End-of-holiday report

[dr_kromm]

1. Bonnie and I stayed home on December 31 and brought in the new year drinking homemade eggnog (om nom nom!) and watching Fido. That movie is crazy funny, by the way. And it's Canadian and has zombies . . . I can't believe that I waited three years to see it.

2. On January 1, we visited A., J.-A., and their son D. We had a lovely meal (A. makes a kickass risotto) and spent the evening catching up on pretty much everything.

3. Then on January 2, we had E., D., and their daughter Z. around. This was a belated birthday visit for Z., among other things, so we staged a treasure hunt – complete with maps – for gifts hidden around the house. Then we had Frite Alors!, just because it's fun.

4. And tonight, we ended my time off by going to see Avatar in 3D. I haven't seen a 3D movie in ages . . . wow, but 3D has improved! So have computer effects. The movie lives up to its techno-hype. Even if you think the story sounds silly (and "tree huggers in spaaace" is, a bit), it's worth seeing.

I'm back to work tomorrow, but that's a pretty good four days to round it all out.

Comments

[bunnyhero.livejournal.com]

1. fido is awesome!

4. the improvements to 3D are all by avatar-- i watched a few 3D movies last year and they were all nothing special. you wouldn't have seen anything new. avatar raised the bar a LOT, all in one go.

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of hoping to see more 3D features, now that Cameron's name is associated with the technology.

[martinl-00.livejournal.com]

"the improvements to 3D are all by avatar"

Actually, the recent spate of 3D movies have been using a neat circular polarization trick that makes eyestrain and nausea less common than the old red/blue or vertically polarized systems. If you are a physics or optics geek, it's worth looking up.
(an example)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_D_Cinema

One fun side effect of this is that if you look at yourself in the mirror using the glasses for this type of 3D, each eye only sees the other eye, as mirrors flip circular polarization... (Try closing one eye at a time.)

Avatar did a lot of neat new stuff too, of course.

[bunnyhero.livejournal.com]

oh cool. i always assumed that 'real-D' was purely marketing ;) thanks!

i'll try the mirror thing, i have a few pairs of real-D glasses lying around here...

[dr-kromm.livejournal.com]

It's a bit more complex. IMAX 3D technology uses plane-polarized light. Indeed, last night, when I tilted my head, the image darkened some – a sure sign of plane polarization! RealD uses circular polarization, but IMAX 3D isn't RealD. I might go see the film again in non-IMAX 3D at a venue that I believe is using RealD, if only to compare the two.

[martinl-00.livejournal.com]

"IMAX 3D technology uses plane-polarized light"

Sniff. How 2005. ;)