How to Not Be a Real Critic →

Let me attempt to explain how someone who should know better because she DOES THIS FOR A LIVING could have been so careless. There are slight spoilers that follow, but c’mon, it’s a slasher movie. What do you think is going to happen?

Entertainment Weekly has already gone downhill and Geoff Boucher's been gone less than a month. 

AppleTV Adds Channels, Taketh Away "TV" Button?

AppleTV added Disney Channel, Disney XD, The Weather Channel, VEVO, and Smithsonian Channel the other day. I fired up my AppleTV just now to put something on, and the TV Shows button in the top row is gone all of a sudden.

Maybe it's a momentary glitch, or maybe Apple decided people didn't want to "own" their TV shows after all.

UPDATE (4:10pm CT): It looks like this is a global thing. It isn't just US or UK, and it isn't the result of a software update. Does it bother anyone else that Apple can remote-pull or have core features fail one by one?

UPDATE (4:35pm CT) : After trying to open TV Shows in iTunes itself, it crashes you out to the main iTunes Store screen. Clicking on individual shows found on that main page still take you to the individual show pages. This all makes it seem like this is a temporary thing. For people in Europe doing their evening TV watching, the failure of the TV Shows "frontend" on the AppleTV itself is something that looks like they intentionally, maliciously removed the ability to access content they've paid for in advance.

Retailer Exclusives: The New Variant Covers

One of the most frank, direct sources of informed news and opinion in home video has (since 1997) been Bill Hunt's The Digital Bits. Bill wrote a piece yesterday that should serve as a litmus test of anyone you follow for home video reporting. If their reaction is different than Bill's, you're reading someone more interested in screener freebies and swag than the interests of the consumer. Go read it and come back.

The problem isn't that a bizarre array of retailer-appeasing variant editions is happening, it's that it's been in process for a while and this is the big one setting new precedents that we're all actually noticing.

I've been quietly digging into retailer exclusive "variants" of home video titles for the last few weeks. I started taking notes when I noticed them growing both in frequency and the scope of their implications. Best Buy had an "Extended Action Cut" Blu-ray for G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Target has its own version of The Great Gatsby  that includes an exclusive 20-minute featurette about the party scene. A year ago, Target had a version of Girls Season 1 that included an additional disc with exclusive content including commentary from the main cast on the pilot and a full SXSW panel Q&A. A few months ago, I got Best Buy's exclusive variant of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey , which only boasted just a fragment of a feature doc to be included on later editions. Well, it had that plus a lenticular cover...

These sorts of retailer exclusives aren't entirely new. Best Buy had their own versions of the Star Trek: The Next Generation DVDs back in the day, among other exclusives.

I'm all for incentivizing retailers to carry and promote, but this all reminds me far too much of a more expensive, less foreward-thinking version of the variant cover craze that hit comic books during the speculator craze of the 1990's. The thing I like most about that Wikipedia article is how it sets the massive financial success of the five different covers of the Jim Lee-drawn X-Men  #1 alongside the anecdote that when Lee would go on to co-found Image Comics, his new series Gen13  had a first issue with thirteen  variant covers. Comics boomed and busted on the back of the assumption their financial success could ride on not just the biggest collectors, but regular people in the hundreds of thousands or millions buying five copies of the same comic book, which were only different in their cover art , for a few dollars each.

At $1.50 cover price each, buying all five versions of X-Men  #1 would only set you back around $8 including sales tax. At modern cover prices, you'd be looking at around $20. What Paramount in particular is setting as a precedent with one of their most prominent franchises is much more troubling.

The iconic/infamous Jim Lee cover for X-Men  #1 

The strange thing, to me, about Paramount's Best Buy "Extended Action Cut" of G.I. Joe: Retaliation  is that the only version of the movie on the Blu-ray is the extended cut. The theatrical cut is not on there, and no one is under the illusion that it can't be due to space limitations. Seamless branching has been on discs since DVD. The included iTunes HD copy is, in fact, the theatrical cut, but even that seems odd. The week-of-release pricing for the Extended Action Cut version was $5 more than the regular Blu-ray...but didn't include the same core piece of content as the cheaper one that you could get anywhere. What is the value proposition for physical media when as a consumer, you're paying a premium for an incomplete package?

