Roger Ward

Got the new HD Basics Blu-Ray yesterday which I’ve used to re-adjust the settings on my BRAVIA television. Previously I’d posted settings for my “X Series”, but these new settings are wildly different to my previous settings.  I quite like these new settings, they bring out excellent shadow detail with very natural colours.  Novices may not like these settings due to the fact that there are no overblown colours and a low brightness level. But the detail in return is quite astonishing compared to the previous settings.

Let me know what you think.

• Backlight: 2
• Picture: 85
• Brightness: 52
• Color: 55
• Hue: 0
• Color Temperature: Warm 1
• Sharpness: 51
• Noise Reduction: off
• MPEG Noise Reduction: Low
• DRC Mode: Mode 1
• Black Corrector: Low
• Advanced C.E.: Low
• Gamma: Low
• Clear White: off
• Color Space: Standard
• Live Color: off
• DRC Pallette 50/60
  • White Balance
  • R-Gain: -7
  • G-Gain: -7
  • B-Gain: 0
  • R-Bias: 6
  • G-Bias: 4
  • B-Bias: 0-10

• Detail Enhancer: Low
• Edge Enhancer: Low
• Motionflow: High
• Cinemotion: Auto 1

I’ve also attached images below taken after calibration. They’re not totally indicitive due to the camera, but they give a good idea of what the image is like.

Kevin Stalin????

Here in Australia we’ve had a new government for just over 12 months.  Typically for a labor government they’ve done a rubbish job. They’ve taken a 20 billion plus budget surplus and put it into the red. Rudd has also fallen for what I call the “chicken little” trick. It’s the alarmist condition that the hippies of the World use to trick us into believing that the World is coming to an end. So now they are going to propose a carbon trading scheme. (Even though as a country we don’t pollute half as much as countries like China or America). And now the do-gooder state is going to place taxes on what they would class as “unhealthy foods”. These do-gooders won’t be happy until we’re all living in plastic bubbles locked away from the world.  What a fun bunch…

Really they’ve got to be kidding. Some of these “unhealthy foods” include Vegemite, Blue Cheese and Jams because of there high salt & sugar levels. Talk about a nanny state. They want to control what we eat due to high salt and sugar contents, but things like McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks are exempt. There’s something a bit wrong there isn’t it. Sounds like yet another dumb idea just like the proposed Internet filter.

Obviously Kevin Rudd loves the works of George Orwell. I remember what it was like living in a free an democratic country. Now the hippy communists and there politically correct agendas are filtering through into mainstream politics which means that for us, our lives are becoming controlled more and more. Gone are the days when Australia was a free country, where adults were allowed to make their own decisions about their lives.  First there was the Internet filter, now they’re telling us what we can and can’t eat?  Next you’ll find that Rudd will be monitoring all of  our activities, institute a blanket curfew and execute dissidents. Looks like I’m in trouble. And you thought communism was dead!

Enough with the stupid lists I hear you say! Okay, but one more. This time it’s my favorite movies of the year. Every year it seems to me that it gets harder and harder to pick 5 of my favorite movies. Not because there is so many good ones, but because there are so many BAD ones. Sadly were living in a World of sequels and terrible remakes because the movie studios are not wanting to take a risk and that’s a sad thing. Regardless, here are my top 5 films of the year. Happily you won’t find rubbish like: What Happens In Vegas, Love Guru, Zohan or Speed Racer, you’ll find films that are much, much better!

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2008 was another big year for games. There were a lot of sequels (Resistance 2/Gears Of War 2) and spin offs, many overrated games (Spore/GTAIV) and many bad games too. 2008 though will be seen by these eyes as a year where some companies were willing to take a few risks, but the payoff for us the consumer was excellent. Here are my top games of 2008:

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Yesterday I went through my list of the worst games of the year. Now I’m going to focus on the most disappointing games of the year. While they are are from the worst seen this year, they are definitely not the best seen either. They may have had potential, but failed miserably for one reason or another.

