Something interesting happened the other day.

I was talking to a friend and the subject of whether to buy Blu-ray or DVD came up. We’ll get to my answer shortly, but this got me thinking: will that be on the minds of casual technology shoppers this holiday? The friend I’m thinking of isn’t what very geeky, so I’m sure there are people like that.

This holiday season there are some killer DVD deals out there. If you want to build on your DVD collection or buy DVDs as gifts for friends, family and fellow workers it’s an exciting time to be shopping. Yes, even with these troubling economic times:

But studios are facing a scarier fact: perhaps consumers are losing interest in buying DVDs. One particularly bleak spot is the sales of Blu-ray, which was intended to spur consumers to buy expensive DVD players to match their new HDTVs, then replace their libraries with expensive new Blu-ray discs so they could get better picture quality than from standard DVDs. But sales of players have been slow, and sales of the discs haven’t been much better.

While we have a library of over 600 movies, very few are in Blu-ray or the now-defunct HD-DVD format. I’m not and have never been as optimistic about Blu-ray. Let’s face it, DVD will be here for awhile.

Don’t get me wrong, from a quality standpoint, there is no better at home video fix than Blu-ray, but with compelling services like Vudu available offering more HD titles in 1080p than even on Blu-ray, you have to wonder how long the format is going to last.

Blu-ray as a holiday gift? Tread carefully

Back to my friend asking me about buying Blu-ray as a gift for a family member. I suggested to buy the DVD version instead. Here are the reasons I outlined to choose DVD over Blu-ray this holiday season:

1. Blu-ray is best at 1080p TV and despite prices plummeting, most people still don’t own 1080p-capable TVs. You might as well buy the DVD version if it won’t be watched at 1080p. Buying Blu-ray for TV sets that are at lower resolutions is a waste.
2. Blu-ray selection is still too anemic compared to DVD, particularly if you enjoy watching old TV shows. Take the complete series of Get Smart for example which I recently bought for $109 at Best Buy. The other day I saw a Blu-ray 4-set of movies selling for $90! Let’s see, 66 hours of content vs. 8 for close to the same price?
3. Too expensive. Every time I think about buying a Blu-ray movie, I have a hard time justifying the prices. $25-35 for one movie?  Sure, you get it at the best quality ever, but unless it’s a movie you’re going to watch many, many times over, you might as well get 2 or 3 DVD movies for the same price.
4. Too risky. The chance of the Blu-ray format making it another couple years is not very good. If you want to build a library in Blu-ray it better be with a collector’s mindset.

If the person you’re shopping for has a 1080p-capable TV — and if you don’t know, just ask them (if they don’t know chances are very good they don’t) — and IF the person has a PS3 or standalone Blu-ray player. If they don’t have the equipment already and/or don’t plan to upgrade, buy the DVD version instead. If they are 1080p equipped, Talk to them about the type of movies they like and how they feel about their Blu-ray player.

If you asked me what I’d rather have: one Blu-ray disc or a TV season on DVD, I’d choose the latter 9 times out of 10. Again, it’s not that I don’t like Blu-ray, because I think the quality is awesome, but I’d rather watch 65 hours of Get Smart than 8 hours of movies I’ll probably only watch once or twice at a higher resolution.

My last Blu-ray purchase is pictured atop this post. Space Ace (paid same price: $29.99 at Best Buy) is a cool interactive game (Don Bluth along the lines of Dragon’s Lair), digitally remastered in HD. It’s a better version than what was in the arcades. These are the kind of great Blu-ray gifts.

Last night there was the annual Best Buy customer private party and I saw voodoo for the first time. Er, VUDU [vudu.com] rather which is pronounced like voodoo. Here’s what this VUDU $299 DVD/HD/1080p on demand in a box badboy looks like:

Little bigger than the now defunct Xbox HD-DVD drive and a little smaller than the Xbox 360. What does it do? Delivers movies up to 1080p/24 to your TV over broadband internet.

VUDU comes neatly packed with everything you need to hook up to a 1080p TV and broadband network:

- network cable
- HDMI cable (also includes standard AV cables for those without HDMI)
- VUDU box (pictured above) which has 250GB storage
- AC power supply
- radio frequency antenna for remote (shown in the right rear of the picture)
- remote + required 2 AA batteries
- $200 in free movie credits (cannot be used on adult movies), more on this later

Don’t be dumb like us and forget to screw in the radio antenna first before trying to use the remote. The "Start Here" manual tells you to do this, BTW. Good idea to thumb through before digging in.

