The Dark is Rising

Now I have seen some really bad films in my time. I used to sit through anything on BBC2 in the afternoon. Later, I would go and see films that friends wanted to go and see, which led me to see some prize turkeys.

But, with all this said, I try and believe that my film choosing ability is acceptable. I read Empire, I can make make basic connections between films, and I don't have any strange post modern ironic criteria jepordising my decisions.

So how in all that is cinematic did I manage to choose to go and see "The Dark is Rising"? This is without doubt the worst film I have seen in years. I chose to see it based on the fact that having missed Empire for the last couple of months I hadn't a clue what the other films would be like, and as this was a spur of the moment last chance for 25 years decsion, I hadn't had time to look into it and make an informed choice. Most of all though, I chose it because it had Christoper Ecclestone in it and he is an actor I put huge faith in: Doctor Who, Heroes, 28 Days later, Cracker, this man has a habit of choosing really fantastic parts in great dramas. And this was his next big project after leaving a succesful show.

Well that taught me. This was tripe, awful foul smelling tripe. And the worst bit was, Christopher Ecclestone was really awful as well, I mean really bad. But this was a film that took a whole load of good British actors who are still waiting for the call to do a Harry Potter film and spat them out. The acting was dialled in, the effects were half cut, the direction was sloppy, and the editing was really truly awful, and this is all meant to be based on a great kids novel.

Worst of all, I could have seen Stardust, which I had heard about on the Radio 4 film show, which was written by Neil Gaimen. It might also have been tosh, but at least it would have been pretensious tosh.

Bah!

Noooooooo! I bought Betamax again.

My parents bought a Sony Betamax video player. I have lived with the shame my entire life. Endless reiteration of the age old arguments: the better quality of the Beta tapes, the general relaibility and quality of the Sony recorders, didn't save us. One of the most traumatic days of my life, came at the start of a summer holiday. My mum drove me to the video store so that I could rent a load of holiday movies. When I went to the back of the store, where the Beta tapes were hidden, I found that they had been replaced by discount VHS tapes. The embarresment, the shame, the patronising looks from the staff, all these I had to contend with, and all because my parents hadn't thought their format choices through.

But VHS won the day, as did CD's and Sony actually helped to cement the DVD (one format only) revolution by including a player on the PS2. All was well.

A month ago I went into a Blockbuster in Hertfordshire and noticed they had both of the all new HD formats for rent. A few weeks later I bought a new TV when our old one sparked up and died. Once I watched a few hours of normal TV on the new telly, I decided that it was time to give it the format it needs to shine. As I already own an X-box 360 the only way I could afford to enjoy HD viewing pleasure was to buy an external HD drive it.

So, with my newfound HD-DVD player running I go back to Blockbuster to rent some movies to watch this half term, only to find they have stopped stocking HD-DVD's and now only stock Blue-ray. Arghhhhhhh! It's all happened again, to me, and this time it's my fault! I then took a look at the HD section of HMV and realised how many films are blue-ray only.

Now 24 hours later I have calmed down. I have come up with my list of reasons why it isn't so bad, and that I am not a technological outcast, destined to search garage sales and bargain bins for examples of the "dead" format I invested in. Here they are:

1) You couldn't play Beta on VHS. With HD-DVD I can still play them on DVD machines.

2)Nobody ever made a dual format tape recorder. There are dual format machines already available and in the years to come I can get one if Blue-ray wins the day.

3)The HD drive is still useful, I didd't have an upscaling DVD player before, so my old DVD's look better anyway.

But, the real thing that makes me happy, is that HD dvd and Blue-ray are BOTH Betamax. They just haven't sold enough PS3's or Xbox drives to get them into enough homes to make the formats truely viable. DVD only took hold because of the PS2, becasue until it came out they couldn't even settle on a universal encoding.

So I can watch this argument run, safe in the knowledge that we are probable all losers.

And deep down, I know that betamax was far better than VHS, it was all to do with.......