The Movie Distraction Test

I’d rented two Blu-ray movies for the weekend but didn’t have a chance to watch them, so instead of just returning them I decided to play them in the background while working on the webpage. A great way to judge a movie’s appeal, really: if the movie good, your attention will be drawn to it against your will. If the movie is bad, it’s easy to ignore. Based on this test:

• Spiderwick Chronicles is good.
• 10,000 BC sucks. Bigtime.

10,000 BC sucking isn’t a big surprise, of course. I figured it might be fun for its pretty pictures, or be entertaining in a dumb way, like Stargate. But it’s just a boring, unengaging mess in which I don’t care for any of the characters. Extra negative points for opening the movie with the same mountain ranges as The Two Towers! I thought I was in the wrong movie…

Spiderwick Chronicles is a pleasant surprise. Well told, well executed, great family movie that adults can enjoy as well. Much recommended!

If You’re Not Watching the Jace Hall Show…

You should be. Fun mixture of video games and celebrities from a guy who actually knows a lot about the industry (he ran Monolith for many, many years). Well produced and entertaining.

New Chrono game!

Update: Uhm, looks like it’s just a port of the Playstation version, which was a port of the Super Famicon version with terrible Dragonball Z characters thrown in (sorry, I just can’t stand that style). Boo! Doesn’t make the game any worse, of course, but I don’t need to buy a new DS port just to replay that game again…

Original Post: Be still my heart!

Square needs to add a lot more content and less tease to that page, though

AMA Superbike 2008 Video

I have posted my music video from the AMA Superbike event at Infineon Raceway this May. Enjoy your daily dose of Tainted Love!  

Toyota/Savemart 350 Promo

This is a promo video I created for the official Infineon Raceway website. This was fun because I’d never made a fast-paced, high-energy commercial video before. And even though the final result is pretty damn crude and basic I learned a ton.

40 Years on the Red Line

My latest video is now online! This year Infineon Raceway is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and I made a “short history” of the racetrack for the official webpage. I’m really happy with the final result, and have grown a lot as a “filmmaker” (I don’t know if this term applies yet). Filtering through several hours of material encompassing 40 years, wriggling that material down to 8 minutes, and then have everything line up with the interview portions that I shot for the documentary was a nice challenge.

Watch the video on Youtube or go to the Infineon Raceway webpage!

AMA Superbike Riders

I’m doing some housekeeping on my raceway footage, and I realized that I never uploaded the AMA Superbike panel that I recorded at the raceway earlier this month. Miguel Duhamel, Neil Hogson, Matt Lynn, Jake Holden and, in a separate video, Mat Mladin. Some fun stuff, Miguel Duhamel is funny as always.

Digital Juno

Gotta give a shoutout to the Fox DVD department: getting a free digital copy of the movie when you buy Juno on Blu-Ray is pretty damn cool! And useful. Sure, it’s DRM’ed, but the license acquisition is as painless as any other iTunes purchase. And even though we’ll watch the movie on the big TV, it’s great to have the movie on the iPhone for unexpected waits at the doctor etc. It’s good to see big studios embrace the digital frontier and deliver a purchase in multiple formats. I paid for it, I can watch it wherever I am! Perfect.

Free Lair Downloads

The free Lair Dragons and Control Pack is now available on the Playstation 3 store. Two new playable dragons, analog control option, and a whole bunch of fixes for free!

Superstars

The differences between American Idol and the German counterpart? Less Ryan Seacrest, more visual effects – and the audition spaces are much more stylish than those boring American sport arenas! And of all the wannabe Simon Cowells, Dieter Bolen can certainly hold his own – not because he’s trying hard to imitate Cowell, it’s just the way he is. Quote from the video above: “If Heather Mills rolled her wooden leg down a bowling alley, the pins would fall with more rythm than your singing.”