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We have started going thru our newly acquired Blu-ray collection of the complete Granada Series of Sherlock Holmes. With all due respect to the Basil Rathbone features ( Scarlet Claw is one of my favorites, also gave NG that one on super 8!), I feel that these Granada Series really were the best ever representation of Sherlock Holmes. Except for a few of the longer episodes, shot on 35mm, the rest were shot on, I believe, "super 16", and the restoration of these 16mm look absolutely great, and personally, I like seeing that grain!
We went Mozart a couple of weeks ago with Amadeus, so tonight was Beethoven.
Multiformat Show:
1) Trailer Reel Number 2 (16mm) Even though I didn't shoot an inch of it, this is as close as I will ever come to making a 16mm film: I edited it! It is several trailers including Knute Rockne, All American, He's a Cockeyed Wonder (Mickey Rooney) and Citizen Kane, with a sprinkling of drive-in day-sets for atmosphere. All are black and white. (Trailer Reel Number 1 is Super-8)
2) Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (Derann, Super-8) Parts I and II united on a 600 Foot Reel. This is a beautiful film: I relearn this every time I see it!
3) Feature: Immortal Beloved (Projected DVD) It's natural to compare this to Amadeus, but this is an entirely different kind of story. Amadeus is comedy plus tragedy but this one is tragedy plus mystery, as Beethoven's executor tries to find "the immortal Beloved" who is to inherit his fortune.
(Beethoven just isn't funny!)
It's a strange movie, because only after the mystery is solved does the story fully come together and become satisfying. The answer at least begins to explain some of the events in the film, although it does not come close to justifying some of the character's actions. They only rise to the level of "nasty with a background story".
What's strange is I've had this disk easily a year and tonight was the first time I ever watched it.
-and now all those YouTube clips will finally make sense!
Change of tack last night with these two blu-ray titles. First up "Close" second was "Bully" this particular blu-ray came from a $1 pile, from a video store when it was closing. "Bully" is certainly a disturbing documentary, that shows how downright nasty kids can be to others. Although this type of thing can happen in any school in any country this one shown here in particular is bad, not just the kids, but the attitude of the school and parents of others who seem to turn a blind eye to what is going on. I do hope things have improved since this film was made.
Dante's Peak was filmed where is really happened back in 1980.
Mount Saint Helens, Washington state, US, May 1980
The ash shutdown traffic in areas east of the mountain, but only lightly dusted the Seattle area (I still have a small bottle of the ash I scraped off my car the day after). As I recall there were less than 100 casualties.
When Mount Rainier erupts it will be a major disaster:
The most recent recorded volcanic activity was between 1820 and 1854, but many eyewitnesses reported eruptive activity in 1858, 1870, 1879, 1882, and 1894 as well. Additionally, the Smithsonian Institution's volcanism project records the last volcanic eruption as 1450 CE.
Seismic monitors have been placed in Mount Rainier National Park and on the mountain itself to monitor activity. An eruption could be deadly for all living in areas within the immediate vicinity of the volcano and effects from an eruption could be noticed from Vancouver, British Columbia to San Francisco, California because of the massive amounts of ash blasting out of the volcano into the atmosphere.
Due to its high probability of an eruption in the near future and proximity to a major urban area, Mount Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list.[14] The large amount of glacial ice means that Mount Rainier could produce massive lahars that could threaten the entire Puyallup River valley and other river valleys draining Mount Rainier, including the Carbon, White, Nisqually, and Cowlitz (above Riffe Lake). According to the United States Geological Survey's 2008 report, "about 80,000 people and their homes are at risk in Mount Rainier's lahar-hazard zones."
Source: Wikipedia
The ash eventually circled the globe. Back then a popular quip was, "Don't bother to visit Washington State, we will visit you."
Double feature two nights ago, I have to add that the new lamp I fitted to the Panasonic VP has been preforming well of late, in saying that I will have to get back to the Epson and film projectors real soon I have had the "Fantasia 2000" blu-ray for a while now, to be honest I was never in a hurry to watch it. I was surprised how much I did like watching the blu-ray. The color and image quality was really good, all up I enjoyed it. After a break it was time for "Dante's Peak" directed by New Zealander Roger Donaldson, who later went on to do "The Worlds Fastest Indian" starring Anthony Hopkins a film that was a big hit out here in New Zealand and certainly worth watching, we ran that 35mm print for a very long time. Regarding Dante's Peak its brilliant, its one of those movies I can watch every so often, a couple of quick screen shots taken two nights ago
Looks good Ed hopefully Flow will be one to look out for on disc, in the near future.
Last night I thought I would watch the blu-ray of "The French Connection" both picture and sound were very good, the train chase was certainly action packed.
Last week I watched the new animated feature, Flow. It won the Academy Award for Best animated feature film yesterday.
How ‘Flow’ turned a $4 million budget into an animated work of art
The filmmakers used open-source software to create an unexpectedly fresh animation style.
Nearly every still of the animated film Flow, directed by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, feels like an art piece that could stand on its own. The movie—which centers around a group of animals surviving in a post-apocalyptic, human-less world—combines the edge-of-your-seat feeling of a survival video game with the painterly brushstrokes of an Impressionist artist. And, somehow, it manages to be a tearjerker without any dialogue at all.
Flow made its global debut at the Cannes Film Festival back in May. Since then, it’s raked in a series of awards, including the feature film grand prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and the Best Editing and Puerta América prize at the Seville European Film Festival.
Zilbalodis’ first film, Away, was released in 2019 to generally positive reviews—a considerable feat, given that he was the sole animator behind the final product. Flow started similarly, with just Zilbalodis and, his laptop, and a concept, five years ago. Zilbalodis eventually onboarded a limited crew of less than 50 creatives, with an even more limited budget, of around $3.8 million.
Part of the secret behind its low cost, Zilbalodis says, is that the entire project was made on Blender, a free and open-source 3D modeling software that can run on most laptops. Despite the project’s constraints—or perhaps, in part, because of them—Flow feels like a breath of fresh air in an animation landscape that’s increasingly focused on realism.
We watched "The Searchers" last night. A really good restoration was done on this film, and it didn't hurt that it was taken from the VistaVision masters. The detail is really amazing!
Watched "The Gift Horse" blu-ray the other night, very good WW2 movie based on a true story, tonight and after watching the evening news and seeing what is going on international wise, I needed to watch something to cheer me up, so it was "Ma Vi En Rose" on DVD, actually I think this film is very well done, English sub-titles mind you which I don't mind, it certainly brought a smile back to my face.
Last night I finished off the box setof the Gerry Anderson puppet series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. 1300 in 25 min episodes minutes so it was waht I have been watching on and off for some time. Made on 35mm this looks very good in HD and the cured the bad puppet waks by either not showing the legs when characters moved or used moving floors. I had forgotten that part wat through the series they changed the end theme from just music and a voice saying Captain Scarlet to a song. I remembered an amalgum of the two!!
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