With RF frequency you don’t need to point at the box in order for the signal to make it to the box. You can put the box behind the TV if you want and it will work just fine. Downside to this is getting it to work with Slingbox, but in the VUDU forums I found some people who were successfully using VUDO with a Slingbox and IR dongle.

The VUDU has a USB 2.0 port which is planned to be used for external storage since it only has 250GB of storage. In the meantime you can use the VUDU servers for archival storage if you decide to build a library of movies in addition to renting movies. Not sure it’s wise spending too much money on buying movies from a service you probably haven’t ever heard of before. I hadn’t heard of VUDU until last night and I’m looking for new gadgets like this to try out.

Gotta dig the VUDU remote which looks like an alien’s head and has a simple, but effective design:

Pressing and holding the VUDU button for five seconds starts the step by step process. Vudu will test your broadband network and decide how long it takes for Standard Definition (SD) and HD movies to play. If you have 2.0 Mbps - 4.0 Mbps you can watch SD movies instantly without any waiting but you’ll need to wait for the HD movies.

You need to activate the VUDU at vudu.com/activation which involves entering in a VUDU activation code provided in the setup, putting your information in on the website along with credit card and agreeing to fund your vudubucks account with at least $20. The website is also where you turn on the adult movie feature if you want to be able to watch any adult movies. By default, VUDU is set not to show any movies in the After Dark category.

There are a handy set of parental controls to restrict what movies can be rented and watched without a pincode. By default everything is wide open (except adult as mentioned above) without any code required.

Once you provide your details and give VUDU at least $20 via credit card, the VUDU box will go through the final update stage and then you can start browsing, renting and/or buying movies to watch.

$200 in free movies — the catch

If you buy the VUDU during the promotional period you are also given the $200 in movie credits. Reading the fine print I learned that:

- the $200 in movie credits must be used within 4 months of activation or you lose the credits
- the $200 credits do not apply to any adult movies through the AVN after dark area
- if you return the VUDU they will bang your credit card for whatever movies you’ve rented, the credits only apply if you don’t return VUDU

Tall tales by VUDU sales rep

The VUDU rep wasn’t completely straightforward with us on the whole "having to wait" thing. I asked him point blank if there would be any waiting time of HD and he said there wasn’t. Wrong. There can be a wait, and can be a substantial one if you get the HDX (1080p) movies which are around 10GB in size. If you have 4.0 Mbps or greater connection you can get the HD movies instantly according to the documentation.

On every page of the VUDU website you can test your connection. When VUDU tested my speed through the box it put it at 2.0 Mbps speed, but from browser I’m seeing this:

From the Info & Settings menu you can force VUDU to use the higher setting.

The VUDU rep also told me the average price for movie rentals was $2.99. I found from browsing most of the newer movies seem to be $3.99 for HD and more for HDX. I didn’t see any HD movies for under $3.99. The movie rentals work similarly to renting movies through Xbox Live. You pay for a 24 hour window of time.

Watch movies the day they are released on DVD

The big selling point for VUDU is the ability to rent movies in HD quality the day they are released. Netflix which is going to be available through Xbox Live later this month streams movies as part of their monthly subscription.

The VUDU rep told me that they get movies the day they are released on DVD which is different from the other similar movie on demand services I’ve seen but unfortunately not every studio in Hollywood let’s their movies be immediately available for rental. He said the window was two weeks before the new DVDs become available to rent through VUDU which isn’t bad if you can wait. I don’t recall which studios he said made their movies available for rental on the day they were for sale, but it’s stupid that any studio does that. Hollywood being dumb again.

Iron Man, for example is available to buy ($19.99) but will not be available for rent until November 12.  It’s cool that VUDU shows you exactly when you will be able to rent movies, as well as provides coming soon dates of upcoming DVD releases.

Vudu menu is slick and simplistic

The VUDU UI is easy enough for a child to pick up and begin searching through movies. I was impressed with the design which consists of five top level options: Most Watched movies, New on VUDU, Explore Catalog, My VUDU and Info & Settings.

As the screenshot above shows, as you move to the right with the VUDU remote scrollwheel, the movie box art grows bigger and shows at the bottom the rating as well as range of prices for rental and to buy. If you don’t see any $5.99 or less price it means there is no rental available, it’s purchase only. Simple, but effective.

