Summer Viewing: The Island


Yeah, I should have started doing this at the beginning of the summer, but things were a bit hectic around here, so I couldn’t really do this until now.

Since we’re in REALITY TV land during the summer, it’s a good time to turn the dial around to other channels you don’t frequent, and to break out the DVDs you’ve been meaning to watch.

We recently wanted The Island, starting Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. It’s a couple of years old, so if you missed it, it’s worth a look-see.

I’ll give some thoughts about various things in the below, but be warned, there are some –

SPOILERS AHEAD

During the first scene, when Lincoln woke up from that weird dream, the first words out of my mouth were “Anakin? I just had the weirdest dream!”

Yeah, I kept thinking of Obi-wan Kenobi during the whole movie. I didn’t really help they had a scene on two floating craft that seemed a lot like those racers in the Luke/Leia/”little people in furry costumes” trilogy. It also didn’t help that at one point Lincoln goes off alone to shut down the generator for the complex – Oh, Obi-wan… Obi… Always shutting down those generators.

Oh, and those costumes sure had a “Logan’s Run” vibe.

END OF SPOILERS

I’m not going to say any more about the movie because, well, saying just about anything about the plot gives too much away.

Anyway, overall the movie was a good summer view. Check it out.

Did you see this movie? What did you think of it?

Netflix policy change

NetFlix is changing their rental queue policy:

We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008.

Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.

While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

If you have any questions, please go to http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888) 638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I have to say, I’m pretty disappointed by this change. Having separate queues make it easy to split up movies so that you can get movies for the kids on one queue, and movies for the parents on the second queue. Now you can’t do that. Not sure why they’re doing that, but I bet I’m not the only unhappy person about this.

Wall-E Robot Toy Coming from Disney

I’m a total Pixar junkie, and have been since the early days of the company. (Remember Luxo Jr?) I just ran across this: Gearlog is reporting Disney/Pixar and Wowwee are going to release a Wall-E robot this summer for about $190!

It’s going to have a remote control, be able avoid obstacles, touch detection, sound, 10 motors and will be programmable! Very cool! Can’t wait to see it!

Final Harry Potter Book To Be Two Movies

danradcliffe.jpg
The BBC is reporting that “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” will be split into two movies.

Star Daniel Radcliffe told the Los Angeles Times that splitting JK Rowling’s final book in two was the only sensible option for the film-makers.

“There have been compartmentalised subplots in the other books that have made them easier to cut – although those cuts were still to the horror of some fans,” he told the paper.

Via BBC