SENIOR SKIP DAY NOW AVAILABLE

SENIOR SKIP DAY NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE SENIOR SKIP DAY FROM IMDB

Adam Harris, a semi-lame senior, is head over heels in love with Cara. Unfortunately she is the most popular girl in school. On the one day of the year that he could actually have a chance, senior skip day, he screws it all up by accidentaly slipping the location of the party to his principle. But have no fear, in a last resort effort he moves the party to his house and all seems to be well. Or is it...


HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE SENIOR SKIP DAY 1 OF 2.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE SENIOR SKIP DAY 2 OF 2.

SEMI-PRO NOW AVAILABLE

SEMI-PRO NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FRO THE MOVIE SEMI-PRO FROM IMDB

Jackie Moon, the owner-coach-player of the American Basketball Association's Flint Michigan Tropics, rallies his teammates to make their NBA dreams come true

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE SEMI-PRO FROM DVDTALK


"Semi-Pro" is Will Ferrell's most cluttered film to date, and coming off the lackluster figure skating opus "Blades of Glory," that's saying something. This is an amusing picture with a kaleidoscopic comedy viewpoint, but it's terribly disjointed and frighteningly bipolar. A few more movies like this, and Ferrell could find himself trapped in a creative black hole that might lead to a future of miserable boat show appearances.

Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) is a disco superstar, master promoter, and owner of the Flint, Michigan Tropics, a struggling ABA basketball team eager to make 1976 their year for success. Finding out only the top four teams in the league will be considered for an upcoming merger with the NBA, Jackie recruits aging superstar Monix (Woody Harrelson) to join the team and help with the season. Under pressure to win games and fill the seats, Jackie goes to outrageous lengths to keep his team alive when it seems everyone couldn't care less about the future of the ABA.

Listen, Will Ferrell could be funny in his sleep, but his recent output of feature films has reeked of desperation, eroding his once pungent buoyancy. "Semi-Pro" is such an erratic production, tap-dancing all over the place in search of chuckles, and soft chortles are pretty much all you get from Scot Armstrong's screenplay. There are few belly-laughs to be mined from the material, and that is a crime.

Longtime comedy producer Kent Alterman makes his directorial debut with "Semi-Pro" and his inexperience is about as subtle as a supernova. Imagine "Anchorman" and "Tin Cup" colliding on a playground of ABA jokes and you'd have something approaching the tone of "Semi-Pro." The film is an untamed hodgepodge of improvisational moments from Ferrell and his gang of comics (Andy Richter, Will Arnett, David Koechner, and Rob Corddry also appear) who wander around trying to pinpoint the laugh, but never quite do. All Alterman can do is turn his camera on, praying the footage will cut together. I hate to break it to this guy, but "Semi-Pro" is barely a movie.

Laughs come from the mouth of Ferrell, who, as his did in "Blades," takes off on his own spaceship of thought and tangents. Watching Jackie freak out over the continual failure of his team is entertaining footage, and it's often enough to help digest the picture. However, when Ferrell goes for the wilder ideas, such as Jackie and his friends engaging in a little gunplay during a poker game, the film deflates right in front of your eyes. When Will Ferrell has to fight like a demon to make a scene funny, then you know the script is garbage.

Further proof of this comes with the character of Monix, who has been branded the "heart" of the feature. Harrelson is amiable enough, but what little momentum there is in "Semi-Pro" is killed by trying to infuse this funhouse with a soul. Either you have Jackie wrestling a grizzly bear or Monix making googly eyes with an old flame (a wasted Maura Tierney). Trying to blend both in the same picture leaves the film a tennis match of tones that starts to strain the neck the more Alterman refuses to scale it back.

"Semi-Pro" has some fine moments, but there's nothing here that catches fire. Pointing out 70's staples like Pong and fondue are smile-worthy, but forced. The ABA miracle moments, such as the discovery of the alley oop, also get the blood pumping, but there's little kinetic energy behind it. Perhaps Ferrell should stick to directors who understand his silly DNA, instead of placing his future in the hands of the Kent Altermans of the world, who don't have the experience or the courage to pick a tone and charge full steam ahead.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE SEMI-PRO.

TOSHIBA GIVING UP END OF HD-DVD

TOSHIBA IS QUITTING THE FORMAT WAR END OF HD-DVD

HERE IS THE PRESS RELEASE FROM TOSHIBA ON THE DEATH OF HD-DVD:

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

UNIVERSAL GOES BLU!!!!

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS GOES TO BLU-RAY

HERE IS THE ARTICLE FROM HOME MEDIA MAGAZINE:

The high-definition format war is officially over. Toshiba Corp. Feb. 19 announced it will discontinue developing, manufacturing and marketing HD DVD players and recorders.

The announcement ends a two-year-long battle with Blu-ray Disc to succeed DVD, and was welcome news to both retailers and industry analysts. Also, former HD DVD stalwart Universal Studios announced it would begin releasing its titles on Blu-ray. Fellow HD DVD backers Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks were expected to follow suit.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba. “While we are disappointed for the company and, more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass-market opportunity for high-definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

He added that Toshiba has no plans at this time to adopt Blu-ray.

Toshiba will stop shipments of HD DVD players and recorders by March, and will stop production of HD DVD drives for computers as well. The company added it would continue to provide product support and services for current HD DVD owners.

“Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP,” stated a press release.

“Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.”

How HD DVD died

Michael Pachter, media analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles, said HD DVD’s demise was inevitable since Toshiba couldn’t compete with Sony on sales volume. Sony included Blu-ray playback on the PlayStation 3 game console, which has sold more than 3 million units in the United States alone, according to research firm The NPD Group. Toshiba revealed during its announcement that only 1.03 million HD DVD players, including the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on, had been sold worldwide.

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group, said a combination of things killed the HD DVD format. “I think there were a number of suspects, but you can’t quite pin down one murderer,” he said.

First at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Warner Bros. stunned the home entertainment world by announcing it would exclusively back Blu-ray, leaving HD DVD with Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Studios Home Entertainment as the only major studios supporting the format. Hardware sales data the week after Warner’s announcement showed 93% of high-def players sold were Blu-ray, according to The NPD Group.

Toshiba responded by significantly lowering its player prices, and Microsoft dropped the price of its Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on by $50 earlier this month. Toshiba also bought a 30-second Super Bowl ad for a reported $2.7 million. But apparently the moves were ineffective in boosting sales or digging into Blu-ray’s lead.

Nielsen VideoScan data has consistently shown Blu-ray software outselling HD DVD by a 3-to-1 margin or better, and earlier this month both Wal-Mart and Netflix announced they would only carry Blu-ray product, and Best Buy announced it would give preference to Blu-ray.

“Wal-Mart’s decision certainly was impossible to bounce back from,” Rubin said.

On Feb. 14, industry sources told Home Media Magazine that Toshiba was about to call it quits, due to the rapid loss of support for the format and the piling financial losses the company was incurring on its standalone players.

Reaction

Retailers expressed relief following Toshiba’s decision.

