Ghostbusters 1954 trailer

"Basil Rathbone must be giving a party."

45365 - available online until August 6th

45365 is an engrossing stream-of-consicousness documentary that follows a year or so in the life of a small Ohio town. I was lucky enough to see this as a volunteer screener at South by Southwest; the film later played the festival and won the festival's juried documentary feature award. It's available on the internet through SnagFilms (embedded above) until August 6 - catch it while you can.

NetNewsWire to sync with Google Reader

An interesting bit of news today, at least for me and other people who use NetNewsWire to read their RSS feeds. NewsGator, the company that owns NetNewswire, will shut down its own web-based feed reader in favor of Google Reader. NewsGator's web-based reader was also the mechanism via which NetNewsWire synced between platforms (say, NNW on your Mac vs. NNW on your iPhone).

It's a mildly interesting development (and one that was frequently requested by users), but to me it feels too late to be of much impact. Nowadays my news comes more often from Twitter than RSS, and I've moved my RSS feeds over to a personal installation of Fever. Fever's detection of high-interest items is exactly what RSS reading has been lacking. I dig it. It also has an elegant (if quirky) iPhone interface. The only reason for me to hang on to NetNewsWire is to be able to read feeds offline, and how often does that happen anymore?

I suspect NNW will lose some users as a result of this, but will probably gain more in the bargain. This will also be an opportunity for alternative desktop & web-based RSS readers like Bloglines and Newsfire to gain new users as the migration generally shakes things up.

I'll upgrade to the latest version of NNW on both platforms and move my feeds over to Google Reader for syncing, but I have a feeling it will be idle most of the time. Ah, well. The world changes.

San Diego Comic Con Pix

In my experience Dragon*Con has reigned supreme as the cosplayers' heaven. The costumes at Comic Con have always seemed lackluster in comparison. Some of the pictures coming out of this year's San Diego Convention, however, are stunning.

San Diego Shooter's Comic Con 2009 set

The SD Comic Con Flickr Group

"Crawford" & "Visioneers" just 99 cents each on Amazon VOD

Here's an evening of entertainment for under two bucks. Crawford and Visioneers are two great films and Amazon's renting them on their VOD system for just 99 cents each. Yes, I do work for the distributor but I wouldn't steer you wrong on this. Check them out.

Blatant plug: "Visioneers" on DVD

Whether you're a long-time fan or if your first introduction to Zach Galifianakis was in The Hangover, you've probably taken notice of this bearded comedian recently. I'm happy to say that my employer, B-Side Entertainment, has released Zach's new film Visioneers theatrically and on DVD.

Visioneers has been described a number of ways but "it's Brazil meets Office Space" is one of my favorites. (In my case it is also sufficient simply to say "it's got Judy Greer in it.") Here's a quick excerpt from the synopsis by Jason Buchanan at the All-Movie Guide:

First time feature filmmaker Jared Drake makes his directorial debut with this quirky black comedy set in the near future, and concerning a curious spike in cases of spontaneous human combustion. The Jeffers Corporation is the largest business in the history of mankind, and they got that way thanks to their strict philosophy of happiness through mindless productivity. But when people begin literally exploding due to unhappiness, Jeffers Corporation Level Three TUNT George Washington Winsterhammerman (Zach Galifianakis) begins to fear that his time will come sooner rather than later.

Interested? You can find a screening near you, host your own screening, buy the DVD on Amazon or at the web site, or rent it from Netflix. A hearty Jeffers salute to you for supporting Galifianakis, independent film, and me!

Michael Bay. Eating a Bowl of Cereal. In HD.

Brilliant 2.5-minute edit of movie "Cutaway"

The internet is just full of little gifts.