My Samsung Blu-ray player wont play Blu-ray movies
I was watching Watchmen on Blu-ray last night when the picture froze. If you’ve seen the move, it was the scene where Silk Spectre and Nite Owl take a stroll down a dark alley and they end up going Old Testament on a bunch of street thugs who were up to no good.
I tried taking the disc out and cleaning it. I had just bought it so I didn’t know how it got dirty, but that was all I had in my digital disc troubleshooting bag of tricks. After cleaning off the nonexistent gunk from the disc, I tried to watch it again, but now my Blu-ray player wouldn’t read the Blu-ray disc at all.
I tried it again today, but the result was the same. I then tried playing another Blu-ray disc. The player wouldn’t read that disc either. I tried a regular old DVD disc and it read that disc without any difficulties.
My Samsung BD-P1500 will play DVD discs, but not Blu-ray discs. I’ve probably only watched five, maybe six Blu-ray discs on it and it now wont work.
I went to the Samsung website to see what I could now do. After entering in all of the applicable information, it informed me that though the machine was still under warranty for parts, it was no longer under warranty for labor. The warranty for parts is 12 months, while the warranty for labor is a mere 3 months. I was then advised to call Samsung to arrange a repair.
How lame is that? It would probably cost me more to have the unit repaired than it would to just buy a new player. I paid $200 for this one last Black Friday. I haven’t priced them lately, but I doubt Blu-ray players have gone up in price since then.
Not that I will ever buy anything made by Samsung ever again.
New ‘Watchmen’ lawsuit, this time it’s over coffee
Massimo Zanetti, the maker of various crappy grocery store coffees including Chock Ful o’Nuts, is suing Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and the Organic Coffee Cartel over coffee that looks an awful lot like a can of Chock Ful o’Nuts. The coffee, Nite Owl Dark Roast, is being sold online with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity.
Clay Enos, the official still photographer of the Watchmen movie, came up with the idea to sell the coffee. Shortly before the movie was released, he was a guest on the Ron and Fez show where he talked about taking photos for the movie as well as his $100 photo book from the movie.
He also talked about this coffee.
Massimo Zanetti is asking the courts for an injunction against any further sale of the coffee, plus they want a percentage not from the coffee sales, but from the actual movie.
Animation on Blu-ray: is there a difference?
When the Watchmen motion comic was released on March 3rd, I found myself wondering which version I should purchase. Should I buy the high-definition Blu-ray version or the regular DVD version? Would I really see a difference between to the two formats?
I went ahead and picked up the Blu-ray version.
I’ll be perfectly honest and admit that I sometimes can’t tell a difference in quality between Blu-ray and regular DVD. Not that I’ve watched the same movie in each format side-by-side. That would be a fun experiment to stage, if it were at all possible.
When I moved from VHS to DVD, I noticed a huge difference in quality. When I moved from cassette tape to CD, I noticed a huge difference. When I moved from regular definition TV to high definition TV, I noticed a huge difference. When I moved from DVD to Blu-ray, I didn’t really see much of a difference.
I can only imagine that an animated movie with a limited spectrum of colors will have even a less pronounced difference in quality than a live-action motion picture.
I noticed recently at Suncoast that the Japanese anime classic Akira is now available in the high-def, Blu-ray format. Would I notice the difference between it and the DVD version I already own?
‘Watchmen’ has a disappointing second week
From Box Office Mojo:
Watchmen disintegrated 67 percent to an estimated $18.1 million for $86 million in ten days, trailing all previous superhero movies that debuted in the $50 million range through the same point. For perspective, 300, which Watchmen was oft compared to, fell 54 percent to $32.9 million in its second weekend (for a $129.2 million total), and, among major comic book movies, only Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Hulk had steeper drop-offs.
I figured (more or less ) that this would happen when I watched it last week. People that wanted to see Watchmen went the first week. Those who liked the movie and wanted to see it again know that it will likely see a DVD release sooner rather than later. When a substantial amount of money is spent promoting a movie for theatrical release and the movie fails to break even at the box office, studios generally tend to release movies on DVD fairly quickly. The longer they wait, the more money they have to spend promoting the movie all over again.
Personally, I cannot wait for Watchmen to be released on Blu-ray. I agree with fellow Hagerstown-area blogger Steve Shives in that I think it’s the finest superhero movie ever made.
I guess this means Watchmen will be the first and last nearly three-hour, R-rated superhero movie and maybe that’s not such a terrible thing. What other superhero story could be turned into an R-rated movie, The Boys? Please.
When it comes to the ending of the ‘Watchmen’ movie, I agree with Hitler (SPOILER ALERT)
We went and watched Watchmen yesterday. Though I absolutely loved the movie, I didn’t care much for the ending. Not because it differed from the ending in the graphic novel (because it did), but because it was flawed.
In the graphic novel, the cold war comes to an immediate end by the introduction of a giant space squid that destroys much of New York City. People realize that they must stop waging war against each other. No matter what our differences are with each other, we have much more in common with each other than we do big giant space squids. The big giant space squid unifies all of mankind.
