What I've been doing

Many have been wondering why I haven't been posting. Well, I've been working on recording some delectable, popadelic, hauntingly poetic indie-pop to bop your head and drink away your sorrows to. Check out the NSPS Facebook page.

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Craig Froehlich: 1971-2008

If ever a situation required a laugh, Craig Froehlich was the man to provide it. Whether he was addressing a calamity of international proportions, celebrity news fodder or a personality that was at-odds with his own, Craig cut it down to its essence with his acerbic wit and insight. Whenever I hear something that makes me throw my arms in the air in disbelief, I think "I can't wait to hear what Craig has to say about this!"

As long as the world spins on with its foibles, ironies and outrages, that thought will no doubt reverberate in my head. But it breaks my heart that I will no longer have the pleasure of finding out. Craig died Monday morning after a long battle against alcoholism and depression. He left behind many devastated friends and family members who still remember him in his most happy and inspired moments. They include sister Carmen Watkins and her three daughters, brother Kevin Froehlich, mother Gertrud Anderson and father Darryl Froehlich.

Craig moved to Salt Lake City from Detroit in 1994, and completed his BA in Mass Communications at the University of Utah in 2002. We met when he came to the Daily Utah Chronicle and RED Magazine to pursue his love of writing. There, I had the pleasure of working with him and reading his material on a regular basis.

Craig was a ferocious reader, a lover of literature, history, humor, music and film. It was rare to find a topic on which he wasn't knowledgeable, and rarer still to find one from which he couldn't yank laughs. His drive to know everything spilled into his writing. Even the breeziest of his comedic gems entailed a great deal of research—he wanted to know his target before he lambasted it, to ensure his jokes were spot on.

Once, when I was his editor at the University of Utah's RED Magazine, he called a local burger joint near campus because he wanted to make a joke about the "World-Famous Pastrami Burger" sign outside their restaurant. Nevermind that his piece was about John Kerry, he needed to make sure he quoted the sign correctly. Unfortunately, the employee who worked there wasn't so aware of his surroundings, and didn't even know the sign even existed. Much to Craig's dismay, the minimum-wage-earning mope wouldn't go outside and check, and since we were on deadline, we couldn't check it ourselves. I suggested an alternative to the gag, but he remained bemused that this employee wouldn't aid his mischievous comedic scheme.


I've been going over the writing Craig left behind since receiving the news, and reading it is the best way to lift my spirits after. It doesn't replace having him here in person—the charming banter, the off-the-cuff remarks so clever you're not sure you really heard them, the hilarious storytelling and excited declarations—but it certainly reminds us of his unmistakable spirit. He was able to find the perfect way to cut down his subject with the wrong end of his axe, whether commenting on the shortcomings of ethnic nomenclature ("Many blacks feel far more American than African. Many whites have no idea what "Caucasian" means and refuse to be called European Americans for fear their women will stop shaving their armpits."), Republican political strategy ("God, Guns and Gays—or more specifically, threatening the latter with the first two.") or tourist souvenirs ("Sea turtles swaggered through town in flashy clothing and demanded money from helpless artisans and shopkeepers. To combat this menace, a Mexican freedom fighter known only as Señor Frog built countless resort hotels on Cancun’s immaculate stretch of beaches. These hotels decimated the habitat where the turtles laid their fragile eggs. Fertile turtles of yesterday now face extinction (a serious blow to their intimidation factor). Many of Cancun’s grandest shot glasses and T-shirts now bear the name of the heroic frog.").


Craig wouldn't abide sugar-coating—he avoided sentimentality and never hesitated to tell friends—or complete strangers—exactly what was on his mind. When people were building Miis at a Wii party, he took pleasure in pointing out when people were selecting features they wish they had, rather than ones that resembled their real-life looks. Of course, no one could accuse him of hypocrisy after seeing the comically sad little avatar he cooked up.

Once, I took him to an emergency room to receive treatment for a kidney stone that would not pass. His extreme pain combined with the tedious banter of the people sitting near us and, of course, his own personality to generate a reaction I'll never forget. As the man talked nonsense about celebrities, gun laws and stem-cell research, Craig cut him off. "Oh, will you shut the hell up!" he snapped, adding a disgruntled "PLEASE!" after seeing the unimpressed expression on the offender's face.

As his incessant banter suggested, the talking man wasn't as frightened of a confrontation as me, the silent fellow sinking in his seat. "If you don't like it, go somewhere else," he replied. While Craig mercifully relented from pushing the point further and apologized, he later mused about where he was supposed to go. "I'm in a freaking emergency room, for crying out loud." The detail he most ardently brought up, however, was that he did, after all, say please.

While Craig's social form may have been a bit unconventional, it let you know that he was never blowing smoke up your ass. If he asked about how something was going or how people were doing, you knew it was because he really cared.

