The Future of Entertainment???

The future of entertainment is on-line; at least many of us who use the internet believe this to be true. Now, whether that is downloading the video and then watching on your computer or iPod, or if it is streaming the video to your computer via a website or a program like Joost; seems to be a matter of debate. Apple has been leading the charge for the past few years, enjoying a great deal of success with music and to a lesser extent with video.

Over the past 12 months you may have heard that the music publishers and the major studios have started to experiment with options other than iTunes. It seems the over riding reasons have been less to do with meeting customer needs and demands, and more with keeping control of their products through the entire life cycle. To date no one has really been very successful in going up against the iTunes store; except maybe Amazon, but they already know on-line retailing.

Earlier this week NBC Universal released a beta of their new service Hulu. It is designed to be an iTunes killer. I can't tell you much about it as I am still waiting to get an invite so that I can log on and take a tour. MacRumors was able to get an invite and showed off an interesting aspect of Hulu, the ability to embed video in a blog or web-page. You-tube and other services allow this, but this should be the very first time a major company offered such a service for copy righted materials.

Below is a full length episode of The Office. Check it out, pretty interesting. For TV episodes I'm not sure how useful this is; but apparently you can edit down to clips as well. One thing I know, you can't do this with iTunes.

Personal DVD Collection -- Update

Some of you may have noticed that last year i added a link to the family DVD collection (a feature that existed early on in KellysWorld history but that was removed in 2005), as well as books and video games. I hadn't updated the list in some time and now I don't think the video game collection is relevant with so many of them counting their age in years. The book collection isn't very up-to-date either, just haven't added them into the database we use. So the new list includes a complete list of all 277 of our DVD's, but does not at this time include video games or books. I have yet to determine if I will add them at a later date or not.

The DVD list alone is quite extensive and represents many different genres. Each DVD includes a link that allows you to send us an e-mail requesting to "Borrow" a particular DVD. If you see a movie you would like to watch, you are a friend or family and you live nearby; then feel free to drop us a line. We can't watch all 277 at once.

Also included are some of my personal favorites with links to IMDB (Internet Movie Database) for information on cast and crew, Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews and to Amazon if you are interested in adding that movie to your collection. The database of movies also includes a link to Amazon for every movie; even if it is no longer available.

Free Holiday Videos (Two Ways to Get Them Free)

I found this new service for on-line videos called 4Flix . They are going to attempt to go head to head with Apple's iTunes music store video collection. While iTunes Music Store offers up short videos, TV shows and music videos for $1.99 each, 4Flix is planning on having full length features at a $1.99 each. Guaging from their holiday collection these may not be the best movies ever made, but then NightRider wasn't exactly TV's best either.

If you are interested in seeing what they have to offer and the quality (be warned it is still best watched on a 5th generation iPod, commonly known as the iPod Video) then all you have to do his go to their site and buy one $1.99 video and then you can get the rest of the holiday videos for free or you can subscribe to an iTunes video podcast and they will deliver one video a day for free. I just got Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (a very old version, but in color) and it looks pretty good considering the age of the original print and the resolution, designed as I mentioned to be viewed on an iPod screen. So check out the article at MacNN and then head over to 4Flix.net. If you do you will be experiencing a taste of Christmas Yet to Come... oh, there is an old Vincint Price TV version of A Christmas Carol available.

Casino Royale - Next Bond Film in 2006

This may be the very top of fluff, but today the new James Bond was announced in London. As you may or may not know Casino Royale, the first book in the Ian Fleming series, is the next movie in the hugely successful franchise. Daniel Craig has been cast as the sixth James Bond following in the footsteps of the very well received Pierce Brosnan who was let go last year by Eon Productions.

Daniel Craig isn't well known by most Americans, but did play the very sinister son of Paul Newman in the movie Road to Perdition. He was extremely nasty in that role.
Producers are saying that this Bond movie will be grittier than the previous ones and it will do something they have never done before... tell the backstory of how Bond becomes 007. In essence, like Batman they are restarting the franchise. It does seem though that Judi Dench and John Cleese will be reprising their roles of "M" and "Q" respectively.

While I am extremely happy to see both of them returning, and I am going to guess some of the other characters will too, I am not so sure about restarting the franchise. The Bond films have always had a continuity to them. Not a huge one, but from time to time previous events or characters would be mentioned. Most notably Bond's deceased wife Contessa Teresa 'Tracy" Di Vicenzo featured in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This may have slipped with Brosnan's Bond; but none-the-less to restart the franchise does seem a bit simplistic.

However, if it gives the series a new lease on life while keeping everything that has always made the Bond films so much fun then I will wait to pass full judgment.
So it seems the last Brosnan movie was the last of the old Bonds and now we are going to get newer, grittier and younger bond. In the end though, don't we all just want to hear the famous words on the silver screen one more time.... "Bond, James Bond."

Hours Before "The Day After"

In a few hours I will meet a friend to see "The Day After Tomorrow" at a local theater. Should be a blast, in more than one way. I've read the reviews and surprisingly they are pretty good. Basically critics think it is a decent popcorn flick and as long as you don't mind checking your mind at the door you should enjoy the ride. Not unlike disaster flicks of old, where the plot too a back seat to the actual ride.

I mean lets face it, this story basically has the United States getting freeze dried in days. I'm not scientific expert, but a climatic change like that would probably kill all life on Earth instantly and not just freeze the Empire State Building into the world's largest popsicle.

Regardless of how unrealistic the movie may be in terms of pace and pure science, it is creating a debate on a subject that should be near the top of our political dialogue; environmental damage caused by the undaunted expansion of human beings across the Earth and our unrelenting attempts to change our surroundings anyway we can as fast as we can. As one of those human beings I am as guilty as the next guy. I drive a car. I drink my cans of coke. I spew garbage and toxins into the air and ground. I do all of this, I fully admit, but I do recognize the dangers and I am not so fool hardy to think that one day the Earth will fight back like the human immune system fights a virus.

We are not a virus, although we do act like one at times, but we do have a tendency to think of the hear and now; while giving little thought to future we leave our children and their children. Not just in relation to the environment, but to world as a whole. We argue over the silliest of issues. We disagree with each other based on the flag we stand under, the color of our skin, the religion we subscribe to and the very way each of us simple exists.

We may not be hours away from the day after everything ends, at least not on the human clock; but in the great scheme of life on earth we are minutes away from our own destruction. Should that day come and any of us survive, how will the history books that follow treat every last one of us living today? Will they see us as unsuspecting agents in our own demise, active participants in the destruction of humanity or simply as silly souls to blinded by the light of our todays to see the dark curtain or tomorrow?