Shooter hits the target ...

[George Bellefontaine]

... for me anyway.
Two hours of non stop, hold onto your seat action. Mark Wahlberg is great as the hero from Stephen Hunter's novels. Shooter was based on Point Of Impact, which I did not read, so I don't know if it is the same, or close to the same storyline. I'd like to see more of Wahlberg's character. I found this to be similar to the Bourne films. Good looking transfer and wow audio. Glad I bought it.

:T

[wkhanna]

Thanks Gearge, I just put it my Netflix queue.

[DSGCobra]

This is a buy for me. Just waiting for the HD version. Why they can't release them the same time as the SD vesions is beyond me.

[Ovation]

This is a buy for me. Just waiting for the HD version. Why they can't release them the same time as the SD vesions is beyond me.

To get people to "double dip", of course. The are enough people who buy something right when it comes out and then re-buy the "upgrade" version to make this a viable strategy.

[Hdale85]

Is it coming out on HD or BD? I was looking for it the other day and could only find the dvd so now I see why.

[Bob]

Thanks George. I wouldn't have rented Shooter if I didn't see your reccomendation. Watched it last night and felt the same as you did.

[DSGCobra]

Is it coming out on HD or BD? I was looking for it the other day and could only find the dvd so now I see why.

It is coming out both on HD and BD on the 24th of July I believe maybe the week after?

[Pookie007]

Watched it last night. Both the wife and I liked it. The sound was good.

[David Meek]

FYI, here's our thread on it from the At The Movies forum.

[George Bellefontaine]

One thing I really loved about this film was the opening scenes. Absolutely breathtaking.

[John Holmes]

It is coming out both on HD and BD on the 24th of July I believe maybe the week after?

I'm waiting for the HD release too.

[audioqueso]

Just watched it last night. Good movie. It build up really good for the first 40 minutes, and then it was just great from there. I'm not too sure about the ending. It was a little weird and off for me. But overall, very good movie.

[WillyD]

I agree with ya George! Just got this yesterday from Netflix and watched it last night. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Kind of reminded me of Commando.

[wkhanna]

Thanks, George. Not a bad movie.
I appreciated not have the annoying, trite and de rigeur sex scene, and instead they created just the right amount ‘tension’ between the characters.

Danny Glover’s ‘accent was awful! Sometimes he was trying to sound like Miles Davis, and then others like almost himself. Very irritating. Also, it may just be a characteristic of my system since I do not yet have a center channel (90% of my listening is 2 ch music and so I concentrated mostly on that aspect of its performance) but I had a really hard time making out a lot of the dialogue. This particular movie seemed way worse in that aspect, and it may just have been the way it was made. My rear surrounds got a decent workout, though.

Overall, a great ‘guy’ flick, well done.

I give it a solid 3 ½ stars.

[George Bellefontaine]

I didn't notice a low dialogue problem, Bill, but I have a pretty good center speaker in my setup. But perhaps it is one of those that would be best played with a center channel.

Re; Glover. Yeah, I agree.

[wkhanna]

Yeah.......and I did have the volume lower than usual since my wife was asleep when I watched it. I could have used that dynamic compression thingy that is on my Rotel RSP-1066, but the dynamics is what our sound systems are all about! Right!?!?!?!

I should get a center into my system asap, but since I built my mains with the help of the fine people over at our site's DIY forum, I now plan on making an even better set of mains for my precious music! Oh well, soon enough, I hope.

[Ovation]

I just watched this film. Quite entertaining and perhaps a candidate for the collection. However, I too found the dialogue, in a few spots, a bit muffled (and I have a centre channel speaker that I've always been more than satisfied with). Glover's "accent" was annoying (looked--and sounded--like he had new false teeth), but he wasn't in the movie enough for it to matter.

I watched it with a borrowed projector from my wife's office (a 4 year old LCD 4:3 business projector--uncalibrated save for a few minor "eyeball" tweaks) and while the PQ was less than stellar (and not as good as my SD CRT TV for colour and black levels), I enjoyed the big screen effect (on a 65 inch diagonal in 16:9 mode--not huge by FP standards, but a significant increase over the 29 inch widescreen image my TV would have given me). I'm "auditioning" one of my finalists for a projector tomorrow. I presume it will be better than the one I used tonight.

[George Bellefontaine]

I'm "auditioning" one of my finalists for a projector tomorrow. I presume it will be better than the one I used tonight.

The PQ on my PJ ( Yamaha LPX510 720p ) for Shooter was pretty good, but the film does have a reddish tone overall, so it may not have been the borrowed projector you had, though I wouldn't expect much from a business PJ.
Good luck in choosing a new projector.

[Ovation]

I just spent about an hour "auditioning" the Sony. I was in a light controlled room and was left to my own devices (the sales guy installed the projector and handed over the remote, left the room and told me to call him when I needed him--not the kind of treatment one usually gets in a store these days).