So I can't sugar-coat this memorial, lest I hear him say, "You've gotta be kidding me!" in my head. The last several years of his life saw his addiction to alcohol grow worse and worse, and we saw less and less of the Craig we know and love. There was only so much time his loved ones could devote to enacting a recovery before becoming frustrated and exhausted. But even when he was sick in the hospital and experiencing great pain, he still took the time to ask about how everyone was doing, and tell some jokes to put our sad selves at ease.


Like most people who see the absurdities of the world in a special way, Craig was frustrated that others couldn't see them so easily. He loved his country, and his planet, but was continually upset that neither were as perfect as they should be. And while he never reached the levels he aspired to in life, he left us with a tremendous collection of work that makes us laugh while we shake our heads at how ridiculous it all is.

Below are links to some of Craig's best writing. Please share your own memories and thoughts on Craig in the comments section. This is a very sad moment, but Craig would be displeased if we didn't spend it laughing.

RED Through the Ages. To kick off the school year in Fall 2003, Craig wrote this introduction to RED Magazine. Sending up more than 100 years of history through the eyes of imagined college A&E publications. "1912—The Titanic sinks with 1,500 souls on board. 'It would make a smashing moving-picture show,' the editor of The Ute Artful Dodger muses, 'if only one could seamlessly write the gratuitous display of boobs into the story.'"

Façade: Interactive Videogames Take a Small Step Forward. A Review of an ambitious, but buggy-as-hell artificial intelligence game (or interactive drama). "If you want to shoot people or baskets, chances are you can find a video game that satiates your needs. If you want interaction and a chance to express personality and intellect, chances are you’ll need to stoop to speaking to other Homo sapiens."

Will Joke For Food. Craig profiles the hardships of local standup comedians for Salt Lake City Weekly. "Being a professional comedian requires compromises and obedience to the gods of income. Decisions to wring a living out of making people laugh demands diligence and a smidgen of insanity. A hard-working comedian can still skirt the poverty level, but it’s a world where only bad timing, horrible pay and a Klan rally discourages a comic from accepting a gig."

The Salt Shaker's 1977 Star Wars review. In honor of the prequel trilogy, Craig wrote this "archival review" of the original "Star Wars"—a 1977 article by "Anakin Mathews." It ran in our inaugural issue. "With or without the wars, Hamill’s star is definitely on the rise."

RED Magazine's endorsement of John Kerry. Note that because Craig couldn't get confirmation on B & D Burgers' world famous pastrami sign before deadline, he had to settle for the Training Table's claim to world-famous cheese fries. He always regretted the compromise and remained convinced that the B & D pastrami burger would have resulted in a funnier gag.

Christ and Comic Books on Main Street of SLC. Craig wonders if Chick Tracts will be distributed in downtown Salt Lake City. "Approach your stroll through the Main Street "Free-Speech-O-Rama" Plaza as would a cultural anthropologist. Observe outsiders with attentive impartiality and read comic books with the utmost caution. Those booklets are designed to convert unsuspecting sinners after only one reading."

The Best Film Fest in the West. Craig's send-up of the Sundance Film Festival was so funny, I ran it during two different festivals. "Sundance is devoid of the pretensions and exclusivity of other festivals. Any moron can get a ticket, and they do so in droves."

The Original Draft of the Bill of Rights. "Excessive bail shall not be required although every bail is excessive when you’re poor; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted such as eating Pop-Tarts in front of a hungry person or dressing up like a pirate and pelting someone with stale pancakes."

In Memoriam: Richard Pryor. Craig looks back on the life of one of his heroes.

The Top News Stories of 2005. Craig's last published work. "President Bush, since he has always held the media in such high esteem, believed that the Big Easy had truly dodged a bullet. He continued a well-deserved 27th vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch—riding bikes, clearing brush and barbecuin’ up some of that tasty "pork" imported from Guantanamo Bay."

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SFSFF: Stephen Horne Brings Kinugasa to Life

Pianist and silent film accompanist Stephen Horne just electrified the Castro Theatre with a stunning performance that glorified a gorgeous 35-mm print of Teinosuke Kinugasa's "Jujiro" ("Crossways"). He captured the film's mesmerizing, experimental visual language and draining emotional content. The score incorporated flute and other sounds to great effect, and ended in an exhausted, emotional entanglement.

Prior to the feature, Horne accompanied an early experimental color short from the Kodak labs called "Kaleidoscope," which was a perfect prelude, as the performance reflected the film's building blends of shapes, colors and light (I know, it sounds like one of George Lucas's upcoming projects).

There have been a lot of fine performances by orchestras, oranists, quartets and pianists at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival this year, but this one (Horne's third), I'll never forget.

