At first glance the two official DVD releases of Hatch-chan the blogging cat seem little more than a shrewd cash-grab by two pet owners and aspiring internet-preneurs. But repeated viewings of these cultural curiosities reveal a nothing short of a cinematic meisterwerk and damning condemnation of our society’s slide into the abyss of rampant consumerism.

And I should know, because I’m a film school graduate. So there.

Volume 1 of Hatch-chan, The Movie — IMDb reference unavailable, for some reason — Hatch-chan assumes the role of rampant consumer, flying over the Tokyo skyline while poised to squeeze out a giant cat turd on one of the world’s most populous cities… Talk about a carbon footprint!

As the film progresses we see Hatch-chan deconstruct the very notion of consumerism itself. As our feline protagonist endures an endless barrage of ribbon and tape the message is clear: The shiny gift wrapping that we tear through reveals nought but an empty, vapid experience within. Or to put it another way: Why spend money on a gift when they’re just going to play with the box?

In Hatch-chan 2, Electric Boogaloo — I don’t read Japanese but I assume that’s the title — our fallen hero shows us firsthand the trappings of celebrity, wandering the echoey halls of his cardboard cat castle alone.

The filmmakers’ knowledge of cinema history is also on display here, with a clever nod to the famous finale of Orson Welles’ Lady from Shanghai. And with a simple addition of a fish-eye lens the grotesque dystopia of Hatch-chan’s high-rise home becomes all too apparent, and almost too much to bare.

At roughly the equivalent of $20 CAD each you might at first blush think that of the Hatch’chan films as frivolous kitsch or possibly even a blatant rip-off; hopefully I have demonstrated that this is anything but the case.

Sooo… Anyone want to buy these off of me?

So last night I watched The Interpreter, a pretty passable thriller with a really, really bad ending. I can almost imagine some asshat movie executive saying, “Hmm… How to best wrap up a story about corruption and international politics? I know… With an out-of-nowhere love story!”

As soon as the end credits started rolling I made my way back to the main DVD menu and quick as I could selected the alternate ending—which wasn’t exactly mind-blowingly different but was at least consistent with the rest of the film.

Hollywood has an unfortunate history of bad tack-on endings for otherwise classic films—Taxi Driver and Blade Runner are two that spring immediately to mind—and after watching The Interpreter I’m left wondering if the future of DVD movie releases will see entirely different endings for different market segments, so that any flick could potentially be a romance, thriller, horror or comedy depending on what gets you off, so to speak.

… Kind of takes that whole “customer is always right” thing a bit too far, dont’cha think?

What a difference a year and half makes!

Two Aprils ago I was singing the praises of my new region-free Philips DVD player. This week it’s been replaced by the LG LRA-536 pictured above. Like the Philips player it has an easy region-free hack that can be executed from the remote; unlike the Philips it’s DivX certified—oh, and it also records to DVD.

Yeah, you heard me… With this DVD Recorder you can burn broadcast TV straight to disc. I’d been leery of this process even with my Rogers PVR, because recording a show in this way takes the signal from digital to analog to digital again. But truth told the quality is not all that bad, certainly better than (blech) VHS! Add the low cost of recording on 39¢ discs and the ability to make multiple identical copies on your ‘puter, and you start to see why these things are becoming so popular!

Okay, this is getting a bit ridiculous… Last night my financial advisor sponsored a screening of A Decent Factory, a film about working conditions at a Chinese Supplier to Nokia. The event was held at the NOW Magazine Lounge, which—who knew?—has a nice little screening room in the back, easily able to accommodate the twenty or so folks who showed up. Only problem was, the DVD was from Finland, and nobody could get it to play.

Enter yours truly, who managed to get a video signal from a Windows laptop to the big screen, without sound. Thankfully, the laptop had loud enough speakers that the screening could go ahead as planned.

Remember the dweeb in Grade 4 who would spend recess threading the film projector for Teacher? I’ve become that guy!

Don’t get me wrong — I think the DVD format is awesome. I just hate the stupid region encoding imposed by big media companies on their DVD releases. I mean, God forbid I should want to broaden my tastes with something produced on another continent!

Fortunately a little research hipped me to this Philips DVD727, a cheap home player with very advanced features and the ability to hack the region hobbling on any DVD. How cheap is it, you ask? Well, I picked one up at Wal-Mart yesterday for seventy-nine bucks!