The Digital Bits continues its wonderful coverage of all things DVD and Blu-ray. Today, they revealed that 20th Century Fox will be releasing ‘Planet of the Apes: 40 Year Evolution Blu-ray Collection’ on 11/4/08. The set seems amazing with high-def versions of the movies in1080p resolution with audio in English 5.1 DTS MA, more extras than seen before, and a coffee table book. The Bits also reveals that the SRP will be $159.98.
Very, very nice, Fox! I wouldn’t have thought you could deliver something this good at an appropriate price.
‘Ray Harryhausen’ 3-Pack Coming to Blu-ray | High-Def Digest
Wonderful news that some Ray Harryhausen classics will be coming to Blu-ray. The set will include ‘Earth vs. the Flying Saucers’, ‘It Came from Beneath the Sea,’ and ‘20 Million Miles to Earth’ (the last being already available). Specs and pricing have yet to be determined, but I’m definitely going to be watching these closely as I’d love to see these classic gems in high-def goodness.
I thought I would check out this new free & open source blogging app from WordPress. I’m very impressed so far. Now if I could find a way to upload pics to my ImageShare site on Mobile Me my mobile blogging experience would be complete.
I’m sitting on the sofa watching my Batman Begins Blu-ray and wondering if the magic of CGI could easily replace Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Warner, that would be a double dip I would support 
Back later with more from the beach…
Published on
July 19, 2008 in
news.
Starbucks Closure List: All 600 Stores, Searchable
I know a lot of people who like Starbucks, but I’m not much of a coffee drinker. However, I thought some of you might be interested…
Not much closing in NC and only one store in the Research Triangle region…
NORTH CAROLINA
Chapel Hill, NC:
11525 CHATHAM DOWNS 141 CHATHAM DOWNS
Charlotte, NC:
10420 WILKINSON BLVD 3220 WILKINSON BLVD
10836 NORTHLAKE COMMONS 9335 CENTER LAKE DR
11056 PIEDMONT TOWN CENTER 4620 PIEDMONT ROW DR
13533 WORTHINGTON 1520 OVERLAND PARK LN
14141 PROVIDENCE RD & SHARON AMITY RD 2921 PROVIDENCE RD
Greenville, NC:
14183 FIRETOWER RD & ARLINGTON BLVD 1889 E FIRETOWER RD
Hickory, NC:
11136 VALLEY HILLS MALL 1960 HWY 70 SE
Wilson, NC:
11925 NASH STREET 2113 NASH ST
Winston Salem, NC:
8716 HARPER HILL COMMONS 4912 COUNTRY CLUB RD
Switchers’ Blog » 1Password Coming Soon to an App Store Near You
Woot! I love 1Password on my Mac and this is great news. What’s even better is that for a limited time, they’re releasing it for free.
It sounds like they’ve reworked a few things by now having two classes of passwords, one that requires a four digit code and one that needs your main password. I think this is a great idea as I know that I hold my password to the iPhone Blog’s forums and the password to my bank account at very different levels. Oh, also, the app can’t integrate with Mobile Safari because of Apple’s rules so they initiated the browser inside of the app so you will want to do all secure communication within 1Password and not the default Mobile Safari.
So, all around great news, I just can’t wait to try it. Now all we’re waiting for is Apple to let it out of the gates.
5 out of 5 stars
Well, I can’t disappoint my wife who predicted I would have this posted by this morning 
Well, she does know me pretty well as I was thinking about what I wanted to write here after watching the movie last night.