Surely they don't expect a super-hardcore G.I. Joe: Retaliation  fan to spend $60 to get both...do they? Now that I think of it, there was a Best Buy-exclusive DVD of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy that included the Wake Up, Ron Burgundy alternate feature and only the (massively inferior) Unrated Cut of Anchorman  itself. It cost $30 on its own, which in that age of DVD was Criterion-level pricing for a much smaller package.

The way they've splayed out the extras across retailer exclusives of Star Trek Into Darkness , it looks like Paramount really does expect hardcore fans to buy more than one of these to get the equivalent of what was fully housed in just one edition of the 2009 JJ Abrams movie, which I reviewed four years ago, opening my review as follows:

...is one of the most sensibly-designed I've seen in terms of packaging and extras. They've wisely put the feature & commentary on one disc and all other supplemental materials on the second. One would assume they did this to preserve picture and audio quality, since the featurettes, deleted scenes, and gag reel on disc 2 add up to over three and a half hours of material.

I haven't gotten a review copy of STID  yet (forgot to ask for one), but based on Bill's assessment at Digital Bits, combined with the listings of what features are exclusive to different editions, my pre-release expectations can easily be summed up as "how the mighty have fallen". I've condensed the relevant differences and figured out the rough picture of what one would have to do to actually get all of the content one might care about (we can't know yet, since studios never send out the retailer exclusives for review).

Walmart
Exclusiveness:  $40 Steelbook case plus Hot Wheels-produced figurine of the U.S.S. Vengeance

Best Buy
 Exclusiveness:  $20 ($3 cheaper than the regular edition, oddly) 2D-only that has 30 minutes of exclusive featurettes (focusing on alien design, one of the Enterprise engine room sets, "and more!") and a "giant letters against black" variant cover designed by a middle schooler

Target
  Exclusiveness:  $30 (3D is $35) edition that has 30 minutes not found on the Best Buy edition, a more colorful variant cover

Amazon 
  Exclusiveness:  $80 3D edition that is the same regular 3D version, but with a phaser prop replica

iTunes 
  Exclusiveness:  $20 "HD" package (a total of around 6GB at 1080p resolution) that is the Digital Copy otherwise included on all versions of the Blu-ray, which apparently includes the only way to watch a Picture-in-Picture-style integrated commentary as part of the iTunes Extras (more on this in a moment)

Would it have killed them to do a lenticular one, or holofoil, or a sketch cover...?

In all seriousness, to get all of the extras theoretically worth having, you'd have to buy both the Best Buy and Target editions ($50+tax minimum), and to watch with the commentary on, you can only view it on a computer, since iTunes Extras does not work on iPads, iPhones, or AppleTV. There's no way to know whether the exclusive featurettes on either the Target or Best Buy versions are more or less worth it respectively in advance, so whichever one you roll the dice on may be a bust.

Oh, and if you're a slave to Steelbook packaging (or Hot Wheels mini-replicas, I guess), you're forking over to Walmart for another $40.

In the event that price is better, or you're getting some extra stuff no one else is selling, that is an incentive. In the case of the first season of Girls, the price was lower than anyone, and it had the extra disc of content. Nice choices and well-executed! More of that, please!

If you're spending two or three times as much, and not all of the content is even housed on the discs, it makes you wonder whether you're being given an incentive to keep the money you would otherwise happily part with for the content you really do want. For years, studios have seen retailers as the customers, not the people (ideally) taking their product home. This is the best proof of that notion yet.

Look at the upside: they'll certainly package all of the fluff retailer extras in the eventual trilogy box set they'll put out in five years.

Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard's list of ten writing tips is what I value most among his magnificent work in the world of writing. It's made me a better and more confident writer. If you haven't read a book in a while, and especially if you haven't read one of Leonard's, try one of his this week.

1. Never open a book with weather.

2. Avoid prologues.

3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words.

6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

ROMEO&JULIET&OMG&LOL

I dislike the trailer for the Julian Fellowes-scripted ROMEO&JULIET  (that's how they're writing it on the poster).

From the director of The Last Legion , Shakespeare's iconic romantic tragedy appears to have no need for decent line readings. Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis are fine for the moments we see, and their Tybalt sure is growly and handsome and was on Gossip Girl

 ...but the "greatest hits" rattling-off we get of some of the best-known lines sounds like half-asleep high schoolers cold reading in English class.