Most Watched - shows the top 100 movies other VUDU users have rented or purchased from the previous week
New on VUDU - here you can see what’s recently been added as well as when the movies will be available for rent
Explore Catalog - sort from thousands of titles (our list of ‘all’ showed over 7,000 titles) by genre and subgenre (like comedy-romance). You can also search by keyword on title and even actors in movies. VUDU also has TV shows available to buy at $1.99 per episode (upscaled in HD) which might give you the best picture over SD DVD set available to buy in stores
My VUDU - shows active rentals, movies you own, TV shows purchased as well as a wish list for titles you’d like to rent or buy someday and an archive/delete menu for moving content onto the VUDU servers
Info & Settings - adjust parental and other VUDU settings

There is an in-depth VUDU user guide (PDF) online detailing each feature available.

Is VUDU worth $299?

If you love to watch movies like we do and in the highest quality you can see them, we own over 600 DVDS (including some HD-DVD and Blu-ray) and we regularly rent movies through Xbox Live (paying $3+ for the privilege), the VUDU is worth checking out.  With the Best Buy $200 in free movie credits promotion, that brings the price of the VUDU + some movies/TV to watch down to a more reasonable $99. Something tells me they aren’t moving huge numbers of these because:

1. they are bit too pricey for something that requires spending more to watch movies and
2. they aren’t very well known and thus could be a here today gone tomorrow gadget. I remember Slingbox being something nobody had heard about once upon a time, but don’t think VUDU is as widely useful as the Slingbox.

Another downside is VUDU is yet another box around your TV and will fight for an HDMI slot among your gaming systems, cable/dish box, etc. If we keep the VUDU then we need an HDMI selector. I’m having to plug and unplug into the back of the TV too much already. Two HDMI slots and 4 HDMI devices doesn’t work.

I’m not sure we’re going to keep VUDU yet (30 day money back guarantee), but like the idea of being able to rent newer DVD movies without (hopefully) too much hassle. It takes way too long for new DVDs to reach the movie channels like Cinemax, HBO and Showtime. Xbox Live has them sooner, but there is still a noticeable delay. If Hollywood wasn’t lame, they’d make the movies available in VUDU on the day they are for sale for rent, just like they are in movie rental stores.

If the window of time that VUDU gets the newer movies is shorter than it takes to get to Xbox Live, it fills a niche for us versus getting the all you can watch subscription at say Hollywood Video. I also like not having to pay for a monthly subscription fee, but will probably be getting Netflix with Xbox later this month and comparing vs. VUDU. The quality of movies through Netflix vs. VUDU could be what separates the two.

If you watch a lot of new DVDs and don’t care as much about the picture quality then VUDU will be more expensive than one of those all you can watch plans from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video even when factoring in gas if you need to drive to/from to get the movies. Gas prices aren’t almost $5/gallon any more so this makes sense.

VUDU would be more attractive with an internet browser

Why can’t I check my email on this thing or watch vid clips from sites like YouTube? Or (gasp, competitor alert!) visit Hulu.com and watch TV shows for free. I think they didn’t put this option in for fear (?) that it would cut into people paying for the content versus going to legal, legitimate channels to get it and works against the overall value of VUDU.

Watching a movie or TV show in a pixelated browser window is not worth as much as seeing it in 1080p. Until the web offers that kind of deal for free (legally), VUDU shouldn’t be afraid of making a browser available. The Xbox 360 doesn’t have a browser either. So, it’s off to the PS3 or Wii if you want a browser.

The other possible issue here is bandwidth cap from your internet service provider. If you watch a lot of HDX movies at 10GB a piece and have a 250GB per month cap, you could run into additional charges from your ISP. Add all this up and VUDU could be ideal for heavy duty moviephiles who like the best quality they can get without having to leave their house to get it.

Grade: B-

I’ve seen YouTube used by many people for many different reasons. Can honestly say it was a first this morning (credit James) seeing someone like William Shatner — it’s Captain Kirk, man! — using it to tell the world why he is not going to be in the next Star Trek motion picture.

Or maybe this is Shatner lobbying to be in the movie if there’s still time? I’ve heard plenty of stories that Mr. Shatner wasn’t the easiest guy in Star Trek to get along with (and that he hasn’t always handled his success with upmost humility) as told by other Star Trek OS cast members like George Takei on the Howard Stern Show. It might seem by him saying he wasn’t interested in a cameo — that could easily be axed on the cutting room floor — that this is him being difficult again. Tough call. Be in the movie as cameo or not be in at all? I think if he was offered a cameo he should have taken it.

