Well, Iron Man the movie is breaking box office records in many ways and destroying all the pundits who swore it would do no more than 40 mil, proving once more that William Goldman was right, nobody knows anything. Robert Downy Jr. is the movie in every possible way and every moment he's on screen it comes alive. The direction is near perfect and the script is wonderful. I do have severe problems with the final fight scene - it is reduced to a senseless battle that has no set up or logic attached - but aside from that, and it's actually a fairly small thing - the movie is really good. Some have said it's the best super-hero comics movie yet, but I think that still goes to a tie between Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins. Still, Iron Man is very, very close to the top of the list.

I've been catching up with all the TV I missed while in New Zealand. My Slingbox was working so I could have watched everything I TiVoed from there, but the internet rates in one of my hotels was, no joke - $2.50 a minute. And NZ's internet speed isn't up to snuff, either, so there was little buffering which resulted in a choppy look. But ultimately it wasn't worth that much to catch up on that night's Daily Show. I used my Treo to get my email and I went to internet cafes which were only $3.00 for an hour for my regular internet surfing, so I kept up on friend's blogs as well as the news. At any rate I'm mostly caught up.

Now I'm fully back to work and cutting my New Zealand video on iMovie in my spare time. I've always said wonderful things about Apple, and their inclusion of iMovie in their OS is one of them, but now I can actually say something bad about them, too. I've upgraded my OS to whatever the animal of the day is and also picked up their new iLife 2008 which upgrades my iWeb, iPhoto, iMovie and my iDon'trememberwhatelse software. But the new iMovie, although it looks better than the old one I used, is actually inferior in most ways. What's worse is that in this paid version Apple actually took away some of the best features that they gave you free before. In the previous iMovie, which cost nothing, they had an entire video effects suite of programs that let you do all manner of things with special EFX, including reversing the video, speeding it up or slowing it down, etc. That's gone. They also had something called themes which let you create a special look to the opening of your movie. That's gone, too.

At first I thought I just couldn't find it, but I went on Apple's iMovie board and asked where it was hiding. Within minutes I was told everything I had been looking for was removed. But I couldn't believe it so I went to my local Apple store and said, say it ain't so, Joe. But, sadly, it was. Why would they remove programs from their paid version when they already had them in their free one? So as I edit my video I am using my old iMovie, but I'm grumbling that in this case at least Apple made a big, big mistake.

Labels: Apples, etc., Iron Man