loonyblog.

I’m very pleased to report that iMovie HD, which is bundled with iLife ‘05, finally gets rid of that damned 9 minute limitation on imported movies. That little glitch has been plaguing this program since its inception, and has made working with TiVo-ripped movies a real chore (I still managed to do it, but only because I am lord and master of the DVD). But that’s all in the past now…I was able to import an MPEG4 AVI into iMovie HD with a running time of over two hours. And it made it! With no audio tweaks necessary, no separating it into elemental streams, nothing. What a relief that is. I still think it sucks that iDVD 5 doesn’t support DVD-DL, but this almost makes up for it.

Oh, and for the record, the changes in iPhoto 5 are nice, but very, very subtle. I haven’t even fired up iDVD yet, so I have nothing to report there, and I may never run GarageBand, so don’t ask me about that (I launched the first version only once to verify that it was definitely not for me).

Anyway, here’s some iMovie HD love…marvel at the size of that single movie:

High school kids are stupid. What else is new?

I’m having major server problems here, so please excuse any errors you see while browsing or attempting to post comments.

Update: Most things appear to be normal…I’m getting some server-side errors, but comment posting and general site browsing should be back to normal.

So this year’s Oscar nominations came out yesterday morning, and while I’ve been exceptionally busy at work (for reasons that should be more or less obvious to those who follow the news related to that unnamable company I work for), I’ve had a few moments to look over the list, and as always, I have formed my opinion.

Let’s start with the actor categories: I was pleasantly surprised to see Jamie Foxx nominated for both Ray and Collateral. I haven’t actually seen Ray (I try to see as few Oscar movies prior to the awards as possible…it throws off my predictions), but I did see Collateral, and thought the acting was top notch. It was nice to see Thomas Haden Church and especially Virginia Madsen nominated for Sideways (which is probably my favorite film of the year, although I’ve seen so few that I’m really not qualified to make that call), although the snubbing of Paul Giamatti is a real shame here. I was a little disappointed to see Annette Bening nominated for Being Julia, not because I dislike Bening by any means, it’s just that particular role seemed a little over-dramatic to be a serious contender. Having said all that, the actress category is really interesting this year, with Bening’s old rival Hilary Swank back for a second round, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Imelda Staunton both being serious contenders, and then there’s the wild card that is Kate Winslet.

For the screenplay awards, I found myself scratching my head over the nomination of Before Sunset for adapted screenplay. Since when did having a separate story credit qualify as adaptation? It’s not like this is an adaptation from a printed story…it’s a story written specifically for the movie! Oh well, whatever. At least Sideways was nominated for adapted and The Incredibles for original screenplay.

The documentary category shows itself to be forward-thinking for the third year in a row. The days of the World War II documentary being the easy win seem to be behind us, with Tupac: Resurrection and Super Size Me among the nominees. I was actually surprised that Joe Berlinger’s Metalica: Some Kind of Monster was overlooked here.

The others: the music categories are downright sad this year, particularly among the nominees for original song…if either Shrek 2 or Shark Tale wins for animated feature I’ll lose faith in humanity…hallelujah for the nominations A Very Long Engagement received…visual effects is unusually tough to call this year, as is the makeup category and the costume category is pretty weak as well, with only one real period piece among the lot (and not a very good one at that).

All in all, not a bad list of nominees. Stay tuned for my full picks as we get closer to Oscar night.

(This post is the third in a series looking back at some of my favorite comics of all-time. The first installment covered Watchmen, and the second looked at “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”)

I first discovered Neil Gaiman’s Sandman many, many moons ago when I was a somewhat impressionable adolescent, obsessively attempting to read everything Alan Moore had ever written. My Moore-addiction didn’t go unnoticed by my local comics retailer, who suggested I check out this relatively new series called Sandman. Being the trusting sort (this was the same store owner who pointed me towards Swamp Thing, so I’d have bought Casper the Friendly Ghost if he told me it was dark and brooding) I purchased a slipcase containing the first two collections, with a space for the third. I still have that slipcase…it was designed by Dave McKean (of course), and while it’s been beaten up more than a little over the years, it’s still pretty cool.

