Just another WordPress site

Tag: films/movies

  • How Film Is Transferred to Video

    How Film Is Transferred to Video

    i dug this up since it covers the whole original aspect ratio vs. pan&scan thing covered the previous post…

    some damn good info and pretty much covers all one needs to know, though, as usual, i am not sure it adequetly explains the point of anamorphic video…

    in a nutshell, your tv only has a certain number of scan lines to display the image… and those scan lines cannot come anywhere close to matching the resolution of a frame of film…
    widescreen films on video have black bars at the top and bottom, taking up sometimes as much as half of your screen and thus half of those precious scan lines that weren’t enough to properly show film even when you were using all of them…
    now, you COULD ditch the bars and use all the scan lines, but, then you lose the shape of the image… in other words, you basically zoom in on the image, but then, of course, you either have to cut off the sides or distort the image, stretching it vertcally…
    hence widescreen tv’s and “anamorphic squeeze” buttons on standard tv’s… the proper shape is kept, with little to no scan lines wasted on nothing but black bars…

    meh, it might make more sense if you read it again after you read the article at the link… it is not the easiest thing to explain without examples…

  • the end of whining about “those black bars”?

    i doubt it…

    this article is much more optimistic than i am, though, i agree that a large part of the battle is educating the cinematically ignorant…

    Last year, something remarkable happened in the world of cinema. Blockbuster Video, the country’s dominant rental chain, announced that from that point on it officially preferred widescreen DVDs to pan-and-scan (also known as “full screen”). For those movie buffs who had been eagerly watching this battle, the news came as a shock. In the fight for the hearts and minds of viewers, widescreen and its film-geek adherents had won an unexpected and glorious victory. Just a few years earlier, Blockbuster had discouraged widescreen DVDs, on the grounds that customers confused by the letterbox format thought they were defective. Now, the chain was conceding what cinephiles had argued for years: that widescreen was the superior way to watch a movie at home, even if it left black bars at the top and bottom of your television screen.

    Anyone who scrounged for widescreen tapes during the VHS era will understand the historic nature of the announcement. Back then, widescreen tapes were tucked in obscure corners of the video store. When film buffs advanced the moral argument against pan-and-scan—that it butchered the filmmaker’s vision and cut out as much as half of the picture—they were met by a blank stare from store clerk and casual fan alike.

    the rest is here…
    How Widescreen Won – The way we watch movies at home has changed. What happened? By Bryan Curtis

    (it even mentions laserdiscs and Criterion, properly crediting the format and company with the initial victories in the original-aspect-ratio-vs.-“foolscreen” war…)

  • My LJ Feeds Link

    i would just like to call attention to this link, since i get a daily kick out
    of it…
    over there on the menu on the left of this page, under “Links”, is a link that
    says “My LJ Feeds”…
    this is part of the “Friends Page” features on LiveJournal…

    for those not familiar with the concept of feeds, it is a way to gather
    content from a site, without going there… this blog of mine has an atom xml
    feed, so, you could get my posts in your favorite “feed aggregator” (along
    side feeds from other sites), rather than stopping by to see if i’ve posted
    anything new or signing up for the email notification…
    at livejournal, people set up xml/rss/etc. feeds for various sites, or use
    feeds already offered and you can add those feeds to your lj friends page for
    a public online aggregator… there are hundreds of choices, everything from
    daily comics like garfield and dilbert, to news, weather, movie reviews, all
    sorts of stuff…
    you just have to see it to appreciate the sheer coolness of it…
    since i have few lj friends, i fill it up with these feeds and then i get
    stuff from sites i would not otherwise go to everyday, in one convenient
    trip… so, you can see the stuff i am interested in and, if you share those
    interests, it can make for a good daily visit…

    here are the feeds i have on there currently…

    some post several items a day, some once a day, some once a week or once a
    month, some post rarely, which makes it even handier to have it appear on my
    feeds page… and some may be broken, so, i am still waiting for them to post
    something…

    firstly, i get posts at “syn_promo”, where people publicize cool feeds they
    have found or have made…

    astronomy photo of the day

    ask yahoo
    answering trivia and imponderables, using yahoo

    blog of death
    sort of a big, far-reaching obits page

    boingboing blog

    coming soon
    a movie news site

    dictionary.com’s word of the day

    engadget
    gadget news, reviews, etc.