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While this maybe a primarily personal blog, I still like to chuck a little bit of other content on it especially if I’m feeling creative. Games are just one of the things that I like to play in my personal time. BAH! Games I hear some of your say. Well, yes! 20 years ago games were just in there infancy, but as I’m one of the generation who grew up them when I was young they are as normal an entertainment past time as going to the movies is to an older person.

Being at the mature end of the gaming spectrum, I find that most games today are useless copies or re-hashes of previous games, after all if it ain’t broke don’t fix it hey? Sadly though a lot of creativity is missing from the games industry now just like the movie industry.  But that doesn’t really matter as most of the target market are ritalin fuelled morons who accept mediocrity willingly. The vast amounts of money that are being spent on titles basically stifles any creative endevours on the whole, but occasionally an original one sneaks out on the market. Sadly is wasn’t many this year, just rehashes of older games with tarted up graphics primarily. Regardless, here are my top 5 worst, best & disappointing games of the year.

Lets start with the worst shall we?

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Long time no blog. Apart from a few decidedly individual movie reviews from when I was unwell, it’s been pretty quiet around here due to that culprit I like to call work. But I just wanted to take a moment out of my busy day to say. CRANBERRY JUICE IS REALLY, REALLY BAD!

In all my 31 years, I haven’t ever had the stuff and I still wish I hadn’t. What is it with Yanks and there penchant for rubbish? I’ve never knew what evil tastes like, but now I finally know!

I sometimes wonder how a movie like Indiana Jones would have been accepted if it were released just a few years after the last film. 19 years have passed since Indiana Jones last rode into the sunset. Finally after getting those three little space films out of the way, George Lucas was able to focus on a new Indiana Jones film. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is the latest entry in the now quartet of films. As we know it had a very protracted and long development time to finally get into our Blu-Ray players. As anyone who enjoys a movie or two also knows, Indiana Jones has been derided by the general internet community for various reasons including the alien subplot, cheesy jokes and even for the participation of the movie nerd’s hero George Lucas. What happened? What happened in these last ten years for people to become so vitriolic towards certain films today? I can put it down to one thing alone. The Internet!

While communications technology has increased in the 19 years since that last film, it seems that moviegoer’s intelligence hasn’t. The Internet has seemingly made film reviewers of us all. And it seems in the majority it has made bad ones at that too. It seems today that reviewers, posters, forum users, website creators and the rest think they know better than professional film reviewers because if you read a lot of the Internet posts/babble on various movie related websites, they don’t have many nice things to say about the film. Simple fact of the matter is that they honestly don’t get it! Wannabe’s always try to take the high brow approach with every film thinking that they’re a Roger Ebert or a Richard Corliss. Perfect example is 300. It’s a film loved by the general movie fanboy community which generally means they’re in the under 25 pants on head retarded demographic. 300 is an awful, awful film and is a complete bastardization of the original story with no reverence to the events it relates to. Really, whats the point of making a historical film if it’s not accurate? 300 is a movie that caters to the lowest common denominator, but those wannabe’s love it because it “looks cool” with all that CGI and violence. To them it’s a dramatic film and it doesn’t require too much effort on the old brain.

This community shows how silly they really are. Last time I checked, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, is much the same. It uses a lot of CGI and doesn’t require much thinking, but it’s hated. Maybe its the lack of 300’s vague homosexual undertones that makes them hate Indy More? The aggregate scores on Rotten Tomatoes for 300 was 60% while Indiana Jones had a 76% certified fresh rating. So much for Internet reviewers knowing more than professional reviewers then! Why bring this up in a review? Well, it seems today that with Internet buzz and movie spoilers, a lot of movies don’t get the chance to be enjoyed by the average moviegoer unlike the last time Indiana Jones saw the inside of the movie theatre. These days, the average moviegoer won’t let themselves enjoy a film anymore because they think they need to criticize every film that comes out so they can babble on around a latte with their other wannabe film critic mates, instead of actually going to the movies to enjoy/hate a film. These days it’s just all pure judgment before actually seeing a film. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull isn’t the best film in the Indy series that’s for sure, but it’s certainly not as bad as what people have been saying. I think the biggest thing is that people just didn’t “get” it, they took it too seriously for what it really was: an homage to the cheesy science fiction “B” movies of the 50’s, just like the original Indy trilogy was an homage to the 30’s adventure serials of the day. No, they tried too take it more seriously than what it actually was, an Indiana Jones film. And for an Indiana Jones film, it does quite well on its own and does feel like an Indiana Jones film, and isn’t that what is important?

