Way back when, we used to tune in as these two young movie critics from Chicago battled it out on a TV show called "Sneak Previews" which we watched mainly to see the movie trailers. But we grew to love Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert until one day we learned that Gene Siskel had died.
Roger Ebert has carried on the show, since renamed to "Ebert and Roper" with Richard Roper. Ebert himself has been absent for many months as he recovers from surgery on his jaw.
But the big news is that you can now watch nearly any review from their 20-year archives by going to http://atthemoviestv.com. It's quick and easy. You just type in the name of the movie and the site plays the review on screen for you.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Intelliflix -- not one of the coolest sites
You've heard of Netflix and Blockbuster, well Intelliflix is, according to them, much better. They are, by far, certainly the cheapest solution on the internet for renting movies. However, I am here to say that this is one site you should probably avoid.
Here's their best deal: for $99, you get to rent up to two movies at a time for a year (there are many other plans as well). You return the movies for other movies. I found it difficult to rent more than 5 movies in a month. But the local rental place costs about $4 a title and http://www.intelliflix.com/ costs only $8.25 a month. So if you rent 6 movies a month, you save about two thirds of what you'd spend at the video store. If you rent only half that many, Intelliflix is still cheaper. They say they have 60,000 titles to choose from. DVDs come to your mailbox and you return them in the same envelope. They pay for shipping both ways.
That's the upside. The downside is considerable. First, they flat-out tell you that you can just forget about getting recent titles soon after they're released. I had to wait a week after one popular movie was released before I could even request it. I complained. They said it was in high demand. They didn't say by whom. I assume it was the staff watching it before the rest of us. There is no on-line equivalent of camping out at the video store waiting for that new release. After seven weeks of waiting, I gave up and rented it from a video store.
In fact, they hardly have any recent films available for rent. The fourth newest release in their new releases category has been available on DVD for nearly 10 months. There are only three movies available that are newer than that.
While they say they have 50% more titles than Netflix, some of them are adult titles which lower-priced plans do not include. They say they have more distribution centers than Netflix, but it can take over a week for a movie to get back to them by US mail. To make sure that you have something to watch, you fatten your queue (wish list) with everything you can think of. Some much older titles, surprisingly, show as "in high demand" and are not guaranteed to be available to you for a month or more.
Another failing is the lack of sufficient numbers of titles in widescreen. Now that widescreen TVs are selling well, this really ought to change. Probably the biggest problem is the fact that you don't know when you're going to get a particular title. On the other hand, they email you a notification when they ship you a title, so you get advanced notice. You can mark one title as "shipped" on their website when you send it back and they will send you another one without waiting to receive it--a very nice feature.
Recently, they've put 10 of the movies in my queue in a "waiting area" and they say they will come out as soon as they are available. Most of these are older movies, so it is very difficult to get movies in a timely manner from them. When I first joined a few months ago, they kept the movies coming so that I was almost never without one to watch. But now I have to complain to even get one.
Here's their best deal: for $99, you get to rent up to two movies at a time for a year (there are many other plans as well). You return the movies for other movies. I found it difficult to rent more than 5 movies in a month. But the local rental place costs about $4 a title and http://www.intelliflix.com/ costs only $8.25 a month. So if you rent 6 movies a month, you save about two thirds of what you'd spend at the video store. If you rent only half that many, Intelliflix is still cheaper. They say they have 60,000 titles to choose from. DVDs come to your mailbox and you return them in the same envelope. They pay for shipping both ways.
That's the upside. The downside is considerable. First, they flat-out tell you that you can just forget about getting recent titles soon after they're released. I had to wait a week after one popular movie was released before I could even request it. I complained. They said it was in high demand. They didn't say by whom. I assume it was the staff watching it before the rest of us. There is no on-line equivalent of camping out at the video store waiting for that new release. After seven weeks of waiting, I gave up and rented it from a video store.
In fact, they hardly have any recent films available for rent. The fourth newest release in their new releases category has been available on DVD for nearly 10 months. There are only three movies available that are newer than that.
While they say they have 50% more titles than Netflix, some of them are adult titles which lower-priced plans do not include. They say they have more distribution centers than Netflix, but it can take over a week for a movie to get back to them by US mail. To make sure that you have something to watch, you fatten your queue (wish list) with everything you can think of. Some much older titles, surprisingly, show as "in high demand" and are not guaranteed to be available to you for a month or more.
Another failing is the lack of sufficient numbers of titles in widescreen. Now that widescreen TVs are selling well, this really ought to change. Probably the biggest problem is the fact that you don't know when you're going to get a particular title. On the other hand, they email you a notification when they ship you a title, so you get advanced notice. You can mark one title as "shipped" on their website when you send it back and they will send you another one without waiting to receive it--a very nice feature.