    filmadd
    news of movies added to the Internet Archive

    filmtease
    an unusual movie trailer review site

    found magazine’s find of the week
    unusual objects people find

    aaron swartz’s googleblog
    a blog about google

    googleblog
    the official blog of google.com

    penniphile
    the writings of penn jillette, mostly new entries to “road penn”

    word spy
    dealing with new terms, slang, etc. as they enter the language

    quote of the day
    not as good as refdesk.com’s quotes of the day, but, they have more than one
    per day, so it sort of balances out

    snopesrecentadd
    one of my favorites, posting urban legends as they are added to snopes.com

    thinkgeek
    various merchandise of interest to those involved in modern technology

    and wordsmith’s word of the day

    oh, and almost forgot, i also get “ljnifty” where people post various fun
    things you can do with livejournal, such as adding feeds to your friends
    page…

    and i add cool new ones as i find them… and occasionally remove the ones
    that get annoying or boring…

    anyway, if that sounds interesting to you, as i said, the link is on the menu
    on the left side of this page… “My LJ Feeds”
    i stop by at least once a day and it is a pretty good collection at this
    point, after some tweaking…

    now if only i could get scifi.com’s “today in sci-fi history” on there, which
    is almost always interesting to sci-fi buffs… (there is a link to this, as
    well, over there on the left…)
    i would add the fark.com feed, but, it does not have comments links and the
    comments threads are at least half the fun of fark…

    btw, geez, it seems today is list day on my blog…
    admittedly, i am trying to come up with posts to make so i can knock that huge
    “april pics” post off the front page…

  • 250 or so movies we have seen

    that is, the movies we have seen since we entered the world of home theater
    (or, RE-entered, in my case)…
    this is another list i was mentioning to someone the other day, so, wanted to
    post…

    ok, so, the story is something like this…

    may 25th, 2002, we got a free dvd player… at this time, our tv was mainly
    only used for video games and nasatv during shuttle missions, we had a vcr but
    didn’t use it for much…
    coincidentally, this is also the day we got our first dreameye, so, the dvd
    player was ignored…

    then, some time in november 2002, someone loaned us three dvd’s (reservoir
    dogs, a beautiful mind, zoolander)… we decided to see what all the fuss was
    about…
    eventually, we bought a couple of our own (fight club, the matrix, wargames,
    which is also the first commentary we listened to), later on, we got a
    “ht-in-a-box”, then in june of 2003, we started seriously building a home
    theater…

    just on a whim, back in the first days of all this, we started actually
    jotting down each movie we watched… we have continued to add to this list,
    every movie we watch, then, at some point, we started dating each entry…
    this is all kept in a database that we each have a copy of on our psion…

    so, here is the list… there are about 250, a little less or a lot less,
    depending on how you choose to count them (different versions of the same
    movie, etc.)…

    and, btw, i will refrain from adding other comments in the database this list
    came from, such as what we thought of the movie, why we saw wanted to see it,
    what format and aspect ratio it was in, which ones we own, etc…. you will
    also occasionally see one labelled [him] or [her], which means we did not
    watch it together… and there are one or two marked with the name of a movie
    theater in brackets, which means we actually went out to see it…