Regardless, The Sandman turned out to be more than just another horror comic. As a teenager with odd obsessions with mythology, religion and comics, it was in many ways The Perfect Comic for me. Read on for my full thoughts on a fresh re-read through the entire series, from Preludes & Nocturnes straight through The Wake (and beyond).

Read the rest of this entry »

I guess Hormel, the makers of Spam (the mystery meat, not the e-mail plague), and the surviving members of Monty Python have buried the hatchet or something or other, because to celebrate the new musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Hormel is producing a limited-edition variation of Spam in a “Wicked Awesome Spamalot Collector’s Edition” tin. Here’s a look at it:

Mmm…spam.

Oh wait, no. Ewwwww…spam.

I’ve been having some strange things happening with my Windows box lately, so I decided to run Ad-Aware to see if I’ve got any spyware running in the background. Sure enough, a staggering number of malicious bits of code were found on my system. But even after I ran Ad-Aware to destroy everything, and switched the default browser on that machine to Firefox, random ads were still popping up. So I downloaded Microsoft’s AntiSpyware beta, and that found even more stuff. Oy. I don’t know if this is somehow related to all the problems I’ve been having with games lately, but it certainly can’t be helping.

…I present my top ten games of all-time:

1. Tetris (Multi)
2. Tempest 2000 (Jaguar)
3. Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)
4. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC/Xbox)
5. Final Fantasy VII (PSX)
6. Doom II (PC)
7. Half-Life (PC)
8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (PC)
9. WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (PC)
10. Sam & Max Hit the Road (PC)

Runners-up: Populous (PC), Quake (PC), Final Fantasy VIII (PSX), Final Fantasy VI (PSX/SNES), Soul Calibur (DC), Phantasy Star (SMS), Fallout (PC), Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars (PC), Super Mario 64 (N64), Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox), Halo (Xbox/PC), Quake III Arena (PC), Heroes of Might and Magic III (PC), Marathon (PC), System Shock 2 (PC), Wipeout XL (PSX/PC).

When I thought about this list, I surprised myself by putting Half-Life above Quake 1, but as much as I love Quake 1 (and I do love that game), Half-Life is a better game. Also, Super Mario 64 used to be in my top 5, but it’s certainly plummeted in the last few years as I’ve grown tired of most of the platforming conventions. I still think it’s a great game, but every game on this list is one I fully expect to play over and over again for many years to come, and I can’t say I’m all that motivated to play through Super Mario 64 again.

Still, not a bad list, if I do say so myself.

Looks like one more we can cross off that list…according to SciFi Wire, actor Hugh Laurie has quietly confirmed that he’s going to be playing Perry White in the upcoming Superman movie. If you’re having a serious “who the…?” moment here, take a gander at his page on the IMDB. It seems like most of his work to date has been in television, but he was also in both Stuart Little movies, and on a slightly more respectable level, he also appeared in Sense and Sensibility. And actually, he’s even written a well-received novel.

Laurie seems like a fine, non-offensive casting choice, although naturally we’ll still have to wait and see if they decide to go in some kind of weird direction with the character, such as the weird Elvis obsession in the Perry White on Lois & Clark (”great shades of Elvis!” indeed).

Regardless, Laurie joins Brandon Routh as Clark/Superman, Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, Shawn Ashmore as Jimmy Olsen and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Not a bad cast at all. Here’s a look at the Perry White-to-be (photo courtesy of the Hugh Laurie FAQ):

So who’s left to cast? Unless they decide to skip the origin entirely there’s still Jonathan and Martha Kent (even if they don’t skip it, these two will probably be in there somewhere), there’s still the possibility of an appearance by Kal-El and Lara (although let’s hope to god it’s not as excruciating as Marlon Brando’s zillion dollar atrocity in Superman: The Movie), and beyond that, it could be any character from the Superman stable. Lana Lang? Pete Ross? Emil Hamilton? Brainiac? Metallo? Lobo? Supergirl? Darkseid? (Just for the record, if Darkseid is ever in a live action movie and not played by Michael Ironside, I will start an organized revolt). Filming is supposedly starting soon, so any casting should be leaking out in the next month or so.

CNN: “Intelligent Design” taught in Pennsylvania.

CNN: Obesity indicator on student report cards?

Truly a wonderful day for education in this country.