Shatner says in the video that he wasn’t even offered a cameo. Here’s what J.J Abrams had to say:

We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves. The truth is, the story that we were telling required a certain adherence to the Trek canon and consistency of storytelling. It’s funny — a lot of the people who were proclaiming that he must be in this movie were the same people saying it must adhere to canon.

Then again, Leonard Nimoy seems to have gotten along pretty well with Shatner over the years. Whatever really happened off screen, history dictates that when the camera was rolling Captain Kirk was a major player in the Star Trek OS universe. I didn’t think all of the Star Trek motion pictures (like Star Trek V) were shining Kirk moments, but there were some really good ones like Wraith of Khan. I enjoyed The Next Generation phase too but will admit the final film was underwhelming.

I think bringing in J.J Abrams to pump some life back into the franchise is a great thing. I really enjoyed his work with Serenity.

So until I see what the new Star Trek movie is like, I’m going to reserve judgement on how this works without Shatner. I will admit as long as Shatner is still alive that having a Star Trek movie that goes back to the roots and doesn’t include him seems … sad.

Let’s not forget that miracle worker engineer Scotty (James Doohan) is alread gone and crotchety doctor Bones (Deforest Kelley) died in 1999. Spock (Leonard Nemoy) and Kirk (Shatner) are getting up there in age. Congrats to Sulu (George Takei) who just got married to his long time partner Brad. Haven’t heard too much about Chekov (Walter Koenig) or Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) but I believe both of them are still doing well, health-wise. They served as best man and best lady at Takei’s wedding. Congratulations!

The cruel, sweeping scythe of time is going to take all these actors away from us eventually, leaving only our memories in tact from the films they worked in year’s past. Call me greedy, but I’d like to see these actors as many more times as (good) story and their health will allow. And I like the whole Alfred Hitchcock cameo thing. Why wouldn’t this work in future Star Trek films?

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a comedy in or out of a movie theater that’s made me laugh out loud. This past weekend I tried unsuccessfully to convince my wife to see the latest Star Whores, pun intended, "Clone Wars" (which might be a blessing considering the many unfavorable reviews). Second choice was "Tropic Thunder" with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black and Tom Cruise.

source: box office mojo

Whatever you want to say about Robert Downey Jr’s offscreen problems — and he’s had many — his acting skills are superb. You can see why he keeps getting solid starring roles. In Tropic Thunder he goes into an area that seems almost universally taboo in this day and age, blackface, and yet he pulls it off. His portrayal of an actor who can’t get out of the grips of his role had tears in my eyes during some spots. Ben Stiller’s lead character has similar same hang-ups, a victim of one too many sequels and trying to get past a role he played that was panned, but loved by his a niche following.  Jack Black’s character was famous for fart movies and has an unhealthy penchant for drugs off screen. I’m not a big Jack Black fan but this was him at his funniest.

Tom Cruise sporting a beard and some heavy make-up plays a movie exec with an anger management problem. Cruise should do more comedies and get away from the whole action and drama movie scene for awhile.

The backdrop of the movie is the making of a Vietnam era war flick penned by a character played by Nick Nolte of 48 Hours fame. The trio of Black, Downey Jr and Stiller are dropped into a jungle where cameras will catch their every move. Away from all the pampering actor trucks and special favors given to stars. It takes a humorous amount of time before these actor soldiers realize they aren’t shooting a movie, they are embroiled in a real conflict with drug harvesters that require real soldier actions.

There aren’t enough movies that make fun of themselves and do so creatively. Example: before the Tropic Thunder movie started there were previews of the movies the characters in Tropic Thunder are playing. Talk about spoofing where you sleep. I’m going to take a few points off for parts that could have moved a little quicker. Pretty much all the parts right before the ending sequence were too slow narratively and could have been edited out to make the movie tighter.

As far as controversy and the parts that could make you cringe: I didn’t find the humor surrounding the mentally retarded character ("Simple Jack") that Ben Stiller’s character played funny. I’ve never found humor involving the mentally challenged or disabled people humorous. Maybe it’s because I know people are disabled and there’s nothing funny about being disabled.