Considering this film has grossed over 300 million dollars in the U.S. there must have been something about it that worked, but I’ll still give a synopsis for the two people who haven’t seen it? It’s 1957. With the war over and those pesky Nazi’s defeated, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and his partner Mac (Ray Winstone) (who I would love to punch in the face he’s so annoying!) have been kidnapped this time by a group of Russians from the red army led by Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and taken to a secret government warehouse to retrieve something of value that Indy had recovered ten years before in Roswell, New Mexico. Obviously it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the object that they’re looking for is related to the alleged UFO crash in 1947. Forced to cooperate Indy finds what the Russians are seeking before using his skills in order to escape his captors in what is a very over the top and unrealistic sequence but it’s still a hell of a lot of fun. After all this is Indiana Jones film.

Because of his escape, Indy is put under suspicion by the FBI of working for the reds. Due to this suspicion, Indy is suspended by Barnett College, so Indy decides it would be a good idea to move on and decides to go to Europe. It’s at this point another new character, the awfully named Mutt Williams (Shia Labouf) enters on his motorbike and informs Indy that one of his oldest friends Professor Harold Oxley (John Hurt) and Mutt’s mother have been kidnapped and the only clue to there whereabouts and the whereabouts of the so called “crystal skull” is in a map that only Indy can decode. Utilizing his old trusty leather jacket, fedora and whip, Indy jets of with Mutt to South America in order to find the skull and solve the mystery.

I’m not going to go too deeply into the major plot points as not to spoil it for the people who haven’t seen it yet. But I will say that there are times in the film where it does become somewhat disjointed with over the top situations and some one dimensional characters. Even with those occasional missteps, it still tries its best to remain true to the Indiana Jones idiom of having fun, just like the originals did all those years ago. On the whole though, there are worse two hour diversions you could make.

Hollywood. Home of wonders. Home of original, fascinating films, films that take you to an amazing place for a few hours away from the ups and down of this World. Twenty years ago, that statement was pretty much true. Today though, that Hollywood, has died. Today we have a majority of films that don’t take any risks. Today’s Hollywood uses the motto, “what is old is new again” So in typical Hollywood form, here we have what would have been an original film, if this was 1964!

I Am Legend is a remake of the 1971 film, “The Omega Man”. Which in turn was a remake of the 1964 film, “Last Man On Earth” So if you’ve seen either of the two previous films, you can skip past the synopsis section of my review and get to the meat of my opinion. For those of you in the Ritalin chewing, iPod listening, car thief generation who thinks who thinks 300 is masterpiece theatre, read on.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is that last known man left on Earth. We see in the prologue that in 2009 a virus began spreading around the Earth. He’s the only survivor of this virus that was originally designed to cure cancer. Why is he the only one left? For the next three years, Neville sends out radio signals in the faint hope that there is someone else out there, no one answers. It’s around this time that we realise that Neville isn’t really alone. The virus which wiped out the World’s population have all mutated into a sort of half man-half vampire race known as “The Infected” I’ll just call them “emo’s” from now on.

Neville decides to take matters into his own hands. He realises that the only way he is to save humanity, is to seek out these “emo’s” at night and drag then back to his lab in order to try and cure them and hopefully, in turn, correct the terrible mistake that almost caused humankind’s extinction. But there is a problem, time is running out for Neville and he’s vastly outnumbered! Will Neville be captured by the “emo’s” and have to endure a lifetime of rubbish My Chemical Romance music? Or will he smack some sense into these goth wannabe morons?

