New Wallace & Gromit

The new short, "A Matter of Loaf and Death," premiered in Australia on December 3rd, then aired in France on Christmas Eve and then aired in Britain on Christmas Day.

Wikipedia has a detailed entry -- too detailed to look at if you don't like spoilers.

Amazon.co.uk shows it as being released in the UK (Region 2) on March 9, 2009.

Amazon.com shows it as "Sign up to be notified when this item becomes available."

And while I'm talking about new animation releases, the fourth new Futurama feature, "Into the Wild Green Yonder," will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 24.

Mirrormask on Blu-ray

I missed this one when it happened. I only noticed it in Best Buy last week.

"Mirrormask" has been released on Blu-ray. According to Amazon, it was released on November 18.

We subscribed to Netflix concurrently with our getting a Blu-ray player. Something about having a Blu-ray player puts me in a state of mind where I am less likely to buy something on disc.

I used to have the attitude that paying $20 for a DVD was cheaper than two people going to the theater to see the same movie, and buying meant that you didn't ahve to worry about the title being checked out at the video store.

But the advent of Blu-ray is just that one step too far -- Beta, VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, HD-DVD and now Blu-ray. I mean, just how many copies of "Casablanca" and "Citizen Kane" do I need to buy in one lifetime?

And you do have to store these discs somewhere. A small San Francisco apartment is not ideal for owning a large library.

So if I buy something these days, it needs to be pretty darn special (with the possible exception of "The Dark Knight," which I figured would be good as a demo disc).

"Mirrormask" is visually very rich. If you like Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, then this is your movie (but if you like them, you probably already know about "Mirrormask"). It's Gaiman's take on "Labyrinth." Literally. The film is produced by the Jim Henson Company, and it is intended to be a companion film for "Labyrinth." And Stephanie Leonidas is really wonderful in the lead role.

So you may take this as a recommendation.

Rent Cinecast DVD

DVDPriceSearch shows a February 3, 2009, release date for the DVD and Blu-ray release of the cinecast version of "Rent."

DVDEmpire is taking pre-orders, also shows a release date of February 3, 2009.

DeepDiscount is also taking pre-orders, and also shows a release date of February 3, 2009.

Amazon is taking pre-orders, and also shows a release date of February 3, 2009.

As of this writing (1 a.m., December 3rd), the Wikipedia entry for "Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway" has not been updated to show a video release, but the IMDB entry was updated a week ago.

Netflix finally did it.

I have heard rumors for several months that this was going to happen. In fact, Netflix announced it in April.

But today I got the official e-mail notification from Netflix.

The price of memberships for rental of Blu-ray discs is being raised in order to offset the higher cost of Blu-ray discs.

How much of an increase?

$1 per month.

I'm okay with that. They could have done much, much worse.

Dar Williams - Promised Land

Speaking of new and upcoming albums, Dar Williams' album, "Promised Land," will be released on September 9.

Musicspace.com is taking pre-orders for two copies of the CD plus a DVD of "making of the album" videos for $15 (such a bargain, a bargain for you). [UPDATE 9/9/08: since the CD is now released, this obviously can no longer be pre-ordered, and the special offer seems to be no longer valid. I just checked their site, and they sell the CD, but they do not offer the CD-DVD combo pack now.]

Also, Dar Williams will be touring to promote the album. She will be performing at The Great American Music Hall on Wednesday, October 22.

DVD player with Netflix built in

Via Gizmodo:

LG has announced that it will be releasing a Blu Ray DVD player with the ability to stream movies from Netflix. It will be the third device to enable Netflix streaming, but the first DVD player to do so.

"Doomsday Machine"

Cinematic Titanic Episode 2, "Doomsday Machine," goes on sale tomorrow (June 19, 2008) at their website.

Onion Movie

I looked at the IMDB page for this movie and found out that it was filmed in 2003 and shelved due to bad test screenings. That comes as no surprise.

