Sports and Entertainment

 We here at S&E hope you had a great Christmas.  We did, and are back for a couple of days before another long hiatus weekend.  So get some of these stories while you can!

Transformers 2 is gearing up to hit theatres next year, and that can mean only one thing:  Plenty of slow-mo horizon shots.  No I kid I kid.  It means that your eardrums should prepare themselves for another bloody assault by Michael Bay.  Transformers made people literally sick from all the noise and depending on Bay, Tranformers 2 will do the same if not worse.

Empire magazine has some of the first official pictures from the anticipated sequel, and wouldn’t you know it, USA Today added their own behind the scenes pics as well.  Shia Lebougaofh4io or whatever and Megan Fox are back in their respective roles which to me is awesome because Megan Fox can melt grown men’s eyeballs just by looking at her.  For giggles, I added the last pic. 

Transformers 2:  Revenge of the Fallen hits theatres next summer.

I will try to find any excuse to post an Ali Larter picture.  Whenever I see her, all I picture is a whipped cream bikini.  Ahh the good old days.  Anywho, the new trailer for the movie Obsessed is on the interwebs and features a smoking hot Ali Larter vs a smoking hot Beyonce in an all out brawl.  Obsessed hits theatres next year.

The first Night at the Museum movie was one fo those movies that I just didn’t dig.  I know it’s meant for kids, but as Pixar has shown, not all “kid-friendly” movies have to just entertain children.  But none the less, Night at the Museum made tons of cash so the sequel was inevitable.

This time however, Ben Stiller takes his ass to the Smithsonian.  I have personally always wanted to go to that damn museum.  Everything cool is there. By the looks of this trailer, they utilized that fact and have come up with a pretty decent movie.  The trailer made me laugh a couple of times believe it or not and Bill Hader and Jonah Hill are in it so it can’t be that bad right?  Right?  Anyone?

Night at the Museum- Battle of the Smithsonian will be in theatres Memorial Day.

Admit it:  When this movie hits theatres next year, your butt is going to be parked in a seat faster than you can say,  “Vin Diesel is washed up.”

The newest installment to The Fast and the Furious franchise….aptly named just Fast and Furious….has released what I guess you can call the “teaser” poster for the movie.  If you can remember back when I commented on the teaser trailer, I said that this movie is going to be horrible.  Horribly awesome.  Not one of the Fast and Furious movies were ever really good movies, but they were popcorn fests.  Good movies to watch all doe-eyed and forget the second it’s over.  With the original cast coming back, it’s sure to have that nostalgia factor and have people like me that were in high school when the first one came out, ready to go back and visit just how bad the original was.  Until then enjoy!

The trailer for the new Paul Rudd comedy I Love You Man has been released by Dreamworks Pictures.  Directed by John Hamburg (Along Came Polly) I Love You Man is the story of a man (Rudd) who doesn’t have a guy friend to be his best man in his wedding.  He then goes on a search to find one.  The movie co-stars Rashida Jones (Ahh Karen Fillipelli from The Office, how I miss you), Andy Samberg, Jaime Pressly, Jon Favreau, and Jason Segal.

My man crush on Paul Rudd will put my butt in theatre anyway, but the trailer actually shows promise.  Jason Segal really didn’t excite me the way the studios wanted him to after his starring role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so he is still up in the air.  Everyone else though is great.  Hopefully this will make me giggle.

Tim Falletti

I was having a conversation with a fellow coworker today, and he asked if he should put a Blu-ray player on his Christmas wish list.  I immediately said yes, and actually was amazed he hadn’t had one yet.  His reasoning behind not making the switch, was because he wasn’t educated on why Blu-ray is, “so cool”.   Then I realized that many other people probably share the same sentiments.  Why is Blu-ray so cool?  While the simple answer to that question is that Blu-ray looks better, there are many other reasons to really think about installing one of these bad boys in your home entertainment system. 

Let’s face it.  We live in the High Definition era of entertainment.  A few years back, those nifty flat panel HDTV’s were all the rage.  I think it was more for the decoration aspect than it was for the high definition aspect because not many folks had any clue what the potential for television viewing was with high def……until you actually saw your first football game in HD.

