Category Archives: movie

Slate Culture Gabfest Endorsements

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Slate Daily Podcast includes a variety of weekly podcasts on different subjects.  I think i prefer the Culture Gabfest (FB) infinitesimally more than the Political Gabfest (FB), which is to say it teeters back and forth as to which I prefer each week.

One thing they do is have each gabfest participant “endorse” some cultural item each week.  Movie, television show, book, music, it can be almost anything, usually in the entertainment genre.

I often remember weeks later “there was that /insert item here/ that they mentioned” and I just can’t remember it.  My Google Foo is relatively good, but finding a list of them is not easy.  So, I’m going to see if writing them down myself will help.  I highly recommend making this podcast regular listening.

Feb 16, 2011; No. 126; “Church of High Modernism And Puppies Edition”

Dana’s pick: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, and writer Callie Khouri’s commentary track on the new 20th-anniversary Blu-ray edition of Thelma & Louise.
Julia’s pick: The 1940 romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner.
John’s pick: Thomas Mann’s essay “Herr und Hund” (“A Man and His Dog“).
Steve’s pick: Montreal bar Bily Kun (French).

Flip MinoHD

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Here’s some test video I shot with my new Flip MinoHD.  It’s my nice bucolic back yard in the Houston Heights: three miles west of downtown Houston, one of the larger cities in the United States.

I did a slight amount of editing with iMovie (not iMovie HD – if anyone knows the difference could you tell me and let me know which one I should be using).

I used the image stabilization in iMovie.  It seems like it gave it a little “shimmer” toward the end.  The hand held was slightly more shaky looking that it ended up after the stabilization.

I exported it in “medium” size (3 of 5 in size, 6MB for 0:31), just because that seemed the most reasonable for a web test (it was still too big for WordPress media editor to want to upload).  So, here it is…

Backyard Flip MinoHD

(maybe i’ll learn how to embed video on my WordPress)

DVD-rama

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I used to use peerflix.com to get DVDs, but I got busy at one point, and didn’t have time to watch the movies I was receiving. So, I let the account go stagnant. They threatened to remove my account for inactivity, and though I can still login, the account page is all wonky.

When I emptied out my 300 carousel DVD player after it broke, I re-discovered all the forgotten movies. The trick is none of them have containers for me to put them in (unlike the CDs which I had in four 100 CD albums).

Watched – If you want to borrow, let me know.

  • The Girl in Lovers Lane – 1959, black and white, almost watchable
  • The Manchurian Candidate – wide screen and “standard” – 1962, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, classic
  • Paycheck – Ben Afflec, Uma Thurman
  • Die Another Day – Pierce Brosnan Bond, 2 discs
  • Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle – excellent, I really need to see the second one
  • Anchorman
  • Free Enterprise – an indie geek romantic comedy about two trekkies who meet a messed up William Shatner, funny, with an insane number of sci-fi, comic book, and movie culture references

Unwatched – When will I find the time? Tell me which ones to watch first.

  • Y Tu Mamá También
  • Everything is Illumated
  • Se7en – 2 discs
  • Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
  • A History of Violence
  • Spanglish
  • Yes
  • Syriana
  • Paradise Now
  • Nine Lives
  • True Romance – unrated directors cut, 2 discs, started to watch and didn’t like
  • Capote

I had also received a copy of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King via swaptree.com but it didn’t play on my old DVD player, it’s quite scratched up. When I was re-boxing all of the other DVDs, I put it in the new player on a whim figuring it might have better oversampling/correction. Indeed, the $50 player had no problem at all with the disc!

Unfortunately, I put this classically epic movie in after 10 pm on a week night and at 1 am had to turn it off with over an hour left.

The Witch & The Unmaker

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So, I finally took the time to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (2005). I reread it when it was about to be released as a movie and enjoyed it. I remember recalling that the battle “scenes” only lasted a few paragraphs and thinking they would certainly take many minutes of the finale of the movie. They did.

Seventh SonA lot of the effects were nice, but what really distracted me was the obvious green screen in many scenes. Many that could have been done on location or with nice sets or props. It took away from what could have been. Or Lord of the Rings has raised my expectations.

I also finished Seventh Son (1987) by Orson Scott Card. The first of a series of books centering on Alvin Maker and set in a different post-Colonial America. One that includes magic (though I’m not sure the word is ever used) and a different peace with natives (or so it seems – this gets expressed more in the next book that I haven’t read).

In the intro he is a young boy and his family are struggling pioneers. There are interesting back-stories with actual historical figures who are a bit different in this world. Not to mention the 7 colonies. It was a quite enjoyable read and with summer time coming I may have to get a few more in the series.

As the title of this post hints, The Witch is the antagonist in the first book/movie and The Unmaker is the antagonist in the second.