Cars (2006)

What kind of movie is Cars?

Animated, Adventure, Comedic, Family

What is the premise of Cars?

Lightning McQueen is a rookie race car who has found success as a young buck in the racing world. In the last race of the season he ties with two other cars including Chick Hicks and The King. As he makes his way to California to race in the tie-breaker, he gets lost and accidentally finds himself in a small town named Radiator Springs in the middle of nowhere. To his disliking, he learns that he must stay in the town until he repairs a road he damaged. During the time he spends in Radiator Springs, he learns about true friendship and love while

Who is the director of Cars?

Directed by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft

Who are some of the actors and actresses in Cars?

Owen Wilson voices Lightning McQueen

Paul Newman voices Doc Hudson

Bonnie Hunt voices Sally Carrera

Larry The Cable Guy voices Mater

Cheech Marin voices Ramone

When does Cars take place?

The movie is set in 2006 .

What are major themes and issue in Cars?

Some major themes and issues in the movie include friendship, love, integrity, humbleness, identity, rivalry, respect

What do you recommend if I liked Cars?

Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles

What do you rate Cars?

I give it a rating of 9 out of 10 stars. In a year where many animated movies came out, this one was the best one. It was creative in all aspects and had a good message for children and adults.

The Digital Download Revolution

In this technological world that we live in there can be no doubting of the significance played by the digital download. As a vehicle for providing entertainment, the digital download has seen a meteoric rise in popularity and has shown to be versatile in it's many forms.

Nowadays, anybody with an internet connection can download all of their favourite music online for a fraction of the cost of a music cd at a local music store. Thus allowing them to record their all time favourite songs onto CD-R or CD-RW (CD-Recordable or CD-Re-Writable) without the need to skip any unwanted tracks during playback.

People can also download their favourite music videos onto disc and replay them over and over again at their leisure.

Maybe your in the type of job where a definite finishing time cannot always be adhered to, resulting in yet another missed TV show. No need to worry or panic there either. All your top TV programmes can be downloaded online, so there's never any need to miss out again. You may be a big fan of 'Friends' or 'Frazier' or perhaps you'd like to see all of your favourite comedy clips again, thereby providing you with that much needed release from the pressures of modern life.

Whether you enjoy watching comedy, horror, soaps, sitcoms or films you can be rest assured that it is only a mouse click away online within the digital world that we live in.

There may be occasions when you are to late to get down to your local video store before closing time...no problem, just download whatever your after online. It's so convenient ! (though may not replace the 1:1 interaction you have with the good looking guy or girl down at the Local Video Store).

Unexpected friends may turn up at your house late one evening; there's nothing much on television and your dvd collection has little to offer; what do you do ? You could always choose a download or two with your friends; be it a Movie, TV Show, Music Video, Music Or Games. The choice is yours.

BMETs Now Need More Education

Biomedical equipment technicians or BMETs represent an expanding group of technically trained personnel whose main responsibility is the maintaining and repairing equipment that deals with medical imaging such as x-ray, CT scanners, ultrasound, MRI, laser technology and so on. The job outlook for BMETs seems to be improving as quickly as newmedical imaging equipment} is coming out.

The need for BMETs is growing. The increase is due to the growth in new equipment used for medical imaging and technologies that require BMET expertise, and, by the need for revenue by institutions that have medical imaging equipment. As institutions like hospitals recognize that downtime on a piece of medical imaging equipment affects revenue generation, there is pressure to add BMETs to hospitals to ensure that every piece of medical imaging equipment is maintained in working order so that costly service contracts are used as minimally as they can be. The U.S. Department of Labor and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Imaging (AAMI) think that the number of jobs available as a BMET in the US will increase 24 percent to 31 percent up through the year 2010.

Not that long ago, BMETs were trained on the job. But, as equipment for medical imaging knowledge has advanced, so has the need for consistent, quality training. Now, most BMETs have obtained an Associates degree in medical imaging technology, electronics or an engineering-related field. Recently an experiment by the AAMI discovered that 62% of all BMETs journeyed on to voluntarily become certified by the International Commission on Accreditation. ICC Certification for BMETs is a formal recognition by the International Certification Commission for Clinical Engineering and Biomedical Technology (ICC) that candidates have shown excellence in theoretical as well as knowledge of the principles of biomedical technology.