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SFSFF: 'The Kid Brother'

The Silent Film Festival opened last night with a screening of Harold Lloyd's "The Kid Brother," the silent clown and filmmaker's second-to-last silent feature, and by some accounts his favorite.

The festival, which has gone from a one-day event to a three-day marathon since I last attended, projects pristine prints of a variety of silent masterpieces, all on the giant screen of the historic Castro Theatre—one of the best places in the world to watch movies. Even Leonard Maltin, who one would assume has been to his share of fabulous screenings by this point in his career, expressed his amazement at the size of the screen and the clarity of the newly restored Buffalo Bill short that played before the main feature.

Before "The Kid Brother" screened, Maltin interviewed Lloyd's granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd, who has devoted her life to the preservation and promotion of her grandfather's work. Lloyd shared her memories of her grandfather while Maltin demonstrated his passion and knowledge.

Maltin attributed Lloyd's diminished stature compared to contemporaries Keaton and Chaplin to his refusal to let his work be shown on television. (Personally, while Lloyd's films are always packed with clever gags and exciting comedic action, I find his everyday bozo to lack some of the magic of Keaton.) Suzanne remembered Harold saying that if all these people took the time to get together and create gags and shoot and edit and re-work a movie, it shouldn't be chopped up and interrupted by car salesman. She credited channels like Turner Classic Movies for allowing Harold's work to be widely seen on television without betraying his wishes.

The festival screening revealed, as it always does, the stunning image quality that the silents had when they were first shown. Lloyd's best moments, like the tree-climbing shot, feel all the more magical when you can see them with the detail and attention that was intended.

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Wall-E and Buster Keaton: Vaguely Related to this year's SFSFF

I just arrived in San Francisco for the city's annual Silent Film Festival and am mega-excited about seeing a collection of films as they were meant to be seen, in 35-mm with live musical accompaniment.

This year, the festival arrives with great timing. Next week, the Batman film "The Dark Knight" comes out; and this week, SFSFFF's centerpiece is "The Man Who Laughs," the film that inspired Batman's greatest villain, The Joker. And two weeks ago, the largely silent "Wall-E" charmed filmgoers everywhere.

The brilliant offering from Pixar Animation Studios is chock full of references and echoes of great films past, my favorite of which involves my favorite filmmaker, Buster Keaton (none of whose films are on this year's SFSFF roster).

One Keaton's trademarks was his characters' logical deduction in the face of repeating oddity. Keaton knew not only how to create great gags, but how to build them into increasingly absurd scenes of comedic genius. Take, for example, the scene in "The General" in which he tries to give orders to a number of soldiers, all of whom fall victim to an unseen sniper before he can complete instructions. At first, Buster handles the situation calmly and proceeds to the next soldier, only to see that one drop dead as well. Puzzled, he slowly inches toward the next one with a suspicious look on his face, hesitant to give the order that will bring about the inevitable.

In the case of Wall-E, the trash-compacting has encountered a cleaning robot whose task is to tidy up all external contaminants on a resort space station. Wall-E, having spent the past 700 years rolling around on a trash-contaminated earth, is understandably filthy. He rolls, a trail of dirt is left on the shiny white floor, the cleaning robot spazzes and quickly cleans up the mess. But of course, as soon as Wall-E moves, there's more mess. This interplay of aggravation builds up, and Wall-E begins to pick up on his friend's peculiar behavior. So curiously begins some experiments of his own. He sticks his wheel-chains out just a little bit, and sees the robot address the little dirt smudge with the same level of ferocity. Having detected the pattern, Wall-E tried something new: He smudges the dirt right across the robot's face. Pure brilliance. Pure Keaton.

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Our Action Sequence of Discontent

Hancock is the first movie super-hero to deserve a write-up for drunk-flying. As he soars through the skies of Los Angeles, bitter that a young boy woke him from his drunken bus-stop slumber so he could intervene in a high-speed chase, his flight stands out from all the other crumby CG scene in every other super hero movie. It's erratic. If there were lanes in the sky, he'd be swerving in and out of his, and knocking over some bus stops, too.

It's not that he's still learning how to use his powers, it's that he doesn't care.

"Hancock" goes a long way simply with the ingenious casting of Will Smith in the title role. The imminently likable Smith has established himself as the quintessential action hero of his generation, and now he offers us a malcontent anti-hero who doesn't like his job.

In the film's best scene, a giant crowd surrounds Hancock after he rescues a man who couldn't get out of his car, which was stuck on the track of an oncoming train. The crowd isn't there to praise Hancock, but to critique his admittedly inept way of handling the rescue. He should have done it different, and if he had, he would have caused a whole lot less damage. They have a point, but we get the feeling that Hancock might be a little better at heroics if he weren't so insecure about the way people think of him.