Noah Herschman, director of audio and video for Amazon.com, said that while HD DVD players were among the retailer’s best sellers during the holidays, its death will make things easier on customers.

“We believe both of them were viable high-def formats for people with HDTVs,” he said. “Now that there is one format, we hope consumers embrace that.”

However, he added, the price points for Blu-ray players are too high for some consumers, and there has been less supply than of HD DVD. He said Amazon.com will continue to carry HD DVD until “they’re no longer made,” and will be marketing its lowest-priced HD DVD player in stock, the HD-A3 ($109), as an “upconverting DVD player.”

“We still have a lot of customers who have purchased HD DVD players, and we want to accommodate them,” Herschman said.

Best Buy spokesman Brian Lucas said the retailer’s decision on when to stop selling HD DVD products would be dictated by consumer demand, however “at a certain point we’ll start pulling them from shelves.”

“From the beginning we thought the format war was not good for anyone, not good for any retailer,” he said. “But (one high-def format) is great for consumers.”

Bo Andersen, president of the Entertainment Merchants Association, the nonprofit international home entertainment trade association, said Blu-ray’s victory is a relief for everyone in the industry.

“Now that consumer confusion concerning dueling formats has ended, it is time for suppliers and retailers to redouble their efforts to bring home the message that Blu-ray Discs deliver the finest viewing experience for the world’s best entertainment,” he said. “The marketplace has spoken. It is time that consumers hear the message … We believe there is pent up demand for high-definition optical discs in thousands of applications.”

What’s next?

At least one of the two studios exclusive to HD DVD is already gearing up to join the other team.

“While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate.”

Paramount and DreamWorks Animation, which went HD DVD exclusive in August, had not made any announcement regarding its plans. Both Universal and Paramount have titles announced for HD DVD in the coming months. It’s unknown what the status for those releases is. A Warner Home Video spokeswoman said the company had no comment regarding its plans at this time. Warner had planned on ending its HD DVD releases in May, and has several titles announced.

Analysts said the industry could expect an uptick in consumer adoption of high-def now, but warned that just because Blu-ray has won the battle, it hasn’t won over everyone’s living room.

“This certainly clears an obstacle for Blu-ray,” Rubin said. “The format will become more appealing to consumers, and the economies of scale kicks in and player prices should go down. But the technology is still sandwiched between consumer satisfaction with DVD on one side, and the growing number of digital distribution options on the other.”

Rob Enderle, media analyst with The Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif., said players are too expensive and need to drop below $200 for wider consumer adoption. In addition, current standalone Blu-ray players will soon be obsolete and can’t be updated to play all the features on some Blu-ray Discs. HD DVD had fewer compatibility obstacles, as all players required the same specifications from day one.

“The current technology was rushed to market incomplete and is different than the typical technology update cycle,” Enderle said. “It seems like most of the Blu-ray and HD DVD supporters on the content and technology sides have moved to downloads as the next big thing suggesting that this fight took too long and may have missed a market which is in the process of moving on.”

Wedbush Morgan Securities’ Patcher said to expect Blu-ray player sales from 20,000 to 30,000 units over the next several months, and that retailers like Best Buy would aggressively cross sell the PS3 in order to up-sell consumers video games in addition to movies.

“They will not focus on entry-level $200 Blu-ray players,” Pachter said.

DEFINITELY, MAYBE NOW AVAILABLE

DEFINITELY MAYBE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE DEFINITELY MAYBE FROM IMDB

Romantic comedy: Will Hayes, a 30-something Manhattan dad is in the midst of a divorce when his 10 year old daughter, Maya, starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love. Will's story begins in 1992, as a young, starry-eyed aspiring politician who moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the Clinton campaign. For Maya, Will relives his past as a idealistic young man learning the ins and outs of big city politics, and recounts the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women. On the campaign, Will's best buddy is Russell McCormack. They not only have similar political aspirations, they share the same type of girl problems, too. Will hopelessly attempts a "PG" version of his story for his daughter ad changes the names so Maya has to guess who he finally married. Is her mother Will's college sweetheart, the dependable girl next-door Emily? Is she his longtime best friend and confidante, he apolitical April? Or is she the free-spirited but ambitious journalist? As Maya puts together the pieces of her dad's romantic puzzle, she begins to understand that love is not so simple or easy. And as Will tells her his tale, Maya helps him to understand that it's definitely never too late to go back...and maybe even possible to find a happy ending. Written by Orange

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE DEFINITELY MAYBE FROM DVDTALK

I can swallow many preposterous ideas in a romantic comedy, but "Definitely, Maybe" contains a whopper that stands head and shoulders above them all. You're telling me that the script dreams up a main character who attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, and he has no idea who Nirvana is? The screenwriter clearly wasn't doing his homework.

On the eve of his divorce, Will Hayes (an immensely likable Ryan Reynolds) is trying to sort out what went wrong in his love life. When Will's daughter (Abigail Breslin) requests the story of how her parents met, the frightened father instead makes the tale a game, where he takes the three relationships of his adulthood (a trifecta of feminine perfection with Isla Fisher, Rachael Weisz, and Elizabeth Banks) and mixes them up to confuse the child. While explaining the tangents of his broken heart, Will inadvertently stumbles upon rather painful memories, which compel him to reconsider his bad decisions and missed romantic opportunities.

After being chained to the theater seat watching swill like "27 Dresses," "Maybe" feels like a cool breeze; an intelligent but gracefully sappy romantic comedy that understands relentless formula is not the cornerstone of charm, investing in multifaceted characterization and a sympathetic tone. Perhaps this is due to filmmaker Adam Brooks, who is not a barcoded Hollywood drone, but an idiosyncratic filmmaker ("The Invisible Circus") who's been making some scratch in recent years writing such enjoyable mainstream fare as "Wimbledon" and the "Bridget Jones" sequel.

Brooks is committed to these characters; he doesn't view them as meet-cute speed bumps, but people with the tartness of big screen romantic archetypes and the heaviness of real-world longing. "Maybe" is a rom-com in the loosest of definitions, preferring to use Will as an exploration of heartbreaking missed opportunities and emotional maturation. He's not a just a stick figure waiting to chase the girl, and that little tweak of intent makes all the difference in the world between putting the audience to sleep and challenging them to embrace characters who are fallible.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE DEFINITELY MAYBE.

DAY OF THE DEAD NOW AVAILABLE

DAY OF THE DEAD NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE DAY OF THE DEAD FROM IMDB

When the world is overrun by the flesh hungry dead a small group of survivors head to an underground military bunker in a last ditch effort to stay alive.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE DAY OF THE DEAD.

FOOLS GOLD NOW AVAILABLE

FOOLS GOLD NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE FOOLS GOLD FROM IMDB

A new clue to the whereabouts of a lost treasure rekindles a married couple's sense of adventure -- and their estranged romance.

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE FOOLS GOLD FROM DVDTALK

A sandy romantic adventure unable to find its way out of first gear, "Fool's Gold" can't help but feel like one of the larger disappointments found in this new year of filmgoing. I mean, how often does a seafaring actioner come along, and then the guy hired to direct it is Andy Tennant?

