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Best Animated Film of 2007: Persepolis
2008-01-09 11:25
by Jon Weisman

It's not as colorful as Ratatouille and maybe lacks the transcendent ending, but Persepolis is absolutely engaging and illuminating from start to finish. It makes good use of animation but isn't beholden to the form. I highly recommend it.

Comments
2008-01-09 11:44:08
1.   Kevin Lewis
Thanks, Jon, I will check it out.

I have a couple of random questions, and I will post them here to keep DT on track.

1) Has anyone watched Fireflys? I keep hearing good things.

2) Has anyone built their own PVR or Tivo like device?

With the cost of a new child on the way, I am thinking about ditching satellite tv and just going with over the air broadcasting. The signal we get with just a basic antenna is fantastic, but I will miss the ability to record tv shows, so I am thinking about building my own, but it gets costly.

2008-01-10 14:52:07
2.   Sushirabbit
I will have to check it out as well.

1, I considered this for a while.
check out http://www.byopvr.com/ if you google "build your own PVR" you ought to come up with tons of stuff. It doesn't look that hard. We just like Tivo and DirecTV. Mine is hacked, and I have an old Xbox that is hacked as well and allows me to watch saved Dodger Games and or Movies off of a hard drive. My main concern when looking at building a PVR was getting one that sipped power instead of gulped it like my regular PC.

2008-01-10 14:53:31
3.   Sushirabbit
Does anyone here have experience with acquiring subsidiary rights, specifically for screenplays?
2008-01-11 11:13:40
4.   Kevin Lewis
2

Yea, I have checked out that site quite a bit, and it looks like building one from scratch would cost $500-$600. I am investigating the whole IPTV rumor with Xbox 360. I would love to have my tv come through that media center and to have it be my music player, game player, and DVR.

2008-01-11 11:36:26
5.   The Mick 536
Why does ya thinkk that they used color in some scenes and black and white in most others? Lots of great scenes: Godzilla ( what was that about); Eye of the Tiger; and the scenes in Austria (dog pissing on the rug and in the street).

Thought it was good, not great. Hard to remember a movie of this sort made from a graphic novel. Usually, they go from novel to film, skipping the animated version. Looked at the books. My source says that the one with Granny is a pip.

2008-01-11 15:30:29
6.   Jon Weisman
5 - Weren't the color scenes in the present, and the black and white (most of the movie) the past? I'm trying to remember.
2008-01-14 00:37:11
7.   trainwreck
I gotta go with Paprika.

Just watch.

2008-01-14 18:27:37
8.   Andrew Shimmin
I've just finished building a PVR. I bought the computer broken, on eBay, for $170. A thirty dollar video board and a fifty dollar capture card (newegg had an OEM AverMedia a180, which hasn't got hardware mpeg2 encoding, but does have an ATSC tuner) later and it'd work perfectly, if I could get a signal. The computer's mainly working as a NAT/VPN box for me, but I'm looking forward to PVRing it up, once I get the antenna worked out.

The broken computer came with a Vista Home Premium license (and a wiped harddrive, so I ended up having to beg Microsoft over the phone to activate it, but, they did, so I haven't got much of a gripe there). I've played around with Windows Media Center, GBPVR, and the software the capture card company put out. They all worked okay, but getting scheduled listings is irritating in different ways for each. The Vista Media Center (or whatever it's actually called) doesn't pull listings for the secondary (and tertiary) digital stations (like 7.2, or 7.3, out here). I didn't futz with it long, so it's possible I missed it, but GBPVR doesn't seem to have a compatible free listings service at all.

Haven't played with Myth TV, yet, though that's my next stop. It is a fun project, but it's only with great effort that I haven't gone crazy souping the thing up, defeating the purpose.

2008-01-14 18:30:52
9.   Andrew Shimmin
Persepolis was one of the trailers when I saw Atonement. It was the only good one. I may end up waiting for it to come out on DVD, just because movie theaters are so nearly unbearable, but I definitely want to see it.
2008-01-14 18:58:42
10.   Andrew Shimmin
NAS, not NAT.
2008-01-15 09:54:32
11.   ToyCannon
OT
Evidently 1000's of people get DVD's of TV series that they like but never actually watch the DVD's. So we got the 1st season of scrubs for ourselves and spent the last two nights watching the whole season. I don't remember being a big scrubs fan when it first came out but eventually I was won over but I had missed the 1st several years. After watching the 1st season I have to wonder what I was thinking. This was great stuff. It has moved into my top 5.
2008-01-15 16:04:55
12.   Kevin Lewis
8

Yea, it still seems a bit high on the price area, unless you find a product to work with on ebay. I hope the IPTV works out with Xbox360, since that would be an easy fit for me. I would just need to buy a larger hard drive.

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