It seemed like if "Simple Jack" had really existed, this movie would have drawn protests far greater than Tropic Thunder has done and rightfully so. And if filmgoers are to believe Stiller’s character would take on such a blatantly offensive project, why would he do it when his action movie sequels were less dangerous content? Plausibility problem for me, nevermind whether or not one thinks humor about the disabled is funny.

As the LATimes opinion piece aptly points out:

The "retard" jokes are a harder case, and I don’t quite buy the rationalization that Ben Stiller’s performance as "Simple Jack" derives all its laughs from its lampooning of Hollywood’s naive lionization of the mentally challenged. Yet it’s funny in a sophomoric, guilt-inducing way. I confess that I laughed both at "Simple Jack" and the Downey character’s advice to Stiller’s character never to "go full retard" if he wanted an Oscar.

The action movies Stiller’s character were most popular for ("Scorcher") seemed much more plausible and easier territory to score with laughs. I think Stiller and company could have used the action movie character scenes with more humor and am somewhat puzzled why that wasn’t used instead. It seemed more like a cheap shock jock type device rather than a vital part of the film. As for the protesting groups, I think you have somewhat of a point, but you probably did more to promote the movie than hurt ticket sales. It didn’t work for me. A friend had to tell me you were protesting, but I probably would have been more intrigued to see if the film was offensive if I’d known you were protesting. That’s always the danger with drawing too much attention to something you hope others won’t pay to see. Controversy sells tickets.

Tropic Thunder is a comedy worth seeing. The LATimes review reminded me that it borrows somewhat from Galaxy Quest in that the actors extend their roles beyond the screen, but I think it’s a different enough twist that it’s still creative.  Grade: A-

Turbo is considered to be one of the worst Judas Priest albums, so let’s hope the turbo theme works better for DISH TV. Got this email today:

Did I read that right? We’re getting full on 1080p action through DISH? No, not exactly, they will only be offering 1080p video on demand movies (pay per view). Will this cost extra? It doesn’t say if the 1080p pay per view movies will cost more than the standard definition like Xbox and the PS3 are currently doing through their networks.

All DISH Network HD customers have been Turbo-charged! In the early morning hours of 8/1 DISH Network reinvented high definition! Current HD customers had the next generation of HD downloaded right to their receivers!

It sucks that this is for pay per view and not for all of their HD channels. Sort of a non announcement. Turbo … what?

Add to that today seeing the release of Starship Troopers 1-3 trilogy Blu-ray (2008) for $56.95 at Amazon or $59.99 at Best Buy (where we bought it). Oh yeah it’s a beautiful day to be at 1080p!

The trilogy offers the first Starship Troopers movie (a classic!), Starship Troopers 2 which was kind of lame and the newest straight to DVD Starship Troopers 3 Marauders. This is BD-live enabled which means extras and goodies through a separate menu including the ability to "join the fight" against the bugs by uploading a headshot of yourself. Just click on the "BD-Live" option in the main menu screen and wait for BD-live to load.

Expect to be staring at this for an awkward amount of time, even if you have a fast connection:

 

Waiting. Man, why does the loading take so long for BD-live? And it’s every me too. I have a PS3, use the hard drive already, cache some content, buy some faster servers, whatever it takes. Once you get into the BD-live menu, you still need to register for an account before you can "join the fight." That only takes a little bit of time, but then you are sent to your email to find a link to upload a head shot.

 

It’s a clumsy, laborious process. Will save you some hassle, make sure your headshot is 640×480, anything larger or that much smaller and your face will not fit in the matte. Once you’ve done that you can watch scenes with your face super-imposed on a Starship Trooper solider. Would have preferred a networked game blasting bugs with a fellow Starship Troopers fan.

As for the Starship Troopers 3 movie? It’s better than the second movie, but not as good as the first. Good to see Casper Van Dien back but I miss Denise Richards. Her absence isn’t explained in the movie at all. The Marauders part doesn’t come until the last act of the film and feels kind of Robocop to me. Grade: C

It’s not often that we see 98% movie review scores from the Rotten Tomatoes collective. WALL-E is getting lots of reviewer love.

This morning skeptical, but curious, I told our recently graduated son who has been working with me in our online business: “Hey, you want to go see this really quick?” At first he wasn’t that interested, but then he read some of the reviews and changed his mind.

The single line synopsis of this movie is irresistible:

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off?

Off to the 10:45am PST showing we went, intrigued.