Finn (Matthew McConaughey) is an absent-minded treasure hunter scouring the Caribbean for Spanish gold and jewels left behind 300 years ago. After sinking his ship, getting in over his head with rapper/crime lord Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart), and newly divorced from his exasperated wife, Tess (Kate Hudson), Finn talks an elderly millionaire (Donald Sutherland) and his dim daughter (Alexis Dziena) into funding another go at the fortune. Now, with a rival hunter (Ray Winstone) on their tail, Tess and Finn plunge into the deep water to unearth their treasure, finding danger every step of the way.

Sliced from the belly of "Romancing the Stone," "Fool's Gold" doesn't quite have the vision or the scripted mischief to rise above mediocre misadventures. It's a bland motion picture, but what could anyone expect when handing excitement and peppered banter to the man who gave the world "Hitch," "Sweet Home Alabama," and the Olsen Twins' "It Takes Two." Tennant doesn't have the muscles for this level of play, staging lethargic chase sequences and failing to locate a heartbeat of tension throughout the entire film. "Gold" is game to bust out of the box and distribute some merriment, but Tennant doesn't know how to maneuver the picture properly.

While the action calcifies to "Baywatch" displays of beach bravery, the comedy isn't too far behind. Why "Gold" isn't sharper and funnier is beyond me, since both McConaughey and Hudson are quite good in their roles, sharing agreeable chemistry along with vivid displays of tanned flesh that will surely make the film a popular Valentine's Day rental for years to come. The script relies on stupidity for the laughs, and that level of writing tends to dry out quickly, leaving the actors all keyed up for big punchlines, only to be left hanging awkwardly in mid-sentence. Dziena deserves special credit for sinking her teeth into the nubile twit role, but even she loses her voice near the end when the script has nothing more to offer her.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE FOOLS GOLD.

BLU-RAY HAS ALMOST WON WALMART GONE BLU

WALMART TURNS BLU

HERE IS AN ARTICLE THAT STATES THE WAR IS ALMOST OVER WALMART WENT BLU.

Things have gone from bad to worse for HD DVD in the space of one week.

Wal-Mart Stores announced on Friday morning that it, too, has chosen a side in the battle for high-definition video supremacy: by June, it will stock only Blu-ray Disc players.

A buyer in Wal-Mart's video division wrote this morning on her Wal-Mart Checkout blog that the retail giant had made the decision following Netflix and Best Buy's high-profile announcements that they will exclusively stock Blu-ray products.

Wrote Susan Chronister of Wal-Mart: "By June, Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines and, of course, standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players."

"So," she continues, not mincing words, "if you bought the HD (DVD) player like me, I'd retire it to the bedroom, kid's playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard-def movies, and make space for a (Blu-Ray Disc) player."

That might be the best option at this point, as the dominoes keep falling in Blu-ray's favor. While Netflix and Best Buy were pretty damning evidence that the end was near, now it's glaringly obvious: it's over for HD DVD.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that consumers will automatically start buying Blu-ray players. As mentioned many times before here, prices will have to continue to fall on both Blu-ray players and packaged media for there to be any sort of mainstream adoption of the format.

There are rumors that Toshiba might soon be declaring defeat: The Hollywood Reporter has sources telling it that Toshiba, the main backer of HD DVD, might drop its allegiance with the format in the next few weeks.

Toshiba denies it, but stay tuned. There's likely much more to come in this drama.

MEET THE SPARTANS NOW AVAILABLE

MEET THE SPARTANS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE MEET THE SPARTANS FROM DVDTALK

OK, I get it now: Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are agents of Satan himself, and their recruitment video is "Meet the Spartans," the latest in their own private franchise of head-slappingly awful parody product.

You'd think after "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie" I would've flown to Los Angeles and violently snatched the camera away from these guys myself, but hey, I got busy. I'm sorry. In my vigilante absence, these amateur filmmakers somehow conned a profit-hungry 20th Century Fox (a studio this close to greenlighting "Ass: The Movie") into bankrolling another satiric jaunt; this time an elongated riff on last year's blockbuster, "300."

As if "300" wasn't already a parody of itself.

As witnessed in the prior efforts from goofballs Seltzer and Friedberg, the "jokes" tend to punch out in a thousand different directions; most of the targets being the latest, fattest big screen hits, but also whatever happens to be cooking in the immediate pop culture stew. "Spartans" is no different, lampooning "Casino Royale," "Happy Feet," "Transformers," "Ghost Rider," and "Spider-Man 3," while making room for Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan gags (absent panties, of course). There's also considerable television game show ribbing with "Deal or No Deal," "Dancing with the Stars," and several "American Idol" stings.

It's worth mentioning for the third year in a row that Friedberg and Seltzer are nitwits with no discernable filmmaking aptitude to speak of. Their movies are grotesque menageries of monotonous moronic mumbling; it's cinema for the pea-brained who find Larry the Cable Guy too "challenging." The filmmakers obviously know this, but they insist on aiming as low as they can: pointing out every single reference like total clods and dodging genuine wit as though they owed it money. "Spartans" is a new low even for these diseased buffoons, piling on the excrement and genital humor while turning sections of the picture into literal commercials, for the likes of Subway, Dentyne, Budweiser and Gatorade. They're not even trying to hide it, folks: this feature film has commercials in it.

The main thrust of "Spartans" is the "300" parody, and the depth of cleverness can be summed up easily: gay, gay, and more gay. While the visual extremity is another facet of "300" that "Spartans" likes to poke with a stick, the feature is made up almost entirely of variations on the homosexual subtext of Zack Snyder's original film. Here, the Spartans prance around, greet each other with kisses, and boogie to "I Will Survive." "Spartans" really clings tight to the gay panic material, to a point where franchise regular Carmen Electra (as the Spartan queen) has found herself with a major role in this picture, perhaps as a way to offer comfort to the pre-teens who can't stomach the trite homophobic humor.

It's a sad day when Carmen Electra, slithering around the movie with next to nothing on, can't even brighten up a solitary moment of this repugnant film.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE MEET THE SPARTANS.

HOW SHE MOVE NOW AVAILABLE

HOW SHE MOVE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE HOW SHE MOVE FROM IMDB

Following her sister's death from drug addiction, a high school student is forced to leave her private school to return to her old, crime-filled neighborhood where she re-kindles an unlikely passion for the competitive world of step dancing.

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE HOW SHE MOVE FROM DVDTALK

A graduate of the Sundance Film Festival class of 2007, "How She Move" arrives in theaters dragging behind a slew of urban dance productions. However, "Move" has heart, respect, and some incredible acting newcomers, making it late to the party, but ending up the best feet-first creation yet.