Culture Of Demand: Samsung Buys Boxee on the Path to War

Venturebeat had the lead on Boxee's having been acquired a couple of weeks ago. Today, Israeli paper Haaretz broke the news that Samsung snagged Boxee: the entire staff and all of their "strategic assets" (aka IP).

At one point, Boxee was considered one of Israel's most promising companies in the field of consumer technology. Its product, the Boxee Box, enabled video streaming and was a market leader several years ago, winning several prizes.

Samsung will keep Boxee's 40 employees on the payroll. Half of those workers are in Israel.

NYT's Brian X. Chen makes mention of this:

[...]For a few years now, Boxee has been a hot start-up at the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the biggest technology trade shows in the world. Boxee originally offered computer software for watching any format of digital video. It later shifted to selling a set-top box that runs its software.

The most excited I was for Boxee at CES was the year their software was running on a ViewSonic HDTV as the TV's primary OS. An RF-based remote and their stellar interface hit a few sweet spots for me. That was 2011.

 ZDNet's Andrew Nusca:

Its challenge? The companies Boxee primarily competes against are all larger in size and scope: Apple (TV), Google (TV), TiVo, Dish Network and virtually every television manufacturer can out-muscle Boxee when it comes to market presence. (Only Roku, which is also independent, is comparable, though Dish Network has invested in it.) As more companies get into the "smart TV" game and integrate more functionality into a single device, stopgap products like Boxee's stand to be squeezed out.

The consolidation of players, to use a wartime analogy, is like amassing allies in the leadup to conflict. Boxee's IP and talent were its greatest value on its own. I disagree with Nusca's further point:

But the real question here is why Samsung believes it needs Boxee, either for talent or technology. That very large company has made great efforts in its Smart TV brand, but industry efforts in this space have been met with some disdain by consumers. (My CNET colleague David Katzmeier called the features "whizbang doodads, newfangled thingamabobs, miscellaneous frippery." Enough said.)

Boxee's greatest success has been in developing simple, user-friendly UI and UX for devices, down to the remote, which their original "two-side" RF-based solution nearly perfected. If anything, they bring a simplicity to the table that Samsung has been most sorely lacking.

The no-brainer for Samsung is to use Boxee to massively overhaul the interface on all their existing TVs and Blu-ray players. If Samsung is playing smart, they wouldn't scrap the idea of having their own "puck"-style set top box. If their goal is to beat Apple in the living room, the best way to compete (let alone win) is to be the "open" alternative to Apple's ultra-closed "app channel" storefront.

They have greater leverage than Roku with mainstream content providers, from movie studios to "new studios" like Amazon. Apple's biggest advantage is their enormous installed base of users who are habitually conditioned to buy content. If Samsung is willing to be the pass-through for Amazon and others, they could have just made the most important step in building a viable hardware platform.

In case it wasn't already apparent, this is another signal that the Content Arms Race is really and truly on in a big way. Expect more about this specifically on the next Screen Time. 

Giant Size #26: "Magical and Transcendent" featuring J.M. DeMatteis

Welcome to "The New 26", "Crisis on Infinite Formats", or "Format Reborn"! Our first foray into the new format is now available for your downloading pleasure (subscribe in iTunes/RSS). Sorry for the late posting of this Reading List installment. Reboots are a lot of work!

This past week's primary topic covers "Superan Origin Retellings" and Man of Steel. Joining me and co-host John Gholson is Justin Korthof, die-hard Super-fan who previously ran BlueTights.net.

Comics legend J.M. DeMatteis, one of my writing heroes, is this week's interview. He will return in future on the show, including in an episode this summer that will focus on Doctor Strange.

The weekly chat with Austin Books and Comics returns this week, in episode #27.

If interested in more Superman jumping-on points, check out the Reading List for episode #28 of the now-retired Comic Shack.

Reading recommendations from Giant Size #26: 

From the Panel Discussion

John Byrne's Man of Steel   Vol. 1
TPB: $10
 ComiXology: $2 per issue

One of the biggest, most long-lasting overhauls to the Super-mythos, John Byrne's revamp was the foundation of many modern readers' perception of Kal-El/Clark.

Superman: Birthright 
TPB: $16
ComiXology: $36 ($3 per issue)

Whether outright acknowledged as such or not, the bones and a lot of the meat in Man of Steel the movie come from this outstanding 12-issue run by Mark Waid.