Recently, they've put 10 of the movies in my queue in a "waiting area" and they say they will come out as soon as they are available. Most of these are older movies, so it is very difficult to get movies in a timely manner from them. When I first joined a few months ago, they kept the movies coming so that I was almost never without one to watch. But now I have to complain to even get one.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Puzzles, Games and Optical Illusions
BrainBashers has the best selection of optical illusions I've ever seen on the web. And they have a Sudoku game that is hard to beat (and hard to quit). This particular Sudoku has some very nice features including optional error detection, automated "pencil marks" (shows you the possible numbers for each space) and it even helps teach you tricks for solving the really hard puzzles. Oh and it has puzzles in six difficulty levels. You can print them out and solve them on paper or solve them on screen with as much (or as little) help as you like.
With thousands of brain teasers and puzzles, over one hundred awards, BrainBashers is updated with optical illusions and games regularly and has 5 new puzzles added every other week.
With thousands of brain teasers and puzzles, over one hundred awards, BrainBashers is updated with optical illusions and games regularly and has 5 new puzzles added every other week.
Slice of Sci-Fi
What's the latest picture released from the set of the new Indiana Jones film? What's the mystery behind the weird trailer that was shown before the Transformers movie? Did you hear about the town in Canada named Vulcan and the un-conventional convention it hosts?
I love science fiction and if you do too, you'll want to check out http://sliceofscifi.com/. This site is updated multiple times daily and it gives you the latest news about movies, TV and anything else that is SciFi, horror, fantasy or otherwise genre-related.
This site has an RSS feed. So if you took my advice and started using Google Reader (or some other aggregator), then you can link to it very easily. In fact, that is how I found this site; it comes up as one of the suggested feeds in Google Reader. I'm glad I tried it!
I love science fiction and if you do too, you'll want to check out http://sliceofscifi.com/. This site is updated multiple times daily and it gives you the latest news about movies, TV and anything else that is SciFi, horror, fantasy or otherwise genre-related.
This site has an RSS feed. So if you took my advice and started using Google Reader (or some other aggregator), then you can link to it very easily. In fact, that is how I found this site; it comes up as one of the suggested feeds in Google Reader. I'm glad I tried it!
Monday, July 2, 2007
The Best TV Commercials
Probably the coolest minute you’ll watch this week on TV will be a commercial. The best commercials are funny, entertaining and outrageous. More thought and money go into a 30-second commercial than many minutes of regular programming. This site http://www.visit4info.com/ allows you to view the best commercials from all over the world.
Warning: some of these are definitely not family-oriented so be careful.
Warning: some of these are definitely not family-oriented so be careful.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert www.RogerEbert.com has to be America’s best known film critic. Love him or hate him, you know where he stands and, if you know that, you probably have an idea of how his tastes and yours match up. Once a week, you can receive an email from him with a synopsis of his latest reviews. Subscribe here https://login.suntimes.com/register.do
Monday, June 4, 2007
Google Reader
What is all this stuff about RSS (really simple syndication) and what’s it got to do with me, you ask. First came web sites. But the problem was that a web site would change and the only way for you to know was to keep visiting it. That’s boring. Then came email mailing lists. The upside with them is that you find out about changes when they happen, not when you remember to look. The downside is of course, spam and spam filters.
The new wave is RSS where you subscribe to a website and get the content through a reader. Almost all readers I’ve heard about cost money and put the new web content in your email in-box. But Google’s Reader is free. You simply go to http://www.google.com/reader/ and sign up. Then you tell it what sites you want to follow (this is very simple). If the sites support RSS or Atom feeds, then you’re done. (If not, well, I’m sorry.) Now you just go to your Google reader site when you want something to read and everything that has been added to these sites shows up all in one place.
Google Reader works great with blogs (like this one) and sites like DamnInteresting.com, RottenTomatoes.com, YouTube.com, 500jokes.blogspot.com and many others that you can find just by clicking Browse. If you want to be informed when a blog has changed, add it to your Google Reader feeds and you’ll know!
The new wave is RSS where you subscribe to a website and get the content through a reader. Almost all readers I’ve heard about cost money and put the new web content in your email in-box. But Google’s Reader is free. You simply go to http://www.google.com/reader/ and sign up. Then you tell it what sites you want to follow (this is very simple). If the sites support RSS or Atom feeds, then you’re done. (If not, well, I’m sorry.) Now you just go to your Google reader site when you want something to read and everything that has been added to these sites shows up all in one place.
Google Reader works great with blogs (like this one) and sites like DamnInteresting.com, RottenTomatoes.com, YouTube.com, 500jokes.blogspot.com and many others that you can find just by clicking Browse. If you want to be informed when a blog has changed, add it to your Google Reader feeds and you’ll know!
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