Hobbit films (report stolen from Slice of Sci-Fi):

Director Guillermo del Toro told reporters during a Hellboy press junket that his first “The Hobbit” movie will stick strictly to J.R.R. Tolkien’s original “The Hobbit” material, however, the second film will take in a wide range of materials from the Tolkien universe inlcluding many of Tolkien’s own notes.

It will be interesting to see what happens with that second movie. Do we have a screenwriter who can take those notes and other materials and make a script that feels Tolkien-ish?

Doctor Who: Parts 1 and 2 of the season finale were extremely good. Like everyone else, I’m waiting with very little patience for the final installment (I hope the Sci-Fi channel runs it in its entirety when it’s their turn - it’s a super-sized episode at 65 commercial-free minutes). Then I intend to be very annoyed next year when we only get a few specials. I’ll do another review of the season after it’s over.

Batman Begins: Heath Ledger continues to get rave reviews on his Joker portrayal. I hope the movie lives up to the buzz.

Starship Troopers 3: Three? Really? Do we need three of these things? Wasn’t one painful enough? If you really want to see the trailer, it’s out there.

Hancock: Apparently this has a pretty short running time. And it’s getting middling reviews. Apparently the first half is pretty good, but then it falls apart. This is really driving me nuts. The more I see of clips and trailers for this, the more I want to see it, but then I find out it’s short and may not live up to expectations? I don’t know if I can throw my money and time at that. I really want to see it, though… blah.

Star Wars: Clone Wars - The new trailer is out there! It’s a bit moodier than the others. I think I liked Trailer #1 better. Still on the must see list, though.

The Prisoner: AMC is remaking 60’s TV show “The Prisoner” in a 6-part miniseries with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan. Top notch actors, ground-breaking original… I hope it turns out well!

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog: Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, has got himself a nice little humorous project with some familiar faces. Looks intriguing.

And finally…

Bruce Campbell, who “starred” in all three Spider-man movies and my favorite western-sci-fi TV show (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.) - and a few well known cult classics - is coming out with a new film in which he plays himself. Sort of. Looks really good to me…

In case I’m too lazy to blog again before the weekend, have a great Independence Day (unless you happen to live in a non-US location, in which case, have a nice normal weekend.)

Sometimes I miss going to conventions…. other times, not so much.

American and international investigators say that they have found the electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, but that they have not been able to determine whether they were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring’s other customers.

In related news:

Well said.

Superman: Doomsday, being the animated version of the “Death of Superman” comic book series, had the perfect chance to prove that sentiment wrong. It was a good fight (two good fights, actually), but I suspect the comics had more impact for most people. They simply had more time to be involved in the story surrounding the death in the comics. I think that’s the failure of this movie: they didn’t spend enough time on the lead-up to the death.

Yes, we clearly get the impression that Doomsday is heartless and mindlessly violent, and Superman has to take him down. We also get the impression that he’s tough - real tough. But I never saw anything registered on Superman’s face, or spoken in his lines, that showed me that he knew this might be the most physically challenging thing he’d ever faced - that he might have to sacrifice himself to stop it. That would have put this movie over the top for me - his self-awareness.

I couldn’t help but make comparisons of the final fight with Darkseid in Justice League Unlimited. Though much shorter, it made more of an impact with me because of the speech he made:

That’s the kind of thing this movie needed.

Still, the beatings in this movie were impressive.

The one thing I like more about this movie was the scale of destruction wreaked by the fight. That was much closer to what it would be like if a battle this epic were to be fought. Buildings were brought down in no uncertain terms. There were whole blocks ruined by these fights. The final blow thew out a shockwave that was almost nuclear in its force.

There were two fights in this movie. Obviously, you can’t have the death of Superman be the end of the movie. You gotta show the comeback, so the death was only half the story. The second battle pits Superman as the underdog. That one, I think, was done better than the first. More time was spent in dialog expressing the thoughts of the combatants - though I still never got a sense of regret from Superman, which I think would have been appropriate for his character.

The movie could have benefited from an extra 5 to 10 minutes on character moments intertwined with the action. That would still keep it under 90 minutes total.

One other thing: while the body count in this film is high, there are only two instances of blood shown. I’m glad the team decided to keep it “clean” because this is bound to be seen by kids. There is a part of me that wants to see the adult animé version of this, though. Take a look at a contrast between his death in the movie vs. the comic book version:

For all those who want to be spoiled for the first fight, here it is in full. My favorite moment: when he grabs Doomsday by the teeth.

If you’re into Superman, rent this one. There’s even a moment where Lex surprised me. Maybe I’m too used to Lex in Smallville, but this Lex is cold.

