Ok. That’s it:
Back in the Day, future-directors like Scorsese imagined that films would be as easily accessible as paperback books, (to view their favorite films they had to hole up over a weekend and screen 16mm prints – it was a big deal to find a favorite film, or one you think might become a favorite.).
So they dreamed of cheap, available cinema. VHS was seen as the fulfillment of this dream.
It wasn’t.
Oh sure, VHS made films easy to see – but you still had to fast-forward and rewind, fast-forward and rewind – you couldn’t flip to a favorite page instantly like you can with a book. But now you can – even more so than with DVDs/BlueRay/HiRay/SuperDef, (etc.), with films as digital files on your hard-drive, (or streamed), you can skip back and forth with the wave of your Minority Report like fingers, (I watched Starman last night – was not pleasantly surprised to find it was not as good as I remember it as a child – and quickly transported myself to the end – you know – when the Big Sphere lands in the Meteor Crater).
Will this change the grammar of film / the aesthetic? Just as non-linear editing made it so easy for films to be ‘cutty’ what now, now that people can skip back and forth back and forth?
(Photo by The Joy of the Mundane)
STARMAN? If you're gonna go there, why not watch ENEMY MINE? ughhhhh
Toby, you're absolutely right of course. Starman and Enemy Mine are both big helpings of mediocre sci-fi cheese. Starman was available on Netflix's Watch Instantly…whereas Enemy Mine was not alas.
A-ha! That Netflix instant option does have some good options, particularly revisiting forgotten 80s flicks. Honestly, I cant remember a damn thing about STARMAN, or ENEMY MINES for that matter (other than Gregory Hines in some hideous makeup). However, aspect ratio seems to be an issue on the older films. Take THE TALL T, cropped to 1.33 from cinescope. The horror!!
Yep, we are in definitely dodgy territory when it comes to Aspect Ratio on 'Watch Instantly' = it seems to depend on where they've sourced the material = licensing deals = so they've got a 'Starz Play' section as if the typical viewer would care/know/want to watch a movie that had been formatted for hotel rooms and cruise ships!
A-ha! That Netflix instant option does have some good options, particularly revisiting forgotten 80s flicks. Honestly, I cant remember a damn thing about STARMAN, or ENEMY MINES for that matter (other than Gregory Hines in some hideous makeup). However, aspect ratio seems to be an issue on the older films. Take THE TALL T, cropped to 1.33 from cinescope. The horror!!
Yep, we are in definitely dodgy territory when it comes to Aspect Ratio on 'Watch Instantly' = it seems to depend on where they've sourced the material = licensing deals = so they've got a 'Starz Play' section as if the typical viewer would care/know/want to watch a movie that had been formatted for hotel rooms and cruise ships!
[...] The Death of VHS [...]
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