Finding her pathway to medical school obstructed by financial difficulties, a smothering mother, and trouble with her peers, Raya (Rutina Wesley) struggles to live life her way. When the world of step-dancing comes calling with offers of cash prizes and social acceptance, Raya jumps at the chance to join the local underdog group. Finding herself emotionally drawn to the squad's captain (Dwain Murphy), Raya risks losing the way to her goals, only to find these aspirations might not be what she wants for herself after all.

Imagine "Stomp the Yard" with a budget of $1.25, a higher IQ, and some visual restraint, and there's "How She Move." Perhaps it's unfair to match the two movies together, since both features were created under such different circumstances, yet both offer the audience a chance to watch step-dancing at its most theatrical; a quality that makes the pictures interchangeable at times.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE HOW SHE MOVE.

RAMBO IV NOW AVAILABLE

RAMBO IV AVAILABLE ONLINE

HERE IS THE SUMMARY FOR THE MOVIE RAMBO IV

Vietnam veteran John Rambo has survived many harrowing ordeals in his lifetime and has since withdrawn into a simple and secluded existence in Bangkok, where he spends his time salvaging old PT boats and tanks for scrap metal. Even though he is looking to avoid trouble, trouble has a way of finding him. A group of Christian human rights missionaries, led by Michael Burnett and Sarah Miller, approach Rambo with the desire to rent his boat to travel up the river to Burma. For over fifty years, Burma has been like a war zone. The Karen people of the region, who consist of peasants and farmers, have endured brutally oppressive rule from the murderous Burmese military and have been struggling for survival every single day. This is the time when medical assistance and general support from the Christian missionaries is needed most. After some consideration, and due to insistence from his mentor, former military man Ed Baumgartner, Rambo accepts the offer and takes Michael, Sarah, and the rest of the missionaries up the river. When the missionaries finally arrive at the Karen village, they are ambushed by the sadistic Major Pa Tee Tint and a slew of Burmese army men. A portion of the villagers and missionaries are tortured and viciously murdered, while Tint and his men hold the remainder captive. News soon reaches the minister in charge of the mission and with the help of Ed Baumgartner he employs Rambo to lead a rescue effort. With five young and highly diverse mercenaries at his disposal, Rambo has to travel back up the river and liberate the survivors from the clutches of Major Tint in what may be one of his deadliest missions ever Written by stallonezone.com

The next chapter finds Rambo recruited by a group of Christian human rights missionaries to protect them against pirates, during a humanitarian aid deliver to the persecuted Karen people of Burma. After some of the missionaries are taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers, Rambo gets a second impossible job: to assemble a team of mercenaries to rescue the surviving relief workers. Written by aintitcool.com

HERE IS A REVIEW FOR THE MOVIE RAMBO IV FROM DVDTALK

What began as a franchise of high adventure and bottomless sympathy, before promptly tumbling into a feral cartoon, has found its rightful home here: utter maniacal chaos. "Rambo" marks the return of Sylvester Stallone's Vietnam vet hero, a full 20 years after the release of "Rambo III." It seems that during this considerable downtime, Stallone has reassessed his work as John Rambo and his iconic screen history, and is comfortable raging again in this ruthless exclamation point on a surreal series of films.

Living in Burma as a boatman, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) spends his time quietly reflecting on his life, desperate to evade his demons. When a pack of Christian missionaries (including Julie Benz, "Dexter") comes to Rambo looking for passage into the heart of the Burmese civil war, he reluctantly accepts, but is wary of such dangerous terrain. Returning home alone, Rambo learns that the missionaries were captured by the vicious Burmese military, leaving him in a position to turn his back or assume his psychologically tattered solider mentality and launch into battle once again.

The truth is, "Rambo" is not a return to the sensitivity of 1982's "First Blood" in the same fashion "Rocky Balboa" healed old wounds. Nor is the film a superficial action breeze like the two previous blockbuster sequels. This time Stallone is hungry to prove a point, and he unleashes a torrent of violence in a manner that's just plain berserk. This is a detail that cannot be stressed enough: "Rambo" is a monumentally vicious film.

Stallone (who directs and co-scripted) is angling for the heart of darkness here, exhibiting the devastating Burmese civil war on very realistic terms, eager to stun the viewer with depictions of SLORC army atrocities including beheadings, rape, dismemberments, and further barbaric customs that keep the rest of the volatile country in place. "Rambo" doesn't recoil from any of it, displaying a gruesome rain of death and unspeakable acts of violation. Stallone is creating a bleak perspective here about the Burmese conflict, perhaps distancing himself from the mindless body count thrills of the two earlier films by edging toward authenticity. "Rambo" might seem over the top to some, but it puts the viewer in the middle of pure hell, making vivid points about the futility of peace and war. Here, fighting fire with fire is exhilarating, but there's an unavoidable price to pay.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW FOR THIS MOVIE.

HERE IS THE DIRECT DOWNLOAD FOR THE MOVIE RAMBO IV.

VIEWSAT 9000 HD PVR FTA RECEIVER NOW AVAILABLE AT GOSATELLITE

GOSATELLITE.COM HAS THE NEW HD FTA RECEIVER FROM VIEWSAT

HERE IS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE VIEWSAT 9000 HD PVR RECEIVER:

NOT ONLY DOES IT GIVE YOU DISH AND BEV SATELLITE CHANNELS IT ALSO GIVESYOU A CHANCE TO RECEIVE HD CHANNELS FROM BOTH PROVIDERS. IT RECEIVES ALLTHE NORMAL PPV CHANNELS TOO FOR FREE YOU CAN HACK IT AND GET ANY FTASATELLITE SIGNAL ALONG WITH EVERY SATELLITE PROVIDER EXCEPT FOR DIRECTTV.


CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO PURCHASE THIS GREAT RECEIVER FOR $449.00. IT WAS USUALLY $499 BUT THEY GIVE YOU 50 DOLLARS OFF.

CNET.COM SAYS YOU SHOULD SELL YOUR HD-DVD PLAYER NOW

CNET.COM SAYS SELL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HERE IS AN ARTICLE FROM CNET.COM THAT SAYS YOU SHOULD SELL YOUR HD-DVD PLAYER WHILE YOU CAN GET A GOOD PRICE FOR IT:

As you might imagine, after Warner's abrupt announcement in early January that it was going Blu-ray exclusive to help end the next-gen DVD format war, we've gotten a steady stream of HD DVD-buyers' remorse e-mails from readers, wondering what their next move should be. Here's a sample:

Dear David,

Over the holiday break I decided to take the plunge and make a decision in the HD format war. I decided on HD DVD primarily because of the cheaper price on the players and the deals on HD DVDs. I have no real preference either way between HD DVD and Blu-ray, so price and a large stash of Best Buy gift cards swung my vote. Unfortunately, not more then a week after I had purchased my player (which I am very pleased with, by the way) Warner and New Line drop their bomb and pull out of the HD DVD camp. My question now is what should I do with my HD DVD player and the 15 or so movies I ended up with after the holidays? Do I try and return everything, get my money back, and spend it on a Blu-ray player or a PS3; or should I hang on to HD DVD a little longer and see what happens? Also, if I should go Blu-ray, should I buy a PS3 or wait for a good standalone player to come down in price?

