rare pattern thoughts in a blog

I never had the opportunity to see this film in a theatre, and the existing video versions were pretty murky when it came to the shadowy dark scenes. This movie is very unusual and requires some patience to settle into its pacing, but once you do, you're in for a ride. But with those murky scenes before, you'd get kicked right out of the story and wonder what the heck was going on.

No longer. This Blu-ray transfer is excellent. My only complaint is that the color saturation seems a bit washed out. Some of the stills in the extra features have the saturation you'd expect. But this is a minor quibble. Maybe David Bowie's orange hair would get all blown out in full saturation.

That brings me to David Bowie, who is really quite wonderful in the film. Enigmatic, androgynous yet masculine, and very other-worldly. If you're not old enough to remember Bowie, he was a star back then, and still pretty fresh off of startling the media world with his oddity. He had some very big hits, and yet you really couldn't quite peg what kind of music he was making. It was truly original.

This was his film acting debut, and he's really good! Very compelling, and totally convincing. You never have what you might expect, a cringe moment where see the rock star instead of the character.

Maybe it helps that his character is totally bizarre anyway. But he's right there in character, in the reality of the moment always.

This Blu-ray is worth getting, most definitely.

Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki (Japanese title)

*** mild spoilers ***

He's not ready with the witty verbal quips – just the opposite, actually – but Detective Azuma is otherwise not all that unlike Dirty Harry. He slaps teenage punks around, would rather beat up than arrest drug dealers, and doesn't hesitate to run down a cop killer.

The plot eventually becomes about Azuma's investigation of a drug syndicate and how it's controlling more than it seems. But I have to warn Dirty Harry fans: This is no Magnum Force. In some ways, the Dirty Harry films are fairy tales compared with this movie. They are also much more sharp and focused in the western cinematic tradition. Violent Cop is very Japanese in understatedness of plot.

For those who like to see other cities, other cultures, like I do, there are lots of scenes on the streets of what might be Kyoto. (Filming location info is not currently found on Wikipedia or IMDB.) Much of the story takes place during the daytime, so there's much to see. (City streets at night could be almost anywhere.)

Interestingly, the movie was originally conceived as a comedy. IMDB:

The original script was a comedy. Kitano was then very concerned about the audience recognizing his acting skills and he didn't feel that a comedy would allow him to act nor allow the audience to abstract from his comic TV personality. So he rewrote the script, removed all comedy and turned it into a drama.

One wonders what elements of the final film could have been comedic in another context.

This movie is interesting. Very dry. Very understated, for all the violence. Beat Takeshi Kitano directed this movie, his first outside of Japan.

(If you don't know Beat, you may still recognize his face.)

Wikipedia currently remarks:

Brother (2001), shot in Los Angeles, had Kitano as a deposed Tokyo yakuza setting up a drug empire in L.A. with the aid of a local gangster played by Omar Epps. Despite a large buzz around Kitano's first English language film, the film was met with tepid response in the US and abroad....

Between the disappointing response to Brother and Dolls [another movie he directed], Kitano became a punching bag for the press in the United States, who wondered if he had lost his ability to make a good film. Criticism was less severe in Europe and Asia though many commentators were not as lavish with their praise as they had been with previous Kitano films.

To my own taste, I prefer Brother to Violent Cop, Kitano's first movie as director. For one thing, you get to know why Beat's character Aniki is the way he is. In Violent Cop, Azuma is more of a cipher.

That said, Aniki is not quite as transparently purposeful or ambitious as the Wikipedia description would have you believe. He's a guy who doesn't back down. Ever. And that leads to some interesting reactions as he makes his acquaintance of the LA drug gang world portrayed in the film. What makes it all hold together are the flashbacks that tell us why he's in LA in the first place. Enough said about that.

For anyone interested in gangster movies, I'd say this is probably worth seeing. But for me it's the Kitano-style Japanese touches in the story and some characters that puts this movie in the yes column. Omar Epps is a likable presence, too.

Hancock probably could not be considered anything more than a halfway decent scifi/fantasy movie if it weren't for Will Smith. The concept is interesting enough, but the storyline ends up falling a bit short, even compared with your basic superhero movies. Yet with Will Smith's performance, you almost don't notice.

Without spoilers, I feel safe noting the premise of the movie: Hancock (Will Smith) is a sloppy, careless guy with superhero powers. Smith makes this guy truly compelling, though. He's tragically lonely and hates his life so much he drinks heavily just to blot out the clear perception of it all. At times you almost want to cry for him. And that's all Smith.

In fact, I'd say that Will Smith's performance is more key to this movie than Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance is to Iron Man. There's plenty of humor in the story, but Smith actually plays it straight ... which of course makes it all the funnier.

