Movie List, 2014 edition

It's been over a year since my last post, but figured I should resume with another movie roundup.  Mark your calendars, it's going to be a good summer.  Too bad the fall looks rather sparse...

01-10-2014 - Her
02-07-2014 - The Lego Movie
02-12-2014 - Robocop
03-21-2014 - Muppet's Most Wanted
03-28-2014 - Noah
04-04-2014 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
04-18-2014 - Transcendence
05-02-2014 - Amazing Spiderman 2
05-16-2014 - Godzilla
05-23-2014 - X-Men: Days of Future Past
05-30-2014 - A Million Ways to Die in the West
05-30-2014 - Maleficent
06-06-2014 - Edge of Tomorrow
06-13-2014 - How to Train Your Dragon 2
06-25-2013 - Hercules
06-27-2014 - Transformers: Age of Extinction
07-11-2014 - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
07-18-2014 - Jupiter Ascending
08-01-2014 - Guardians of the Galaxy
08-08-2014 - Lucy
08-08-2014 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
08-21-2014 - Sin City: A Dame To Kill For
11-07-2014 - Interstellar
11-21-2014 - Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

It's a pretty good list, but amazingly, 2015 looks to be even better.

Movies, Movies, and more Movies!

After re-reading the Wired Movie Roundup for 2013, I'm astonished at how many cool movies are heading our way.  The ones I'm looking forward to this year (minus some, plus others), in chronological order, are:

2-1-2013 - Warm Bodies
4-5-2013 - Jurassic Park 3D
4-5-2013 - Upstream Color
4-19-2013 - Oblivion
5-3-2013 - Iron Man 3
5-10-2013 - The Great Gatsby
5-17-2013 - Star Trek: Into Darkness
5-31-2013 - After Earth
5-31-2013 - Now You See Me
6-14-2013 - Man of Steel
6-21-2013 - World War Z
6-21-2013 - Monsters University
6-28-2013 - Kick Ass 2
7-3-2013 - The Lone Ranger
7-3-2013 - Despicable Me 2
7-12-2103 - Pacific Rim
7-26-2013 - The Wolverine
8-2-2013 - Eurpoa Report
8-9-2013 - Elysium
9-6-2013 - Riddick
9-25-2013 - The World's End
11-1-2013 - Ender's Game
11-8-2013 - Thor 2: The Dark World
11-22-2013 - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
12-13-2013 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Yes, starting in May there is a good movie coming out almost every weekend over the summer, and picks up again in the winter.  A theater subscription like MoviePass.com is looking pretty good.

The Sky is Falling...

Last night was Evo Movie Night, and a bunch of us went to see Skyfall, the 23rd (or 25th, depending how you count) Bond movie.

It was very well done, with lots of clever references to the classic Bond movies, impressive set pieces, and several movies worth of explosions.  The ending was rather illogical, and while it introduced some new scenery and back-story, seemed like the worst possible strategy Bond and M could have devised.

After watching movies I always check out the trivia section on IMDB.  Skyfall's entries are particularly disappointing.  Not because there are too few, but because in my mind many of them aren't "Trivia", and instead mostly consist of production notes.  First one word title in 17 years?  I suppose there is a fine line between trivia and useless facts, but I think most of these are on the wrong side.

The camera you have with you...

They say the best camera is the one you have with you.

Early in the days of digital photography I reluctantly carried a bulky, heavy camera. Eventually I upgraded to a more compact model with fewer features to keep with me, and a DSLR for serious shoots. The compact one was still noticeable in my pocket.

Throughout this progression I've had a smartphone with a camera. At first it was a crummy VGA camera that I never used. The original iPhone was a big improvement, but still mediocre. My use of it increased as I upgraded to the 3g and 3GS, and somewhere along the line I stopped carrying the point-n-shoot. The iPhone 4 introduced a great camera and 720p video, and my use of it skyrocketed.

With the 4S, I am constantly impressed with its photo and video quality, and I leave my other cameras home more often than not. Recently on vacation with my iPhone 4S and DSLR, I often took better photos with my phone. The colors and sharpness are excellent, and best of all, it's always in my pocket.

Once you go Solid State, you don't go back

In February I replaced the stock 500GB, 5400 RPM hard drive in my Macbook Pro with an SSD. I went with a 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro, because of its excellent performance and reputation, and its built-in TRIM ability (Macs had yet to support it in the OS).

The Pro's: It is FAST. Boots in seconds. Apps launch before the first bounce of the dock. All my startup programs are running before the 2nd bounce. iPhoto is silky smooth. It's silent.

The Con's: I've had to be much more diligent/stingy about my digital storage. 120GB is awfully cramped. I have a spacious external drive, but they're no fun to carry around.

However, as with all things computery, prices are going down while performance is going up. Spinning disks days are numbered, though that number is large, and is not decreasing as much as everyone thinks.

LYTRO means the end of blurry shots

I've been keeping my eye on LYTRO for a while. They have created a new kind of camera, a "Light Field" camera, which not only records the color and intensity of light, but also its direction. It doesn't have megapixels, it has "megarays".

What does this get you?

Well, for starters, you can focus the shot after you take it. Seriously. Check out this gallery.

It has an interesting form factor, just two buttons (power and shutter), a touch area for zoom, and a small touchscreen on the back end.

It's also surprisingly inexpensive, for something that still sounds like science fiction to me.

Dark of the Moon?

Michael Bay must have flunked grammar in school, seems to prefer adjectives, and hates nouns. In the last movie, he used the adjective "Fallen" in place of a noun to refer to one Decepticon. Now, he's titled his movie "Dark of the Moon". After watching the new trailer it makes a *little* more sense, but not a lot.

The idea of a moon landing conspiracy is a bit cliche, but I have to admit, I'm a bit excited.

In other news, it sounds like it really will be in true 3D (like Avatar), and not converted (like Alice in Wonderland).