In need of advice,
Andrew

Well, Andrew, let me start by offering you my condolences. There are many of us in the same position, including a few CNET editors (I am the ambivalent owner of the HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360). Every format war has its casualties, and while we've recommended all along that the smart bet was to sit on the sidelines until things got sorted out, we knew that each side would attract its fair share of early adopters willing, as you say, "to take the plunge"--and in some cases, plunge twice and buy both formats. But now that you feel like a sucker for choosing HD DVD, let's consider your options. Pardon the stock-market analogies, but they somehow seem apropos.

Option No. 1: Hold
The Web is a rather sensationalist place these days, so it would be easy to assume from the headlines surrounding the Warner announcement that that HD DVD was dead (plenty of people didn't know there was a war on, let alone the difference between Blu-ray and HD DVD, but that's another story). However, at the present, Toshiba hasn't surrendered, stores are still selling HD DVD players and discs, and more are on the way. (I recently received an e-mail from Universal's PR team saying Universal is shipping American Gangster on February 11 as planned.) Call it a last-ditch effort, but on January 13, Toshiba, as part of its "new marketing strategy for mass-market adoption," announced price drops on all of its HD DVD players.

You bought an HD DVD player. Now what?

But let's face facts. Unless something radically changes in the next few weeks or months--and it would have to be an almost unimaginable sea change, like Microsoft buying a couple of movie studios and forcing them to go HD DVD-exclusive--you're sitting on a depreciating investment. When Warner stops publishing its HD DVD titles in May, 70 percent of the studios will be aligned with Blu-ray, and it seems only a matter of time before the remaining HD DVD studios--Paramount and Universal--opt out of their exclusivity deals and jump ship. Under the new studio lineup, HD DVD simply isn't economically viable and the negative headlines have already taken their toll on HD DVD sales, with NPD data revealing that Blu-ray has grabbed 92.53 percent of hardware sales in the high-def disc player market from January 5 to January 12, just days after the Warner announcement.

Sure, you can hang onto your HD DVD player and movies with the rather faint hope that Warner might decide to change its mind (there is a petition going around, pleading with Warner to do just that) and that Paramount and Universal won't jump ship. It's not the end of the world, after all. If you bought in the fall of 2007, it's likely that your player didn't cost a ton of money. And you can watch the HD DVD library you've built until your player conks out and eventually replace it with a Blu-ray player or just jump to downloads--including some in high-def--with Apple TV, Vudu, the Xbox 360, or the upcoming Netflix box. (Sony probably has something in the works with the PS3 as well.)

But just say "dying format" a few times. Now say it again. How does that make you feel? A little empty, huh?

Option No. 2: Buy
OK, if I'm essentially saying you're foolish for hanging onto a rapidly falling stock, a terminal short, if you will, what would becoming a buyer of said stock make you? Marginally crazy, but there are those out there who see opportunity in misfortune and can't resist buying something on the cheap--especially if you're a fan of the format and just can't let go. (As anybody who follows this column knows, I've been accused of being a Blu-ray backer, but I maintain I have no allegiance to either side and would gladly part ways with Blu-ray if it were to be vanquished.)

As for the hardware, it's hard to make a case for buying an HD DVD player for more than $100, with the possible exception of the high-end Toshiba HD-XA2, which unfortunately still costs at least $600 ($300 refurbished) but makes a terrific upconverting DVD player. I'm using an upconverting DVD player as a benchmark because that's pretty much what you'll be left with if HD DVD goes away. Entry-level HD DVD models such as Toshiba's HD-A2 and HD-A3 are good upconverters for the price but don't offer some of the features, such as DivX playback, that even some of the more basic upconverting players offer.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE.

HERE IS A GREAT PLAYSTATION EMULATOR

HERE IS A GREAT PLAYSTATION EMULATOR FOR THE PC

EPSXE IS A GREAT EMULATOR IF YOU WANT TO PLAY YOUR PLAYSTATION 1 GAMES ON THE COMPUTER. IT PLAYS ALMOST EVERY ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION GAME. I PLAYED 2 GAMES ON IT SO FAR. I PLAYED THE GAME WWF SMACKDOWN AND WWF SMACKDOWN 2 KNOW YOUR ROLE WHICH ARE 2 GREAT SMACKDOWN GAMES.

IF YOU WANT TO PLAY SOME GOOD GAMES ON YOUR PC DOWNLOAD THE EMULATOR BY CLICKING HERE.

HEATH LEDGER FOUND DEAD ON TUESDAY

ACTOR HEATH LEDGER FOUND DEAD ON TUESDAY EVENING

On Tuesday this week police found the body of actor Heath Ledger dead in his apartment in New York City. Sources say the cause of death may be drug related.

Here is the article about the death from MSN.COM:

Heath Ledger Found Dead in NYC

Jan. 23, 2008, 3:55 AM EST
The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Heath Ledger, the talented 28-year-old actor who gravitated toward dark, brooding roles that defied his leading-man looks, was found dead Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment, facedown at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.

There was no obvious indication that the Australian-born Ledger had committed suicide, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Ledger had an appointment for a massage at the SoHo apartment that is believed to be the home of the "Brokeback Mountain" actor, Browne said. The massage therapist and a housekeeper found his naked body at about 3:30 p.m. They tried to revive him, but he was already dead.

"I had such great hope for him," said Mel Gibson, who played Ledger's vengeful father in "The Patriot," in a statement. "He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss."

Outside the Manhattan building on an upscale street, paparazzi and gawkers gathered, and several police officers put up barricades to control the crowd of about 300. Onlookers craned their necks as officers brought out a black bodybag on a gurney, took it across the sidewalk and put it into a medical examiner's office van.

As the door opened, bystanders snapped pictures with camera phones, rolled video and said, "He's coming out!"

An autopsy was planned for Wednesday, medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

While not a marquee movie star, Ledger was an award-winning actor who chose his roles carefully rather than cashing in on big-money parts. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain." During filming, he met Michelle Williams, who played his wife in the film. The two had a daughter, now 2-year-old Matilda, and lived together in Brooklyn until they split up last year.

It was a shocking and unforeseen conclusion for one of Hollywood's bright young stars. Though his leading man looks propelled him to early stardom in films like "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale," his career took a notable turn toward dramatic and brooding roles with 2001's "Monster's Ball."

Ledger's publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement: "We are all deeply saddened and shocked by this accident. This is an extremely difficult time for his loved ones and we are asking the media to please respect the family's privacy and avoid speculation until the facts are known."

In the Australian city of Perth, where Ledger was born and raised, his father called the actor's death "tragic, untimely and accidental."

"He was (a) down-to-earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual, extremely inspirational to many," Kim Ledger said, reading from a prepared statement. "Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life."

Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he became one of the borough's most famous residents. "Brokeback" would be his breakthrough role, establishing him as one of his generation's finest talents and an actor willing to take risks.