Now I'll take a moment to note that Charlize Theron is one of my favorite actresses, so it should not surprise for me to say that she brings some fun to the movie. Charlize Theron is one of those actresses who brings a lot to even the smallest role. And yet she never tries to upstage anyone ... which of course makes her all the more compelling.

The Blu-ray is high quality. I didn't poke around much at the extras. If you're a Will Smith fan, then this is one to see. He does not disappoint.

I've been watching The Godfather on Blu-ray, and have been rather disappointed just how muddy the image is.

Credit where credit's due: the rich high-contrast nature of Gordon Willis' astounding cinematography is well captured for the most part. The shadows are as black as they were in the theatre. You can really appreciate the control of light, especially as characters emerge from darkness and disappear back into it.

But the high definition image resolution just isn't there. The details end up fuzzy. The sharpness doesn't seem up to par for a 35mm negative, that's for sure.

Other films from the period, including The Wild Bunch, haven't suffered so badly. What has The Godfather done to be treated so disrespectfully?

Given that Francis Coppola's company authors DVDs, I had to assume that the Blu-ray result on this film is testament to the poor quality of the surviving film elements available. I can only imagine what they had to work with for the opening wedding sequence, in which the outdoor shots seem very blown out – blown out in a video sense more than a film sense. No amount of restoration is going to put back resolution that has been lost.

As it turns out, that's precisely the problem. Stephanie Argy writes in American Cinematographer: Post Focus:

Widely regarded as an American classic and a landmark achievement in cinematography, Paramount Pictures’ The Godfather (1972) is identical to most films of its era in one respect: it was not properly preserved. Paramount, like most Hollywood studios, did not create a preservation program — “asset protection” in industry parlance — until the home-video boom of the 1980s proved film libraries could have indefinite, lucrative lives. Before that awareness took hold, original negatives were typically used as printing negatives, which meant the original negatives for popular pictures took a lot of abuse. The Godfather was not only popular, it was Hollywood’s first blockbuster, and over the years, “the neck of the golden goose was certainly wrung out,” says the film’s cinematographer, Gordon Willis, ASC, with typical candor.

This really is heartbreaking, that a cinema classic such as this is left with a Blu-ray that looks more like an upconverted standard DVD.

On Amazon, Reviewer Wayne Klein claims...

"The Godfather" was meant to look grainy so those of you who hate grain will probably wonder why they didn't eliminate it. That's because to do so would have required altering the look of the film not restoring it and the usual result of eliminating film grain is that you lose detail.

The problem is that you get some grain, but only in the most underexposed scenes where the lab had to push the image more than otherwise. This is nothing like the well-used print I saw years and years ago in a revival house in LA, which was scratched and broken in places but had some fine cinematic detail. One of the appeals of Blu-ray is that it can actually present much of that rich detail. But The Godfather does not showcase that.

Back on Amazon, reviewer Kieth Paynter writes:

If you are looking for a "wow" disc to show off your Blu-ray home theater sound and video, this is not it. If you are looking to experience modern American Gangster cinema in its 1970's glory, this is as close as you are ever likely to get, muted sepia-esque color, film grain and all.

These were not done exclusively for the home market. The priority was that they were restored for theatres, because that is where they would be judged the most critically, and all indications are that they do not disappoint. Never watch these films in your living room with the lights on. Watch them like you do in the theater, lights out, to appreciate the effort that went into these films.

That's excellent advice. You can't appreciate the rich blacks in the compositions with the room lights on.

The Godfather is still one of the greatest movies of all time, and if you have never seen it, put that on a must-watch list. This Blu-ray is not going to get you the cinematic experience, but at least it has the richness. And all of the story is there, as vivid and compelling as ever.

Perhaps of interest: An American Cinematographer article on The Godfather restorations done some time ago.

Have you seen it yet? This is not something to miss! Personally I love the music, but the real charm is the humor. Neil Patrick Harris is the perfect comic hero/villain.

If you've not heard of this show, it's a little ditty by Firefly and Buffy creator Joss Whedon and cohorts, created as something to do while the writer's strike stalled all production in Hollywood.

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

(Of course, it will be available for paid download after today, but why not see it for free while you can?)

Update:

Dr. Horrible is available on DVD! See it on your television!

Some items are must-haves for any science fiction fan (and aren't all geeks and geekettes to some extent sci-fi fans?). We already know that Battlestar Galactica is the best show on television. Now we can celebrate not just this fabulous show in high-definition video, but those shows and movies that led to its creation (according to me -- Ron Moore may have different ideas).

Let's start at the top:

1. Battlestar Galactica - Season One [HD DVD]

   If you've stumbled across the show broadcast in HDTV on the UHD cable channel, you know that Galactica is really something else when you can see all the detail.

