Friday, April 11, 2008

DVD Review - A History of Violence

The public Library has been good to me. Currently it is saving me alot of money I don't have by being able to check out DVDs.

My latest borrowing was A History of Violence. Overall, not a bad movie. The ending was inconclusive, but is otherwise good. The pacing of the movie is somewhat slower. The nice thing about watching this on DVD is getting the extras. The featurettes are worth watching, the Director's commentary is very similar to what you'll get out of just watching the featurettes. If you're in a hurry, skip the commentary, and just do the featurettes.

Personal notes:
I like the rough 'street-fight' style of fighting that was done. Real fights tend to toss out pretty styles for what works. No 'Rambo-isation' of the Protagonist, he gets injured almost as much as the bad guys. About the only thing that felt missing from this is a father-son talk. There occurred at least twice in the film where I expected it. It was well shot, with only one scene that I really disagreed with the lighting.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Bad Hybrids

I looked through the hybrid automobiles out. The good news is that there is more than one. The bad news is that most companies are using it as a marketing tool without there being significant advantages.

The Toyota Prius is the best, mostly from being the oldest and having time-tested benefits. It has good interior and luggage room but is standardly lacking a couple selling points such as mp3 playback, but with an estimated 48 mpg local and 45 mpg highway, it's a good buy.

The only other competitor is the Honda Civic hybrid, I expect them to be fully competive with Toyota soon. Slightly less interior and luggage room than the prius, it does come with a built in mp3 playback system. With an estimated 40 mog locally and 45 mpg on the highway, it is only slightly behind the prius.

Both of these cars employ CVTs, and I wonder how they will fare in the area of repair. The original CVTs in autos were replace only rather than repair. I'll have to inquire with these companies at some point.

I expected something at the more expensive levels, and you would think that Toyota would have at least optioned the prius system in a luxury body. Nope, not that bright. I guess they figure that the rich won't balk at making money for the oil companies and ruining the environment.