Ledger began to gravitate more toward independent fare, including Lasse Hallstrom's "Casanova" and Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," both released in 2005. His 2006 film "Candy" now seems destined to have an especially haunting quality: In a particularly realistic performance, Ledger played a poet wrestling with a heroin addiction along with his girlfriend, played by Abbie Cornish.

But Ledger's most recent choices were arguably the boldest yet: He costarred in "I'm Not There," in which he played one of the many incarnations of Bob Dylan — as did Cate Blanchett, whose performance in that film earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday for best supporting actress.

And in what may be his final finished performance, Ledger proved that he wouldn't be intimidated by taking on a character as iconic as Jack Nicholson's Joker. Ledger's version of the "Batman" villain, glimpsed in early teaser trailers, made it clear that his Joker would be more depraved and dark.

Curiosity about Ledger's final performance will likely stoke further interest in the summer blockbuster. "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan said this month that Ledger's Joker would be wildly different from Nicholson's.

"It was a very great challenge for Heath," Nolan said. "He's extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic."

Ledger told The New York Times in a November interview that he "stressed out a little too much" during the Dylan film and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."

"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told the newspaper. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." He said he took two Ambien pills, which worked for only an hour, the paper said.

Ledger was a widely recognized figure in his Manhattan neighborhood, where he used to shop at a home and children's store. Michelle Vella, an employee there, said she had frequently seen Ledger with his daughter — carrying the toddler on his shoulders, or having ice cream with her.

"It's so sad. They were really close," Vella said. "He's a very down-to-earth guy and an amazing father."

Before settling down with Williams, Ledger had relationships with actresses Heather Graham and Naomi Watts. He met Watts while working on "The Lords of Dogtown," a fictionalized version of a cult classic skateboarding documentary, in 2004.

Ledger was born in 1979 to a mining engineer and a French teacher and got his first acting role playing Peter Pan at age 10 in a local theater company. He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an Olympic team in a 1996 television show, "Seat."

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and starred opposite Julia Stiles in "10 Things I Hate About You." Offers for other teen flicks soon came his way, but Ledger turned them down, preferring to remain idle than sign on for projects he didn't like.

"It wasn't a hard decision for me," Ledger told the Associated Press in 2001. "It was hard for everyone else around me to understand. Agents were like, `You're crazy,' my parents were like, 'Come on, you have to eat.'"

CLOVERFIELD REVIEW/TRAILERS AND NEWS

CLOVERFIELD REVIEW/TRAILER AND NEWS

Yes I will be putting up a copy of Cloverfield when ever they release a copy on the internet but right now I wanted to hear from you guys how did you like the movie if you have seen it or how excited are you to see it if you haven't see the movie yet. I am waiting for the good copy of the movie before I see it but I hope to see it before I go back to College on Tuesday. What about you guys can you wait to see it or did you wait in line to see it in the big screen. If you want to voice your opinions then go right ahead and comment. Thanks oh yeah and to not leave you guys out here is a few trailers for the movie.

HERE IS ALSO A DVDTALK REVIEW OF CLOVERFIELD

The emperor has no clothes. Or better yet, the monster has perfect focus? It's difficult to review "Cloverfield" without at least mentioning the buzz-guzzling hype machine producer J.J. Abrams kicked off with the arrival of the teaser trailer last summer; a cryptic piece of footage that sent the tails of geeks and bloggers everywhere wagging with gale force velocity. It was a tantalizing glimpse of forthcoming havoc. However, now having viewed the entire film, perhaps a peep was all that was needed. Just a preview to get the blood flowing. Basically a 70-minute YouTube video, "Cloverfield" has all the head-rattling jolt and dramatic verisimilitude of a prank phone call. Assuming the POV of a video camera employed to capture the farewell party for lovelorn Rob (Michael Stahl-David), the night is turned into a living hell when a Godzilla-like creature starts to tear up Manhattan, leaving the city a wide-awake nightmare of decimating army attacks, brutal monster stompage, and assorted 9/11esque references of destruction. With camera in tow, a small group of partygoers scour the city for Rob's spurned ex-girlfriend, finding little hope as the creature's rampage blocks all exits. "Cloverfield" is an ambitious film, endeavoring to resuscitate the panic of seeing a building-sized creature annihilate a city after decades of bad monster movies have reduced such sights to giggles. Its heart is in the right "Blair Witch" place, but the execution is all wrong (not to mention a little late, coming after doppelganger "The Mist"), reducing the scares to puzzled yawns. Director Matt Reeves is armed only with a "single" DV camera to cover the action, and while I applaud "Cloverfield" for trying to find ways to widen the scope of such a limited viewpoint, the routes taken are strangely ineffective; it fumbles the wallop of citywide alarm and tarnishes the "reality" this film is so desperate to abuse. The picture's concept is that the audience is watching a video of the monster attack found after the mayhem, but instead of facing that stark viewpoint head on with punishing cinema verite cartwheeling, "Cloverfield" uses painfully obvious editing tricks, employs peculiar time jumps, and introduces the ludicrous idea that the tape in the camera is somehow screwy, which allows for cringe-worthy backstory flashbacks to Rob and his woman in happier times already committed to the cassette. Now there's some serious storytelling desperation at work. The artifice wouldn't be nearly as maddening if it wasn't so stiffly calculated. Reeves is clumsy peddling the drama, which relies on rotten actors doing the last thing any performer of limited means should do: panic improvisations. The exposition scenes are crude and unintentionally comical, not to mention there's little need for a story or characters at all, making the first 15 minutes of "Cloverfield" feel like a videotaped acting exercise. It's like one of those MTV "reality" shows, only with a monster arriving for a 10-minute cameo (a pretty weak MacGuffin in my book). It also doesn't help the film's crucial suspension of disbelief demand when Reeves and Abrams cast well-known faces in the lead roles. I found it difficult to lose myself in the fantasy when watching the goth chick from "Mean Girls" or spy character actor Chris Mulkey as an Army commander. Of course there's a massive amount of shaky-cam footage ("Bourne Ultimatum," I owe you an apology). With a DV camera in play, how could there not be? Oddly, the handheld jostling is kept at bay during the special effect sequences; again breaking a fourth-wall of sorts, letting the audience take a good, hard look at something the characters should rightfully be sprinting away from. It's minor, but these little divots in behavioral accuracy really start to stack up by the film's ridiculous ending. There will be many who will pore over the minutiae of "Cloverfield" for months to come, swearing there's subtext to debate and hidden details to uncover, arranging a puzzle where there is none. I wish them luck digging in this shallow sandbox of empty thrills.

NEW TRAILER FOR CLOVERFIELD



HERE IS THE OLDER TRAILER FOR CLOVERFIELD



HERE IS THE TEASER TRAILER FOR CLOVERFIELD

GIZMODO PLAYS TRICK AT CES 2008

HERE IS AN ARTICLE FROM CNET ON GIZMODO'S TRICK AT CES 2008:

A few hours ago, the guys at Gizmodo posted a confession about a nasty prank they played in this year’s CES at Las Vegas. Armed with TV-B-Gone clickers, Gizmodo bloggers went around and started shutting off TV displays of different company exhibits or booths, even turning off a whole wall of TVs. The nastiest part was interfering with Motorola representatives while doing their presentation.