The man Hancock rescues turns out to be a public-relations wizard, and he offers to help turn around the hero's image. Jason Bateman is funny as usual in the role, but Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan's screenplay could have provided more dimension (the tacked-on plot about his charity brand that will change the world notwithstanding). Nevertheless, he and Smith have a slap-happy awkward chemistry as he gets to know the hero and brings him home to meet his wife (Charlize Theron), who looks upon Hancock with suspicion and mistrust, and son, who actually likes the guy.

Running around 90 minutes, "Hancock" could have benefitted from a longer runtime to develop all its themes. As it is, it seems to throw ideas at us, then abandon them for something else. The film's villains are so poorly set up that they might as well not be in the film at all, and the third act, while full of interesting developments, devolves into aimless action right when it needs to build on its ideas.

But in its best moments, "Hancock" is good for some nice laughs and character humor, along with the requisite summer excitement.

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Is "WALL•E" a Godless Commie, or Just Adorable?

Bill Wyman's new column notes that many critics, although I am surely not among them, ignore the material in "WALL•E" that "[attacks] the American way of life." The claim is fair enough, but one can't help but wonder if there wasn't simply too much interesting stuff going on in Andrew Stanton's film to cover in a short review.

For example, imagine that you're a critic for a major daily, and have 450 words to write on a film that you think is fantastic (as most of "WALL•E's" reviewers do). Because you love the movie so much, you want your readers to go see it to. At this point, you can either talk about issues of exercise or obesity, or you can talk about visual bedazzlement, touching characters and perfect storytelling. Which one would you discuss?

What Wyman misses, however, is that kids movies have somehow become, over the past decade, the safest corner of mainstream cinema for political discourse. He opens his piece with:

If Michael Moore, or Oliver Stone, or, God forbid, some effete French director, had crafted a feature film that was a thinly disguised political broadside portraying Americans as recumbent tubbos who moved around on sliding barcaloungers with built-in video screens and soft drinks always at the ready, don’t you think there’d be some sort of notice taken?

But Pixar does it and …

… the reviewers barely mention it.

The thing is, a new Michael Moore movie is such a hot button issue in itself that everyone has already heard about it in the news by the time reviews run on release day. The interest buzzing around over a new Pixar film isn't its underlying political message, but the anticipated high-quality filmmaking and top-rate entertainment. Maybe reviewers decided to let that remain the headline, and let the audience figure out the underlying messages of lifestyle choices on their own.

Truth is, it's easier to get a political screenplay greenlit when it's "Antz" than when it's "Michael Clayton." Add a dash of whimsy and some cute comedy, and the topics of edgy adult dramas make great stories for the kids. While one would expect blowhard TV pundits to be most concerned about the material that appeals directly to the children, family-oriented movies tend to get a free pass as long as they aren't out to convert the tots to atheism or teach them to hate their religious leaders.

Take for example "Robots," 20th Century Fox's 2005 release from its computer-animation studio. The film comes from the same conglomerate responsible for the Fox News Channel and the New York Post, yet delivers a cry for socialism that would feel at home in an Upton Sinclair novel. The world of "Robots" is one in which corporations care only about the bottom line—where greedy CEOs abuse the downtrodden, lower-class worker robots, then discard them when they are no longer useful. The politics are overt enough before the film's rallying cry of a third act: The robots violently overthrow their corporate overlords, take over the means of production and transform their city into a utopian paradise. By comparison, "WALL•E's" commentary on wastefulness, civic responsibility and obesity seems downright tame.

Perhaps theses radical animation directors tapped into the perfect shield from controversy: the lessons people want to teach their kids. No one really wants to look their kid in the eyes and say, "Sorry Skippy, but if that cute little robot is no longer profitable to the company, it's the CEO's responsibility to discard him. He has to think of the shareholders! And there's nothing wrong with sitting on the couch all day staring at a TV screen—you don't need any exercise. Also, sorry I named you Skippy—I hope you don't get the shit kicked out of you at school." So those who disagree with the underlying political principals probably find it easier to pretend they're not there.

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WALL•E: The Robot Who Rediscovers Humanity

The first five minutes of "WALL•E," place so much visual wonderment on the movie screen that my eyes almost danced out of my skull trying to take in all the details. And it never stops dazzling. Pixar Animation Studios' latest effort presents one among hundreds of cinematic visions of a post-apocalyptic future, but in this one there are no down-and-out humans living in cyberslums or sinister corporate goons who lord over them. With the exception of a cockroach, there's no life at all besides a run-down robot that may be humanity's last hope.

In an uninhabited city whose towering skyscrapers are actually giant stacks of compressed trash cubes, the plucky little robot zips from place to place, scavenging alone on the dusty brown landscape. The scenes of him rolling through the desolate nothingness recall the opening shots of last year's "I Am Legend" (a similarity that's surely unintentional, given the extensive pre-production required of Pixar's computer animation). But there are two key differences between the films. The hero of "WALL•E" is never as dour as Will Smith in "I Am Legend," and there are no vampiric monsters with whom the little fellow has to contend. Also, Smith wasn't cranking the "Hello Dolly" soundtrack while he worked. This is a film about connection, not fear.

