 90% rating from critics, the only negative rating coming from some tool at Entertainment Weekly who would rather be watching Highschool Musical.

I’m a big fan of Frank Miller, the guy can do no wrong. My appreciation for his work probably has something to do with my fondness for the “Film Noir” style he uses. I’ve always liked those old detective movies from the 40’s and 50’s and actresses and actors like Marlene Dietrich and Humphrey Bogart.

Let’s not even get to some of the amazing posters created back then, they put 99 percent of current movie posters to shame, I’ll round up some of my favorites in another post.

Well, Miller’s latest project is The Spirit, and he’s directing this one. You can catch an early teaser on Youtube, and it’s very reminiscent of Sin City, for obviously reasons. The poster, however, looks great. I can’t wait for the film to come out, although it’ll be bit of a wait since it is a 2009 release.

Word on the street is that the AppleTV is finally shipping out to customers who ordered theirs early, which is good for them, but due to the fact that Apple seems to have made locking out user generated content standard practice (at least, without a whole lot of leg work), I’m not in the market.

In steps the Netgear EVA8000, which seems capable of streaming every format under the sun (Including streaming your Bitorrent files) for only $100 more than the AppleTV, and all in HD as well. It’s for Windows users only, which should be great news for those that have made the switch to Vista.

So I’ve had my Harmony 1000 for almost a week now, and so far it’s been pretty good. I mean it’s a fun toy, but is it essential… probably not. I could have got along just fine with my older Harmony 676, but there is something to be said for having a graphic interface on a remote that eliminates the need for 40+ buttons like the 676.

I’m still getting used to it, so I’ll hold my final thoughts for a more in-depth review at another time, but you can find a few more pictures of the packaging after the jump. Continue reading »

So it’s been a little while since I made a large, stupid, purchase. The last lapse of santiy I had came last spring, when I bought an obnoxious Traxxas Revo, a remote control truck that runs on actual fuel. I suppose with that setting the bar riduclously low, there was no way to go but up. So I ponied up $350 for a remote control… well now that I’m saying it out loud, it seems even more idiotic.

To feebly try and defend why I would spend such a ridiculous amount on a remote control, let me explain that I’ve sort of an amateur home theater fan. The crowning jewel of my otherwise mediocre setup is an Infocus Screenplay 61md10, a 61″ HDTV DLP. The one thing you start to realize as you get into this stuff, is that being able to simplify the control of your setup is crucial if you actually want to have friends. While I might have no problem fiddling with three remotes to watch a movie, the average person will find it maddening to do so.

That’s where the Logitech Harmony 1000 comes in. It normally retails for near $500 but I was able to get a “deal” (If you’re dense enough to call it that) that brought the price down to $350. I figure if it’s not perfect, I can always return it, and for that amount of money, it had better be perfect.

LOVE

The special effects were great, if gratuitous, I think some of the overacting in the film may be due to the limitations a “flaming skull” has to be emotive. The scene where the retired Ghostrider (on flaming horseback) and the new Ghostrider take that last ride alone is worth the price of admission… almost. Nicholas Cage’s hair piece!

HATE

As I mentioned, the acting is painful at times. There really is no explanation of why the “impossible to defeat” bad-guys all of sudden turn to squealing school girls, three minutes into every fight. Overly corny, I’m perfectly willing to accept a level of corniness in movies based on comic books, but it is possible to overdo it, Ghostrider is proof.

FINAL VERDICT: C-

I am no longer willing to settle for ridiculous, uninspired story-lines like this. Even fantastic four, which never gets as involved as Spiderman, was able to pull off some sort of entertainment in the acting. Ghostrider is a flop in my book, they could have made the whole thing much darker but instead decided to cater to 12 year olds.

It’s movies like this that reminds me why Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are two of my favorite directors. I’m going to marginalize such Rodriguez bombs as say: Spykids 1, 2, and 3, I can’t blame a man for wanting to make some extra cash. Tarantino on the other hand, at least in my mind, can do no wrong. Watch the Grindhouse trailer, check out the great posters, wait a few weeks, and watch the movie.