I laughed while watching the video but it didn’t feel quite right. It’s funny but in a wrong way. Thinking about it, Gizmodo’s bloggers actions were not appropriate. They could have done it once and stopped but they didn’t. Their explanation was “we pretty much couldn’t help ourselves“. Some people are saying that Gizmodo should be banned at CES, the upcoming MacWorld Expo and in other tradeshows. Bloggers on the other hand are concerned that they too would be banned or not invited because of Gizmodo’s actions.

IF THE FORMAT WAR IS OVER THEN WHAT DID BLU REALLY WIN

HERE IS AN ARTICLE FROM BETANEWS.COM SAYING IF THE FORMAT WAR IS OVER THEN WHAT DID BLU REALLY WIN

We really didn't have enough stories on the format war this week, only a few dozen. And I figured that perhaps to make it an even thirty (or was it forty?) we should close the gap with one more.

The huge trend we saw this week was the move away from the format war. Well prior to Warner Bros.' announcement, it appeared the major CE manufacturers were working to build the functionality some of them had once planned for their high-definition disc players, into their HDTV displays and set-top boxes instead. A great many of them -- with a few prominent exceptions, such as Sony -- were about ready to write off their losses and move on.

And honestly, who can blame them? This farce has gone on for too long, and the differences about which both sides are still arguing are not only negligible, but growing more insignificant by the day. For instance, the Internet functionality and updated interactivity layer being built into Blu-ray Profile 2.0 are already being superseded by systems-on-a-chip planned now for the HDTVs to which they would connect.

To say Jackie Emigh's been digging into some new angles on this story is to say the New England Patriots are scoring some first downs these days. Jackie

Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews: Scott, doesn't the timing of Warner's retraction of Blu-ray support -- just days before CES -- seem a bit strange to you? And isn't that about as odd as the seemingly miraculous rebound in Blu-ray sales from November to December?

At this point, it's kind of hard to believe that it was only this past November that Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer grimly declared the war a stalemate. Industry figures were showing that HD DVD had managed to close its sales gap with Blu-ray in a couple of weeks simply by lowering its prices.

But by December, Stringer was a happy man. Buoyed by an investment estimated at between $500 million and $2.5 billion from Dubai International Capital (DIC)-- a fund controlled by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktuom, ruler of Dubai -- Sony had cut its own pricing on the Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation, and sales had surged back up again in time for Black Friday.

And oh, by the way, a few days after DIC announced its investment in Sony, DIC named Nobuyki Idei -- former chief executive of Sony's chief advisor board -- to the board of its own Global Strategic Equities Fund.

And here we are around six weeks later, after a horrific experience for HD DVD at CES, with some folks already ready to sound the death knell for Toshiba's format.

But ideally, technology wars should be decided on the sole basis of a product's ability to meet the need of its users. And here, Blu-ray and HD DVD each have their advantages and disadvantages.

Blu-ray, for example, is now in the throes of moving from Profile 1.0 to the incompatible Profile 1.1 to Profile 2.0, a format which is expected to introduce still further incompatibilities.

And although Sony and its partners stand to pick up additional revenues from users who decide to upgrade to newer Blu-ray drives, there's every possibility that some of them might migrate over to the HD DVD side, too.

Moreover, Blu-ray products are reportedly more costly to make than those that follow the HD DVD format -- and in many cases today, the price of a Playstation doesn't even cover Sony's manufacturing costs.

So if Blu-ray is in fact going to win the war, it'd really better happen fast, to prevent the kind of price erosion that might interfere drastically with production and profitability.

Yet from a product standpoint, Blu-ray does hold one clear advantage over HD DVD, and it is this: Essentially, Blu-ray disks can hold more data.

Here, Sony seems to have learned well from experience. If you've heard about the old videotape wars between VMS and Sony's Betamax format, you might know that one of the main reasons why Sony lost that particular war revolved around a one-hour tape time for Betamax, versus two or even three hours for the competing VHS.

So, I say, may the best product win the Blu-ray/HD DVD war -- regardless of financial investments and real or rumored studio defections.

Scott Fulton: Yes, Jackie, and thank you for that lead-in: I'm still wondering whether either product can genuinely remain the best product in its category for too long. To that end, I have a theory I'm working on. But I'd like to try it out first on our CES analyst, Sharon Fisher.

Sharon, we're always hearing about companies pledging to "push" the envelope. An old Chuck Yeager phrase. I've always said that in order to create a new platform, you have to "break" the envelope. You can evolve platforms incrementally, but to justify a new one, there needs to be a complete new reason for its existence.

Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: I'd go along with that.

Scott: Why build a new interstate system, for instance, unless our cars can fly now?

Sharon: Heh. You're going to pull in the Freepers with their talk of a Canada-Mexico highway.

Scott: When Comcast advanced its fat pipes model, and demonstrated the idea of turning on the TV selecting what you want to see as opposed to what's on, that changes everything for me. That deals with the very nature of television itself. That's when I heard an envelope rip.

Sharon: I suppose. On the other hand, I'm a big fan of serendipity. I'll watch a movie on TV when I have the same movie in my rack.

Scott: True, but imagine the peace we would have in our lives if the few hours we do spend watching television were watching the good television we want rather than wasting our time with whatever's on.

Sharon: Part of the reason I don't get cable is that I know I'd watch History Channel all day, just because I could.

Scott: My wife would say my 24-hour channel would feature photon torpoedoes.

But think about it: The structure of many people's lives in America revolve around television. The real reason why evening news ratings have dropped is because people work later. The reason why morning news ratings climb is because they go to work earlier.

Then there's prime-time, a three-hour block for most networks. There's an industry devoted to that.

Sharon: Television used to be a social phenomenon, too. Everyone would get together to watch Uncle Miltie.

Scott: And there's "The Tonight Show." Proof right there, viewing habits revolve around time. Pat Weaver, the great former president of NBC and Sigourney Weaver's dad pretty much invented television around the concept of the clock.

Well, along comes Comcast. Granted, they're not really the first to suggest this, but they're the first with the know-how and the capital to actually pull this off.

Sharon: On the other hand, look at what the writer's strike has done to TV. All reality shows, all the time.

Scott: "Reality." Glad I don't live there.

Sharon: I know. When I want reality, I turn off the TV.

With Comcast's tru2way, television could become much more participatory. Think of real-time "America's Funniest Home Videos," sponsored by YouTube.

Scott: But the big suggestion is that it may become feasible for programs to become recorded entities waiting for our perusal. And yes, participatory.

But imagine how that changes the entire industry. The business model of entertainment production.

Sharon: How would they promote them?

Scott: If you didn't have to watch CSI any more...why would you???

Sharon: Hey. Some people like CSI.

Scott: So much of network entertainment is placeholder material in-between a few moments of quality. If there were no revenue to be derived from placeholder material, if people could refuse it if it were offered, there would be a huge depression for the entertainment industry.