The BMET job description keeps evolving and, as it changes, the educational requirements have started to increase also. The BMET profession has started to walk the trail of lots of other professions both in and out of the medical field where increasingly more schooling is required to serve in a job and/or excel inside a job category.

BMETs say that those who employ them are starting to make one have bachelors degrees for advancement to a higher rank or in some situations simply to be a BMET inside some institutions. While this requirement might limit the job options for few BMETs serving right now, the great news is that increased educational requirements creates the chance for greater salaries. Studies have determinedshown|found out} that entrance salaries for BMETs are from $20,000-$30,000. However, higher positions can command salaries as good as $80,000. The future appears bright for future salary growth in this field.

Honolulu's Varsity Theatre Closes Today After 68 Years

The Varsity Theatre is located at the corner of University Avenue and Coyne Street near the University of Hawaii (UH) campus. It opened in 1939 and is a one of the few reminders of an era that has passed.

The land parcel is 1.7 acres in size and owned by Kamehameha Schools, a charitable trust for children of Hawaiian ancestry. Kamehameha Schools has not disclosed what they intend to do with the property.

As a student at UH in the 1980's I used to watch movies at the Varsity Theatre periodically. It was within walking distance from campus housing and across the street from Buzz's Steak House, where I worked as a waiter.

Last night the TV news mentioned the closing of the Varsity Theatre with a brief history. Originally it was one large theatre and at one point it was converted into a twin. I thought it was interesting that Consolidated Theatres, operators of the theatre, only recalled that the conversion took place "sometime in the '80's. I do recall going to the theatre prior to the conversion, then it was closed for a short period, perhaps a week or two and reopened as a twin theatre. My recollection is that the conversion took place sometime between 1983-1985.

If you're on Oahu, consider catching a movie at the Varsity Theatre tonight. Checkout the neon lighted sign out front and old projectors on display in the lobby.

Last night we went to the Varsity and watched "Away from Her," a movie about a woman losing her mind to alzheimer's, and the problems she and her husband faced. It was different and interesting.

The Varsity Theatre is located in Moili'ili, a Honolulu neighborhood.

Zen Video Downloads

Soon after I began searching for Zen videos, I realized that there are really no sites out there that were actually dedicated to providing us Zen download lovers, with movies, videos, and music to download. So I decided to scour the internet in search of reliable Zen movie download sites. Well, my search has now finally been completed, and the results are quite disappointing. You see, there are two types of sites out there to download Zen media; I'll speak about these briefly.

Zen Movie Download Site 1 - Pay Per Download

Now, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this can be very costly, and there are just not that many good Zen downloads available from these sites. If you are thinking about downloading Zen videos, or Zen movies than this type of site is out of the question. However, if you are just going to download a couple of cool MP3's that you heard on the radio, than this type of Zen download site would be a good choice.

Zen Video Download Site 2 - Unlimited Downloads

That's right, for a very reasonable price, you can download unlimited Zen movies, music, and videos. This is by far the best type of site to download Zen Vision movies or videos. The price is very reasonable usually around $35 and you get unlimited downloads, forever. No monthly fees, no pay per download, nothing. Once you sign up, you can get started immediately downloading Zen videos. You can continue to do this for the life of your Zen, without any more fees. Download as much as you want, whenever you want. There are over 2 million users of these sites and approximately 90 million files to choose from. You are sure to find all of the Zen downloads you ever wanted here.

Earlier I mentioned that only a select few Zen download sites are actually worth it. So I guess you're asking... "Where do I go to get the unlimited downloads!?" Well, why I didn't find many sites out there, this is the one that saved me from the greedy pay per download sites.

"Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End" Continues the Saga in Excellent Fashion, Savvy Mate?

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End – 4 Stars (Excellent)

What a relief! Like many of my fellow reviewers, I held my breath after "Dead Man's Chest" hoping installment three "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" would not be left in the chest with Davy Jones' disgusting, slimy beating heart.

