Archives

Apr272005

Of Poor Quality and Big Stupid Cylon Heads

The previous entry on home theaters started me thinking about consumer video technology, specifically the preferred video format of the moment, the DVD.

I’ve been collecting DVDs for about five years now. I wasn’t what you’d call an early adopter of the technology, but I did get in on it before it became hugely popular and started suffering the problems that inevitably come with ramped-up manufacturing and “lowest-common denominator” thinking. (Yes, I am a bit of a snob when it comes to these things, and I do think it’s fair to say that DVD content and overall presentation was much smarter when the format was still a niche market. But that’s a rant for another time.) At this point, I own roughly 230 unique DVD titles, comprising both movies and television programming, and I think my collection includes a pretty good sampling of product from all the major DVD producers, except maybe Disney. (I don’t have kids and I’m not a big animation fan, so very few Disney offerings appeal to me.)

What’s interesting about all of this — aside from the value of idle boasting, of course — is that the size and diversity of my collection has allowed me to recognize distinct differences in the product coming from each of the major labels. Just like each studio was known for making a particular kind of film back in Hollywood’s Golden Age, so too are their modern descendents easy to equate with specific DVD characteristics.

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Apr272005

Home Theater Fantasies

About fifteen years ago, I was working at a nine-screen multiplex in Sandy, Utah, running projectors and dreaming of the day when I’d have some kind of theater set-up in my own house. This was a common fantasy among my fellow minimum-wage-earning, popcorn-sweeping work buddies. “The Dudes,” as we called ourselves, were all, to one extent or another, movie fans and movie collectors, and we all had unique ideas about what would comprise the perfect private screening room.

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Apr232005

Separation of Church and State

Once again, I don’t have the time to fully explore the issue I’m about to raise. Sorry about that. Nevertheless, I still want to share with you an interesting quote that was recently referenced by Andrew Sullivan, then picked up by the always excellent Josh Marshall and now seems to be wending its way though the blogosphere. (I heard about it via Mark Evanier’s post on the subject.) Seeing as I’m always one to hop on the bandwagon, I will now repeat the quote followed by Sullivan’s remarks:

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Apr212005

Pet Peeve

I don’t have time to go into detail right now, and my senses of propriety and self-preservation would prevent me from naming names anyhow. But I want to vent briefly about something:

It absolutely infuriates me when someone else’s mistakes wind up inconveniencing me, especially when those mistakes are due to stupidity and/or disorganization that could have and should have been avoided.

No, I can’t elaborate further. Suffice it to say that I’ve had a long, shitty day and I’m tired of having long, shitty days and being told “that’s just how it is” when I complain about them. That may be how it is, but it isn’t how it should be, and one of these days I’m going to figure out how to make things more like the latter than the former.

That is all. You may now resume your regularly scheduled Web surfing. Sorry to be a tease…

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Apr192005

News on Pecorelli? I Love the Internet!

Remember a couple months ago when I wrote about a guy named John Pecorelli? He was the firebrand writer who worked for my college newspaper, the columnist I compared to Hunter S. Thompson. If you’ll recall, I wistfully mentioned in that post that I’d lost track of Pecorelli in the years since college, and that I hoped he was still out there somewhere, rattling chains and pissing people off.

Well, yesterday I received an e-mail from a guy who knows a guy who is a friend of the infamous John Pecorelli. He kindly offered me the following information:

I thought you might be interested to hear that he is alive and doing well and rattling chains anywhere he goes. He toured as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine with Gwar a few years ago. He had the dubious honor of being part of their stage show for at least one of the performances. He still writes… a lot! He’s still extremely opinionated and not afraid to voice them. I’m never sure from one year to the next what he’s officially doing, but he’s mostly in Los Angeles, writing. I thought I would just let you know that your personal encounter with Gonzo is still alive and kickin’ in this world.

This sort of thing has happened to me several times since I started blogging — I’ve written about some obscure subject and sent my musings out into the void, certain that only half a dozen of my Real World friends were likely to read them, and then out of the blue a stranger (or a long-lost acquaintance, in a couple of cases) has contacted me because of what I wrote. It never fails to amaze me when this occurs, and it amazes me even more to think that the medium through which I’m making these connections didn’t exist (at least not in its current form) up until just a few short years ago.

Truly, we are living in magical times…

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Apr182005

Movie Review: Sin City

It’s been a while since I posted a film review here on the ol’ Web site. I got out of the habit when politics consumed me last fall, and I haven’t seen anything in the months since that was especially blog-worthy. Oh, I’ve seen some good films, but nothing that really stood out from the crowd, that worked me up, made me think, or inspired me to write. Nothing, that is, until Sin City…

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Apr182005

And The Saga Continues…

It seems the uber-nerds I wrote about a week or so back continue to camp out in front of Grauman’s Chinese. They’re apparently making some kind of gesture of defiance, or holding out a slim hope that some corporate suit somewhere will bend to their whims. Or maybe they truly don’t have anything better to do than hang out under an awning on a hot sidewalk in the middle of Hollywood despite the fact that their friggin’ movie is not going to be playing at that theater.

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Apr152005

Book Talk

Oh, no, it’s another meme! No worries, though — this one is pretty short, only five questions about books…

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Apr142005

Shatner Linkage

I’m probably going to bring down a rain of derision on myself for what I’m about to admit, but given that I’m on record here as defending both the Star Wars prequels and the original Battlestar Galactica, I doubt if I have much credibility left to lose. Therefore I’m going to come right out and say it loud and proud:

I’m a fan of William Shatner.

That’s right, I’m talking about the same Shatner who played T.J. Hooker in the ’80s, who appeared in the notoriously bad ’70s horror film Kingdom of the Spiders, who recorded an equally notoriously bad album in the late ’60s, and who has endured — even among his most solid fanbase, the Trekkies — a reputation for being an arrogant, clueless, and thoroughly unpleasant man.

None of that makes a bit of difference to me. I like him, or at least I like his work. Always have, since I was a small boy looking up to Shatner’s signature role, Captain James T. Kirk, as my very first imaginary hero and friend. That’s why it tickles me pink to see The Shat working regularly on TV again, and that he’s finally regaining a little respect in his twilight years, thanks to his new-found ability to laugh at himself.

I’d like to recommend a short article about Shatner’s odyssey through the post-Star Trek wilderness and back into the public eye. I think the title says it all: How William Shatner Went From Has-Been to Icon in Seven Self-Aware Steps.
It’s an interesting read, even if you think The Shat’s performances contain more ham than the average processed luncheon meat…

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Apr122005

Heroes Are Sometimes Men You’ve Never Heard Of

Film preservation is a cause that’s near and dear to my heart, but I suspect very few people are really aware that there’s even a need for such a thing. If average, non-movie-fan-type people think about the subject at all, they probably assume that every movie ever made is already safely tucked away somewhere. But that’s not true. The sad reality is that the physical film prints and negatives that comprise our cinematic history have been treated pretty poorly over the years, and even if they haven’t been abused, they are endangered by their own chemical compositions. There are hundreds of movies made prior to the 1950s that are forever lost to modern eyes because the photographic stock they were printed on has literally crumbled into dust. They’re gone forever, not because they were deliberately destroyed (although that has happened, too) but because of benign neglect. Because no one thought to check on all those reels of film sitting in the warehouses on the backlots, slowly rotting away. Because no one thought they were important.

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