Sharon: You know, that's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the opposite: the few gems out there being overwhelmed with waves of dreck. As I pointed out earlier this week, Comcast's big promotion of HD was...Norbit.

Scott: Waves and waves of dreck....disguised as Eddie Murphy. But wouldn't people reject the waves of dreck out of hand?

Sharon: I don't think people would refuse what was offered, no. It might be a big boon to the sports industry.

Scott: True! A lot of new sports would get new viewers. Softball.

Sharon: Curling!

Scott: Cricket!

Sharon: I shudder to think about the kids' programming, though...as the mother of someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps Hannah Montana. She's put out that I won't spend $3000 and airfare on a Hannah Montana ticket.

Scott: And on that note of nightmare...I bid you good luck with that, Sharon.

Next: Scott Fulton on the lessons of history unlearned.

Scott Fulton, BetaNews: When I was a boy (if I was a boy) growing up in that mighty metropolis I thought Oklahoma City to be at the time, my aunts and uncles would often make the 90-mile trek north to visit me in what my local weatherman lovingly referred to as "the Big Town." They'd arrive in a recent-model Ford stretch sedan that seated about 29 -- never a GM car, always a Ford, for it was Henry who got America through the depression and we all owed him a debt of gratitude.

The Ford LTD back then had a trunk large enough for a queen-size mattress, with room left over for a few sleepers. My Uncle Vernon, a retired chief of detectives, would use that trunk to haul back a month's supply of Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, and 7-Up -- not the knock-offs, but the "real" soft drinks, in glass bottles that clinked around in wooden crates. You couldn't always get the real soft drinks in Southern Oklahoma or Northern Texas, because the bottlers' trucking routes didn't extend very far south of us, or very far north of Dallas. Some people subsisted on Cragmont Cola, Dr. Wells, and Bubble-Up.

My cousins from the back seat of the LTD would beg to go to the movies, because the Big Town always got the first-run films. Not that going to the local theater in Lindsay, Oklahoma wasn't a hoot in itself, at a venue whose décor seemed best suited for the premiere of a Harold Lloyd film. But the Big Town had the Cinerama screens, the plush seats, the ushers with the hats, and on top of that, all the brands of candy -- the local Bunte brand, Brach's, Hershey's, Hollywood, Peter Paul, and the real M&Ms rather than the cheap knock-offs that tasted like buttons pinched off your granddad's overcoat. And we had twin theatres -- not just one screen but two! We had the luxury of choice in the Big Town.

It doesn't take a genius or even a respectably smart historian to know that when Americans want to be entertained or amused, their first requirement is to know that nothing is being held back from them. It's not so much that Americans need to see everything on the menu at one time. It's not only a comfort but a reassurance of their basic principles that Americans know they're not missing out on something to which they're entitled.

The very thought that anyone would invest time and money in an entertainment medium that was guaranteed, through the stubbornness of the very people producing it, to offer less than 100% of what should reasonably be available to them, is in hindsight one of the most bizarre, hare-brained collective mis-reads of American behavior on the part of any multi-billion-dollar industry in the history of commerce.

There are some consumers today who are willing or even eager to invest their time, energy, and money on a promise of a big reward in the future. But not all Americans are gamblers, and too many of us would prefer to gamble -- when we do gamble -- on something more fundamental to our futures than "high definition." If we're going to make the big trek north, if you will, we expect a payoff, not a promise. We won't drive 90 miles out of our way just to end up with a "gussied-up" version, to borrow an adjective from my aunt, of the little hometown theater on Second Street.

It is of little or no consequence to most everyone I've ever met that Blu-ray has more of a share of the available high-def movies than HD DVD; it's like comparing two half-empty bottles of soda. It doesn't much matter which one is closest to full; neither is particularly appealing if it's sitting up there for sale on the store shelf. You kinda wonder who's gotten into it.

And it isn't as though the television industry hasn't had an epic format battle before, or a hard time coming to a decision on either of two ways to go forward.
After World War II up until the early 1950s -- back when Uncle Vernon was on the beat and The African Queen was playing at the local theater in Lindsay -- there was a real format war in the television industry.

The debate was over how to put color on the picture tube. RCA had a system that directed the stream of electrons to painted points of color on the inside of the CRT, creating varying shades of the optical primaries red, green, and blue. CBS had a system with a spinning translucent wheel painted red, green, and blue, through which flickering images were beamed at such a speed and intensity that when they collided on the back side of the CRT and hung around for a few microseconds, they looked colorful.

Now, mind you, the difference between these two formats was gigantic, not aesthetic like the difference between Blu-ray and HD DVD. The RCA system had the advantage of not catching fire when left on for long periods of time, say, an hour. It also introduced the term compatibility from the sociologist's vernacular into the technological vocabulary, in that existing black-and-white sets could show pictures intended for color broadcasts.

Yet it was CBS that set an important standard, in one of technology's most influential battles. You see, thanks to RCA's huge legal department, the matter of which standard should prevail went to the US Supreme Court. And there, setting a precedent which the high court would follow later for picking the winner, it chose the CBS spinning wheel as the national standard. But the court case took so long that, in the meantime, RCA had flooded the market with inexpensive black-and-white sets -- compatible systems that could receive NBC's later color broadcasts.

The standard CBS set was for gracefully bowing out, when it appeared its cause was lost in the marketplace. The company made up a convenient excuse (it literally said the Korean War effort forced it to shift its priorities), and moved over to the RCA field-sequential system by 1954 to make amends. It was awkward at the time, but in retrospect, it was so graceful.

Everyone knows the government has a questionable track record of settling history-making disputes, so it's a good thing they stayed out of today's blue-laser battle. But what we're faced with now, too many years after someone had the bone-jarring idea of upping the frequency on the laser beam, are two sets of technology companies and content providers with differing stakes in the concept of high-definition, battling over the remains of the recorded video market. We are already seeing consumer apathy about the whole idea of having high-def movie discs and at the same time not actually, legally owning them, thanks to DRM, EULAs, and this ridiculous notion held by the studios that we're not all consumers but rather extended lessees of their content. And while we did see buyers a few months ago willing to place a hundred-dollar bet on a discount HD DVD player, for what it's worth, the market at large has rejected high-definition video on blue-laser disc.

So what is it that Blu-ray thinks it has won this week? Any student of history or even an amateur observer of public attitudes knows that you can't win an audience with half of a value proposition. If I know for a fact that a country I live in will only let me read 50% or 70% or 99% of the books printed in the world, for whatever reason it might concoct, I don't want to live in that country.

If I can only see 70% of the movies, I don't want to waste a nickel on the theater that would withhold from me the 30%. I'll drive the 90 miles north, thank you very much, in an LTD that gets 10 miles to the gallon, filled with 30 gallons of Ethyl and 50 gallons of 7-Up. There's a right comfortable place to stretch out in the back if you don't mind the crates and the clinking and the kids with their big bags of candy.