Three could have gone in the dumper with the average performance of Priates two, but thankfully "At World's End" gets an excellent rating like the first Pirates' presentation "The Curse of the Black Pearl".

Dead Man's Chest got mixed reviews nationally as many reviewers could not tolerate a plot that was too convoluted to follow. Trust me when I say that At World's End was no better in that regard, but was far and away better as important story lines returned. Here are some:

1) The romance between Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) resumed. Just looking at Keira Knightly in her finest can take your mind off of the troublesome story line. The relationship between the two was all but destroyed in "Dead Man's Chest".

2) Jack is back! The Curse of the Black Pearl had Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) front and center with all action revolving around him. Dead Man's Chest dimmed the spotlight on Captain Jack and eventually had him "killed" off at the end. At World's End brings Captain Jack Sparrow back front and center, where he should be as the focal point of this saga.

Pirates of the Caribbean begins and ends with Jack Sparrow, and if he is given a lesser role the story suffers.

3) The over-the-top sight gags in Dead Man's Chest (the sword fight in the giant wheel which went on far too long and the hanging baskets between the cliffs) put too much focus on production gimmicks rather than the characters. People make the story of Pirates, not gimmicks.

At World's End has swordfights aboard ship and cannons blowing ships apart, right on, this is a pirate story for cripes sake, not some ballet production on a ferris wheel.

Give someone credit for letting writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio tell the story without marching orders. I believe these two writers were pushed into throwing anything together to satisfy the immediate demand for a sequel that would dovetail into another sequel. Gore Verbinski directed all three movies.

Given how convoluted the story line is, here is the best synopsis of At World's End by J. Curcio (it certainly helps if you have seen the first two Pirate films):

"After Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) rescue Captain Jack Sparrow from the land of the dead (Davy Jones' locker), they must face their foes, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander). Beckett, with control of Jones' heart, forms a dark alliance with Davy Jones in order to rule the seas and wipe out the last of the Pirates.

"Now, Jack, Barbossa, Will, Elizabeth, Tia Delma and crew must call the Pirate Lords from the four corners of the globe to a gathering to figure out how to release the goddess Calypso, Davy Jones' former lover, so she can come to their aid. Once Calypso is free, all of the Pirate Lords will stand together in their fight for freedom against Beckett, Jones, Norrington, the Flying Dutchman, and the entire East India Trading Company."

During the battle, Will proposes to Elizabeth who insists that Barbossa marry them immediately. When Davy Jones mortally wounds Will aboard the Dutchman, Jack places the sabre in Will's hand and helps him stab Davy Jones' heart in the Dead Man's Chest, thus killing Jones and making Will the Flying Dutchman's captain.

The crew cuts out Will's heart and places it in the Dead Man's Chest. Jack and Elizabeth escape before the ship is pulled into the whirlpool, but it quickly resurfaces with Will at the helm. Will captains the Flying Dutchman and Jack Sparrow captains the Black Pearl as they destroy Lord Cutler Beckett's ship, killing Beckett and causing his armada to retreat.

Although Will has been saved and the Dutchman crew has regained its humanity, Will must spend the next 10 years at sea ferrying souls to the next world. Will and Elizabeth spend one day together on an island to consummate their marriage, and Will entrusts Elizabeth with the Dead Man's Chest containing his heart.

The rest is simply too good to give away here. Do not make the mistake of leaving when the credits begin to roll as there is a bonus scene at the end of the credits that is critical to understanding where the movie is headed next.

There are too many secret alliances, turncoats, double-crosses and self-centered activities going on to detail them in this review. Suffice to saw that the action happens so quickly that the plot does become convoluted.

There was in fact an actual council of pirates at one time in history.

The 9 Pirate Lords portrayed in the film are:

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow: Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Sea.

Geoffrey Rush as Hector Barbossa: Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea.

Chow Yun-Fat as Captain Sao Feng: Pirate Lord of the South China Sea.

Takayo Fischer as Mistress Ching: Pirate Lady of the Pacific Ocean.