Seeing that this is a remake, I’m immediately taking off one star from my final score because I’m sick of remakes. Remakes shit me. A remake of this size and price means that there are two or three less expensive “intelligent” movies that could have been made in it’s place. Instead, what we have here is a remake that isn’t overly bad. But it’s not overly great, it certainly could have been worse. Firstly, Will Smith was a good choice for this film. He definitely is the easiest to connect with compared to Charlton Heston and Vincent Price, so you do actually care somewhat for the character and his predicament.

Another plus is that it’s not as cold a story as the previous films. Sure, the subject matter isn’t happy, but it certainly pulls you in more than the previous films did. Effects wise, the film is impressive, especially in the opening scenes. Suspense is handled well by the director. Taking cues from the “How to make a suspense film” handbook. The director manages to cause quite a few moments of scares and jumps for the audience when “emo’s” jump out from the dark showing there stupid teeth and making various noises with hammers.

A big plus for the previous films for me was the minimalist style in which they were made, you do feel like they are really alone in the World. The filmmakers didn’t have massive budgets to create their respective Worlds, so they had to improvise to create this feeling of desolation the main characters were experiencing. The new film feels like the city switched off the lights for the filming of the required scenes and that once “cut” was yelled, the World would return to normal. Maybe that is what makes the new I Am Legend more accessible & more comfortable compared to the originals.

Given the storyline requires quite a large stretch of our imagination, the director, Francis Lawrence has done quite a good job of modernizing this already well traveled road. The acting is good, the cinematography is beautiful, there are quite a few genuine “scare” moments also. I Am Legend deserves success at the box office. It’s not a great film, but it’s entertaining. And hopefully this will introduce a new generation to the originals.

In The Shadow Of The Moon is one of those films that will sadly get “overlooked” by the majority of moviegoers who would rather sit down and watch a bunch of sweaty men hack each other up while not grasping the vague homosexual undertones of 300.

Thankfully for that small percentage of moviegoers who don’t steal cars, wear hoodies or stab people, here is the best film of the year so far… And it’s a documentary no less!

In The Shadow Of The Moon tells the story of those Astronauts who went to the moon, in their own words. Today the feats of these men aren’t appreciated by today’s younger generation, in fact most young people today probably wouldn’t know much about the moon at all considering how good the education system is today! Utilizing new remastered footage unearthed from the NASA vaults combined with already seen material, those days of the space race are brought back to life in the Astronaut’s own words and they tell a powerful and at times quite poignant story.

Starting off right at the beginning with Gagarin’s first trip into space and the majesty of Apollo 11. To the successful disaster that was Apollo 13 and through to the final act of Apollo 17. In the Shadow Of The Moon is one of those special films that does what it intends to do, take you back to another time when anything was possible and that there was something that is so sorely missing from humankind today, goodness.

These interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Michael Collins, Jim Lovell, John Young, Charlie Duke, Edgar D. Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt and Dave Scott are inter cut with brilliant new footage that really brings the story of these men alive. You see that getting to the Moon was no easy feat, for us it was an achievement, for them it was an ordeal at times, but it’s something that none of these men would want to take back. Even though many years has passed since the great voyages to the moon, and age is beginning to show on these heroes, their spirit and enthusiasm hasn’t waned one bit in the intervening years. If there was one and only one negative that I can take out of this film is the notable omission of Neil Armstrong. But I know this isn’t the fault of the filmmaker, Armstrong has always been a noted recluse when it comes to his and mankind’s greatest achievement.

The sheer enormity of what these men achieved with the assistance of hundreds of thousands of other individuals is still an amazing thing to behold even today, and while these efforts are by and large forgotten by the general public, to me it is the greatest achievement mankind have ever embarked upon which should NEVER be forgotten. The quality of this remastered footage, inter cut with excellent and personal interviews, coupled with a uplifting score from Phillip Sheppard make this the best film of the year for my liking. Do yourself a favor and give rubbish like 10,000 B.C., Meet The Spartans or Fools Gold a miss. In The Shadow Of The Moon is film-making at it’s finest!