I absolutely loved this film and in many ways it is better than Batman Begins. The returning cast is all excellent. Christian Bale still manages to portray the best Batman outside of the comic books. Michael Caine & Morgan Freeman reprise their roles and further develop the depth of their relationship with the Batman. There’s definitely some fun exchanges that involve these characters, but they’re very easy to enjoy as they are the only ones who know who Bruce Wayne really is and have no difficulty treating him as a man rather than the symbol he portrays. They are his moral grounding. I believe Gary Oldman is the returning character who developed the most from the first film. He plays a larger role (at least it felt that way) and his character comes into its own in this film. I don’t want to speak further on it, but just see what you think…
Aaron Eckhart is really enjoyable as Harvey Dent. I’m glad they picked him for the role as he nailed the character of Gotham’s crusading district attorney. I’d talk more hear, but I don’t want to give anything away to those who don’t know the entire Batman mythos. Maggie Gyllenhaal does an excellent job replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Okay, finally to the true star of the show, Heath Ledger as the Joker. Heath Ledger, rest in peace, redefines the Joker for the silver screen. In my opinion, this Joker annihilates Jack Nicholson’s Joker from memory as this is what the Joker SHOULD be (not that Jack’s Joker was bad, just goofier than needed). The Joker should be a psychopath who’s still somewhat connected to reality. The Joker just enjoys destruction, anarchy, and turning the world on it’s end, laughing all the while. Pain & death aren’t negatives to him, they’re possible outcomes and he just wants to enjoy the ride. That is what Heath Ledger brought to the role. We don’t know who he is, what his back story is, etc. It is all irrelevant. The Joker is anarchy and chaos. I am truly saddened that I won’t be able to see him reprise the role in the future due to his unfortunate death. This is the casting he was born for and the role he is likely to be remembered for.
There are some laugh out loud moments, some touching moments, and a few moments that caused the theater to give applause. I would say that this is the best “super hero” film ever, but Batman isn’t really a super hero. He’s a normal man doing extraordinary things purely due to dedication & force of will. I hope the cast returns again and Christopher Nolan brings us yet another riveting crime drama pulled from the pages of this great comic book.
Movie poster courtesy of the Internet Movie Poster Awards.
Two trailers hit the net recently that could be amazing or complete flops, but I am sincerely hoping for the former.
First was Terminator Salvation with Christian Bale. Here Bale brings his brooding Bruce Wayne to a brooding John Connor.
Second is the long awaited Watchmen. I am ashamed to say that I have never read this famous graphic, but I started it quite some time back and I am taking my time and enjoying it a little at a time. It really is that good of a book and I have high hopes for the film.
BTW, please do yourself a favor and watch both trailers using the links above in HD. It really does make a difference!
So, Iron Man Armored Adventures is coming in 2009. I’m sure I’ll watch as I can enjoy almost any superhero type animated or live-action that comes my way to some degree. However, I do wish we could recreate what made Batman The Animated Series great rather than doing more childification (doh, gotta be a word ) of great comic series. Not everything has to be designed to cater to children. Much of it, I would say, they will enjoy and you don’t have to dumb it down (assuming that is what is happening here based on the trailer)…
Also, the Mandarin? This is the second recent animated Iron Man to focus on the Mandarin… I could do with someone different…
UPDATE: Whoops, looks like the Brightcove guys aren’t doing videos anymore, but rather a platform…Here is a version from Youtube…
Here’s what I want…
A decent iPhone car charger that charges and does line out via the dock connector that works when the iPhone has a case on (i.e. just use a simple dock connector). Nothing fancy. No crappy FM radio transmitters, just a simple quality audio out with power. Why is that so hard to provide?
Come on Griffin, Belkin, Monster, etc. Get your act together and develop a quality product…
Wow, Apple’s MobileMe was live for about 10 minutes. I used the mail, calendar, and iDisk web UI’s. It is now down again, but seemed somewhat slick for the little bit of time I used it.
Web based files are still accessible so my blog is still working, but we’ll just have to wait and see what Apple does…
UPDATE: Seems to be working just fine, but I don’t know what the uptime has been like as the iPhone 2.0 had my attention
The Digital Bits continues its wonderful coverage of all things DVD and Blu-ray. Today, they revealed that 20th Century Fox will be releasing ‘Planet of the Apes: 40 Year Evolution Blu-ray Collection’ on 11/4/08. The set seems amazing with high-def versions of the movies in1080p resolution with audio in English 5.1 DTS MA, more extras than seen before, and a coffee table book. The Bits also reveals that the SRP will be $159.98.