The projector itself seemed well-built. I ran through a series of DVDs I'd brought along (I have a staple of discs I use to test for different things--colour, black and white, fast movement, lesser quality transfers, 4:3 mode). The projector was hooked up to a Sony Blu-Ray disc player (the first one they released) via HDMI. I did not tweak the image (except to select "Cinema" mode--I did not have my copy of DVE on hand and I did not have time to do major tweaking. I also think that if a display looks relatively good with one of the presets (like "Cinema"), it will look better once I have time to use DVE).

Impressions (all from out of the box settings, with Cinema mode selected, 11 feet from a 92 inch diagonal image--roughly proportional to distance/size I would use in my room, though my setup will be smaller [and, presumably, a bit brighter]):

Good Night and Good Luck looked very good. Unlike some reviewers, I did not notice any colour issues (no pink or green tinting, for example). The movie looked as good as it has on any display I've seen it (and I've looked at SXRD RPTVs, plasmas, LCD flat panel and DLP RPTV and front projectors with this disc).

Serenity also looked very good. Space scenes were black enough for me (I know LCD will never satisfy the "pure black" aficionados, but it was still very good). No hint of motion blur (not that I've ever seen it on an LCD front projector--even the four year old business PJ from my wife's office). Colours looked good. Shadow detail was much better than the business projectors I've had on hand.

Cars looked fantastic. Almost HD-like. Colours were great. No complaints there.

Lawrence of Arabia--not great. Appeared more VHS like than HD like. My release is a two disc edition that came in a case that resembles a hardcover book. It is not the first DVD release (I believe that one was not anamorphic and mine is) but there have been more recent ones. It's always looked good on my TV (but the image on my TV is a 29 inch widescreen 16:9, so flaws would be far harder to detect). It was not unwatchable, by any means, but it was not a showcase disc. I do not know if the player or the PJ had difficulty making it look better, but I was disappointed a bit. The BenQ W500's HQV REON processing might do a better job, but I can't seem to find one to try it out.

Guilty by Suspicion--unfortunately only available in 4:3 pan and scan. I use this film in a class I teach--otherwise I would not have purchased it. The PJ did not show any "bowing" of the image with this film (unlike some RPTVs I've tried with this and other 4:3 films) but, like Lawrence of Arabia, the PQ was not great.

On the subject of SDE--with the screen size and distance I was using, it could be seen on some bright scenes, but only if I looked for it. It was more apparent on the two films with a poorer PQ. It was also a bit present (though less so) on the black and white Good Night and... On Cars I had to stand about 6 feet or fewer from the screen to notice SDE to an unacceptable level. With Serenity, it was about 8-9 feet where SDE became bothersome.

Overall impression--very nice. Lens shift was generous horizontally (which is important to me--vertically it is quite flexible as well but that has less importance in my particular case). I've seen the Panasonic AX100 as well and the Sony is more impressive to me (except in light output, but in my room, that's not really an issue) and the Sony's retail is about 55% of the Panasonic's retail on this side of the border. So the Panny is right out owing to budget.

If only the W500 were readily available for the same kind of viewing I did with the Sony. If the Sony MSRP was the same (adjusting for the exchange rate) as it is in the States, I might have simply purchased the machine today. But the BenQ is 400$ less at MSRP and because of that, I'm still hesitant. The Z5 is even more expensive than the Sony (I've seen it for less, but that was a few months ago and lately, it is not so inexpensive).

[Bmac]

I thought it was a good movie...

One of the best sniper films.

[Jack Gilvey]

Really enjoyed this one in HD last night from my Blockbuster queue. Cool story and breathtaking picture. I found myself preoccupied with Danny Glover's whistling new teeth, though (couldn't he wait on that?).

[Marzen]

Funniest movie I've seen since Syriana!
"We support our troops...{even when they're controlled by a shadow government and 'Big Oil'}.
Yes, it's literally a laugh a minute with all the left wing propaganda stuffed into this flick. Perhaps George Soros of MoveOn.org is is looking to become the next George Lucas of fantasy films.
Anyway...big-badda-booms, snipers, mountain boy hero, intelligent & unmotivated FBI agent turns genius.
Favorite line: "...too late, they killed my dog..."
I loved it. Good video detail but center channel heavy sound track. Main left, right & surrounds were unusually sparse during the majority of the film on Blu Ray.
Also, for Panny AX100 users I think this film dispels the myth that the AX100 can't render dark detail in brightly lit scenes as in the snowy mountain top. I use a Sony PS3 and the pj set for RGB full/expanded color decoding via HDMI.
(and now to watch Payback (Directors Cut) with Mel Gibson, another left coast conspiracy nut).

[Race Car Driver]

I picked this up on BR this past week at Best Buy (2 for $25) and really enjoyed it! I saw it once before on DVD with a bunch of friends, but getting a chance to sit down and watch it alone in BR was real enjoyable. The 2 hours moved by very quick and Kate Mara... OMG. I think she is my new favorite.

[David Meek]

Oooh, a babe with a shot-gun. Be still my beating heart. . . :amen: