Maxim’s Movie Reviews and Opinions Blog

Just saw Avatar in I-MAX 3D. Here’s a quick 10-point review.

1. The plot: it’s a lot like “Dances with wolves”: a white man wins the trust of the tribesmen and is accepted into the tribe as equal (becomes “one of us”), but later has to chose a side.

2. Capitalism is awesome: shareholders’ interests are above all. Screw indigenous people (”savages”) – men come with heavy equipment (and guns), “humanely” displace indigenous people into reservations and plunder their natural resources. History of American continent. Well, history of the world, really. Luckily for natives, through some magic the mother nature itself joins the uprising – animals come out of the jungle to crash soldiers in a stampede – like in the “Jungle Book”?! Alas, “the balance of life is restored”. Huh?

3. Fantastic visuals! Especially in 3D. Amazing integration of people into 3D CGI environment (or vice verse), better then in “Transformers”. A lot of attention is paid to tiniest details, though some detail is not shown in order to obtain PG-13 rating. Also, I was glad that 3D things don’t come out of the screen – wouldn’t want any of the animals from that planet sneeze on me or touch me with their tails. Cameron’s 3D visuals does immerse you into imaginative, but fake world. It just does not feel real at any point. Shrimp-people in “District 9″ were much more real then monkey-people in Avatar. Avatar is an example of “style over substance” movement in Hollywood.

4. Other then “Daces with wolves”, two other movies come to mind in comparison: “Planet of Apes”, except most humans are bad guys and the “monkey people” need a rebel human to direct their uprising, and “The Last Samurai”, in that the human “needs to learn the ways” of the locals, become part of the tribe, and accept their way of life over his old way of life.

5. There are some nice action scenes, but first and foremost it’s a [sci-fi] fantasy movie.

6. Humans are plugged into their avatars – Matrix style.

7. Very enjoyable adventure filled with action, fantasy, humor and eye-candy. Not much drama though. Most suitable for young teenage audience, but adults will have fun too.

8. A lot of relationships, acting and action in the movie is rather schematic, but in a sweet way and often makes people laugh with it’s naivete.

9. Good acting, however it’s more over the top then not, and animated characters are, well… more animated then humans in the movie.

10. G-strings?

Director – James Cameron | Writer – James Cameron | Jake Sully – Sam Worthington | Neytiri – Zoe Saldana | Dr. Grace Augustine – Sigourney Weaver | Colonel Miles Quaritch – Stephen Lang | Trudy Chacon – Michelle Rodriguez | Parker Selfridge – Giovanni Ribisi

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As I already told, Sony and Netflix recently became partners, and Netflix subscribers can now stream movies from their “Watch Instantly” queue on PlayStation 3.

While Sony is working on new firmware  update for PS3 that would allow full Netflix support, current Netflix subscribers with PS3 will have to use a specially-formatted Blu-Ray disc that they can order for free from Netflix.

And I just received this disc in mail.

Before today I was still able to watch Netflix on my PS3 by using PlayOn media server installed on my home PC computer, which was used to transcode Netflix movies and stream them from PC into PS3. But with new Netflix disc I can now watch movies on my big screen TV without necessity for having the PC turned on – the movies and TV shows from my instant queue are streamed directly from Netflix onto PS3!

So here it is, the red envelope! There’s a label on it that says, “Do not return to Netflix!”. I just put it into PS3, and it displayed a code that must enter on Netflix website to activate my Watch Instantly Blu-Ray disc. This operation was easy, even easier then I could expect. Right after I entered www.netflix.com URL in the browser, the website automatically took me to the right page, and as soon as the code was entered on the website, the PlayStation 3 displayed my instant queue. That’s right, the website and my PS3 were “talking” to each other!

The interface displayed DVD covers of movies in my queue, and clicking on them opens a menu: “Resume playback”, “Watch from the beginning”, “Delete from the queue”, “Rate the movie”. Yes, I can manage the queue and rate movies from PlayStation 3 menu! Brilliant! This menu also displays synopsis of the movie/show.

Playback began within seconds, and the quality is as good as watching the movie on the computer – if you ever streamed movies through your web browser using Netflix’s ActiveX component. Actually, the quality depends mostly on the quality of the source and the resolution the movies was digitized into a stream with. For example, an old Alfred Hitchcock’s movie I saw was acceptable quality (although with noticeable pixel-blocking), and tonight I also watched an action/kung-fu movie and the quality was not worse then DVD.

There are now HD movies streaming from Netflix to XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. I can’t determine what resolution they actually are streamed at, but the bandwidth they use is between 1.3Mbps and 4.5Mbps, and they look great and never stutter – no buffering problems.

I’m a little happier now.