   Price: $69.95

2. Blade Runner (Five-Disc Complete Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]

   Caprica Six, meet your cinematic ancestors -- the angry existentialist Ray, the touchy Leon, the cheerfully desperate Pris and the ass-kicking Zora. And, of course, Rachel. (I couldn't be offering a spoiler on this 1977 movie, could I?) You have to wonder if we'd have Battlestar Galactica if we didn't have Blade Runner. Remastered, re-edited by Ridley Scott, this is the definitive edition.

   Price: $27.95 for the 5-disc Blu-ray set, $66.95 for the Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition) (aka the special edition with dead tree material added)

3. Firefly - The Complete Series

   The mood of Galactica wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Firefly, which aired a few years before. This sci-fi classic series was ill-treated by the television, but lives on in gorgeous DVD video that upconverts very nicely, thank you.

   If you haven't seen Firefly, you're in for a treat. These characters you will love -- they will be your friends for life. I swear!

   Price: $39.99

4. Cowboy Bebop Remix, Volume 1

   You couldn't have Firefly without Cowboy Bebop. This anime series manages to surprise you. And the music is pretty cool, too.

   Price: $17.49

   Happy Holidays, Space Cowboy!

This is part of a larger holiday geeky gift guide I posted on BlogHer.

Until today, The Railyard has been one of the great secrets of Boulder. Simply put: They have the best steaks in Boulder. Forget the way overrated Boulder Chophouse -- that place may have been good once, but now it's just a fancy joint serving sub-par Sizzler-caliber steaks -- The Railyard is the place to go.

My only real quibble is that they have these blue-daylight-colored energy-efficient bulbs lighting their dining area. Warmer colors would definitely improve the atmosphere.

Otherwise, their staff is very friendly -- and it's clear that they are proud of the food they serve, for good reason!

The reason The Railyard not a great secret any more is that it is located in the 29th Street Mall, right next to the the new Century Theatres complex, which opens today. These pics are from Wednesday.

Nice design, I think.

It's been a long long time coming, a modern movie theatre in Boulder. I'm looking forward to checking out movies there.

So in Boulder now, steak and a movie, that's the way!

When it comes to post-mortem publicity rights, this decision is BIG:

The Southern District of New York has just issued a bombshell decision in this area. In Shaw Family Archives v. Marilyn Monroe LLC, it held that Marilyn Monroe's heirs cannot claim post-mortem publicity rights because she died before the enactment of the statute that creates them in California (and, for reasons that are not important here, Indiana). So, according to this Court, her image, likeness and persona are all in the public domain. Put it on a t-shirt. Or a bottle of wine. Use it to sell widgets. No permission necessary. (But please remember, copyrights to the photograph you might want to use are a whole spearate issue.)

Is this a big deal? You bet. Licensing dead celebrities is a multi-million dollar business. But California -- the center of the celebrity universe -- only passed the statute creating post-mortem publcity rights in 1984. Lots of the hottest dead celebrities (licensing-wise) died long before that, and millions of licensing revenue stands to disappear under this decision.

Intellectual property lawyers in Hollywood will now have plenty to worry about, and therefore plenty of job security, for years to come.

This gets to the heart of the new "ownership society" in which we've found ourselves, where people's images, ideas, even naturally-occurring genes are claimed. It's like watching 2nd grade boys claiming territory in the sandbox. "First dibs!"

(Are there sandboxes on playgrounds any more? Let's ask the lawyers.)

If I come across as a tad cynical about this, that's because I'm getting the sense that the claims being made by media corporations and other interested parties are not helping to encourage innovation, but rather are working to stifle it. --Not that the prospect of seeing more Hollywood golden era stars dancing with vacuums has anything to do with innovation one way or the other.

This is going to be an interesting story to follow. And you can be sure the news media will cover it. After all, such things are their bread and butter.

[Comments are now closed due to relentless "nancy miracle" spam]

So Jeremiah Owyang has started a media consumption diet meme, and Marianne Richmond has tagged us BlogHers, so here goes....

