I haven’t been paying very close attention to the “format wars” between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, the two formats vying to replace DVDs, but one sentence in this Reuters story jumped out at me: [The DVD format] has been the most-quickly adopted technology in consumer electronics history and has generated billions of euros in royalties for the inventors, a broad base of consumer electronics companies including firms now divided over the format of its successor. The fight for license income may... Read more

Joined the catechumenate, that is. I’ve been attending my wife’s Orthodox church for two and a half years, now, and today I finally took the plunge. A nun in the choir told me afterwards that a gasp went up from the choir when I stood with the other two inductees. “Who gasped?” I asked, thinking she meant someone in particular. “The choir,” she replied. Nice to be noticed. And now I think I’ve got to do something about my vanity.... Read more

From Martin Tsai’s review of The Constant Gardener in the WestEnder: City of God first evidenced Meirelles’s penchant for aestheticizing poverty into Benetton ads. As he did with the slums of Rio de Janeiro, he has filmed the destitute Nairobi with oversaturated colours, jerky camera work and choppy editing. Stylizing on demand, he has also photographed the scenes in London with a gloomy olive filter, and stages the Quayles’ between bedsheets as if it were a Lancome perfume commercial. Basically,... Read more

My reviews of The Constant Gardener and A Sound of Thunder are now up at CT Movies. How bad is the latter film? For the first time ever, my wife asked me, half an hour into the movie, if she could go home. (We live just four blocks away from the theatre.) I, of course, had to stay to review the movie. And when I got home, I found my wife watching Buffy episodes. I can’t say I blame her.... Read more

Just a few quick links. 1. Reviews of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are popping up at sites like BoxOfficeMojo.com, NarniaWeb and Ain’t It Cool News, now that Disney has held a test screening of the film. Here’s one spoiler-ish comment that might not please the film’s more Christian fans: “The major complaint of the Narnia-experts in the panel was that during the coronation scene, the children are not crowned in the name of the Emperor beyond the... Read more

I don’t check out Mikael Carlsson’s MovieScore Blog anywhere nearly as often as I should. And you probably don’t either. But if you like movie soundtracks and you like free music, then you may be interested to know that, as of last Friday, he plans to post weekly links to audio files that have been made available on the websites of film composers, magazines, and record labels. Read more

What bothers you more about the early hype around the upcoming film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — the merchandising, or the evangelism? I ask because the Mission America Coalition is now “inviting church leaders around the country” to use this film as “a powerful evangelistic tool.” I guess I’m so used to capitalists capitalizing on hit movies that it doesn’t bother me when I see toys, comics, action figures, books, cuddly dolls, and other movie... Read more

Just a handful of news items. 1. And now for the meta-Jesus movies (or should that be Jesus meta-movies?)! IndieWIRE says Abel Ferrara’s Mary, which premieres in Venice and Toronto next month, will also open the San Sebastian Film Festival‘s Zabaltegi section: “The film is a tale of the filming of a movie about the life of Jesus and how it draws the actress (Juliette Binoche) playing the part of Mary Magdalene into a spiritual crisis of profound consequences involving... Read more