I had just pulled into my driveway late this morning and was offloading groceries from the car when mail arrived. There it was, a package containing Wings, a day before its expected delivery date. I watched it immediately after lunch. Holy moly! As a presentation, this has to have been one of the better cinematic experiences of my life, whether at home or in a theater, certainly the best presentation of a silent era movie on home media. The film has undergone extensive visual restoration and looks darn good upscaled to 1080p. The original music score is restored. as are sound effects! Special coloring has been restored to things such as flames and selective gunfire. Heard in 5.1 channel surround sound, music and effects are about as good as it gets, to the meager extent that my decrepit ears can judge such things.

I had a blast watching it from start to finish, and am tempted to view it again tonight (but will do my best to refrain).

Here's a short YouTube clip detailing the restoration process. It provides an adequate glimpse of what the DVD (and blu ray) have to offer, minus multi-channel sound and the powerful low bass.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 23 2016, 12:30 PM

I finished the Harry Potter films yesterday. So now I am in the doldrums that always comes after finishing any good series. There was only one thing to do about it. Turn to Sean Bean! Today I watched Sharpe's Rifles. The rest of the Sharpe's series will follow. Probably the Horatio Hornblowers afterward, since I always tend to watch the two back to back.

Tonight I watched Quest for Fire on DVD. My one disappointment with the presentation is that, though it utilizes 5.1 channel sound, I heard no localized sounds to the sides or rear me. Then again, there might be all sorts of subtle surround effects my ears can no longer register.

ADDENDUM:
Now Wednesday 24 Feb, this morning I watched Harold Llyod's Safety Last on a Criterion DVD, first as a movie only and then again accompanied by its audio commentary track. This is the film with the famous building climb sequence, part of which is seen here. After numerous views, I still squirm at times and fight to keep from averting my eyes.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 25 2016, 09:38 PM

A Tommy Cooper dvd.

It is utterly hilarious.

Just watched the first episode of The Shannara Chronicles.

Bloody good first episode. The show looks like they've spent money in all the right places, everything looks damn good, and it sounds like it's setting up for a story worth watching.

I'll definitely be watching the second episode, hopefully they'll keep going as they've started.

I have my eye out for when that comes out on dvd. I even bought the Sword of Shannarra on kindle, though I don't know when I'll get around to reading it. Once upon a time I had the paperback, and the Elfstones. But I don't know what happened to them. Probably lost them in one of my moves.

I spent almost the whole of this afternoon, minus 30min devoted to a brisk walk, watching Schindler's List on DVD. I had not seen it in years. Such a fine and powerful movie. The little girl in the red coat was etched in my mind so strongly that I was surprised how briefly she appears on film. I attempted to watch a couple of the extras after supper but was too sleepy to do them justice.

That was an outstanding movie. I have not seen it in a long time either, maybe I will dig it out to watch it again.

Ever since I heard this story on the radio, I have been in the mood for Back To The Future. Today I bought the 30th anniversary trilogy on blu-ray. Time to make like a tree, and get out of here...

SPEW !!!!! BWAAHAA !!!!!! Citation and evauatlion,

I am about a half hour into Straight Outta Compton. Damn, this is good.

Yesterday evening I watched Game of Thrones, Season 1, episodes 3 & 4 on DVD. This was my first viewing of them. I am course familiar with the story, having read the book(s) several time, though not recently.


Over the past several day, at YouTube, I watched a number of interesting videos. Noteworthy amongst them are:

Inheritance, at 2006 documentary of the meeting between the daughter of the Plaszow concentration camp commandant and a Jewish woman who that commandant kept at his camp villa (and is portrayed as such in Schindler's List).

A documentary on Churchill's Betrayal of Poland. I take this sort of thing for what it's worth, basically food for thought.

Lost Forever, The Art of Film Preservation.

Generikb's play-through of the quirky game JazzPunk, episode one of which can be seen here. (Generik doesn't do all the game's levels justice, but does well with this one, though he doesn't find everything there is to do.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 1 2016, 02:55 PM

Tonight I watched Game of Thrones, Season 1, episodes 5 & 6 on DVD. I also watched a number of videos at YouTube, none of which are worth singling out.