It's 800 years in the future, and Earth has become a land of garbage. The humans abandoned it 700 years ago, with plans to return in a few years, when trash-gathering WALL•E robots were supposed to have disposed of it. But the humans never came back, and the sole functioning robot goes about business in his own idiosyncratic manner.

Fred Willard—who is so consistently good that his presence alone earns a smile, plays the film's only live-action part, in old footage of the president of the company that pledged to clean up earth's mess. His is the only voice that says more than a word during the first act of the film.

The trash-filled wasteland is a commentary on a wasteful society, and Willard's promises are ones that appeal to mankind's laziness. Don't stay behind to fix the problem, he says, take a pleasure cruise through space and everything will be fixed when you return. Now, the ignore-the-problems attitude has been passed on for several generations, resulting in an obese human who only knows how to pass the time by looking at computer screens while traveling on hovering chairs.

Director Andrew Stanton, who previously made "A Bugs Life" and "Monsters, Inc.," reaches the highest level of visual storytelling. The personalities of the film's many different robots come through in their movement and sounds—dialogue isn't necessary. WALL•E's mannerisms makes for great comedy and great action. One scene, in which he aggravates a cleaning robot by trying to deduce his motivations, comes right out of Buster Keaton's handbook. The supporting human characters who speak almost feel trite by comparison.

Stanton and his collaborators brilliantly designed their characters and environments, both on the depleted earth and on WALL•E's ensuing journey to outer-space. The designs are both original and full of references, including the most iconic robot-computer of all time, the HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

WALL•E's solitude must have given his processors lots of time to consider the greater purposes of existence. And so he became a deeply sentimental robot, hungry for interaction and extremely attached to the trinkets that Earth's former inhabitants left behind. He doesn't plow the trash and compact it without thought, as his programmers intended. He sorts through it, looking for special trinkets that interest him—a hand-powered food mixer, a jewelry case (the ring inside, not so much) and, most of all, a VHS player and an old cassette of "Hello Dolly," which shows him the magic of singing, dancing and holding hands.

He brings this hunger for interaction to a human race that has started to forget it. Whether you're a baby or a senior citizen, you can't help but notice the robot's steadfast commitment to friendliness, and the difference it makes. "WALL•E" reminds us of the joys to be had in life's simple gestures, like a wave, a handshake or the beautiful act of holding hands.

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Dear George

The Scotsman's Andrew Eaton has written an open letter to one George Lucas, whom you may know as a famed filmmaker, CGI-lover, compulsive masturbator and regular in The Same Dame's comments section (come on, what are the odds that it's not really him?) In it, Eaton references George's long-planned career in small art films that somehow never actually get made, although there is a new Star Wars film out in August!. Maybe that's the small, experimental film about light, movement and color that he described in a Cannes press conference.

Indiana Jones took up loads of your time too. For years, Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg kept arguing that a giant alien spaceship wouldn't work in an Indiana Jones movie! They weren't the only doubters either. Lots of people felt that the Indy movies are about an intrepid archaeologist digging up mysterious relics from the past, and that putting a giant alien spaceship in it would be a bit like, well, writing a fantasy epic about a noble warrior turning to the dark side, and ending up so hideously deformed that he needed to wear a black metal suit to stay alive, and then deciding that what it really needed was a comedy Rastafarian alien sidekick, with a stupid, racially insensitive voice, to provide "comic relief" by falling over and getting his arm trapped in machinery. It would be, you know, a bit incongruous.

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Amazing Sites, No Computers

Roger Ebert reminds us just how nice it is to have him back with his interview with director Tarsem on his latest film, "The Fall."

Reading the interview, it becomes apparent that Tarsem accomplished a feat simply by willing the film into existence. The Indian director ("The Cell") made his career directing commercials and music videos, making a lot of money while living under modest means until one day, he decided to spend his millions on something he cared about.

The agencies that made commercials, he said, "gave me very good money and I didn't complain about it. I put it aside like a little squirrel and at the end I ended up with a project that I wanted to do very badly and threw it all away, so now I’m penniless but as happy as a pig in poo. I told my brother, sell everything, I’m going on this magical mystery tour. When I finish it, I’ll let you know. I called him when it was almost done. He said the house was almost up for sale. But I was finished."

He has a quick smile and makes his struggle sound like a lark.

The film combines a touching relationship between a suicidal, paralyzed Hollywood stuntman (Lee Pace) and a young immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) and the surreal fantasy he tells her from his bedside. Tarsem accurately portrays the fantasy as the young girl sees it in her mind. The storyline resembles a dream in its extremely simplistic yet murky execution. Excursions and sideshows distract from the main plot, which would cause the film to unravel if the plot in reality weren't actually the one that mattered.

