David's Del.icio.us Links for 2008-07-17
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Or, rather, another one, since they've had Amazon Unbox for a while. The new one will stream the content, reportedly around 40,000 titles at launch.
It was a hit. You can bet we’ll be seeing more in the near future:
Despite slight artistic merits and a frustrating lack of Turbo Boost action, NBC's heavily promoted Knight Rider TV movie proved to be a massive ratings winner this past Sunday night.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the Knight Rider movie averaged 12.7 million viewers during its two-hour run. …It was easily the most popular show in its time slot and did best of all among men aged 18-49 and 25-54 — despite being up against the NBA All-Star game.
…What this means to you: It's almost inevitable that a new Knight Rider series is on its way to NBC this fall. So invest in a hi-def flat screen, because they won't be able to avoid Turbo Boost forever.
Heard of this?
I'm kidding! Of course you have. In fact, if you're anyone I'm related to, you probably have one already and look down on me because I don't have HD. Well, now you have to look... over at me. I've joined the Twenty-First Century.
What I didn't realize is how good it really is. I've seen a handful of digital movie presentations in theaters (the earliest I can think of being "Attack of the Clones"), and it was pretty sweet. What's amazing to me is, the TV I just picked up at Best Buy for less than a grand (Samsung LN-T4061F, in case you're interested), has the same resolution as that movie theater! Yikes! How cool am I?
Of course, the theater chains are piloting screens with twice the resolution (4096x2160). I figure it'll be at least six months before these are available to the public for their home theaters.
I watched "Knight Rider" as a kid. Because it was a show about a talking car... and I was a kid. But I never fell in love with the thing the way I did other high-concept shows, like "The Incredible Hulk" or "The Six Million Dollar Man".
So I was remarkably ambivalent about the retread. I didn't have the fear that they'd screw over my childhood memories like Lucas did with "The Phantom Menace". Nor, did I expect to be wowed by a fantastic reimagining of a show I never cared for, like McG's "Charlie's Angels". Truth be told, if I hadn't heard about the last-minute recasting of KITT's voice with Val Kilmer, I probably wouldn't have watched it at all.
Well, Kilmer was a huge amount of fun. The rest of the show? All kinds of meh. And I think the producers realized this as well, because in the first ten minutes, we get not one, not two, but four scantily clad lesbian/bisexual women. It was just so smarmy, I wondered what kind of DTV circle of hell I'd fallen into. This is still NBC, right?
Then the "story" kicks in. And it's a good approximation of the kinds of stories that the original show would use... with "cliff hangers" at the commercial breaks, and "surprises", like the fact that Bruce Davison, credited in the opening titles, isn't dead. Really?! Shocker!
The cast is unremarkable in every way. I didn't bother to look up the names of any of the actors I didn't already know. Call the guys Bland Blandington, and the gals Blanda Blandski. Even the lesbians. In fact, the only way to tell the good guys from the bad guys is that the bad guys frown (slightly) more.
If NBC picks up this piece of crap and cancels "Journeyman", I may have to boycott the network!
(Okay, not really. I still love "The Office" and "Heroes"...)
According to Engadget, the HD format war is over: “Along with an English translation of the NHK's article (Thanks sfditty!) comes additional confirmation from Reuters sources, it's a wrap. Toshiba is shutting down its DVD manufacturing facilities in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, while official word is expected ‘soon’.”
That said… I still don’t care all that much. DVD is still good enough, as far as I’m concerned.
I'm not exactly sure how I managed to go three-plus years without posting anything about "Lost". I can't imagine anyone would be stunned to hear me say I like the show, and that I think it's one of the best on television. And the show certainly doesn't need my help. It's beyond the point where a grassroots campaign is necessary to keep it on. In fact, the producers had to lobby for an end date, to keep it from dragging on like certain TV shows that just won't die.
Remember the casette tape? It was a technology used by those zany residents of the 20th-century for audio recording. I have dozens of them gathering dust, and over the weekend ran across one Russell recorded with his brother EB back in 1992. It’s an amusing little slice of history; one segment features a quick survey of late night cable television, including news reports from Somalia (Clinton lied, people died!) and commercials for telephone psychics (“for entertainment purposes only!”). Perhaps the best bit was a segment from what turned out to be Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, written by soon-to-be Pretty Woman scribe J.F. Lawton, and starring Shannon Tweed, Adrienne Barbeau, and a very pre-Real Time Bill Maher. Ah, the classics. The little snippet I heard proved unexpectedly amusing, the way it revelled in its own awfulness.
It occurs to me that I haven't yet reviewed this series.
It sucks.
Okay, so if you want more detail, here's why it sucks:
The casting is greatly distracting, since the actress playing Sarah is only fourteen years older than the kid playing her son John. And while the choice of Summer Glau as their protective terminator is kind of cool... her performance in the pilot indicated that her character is capable of a completely humanistic performance... which performance she hasn't replicated since.
They have almost (but not quite) completely ditched the events of the third film from the arc of the mythology. I know people who (wrongly) believe that the third film sucked. But even if it did, a few minor tweaks to the timeline of the series could have dealt with that deftly. And even then, there are enough details from the second film that they got wrong that it just bugged me.
I guess it's not really possible to create a series out of the character that Linda Hamilton portrayed in T2, since she was, essentially, insane. But the whole thing is so tonally distinct, I feel like I'm watching a reboot rather than a sequel... and it's not one I can get behind.
Here's hoping the new movie is a better follow-up.
Rumors, including the latest from Nikki Finke, say it might be—but of course, we’ve heard such rumors before, and those didn’t exactly pan out. Cross your fingers, media fans…
I am almost, but not quite, ashamed to admit that I was a fan of the original "American Gladiators" from the 80s and 90s. I'd sit up on Saturday night and watch the show with my brothers, laughing at and still impressed by the athleticism required to succeed.
There was something wonderfully fascinating about these bizarre sporting events. The faux-military feel of "Assault". The ridiculous little trashcan goals in "Power Ball". The Tarzan-inspired "Hang Tough". And the truly iconic "Joust".
I should've hated this show. I don't like "reality" TV, I don't like game shows, and I don't like sports. Why did I think this is fun? I honestly couldn't tell you.
So, what can I say about the new version. I still like it! The revamp feels so similar, it's like the show never left. It's practically nostalgia. The major change is that the whole thing takes place over a swimming pool, so instead of smacking into big soft mats when the contenders fall off of something, they splash into water. Better!
I don't even mind Hulk Hogan, if you can believe that!
And there's another reason to like the show now. I have a DVR, so I can not only skip past the commercials, I can also skip past the contender introductions and the after-event interviews. I can watch just the events (which is all I care about) and be in and out in under 30 minutes.
This is not a recommendation. Most of you will hate this show. And you won't be wrong.
But I don't.
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