Movie-Review: Robin Hood – Directors Cut (verdict:6)
I had not heard a thing about this movie whatsoever until the day that I popped in the BluRay. Of course everybody knows about Robin Hood, and once I saw the title, the director and the actors playing in the movie, I felt like this evening would be a great movie experience... I was wrong...
Right after the first scenes with Russell Crowe I found myself comparing the movie with "Gladiator" (one of my all-time favorites). Not just because of the obvious similarities - being Russel Crowe and Ridley Scott - but the setting and the overall feeling just gave me that Gladiator vibe. The downside to this is that you start comparing both movies right from the start. And this is where it kind of went downhill for me.
Although I'm familiar with the background story of Robin Hood, I kind of felt left behind in terms of the story and character development. It wasn't that the story was difficult in terms of intertwining story lines or incomprehensible dialog, but it was just like they were in a rush and assume the viewer will understand it anyway. It took time to know which characters is who, and I found a moment or two where I thought to myself: "Errr, who's that again?!?". All this combined made me feel a bit disoriented and unable to enjoy the first 30 to 45 minutes of the movie.
Once this feeling settles the story seems to develop into something interesting, but it never quite gets there. They slow down the pace of the movie (why now?) and I never really connected with any of the characters. At some times it actually bored me a bit. A battle kind of spiced things up at times, but I never got that "Wow" and "OMG!" feeling I had with "Gladiator". It all just felt plain and normal. Sort of a "been there, done that" kind of feeling. Maybe Ridley Scott didn't want to lean to much on his Gladiator experience, but if you ask me, he should have done so a lot more than he did! Gladiator is easy to follow, but yet it doesn't bore you at any moment.
So isn't there anything positive about the movie? Well, yes there is. The image is superb! The settings and wide angle shots are really great and absolutely give you a believable impression of how it would be to live in those days. The castles look awesome and grotesque, forests have great detail and feel alive and villages and farms have that authentic look. I can see where they spent their money!
The music score, however, was a disappointing as well. I again compared this to "Gladiator" which has a real great soundtrack (by Hans Zimmer)! The soundtrack in this movie wasn't that noticeable and didn't add anything more than background music to the movie.
Although the movie did entertain me, I was quite relieved when it ended. I surely can see a sequel being made and I could see that it would be a lot more interesting than this movie. Maybe they felt this part was a necessity... An introduction so you won't be confused in the following part(s). But if this was the case, they sure did a poor job...
All in all my final verdict is a 6
Star Wars in Concert; A concert in a movie, or a movie in a concert?
On March 30th, I went to "Star Wars in Concert" in Antwerpen, Belgium. An Impressive StarWars event where a great symphonic orchestra plays the well known tunes from the Star Wars saga. All of it accompanied with a lot of scenes from all six of the movies, a great light show and this all narrated by Anthony Daniels (the voice of C-3PO)...
A few months ago I came across an advert of "Star Wars in Concert" on one of the online forums which I regularly visit. As a Star Wars and John Williams fan I was immediately interested in this event.
What is it? A music event? A movie? A musical? A classical recital? It has everything of the above but at the same time you can not say it is all of the above.
Is it a music event?
Yes; because it is clearly an on stage event in which a group of musicians give a music show.
No; because it doesn't give you the feel of a live on-stage music event as you probably have visited in the past
Is it a movie?
Yes; because it tells the "Star Wars" story from start (ep1) to finish (ep6).
No; because it doesn't give you the experience a movie gives. You could say you get the "bullet points" from the movie, but you are not enveloped in the story.
Is it a musical?
Yes; because you get a story told in a musical-ish format.
No; because it is not so in the way you expect a musical to be
Is it a classical recital?
Yes; because a grand orchestra plays the well known StarWars music.
No; because it is all amplified and presented in a grotesque and entertaining way which removes the clarity and fidelity a classical recital can give
So, what the hell is it?! I would say it is a superb experience of the StarWars classical music presented in a way that is entertaining for a broad group of people. It won't go to the extremes in either of the above, but the combination of them all make it an epic event which is, at some times, really breath taking! The interaction of music, video and light is amazing! Yes, it is StarWars and yes you probably have to be a Star Wars fan to really appreciate it all. But; WOW! It was a great experience! And I'm very glad I went too see it!!