Superman: Secret Origin
 TPB: $15
ComiXology: $18 ($3 per issue)

This re-revision of Superman's origin came less than ten years after Birthright, only to itself be undone by The New 52 wiping the slate clean.

Action Comics: The New 52
Vol. 1/2 TPB: $13/$19
ComiXology issues #1-12: $36 ($3 per issue)

John has really enjoyed Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics. I trust John's taste.

Superman: Earth One 
Vol. 1 TPB: $11
Vol. 1/2 Hardcover: $14/$16
Vol. 1/2 Kindle: $10/$13

There are a lot of major detractors of this "Superhoodie" origin reboot, which I wish they had used to signal a separate line of "Earth One"-universe comics, in the mold of Marvel's Ultimate line. In a separate Earth One continuity, DC could actually full-on kill major, iconic characters and leave them dead. Since Volume 1's publication, they've done a Batman: Earth One and a second volume of Superman.

Superman: Secret Identity
TPB: $16
ComiXology: $12 ($3 per issue)

Kurt Busiek's re-imagining of the Clark Kent of Earth Prime really grabbed me, and is a nice afternoon-worth of reading. Earth Prime is essentially our real world, where all the heroes we know are found in the same comics Earth Prime people know them from. There are no super beings until a Kansas farm kid named (as a joke) Clark Kent discovers he has the powers of Superman.

Superman: Speeding Bullets  (OOP)
TPB: used from $22

Unfortunately out of print, J.M. DeMatteis' brilliant reconnection of the Super-myth alters the landing site of the Kryptonian capsule to Gotham City, where Thomas and Martha Wayne find baby Kal-El and name him Bruce Wayne. DeMatteis and I talk about this briefly in this week's interview segment. Somebody help me find a decently-priced copy of this one.

Superman: Red Son
 TPB/Kindle: $14/$11
ComiXology: $9

Whether Mark Millar was directly inspired by DeMatteis' earlier "what happens when the capsule lands somewhere else?" story or not (my bet is that he was), having Superman raised in the workers' rights-centric Soviet Union is another fascinating twist on the concept DeMatteis pioneered with Speeding Bullets. This one is in print, and readily available all over the place.

It's a Bird
TPB: $9

Briefly mentioned on the show by Justin, writer Steve T. Seagle put together an autobiographical tale focusing on his juggling the various hardships of life with...writing Superman. A different kind of origin story for sure (the origin of a retelling), but very interesting in the context of the discussion, and added to my enormous "to read" list.

From the Interview with J.M. DeMatteis

The aforementioned Speeding Bullets

Moonshadow
"The Compleat" TPB: ~$30

A personal story with fantastical elements, it tells the story of a half human, half alien trying to find his way in the world. 

Brooklyn Dreams
Hardcover: $28
ComiXology: $10

As I put it, DeMatteis' followup to Moonshadow could be considered his telling of his own origin story. It was recently reprinted by IDW, and shouldn't be hard for your LCS to find if they don't already stock it.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Paperback/Hardback: from $7/$14

One of Bradbury's best works, it explores the joys of a boyhood summer.

From the After Dark (#391) 

Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa  (Out Of Print)
TPB: used from $15

It will take a great deal to unseat this as my favorite Strange "tale". It contains so much of what I consider the undiluted essence of the character. As DeMatteis so eloquently puts it, that he boils down to "the moment of surrender" in the face of his shortcomings. It features gorgeous painted art by Dan Green, and can be found secondhand for under $20 in general.

Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts Vol. 1 #54

Co-written by DeMatteis and Roger Stern, this was his first touch on the character that he's returned to nearly as often as he has the Justice League. Unfortunately, there's no in-print collection I could find, nor is it available on any digital service, including both ComiXology and Marvel Unlimited.

The Defenders: Indefensible 
TPB: used from $8

A lighthearted, different take on both Doctor Strange and the Defenders team that's relatively recent, and not too hard to find.

The next episode of Giant Size is the first in a two-parter that checks in on the state of Marvel NOW!, an initiative six months old and, in some cases, twelve months worth of issues in.

Screen Time #39: Beyond the Physical

Jim Dalrymple (The Loop, Amplified) and Tom Hall (DOOM, Commander Keen, much more) join me to reboot my signature show.

We discuss and speculate on the fast-approaching war to be the one box to rule them all. We start by taking a look at what we each have connected to our TVs and consumption habits. Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Roku, and many more players have wildly divergent strategies.