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Netflix today announced a real with Sony that will allow streaming Netflix movies to PS3 consoles. Support for streaming Netflix has already been implemented in XBox 360, Netflix-branded Roku media player, some TV-sets and some LG and Samsung Blu-Ray players, and recently, TiVo. As I previously wrote, it was already possible to stream Netflix onto PS3 using 3rd-party software such as PlayOn media server from MediaMall.

According to the public announcement, starting November Netflix clients with $9/month subscription will be able to stream Netflix movies into their PS3 consoles for free. No PC necessary. However, until Sony releases a free update that includes Netflix into the menu structure of PS3, the users will have to use a special Blu-Ray disc to chose a movie from their Netflix “Watch Instantly” queue. It’s merely a hack – for now, until Netflix support is fully integrated into PlayStation 3’s firmware.

Netflix members and PS3 system owners can now reserve a free instant streaming disc for PS3 systems by going to www.netflix.com/ps3. Upon availability, the instant streaming disc will be delivered for free by first-class mail, generally one business day after members request it.

So in a month or so, PlayOn media server software will become obsolete. Save $40 and wait for firmware update. You can still use PlayOn for streaming photos, music and videos from your PC, but there are better media servers out there for doing just that.

Considering the recent $100 price drop on all PS3 consoles, the latest move should better position Sony in competition with Microsoft’s XBox 360.

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Shipments of Sony PlayStation 3 Slim console began today, August 31. I had mine pre-ordered on Amazon.com, so I received mine today. I could have received it three days earlier if Amazon printed address label more clearly – the postal office was ready to ship it back to sender because of “incomplete address”.

The new version of the console is called “Slim” for several good reasons: it’s 33% thinner and 36% lighter then all the previous PlayStation 3 models. It uses less energy, offers 50% more hard drive space (120GB) then the latest 80GB model, and costs only $299 after recent $100 price cut by Sony across all models. After the price cut, I figured it’s finally worth the money, given it’s both gaming console and a Blu-Ray player. Visually the major differences are, obviously, in size; also the case is no longer glossy-black and has cheaper look. The console still has two USB ports in the front. The power toggle button is no longer touch-sensitive – it was replaced with an actual pressable button.

Two years ago I had a bad experience with PS3 60GB model, so I was waiting for this price cut and a thinner model for a long time. Alas, it arrived. The box it arrived in is also thinner then the original 60GB model’s box. The box included a USB cable, a component video cable and the new Dualshock 3 controller. HDMI cable was not included.

Set up about 30 minutes. It included taking away my D-Link media server and Toshiba HD-DVD player out, plugging in PS3 and Logitech PS3 adapter for Harmony remote, downloading and installing latest firmware 3.0, and registering for PlayStation(R) Network. Most of the time was spent trying to enter user data for a new PlayStation(R) Network account one letter at a time.

I didn’t plan to play any games. I just wanted a Blu-Ray player and a powerful media player.

I didn’t try to play any games yet except for a demo of some game I downloaded and it seemed to work, but I deleted it immediately. I haven’t played any DVD or Blu-Ray disks yet. But I did try to stream a movie from my Netflix WatchInstantly queue: Guy Ritchy’s “Revolver”. For those interested how I do it – I use PlayOn media server. Playback started within 5 seconds, was smooth – no jitters, great quality of sounds and good video quality.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I spent at least half an hour reconfiguring Harmony universal remote to use with PlayStation 3. Those who are familiar with Logitech Harmony remotes know that this process is quite simple: remove all devices and activities, add a new device and the software programs the remote with the necessary infra-red commands to turn your TV, amplifier and game console on and swicth the TV and amplifier to proper inputs automatically when you want to start a certain activity on the remote, such as “Watch TV”, “Play a game”, “Watch a digital movie” etc. Overall, the process worked, but I feel I’ll need to spend another hour customizing the on-screen menu on Harmony remote to match the convenience of the Sony’s PlayStation 3 remote for Blu-Ray.

Which bring up a good point: is it worth paying for Harmony remote plus Logitech adapter for Harmony and PlayStation Blu-Ray player remote, when the remote for Blu-Ray from Sony costs only $19? The answer is: depends. If you have as many components as I have that you want to control with a single remote – yes. If all you have is a TV, amplifier and PS3 – you can learn to use one remote for TV+amp, and one $19 remote for PS3’s Blu-Ray player. I had quite a bit of gift certificates for Amazon – enough to pay for the adapter and cover half of the price of the console, so I was able to keep the setup affordable. Others made decide differently.

When playing back streaming media, the unit stays quiet and cool – so the major complaint I had two years ago about PS3 60Gb model has now been eliminated. Whether it will become loud and hot when playing games – I will let you know on this blog.

PlayStation 3 Slim streams Netflix and Hulu movies very happily, and what makes me even more happy is the ability to use my Harmony universal remote with it.

A new 250GB model of PlayStation3 Slim comes out on November 3, 2009, and its suggested retail price is $349.99

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