"If you think it’s hard raising money for a film, try telling people that the script is going to be written by a 4-year old. It’s going to be dictated to me by a child. For seven years wherever I would shoot a commercial I would send people out with a camera to schools, and one day I got a tape of this girl at a school in Romania, in the middle of students talking. I was amazed. She was perfect. She didn't speak English. The penny dropped. She was six, but if she didn’t speak the language she would be using, the misunderstanding would buy me the two years that I needed. Because she had to seem four.

Tarsem also reveals the secret behind his striking visuals: location scouting. The locations all exist in reality, although in some cases the director helped bend the reality to his will.

"Jodhpur, the blue city, is a Brahmin city where you’re only supposed to paint your house blue. I made a contract with the city; we would give them free paint. We knew legally they could only choose blue. So they painted their houses blue and it looked more vibrant than it ever had before."

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Where will HD Go? Nobody Knows

In Which I Talk About How Great HD is While I Complain About What's Wrong with Every HD Format That Crosses My Mind

As someone who was never particularly impressed with the digital projection craze or HD movie productions, I didn't expect to be blown away by either of the competing HD media formats. But when I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" on HD DVD, I bought into it quicker than George Lucas would pay for a digital whore (that he made for himself at ILM, of course).

The leap in home video quality is revelatory. While I'd love to watch every movie I see in its original film format, that's a pipe dream. Given the sorry state of repertory films in all but a few cities in this nation, most film lovers have no method outside of the home to view classics or undiscovered gems that were released more than a year ago. I jumped at the prospect of watching films at home with some of their detail and color accuracy restored.

Of course, I backed the wrong horse and picked up an inexpensive HD DVD player because it was clearly the more consumer-friendly format, and presented more opportunities to indie filmmakers and studios. (Short filmmakers, for example, could author HD transfers of their films onto a regular DVD or DVD+/+DL/-R for HD DVD playback. Think of the low production costs for "Cops" or "Un Chien Andalou" in HD, damn it!)

I misjudged the amount of money Sony was willing to pour into this war—especially for Warner Bros. exclusivity. As it happens, I'm still happy with the purchase—I have a great up-convertor for my regular DVDs and don't plan to invest in any of the remaining HD solutions until they come down in price and/or prove themselves the dominant format. And I somehow wound up with nearly 50 HD DVDs and a $50 gift certificate by spending less than I would have for a Blu-ray player.

With Blu-ray Disc as the remaining optical-disc medium, we now have a herd of HD options that aren't particularly conducive to consumer adoption. While I hope that one will win out, ensuring more and more HD transfers and releases, it's possible that none will, and that BD will exist only as a niche format. The Super Audio CD offered better sound than CDs, but most music-listeners were too busy ripping and downloading lower-than-CD-quality mp3s to notice. And while more and more people have been investing in HDTVs, they've more likely grabbed a cheap up-converter than a Blu-ray or HD DVD machine. So it's really anyone's game.

Blu-ray

Buried amongst Blu-ray Disc's pain-in-the-ass DRM, region coding, in-fighting, and inconsistent and unfinished specs is the best picture and sound quality of any HD option still standing. Blu-ray also shares its size and dimensions with DVD, making the discs familiar and the players hospitable for old (or new) DVDs. (When the war was still being waged, Sony execs said that people should just by regular DVDs of the HD DVD studios' films and up-convert with their BD player.)

Now that Sony has won the war, it needs to launch an assault on DVD, but Sony actually raised one of its player's since HD DVD's demise. If the players weren't so damn expensive, they might appeal to the folks who are buying up-converters for a quarter to an eighth of the price.

People forget that the DVD didn't kill VHS with only its picture quality and loads of versatile features. It offered the new, superior movie experience for a fraction of the price people were paying for VHS tapes or Laserdiscs. If studio execs think they would have sold nearly as many catalogue movies and TV shows at two to four times the price, they are sadly delusional.

There are plenty of early adopters who are willing to pay premiums, but those adopters can only make Blu-ray a niche format. Certain people, like those who owned laserdiscs (I still have mine), are willing to pay a premium to watch films in the best quality available for their home theaters, but others want to play the movies they own in many different places.

The majority of consumers (including those who own BD and/or HD DVD players) still purchase DVDs with gleeful disregard of their inferior picture quality. You have to wonder how many movies most people will add to their Blu-ray collections. Even if everybody decided to get a BD player, they'd probably only get one, to use in their nice home theater setup (yes, I know that not everybody has a "nice home theater setup"). It'd be pointless on the small TV in their car, overkill for the bedroom, too costly for the kids' playroom. So they're still going to have DVD players around the house. That means that every time they buy a movie, they'll have to decide whether to purchase a DVD that they can play anywhere, or a BD that they can play in one room.