The point regarding Apple that I'm spending a lot of brain cycles on is the question of gaming. TV and movies are already pretty fleshed out, they just need more "channels". Many of the games in iTunes' App Store either were designed for physical controllers, or come from genre that traditionally use controllers. That new Time Capsule/Airport enclosure makes me wonder yet more. The price tag on the new generation of dedicated console game systems goes from $350 to a staggering $500. There's a notable gap between the "hockey puck" price point (Roku and AppleTV) and the "aircraft carrier box" one. More on this very soon, and certainly in next week's Screen Time.

In this week's featured interview, I talk with Jen Linck, VP of Digital for Acorn Media, who distribute the largest library of UK TV shows and telefilms to the US. We talk about their instant channel strategy, including exclusive content from fan-favorite series like Doc Martin, Poirot (with original star David Suchet), Foyle's War, Marple, and more.

Each episode of the all-new Screen Time opens with a panel discussion, followed by the interviews that had previously been the backbone of the show. This is the version of the show I've wanted to do from the start.

Acorn TV: New App and Exclusive Debuts for DOC MARTIN, FOYLE'S WAR, and POIROT

In the latest episode of Screen Time, Jen Linck (Acorn Media's VP of Digital) revealed some news relevant to fans of UK TV here in the States. Not only did she reveal a planned July overhaul to their still relatively-new Roku app and streaming service, but some exclusive, faster-than-usual US debuts of popular shows. The overhauled service promises 800-900 all-you-can-eat hours of content from across all genre of UK TV.

The sixth (final?) season of public television hit Doc Martin  will debut exclusively on Acorn TV, as soon after each episode's UK airing as possible. They have put new series of both Foyle's War  and Poirot  into production, with original stars Michael Kitchen and David Suchet reprising respectively. The new Foyle's War  will debut on Masterpiece, and appear on Acorn TV the next day after airing. The entire final series of Poirot  telefilms will see the first two debut on Masterpiece, but the rest, including the very last one, will debut exclusively on Acorn TV. There's a new series of Marple  being filmed, with US distribution plans still under wraps.

This is a huge deal for the new entrant to the "streaming channel" game, which currently costs $25/year or $3/month. The content arms race is on, and Acorn holds the SVOD rights to a staggering library of UK TV content. They're moving earlier than most others with libraries even approaching the size and quality of theirs.

Matt Zoller Seitz on James Gandolfini →

I was trying to get to bed and instead, I read this three times.

The author is one of the best living critics and writers, and this is great evidence in favor of that opinion.

Live-Action GATCHAMAN Trailer

The cartoon that Americans may know as Battle of the Planets  or G-Force  is getting a live-action reboot in Japan this August. The trailer has no subtitles, and I'm honestly not sure what "Bump of Chicken" means (you'll know what I mean), but the tone looks extremely...earnest, even when the antagonist shows up in a suit with a bunny-eared helmet. Are they going for Gatchaman of Steel ?

OOP Watch: Warner Archive Adds...Out of Print Paramount!

In an under-the-radar tweet among many others today, Warner Archive teased the best thing to result from WB Home Entertainment distributing the Paramount library: OOP DVD titles from Paramount are being re-released by Warner Archive Collection. I've embedded the "Oops"...or "OOPs", rather, video below, but here's the full list of titles revealed in the video, all of which routinely run for between $30-80 on the secondary market:

• The Naked Jungle
• The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Hello Down There
• Brother Sun Sister Moon
• The Brotherhood
• The Molly Maguires
• Back to the Beach
• Lifeguard
• Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
• White Dawn
• Anything Goes (1956)
• The Family Jewels

Warner Archive has confirmed to me directly that all previously-available extras will be preserved on these new releases.

Could this mean that more...many  more OOP Paramount titles might soon escape?

Out of Print Watch tracks titles going in and out of print on physical disc, an event which either makes it much easier or drastically harder to find the movies you love at a reasonable (or any ) price.

James Gandolfini

Gone far too young at 51, Gandolfini has meant a great deal to me since I discovered him as a teenage character actor. there isn't much I could say that isn't covered in his episode of Inside the Actor's Studio, embedded below.

He was in Italy on vacation in advance of a planned appearance and masterclass at the Taormina Film Festival.  He leaves behind a wife and an infant daughter. He had a pile of projects in the hopper. Deadline's Mike Fleming has written a wonderful piece about his years following and covering Gandolfini.