Let’s get the technical jargon of high def out of the way first so you know what I am talking about.  What are all those crazy numbers the HDTV companies throw around?  720 i…1080p…?  What the heck do those mean?  Well it’s actually very simple.  Let’s pretend that your HDTV is turned off.  Now picture 720 horizontal lines making up that black screen you are staring at.  Now imagine 1080.  When your television is set at 720p,  the satellite or cable company will signal your television, telling it, “Show 720 horizontal lines 1/30th of a second to make up the image you are watching.”   The “P” means you are watching it progressively.  A new frame progresses every 1/30th of a second.  So it’s kind of like one of those flip book cartoons where you turn the pages really fast and it moves.  Now, let’s say the satellite that is beaming the newest episode of The Office to your television is doing it at 1080i.  1080 lines across your television, now at 1/60th of a second, except this time the images are interlaced. (That’s where the “I” comes in).  Interlaced meaning instead of that flip book cartoon changing pictures, it is oozing them together faster so that your brain picks up on it.  Most sport broadcasts do not use interlaced, because watching a 100 mile an hour fast ball interlaced would be all weird.  They use progressive.  Flip book cartoon.

Ok so now you know what the heck those numbers mean.  So where does Blu-ray come into play in all of this?  A standard DVD (Or SD for short) is roughly 420p.  420 lines progressively making up that picture you are watching.  A Blu-ray DVD (or BD for short) can go up to 1080p.  What that means for you, is that all the colors will be more vivid, the picture more crisp, and the viewing experience much more pleasurable.

Ok so that just sums up the “it looks better” excuse.  Why should you still reach into your hard earned money and buy one if the excuse is “it looks better”?  Well, assuming you do in fact own an HDTV, and you watch movies on regular DVD, you are basically telling your awesome TV to sit back and relax and not strain yourself.  You are not using your television to its full potential.  It’s like buying a treadmill after New Year’s Eve, using it twice, and letting it collect dust.  There’s no point to it sitting  there taking up space.  Put it in the attic.

I won’t get too much into the sound of Blu-ray because the sound is far superior to regular DVD much like the picture is.  Your listening experience will change much like it did when you first bought that surround sound system years ago.  It’s a whole new listening experience with Blu-ray.

Blu-ray prices have dropped significantly the last two months, and you can find a really good one from 120-200 bucks now.  The Blu-ray discs themselves are competitive with those 2 disc special edition regular DVD’s that come out too.  In fact, you can find great Blu-ray discs now for 20 bucks and under.

So what’s your excuse now?  You don’t want to replace your regular DVD’s with Blu-ray?  You don’t have to!  The Blu-ray will rescale your regular DVD’s so they look better.  They won’t make them Blu-ray quality, but you still don’t have to replace them unless you want to.  (I personally only replaced my all-time favorites).

While Blu-ray may not be the replacement for DVD much like DVD was for the VCR, it is the future of the home movie.  With great holiday numbers, the Blu-ray is here to stay.  So go out and get one already….oh and make sure the first Blu-ray you buy is The Dark Knight.  Report back when your mind is blown.

Did you hate the Halloween remake that Rob Zombie did in 2007?  Well now you get to hate a sequel when it hits theatres in October!  Yay!  According to Variety, Dimension Films says that Zombie will write, direct, and totally butcher the next installment of the once acclaimed Halloween franchise.  (That’s a direct quote hehe).

The film will supposedly pick up right after the first but this time it will be through the eyes of the sister.  Zombie said it won’t resemble the original sequel and will take this one in a new direction.

A new direction?  Just like the last new direction he put on it?  Ugh!  Rob Zombie listen up:  Just because you slap some redneck white trash cast together and have them all killed or raped or whatever doesn’t constitute as a new direction.  I was seriously excited when House of 1000 Corpses came out.  I drank the Rob Zombie Kool-Aid and thought that maybe his vision would be badass.  It was not.  It sucked.  Then Devil’s Rejects came out and that was a God awful gore-fest snuff film for white trash!  Then you announced you would do this Halloween remake and it would be different from all the Friday the 13th indestructible Jason movies, but now….you shot Michael Myers in the face.  Point blank range.  How is that not indestructible?  You should stick to music.

Sorry rant over.  I am just sick and tired of these horrible remakes.  There is a perfectly GREAT original idea by the name of Trick R Treat out there.  The movie is beyond awesome.  It has a damn good cast, the story(s) are fantastic, and the movie is the best Halloween movie I have seen in years…but the studios won’t release it.  Instead we get Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2.  Ugh.

20th Century Fox finally got off its high horse (seriously, no one is going to see The Day the Earth Stood Still to see a freaking trailer) and released the official X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer online. 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine….what a dumb f*cking name.  Seriously.  Just call the damned thing Wolverine.  It’s not hard.  Anywho…the trailer is online and looks pretty “meh”.  Unfortunately the last time we saw good ol’ Logan on the big screen, it was in X3 which made the franchise die.  In my opinion, this looks like a copy of it..  Too many mutants.  Did these people not learn anything from The Dark Knight?

