This Kind of Thing Drives Me Crazy: Variable Image Quality, Netflix versus DVD
This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy Dear Listeners. Am about to settle in to watch the four hour, (!), CLEOPATRA in preparation for our Elizabeth Taylor show tomorrow – and I remember, hey I’ve got on disk and it’s on Netflix Watch Instantly.
Cinema Splits In Two: the Real vs. the Unreal
Yeah we all know about computer assisted imagery – it’s everywhere in moving pictures – heck, some folks even go to the movies just for the effects alone. But I don’t know if peoples out there really know how much the new technology has invaded the cinema system – and this invasion I would argue doesn’t just [...]
TFT 99 – 'A Christmas Carol' Investigated and Armond White Interviewed
In this week’s action-packed, adrenaline-fueled thrill-ride of an episode Gareth and I launch ‘OPERATION SAVE THE FILM TALK’, delve into the new film of a ‘A Christmas Carol’ while discussing in not some small detail the flaws in Charles Dicken’s original, speculate as to the nature of 3D and motion capture cinema and have a [...]
Now Free Online: The Soundtrack For The Film That Never Was – 'Tron, Rise of the Virals'
Jul 24, 1999 – CNET News Story – Pixar and Disney Collaborating on a new Tron film: Pixar Studios to remake Disney’s Tron? It set the scene for a generation of hi-tech sci-fi movies and, arguably, inspired some of the best films of the genre. Tron, the legendary Disney movie loved by the thirty-something generation, [...]
Cinema is Collapsing? So What Are You Gonna Do About It?
(My thoughts on the below were cross-posted at Current – to read Current readers responses click here) Don’t know about you but I was excited to hear that Francis Ford Coppola thinks cinema is collapsing: “The cinema as we know it is falling apart,” says Francis Ford Coppola. “It’s a period of incredible change,” says [...]
Roger Ebert on Digital Distribution and the Future of Movies
From the indispensable Roger Ebert comes this gently meandering blog post on digital distribution and the future of indie movies: The Light in the Tunnel These topics have been dear to my heart Dear Readers: Movie Piracy is Here to Stay – What to do About It? Ben Kingsley Doesn’t Do It For Me / [...]
What Rights Do You Give Away on the Various Video Services?
The costs of production for film-making, (in terms of stock/processing/editing anyway), have fallen dramatically – and now there are myriad ways for the image maker to distribute their work online, (ahh – but marketing – there’s the rub!). Anyhew, what rights do you give away when you upload to services like YouTube and Vimeo? Advancing [...]
'Wolverine' Affected by Piracy?
Via The Hollywood Reporter comes the news that News Corp’s Fox says the workprint of ‘Wolverine’ has been downloaded illegally 4 million times: Pirated ‘Wolverine’ bigger than expected Now, as addressed in our ‘Wolverine’ podcast analysis: The Film Talk – Part 64 – Wolverine / State of Play I found the workprint of the film [...]
First Three Minutes of Francis Ford Coppola's 'Tetro' Online
I love, love, love the idea of putting the beginning of films online, (analogous to the success of Doom perhaps? = give the first level away free then charge for the rest). So am excited that the first three minutes of Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Tetro’ are now online: First Three Minutes of Tetro First thoughts: [...]
The Film Talk – Part 64 – Wolverine / State of Play
This Episode: X-Men Origins: Wolvervine / State of Play Get TFT delivered weekly via iTunes Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe to our blog Follow us on Twitter
Sita Sings the Blues
The film with this image as one of its centerpieces is currently available to watch for free at Reel 13. I’ll say it again. The film with this image as one of its centerpieces is available to watch for free at Reel 13. The creator (director, writer, animator, editor, pretty much everything else-er), Nina Paley [...]
The Film Talk – Part 61 – That Evening Sun, Walton Goggins and Hillbilly Art Films
In This Episode: Walton Goggins / That Evening Sun / Nashville Film Festival Get TFT delivered weekly via iTunes Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe to our blog Follow us on Twitter
Nashville247 Beta is Open to the Public as of Today
Those of us who follow these things know that ‘traditional media’ is in a state of…shall we say collapse? How ’bout ‘restructuring’? Well, whatever you call it call it, the fact that newspapers are closing, TV journalists have no bandwidth for stories in depth and everyone has a still/video camera in the pocket or purse [...]