Hakim-Kae Kazim as Gentleman Jocard: Pirate Lord of the Atlantic Ocean.

Marcel Iures as Capitaine Chevalle: Pirate Lord of the Mediterranean Sea.

Ghassan Massoud as Ammand the Corsair: Pirate Lord of the Black Sea.

Marshall Manesh as Sri Sumbhajee: Pirate Lord of the Indian Ocean.

Sergio Calderon as Captain Villanueva: Pirate Lord of the Adriatic Sea.

The scenery is really outstanding in At World's End; some of the scenes were filmed during the filming of Dead Man's Chest so locations would not have to be revisited.

Keith Richards, who had been courted to appear in earlier Pirate films, agreed to appear as Jack Sparrow's father and keeper of the Pirate Code in At World's End.

When the Pirate's Code is brought out to settle a dispute, Barbossa refers to the code created by "Morgan and Bartholomew".

This is a reference to famous pirates Henry Morgan and Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts. Morgan was famous for sacking several impenetrable treasure towns, including Portobello, the Fort Knox of its day.

Black Bart was simply brutal without any conscience whatsoever, he killed and pillaged at will and was one of the pirates to develop a code of honor which his crew followed upon pain of death.

These are my favorite lines in the movie:

Will Turner: No cause is lost if but one fool is left to fight for it.

Barbossa: Dying is the day worth living for.

Barbossa: All men are drawn to the sea perilous though it may be.

Will Turner (when he gives Elizabeth the Dead Man's Chest with his beating heart in it): It was always yours . . . Will you keep it safe? (How is that for a romantic line, ladies?)

Cabin Boy: Yo ho, haul together, hoist the colors high. Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die!

Among the locations in At World's End were the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the dunes in Guadalupe (CA), Niagara Falls in New York, ocean battle scenes were located near Palmdale (CA) and sea sequences in Rancho Palos Verdes (CA).

At World's End runs 2 hours 47 minutes, 15 minutes longer than Dead Man's Chest and 30 minutes longer than Spider Man 3.

Despite its length, At World's End had the best Memorial Day Weekend opening ever, hauling in $142 million, and was second only to Spider Man 3's best opening weekend ever at $151 million. When you add in the international numbers, At World's End hauled in $332 million for the weekend.

At World's End rang up the most valuable haul among any pirate booty ever.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley

Want To Watch Movies On Your Psp

The Sony PSP was originally developed for playing cutting edge video games. This is what the PSP can do best. It has got superb display and sound quality and a media called UMD (Universal Media Disc) for mass storage. But besides playing games the developers had another cool application for the console in mind - Watching movies and video clips. The display of the PSP has the perfect wide-screen format to display current movies in their full wide-screen format. It turns out that the resolution of the PSP display is able to render movies in a quality that you normally wouldn't expect from a small device like this.

If you have even been on a flight were people left and right of you just watch the board movie you know how it is if you take you PSP and watch your favorite Star Trek episode. You know how good it feels to get all these envious looks. Some people may pretend they are not watching - others will openly ask you: 'Hey, I didn't know you could watch movies like that with a PSP - I bought this for my son but I thought it was just for video games.' So many times I have heard this or a similar statement. In general people are surprised by the quality of the image displayed by the PSP. If you hold the PSP in your hand you get a sufficient details level to enjoy an entire movie. There are two ways to watch movies on your PSP: One is to buy movies on UMDs. These are available in most electronic shops where they sell PSP games. The discs are even smaller than the old mini-CDs that the record industry tried to establish. However, you cannot buy all movies on UMD. Especially TV-series are not usually found on UMDs.

Also, if you already have your favorite movies at home on a DVD you don't want to buy them again. Especially since the price of a UMD can be even higher than the DVD. The second option that is very trendy right now is to download PSP movies from the net or convert your existing DVDs and transfer the movie to the PSP. Unfortunately UMDs are not writable so the only place where you can store a movie on a PSP is the memory stick. The memory stick was designed to hold saved games, but Sony quickly realized that people wanted to put all kinds of things on the PSP like music and videos. So now memory sticks with 1GB or more are easily available and affordable. For watching movie you should have a memory stick of at least 1GB. Anything smaller will not give you're the full length or quality for a movie. Fortunately there is software available that automatically converts a DVD into the right format and transfers it to the DVD.