A lot of people ragged on the HD DVD combo format, which included DVD on one side and HD DVD on the other, but I experienced its usefulness multiple times when I lent friends the combo discs of "Knocked Up" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Maybe now that HD-DVD is dead, Blu-ray can reach an agreement that allows for a combo disc format.

The longer it takes Sony and its Blu-ray pals to make their format cheap and flexible, the more time they give other options to come in and take their place. Luckily for them, the most threatening option isn't as close as we think.

Downloads
Many have predicted that Blu-ray will soon die out to downloaded content, but this assumption jumps the gun and overlooks key factors. First of all, we who use the Internet nonstop sometimes forget that there are many among us who do not. When a blizzard hindered the Utah Film Critics Association's awards voting, I tried to setup a chat group via AIM and iChat, only to learn that several of my colleagues had only slow dial-up connections at home and had no idea how to do anything but check their email. (I hope my colleagues appreciate that I didn't go for the easy addition of "and look up porn" to that joke. Just for you, guys. Just for you.)

So let's not get carried away about how quickly downloadable movies will catch on. While popular amongst its users, Xbox Live, like Blu-ray, feels too tied to its videogame system to reach success amongst the masses. Even the best device for this type of thing, Apple TV, comes with several negatives.

As I wrote when it first came out, Apple TV does what it does incredibly well, yet lacks the consumer appeal of the iPod. There's no reason that Apple's normal strategy of implementing a few key features amazingly well shouldn't work for the Apple TV, except that most people can't easily use the device to play any digital video that they want—not true for their iPods in regards to their music collection.

In my case, I'd be on Apple TV in a second if I could actually use it to watch all the movies I want to watch. But it can't play all the formats Quicktime can, and the iTunes store doesn't have the movies I want to watch. I do much better with an HD DVR and channels like World Cinema HD.

Consumers can't rip their DVDs through iTunes due to DRM and the laws that protect it, (Downloadable programs like Handbrake won't crossover to the mainstream.) And even if they could, most of us don't have the hard disc space to make it work.

When the Blu-ray and HD DVD of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" came out, several reviews complained about the image quality, and how the transfer was on a single-layer Blu-ray Disc, meaning it's less than 25 GB.

How about a moment of thought.

How much free space do you have on your hard drive right now? An Apple TV comes with a 40GB hard drive or a 160 GB hard drive. Gee, that gives us either two or eight movies at sub-BD quality. Those who just rent anyway might not mind, except for the selection factor I mentioned earlier.

Given the Apple TV's fantastic design, it could become a hit if only Apple could come up with a reason people should buy one. New implementations, such as ordering movies direct from the Apple TV device, are an improvement. But as John Gruber pointed out, 24 hours is too short a window to start and finish their movie. And I'd like to feel like I'm not just buying the device so I can go spend money at the iTunes music store.

Apple isn't even going for the super-HD crowd, using 720p as Apple TV's native output. This strategy may prove a cost-effective way to keep prices down, especially when many can't see the difference.

Video-On-Demand Cable
On-Demand may very well become a popular way for people to expand the use of their already installed cable receivers. But let's not hope for it to become the standard.

As iLounge found in their comparison of "Live Free or Die Hard" on four different formats, on-demand cable has a higher resolution than DVD, but also uses higher compression. The result is a more detailed picture when there isn't much motion, but increased compression artifacts during fast action. Unconverted DVD offered the better presentation of the film in many instances.

Just as important (for me, anyway), on-demand was the only service that didn't offer the film in its correct aspect ratio.

And in the particular case of "Live Free or Die Hard," what the fuck's up with the colors?

My prediction? Well, I'd like an Apple TV, but expect that I'll eventually end up with a Blu-ray player once they can be purchased for less than $200. But whichever format gets Buster Keaton's complete catalogue from 1920 to 1928 on HD first will have my support. (I'll even give you—I'm addressing the format, here—a break and let you leave off "The Saphead," if you must.)

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Disney Still Not Over the Whole 3-D Thing.

Yesterday, the folks at Disney demonstrated their belief that digital 3-D is not merely a re-hash of a short-lived fad from 50 years ago. They plan to release their animated film schedule from 2009 onward in the format, and expect filmgoers to pay a few bucks extra more for the trouble.

"Up," set for release May 29, 2009, will be Pixar's first 3-D title, and thereafter every Pixar toon will be produced in 3-D. Disney has been an early proponent of the format, starting with 2005's "Chicken Little," and all its own toons going forward will use the format as well. Lasseter noted he is such a fan that his wedding pictures were done in 3-D. Along with its new pics, Disney is also releasing Pixar classics "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" in digital 3-D in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Meanwhile, Disney's Blu-ray release of that Hannah Montanna concert is slated to include 3-D glasses. Like my great granddad used to say, it's always more fun to watch teenage girls perform when you feel like you can reach out and touch them.