 Story story story.  That is what made us fall in love with these characters in the first place.  The thought process of 20th Century Fox seems to be to throw in as many mutants as possible into one movie. Gambit?  Cool.  Blob?  Ok.  But from the looks of the trailer, we have Deadpool, a young Storm (?), Sabretooth, Mastermind, Emma Frost, a young Cyclops, some dude that can use electricity, and whoever Will.i.am is playing.  Ugh.

Let’s hope I am wrong.  Hugh Jackman looks like he beefed up big time for this role (he looked f’ing huge) so maybe I am wrong.  It hits theatres in May.

Are you sick of the crap top ten lists that the “real” reviewers have?  You know the ones with 6 movies you haven’t seen, and 3 you haven’t heard of?  Well this is the list for you.  I have here, my favorite movies of the year.  My guarantee is that you have seen at least 5 of these, and have heard of all ten :).  Enjoy.

10.  Role Models.

There were very few laugh out loud movies this year which kind of sucks.  Role Models was one of the exceptions.  It had heart, it had little kids swearing, it had KISS references out the wazoo, and more importantly, it had the laughs.

09. Jumper

Ok, let the laughter commence.  I know I am in the minority when I say that I dug the crap out of this flick.  But in my opinion, it did its job.  It made me watch the whole thing without being bored.  It was original, and it deserves a sequel.  You know this to be true. 

08. The Bank Job

It’s not a top 10 list unless there is a Jason Statham movie in it.  The Bank Job was one of those under the radar movies that caught some life on DVD.  I dig heist movies, and this one was one of the better ones since Deniro’s The Score.

07. Step Brothers

Laugh at me if you must.  I did not put Tropic Thunder on this list.  Why?  Because it’s the f*cking Catalina Wine Mixer that’s why!  This movie was way funnier than Tropic Thunder.  If Tropic Thunder was Robert Downey Jr.-less, it would have sucked.  This movie made me laugh twice as hard as any other movie this year.

06. Rambo

Any movie that has some poor sap getting toasted with a 50 cal. has to be on this list.  Stallone proved that he still has it, and that he should keep it up for many years to come.  Great fricking action movie.

05. Wall-E

Pixar can do no wrong can they?  Wall-E is my second favorite Pixar movie of all time already.  (The Incredibles is #1).  While many complain of the lack of dialogue, I think that’s nonsense.  It was an amazing movie.

04. Iron Man

If it wasn’t for a certain caped crusader, this would have been the best superhero movie of the year.  Robert Downey Jr. played the role of Tony Stark so well, it saved his freaking career.  The movie was almost flawless in terms of the comic book genre. 

03. The Wrestler

What Iron Man did for Robert Downey Jr., The Wrestler is sure to do for Mickey Rourke.  The Wrestler is the “Rocky” of our time.  It hasn’t yet hit all theatres, but when it does, check it out.  It’s an amazing piece of film.

02. Australia

My girlfriend took me to this movie kicking and screaming.  I kid you not.  I did not want to see this.  I heard that it wasn’t all that good.  I heard that it was too long.  My girlfriend said her parents saw it and said it was amazing.  Well, I went to humor her.  Little did I know that I would absolutely love it too.  The visuals are amazing.  Yes, it is a little long.  But for me at least, the 3 hour run time went fast.  Check it out while it’s still in theatres.

01. The Dark Knight

Duh.  Of course it was going to be this.  The Dark Knight mesmorized audiences like no other movie has since Titanic.  It was the best movie of its genre.  It was the best acting performance by Heath Ledger in his short career, and it will go down as one of the greatest movies of all time.  You heard that right.

Honorable mentions:  Quantum of Solace for being another awesome Bond film, Wanted for that cool scene where he kills they guy via sunroof, The Strangers for scaring the crap out of my girlfriend, Get Smart because Steve Carell makes me giggle, Cloverfield for the excitement leading up to the movie and then being just mediocre, The Incredible Hulk for getting it right, and Four Christmases and my man crush on Vince Vaughn.

Trailer 101:  Show action.  Show the “love making” scene, and if possible, show Jessica Biel dancing half naked.  Show all three, and you have yourself a movie I will go see. 

I don’t know squat about this flick except that Ray Liotta is in it, Patrick Swayze plays a strip club owner, Forest Whitaker is in it, and Jessica Biel supposedly gets all full frontal.  Powder Blue tells the story of all these people “Crash-esque” style, and their journey on Christmas Eve.

Anyway, I know you stopped reading when I said Jessica Biel full frontal so I will stop writing now.  Powder Blue opens next year.