I'm putting together an order of silent films at Amazon.com. So far I've settled on two that will be first-time additions to my meager movie library -- The General and The Big Parade. I'll also replace an ancient DVD of Battleship Potemkin. It's one of my earliest DVD acquisition. Image quality is barely adequate. Its music track is tacked on classical pieces which are fine in and of themselves but aren't tailor made for the film. The edition I'm looking to replace it with restores the original music score performed by full orchestra, sports supposedly far better visuals, and restores footage missing from my current DVD. I hope to find a fourth movie so as to qualify for free shipping, but it'll need to be dirt cheap.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 3 2016, 04:18 AM

Today I watched, on DVD, Roman Polanski's 2002 The Pianist, the story of one Polish Jew's survival during the holocaust.

At YouTube, I've watched a couple more holocaust related videos, but mainly concentrated on film preservation/restoration videos.

I haven't seen this one; but growing up in school they held a mandatory showing of a documentary on the holocaust every year; then had an open discussion in the classroom about what we had seen. The documentary held nothing back; there were graphic images of the gas showers, mass graves, starvation, etc.


It is something I wish they had kept enforced mandatory watching of in the schools; maybe people knowing what others have been through - might just cut down on some of the prejudice and racism. It is hard to hate someone you have seen suffer so greatly or be persecuted so thoroughly; kind of puts any of that type of feeling in a real perspective.

Wait! You're telling me they showed a film on the holocaust several years after the end of WWI????

Seems a worthwhile practice. The several schools I attended showed no holocaust films. I'm not even positive it was addressed in history class, though surely it was at least touched on. I certainly knew of the holocaust back then. The only films I recall being shown in school were The Good Earth and a special evening airing of The Guns of Navarone.

The Pianist is an excellent film, well worth seeing.

Yes, I was born well after the war,

But you are right; it was a really worthwhile practice. I was in 4th grade the first time I remember seeing it, and it impacted my life tremendously. I think it was probably the first time I realized there was a world outside my neighborhood; cared deeply about people outside of my family and friends.

The impact on a child learning these things is huge, and it changes you in ways it never would if you learned it later when you had already been inundated with preconceived notions about other people.

I think it helped us grow up with a compassion for others; not so honed into our own interests, but the plight of others - gave us an outward focus.

To this day, I have never forgotten one second of that documentary, the faces and the feeling of watching it that first time; and then every year. I half dreaded the showing of it because it wrenches you inside; but you welcome it because you can't stand the thought of ever forgetting what those people went through.

I really hold a lot of praise for that school system for enforcing that; and you are right that other school systems don't - none of my children's schools ever did show it; either in Florida or Tennessee.

Yesterday evening I watched the second hour of Abel Gance's 1927 silent Napoleon on laserdisc. (I watched hour one some days ago but don't recall mentioning it here.)

This film holds the dubious honor of being the only silent movie I ever saw in a theater with live full orchestral accompaniment, much as it was experienced by its initial audiences. This was the early 1980s Frances Ford Coppola touring version. The music score was composed/compiled/arranged by his father Carmine. My laserdisc derives from the Coppolas' efforts.

Memories of attending that long ago event are less than pleasant. I was hit by a horrific migraine not 15min into the film. I recall that, during the hour-and-a-half drive home, I needed to crack open the car door at least once and vomit. Otherwise I mostly remember pain.

The movie itself is held in high regard. Me, I have mixed feeling toward it. It contains some 'very' good things, but also things I'm not overly enamored with. I'd love to reassess the film in the version with the Carl Davis music score, which contains footage left out of Coppola's version. Alas, for legal reasons only the Coppola version can be released on home video in the US.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 5 2016, 04:20 PM

Over the past several days I watched the first five episodes of Cinema Europe, a series documenting the early years of continental and British film. There is a sixth episode. I've not yet unearthed it at YouTube. Here's episode one.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 6 2016, 10:08 PM

Watching the new season of House of Cards, and trying to remember who everyone is!

This morning I chanced on a fairly recent British documentary on the beginnings of American cinema at YouTube. I watched episode one. It contains some good things. I'll prolly watch the remaining episodes. But... It's a much lesser effort that the 1980 Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Film (also British). Some of it rubs me the wrong way. Case in point. During his discussion of Birth of a Nation the narrator dismisses much the film's dramatic effect, stating that this was to a large extent a result of the music score rather than its visuals. Well duh. Of course! Watch the Star Wars 'death star' escape sequence with John Williams music replaced by "Yackety Sax" (heard during Benny Hill chases) and it too assumes a different flavor. Replace the famous Casablanca "Marseillaise" scene with "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" and let's see how well it comes across. In other words, why single out Birth... for something that holds true of just about every decently scored movie in existence?

You notice that I did not and do not put a name to this documentary. That's because I'm not sure I can recommended it cans caveats, especially with the afore mentioned, far better, Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Film available at YouTube.