We've lost a great actor and a good man, based on everything said by anyone I know who worked with him in any capacity.

We've also lost one of the greatest actors to repeatedly work with (and be championed by) Tony Scott.

If you missed Not Fade Away  last year, or have never seen The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, In the Loop, or especially The Last Castle , you can't go wrong with any of them. If you only know him from The Sopranos , you may not be fully aware of the broad range of nuance and humanity found across his entire filmography. I'm most selfishly sad that I never saw him perform on stage. If there exists a bootleg of him in God of Carnage , I don't have nor know about it.  

A tremendously sad, left-field bit of tragedy hit yesterday. The acting world is a dimmer place ever since. 

Death of Comic Shack & Rebirth of an All-New, All-Different Giant Size

For a while, there have been two comics-focused podcasts on 5by5: Giant Size and The Comic Shack. 

We cancelled The Comic Shack last night, and in the same breath, we relaunched Giant Size. 

I teased the cancellation/reboot on Twitter and got a pile of dismayed, upset tweets in response. Many moaned "but I liked Comic Shack better than Giant Size!"

I'm an awful person for toying with the emotions of those wonderful human beings. 

The good news for those listeners is that Comic Shack is dead...so that its panel discussion format can merge into Giant Size and open each show.

This is the version of Giant Size I've wanted to do since the beginning, and it's how the show was originally developed. With my pal Jim starting 'Shack almost simultaneously to GS (which I wasn't aware of), I didn't want to step on his toes or "flood the market", so to speak.

Equally if not more problematic was that I needed more time and infrastructure to support the more complex, ideal Giant Size show format. This infrastructure included a regular co-host.

Except on rare occasion, that co-host is John Gholson, who has joined me for the final few Comic Shacks while we hammered out a rhythm and feel for the "All-New All-Different" Giant Size.

Last night, we recorded the opening of Giant Size #26, in which we discussed Man of Steel and Superman origin story retellings. The Giant-Size-traditional chat with Brandon from Austin Books and Comics will get wedged in after, and the show will close with the also-regular creator/industry interview.

The logic behind this format is that the tightly-moderated panel/jumping-on-point discussion is the welcome mat, which leads into "what's cool/new/new-to-you this week", and closes with an interview with a creator whom you may or may not be interested in at first. As often as possible, the guest will be directly tied to the panel discussion. This is a dastardly trick designed to turn you into a fan of these people before you even hear their voice(s).

Extra-long interviews will get chopped, with the overage going in the After Dark feed. Each show will be under 90 minutes, ideally hitting around 75 minutes, but this will vary as we break in the new structure.

The goal is for all segments to be open to the widest possible audience of listeners, whether you know how many times and in what issues Jean Grey died, you hate superhero comics, or have never read a single comic book. This is the comics show I've been wanting to do since day one, and it should hopefully appeal to everyone who liked either previous show.

The goal of Giant Size remains the same: we want to bring new and lapsed readers into reading, enjoying, and discussing comics. There are some fun comics-dedicated podcasts out there already, but none of them hit this precise cross-section, nor do many (if any) seem geared toward new or non-readers.

I also think we can achieve three shows worth of content in the time usually taken up by one. 

No one needs one more podcast just like six others to listen to each week, especially one that runs two or three hours. This is something All-New and All-Different, and I hope you like it.

I mentioned that Screen Time is getting an overhaul too, right?  More soon.

The Critical Path 87 & 88: "De Gustibus" & "Siri in the Driver's Seat"

This morning, Horace and I recorded two episodes back-to-back, in an effort to catch up on being behind as well as to address the mountain of news and topics to discuss from WWDC last week.

Part 1, "De Gustibus" looks back at his first-of-its-kind AirShow event, the thrust of Apple's desktop hardware strategy and the "hardcore" Mac Pro, and a bit on Mavericks and especially iTunes Radio. 

We closed the day with Part 2 ("Siri in the Driver's Seat") focusing a great deal on iOS 7, but not with the reductive, colors-and-pixels design lens that others have over the past week. We instead look at what this overhaul means with regard to where Apple is going next, zeroing in on Siri and other bolted-in service improvements and enhancements. The next installment of our AsymCar discussion spins out of that, and we close on what iWork for iCloud really means  in the grand scheme of all things Apple.

