The Fall is an absolutely spectacular film that feels like a cross between Big Fish and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Starring a virtually unknown, but well-acted cast, The Fall owes much of its credit to director Tarsem Singh (The Cell). The Fall is available for pre-order now, and will be released on September 9, 2008.

In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman (Pace) begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm (Untaru), a fantastical story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances.

Directed by: Tarsem Singh
Starring: Catinca Untaru as Alexandria, Justine Waddell as Nurse Evelyn / Sister Evelyn, Lee Pace as Roy Walker / Blue Bandit

Buy:
The Fall (2008) on DVD at Amazon.com
The Fall (2008) on Blu-ray at Amazon.com
The Fall (2008) on DVD at Amazon.co.uk

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Apple is having a special event on September 9, 2008 where they are expected to reveal new iPod models. The iPod nano is expected to make a return to its tall and narrow form factor from previous generations.

We’ll have to wait and see. The event is scheduled for 10AM on September 9, 2008 in San Francisco.

I’m going to share some thoughts, and comparisons between two different web hosts that I have experience with — GoDaddy and ICDSoft. Both have their pro’s and con’s, and depending on your needs, one may be better for you than the other.

ICDSoft
First, there is ICDSoft which has a nice set of features in a just a couple different packages. Their basic package is the 1000MB Universal, and it will cost you $6/month (12-month contract) plus $5 for the domain registration if you don’t already have a registered domain. The 1000MB Universal plan includes the following notable features:

• 1GB online storage
• 20GB bandwidth per month
• 15 Free Subdomains
• 10 MySQL Databases
• 5 Parked Domains
• 15 FTP Sub Accounts
• Unlimited Number of E-mail Accounts
• SMTP, POP3, IMAP Servers
• Linux-based servers
• Online Control Panel
• PERL, PHP5, PHP4, Python, Ruby and TCL
• $5 Domain Registration
• Spam Protection
• 60-Day Money-Back Guarantee
• 24/7 Tech Support

ICDSoft’s 10,000MB Business plan which costs $10/month (12-month contract) offers the following upgrades to the Universal plan:

• 10GB online storage
• 200GB bandwidth per month
• 150 Free Subdomains
• 100 MySQL Databases
• 50 Parked Domains
• 150 FTP Sub Accounts

Once you choose your basic hosting plan ICDSoft offers incremental storage and bandwidth upgrades for nominal fees. The following services can be upgraded separately as needed: subdomains, ftp accounts, mailing lists, databases, additional traffic, and parked domains.

GoDaddy
Now, when it comes to GoDaddy, things get a little more complicated. The price of domain registration differs depending on which top-level domain you choose, and what, if any, sales are currently being offered, but on average, the price of domain registration is about $13 (min $2 to max $25).

GoDaddy’s Economy hosting package includes the following notable features for $4.08/month (12/month contract):

• 10GB online storage
• 300GB bandwidth per month
• 100 email accounts
• 10 MySQL Databases

GoDaddy’s Deluxe hosting package includes the following notable features for $6.64/month (12/month contract):

• 150GB online storage
• 1,500GB bandwidth per month
• 500 email accounts
• 25 MySQL Databases

GoDaddy’s Premium hosting package includes the following notable features for $14.24/month (12/month contract):

• 300GB online storage
• 3,000GB bandwidth per month
• 1,000 email accounts
• 50 MySQL Databases

As you can see, the feature sets offered by ICDSoft and GoDaddy are quite different. GoDaddy offers some impressive storage and bandwidth options, but a less impressive offering for email accounts and MySQL databases. GoDaddy also gives credits go for PPC advertising as well as touting free Google Webmaster Tools (which, of course, are free to anyone with any host and should not be advertised as a feature).

