Today’s recommendation: Om Shanti Om.

Non-Bollywood viewers may be a little lost with this one, but it’s well worth the viewing. Lush colors, broad comedy, likable actors and a sentimental story that mixes comedy, fantasy, and romance and manages to avoid being sappy (Oh, okay, it’s really sappy. But I like it) make it one of the better movies-about-making-movies that I have ever seen.

Actors interested in improving their comedy could do much worse than to take notes on Shah Rukh Khan, whose dance skills, handsome look, and knack for physical comedy put me in mind of Charlie Chaplin. Directors can get a glimpse of how to use cartoon colors without overusing them. Filmmakers in general will see how to take one of the most boring ideas for a plot ever and spice it up with a few twists on the topic.

Got a Netflix account? they have it for rent.

Shop at Amazon? They have it on DVD. Also at Amazon, third-party sellers offer it on Blu-Ray for less than the cost of the DVD (for those of you who already have the player). The visuals in Om Shanti Omare so significant to the style of the movie, I think it’s worth the HD. Yes, those two are affiliate links. If you buy them from this entry, I make a few pennies.

Found via Daily Funnies.

According to “industry gossip” (which means: lots and lots of papers got excited about something they read, but can’t remember where), Bale may be damaged goods after his on-tape melt down.

That’s mighty funny coming from io9 – a blog that routinely reports its own bloggers’ idle speculation and pipe dreams as “the industry buzz.”

But, see, this is why they can decry the rumor mill – because this particular rumor goes completely against what they want to happen. They either want Bale to remain in the cape and cowl, or for an actor in his 50’s to be cast to play in a direct-from-the-page adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns (a comic I like and respect, but which would make an absolutely horrible movie).

With all their talk about how sexualizing and abusing men makes Battlestar Galactica a feminist series, and their near-constant backhanding of Heroes and all of its remaining fans, io9 is the type of organization that makes me completely understand why Russell T. Davies would make it a policy to ignore what the fandom tells him to do with his work. It’s… it’s like Andy Kaufman decided after his wrestling career that he wanted to start a sci-fi fanzine.

And they remain in my Bloglines… well, frankly, I’m not sure why.

Hey if anyone knows any directores,producers or anything like that from FOX SEARCHLIGHT i have an idea about Napoleon Dynamite and it is another Napoleon Dynamite MOVIE!! and I think it would be very funny its called

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE:GOES TO CAMP!!

“BRILLIANT! The title makes me wonder what could possibly happen in this movie!”

At first glance, modern zombie movies seem to be about a fear of disease – most of them feature the “infected” type of zombies, not the “crawled out of a grave to dance with Michael Jackson” type. But the really threatening thing about zombies isn’t their crazy diseased eyeballs, it’s their sheer numbers.

The vivacious star of screen and smaller screen will be joining us to talk about a career that has seen her turning up in such films as Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, Gimme Skelter, You’re Next 3: Pajama Party Massacre, Killer Biker Chicks, and the upcoming Jessicka Rabid. You can catch the show live at the episode’s page, and/or you can download it in mp3 form from blogtalkradio following the show. Help me kick off Popcorn Theater with a bang!

And if you haven’t added Popcorn to your blogroll yet, stop by the website where you can see news about who and what will be on each show, and catch episodes of the tv series uploaded for your viewing pleasure!

1: “Nunh-uh! The Predator would kick Fett’s butt!”

2: “No they couldn’t! He’s Boba the Fett – his backpack’s got jets, man!”

1: “Don’t quote MC Chris to me. MC Chris was nothing before I blogged about him!”

3: “You’re both nuts! Neither one could take on the Alien. Case closed. Suckas.”

Batman, Aliens, Predators, Star Wars (HD) – Fan Film, Draft Trailer from David Liu on Vimeo.

Consumers are balking at the $300-plus cost of most Blu-ray players especially because only limited movie titles are available in the format.

“People aren’t going to pay three times as much for a platform that’s only half-baked,” said Steve Wilson, a consumer electronics analyst with ABI Research.

The problem with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats, of course, was largely the library. Perhaps it’s only obvious to me, but when you’re touting the superiority of the platform as a prestige format, you might want to consider releasing Citizen Kane – a movie with a long history that most people would display proudly in their collection, and something more likely to be cherished by someone who just dropped $399 on a player – instead of, say, Ultraviolet – a movie whose design concept can best be described as “blurry, obviously fake, and designed above all to not be viewed in HD.”

This in turn feeds the price question. Why should people pay a prestige price for a player where the majority of titles are movies that people just flat don’t care about seeing in HD – many of which are $20+ on the new format when they’re already in the bargain bins on the old? I just purchased Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 on DVD for $5.99 each – movies I care about having in my collection (well, Alien 3 more for completeness’ sake). With the already high quality of DVD picture and sound, spending $25.99 for each of them on Blu-Ray would just feel wrong.

Of course, Blu-Ray could get an extra push from indie producers. More and more indie directors shooting on HD would mean an influx of content – some of which would be kept inexpensive to draw in new audiences, and which would help sell the new format to off-the-wall and indie film fans. Of course, it could provide this extra push – if Blu-Ray didn’t seem determined to exclude these producers from the new market.

Where are the POD solutions for Blu-Ray at this point? No, I’m seriously asking – where are they? CreateSpace, which is owned by Amazon, is still negotiating a deal to allow them to offer POD Blu-Ray. Kunaki? Lulu? Who knows? Neither one even mentions it. Why not?

It may have something to do with the $3,000-a-person entry fee the industry is imposing, otherwise known as the AACS DRM scheme. It appears that there’s been a real problem playing Blu-Ray discs that don’t include AACS, so everybody who wants to publish to the medium has to purchase an AACS license, and every title must include AACS – regardless of the wishes of the publisher and/or the artist.

Creative Commons-licensed material? Who cares? You’d better slap some copy protection on it.

Want to release a public domain film to Blu-Ray to help preserve our film history (or make a quick buck off of an HD release of The Last Man on Earth)? Sure. As long as that public domain film is one you’re willing to pay $3,000 to copy protect.

And forget about a sales system like EZTakes, that provides its DVD images DRM-free – but with the purchaser’s e-mail address embedded in the burnt copy.

Forget, too, about the share-friendly independent spirit that provokes legal statements like this one (found on my newest DVD, available soon, plug plug).

Low- and Micro-budget filmmakers will find themselves blocked out of the new next-generation disc market for as long as AACS is an expensive necessity and the artists are blocked out of making their own decisions as to how their content should be treated. The result? Well, unless the major studios wise up on their releasing schedule, a homogenized blend of movies nobody cares about seeing in High Definition, and a marketplace completely priced out of the range of the regular consumer.

After all, there’s one further aspect I’ve barely even touched on that is just as blocked by this current model – one could argue that DVD’s would never have become the consumer mainstay they are today if not for the bins of $1 DVD’s at the front of every major retail chain today…