We're recording Episode 89 this Thursday morning. There really is that much to discuss. 

Discs in a Box: MAD MAX Trilogy Blu-ray

The Mad Max Trilogy Blu-ray set is a mixed bag in the only positive sense of the term.

The Mad Max disc is an exact duplicate of the existing Blu-ray (which lacks the extras on the DVD included on the MGM release), the Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior  disc is a completely new AV transfer that improves substantially on the 2007 release, and Beyond Thunderdome looks great in its Blu-ray debut.

The $35 price tag is less than the movies cost separately, and roughly equals how much the first two movies generally go for ($15 each). Whether you're fine missing on the couple of extras only found on the packed-in DVD of MGM's Mad Max release (more on that in a moment) is one thing...

From the exact, down-to-the-data duplicate Blu-ray disc of Mad Max .

An example of one of the few seconds where the print reflects damage, in this case from mold.

Packaging & Potential Repackaging Speculation

...and whether you want them all in one metal tin, which lacks text on its ostensible "spine", is another matter entirely. I would have preferred a steelbook, personally, but I don't have any other sets like this on my shelf. Anyone complaining about the case not saying "MAD MAX" along its side is picking nits.

As is the pattern with Warner multi-movie sets, there will likely be a budget version down the line, but there's no way of knowing whether extras will be preserved, or if movies will be crammed together on discs rather than on their own, causing quality to suffer.

As it stands, the standard multi-disc, plastic Blu-ray case that sits inside the tin carries the exact same UPC as the outer tin packaging, so don't expect this exact set to be duplicated without the tin...that is, unless it really is a "limited" release, in which case the plastic case guts will replace the old SKU at a presumably lower price.

Movies, Gaps, and Value

There are a few extras on the DVD included in MGM's release of the Mad Max Blu-ray that are missing here, but they don't break my heart.

The most prominent is a 17-minute documentary called Mel Gibson: The High Octane Birth of a Superstar. Also missing are a trivia track (no big loss), a photo gallery (ditto), and some TV spots (double ditto). The Birth of a Superstar  thing is a Peter Cullen-narrated puff piece with a few talking head bits with George Miller, Piper Laurie, and others who knew Gibson early in his career. It's no enormous loss, except for completists.

From the brand-new picture and audio transfer of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior , which finally sports lossless DTS sound.

Flesh tones are more natural, and the color balance looks natural across the board.

All three movies look and sound great, with the biggest Blu-grade improvement going to Mad Max 2 , whose previous WB Blu-ray was from the earliest era of Blu mastering (2007). If buying just that movie, make sure you get this one, and not the old one, which Amazon is still selling for some godawful reason.

I can't help but have a hunch that all three movies will drop to the magic price point of $7.99 apiece at some point before the holidays (as catalog releases often do these days, but if these movies mean a great deal to you, the (unnumbered) limited edition tin is a better deal than buying the discs separately for the moment.

I don't know why I focused on frames that show off shafts of light. Contrast is very consistent, with a multitude of dark scenes looking great throughout.

For a movie that's mostly black and brown and dark, when you do see color, it pops nicely (and not to the point of over-saturation).

Buying Advice

Here are some "if this then that" cases and how I recommend you buy what as a result. 

Have:  Mad Max  Blu-ray and/or 2007 Road Warrior Blu-ray
Want: New The Road Warrior  Blu-ray
Don't Care About: Beyond Thunderdome 

Get the single The Road Warrior Blu-ray

Have: None of the Mad Max movies
Want: At least Mad Max and Road Warrior Blu-rays

Get the Trilogy set if you want Beyond Thunderdome  (comes out cheaper than separately), grab single Mad Max  and The Road Warrior  discs if pinching pennies.

The stupidest reason that I like the tin is the Road Warrior image with Max and his dog glued to the inside cover. If you're a diehard Max  fan, the current price is reasonable, and if a collector, it seems Amazon is having trouble keeping it in-stock due to popularity.

Discs in a Box reviews and provides contextual commentary on Blu-ray and DVD box sets. DIAB covers everything from repackagings to true Blu-grades to the opulent mega-boxes that pack in loads of extra physical goodies.

Recent and upcoming releases are examined here, in addition to sets that have been collecting dust on store shelves for months (or years, in some cases).

WOLF OF WALL STREET Trailer

This looks better than pretty good.