So there aren't any downsides to this event?
Well, in my opinion, there is one downside. Because the show is "entertainment-driven" and it is presented to a large audience (aprox. 12.000 people) , the sound is amplified. This amplification has a negative influence on the music. Some parts (mostly trumpet parts) where less amplified and sounded great. But overall it can't be compared with the acoustics and clarity of sound which is produced at a classical recital. My hopes were just a tad higher.
But, to conclude, once I got passed this little downside (which was after about 10 minutes or so) the whole event can be concluded in 2 words: Totally Awesome!
If you're a fan of Star Wars and it's music, this is a Must See!
Movie-Review: The Man from Earth (verdict: 8.5)
Just once in a while you come across a movie which doesn't need special effects, cgi or a superb soundtrack. It can solely rely on a story. "The Man from Earth" is one of those fascinating movies. A tantalizing story which triggers your imagination and will keep doing so, even weeks later. It surely is not your average SciFi movie, and I even wonder if it can be categorized as such. But boy, can I recommend it if you like to challenge your brain a bit.
I came across this movie and was intrigued by the title, its rating on IMDB and a short excerpt of a user review in which the person in question said it made him a bit like when watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". These where enough reasons for me to take the plunge and watch the movie.
The first 15 minutes you (well, at leas I did) feel like: "what the hell is this about?". The movie sure doesn't look like it was made in 2007. But bare with the movie for a minute and you will find it intrigues you in more ways than you can think of. It is kind of hard describing the movie without giving away what the movie is about and where it is heading, so I'll head to describing some things about the characters in the movie.
The thing that balances this movie perfectly is the fact that the main characters can all be considered as experts in their field of work. And because of these expertise (which is not explicitly mentioned in the movie) everything becomes plausible and everything makes sense. Just in moments where you think "ey, what is that about?" it is backed by one of them explaining the ins and outs of it.
When you're 30 minutes into the movie you will be really eager to know how the story will continue and where it will lead to.
I don't want to spoil too much of the movie, but after you have watched the movie, you will surely know you haven't thrown away 90 minutes of your life. I'll bet you will be thinking about the movie for a while and consider the implications of what you have experienced. You won't probably consider "what if this movie was real" but I do know that there will be moments that you will remember about certain aspects of the movie and think "Wow, it could be true.. And what if that was true... Well, then....".
Bottom line:
If you're a movie lover who needs to be entertained by CGI and Action: don't watch this movie
If you like being surprised once in a while, I can highly recommend watching this movie!
Verdict: 8.5
Movie-Review: Das Experiment
I had "Das Experiment" on my To-Watch list for a few months now. It was recommended by a friend of mine after discussing some things which are related to the experiment depicted in the movie. The movie is based on an actual experiment which was conducted back in the 70's. However there are some differences ofcourse...
The native language of the movie is German. So it is some getting used to for some people. For me it took me about 10 minutes or so and after that it didn't bother me anymore. Although the movie is shot in 2001, you can really sense it is a dated setting. In addition the dialog and scenes are set up in a way which gave me a strange feeling. A bit of a "Eh.. what is this about?" feeling. Although a bit strange it is totally appropriate and gets you into the story even more.
There are no special effects, blazing fire's, cutting edge sound effects and booming subwoofers in this movie. Instead it has sound effects which gives you a suspicious feeling and makes you want to hold your breath from time to time in anticipation of something happening.
The story is told in an a-typical way. It is told with some occasional unannounced flash backs which, the first few times, feels like you are missing something. Truth be told, after about 40 minutes I felt as if it took forever to get the story up and running. I even had a moment where I was thinking "Im gonna stop, go to bed, and watch it tomorrow night!". However I didn't turn it off as I was rather curious to find out how the story continues. Luckily the pace picked up and there was progression in the story. And from that moment the story totally grabbed me and dragged me right into the movie. I felt compassion and felt connected to the characters in the movie. You could feel what they where feeling. Their emotions, their reactions, their commitments. I felt anger, hatred! I wanted to go in there and punch him in the face! AAarg!!!!!
In those moments I didn't realize it, but after the movie ended I found out that the story was built in such a great a way that I slowly, unconsciously and without really noticing it, bonded with the characters. And because of that the movie made an even bigger impression on me.
