...A Movie of Facebook?

Watched on January 13...

The recently-released Social Network Blu-ray and DVD sets include the excellent feature-length making-of documentary, How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook? The only problem... from what I can tell, it isn't available for rental at Blockbuster, Redbox, or Netflix.


Still, it's well worth tracking down for students of filmmaking and David Fincher fans. I bought the Blu from Amazon just to watch the doc. After I lend it out to any interested parties, maybe I'll sell it on eBay.

Watched January 15...

Not as classy or in-depth, but worth a look for fans of 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise, is the unfortunately-titled The Second Uncanny Issue of X-Men! Making X2. I just noticed this hour-long making-of doc was included on the X-Men 2 two-disc DVD set that I've had for years. There are several other behind-the-scenes featurettes on that set, including an enlightening "multi-angle study" of X2's Nightcrawler-Attacks-the-White-House opening scene.

Watched January 16...

There's not much left to say about the Harry Potter movies at this point. After seven of them, the mythology has gotten a little too convoluted for my taste. And I'm still annoyed they killed off Sirius Black in... whichever flick it was that happened.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is another solid entry in the series. Well, half an entry (Part 2 arrives later this year), but Part 1 ends on a decent enough cliffhanger (just don't go in expecting Han Solo frozen in carbonite or anything).

Also...

Get your week off to a great start with the trailer for a new John Carpenter movie!

How did I miss this? A new version of Handbrake (best free OS X video transcoder of all time!) was released earlier this month. And Firefox 4 Beta is now available.

This is one of the best Blu-ray covers/cases I've ever seen:


It's the Social Network Blu-ray case. Not sure if you can tell from this photo (taken with the iPhone in low light, sorry), but it's black with the movie's tagline embossed on it. It forgoes the usual floating heads... heck, it forgoes the title of the movie. Kind of reminds me of the old Beatles "White Album" LPs.

I want to try this out at some point: Recording a Skype Call for a Podcast for Free (Mac).

This looks simple enough: Escape from "web-safe" fonts using CSS.

The real problem with Google's Android phone OS. And the problem with Facebook.

Wow. If this is true, the screen resolution of the next iPad will be 2048x1536. That's a lot of pixels! (via Dwight Silverman's excellent TechBlog)

The Making of Star Wars.

When I was a young science fiction fan, way back in the 1970s, I thought Star Wars was just about the coolest thing ever. But it lived mostly in my mind. Since this was a time before VCRs became ubiquitous (never mind DVD players), the only way to see any relatively current movie was to make a trek to an actual movie theater. Star Wars had a long first run and a few theatrical re-releases. But I grew up in a rural area an hour away from the nearest movie theater, so I "only" got to see Star Wars three or four times.

I had some of the Star Wars toys and a well-read Marvel comic book adaptation of the film, and I'd occasionally find some kind of Star Wars-related book or magazine at the grocery store. All that stuff was nice, but, again, it was leaving a lot to my imagination. So I was thrilled when I learned about a Making of Star Wars TV special that would air in late 1977 (I seem to remember it being on CBS, though Wikipedia says it was on ABC). I probably checked the TV Guide repeatedly to make sure I had the correct date and time, then I sat down in front of the television, hoped for good reception (we were so rural we didn't have cable), and watched the special live as it aired (no one in those days could have even dreamed about Tivo).


And I think that's the only time I ever saw The Making of Star Wars. I believe it was issued on VHS as some kind of giveaway in the mid-1990s, but I never got a copy. Even having only seen it once, I still remember a couple of things about that special: C-3PO and R2-D2 were the "hosts," and there was footage of an in-camera lightsaber effect--basically a stick covered with some kind of reflective material. And, of course, the special featured plenty of footage from the original movie, which I was more than happy to see in my own living room.

Now I have more Star Wars than I need. I have it on VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD. Heck, I think there's a digital copy on my phone. And I still think Star Wars (the original version--don't get me started on the "special" edition) is a fantastic film. But it's not as special as it was back in the late 70s, when I couldn't watch it whenever I wanted to, when seeing Star Wars on a screen, be it big or small, was an event.

If you'd like to watch the Making Of special that initiated all of this nostalgia, check out this GeekTyrant.com post. Hopefully the powers-that-be won't file a copyright claim and have the video banned from the Internet. Better yet, maybe the whole thing will get remastered and show up on the inevitable Star Wars Blu-ray set.

Also...

Want even more behind-the-scenes Star Wars info? Check out this book: The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film.

Directors Joel and Ethan Coen discuss True Grit, one of the best movies of 2010, on NPR's Fresh Air.

The iPhone is finally going to be available on a network other than AT&T. After years of rumors, the official announcement earlier this week struck me as anti-climatic. Jon Stewart, however, seems pretty excited.

You can watch Quentin Tarantino's unfinished first film, My Best Friend's Birthday, on YouTube.


And you can turn your real electric guitar into a Rock Band MIDI controller. (via Paul in the UK)

Last Exit to Nowhere has a new Escape from New York shirt.

Looks like the web video format fight is heating up as Google drops H.264 support from its Chrome browser. I'm okay with any kind of web video as long as it ain't Windows Media Video.

Get website traffic info and more at Alexa.com.

Like Andrew says, "All that anyone cares about is how good the CGI is."

When Kinder Surprise eggs are outlawed, only outlaws will have Kinder Surprise eggs. (via Stacey)