When I go to the theater, I love to see the previews. I consider them an art unto themselves. It can’t be easy to tease an unfinished movie by pulling out the enticing bits and telling you just enough to get you interested in the story without revealing the whole thing. Good editors can even make a bad movie look great. Conversely, great movies can be hidden behind a poor trailer. But a great movie with a great trailer makes you sit up and go, “wow!”

The problem with seeing all these previews is that they are essentially commercials. Commercials are made to make you want to purchase something you didn’t know you needed. They are there to separate you from your money. So for me, loving trailers is a two-edged sword.

Case in point: when we saw our double-feature, I saw trailers for movies I somehow hadn’t heard about before, and newer trailers for movies I was already somewhat interested in. Then I read Lee’s review of The Incredible Hulk. I thought I was set with my list for the summer, but now it seems I have some revision to do.

So here’s the new list, in order of release, with release date (and my thoughts, if I’ve seen it). Boldface indicates movies I will not miss in the theaters. Italics are the ones I’m going to whine about incessantly if I miss in the theater - the ones that it hurts me to not put in bold. The others I will be disappointed if I have to miss for one reason or another, but once I see them on video I’ll be okay:

1. Iron Man - May 2 (review)
   
2. Speed Racer - May 9 (judging by general reaction, glad I missed it)
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - May 16 (review)
4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - May 22 (review)
5. The Incredible Hulk - June 13 (This is so close to being in bold it’s not even funny)
6. Get Smart - June 20
7. Wall-E - June 27
8. Hancock - July 2
9. The Dark Knight - July 18
   
10. The X-Files: I want to believe - July 25
11. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer - August 1
12. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - August 15
    
13. City of Ember - October 10
14. Quantum of Solace (James Bond) - November 7

The astute among you (i.e., the ones who have nothing better to do but follow the minutiae of these posts) will notice that City of Ember was added to the list. Bill Murray and Tim Robbins in a sci-fi adventure movie. I love Bill Murray and Tim Robbins, and I love sci-fi adventure, but I would not be sold by that pairing. It’s on my list. That’s the power of a trailer.

Hancock has also been upgraded to painfully close to a must-see (as has Hulk). When I saw the first trailer, it looked like a fun, but relatively light, superhero movie. This most recent trailer shows that it actually has a plot of redemption and seems well formed. (And they even surpassed the whale bit for funny. Jason Bateman is perfect for this movie.)

So many movies… so little time.

Yesterday I was editing a recording I made in Adobe Captivate 2. It was only 18 frames, about 7 minutes long, and is a demo of a system we use at work. Should have been a slam dunk.

The Problem

For the most part, everything went fine until I published the file to SWF with HTML. But when I played back the published file, at about the 5th frame, the audio gained a very pronounced echo which lasted a couple frames, and then left the rest of the audio sounding like it was in a tin can.

I figured, “hmm… must be a glitch,” so I published it again. Same thing, but this time the problems happened on different frames.

I tried publishing again after changing a couple publishing settings: same effect - screwed up audio on different frames. Each time I published (about 8 times total) the audio was screwed up in a different way, and I never edited the file between publishes.

Needless to say I was a bit frustrated.

The Solution

I tossed out a rather annoyed email to a co-worker, who responded this morning with the answer (and it’s at this point that I have to say to her again: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!).

Apparently she had run across the problem before. I don’t know how she figured it out, but the answer is to adjust the slide timing slightly using the Audio > Edit Timing… feature.

The Edit Audio Timing window lets you grab a slider indicating the start time for an effect or frame change. Grab any one of those sliders and move it slightly (my suggestion is to be more zoomed in than shown here so you really are only moving it slightly). Click OK, then republish and everything comes out fine.

One thing you might want to do is verify that none of the timing of objects on your slides changed. It could happen, so make sure you check.

Why this works is a mystery to me, but there you have it. Hope it helps someone.

Thanks for all you’ve taught us, thanks for all the fun we’ve had. Thanks for the trips to the parks, the encouragement, and the discipline. And most of all, thanks for not killing us when we put a hole through the car battery (that may only apply to my Dad…).

Thanks for the support and the love.

And now, a message from the younger generation…

fathers_day_poppop

In fact, the first to come to mind is an easy one. This song was my introduction to “grown up” music in the latter half of the seventies. I think I was 7 or 8 when my dad brought a record into my room and said, “here, I think you’ll like this song.” We both sat down with the portable record player and listened to this:

Now, the “59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” is not my favorite Simon and Garfunkel song, but it was the gateway into their music and the wider world of non-kids music, so easily gets the number one spot here. The album it came from, “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme” would similarly get the #1 spot if we were talking about albums. It contains some absolute classics, including “Scarborough Fair/Canticle”. To go a bit off on a side track, 99% of the time, “Fair” (which is a traditional tune, not Simon’s) is performed live without “Canticle” (which is Simon’s), because it’s just impossible to do as a duet. I found this version, though, from Andy Williams’ show in the ’60s that is absolutely beautiful. All of them were in their prime when this was recorded.