It had a handful of things that made me laugh, but almost all its jokes got run into the ground. And then pounded into the ground even farther. And then brought back at the end, because twice and three times is never enough.

This raised (again) the discussion about the weakness of Netflix's five-star rating system (1="hated it," 2="didn't like it," 3="liked it," 4="really liked it" and "5=best. movie. ever.").

Neither of us wants to go so far as to say "didn't like it," but neither of us wants to go so far as to say "liked it," either. We want a 2-1/2 star rating that means "thought it was just okay, wouldn't actually ask for my money back, but wouldn't recommend that anyone go out of their way to see it."

Which is actually how I expected it to be based on its trailer.

Mmmm ... Oniony

Not sure what to think about this one -- a straight-to-dvd movie by The Onion. Surprisingly enough, it's called "The Onion Movie."

I guess the best way to handle it is to add it to my Netflix queue and find out for myself....

Criterion Collection does Blu movies

I was wondering last night when (or whether) Criterion would start producing Blu-ray DVDs. So I set out this morning to check for that information.

The Criterion Collection is in the process of preparing their first Blu-ray releases. Buried in their website, is this announcement:

"We’ve got some exciting news for this fall: our first Blu-ray discs are coming! We’ve picked a little over a dozen titles from the collection for Blu-ray treatment, and we’ll begin rolling them out in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions."

The announcement says that the first twelve titles to be released will be:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

I kind of feel sorry for Criterion in one regard: They started out doing laserdiscs, then with the advent of DVDs, they got pushed back nearly to square one of their production process. I say "nearly" because, while they did have to remaster everything, they didn't have to do new transfers, since the resolution of LDs and DVDs are the same. [1]

Now it seems like Blu-ray will require them to go all the way back to square one and do new hi-def transfers of movies they've already released before (and released twice or more times in many instances -- they've already done at least two DVDs of Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête").

On the other hand, I don't feel sorry about the fact that they'll make a freakin' fortune from selling Blu-ray DVDs.

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[1] Long ago, I did a side-by-side comparison of the laserdisc and DVD of "The Red Shoes," and noticed that they appeared to be from the same source transfer. Both editions had identical flaws -- scratches, color instabilities, etc.

Virgin Megastore in Times Square to close

via Joe.My.God.

After announcing a few months ago their plans to close the Virgin Megastore in Union Square in Manhattan (not Union Square San Francisco), Vornado Realty Trust has now also announced that they will close the Virgin Megastore in Times Square in the first quarter of 2009.

I hope this doesn't mean bad things for the San Francisco Union Square Megastore (or, for that matter, the Virgin Megastore on Hollywood Boulevard, or for the chain as a whole).

It seems possible that this move will have no effect on any other stores. It sounds from the article as if it is not Virgin that is closing the Times Square Megastore, but rather the Megacompany that owns the Megabuilding -- the Powers That Be seem to have bigger and better plans for the Megaspace.

Our having lost Tower Records/Video at Market and Noe was a mixed blessing: on the one hand, I miss having a store with a freakin' huge selection of obscure things in stock and within walking distance of our apartment; on the other hand, since Tower is gone, I'm less likely to go shopping out of boredom, so I spend less money on impulse items.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed. I'm not madly in love with Virgin Megastore, but I wouldn't like to see it go away, either. I mean, when you're backed in a corner and desperately need a CD by an obscure Cuban band from the 1930's, can you count on the smaller stores to have it in stock?

I think not.

Well, maybe Amoeba....

[UPDATE: Again with the synchronicity? Immediately after posting this, I went to Boing Boing and found this video about real estate and advertising and Times Square. The building at One Times Square is, in fact, empty. The LED-screen advertisements on the building bring in enough revenue to the owners that they don't need no stinkin' tenants. An interesting four-minute video.]

[UPDATE 1/15/2009: The NY Post reported today that "The Virgin Megastore in Times Square - the nation's highest-volume music store - is shutting down in three months, it was learned yesterday." They don't say how they learned it, and there is currently no more specific date than "April."]