Bad Movie Review - Cool as Ice

If ever there was a film deserving of the infamy of being included in a bad movie night, it is Cool as Ice. This portrait of the early nineties was Vanilla Ice's first and only starring role, and it's about as good as you would expect. The nonsensical tagline to the film, "How do you melt a heart of stone? Just add Ice" pretty much says it all. Of course, it arrived 2 minutes after Vanilla's 15 minutes were over, so it has languished on video for years, and is now developing into something of a cult hit for those who can appreciate how funny awesomely bad movies can be.

One interesting note of trivia: This is the first film for cinematographer Janus Kaminski, whose later credits include no less than Schindler's List. Wow. I guess we really do all have to start somewhere. On the other hand, this film effectively killed the career of director David Kellog, who waited 10 years for the laughter to die down before directing the probably equally terrible Inspector Gadget. Whoops.

Vanilla plays Johnny, leader of a super tough posse of biker rappers, who apparently go from town to town performing in warehouses where the lights hang at about knee level. This particular gang is so tough, that they don't even need helmets. Though, come to think of it, massive head trauma might actually explain a lot.

On the way to their next gig, or wherever it is they're actually going, the gang encounters the horseback riding heart of stone that Vanilla desires to melt with his, um, Ice. Of course it belongs to an uptight overachiever named Kathy, who clearly needs a little Vanilla in her life to spice things up. (I made that one up myself). Ice starts by nearly killing her with her own horse, which is about the most extreme pickup technique I've ever seen, and strangely enough, seems to work. Sure, she acts all annoyed and storms off, but as Vanilla notes:"Yup. Yup. She likes me". It's probably because she's sick of her possessive, walking cliché of a boyfriend Rick.

One of the gang has some mechanical failure on the way into town, so the posse ends up stuck at a hippy-trippy bike repair shop, run by some crazy old couple. Thankfully, they run the shop out of their house, which is oh so conveniently down the street from the perpetually smoky residence of Kathy and her parents.

Oh, and did I mention that her parents are in the witness protection program, and on the run from two thugs who apparently have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for Kathy's dad to appear on TV so they can track him down and extort money from him? It seems papa Kathy – played by Michael Gross in what was undoubtedly not a highlight of his career — was a cop who saw too much and ratted out some of his colleagues, who vowed revenge. It's really no wonder this guy left the force; he is without a doubt the worst cop in the history of law enforcement. His every instinct is completely wrong. He doesn't get anything right, or figure anything out throughout the entire film. I guess that's what he gets for trying to suppress his daughter's desire to Iceify her stony heart.

But at least Vanilla is cool right? His wardrobe alone is truly something to behold, (I wonder where he keeps all those clothes on his bike?) along with his strangely erect hair, and I think any film that includes a dead-serious Vanilla Ice spewing such lines as "Yo Kat. Some words of wisdom: Drop that zero and get with the hero" at least deserves a look. And I haven't even mentioned the scene where Vanilla single-handedly kicks the crap out of no less than five armed jocks who make the foolish mistake of messing with his homeboy's bike. He is equally delicate in his melting of Kathy's heart, which basically consists of him walking around with no shirt on, talking about how "if you're living life for someone else, you ain't living", and generally acting creepy and/or criminal. This is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more priceless moments of unintentional hilarity to discover.

So why is this movie the pinnacle of bad-movie night cinema? It is because it is so clear that Vanilla and those involved in creating this film took it very, very seriously. This only accentuates further the laughable dialog, the ridiculous plot and the clichéd characters. Somehow the thought that someone actually thought this pile was going to be good makes it all the more unintentionally hilarious.

Finding this film on VHS on Ebay is about the only way you're going to be able to purchase it, though you can often still find it for rent at your local independent video store. Watch it with a group of friends while consuming your alcoholic beverage of choice.