One colleague couldn’t believe how poor the 48 fps presentation looked, insisting - or hoping, more like it - that something must have been wrong with the projection. Jackson’s big, game-changing crusade for a frame rate that would part the heavens and open humankind’s hearts and minds and brains to a new way of watching film couldn’t possibly look so unpleasant. Could it?

I have made my feelings of abhorrence for the idea of any film at 48 FPS pretty well known. But I will admit even I have been getting caught up in the trailers, images, featurettes and excitement of the upcoming film.…

When was the last time you heard anything positive about Blockbuster Video? Last we (the general public) heard, their business was floundering, as physical stores were shuttered and customers were moving to Netflix.

Well, Blockbuster isn’t giving up without a fight. The latest development is their iOS based Newstand magazine. Here’s Mike Schramm’s thoughts over at TUAW:

They must be pretty far down the idea list over at Blockbuster Video, because this one suddenly appeared out of left field. The video rental chain has released, of all things, an iPad-based digital…

The majority of homes are still on traditional set top boxes — their experience has not changed much over the past couple decades. The biggest change has been DVR and video on demand. Even in homes that have a connected TV or a connected Blu-ray player or there’s Netflix on Xbox — if you look at the amount of time spent actually consuming entertainment, the majority of the time is spent with the traditional box and the old UI. That’s the reality right now.

...

I’m not sure people want everything on demand. They still want some things live, like sports or reality TV. And there’s the…

Now that’s what fans want to hear: a major, well-loved, culturally significant creative work was sold to global lines of business so they can maximize its value.

Translation: they’re going to beat Star Wars to death even more than George Lucas did, extracting every possible penny out of it until there’s no more money to be made. And that’s probably a long way off.

Well that’s a depressing way to look at it. And probably the most accurate too.

And I figured we’d get the depressing stuff out of the way this morning.

Warning: The following contains major spoilers from this Friday’s Fringe. If you have yet to watch it, avert your eyes now. The rest of ya, read on….

‘Tis better to have been loved and lost your life, than never to have been loved at all.

That twist on Tennyson pretty much sums up how Fringe‘s Georgina Haig feels about Peter and Olivia’s daughter Etta sacrificing her life at the close of the final season’s fourth episode.

“Before she dies, there’s a moment of peace, almost like a relaxation, as she’s thinking about how she has finally been loved – and she doesn’t care that Windmark…

It’s worth adding that Pfister admits that he’s “not a big super hero fan. In terms of the movie-going experience for me, I love the realistic stuff because it’s just that much less formulaic.” That may indeed be so—yet Joss Whedon gets far more nuanced emotion from his characters and situations (and, for that matter, more interesting political allegory) in “The Avengers” than Nolan does in “The Dark Knight Rises,” and, as impressive as some of the on-set tricks of “Inception” were, none evoked the joyful awe of Iron Man’s climactic rocketing through the atmosphere near the end of “The…