    the dated entries come first and the rest are alphabetically listed…

    2004.05.06 – caddyshack
    2004.05.06 – vacation
    2004.03.30 – AI
    2004.03.29 – the big lebowski
    2004.03.29 – mixed nuts
    2004.03.26 – better off dead…
    2004.02.22 – hard eight (aka Sydney)
    2004.02.15 – lost in translation
    2004.02.15 – love liza
    2004.02.09 – raising arizona
    2004.02.09 – star trek 7 – generations
    2004.02.09 – time after time
    2004.02.08 – back to the future
    2004.02.08 – back to the future 2
    2004.02.08 – back to the future 3
    2004.02.06 – jerry macguire [her]
    2004.02.05 – a few good men
    2004.02.05 – rush
    2004.02.05 – true romance
    2004.02.01 – biloxi blues
    2004.01.25 – fargo
    2004.01.25 – pirates of silicon valley
    2004.01.20 – arthur
    2004.01.20 – fletch
    2004.01.11 – hook
    2004.01.08 – the apostle
    2004.01.06 – seven
    2004.01.05 – the life of david gale
    2004.01.04 – alien 3
    2003.12.27 – the american president
    2003.12.25 – a christmas story
    2003.12.23 – it’s a wonderful life
    2003.12.21 – lord of the rings 2 – the two towers
    2003.12.20 – star trek 10 – nemesis
    2003.12.17 – braveheart
    2003.12.16 – 28 days later
    2003.12.16 – frequency
    2003.12.14 – scrooged
    2003.11.13 – conspiracy theory
    2003.11.09 – alien – director’s cut [amc grand, dallas, theater 8]
    2003.11.08 – truman show
    2003.11.05 – shanghai knights
    2003.11.02 – ed wood
    2003.11.01 – matrix reloaded
    2003.10.18 – spaceship
    2003.10.16 – galaxy quest
    2003.10.16 – trekkies
    2003.10.13 – Magnolia
    2003.10.11 – The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
    2003.10.10 – spawn – director’s cut
    2003.10.05 – book of shadows – blair witch 2
    2003.10.04 – addams family
    2003.09.28 – shock treatment
    2003.09.27 – event horizon
    2003.09.23 – city of lost children
    2003.09.12 – the jerk
    2003.09.11 – blair witch project
    2003.09.11 – stargate – director’s cut
    2003.09.10 – 12 monkeys
    2003.09.10 – outland
    2003.09.10 – psycho
    2003.09.08 – from dusk til dawn
    2003.09.07 – leviathan
    2001: a space odyssey
    2010
    9/11
    the abyss – special edition
    Addams Family Values
    Akira
    alien
    aliens – director’s cut
    almost famous
    almost famous – untitled director’s cut
    Amelie
    american beauty
    apollo 13
    as good as it gets
    backdraft
    basketball diaries
    batman
    beauty and the beast
    being john malkovich
    the black hole
    blade runner – “director’s cut”
    boogie nights
    boyz in the hood
    brazil
    a bronx tale
    buckaroo banzai
    a bug’s life
    the cell
    Chicago
    chicken run
    Citizen Kane
    close encounters of the third kind
    close encounters of the third kind, collector’s edition
    close encounters of the third kind, special edition
    clueless
    contact
    dances with wolves
    Dark City
    the dark crystal
    Darkman
    the doors
    dr. strangelove
    dune
    e.t. – the extra terrestrial
    escape from new york [him]
    eyes wide shut
    finding nemo [parks mall amc]
    far and away
    fear and loathing in las vegas
    the fifth element
    fight club
    final fantasy: the spirits within
    a fish called wanda
    flatliners
    forbidden planet
    Forrest Gump
    friday
    full metal jacket
    get shorty
    the game
    gattaca
    ghostbusters
    glengarry glenross
    the godfather [him]
    the godfather – part two [him]
    Goodfellas [him]
    the grifters
    Grosse Pointe Blank [her]
    harry potter 1
    house
    the hudsucker proxy
    the hunt for red october
    i spit on your grave
    independence day – director’s cut
    Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark
    Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    The Iron Giant
    It
    jackie brown
    Jacob’s Ladder
    Jaws
    jfk
    k-pax
    krull
    L.A. Confidential
    l.a. story
    labyrinth
    ladyhawke
    the lawnmower man – director’s cut
    leap of faith
    legend of drunken master
    Little Shop of Horrors
    Logan’s Run
    lolita
    lord of the rings – fellowship of the ring
    mars attacks!
    memento
    men in black
    minority report
    monsters inc
    monty python and the holy grail
    the mosquito coast
    Moulin Rouge
    mulholland drive
    murder by death
    natural born killers
    night of the living dead
    nightmare before christmas
    a nightmare on elm street
    the one
    oscar
    the others
    phantasm
    pi
    pink floyd – the wall
    poltergeist
    the princess bride
    pulp fiction
    Punch-Drunk Love
    Quiz Show
    red dawn
    requiem for a dream – director’s cut
    reservoir dogs
    the rocky horror picture show
    Romeo + juliet
    the royal tenenbaums
    rushmore
    say anything
    secret of nimh
    the seven samurai [him]
    Shadowlands
    Shanghai Noon
    signs
    silence of the lambs
    Silverado
    the sixth sense
    Sneakers
    south park movie
    Spaceballs
    the spanish prisoner
    Sphere
    spiderman
    spirited away
    The Stand
    star trek – the motion picture – director’s cut
    star trek 2 – the wrath of khan – director’s cut
    star trek 3 – the search for spock
    star trek 4 – the voyage home
    star trek 5 – the final frontier
    star trek 6 – the undiscovered country
    star trek 8 – first contact
    star wars
    star wars 2 – empire strikes back
    star wars 2 – empire strikes back – special edition
    star wars 3 – return of the jedi
    star wars 4 – phantom menace
    star wars 5 – attack of the clones
    Starman
    Strange Days
    suicide kings
    Taxi Driver
    terminator
    terminator 2
    the thing
    this is spinal tap
    three colors – white
    three colors – red
    time bandits
    titan a.e.
    titanic
    Toy Story
    Toy Story 2
    trainspotting
    tron
    uhf
    unforgiven
    wag the dog
    the War of the Roses
    wargames
    Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
    what dreams may come
    who framed roger rabbit