• Web: I used to use NetNewsWire Lite for RSS, but I tried Shrook and found it to me easier to use, with some of the features NetNewsWire makes you pay for. Shrook is easy enough, so I'll stick with it for now. Do I need to mention Firefox? For search, I use Google pretty exclusively (I find myself wondering how Yahoo! gets by, what with all the barriers they put up for people to get listed in their index) and if I'm blog-hunting, I go to Technorati. I blog using Drupal for platform and either Performancing or ecto for blogging client (though neither is optimal -- Performancing repeatedly loses my drafts and ecto keeps embedding cruft into my html, even when I define the tags myself). For online video, I find YouTube too useful to ignore. It can be a bit hard to take, though, just browsing at random.
• Music: I've started trying out Pandora, but in some stations they keep trying to push the strangest things -- sorry but how do you get Foreigner or Journey from Led Zeppelin? -- and they limit how many songs I can reject in a given time. (Am I just too persnickety?) I have several of my old CDs burned to mp3 files, which I play on my desktop iTunes, but as I've moved from my nearly-dead PowerBook to two iMacs to my current MacBook Pro, it's been a challenge carrying those 20GB of files along for the migration ride. (It doesn't help that some of the discs were defective bulk coasters.) I haven't signed up for the iTunes Store, though, because the DRM restrictions and poor audio quality make downloads there less than appealing, no matter how appealing and easy-to-use the GUI is. Stop treating me like a criminal guilty until proven innocent, Apple and RIAA, and you'll have my business. Meanwhile, as CD music continues to fade away at the big box stores, I'm finding my music horizons diminishing, and that's a terrible place to be. My whole live is defined by soundtrack.
• TV: I don't have much time to watch television, especially the commercial variety -- I think I'm more and more intolerant of commercials. I will watch the NewsHour if I'm home early enough, the Daily Show if I'm up late enough (and thank goodness for the 9pm rerun of last night's show), Frontline if I stumble across it and (of course) Battlestar Galactica. I don't do cable news -- it strikes me as an entire industry getting excited about the lint in their own navels. However, since getting HDTV on Comcast, I've found that I'm more likely to just watch anything as long as it's high-def. Well, not anything at all, but it's amazing how much more interesting Nova or Discovery (or reruns of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly) are when you can see so much detail on the screen. (Ironic that local news is in high-def, but most network shows are not; the Rose Parade was in high def, but the Macy's parade was not; sports are in high def but arts typically are not; and all HBO seems to play on their single high-def channel is Rome [though it could be worse].)
• Communication: My cell is a Palm Treo 700p, but I hardly ever use it. It comes in handy when I need to keep up on email or check something on the web, but I'm realizing the touchscreen I so wanted (and thus the reason I rejected alternatives like Blackberry or Q) is pretty over-rated. Ah well, live and learn. The phone part is actually great for clarity and reception, but I don't use it as a PDA at all, as the 320x320 screen is just too damned small. Other phonage is Vonage. I haven't had a land-line phone in quite a few years now. --Not that any of this matters, because I really really hate talking on the phone unless it's necessary. For IM, I use Jabber (via Adium), which we have set up on one of our domains, and the sadly unavoidable Skype, which as a relay is an absolute bandwidth hog even when it's just sitting there.
  I don't use Skype much for voice, since so many people seem to have so many problems configuring it to work well. We thought it'd be great for talking to clients overseas to save a few pennies a minute, but all too often it was too much like the Cone of Silence. I use Apple Mail for email, mainly because Thunderbird on Mac is too slooowwwwww (I wish it weren't).
• Movies: Once upon a time, I saw several movies a week, sometimes several in one day, but now that they blast commercials in your face before showing generally sucky movies -- not to mention the overpriced junk food, sticky floors and noisy patrons -- it's just not worth it. It's not fun any more. So I watch movies on DVD, where I'm not limited by the, excuse me, crap selection of the week, and which on an HDTV plasma is an entirely new experience. I tend to buy, not rent, because rented discs always seem to have scratches that make the flick skip or freeze.
• Magazines: I subscribe to Post, HOW, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Macworld and occasionally Wired. I rarely buy a magazine off the rack. It amazes me how many magazines are in print. Do people actually read all these things? Somebody must. I have to say, however, that the supermarket tabloids do keep me informed. I mean, I could've gone for weeks or even months without knowing that Brittney Spears shaved her head or that Brad sent a note to Jen! Eeep!
• Books: I live for novels, but it's hard for me to find writers I like, so I'm stuck with the five or six authors who could write just about anything and I'd read it. Maybe if my life weren't so fast-paced, I'd be able to relax enough to get into a new writer's style, but usually I can't get past the first paragraph, so I do without. Meanwhile I'm reading more non-fiction than any time since I was in college. How She Does It, Blink and Designing Interactions are three of the most recent delights.
• Newspapers: I love reading off paper, but unlike magazines I don't hold the same love of newspapers. I like the print design of the New York Times, but I hate getting newsprint all over my fingers, and at a buck a pop for something I may not even have time to read that day, it becomes a dead-tree guilt and a recycling burden more than a source of news. 15 years ago that wasn't the case -- I loved getting the paper! How life changes in these times! I still read the "newspapers" online, including the NY Times, the Mercury News and the odd site that happens to have the AP wire story I want to read.

So there's my consumption in a nutshell. Now in the tradition of tagging, and because they are such an eclectic group of geeks and artists, I'd like to tag everyone on Planet Drupal.

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