There was a deaf person with her family in front of us buying tickets who were having some animated sign language about the movie. We ended up sitting behind the family during the movie. About 30 minutes into the movie I realized just how great a movie this is for the hearing impaired. How many movies are made that don’t need subtitles?

The first 40 minutes of the movie have almost no dialogue and the final hour have very little dialogue. WALL-E is one of those extremely rare films that don’t need much in the way of dialogue or subtitles and yet can not only sustain interest but entertain. While we’re on the “how many movies …” kick, how many movies can get laughs out of sporks?

Sporks!

WALL-E is Pixar’s latest compelling animated tale. A science fiction love story about a final remaining trash compactor named WALL-E operating on a trash-ridden future version of earth somewhere around the year 2800. Where did all the people go? And what happened to humanity? WALL-E offers a bleak, and somewhat believable premonition of mankind 800+ years from now. Without spoiling the movie, I’ll just say we haven’t become the most sedentiary beings. You’d think mankind would learn not to leave too much control to robots. This is a well-trodden path many science fiction writers have been writing about and warning us against for the last 75+ years.

The only company WALL-E has on earth is a cockroach (who doesn’t speak thankfully) until a probe droid named Eve (”Eva”) is sent back to earth. WALL-E who spends his time making cubes out of garbage and picking out the good stuff like old VHS tapes (what, no DVD?), watching movies through an old iPod, and popping bubble wrap, takes an immediate liking to Eva to stave off his loneliness.

Can’t say I ever imagined liking a romantic story involving a trash compacter but WALL-E fires on all cylinders. This is the best animated movie I’ve seen in a long time. No animated movies come to mind to compare it to, which is a high compliment. I’ve written hundreds of reviews and never given an A+ to anything. I have no problem giving WALL-E the first A+. It’s that good. It’s family friendly too. The 98% Rotten Tomatoes reviewers are giving it is well-deserved. My son gave it a B-, but his only other favorite animated movie was Toy Story. WALL-E is better than Toy Story. Get out of the heat and into the air conditioning. Take your loved ones to see this film. Grade: A+.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we caught Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull, which took in over $150 million. The 3pm and 3:30pm showings were sold out and I’m fairly certain the 4pm where we got tickets at 2:40pm was sold out by showtime.

Theater atmosphere was crowded but unceremoniously quiet. One person clapped at the end of Crystal Skull and throughout the flick there were no cheers and only a scattered few chuckles.

The crowd seemed exhausted.

My bottom hurt in the seat which I had to keep switching to get comfortable. The popcorn even tasted old. This sums up the experience which was the opposite from Iron Man (go see that one, if you can, it’s great), which we saw a few weeks back.

Crystal Skull wasn’t terrible, I mean come on, it’s Indiana Jones, but when compared to Temple of Doom, the weakest movie in the franchise to date, it measured up too few times to matter.

The plodding plot
The plot takes place in 1957 and Indy (Harrison Ford) is sporting gray. It’s not long before the KGB is up to no good and thrusting him into a warehouse in Nevada in search of a crate of great value at gunpoint. He’ll escape, of course, but in a more lethargic way than the past. You’ll wonder at times during the fight scenes if Indy is mired in quicksand (and unsurprisingly, there is a quicksand scene later!).

Following a totally unbelievable escape from danger (lead-lined?! BS), Indy is met by a biker with a switchblade fetish in a coffee shop. I couldn’t decide if this was suppose to be the passing of the torch from old to young, but Shia LaBeouf is no young Harrison Ford. I found LaBeouf whiny, unpolished and forcing the overplayed action too much. No thanks if the series continues without Harrison Ford. Spielberg has already said there is no Indiana Jones without Ford, but I’m not buying it. I think Indiana Jones will turn out like James Bond and the franchise will continue well beyond Spielberg’s and my death.

I’ll try and stop with the plot description there. Trust me, you’ll start yawning too if I go much further.

Spielberg and company should have kept the science fiction out of Indiana Jones. The Nazi backdrop worked better than the Crystal Skull using the late 50s. The ending left me shaking my head, not cheering. While exiting the theater a guy in front of me was griping about the science fiction elements too. His friend replied: “hey, it’s Indiana Jones, you expected realism?” If you’ve read the Tommyknockers by Stephen King, or heck many of Spielberg’s past sci-fi flicks, key parts of Crystal Skull feel way too familiar.

Cliche.

