ans of the unskippable clutter clogging the front end of most commercial DVD releases received great news this week with the announcement that all major movie studios will begin releasing films in the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats later this year, allowing studios to pack even more commercials, trailers, multi-language legal disclaimers and FBI warnings onto their future releases.

The new formats were developed by a consortium of consumer-electronics giants in response to studio complaints that current DVD technology only allowed studios to force the purchasers of their DVDs to sit through about twenty minutes of unwanted content before getting to the main feature. HD-DVD will feature a 30GB capacity, enough for fifty trailers showing coming attractions, seven FBI warnings, twenty-seven commercials for other DVD releases and Pillsbury crescent rolls, and “The views and commentary reflected on this disc do not reflect…” disclaimers in forty-seven languages. The rival Blu-Ray format, developed by Sony, is expected to nearly double that content, leaving the actual main feature as a virtual afterthought printed on the biodegradable glue between disc layers.

“These new formats are a godsend for our industry,” explained Paramount Pictures head Sherry Lansing. “Last year we had to cut ten minutes out of Top Gun just so it would fit on the DVD between the trailers we wanted to include for our seventeen most exciting upcoming releases. This time next year, our biggest problem is going to be finding a way to make sure consumers aren’t napping through the two hours of product placements and trailers we’ll be able to fit before the movie. We’re already working on a feature that will crank up the television’s volume for the trailers, in such a way that you won’t be able to turn it back down.”

Other studios are said to be working on similar DVD technologies that would insert commercial breaks into DVD movies, add CGI product placements to films according to real-time sales figures, and one that would go so far as to turn on a consumer’s television at pre-programmed times and play time-sensitive advertisements from the DVD.

Though the movie studios are understandably excited about these technological advancements, consumer advocates question why consumers would shell out big bucks to replace their relatively new DVD players with an even more abusive technology. But Hollywood studios remain unconcerned.

“Well, they bought DVD players, didn’t they?” asks Twentieth Century Fox head Hutch Parker. “Damn did they buy DVD players. I mean, with VCRs, you could just fast-forward past all the crap at the beginning, or just never rewind the tape that far. People obviously prefer being made to watch this stuff, so we’re adding more. After all, adding commercials before the half-hour of trailers we show in the movie theaters sure hasn’t kept people from shelling out $10 at the movies, right?”

“They’ll buy them,” agreed Lansing. “We’re going to say the new Blu-Ray shit has twice the ignots or something, make something up. ‘High Definition,’ whatever that means. ‘Crystal-clear picture and bone-rattling sound,’ that sounds good, right? We’ll say they make the old DVDs we were hyping last week look like burnt turd, and those geeks will eat it up.”

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Dear commune:

What the hell is Damon Wayans doing on Delta's in-flight video? Did he bitch-slap the president and get some kind of harsh community service sentence or something? Damn.

Peace.

Rodney Shue
Belmont, LA


Dear Rodney:

That's not the in-flight video, Delta shows programming from E! on their flights now, which is more entertaining but less helpful when the fuselage rips open at 20,000 feet and everyone thinks the oxygen masks are treehouse telephones. Who Damon Wayans bitch-slapped to end up on the E! network is another question entirely. And for future reference, you can't bitchslap the president unless the president is a bitch, which won't happen until America gets over its backward prejudice against bitches. Right now it's only possible to dipshit slap the president, though as a progressive, forward-thinking organization, we here at the commune hope that the days of presidential bitch-slapping are not far off. Lastly, though we appreciate your stimulating questions, we must ask that you have the navigator or someone transcribe your letters for you in the future, because we understand about the control panel being bumpy and all, but you've still got the worst pilot's handwriting we've ever seen.

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for whatever it is you're complaining about. the commune is also not ignoring you. Nope, not ignoring you. Nope, nope. Chatter on all you want, we're not ignoring you. La la la la la.

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Christmas is just around the corner, and that can only mean one thing in the Umbrage household: wait a minute, do I even have a household? Does one guy living in a studio apartment with a picture of a potted plant count these days? Usually it seems implied that there are some kids and/or hamsters involved, but I don't know if that's part of the textbook definition. If I count, then some guy living out of a suitcase down at the Y isn't far off, and that's a pretty half-assed household if you ask me. There should be some kind of minimum standards.

Kids I most definitely do not have, and unless the Spirit of Christmas comes around and kicks my ass over it some day I'm not giving it high odds that will change. Why exactly is it that some starving hobo passing out in your entryway is considered a nuisance, yet a pack of bratty little ingrates dominating your whole life, barfing milk left and right and making you listen to Raffi is looked upon as a blessing? I think we've got our priorities in some kind of uncomfortable Twister position there.

The thing that gets me is the people who pretend that they like kids. Right. Just like I love being stung in the dick by a hornet. Nobody likes kids, not even other kids. Put two of them alone in a room together and you won't get ten minutes into a porno before one of them hits the other in the head with a toybox or the corner of a brick. Forget about not letting them see R-rated movies; the average kid kicks more ass than Steven Seagal. They just don't have the sound effects and guys back-flipping off the Hoover Dam to make it seem impressive.

Face the facts, kids are mean like the Viet Cong. If adults acted like that the whole world would be like Jerry Springer during sweeps week. The show, not the guy. You wouldn't be able to walk out in the rain without someone yelling that you'd peed your pants, and then out of nowhere somebody would pull your shorts down and rub some spaghetti in your hair. Yeah, what a wonderful world indeed. What a freakin' miracle of nature.

I was out on a date with a girl the other night and she told me she had babies, all I can say is thank God that window was open or I might not have gotten out of there in time. I found out from a friend later that I'd misheard her and she actually has rabies, got bit by a flying squirrel or something, so I kind of felt bad about flinging myself out of the restaurant like I did. I might give her a call to go out again some time, maybe in a couple weeks when the pills have had time to make sure she's not going to foam from the mouth on my upholstery or anything like that. She was nice, and it's not like she has kids anymore.

I want to meet the guy who suckered the world into thinking that having kids is a good idea. Probably the same guy who invented the diaper or Pokémon. All I'm saying is that if this guy holds a seminar, consider me there. If I could get just one tenth of that magic to rub off on me, within a week I'd have people paying me money to watch them kick themselves in the face. Granted, I hope I'd eventually come up with a better money-making scheme than that, since I'd probably get tired of flying all over the country to witness face-kickings and people getting blood on me and all that, but it would be a start. And it illustrated my point pretty well, I think.

So yeah, you can keep your "household," if that's what it comes down to. I'll console myself somehow as I recline on my spitup-free couch and sleep in until noon. And I hope you like Candyland, you poor bastards.

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