The strange story telling, the unexpected connection and the great performances in this movie left a lasting impression!
A recommendation for everyone who wants to see something else from time to time. But be warned, it is not an action movie.
I don't wanna give it an 8 because it felt a bit too strange from time to time 
So I'll give it a 7.5!
Movie-Review: 9
"9"... A title which does not describe much at all. So I looked it up on IMDB to get a bit of an idea of what this movie is about. An animation/SciFi movie, rated 7.1, and staring the voice of Elijah Wood. It triggered something in me, so I placed it on my "To Watch" list.
I really had no idea what I was getting in to watching 9. A SciFi movie alright. And a rather short one, as it only lasted 90 minutes or so. From the start the setting was clear. A rather grim setting which is accompanied with great animation. To me it gave the same feeling as I felt when watching Wall-E, when he is working on earth. Silent and alone...
But that soon changed, only a few minutes into the movie the pace picks up and you have the feeling you are left behind in terms of the story. Things are happening, but you don't really know what or why. At that moment I was curious. And after a shock moment, I thought to myself: "Yes. This will probably be a great movie!". But I was kind of wrong, at least, in my opinion.
The drive of the characters is not really clear. You can guess but can never know for sure. The movie keeps you in the dark. Normally this is not a problem at all. But because I was unable to connect with the movie on any level, it was kind of annoying.
Only somewhere at the very end I had a feeling of a connection (although very small) with the characters. And when the movie actually ended, it left me with mixed feelings. Sure the movie was entertaining. And sure it was intriguing. But it never really caught my attention. Therefor I was kind of relieved when the movie ended.
I was glad I watched the movie! It sure has things which justify the 7.1 on IMDB. But for me, the overall feeling of the movie was just a tad off.
Sound wise everything is great. Lot's of use of the LFE in a correct way (I never had the feeling it was overdone). And the music was done rather nicely. Speech was a bit different. Sometimes I had the feeling the dubbing was a bit off. It just didn't feel like the voices where appropriate for the (animated) characters.
I wouldn't want to mis this movie, but as a final score I give it a solid 6.
My Private Home Theater
It is the year 2002, and I was invited to a housewarming party of a colleague. When we came to his appartment the first thing I saw (or actually, everybody saw) was a big movie projector hanging from the ceiling. It was a huge Barco CRT projector. One with 3 tubes for red, green and blue. Ofcourse he had to show off his new big toy and showed us some nice DVD movies on a big screen. I was so impressed that ever since that moment I wanted to have my own projector and enjoy movies on a big screen too. Now, 7 years later, I went a step further and have my own Private Home Theater!
Ofcourse it all started from that moment in 2002. But to cut it short, since 2002 I bought (and sold) a Barco CRT projector, played around a bit with surround sound (Bowers&Wilkins speakers) and we end up at the beginning of 2009. This is the moment I had bought a Full HD projector and decided to really make something nice. With the help of a great company which specializes in HomeTheater ("Beter Beeld & Geluid") and helps designing HT's I started making concept sketches and models of how I wanted things to be.
At first I created some raw models of the room in question. Although, as you can see, there are quite some obstacle's in the room, solutions can always be found. It is possible to work around them. The guys at "Beter Beeld & Geluid" gave some pointers on how the room could be altered to be a great Home Theater. With these remarks I started creating a new model in which I used all the advice that was given.
Because the room is long and small (which affects room accoustics) we had to make sure the listening position is not in the exact center of the room. If you do place your viewing position exactly in the center, you will have problems with the lower frequency's. To make this possible the projection wall is placed 40cm in front of the real wall. This way you can move your viewing position further to the back and thus you won't sit in the center of the room (although it might visually seem like you are).
A second advantage of moving the projection wall 40cm is that you can place speakers and subwoofer behind the screen. But this requires an accoustic transparant screen.
A new wall should be created on the right side of the room. This is done to create symetry in the room and create space for a/v devices like the receiver, dvd/bluray player, xbox, etc. Plus, you can use this space to place side speakers if you want to go for a 7.1 speaker setup. This was actually advised due to the room being rather long and small. It would greatly enhance the soundstage and create a more realistic surround sound experience.
After this it needed the accoustic changes and a visual design. Again with some brainstorming and help from BB&G we came to the folowing definitive design for the room.
Accoustic material (absorber and diffusor) is hidden inside the left and right pillars. This too is needed to create a better sound stage.
From this moment everything was clear and I could begin constructing everything. I won't go into the exact details of the construction (I have done so in a Dutch forum, so if you would like more info, just ask me ) but the results are great! Just a few pictures to show off!
The speakers behind the screen:
And the projector side:
And, now the rundown of specs of what you see:
Projector: JVC RS-10. Projection Screen: Screen Research 110" diagonal (96" wide). Receiver: Yamaha RX-V3800. Speakers: Martin Logan Fresco i. Subwoofer: DIY - Peerless XLS12 (1 12" active and 1 12" passive woofer).
So thats it! It rocks big time. Expect, from time to time, some reviews of movies I have watched.
Movie-Review: Terminator 4: Salvation
I hadn't seen Terminator:Salvation yet because it never showed in Digital Cinema in Metropolis Antwerpen. As I now have a FullHD version of the movie, I could watch Terminator: Salvation at home... Finally! Large projection screen, great sound, killer sub. And most of all: No one running in front of me, no people sniffing, sipping a drink and baby's crying! And with this experience in my mind: My first blog-review of a movie...
As always, I try to watch a movie with as little knowledge as possible. Ofcourse I know the prequels, but I didnt watch any trailers or read about it online. At most, I look at the rating it has on IMDB and the length of the movie. The mind-set in which I watched the movie was "It will probably be somewhat like T3".
Well, I couldn't be more wrong. After the first 30 minutes I was totally convinced that the movie was nothing like Terminator 3, but still holds true to the Terminator story. There are lots of references to the other terminator movies and to its timeline. Not only storywise, but camera wise (and probably tech-wise) as well. Some of these references are more obvious and others are very subtle. In my opinion it was done really well. When I look back at Terminator 3, I would say it was a movie which was more the 'comic' side of the Terminator movies. A lot of things were overdone and it just didnt feel quite like Terminator. I was concerned that T4 would turn out to be, once again, a movie which would focus too much on a mediocre story, pointless action and stupid jokes. But in contrast to T3, Terminator: Salvation was the more serious movie. The storyline was surprisingly good, it was not top-notch, but still overall better than other action movies in this genre. Further the movie had some great surprises I didnt expect (i.e.: the scene at the gas-station) and they sucked me into the movie even more.
The CGI in this movie was awesome! No where in this movie I had the feeling the CGI was off as if it didnt fit into the movie. In a lot of movies (G.I. Joe had this on multiple occasions) you just notice that a CGI item is just not real enough. Though the CGI was really great, I needed some time to get comfortable with the colors of the movie. It had an overall colorless look which did complements the settings of the movie as being dark. But in my opionion it had, at certain points, just a bit too little color.
Right now I am only able to use the DTS Core track. Nevertheless the soundtrack of the movie was super. The seperation between music score and sound effects was certainly noticable. Though it was not done as great as in James Bond: Quantum of Sollace. The sound effects/surround sound of the movie was done really good, better than in most movies! You have the feeling you are placed right in the middle of the action. Sound is coming from everywhere and it is all just spot on! With this combine a great LFE track to support the explosions and gunfire and you are sure you will have some very impressive and intimidating moments!
Overall:
A great story, fun to watch, apropriate humor and ofcourse: Terminators!
Verdict: 7.5
My new Home Theater Projector – the JVC RS-10
It has been some time now since I have given away my Barco 801s Graphics and bought the JVC RS-10 projector. But I did not take the time to write about it on my blog up until now.
Why put away the Barco?
Well that is an easy question to answer; maintenance, performance, weight,size and noise.
Maintenance, because watching a movie on a barco just takes too much time. Every time you turn it on you need to wait a certain time before it is warmed up. Further, the CRT tubes 'drifted'. This means the convergence of the 3 tubes degraded over time and needed fine tuning every once in a while.
Performance, because although the Barco supported resolutions up to 1920x1080 (which is full HD resolution) it was not able to give a picture which was full-hd worthy. It became a little fuzzy and stuff. True, the image was better than 1280x720. But it was no where near the crispness of Full HD. Further the light output of a Barco is relatively low. You really need a light controlled room (fully dark:)) to enjoy the full potential of the Barco.