  • Movies i have seen countless times growing up

    actually, seen/heard/overheard since we often put on a well-known movie as
    background noise and did not sit and watch it…
    also, a couple of these are due to my growing up in something of an in-home
    daycare, being surrounded by a half dozen kids at all times and sometimes as
    many as a full dozen, and everyone’s name went on a list and, when their name
    came up, they got to select what will be on the tv next (not that they usually
    spent much time sitting quietly in front of it)…

    i know i am still missing a few off this list, maybe quite a few, but, this is
    something i was mentioning to someone the other day and wanted to put this
    list up, even if it is not totally compete…
    i still know most of these movies by heart, could probably quote most of them
    beginning to end, and the images and sounds are an indelible part of my
    subconscious to this day… (darth vader is still in my nightmares to this
    day!)

    growing up in a house of hardcore movie interest is an interesting
    experience… in our house, movie quotes were almost non-stop, life was
    constantly compared to movies… in fact, the staff noticed this when i was
    at the hospital with my parents… mom said to one nurse something to the
    effect of “we are a movie family. we use them to teach lessons of life.” by
    which she means, for instance, i was talking about how magnolia inspired me,
    both phil parma and the change t.j. mackey made in his attitude toward his
    father were things going through my mind non-stop in the hospital… they
    were the inspiration that helped me to keep a better frame of mind through it
    all… so, if i want to explain to my mom how i saw my responsibility in that
    situation, she would have to watch magnolia…
    in fact, my mom’s online handle, for as long as i can remember, is “Ripley”,
    the heroine of Alien… and i am sure she would relate ripley as the
    embodiment of a strong woman…

    my childhood heros were not historical figures or otherwise “real” people,
    they were movie characters…

    but now, i am straying way off the topic of this post…
    back to the list…

    btw, very important…
    THIS IS *NOT* A LIST OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES…
    more than a few of them are movies i cannot stand today…
    these are also in no order, except maybe the order in which i thought of
    them…
    i would also add that it is best to take most of what i said above as not
    relating much to the list… most of the “background movies” around the house
    were not the deep ones, those demanded too much attention…

    and now, a partial list of movies i saw/heard/overheard COUNTLESS times
    growing up…

    close encounters of the third kind (special edition)

    btw, ce3k reigns supreme TO THIS DAY as the one i have seen/heard/overheard
    more than any other…

    better off dead
    ghostbusters
    star trek 1-4
    star wars
    caddyshack
    vacation
    2010
    aliens
    raiders of the lost ark
    murder by death
    wargames
    secret of nimh
    spaceballs
    time after time
    the money pit
    spaceship
    pete’s dragon
    cloak and dagger
    romancing the stone
    fletch

  • 100 greatest movie characters?

    [moved from my LiveJournal]

    well, here is Premiere.com’s idea of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time (via Fark)

    though, i found fark’s comments thread about this article to be a much better read, with many more suggestions i agree with than premiere’s…

    (btw, both fark links above go to the “Avantgo” versions, which is a very nice lite alternative…)