ICDSoft Pro’s
Extremely quick setup — from receipt of payment to ability to login and start hosting webpages, as little as 2 minutes.
Quick 24/7 support — received an answer to my inquiry in less than 5 minutes.
Extremely reliable — I haven’t experience any downtime, and when moving to a new server, downtime was minimal.
Convenient control center for hosting and email
Fast web serving

ICDSoft Con’s
Very few hosting options
Minimum of 12 months of hosting
Domain choices limited to .com, .net, .org, .us, .biz, .info

GoDaddy Pro’s
Wide variety of hosting options
Monthly hosting available
Plethora of top-level domain choices
Tools for lesser experienced users
Offers free hosting with domain purchase (but at the expense of ads)

GoDaddy Con’s
Not geared towards power users
Slower setup — from receipt of payment to ability to login and start hosting webpages, 2-3 hours.
Changes to .htaccess file and some other settings do not take effect for hours. This sort of thing should be immediate.
The GoDaddy website is a bit difficult to navigate.

Conclusion

My preference between the two hosts highlighted above is ICDSoft. I prefer ICDSoft’s “no-frills” approach to web hosting. They offer few features, but the features that are offered are very well supported. Like I said before, depending on your needs, you may find that GoDaddy suits you better than ICDSoft.

Visit each of their sites to decide for yourself.
GoDaddy.com
ICDSoft.com

NOTE: The above prices are current as of September 2, 2008, but may change without notice.

Here is the English version of the Transporter 3 trailer. I’m really looking forward to seeing this one.

Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Jason Statham, Francois Berléand, Robert Knepper

Release date: November 26, 2008

Red Digital Cinema, the company that is giving traditional 35mm motion picture cameras a run for their money, may give Nikon and Canon some worthy competition in the DSLR market. Considering that Red currently has a 25 megapixel sensor in their cameras, it wouldn’t be surprising for them to branch of into manufacturing high end still cameras. Check out the following quote from Jim Jannard in the Red forum. “Mysterium “Monstro” is a sensor program that pushes the envelope past anything on the horizon. It will go into Epic, and another camera aimed squarely at the DSLR market.”

The MSI Wind U90 will sport specs similar to pretty much every other 9-inch screen netbook out there. An 8.9-inch screen, 1024 x 600 resolution, Intel® Atom™ N270 Processor, Windows XP Home, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, built-in webcam, 10/100 ethernet, 802.11b / g Wireless Lan with Bluetooth, 4-in-1 card reader, VGA out, 3 USB ports, and a 3-cell battery (optional 6-cell). A release date is not yet known.

Apple has filed a patent titled “Gestures for touch sensitive input devices”. That in itself isn’t all that interesting, but the accompanying drawings appear to be some sort of tablet device. Make of it what you want.

Here is the second trailer for Max Payne. It’s a bit longer, so we get to see a little more of the storyline in this one. This is really looking good.

Coming together to solve a series of murders in New York City are a DEA agent (Mark Wahlberg) whose family was slain as part of a conspiracy and an assassin (Mila Kunis) out to avenge her sister’s death. The duo will be hunted by the police, the mob, and a ruthless corporation.

Directed by: John Moore (The Omen, Flight of the Phoenix, Behind Enemy Lines)

Starring:
Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Ludacris, Donal Logue

Release date: October 17, 2008

According to Dread Central, there is a possibility that the $47 million production of Outlander will be sent straight to video by The Weinstein Co. This may all be just a rumor, as some are saying that The Weinstein Co is obligated to give the Outlander movie at least a limited theatrical release. Despite all that, Amazon already has it listed with a November 18, 2008 release date. (Outlander at Amazon)

During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan (Jim Caviezel), a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking’s Iron Age weaponry.

Directed by: Howard McCain
Written by: Dirk Blackman & Howard McCain

Starring: James Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, Ron Perlman, John Hurt

Only two more weeks until the release of a film that I have been highly anticipating — Burn After Reading.

A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.

Directed by: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Lenny Venito

Release date: September 12, 2008
Rated: R

Here is a clip titled “Good Samaritan” that just cracked me up. If you want to see the full trailer, click here.