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Quantum Project
Posted by
emmett
on Sat May 06, 2000 06:26 AM
from the ziggy-says-you're-a-kernel-hacker dept.
from the ziggy-says-you're-a-kernel-hacker dept.
Percible writes: "BBC News is reporting that John Cleese, star of Monty Python's Flying Circus, is starring alongside Stephen Dorff in the first major film produced exclusively for downloading over the Internet. The film cost $3 million to make, and lasts 32 minutes. Cost to you: $3.95 to purchase the file for download from sightsound.com." There have been quite a few films produced for Internet distribution, but this looks like the first professional approach with known actors.
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Quantum Project
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ARGH! (Score:3)
Review of "Quantum Project" (Score:5)
Disclaimer: I hate the prorietary Microsoft formats, but I multi-boot 98/NT/2000/Linux/BeOS so I can experience as much as humanly possible until the world comes to its senses...
The premise of this 32-minute movie stems from the Heisenberg cliche that reality is shaped by observation...which in the film and in popular consciousness has become conflated with shaping by desire. Protagonist Paul (Stephen Dorff) is an ersatz quantum physicist, and pulls it off pretty well. In fact, the acting throughout is superb. Most of us know what it's like to be in your own head too much of the time, and Paul definitely has this bug/feature. His maybe-girlfriend Mia (Fay Masterson) is a perfect foil, totally grounded and unconvinced by his strained analogies between physics and life. It's a little hard to hear him try to compare their relationship to charmed particles because I'll bet every
The CG effects are unusual and effective in advancing the atmosphere of uncertainty. The soundtrack likewise engages you without being "insert techno tune here". Where The Matrix sound design kicked, this is a little more subtle, with quite solid audio quality. The visual quality isn't bad, but can't compare to DVD (watched on my Tecra 8000 LCD). The aliasing bugged me at the beginning, but I soon stopped noticing it.
For those of you who caught "Welcome to Paradox" on the Sci-Fi Channel a while back, this will remind you a lot of the better episodes, both in style and content. Being 32 minutes it feels compressed (no pun), but forgivably so.
My favorite parts of the film:
John Cleese as Paul's father, with his line "I was Ob/Gyn at the birth of the Internet" implying that he's maybe Bob Metcalfe's alter ego or something. Cleese is great, as usual, though I would have liked to see a little more of him.
Paul flies into L.A. and as they're landing, the stewardess says "Welcome to Los Angeles. The temperature on the ground is, as always, a balmy 73 degrees."
The ending is, well, pure Hollywood, with all that implies. Sort of predictable, but not completely. Sort of clever, but not really.
The bottom line? I'll watch it again and enjoy the ride. I'll freeze-frame some of the CG, crank the audio, and maybe take it into the office and watch it projected on the wall to get the whole experience. Hey, the Metafilmics people are right, this is the dawn of something completely different (pun intended), and this is a really decent opening salvo at big bad tradition.
Thanks for reading...
movies on the web (Score:5)
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It's far too early for this (Score:5)
Am I the only person that thinks this is way before it's time? Given the relatively low penetration of broadband services at the moment, how many people are going to be able to watch this movie? And the specifications for watching it are extremely narrow, so anyone without an MS "standard" setup is out of luck as far as this is concerned.
Given the $3million price tag and the asking price of $3.95, in order to cover the cost they're going to need three-quarters of a million people to pay it. Is this even vaugely feasible? It certainly doesn't seem so to me. As a publicity stunt I'm sure it's got some value, but this is never going to be worth what it cost.
The idea of online movies is a great one, and we'll see more of it, but until broadband becomes far more popular it's probably a little early for this sort of thing.
Shameless personal plug (Score:3)
ARTHUR: Camelot!
GALAHAD: Camelot!
LAUNCELOT: Camelot!
PATSY: It's only a model.
Re:Linux? Please?!? (Score:3)
I don't think so.
The Windows/MediaPlayer set-up will probably account for about 99% of people interested in downloading the movie.
And this is before the fact that you have to *PAY* for it. How will the Open Source advocates cope with that? Oh well, I'm sure it will get stuck on Gnutella and pirated about, and then everyone will flame Monty Python when they have the sheer *audacity* to complain in any way.
Re:Only for Windows (IE 5 and Media Player) (Score:4)
Now, since Linux is only used by criminals and Republicans, obviously we cannot support it. Macs, you ask? Hippies and sickos. These are not standards we can support for the sake of our children. Should our precious youth grow up in a world where these sort of people are role models? Obviously not. Finally, we chose Windows as the platform to distribute this film because of generous donations, trips, and bikini girls offered to us by Mr. Balmer. Go in peace and conform now. Thank you.