Simon and Garfunkel just had an incredible sound. Wonderful, pure harmonies. Wanting to be able to sing like that, as much as anything, got me to join various choirs and appreciate the art of music, which then pulled me (eventually, and at times kicking and screaming) into the world of classical music and a deeper understanding of music generally. In a real way, S&G were the introduction to my musical journey.

Along those same lines, I first heard popular music orchestrated with strings in The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” That was the first time it occurred to me that classical music still had relevance and could be “cool.”

Number 3 in this impactful music list is connected to my wedding (and many others). Steven Curtis Chapman created a perfect wedding song in “I will be here,” as it captures what most grooms want their wives to understand. That my wife’s family (who are all sickeningly talented) performed it for us just cements its importance.

At number 4, and again associated with my wedding, though indirectly, is “The Love of God.” This is a hymn that I had never heard before listening to the arrangement by 4Him, and it hit me on multiple levels. First the words are tremendous (especially the last verse: “Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made; Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade; to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky”). Second, it reawakened in me an appreciation of hymns. Most hymns had felt stodgy and detached to me for a long while. Third, it gave me a better sense for how effective an alternate arrangement of a song could turn out - while still retaining the basic melody, this arrangement goes in a direction I never would have conceived, and it works amazingly well. [I couldn't find the song on YouTube, but you can hear it here. {gaahhh... I gotta figure out how to get "object" tags to work right in WordPress!}]

Finally, we come to number 5. Soooo many contenders for this spot. I actually feel stress in making a call on this. Billy Joel, Steve Taylor, Bruce Hornsby, Glad, Phil Collins, John Williams, James Taylor, Handel, and Mozart, among others, all sit together waiting for their spots on this list. They each have at least one song that could easily fit. Heck, I could probably focus an entire post on each of their libraries individually and the multiple, deep impacts they’ve had on me.

So… what to do? I’m going to go in a new direction on this one. My #5 spot is going to “The Anniversary Song” by my brother-in-law, Jim. He’s kind of shy about sharing his stuff publicly, and he writes, performs, records, mixes, and produces them himself, so I don’t want to put it out there without getting his permission. This particular song is a thank you to his parents on their anniversary and a reminder of their legacy. Though completely its own, it’s very reminiscent in conception to “Leader of the Band” by Dan Fogelberg in its general style and parallels between music and family. It’s an excellent song, and in my opinion could do well in mass market. It’s not so much the song itself, though, but that it was created by someone I knew who had no formal music training - though he’d been involved in music all his life. We also have many of the same musical tastes, so I identified with what he was doing, and that spurred me to finally get around to writing some of my own music. His musical talent is far beyond mine, and I think my skills lie in a different area of music, but his efforts and success with that song (and the others on the two albums he produced privately) inspired me to motion. As a result, I’ve arranged a few hymns, written a few not so good things and a few passable things, and continue to work on music (primarily choral) as a hobby.

So there you have it. Plenty of stuff left off, but that’s my list for now. Ask me again tomorrow, maybe you’ll get a different list.

What would you put on your list?

But… we get another week of voting in, and everybody’s back in play! Pick your pony!

See, this is how people are supposed to behave. I have a lot of respect for Joe’s integrity. Joe is the owner of HostPC, the hosting service I use here. On June 1, when his competitor ThePlanet suffered a major crisis that took down their clients’ sites, Joe made this offer:

This evening, one of the datacenters for ThePlanet suffered a major explosion in their electrical room which knocked out power to thousands of customers and destroyed three walls of the building. This was a MAJOR event, supposedly affecting >9,000 servers.

As the leader in DirectAdmin services, we maintain several areas where we can accomodate emergency situations such as these. We are making available, at no cost, as space permits, room for other hosting companies to move their customers (using Directadmin only) temporarily to our facilities.

If we can be of assistance during this emergency for you or your Directadmin customers, please call our Texas office directly at (979)985-5488 - or send an email to joe@hostpc.com with your details (name of company, contact, space needed, etc) - and we’ll see what we can do to accomodate you as best as possible. We don’t have unlimited space, but are willing to share what we do have available to get you and your clients through this emergency.

Best wishes to those affected by this issue. I’m sure ThePlanet is doing everything possible to get services restored.

He didn’t do it to steal the customers. According to the linked discussion, when the crisis was over everyone moved back where they came from. He actually helped a competitor out of a jam because it was the right thing to do. Not a whole lot of businesses would do that.

HostPC provides a great, professional, and low-cost service and they operate with integrity and a customer service perspective. I’ve been with them for years now, and I’m happy I found them. The kinds of things like the quote above are just the icing on the cake. I not only enjoy their service, I’m proud of them.