In the movie, there is no big giant space squid. Instead, a massive bomb based on the same technology that gives Dr. Manhattan his god-like powers is detonated not only in New York City, but in major cities all over the world. Dr. Manhattan is immediately blamed for the attacks that have killed millions. The cold war still ends, but instead of mankind uniting against the threat of giant space squids, it unites against the threat posed by Dr. Manhattan.
And that is where the problem lies.
A giant space squid that destroys much of New York City is neutral. Dr. Manhattan that deploys massive bombs in the world’s major cities is not neutral.
For years Dr. Manhattan has been the poster child of American power. Not only was he once a man, he was an American. Nixon after all used Dr. Manhattan to bring an immediate and swift end to the Vietnam conflict turning it into the 51st state. I’m not so sure the rest of the world would unite with the United States. I’m not sure the the rest of the world would see the United States in the same way that it sees all the other countries attacked by Dr. Manhattan. If anything, Nixon using the power of Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam would have likely united the world against the United States.
That’s not to say that I didn’t love this movie. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach ridiculously good. He was born to play the part of Rorschach. His portrayal of Rorschach was truly Oscar worthy.
The level of graphic violence was at the same level with directer Zack Snyder’s other graphic novel adaption, 300. I was somewhat surprised by this. This movie is definitely not a movie for children or the squeamish.
I enjoyed this movie and I’m looking forward to watching it again and again when it’s released on Blu-ray.
Early reviews for ‘Watchmen’ movie are trickling in
Watchmen opens this Friday, but reviews are already starting to trickle in over at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Though it currently has an overall T-Meter rating of 73%, looking at only the reviews from the top critics gives it a rating of only 14%.
That’s not good.
Devin Gordon from Newsweek:
Snyder has appropriated Moore’s doomsday themes without any sense of how to animate them. That’s the trouble with loyalty. Too little, and you alienate your core fans. Too much, and you lose everyone — and everything — else.
Anthony Lane from the New Yorker:
Watchmen, like V for Vendetta, harbors ambitions of political satire, and, to be fair, it should meet the needs of any leering nineteen-year-old who believes that America is ruled by the military-industrial complex, and whose deepest fear—deeper even than that of meeting a woman who requests intelligent conversation—is that the Warren Commission may have been right all along.
For what it’s worth, Anthony Lane seems to hate most movies no matter if they are good or not. For instance, he gave Slumdog Millionaire a crappy review and it just won the Oscar for Best Picture. Go figure.
Don Murphy: “Alan Moore is a hypocrite and a liar”
Don Murphy, Hollywood producer behind films such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, and Transformers has a few choice words for comic book master scribe Alan Moore. Both From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were films based on Alan Moore comics.
From AV Club:
Alan Moore is a hypocrite and a liar.
–He took a million dollars from Fox for League- he did not HAVE to do so
–He claims that he never saw League so why does he get to comment on the merits of it? YOU can say what you want to- but he never saw it
–He has made over $3 million dollars on the increased sales of the Watchmen hardcover due to the film- he isn’t returning that money
–He sold the rights to Watchmen in 1988
–He attacked V for Vendetta back when it came out- after he had sold those rights
He is an old man who smokes too much hash and prays to a lizard god. Don’t buy his bullshit.
I nearly spit hot tea all over my monitor when I read that last line.
Murphy does have a point. Moore has made a massive amount of money from the movies he supposedly hates so much. Movies he claims he’s never watched.
Photo by Craig Grobler.
Watchmen trailer shares music with worst superhero movie ever made
If you’ve watched the trailer for the upcoming Watchmen movie, you might have recognized the tune that accompanies the trailer. It’s The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning by the Smashing Pumpkins.
It doesn’t look as though the song actually appears in the finished movie. At least it’s not included in the official Watchmen soundtrack. Why do they include music in trailers that do not appear anywhere in the film? It gets to be annoying. For months now I have watched each new version of the Watchmen trailer and I have heard this song accompanying it. I associate this tune with the movie. It’s triggered a Pavlovian response in me. When I hear The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning, I automatically imagine the Owl ship coming up out of the water.
There is a movie soundtrack the song does appear on. It’s track one on the Batman & Robin Soundtrack.
Why would they recycle a song for the Watchmen movie from arguably the worst superhero movie ever made?
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic comes out on DVD and Blu-ray March 3, 2009. The individual chapters have been sporadically appearing in the iTunes store as $1.99 downloads. I think I purchased the first two, then promptly forgot about ever going back to see if the remaining chapters were ever made available or not.
A quick check of iTunes shows that they are up to chapter 10.
It looks as though that if you purchase the Blu-ray disc for $34.99, it comes with “digital copies” of all 12 chapters. Both the DVD and Blu-ray version come with a $7.50 Movie Cash coupon good towards a ticket to see Watchmen beginning on March 6th. As if anyone buying the DVD or Blu-ray motion comic of Watchmen wasn’t already planning on seeing Watchmen in the theater.
