Ramblings on Music, Texas, Etc.

New Adventures in Hi-Fi

Well, I've been a pretty light blogger lately, and one of the main causes has been the fact that my wife and I finally bid farewell to our circa-1995 27" Magnavox and made the leap to a 46" hi-def.  Getting everything set up has been a bit of an ordeal since it necessitated a good deal of contractor work to get a suitable spot for it set up in our old house.  I've still got some work to do on speakers, but the basic setup is in place now, including my new Blu-ray player.

To say that this upgrade has been a long time coming is an understatement.  I guess I'm about as big a film buff as I know and certainly the biggest collector of movies.  I've already splurged on a few essential titles, but the real treat is getting set for some new releases.

Two big Criterion titles are out today, in fact.  The big one among fans is probably going to be Wim Wenders' masterwork Wings Of Desire.  I'll shamefully admit that I've never sat entirely through this film so I'm really looking forward to it.  As a side note, Wenders' Paris, Texas will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in January.

But my favorite upgrade so far will undoubtedly be the Blu-ray release of Merchant-Ivory's Howards End, previously released on DVD as part of Criterion's Merchant Ivory Collection.  This release was chosen by Amazon voters online and has been somewhat controversial among Criterion fans.  I've seen the words "dry" and "boring" in more than one spot.

I'll admit I have a tremendous soft spot for Howards End.  The book was no doubt the first E. M. Forster novel I read, and the film was released just around the time I realized there was more to movies than just Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  But even so, I think the film is tremendously underrated and misunderstood.

First, I take great exception to the idea that Howards End is an obvious "commercial" release in terms of Criterion releases.  True, it was a darling of the 1994 Academy Awards and was an art house hit at the time (relatively speaking), but to imply that this is a money grab for Criterion is pretty silly.  I think the film has aged quite well and is generally still well-regarded, but it's hardly a title that has penetrated our collective culture.

But more importantly, Howards End is not the snooty costume drama it is often dismissed to be.  Rather, it's a rather scathing indictment of class warfare at the turn of the 20th Century, a theme that still resonates today.  I don't really know the context of Forster's contemporary England, but the book and the film have always seemed to me to signify the inevitability of change in society.  I've always found the characters' capacities for change to be the heart of the film.  I would say that the performances of Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson are their career best, except for the fact that they would exceed them in the Merchant-Ivory production of The Remains Of The Day (admittedly, an even better film, probably Merchant-Ivory's best).

It's easy to forget that during the early-to-mid nineties, serious period dramas were all the rage.  I'm probably crosswise with a lot of other Martin Scorsese fans in calling The Age of Innocence one of my favorites of his (behind Goodfellas, of course).  It's a shame that the Merchant-Ivory moniker became an easy label for some film buffs to use in dismissing similar, but lesser, films.  I certainly get that their films aren't everyone's cup of tea (heh), but let me go on record as not just a defender, but a very serious fan of Howards End.

A few reviews of the Blu-ray...

• DVD Talk
• DVD Beaver
• Criterion Forum

UPDATE:  And here are some of Jeffrey Overstreet's thoughts on Wings Of Desire.

GH ASMTH

Guess what comes out this weekend!  Guess who's excited!!

The Mac is back!

Well, four weeks nearly to the day I received a shiny new 20-inch iMac from Apple.  Was it worth the wait?  Well, not quite, but at least I got an upgraded processor and a full complement of wired accessories (my original iMac shipped only with the wireless keyboard and mouse I ordered).  I actually like the wired keyboard a little better and might stick with that for now (has a 10-key and extra USB ports).  My data was given a seamless transition.  Kudos for the "Geniuses" for getting that right, assuming my data gets cleanly wiped from their servers.

In comparing my machine from October to this one, here's the high points:

• Still suffers from the video gradient problems widely reported in the first aluminum iMacs.  The brightness is a bit different from top to bottom but isn't really noticeable unless you do a lot of high-end graphics work.  I'm a little surprised this wasn't fixed.
• Runs hotter than my last iMac, but not unreasonably so.  Very quiet though.  Plus I did a full system back-up and was running the disc pretty hard last night.
• Definitely a different SuperDrive than the last.  Disc loading seems smoother, though I got one "bad load" already where the disc just spins and spins.  I hit the eject key on the keyboard and reloaded with no problems (no damage to the disc either).  Kind of quirky, and I expect I'll be doing that from time to time.  But the drive itself is impressively quiet, with comparable burn rate.  I'm sure I could complain, but I don't envy going down the repair path again anytime soon.
• These units are supposedly thinner and lighter than the predecessors, but I couldn't tell the difference.

So hopefully I'm back on the Mac track.  But, man, I seriously hope this machine holds up better than the last or I'll have serious misgivings about Apple's hardware.  At the end of the day, I'm pretty pleased with the support, however.  If I'd started with the Apple Store and steered clear of the authorized repair center, I imagine this would've been a much smaller deal.  At least Apple stands by their products.

iMac, You are dead to me

Since our good friend Josh Hurst has recently made the leap to a Mac, I thought I'd give a quick update of what is going on with my iMac.

Three weeks into my "repair" adventure, my iMac has been declared DOA.  The bulk of this repair time took place at an authorized Apple repair facility, and they decided a new motherboard was needed.  It apparently took quite a bit of time to get that mother installed because it took a full week to get the damned thing installed (after some delay on the shipment of the tools and parts).  When I finally got the machine back, the fan ran REALLY loudly.  After two weeks with those bozos, I decided just to drop it in the lap of the Apple Store.  A lot of folks on the discussion boards refer to it as the "dreaded" Apple Store, but after that first repair experience, I don't think screwing around with third parties is such a great idea.

Anyway, word came back two days ago that a host of other problems exist in the guts of my iMac.  Frankly, I'm attributing most of these to a botched repair job from the first repair attempt.  Anyway, they've ordered me a new iMac with the same specs, and it is expected in a few more days.  An attempt will be made to transfer my data, but my backups should be solid.  The whole experience has me a little disilllusioned about Apple products.  BUT - three weeks with my PC at home has reminded me why I switched in the first place.  And if Apple is willing to replace my machine entirely, I have to give them kudos for their service.  I imagine this would've taken two weeks less if I'd only gone to the Apple Store in the first place.  There just isn't a lot of recourse with third parties on warranty repair.  The guys at Apple seemed a whole lot more concerned about getting my computer fixed that the goobers at the authorized reapair center (I'm withholding names here, but if you want to know who the third party was, drop me an email).  If you don't live near an Apple store, hang on to your shipping box in case you need to send it in to Apple.

Josh has apparently discovered that his Zune is incompatible with his new Mac.  I wish I was surprised.  Steve Jobs might be a proprietary asshole, but at least Apple recognizes the need to interface with the rest of the world.  Bill Gates obviously doesn't share that philosophy.  Besides, iPods have about 70 percent of the market share for MP3 players.  Don't mess around with Zunes.

UPDATE:  Since we hatched the topic in the Comments section, here's a pretty recent head-to-head comparison of Zune 80 vs. iPod Classic.