Archive for the ‘Movies/TV’ Category
Doing it old school
A lot of people don’t realize that the movies they watch in the cinema are usually big reels of real film. Starting a movie is not a simple act of inserting a disc and hitting the play button.
A piece of film – each second you watch contains 24 images
Times are changing though and soon every cinema will be using digital film. Our cinema will too be moving on to digital projection within a year. Digital projection is still not a disc. It’s actually a big hard drive that makes a connection through satellite to receive the data necessary to play the movie. I don’t know how it works exactly since I haven’t worked with it yet, but it should be pretty interesting.
We still work with real film though. And working with film is part of why I love my job so much. Operating film is still a big part of my job and even though it can get a little boring sometimes I still love working with film.
It’s a weird thought that in not too many years from now nobody will be using this technology anymore. It will be a thing of the past and people will laugh and frown when they see how it worked “back then”.
I think using real film gives a little bit of character to the movie. Digital projection is like watching a DVD.. the colors are flat, there is no life in it, it feels cold.
But it is revolution. And the quality is better. And working with it is easier. So I guess it’s improvement. I’ll just be enjoying working with real film that much more the next couple of months. While I still can 
.
A couple of weeks ago I made some vids while putting a film together. So if you have no idea what an actual film looks like: check it out! (Sorry about the weird aspect ratio – it’s because I used my iphone and because I’m an idiot.)
Also – this might be kind of boring for everyone else but me.
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother is usually hilarious, but this little scene just cracks me up every time. LOVE.
Harry Potter
After helping the hundreds of Harry Potter fans to some popcorn, sodas and, of course, the new Harry Potter movie tonight, some co-workers and me finished the night with a drink and some scary stories.
Driving home just now I started thinking that my own Harry Potter experience actually started during a period of bad dreams and short nights. When I was a kid I had a lot of those periods. I was scared of anything and everything and whenever I watched or read something remotely frightening I would wake up nights in a row, full of unpleasant thoughts and unable to get back to sleep. During one of these periods I had just started reading the Harry Potter books and they helped me through many a night. When I woke up during those nights I would pick up my HP book and read a couple of chapters and after that I would be filled with thoughts about the wonderful world of magic and wizardry and would fall asleep without problem.
I guess that’s where my appreciation of Harry Potter started. He got me through the night.
Besides the fact that I love Harry Potter for taking away my scary dreams back then, I also really enjoy the books for what they are: good stories. I really love all of them. I think I read the first four books at least three times each. I just reread the sixth book and have now started rereading the seventh. I very rarely reread a book, but with the Harry Potter books a reread is just as much fun as a first read.
I also watched the latest movie today. I actually enjoyed it! I don’t like most of the Harry Potter movies, but this one was pretty decent. It’s fun how a movie like this really gets all people talking. Some movies people just walk out of without saying a word. With a movie like Harry Potter there’s always some people talking about it.. how it was, if it made sense, what could have been better. People are really invested in the story, wether they’ve read the books or not. I always wonder if it’s because the movies are just entertaining or because it is about a whole different world. Do people get more invested in fantasy storytelling (HP, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings) or is it really about the characters and what they go through, wether it’s in a fantasy world or on plain old and familiar earth. I wonder……
It could also simply be because most of them (LotR and HP) are based on books. And people always love to discuss (read: nag on) movies based on books.
What I watch
I totally forgot to mention this site I’ve recently started using: www.whatiwatch.net. A new friend (thanks Sander!) recommended it to me. It’s basically a GoodReads/Last.fm for movies. A perfect addition to my addiction to making lists.
At the site you can add the movies you watched and rate them. But the thing I like most is that you can keep track of the media you watched it on (dvd, internet, cinema, etc.).The only thing it lacks is the option to make ‘friend’s’. You can compare two profiles with each other, but you can’t ‘connect’ to them so that you can easily keep track of their movie-watching-activities.
If you want to check my profile out you can find it here: Maybe Someday’s Profile.
Kansas City Shuffle
I just finished watching the movie Lucky Number Slevin. And I think it’s the first time that I thought a movie was too short. And I don’t mean it in the ‘I liked it so much I wanted it to go on and on’ way, but more in the ‘maybe it would have been better if it wasn’t so short’ way. The movie is a little bit over 1,5 hour long and it kind of feels rushed. The twist came so fast that it wasn’t really a big surprise..
I still liked it though. The actors are ridiculous(ly good): Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu. Bruce Willis’ character reminded me a lot of his character in Sin City and everything that reminds me of Sin City is a good thing. Plus.. Josh Hartnett: HOT!!!! Even when he’s wearing a purple towel with flowers on it.
I also LOVED the crazy sets. I haven’t seen so many ridiculous wallpapers in my life, let alone in one movie.
I feel like I haven’t watched a lot of movies lately, but when I look at my movie list I see that’s not true. I guess I just haven’t been watching a lot of movies at home.. Ever since I posted that I don’t go to the cinema much it seems like I have been making up for lost time. I have watched more movies in the cinema than I did on DVD. It’s funny though.. because out of the 18 movies I watched in the cinema this year, only 7 of them were during opening hours. (Did I mention I love my job?)
On another note. I just started reading the book High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I thought I should mention that, since another Nick Hornby book (Slam) was the first book I read since I started keeping these lists on here .
Buffy vs Twilight
I found this following some twitter post and it’s hilarious! It’s probably only funny if you’ve watched Buffy and read/watched Twilight though. Which probably nobody but me did, but oh well.
I love this part:
EDWARD: Who are you?
BUFFY: Name’s Buffy. I’m a vampire slayer. I mean, it’s not who I am, or anything. It’s just what I do. Girl’s gotta have a hobby, you know?
EDWARD: I don’t allow Bella to have hobbies. She might get hurt.
Oh yah. And if you’ve never watched Buffy: SHAME ON YOU!!
Random snapshots
An average day at work
Is it a bowl, is it a cup?
It’s just what the trailer of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looks like when I have my way with it.
Fuck You!
Well, fuck you, too. Fuck me, fuck you, fuck this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores, stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin’ and dealin’ and schemin’. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn’t know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Worldcom! Fuck the Puerto Ricans. 20 to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin’ parade in the city. And don’t even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, ’cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their, Jason Giambi, Louisville slugger, baseball bats, trying to audition for the Sopranos. Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermes scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You’re not fooling anybody, sweetheart! Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don’t want to play defense, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the fuck on! Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child’s pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you’re at it, fuck JC! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin’ Otisville, J! Fuck Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and backward-ass, cave-dwelling, fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass!
The rest of the movie was also very cool 
.
Typical
Isn’t it funny that almost immediately after writing my previous post I went out and bought three books?
I was bored at work today so I colour coded my movies page. I made the movies that I watched in the cinema blue. I thought I’d point out the difference as the movie experience is so different in the cinema than when watching at home.
Most people think that when you work at the cinema you go to the movies all the time. According to my 2008 list I went approximately 20 times last year. That’s not very much is it? Maybe it is more than average person.. but not more than the average movie lover, I don’t think.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
I just wachted the movie of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It’s horrible. A very good movie, but very horrible. I’m glad I already read the book so I knew what was coming.
I highly recommend both reading the book and watching the film. Just be prepared to get a little sad.