That is arguably Crystal Skull’s greatest flaw: the story feeds off other stories we’ve seen before — not in an Indy film, no — but stories that no longer fascinate the way they did the first few times around. We paid $19 for two tickets and $19 for lousy popcorn and soda. There were a few bright spots in Crystal Skull, particularly the romantic interplay and paying some respect to past Indy’s, but it all begged for a power nap. I’d recommend waiting for Blu-ray/DVD. It’s better than the average blockbuster and will make plenty of money, but it’s not the Indy film we’ve been waiting all this time see.

I would have liked the eye candy better in 3D on IMAX, if that is an option, go for it. Worst of the four Indy flicks to date, but still somewhat respectable. It isn’t the abortion that Lucas did with Phantom Menance, and is more in line with Revenge of the Sith vs. the first three Star Wars films. I’m left wondering if the Spielberg + Lucas magic is gone? Hope not. Grade: C+

There have been some funny movies about marijuana and I was interested to learn that AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson was involved with one called Totally Baked. To promote the Totally Baked DVD, Johnson sang three songs with AC/DC bassist Cliff Williams laying the lowdown.

The 3 free song downloads sung by Brian Johnson for Totally Baked movie: Chain Gang, Chase The Tail and Who Phoned The Law sound very AC/DC-like and aren’t bad. Give them a download, queue and listen to ‘em.

Speaking of AC/DC, they just finished recording their newest studio album which is due out at the end of 2008. It’s been 8 years since their last studio album Stiff Upper Lip. There are some rumors that this album might be accompanied with a farewell tour. Hope this isn’t true.

Good stuff on the horizon for Blu-ray fans as some much needed web-interactive features will become available.

The downloadable content will range from bonus movie scenes and trailers to "interactive movie-based games."

"With Blu-ray established as the high-definition optical disc standard, more consumers are ready to jump in and take advantage of everything the format offers," said Scott A. Steinberg, vice president of product marketing, in a statement.

Interactive movie-based games? Like Dragon’s Lair? Or how about a version of the upcoming Indiana Jones where you control Indy through perilous situations? One wrong move and Indy’s toast. I’m just dreaming aloud here, so don’t get too excited.

While this might work with action movies, it won’t work well with romance flicks. Or maybe it would? Oh boy, I better stop the brain before I get into trouble.

This morning’s news that Toshiba is officially ceasing support of HD DVD and will shut down production in March signals a (small) victory for Blu-ray as many publications are touting, but also means the price of existing HD DVD inventory will plummet soon:

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation

The writing was already on the wall with Wal-mart and Netflix saying they would only carry Blu-ray following the CES 2008 bombshell that Warner Bros. was going only Blu-ray. Now watch those PS3 sales soar even further.

Where does this leave the Xbox 360 which has the HD DVD as an add-on drive? Making a standalone Blu-ray Xbox 360 drive, possibly available in a few months, if you believe what alleged insiders told SmartHouse:

Insiders at Microsoft in the USA have told SmartHouse that Microsoft has already configured a standalone Blu-ray player that can be connected into an Xbox 360 and that subject to internal marketing and sales approvals the model could be on sale within 3 months

There is further speculation that Microsoft is working on a newer version of an Xbox 360 with a built-in Blu-ray drive, but I don’t think that will happen, at least in 2008. Microsoft would be wiser to continue to promote their Xbox Live Marketplace as a viable next generation movie download platform. They have the best online gaming and video area but Sony has HOME up its sleeve.

One big problem that Microsoft has is that their downloads are all wrapped in a DRM scheme on a proprietary drive while the PS3 supports using any hard drive. You can easily copy downloaded content on the PS3 to an external drive and can even run Linux. The Xbox 360 even with their 120GB hard drive is outclassed by the PS3 storage architecture.

Back to HD DVD, set your bargain bin sensor on high alert. In particular, watch for goodies like the Star Trek Original Series HD DVD sets. Star Trek Original Series Season One HD DVD (affiliate) I’ve seen the first season at the local Fred Meyer and hope the other two will be released. It’s possible all three will be available on Blu-ray.

More TV Seasons, please
I’ve been saying for some time that one major weakness in both nextgen HD formats is the lack of TV seasons.  A few TV seasons are trickling in on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, but not nearly the amount that are available in DVD. When/if this changes, Blu-ray might have a fighting chance for a little while staving off downloads.

It remains important when looking at the future of movies to remember collectors. People like buying and owning physical media. You can touch, display, there’s artwork and inserts and creative packaging. You can’t do any of that with downloadable media.