20th century fox

Traditionally, the cyber-terrorist is the most impotent of movie villains. He poses a vast and terribly confusing threat to some combination of the security and/or financial stability of the world, until a quick-thinking, muscle-bound hero comes along to punch him in the face and save the day. The sad thing is that although computers and technology are more prevalent in everyones lives these days, its hard to say whether we, as a group, understand much more about how they work—leaving Hollywood plenty of storytelling leeway. While we don't know how this weeks revival of Bruce Williss signature franchise, Die Hard, will portray the brainy, Web-savvy villain, there is good news. Even if the story does come down to a fist-fight in the end, its nice to know that the bad guy in this movie actually knows how to throw a punch. Or a virtual one, anyway.—Gregory Mone

(Image Credit: 20th Century Fox)

HDTV sets are stunning—until you pop in a movie and are reminded that DVDs are not recorded in high definition. At 480 lines of resolution, they don’t even begin to take advantage of a 720- or 1,080-line display. That will change later this year when Toshiba introduces the first high-def disc player for the U.S. market. Toshiba’s breakthrough box, an HD DVD player that at press time was still unnamed, will cost about $1,000 (toshiba.com).