Boycotting 20th Century Fox over ‘Watchmen’ legal dispute
Some people are trying to form a boycott of 20th Century Fox over the studio’s insistence that they still own rights to any motion picture based on the Watchmen graphic novel. A federal judge recently agreed with 20th Century Fox. From the Facebook Free Watchmen group:
20th Century Fox is trying to prohibit the release of Warner Brothers’ upcoming film, Watchmen. Watchmen is one of the highest regarded pieces of work in the comic and literary world. It was on Times 100 best novels of the 20th century.
Scheduled to release next year, Fox is trying claim rights even after sitting back and allowing WB to pour time, money, and talent into. Now, after an abysmal summer for Fox, they are reaching out to try and stamp out another studio’s success.
I propose a boycott of all 20th Century Fox productions in protest of their detestable actions.
I actually think it’s kind of funny the Warner Brothers would make a movie based on a property they don’t have the rights to. With all the lawyers they have at their disposal, they couldn’t figure out that 20th Century Fox still owned the rights to a Watchmen movie?
It would appear that maybe they knew all along.
From
These three filings in particular provide detailed allegations as to how Warner Brothers got into this mess. In a nutshell, Fox claims that it has evidence that Warner Brothers initially relied on an inaccurate chain of title provided by Paramount. Once Warner Brothers was aware of Fox’s documented claims, it nonetheless decided to proceed in a deliberate “business calculation” that it would be more profitable to deal with a court case than clear the rights before making Watchmen.
Warner Brothers royally screwed up. They made the wrong business decision to make a movie they knew they didn’t have iron clad rights to. 20th Century Fox isn’t the villain here.
Judge rules 20th Century Fox owns rights to ‘Watchmen’ movie
A federal judge in Los Angeles has announced that he intends to rule that 20th Century Fox indeed owns a copyright interest in the Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. The movie, directed by Zack Snyder, is based on the DC Comics epic graphic novel of the same name.
Watchmen was published in 12 issues from 1986 and 1987. It was written by acclaimed comic book writer Alan Moore and drawn by artist Dave Gibbons. Most comic book fans believe that it’s the greatest graphic novel ever published.
20th Century Fox’s claim to Watchmen stems from the fact that it purchased the rights to a Watchmen movie in the late 1980’s for producer Lawrence Gordon. 20th Century Fox ultimately declined to make the movie for themselves. Gordon then later shopped the movie around with different movie studios before coming to an agreement with Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers also owns DC Comics.
The movie is scheduled to be released sometime in March. I’m guessing that Warner Brothers will end up having to pony up a bunch of money to secure the rights from 20th Century Fox.
New Watchmen trailer
Though this trailer is technically new, it contains a lot of the scenes already seen in the other Watchmen trailers, including Rorschach acting as if he was bitten by a radioactive spider.
Second chapter of the Watchmen motion comic released
The second chapter of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s graphic novel Watchmen “motion comic” is now up in the Apple iTunes store. I watched the first chapter in July and I’ve been waiting for the next one ever since. At this pace, the 12th and final chapter wont be coming out until the upcoming movie is on HBO.
If you’re not familiar with these motion comics, you should really check them out. I could try to describe them, but it would be much better if you watched one for yourself. You can watch them on either a video iPod, computer, or a TV via an Xbox 360. Update: I just tried to watch it on my TV and it won’t play. It shows up in my Xbox 360 video library, but it wont play. I watched the first episode (twice) on my iPod.
The ‘Watchmen’ trailer
The official trailer for the Watchmen movie is up over at Apple’s official movie trailer site. It looks like this movie is going to be as great as I have been hoping it would be. Seriously, I think Alan Moore will even have a hard time watching this and feeling pesimistic about it’s potental.
Free Comic Book Day 2008
This year’s Free Comic Book Day has now come and gone. I only visited one comic book shop, Comics World in the Chambersburg Mall in Scotland, Pennsylvania. Not only were they giving away the comics every other participating comic book retailer was giving away, they had some good sales taking place.
- Statues and Busts – 35% Off
- Trade Paperbacks – 50% Off
- Back Issues – 50% Off
- Action Figures – 50% Off
I probably should have showed up when the mall opened for business. I was able to pick up a trade paperback of Joss Whedon’s Fray along with the trade paperback of Tales of the New Gods. I also purchased a NM/M copy of Watchmen #1 for eleven bucks. I’ve got the fancy Absolute edition of the series, but I don’t own any of the single comics.
The event looked to be a big hit. They set tables in front of the store with all of the various free comics available for the taking. This allowed people who may not have ever stepped foot into a comic book shop to pick up some books without any pressure. I witnessed quite a few people picking up books. Many of them looked as though they may have never read a comic book before. I couldn’t help but think that if they had to go into the store to pick out some free comics, they may not have bothered.
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