'Voices from El-Sayed' – Documentary as Drama and the Marginalisation of 'Staged Cinema'
(Jett and Gareth are at the Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham, North Carolina. For the next few days these posts are their first impressions of films screened there) – – – Click below to hear our interview with ‘Voices from El-Sayed’ director Oded Adomi Leshem: The Film Talk – Part 57 – Full Frame [...]
'Mechanical Love' – Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
(Jett and Gareth are at the Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham, North Carolina. For the next few days these posts are their first impressions of films screened there) Mechanical Love / Directed by Phie Ambo Am I alive? Am I sentient? Can I love, and be loved in returned? These are some of the [...]
The Beautiful and Unsettling Experience of Watching Koyaanisqatsi on Hulu
Koyaanisqatsi, that tremendous collage of images and music directed by Godfrey Reggio with an astonishing score by Philip Glass is now available for viewing on ad supported Hulu.com. This make for a strange, unsettling experience. There we are, ensconced in the strange beautiful world of Koyaanisqatsi – a non-verbal mediation on nature and the imbalance [...]
Why Not Re-Hab Films Like We Do Houses?
The area of East Nashville I live in is in turnaround. Decrepit old houses are being done up. Young couples are moving in. Which got to me to thinking. There’s plenty of crappy movies out there. Movies that, for whatever reason, poor script, ineffectual acting, befuddled direction, are just not worth watching. But there’s a [...]
Why You Should See 'The Godfather' and 'Part II' If You're In Nashville
There are many reasons to see ‘The Godfather’ and its first sequel (I’m a somewhat defender of the third one, but let’s not get into an argument on a Monday). 1: They are terrific stories, of a family’s rise and downfall, a metaphor for the dehumanising effects of what we often call capitalism, and how [...]
A Modest Proposal: Watchmen Should Never Be Released / Destroy the Negative
Perhaps, the most interesting thing about the upcoming film ‘Watchmen’, (based on the graphic novel of the same name), are the ancillary promotional activities for it. Fanboys throughout the Tubes have been slavishly following every release of teaser trailers/teaser posters/actual posters/action figures/behind the scenes puff pieces/fanboy art/production design leaks/supplemental features, etc. This drip, drip, drip, [...]
The Secret Data Within
Via Metafilter comes this most intriguing video by Chairlift: Chairlift – “Evident Utensil” Music Video from Data Mosher on Vimeo. It’s intriguing because the majority of ‘effects’ seen in the video are created by manipulating the means of video compression used to ‘encode/compress’ the video, (if you’ve ever done digital video editing you know what [...]
Movie Piracy is Here to Stay – What to do About It?
In the NY Times today – interesting article for the layperson on movie piracy: Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios The gist of it is that right now movie studios are screwed. Of course the film industry in Nigeria knows this, (I’d link here to an interesting and relevant article about this in the Economist [...]
Christian Bale is Not the Story
Warning – Links in this post are not suitable for young listeners and are NSFW – – – Ordinarily we would not cover a ‘star-meltdown’ story on TFT – and in a sense we’re not. Christian Bale’s explosion of rage on the set of an expensive film about robots from the future is not the [...]
'I Can Read Movie Series' – Quick and Brilliant Film Graphics from Spacesick
Now thanks to the instant access of content via the Tubes plus the ability to ‘Control C’ and ‘Control V’ we’re seeing a wonderful explosion of past works re-imagined. My favorite this week is without question the quick and brilliant mock-ups of popular, mainstream commercial Hollywood cinema contraptions done as book covers from the mid-60′s [...]
Netflix's Watch Instantly is Getting Better and Better – Couple with a Service like Jinni and Who Knows?
Nice post today by David Pogue of the New York times about Netflix’s movie on demand service ‘Watch Instantly’: Awash In a Stream Of Movies I’ve been hammering on about this fantastic service for what seems like ages: Ben Kingsley Doesn’t Do It For Me / Transsiberian ‘Watch Instantly’ isn’t perfect by an any means [...]