Last but not the least, weight, size and noise. The barco was not very small, light and silent. With 100cm x 60cm x 30cm it was not small. Weighing approximately 70kg, it was not very light. And with all the 12cm fans in there, it was not very silent either...
The few things CRT's do have is superb color accuracy, long tube lifetime (10.000 hours vs 1000 hours) and great contrast ratio's. But once you have seen the pro's of the RS-10 they fade away real quick. Astonishing sharpness, near-crt black levels (35.000:1), light weight and small dimensions really made the choice easy.
Ultimately, the new RS-10 delivers a really great picture and gives astonishing performance. In a fully dark room and even in rooms with normal daylight (it does not perform well in direct sunlight though 
)
Conclusion: great projector!
Calibrating my Barco 801s
Ever since I bought my Barco projector (I guess it has been a year or 3 now) I wanted to get the most from it. And since it is a CRT projector it is guaranteed that you need to put in a lot of time to get everything correct. Although the PJ is really high maintenance (it requires constant care to get the optimum result) the result is worth it. A CRT projector has, for a long time, been one of better performing projectors. In the past it was never a question whether you should buy a CRT projector or one of the other techniques (DLP/LCD). Black Level and resolution where the main reasons you should not buy a DLP/LCD. Not to mention the side effects they brought with them (screendoor effect, rainbow effect).
In these years I have frequently read about the need to calibrate it so you can get the best results. A greyscale calibration makes sure the PJ uses the correct amount of red, green an blue to display a grey-color (from black to grey to white) as accurate as possible (grayscale-calibration).
The reason it never got calibrated was my lack of action. I always wanted to have the PJ set up correctly in my room before I decided to have it calibrated. Of course it was never set up 100% correctly, so I postponed it again and again and again. Further the costs where to consider aswell. A calibration can cost up to €150 for a CRT device. And then you can only have 1 device calibrated. And as I felt my setup was not final, I thought I'd be throwing away money. And lastly I recently decided that I will buy a new projector in the near future which should be even better, so again, doing a calibration would be a waste of money.
Well... Last week I came across a cool from thread: Greyscaling for dummies! It explains how one could do a greyscale calibration yourself (of course, I need to add that doing it yourself is by far not the same as having an ISF certified person doing your calibration). After reading it carefully the experimental me shouted out and I decided I should buy a color analyzer and give it a shot.
It is quite fun to do a calibration (well, at least to me it was fun). Tweaking your display device to display a optimal picture is cool and gives you a sense of achievement! Furthermore, the resulting image realy is quite different!
I always heard the difference would be big, but I had not realized it would change this much. The image has more detail and the image appears to have more depth.
And the best part is, I can calibrate whatever and whenever I want. In my calibration spree I decided I should calibrate my Barco, My Dell 2405WFP, My laptop and the old Sony KV28FX65 television.
There where different results from the calibration on each of them. The TV for instance was massively off. the colors where to 'cool' (more blue) and much detail was lost due to the wrong use of the brightness/contrast combination. Though it was off, it was the most easy one to calibrate. It only took my 1 try to get as close to the optimum as possible. The Dell was a different story. It was already quite OK and needed just a little fine-tuning. Unfortunately the service menu of the dell wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped so I was not able to get it as perfect as I would want to. The laptop was a different story altogether. I did not put much time in it. The screen of my laptop is just bad in general. White at the top isn't the same as white at the bottom. So calibrating the center just makes sure the center is OK. But the rest is still wrong. Lastly, the Barco. This is the most difficult one. It is very susceptible to environmental changes. This is due to the nature of the Barco. It has relative low light output. Therefor the smallest light source has an effect on the image. A perfectly dark room is the most optimal, but this isn't always possible. In my room this results in that my greyscale differs when I'm measuring in the morning, midday or evening/night. So I needed to compromise. I decided I'd calibrate it for night use only and accept that when I'm watching during the day that the image might not be as accurate as it could possibly be.
All in all I would say that buying the color analyzer was a great move. I would not say it can replace a professional ISF calibration. But when you have the time and the motivation to learn a thing or two about display's, it is a really fun thing to do.