As Disney blazes this bold, 50-year-old trail, I only hope they bring Robert Zemeckis along to shove some swords in our faces.

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Morris Premieres New Doc, Patiently Answers B.O.-Related Questions

Defamer caught up with the great documentarian Errol Morris at a screening of his upcoming Abu Graihb film, " "Standing Operating Procedure." If the film is as engaging as Morris makes it sound, I don't really think it matters whether the film takes in more money than other recent Iraq-themed flops.

"It's not a movie about torture or about whether the Iraq War shouldn't have been fought. I have strong opinions about that myself. But I made a movie about people like yourself or myself trapped in the middle of this — people we never would have seen or would have forgotten about, who we just would have assumed are really monsters. And I've brought them back across the line back into humanity. And I think it's an interesting story — and a human story."

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Don't Make Woody Angry

Woody has taken clothing line American Apparel to task for using a still from "Annie Hall" in one of their ads.

In a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the actor-director said he does not endorse commercial products or services in the United States, which makes the May 2007 American Apparel billboards in Hollywood and New York and Web site displays "especially egregious and damaging."

Or maybe Woody's just April foolin'.

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George Lucas Admits He's a Hack

(*Headline lifted directly from the subject of an email from Brent Sallay.)

George Lucas remembers the excitement that grew during the lead-up to "Star Wars: Episode I—The; Phantom! Menace," only to collapse in a flaccid heap of exposition and digital overkill prior to the anti-climax of the film's pod race. So he devised a new marketing message for the upcoming Indian Jones sequel: Don't get your hopes up, folks.

Lucas assured USA Todaythat people shouldn't assume the movie might be good just because Steven Spielberg is directing it. Lucas did have final script approval, after all.

"When you do a movie like this, a sequel that's very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it's going to be the Second Coming," Lucas says. "And it's not. It's just a movie. Just like the other movies. You probably have fond memories of the other movies. But if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up."
…
Lucas says he learned his lesson about unrealistic expectations when he revived the Star Wars franchise in 1999. "When people approach the new (Indiana Jones), much like they did with Phantom Menace, they have a tendency to be a little harder on it," he says. "You're not going to get a lot of accolades doing a movie like this. All you can do is lose."

Whereby "lose" he means "make a fucking shitload of money. I mean, a giant fucking shitload. I mean, I'm gonna make such a giant fucking shitload of money off this motherfucker."

"We came back to do (Indy) because we wanted to have fun," he says. "It's not going to make much money for us in the end. We all have some money. … It would make a lot of money if you weren't rich. But we're not doing it for the money."

And so comes Vernon Hardapple's question: "If you didn't think it was more than just a movie…why were you making it?"

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If You Don't Count 'Russian Ark' or Mention 'Rope'…

Director Aram Rappaport wants to shut down Chicago for five days to shoot a 100-minute film that will take place over a single take.

It sounds like a cool project, but Wired blogger John Scott Lewinski doesn't seem to know its full history.

In the Orson Welles classic Touch of Evil, the director's opening scene was a long, elaborate tracking shot famed for its intricate choreography. The feat was later duplicated in Goodfellas and The Player.

Writer/director Aram Rappaport is taking the idea and blowing it up for his new thriller, Helix.

Rappaport might be the first non-Russian to accomplish such a feat in a major production, although Hitchock, as usual, receives notice for trying it first in 1948.

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Paramount Launches Online Clip Library, World Collectively Shrugs

Well, Paramount launched its own video library via Facebook. Says the Washington Post:

Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, launched the service yesterday on Facebook, the popular social-networking site. The application is called VooZoo; it is a combination clip library and media player. It includes scenes from such films as "Braveheart," "Sunset Boulevard," "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "School of Rock." The clips include a link that sends users to http://Amazon.com to buy DVDs of the movies.

My guess is that most people will just think, "But I can already watch those on YouTube." I'd be more impressed if you could buy the films via HD download, rather than order a DVD. But whatever.

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Out Utah This Week

My last column for IN.

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Old-School Censorship Lessons

As the Irish Censorship Office prepares to close its freedom-hating doors for good, The Independent offers a look at its past antics.

In the old days, the censor would solemnly set out his reasons for prohibiting all showings of films such as King Creole. "I have had much trouble, particularly from headmistresses of girls' schools," he explained, "regarding the antics of Elvis Presley with his most suggestive abdominal dancing."

Another censor, who banned 200 films in one year alone, was appalled by the amount of kissing. He protested that Hollywood depicted kissing "to the accompaniment of the most sensuous music, lavishing miles of celluloid on this unsanitary salute".

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Ramblings on Oscar Speeches

Let them ramble, I ramble.

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