Jesus Christ...is this necessary?

The Childcare Action Project (known on the streets as CAP...as in "I'll bust a CAP in yo' ass") has taken it upon themselves to tell the movie industry how much they suck at morality. This website is run by a "non-profit" Christian ministry that runs solely on funding by those who are morally insecure enough to assume they owe it to God and the children to keep this website up. The basic idea of it consists of some guy, Thomas A. Carder, watching movies and rating them based on a point scale made up of 6 criterion: Wanton violence/crime, Impudence/Hate, Sexual Immorality, Drugs/Alcohol, Offense to God, Murder/Suicide, which happen to spell out WISDOM. Each film is scored out of 100 and points are removed for each WISDOM offense. Here's an example:

The most intriguing part about this website, however, is their audacity to actually refrain from fully viewing a movie due to it's abhorrent themes. For example, The Birdcage: "I could not justify spending the time and effort necessary to do a complete analysis of The Birdcage.  After 25 minutes of the show I had one and a half recording logs of homosexual suggestions and activities. There were other examples of unacceptable material, but none so thick as homosexuality. I apologize if you were expecting to see a complete review of The Birdcage, but there are some things I can stand, and some things I cannot stand -- this movie was "cannot." It was glorification of homosexualtiy, pure and simple. Great scott!! Robin Williams, the voice of Genie in Aladdin who said "I love you too, Al" and acting with children in Jumanji was right there on the screen kissing on other men! I am aware of Williams' use of foul language and sexual material in some movies, but whodda thought? It may be illegal in Canada and other countries to speak out against homosexuality, but not in America. Not yet, at least. No...I am not a homophobe. I do not fear or hate the homosexual, I just hate homosexuality. My suggestion is...don't watch this movie." 

And thus, instead of simply not mentioning The Birdcage, the author of this glorious website informed us that he himself didn't even watch the movie in full and yet he is capable of giving us an analysis of its moral adequacy. I think anyone who uses the phrase "Great Scott!!" in any context outside of personal internal dialogue is morally inept in one way or another. 

The hands down best part about this website, though is the "Baby Miracle" series (volumes 1-3) and how somehow, one portrayal of a biblical story is morally superior to another. For instance, volume 1: The Story of Creation scored a whopping perfect score of 100 complete with a side note from the author, "By the way, that adorable little girl on the cover of the boxart looks exactly like one of our adopted daugthers." The misspelling of the word daughters and the italic "exactly" help me to imagine Thomas squealing for joy as he marks a red A+ on this cinematic masterpiece if only because the boxart reminds him of his adopted child who serves as his own personal conscience cleanser. Ok, now here's the best part...volume 3: Jonah and the Whale, received a 97 which is 3 points less than volume 1. Here's what Thomas had to say: 

Wanton Violence/Crime (W)

cartoon character being swallowed by a whale 

Impudence/Hate (I)

Jonah disobeying God 

Really? The cartoon character was swallowed by a whale? And Jonah disobeyed God? Holy shit! We can't show this to our children!! What if they learn from the mistakes of others?! The nerve of the Baby Miracle Learning Company for quoting the bible directly and telling a biblical story exactly the way it should be told! How immoral! 3 demerits! 

This website is literally a joke. I mean, I will be the first person in line to defend this guy's right to free speech but I've got to vent about how ridiculous this is. You simply can not just stamp a film moral or immoral (especially if you don't even watch the whole thing). Besides, wasn't it Jesus who said "turn the other cheek"? If you don't like it, don't watch it. There is absolutely no need to make an entire website about it. 

Here's the link in case you're interested in checking it out...or making a donation...

Childcare Action Project (CAP)

My Winnipeg: Fact or fiction?

My Winnipeg is a one of a kind film, a rarity, even among those that we classify as art films. Like most of the director's works - My Winnipeg was shot in a style that resembles silent era filmmaking. The black and white cinematography and the graininess of 35 mm celluloid gives the film a sort of eerie feel, a nightmarish quality that perfectly fits the theme of the Guy Maddin's work. My Winnipeg is the perfect title for a film about the director's own reflections on his hometown. This is not the audience's Winnipeg, this is Guy Maddin's Winnipeg -

a town that is covered by snow and where people constantly sleepwalk.
My Winnipeg is a "Chris Marker like" essay film, a dream sequence, a documentary and most importantly an experiment, in which the director tries to reenact chapters of his own childhood while super imposing them with surreal episodes of Winnipeg's bizarre history - whether they are true or not. The parts of the film that I found to be the most fascinating are his childhood reenactments, in which the director used "his own mother" (Anne Savage) and a group of bad amateur actors to play out his mother's manipulative ways. The film might be hard for those who don't have much of an attention span, but it still a pretty entertaining fare. Guy Maddin's film, though a bit selfish, is a must see, not only because it is good, but because something of this sort only comes out once in a long while.

Money at the Student Life Building

I just had to make a few quick notes. One, the Cafe and Concessions are CASH ONLY. Seriously, everyone has to be sick of me complaining about it, but people still don't get it. First-timers, I'll allow. Well, only with Cafe. Cafe only has it written once or twice, and then you only really see when you reach the register. With Concessions, we have a sign when you enter the line, a notice on the price board, a sign on the pillar between concession ordering and paying windows, and a last notice on the register itself. So no sympathy, especially when it says in BOLD "Cash Only" and yet people still ask if we take FSU card or any kind of card at all. There are even those special few who, having walked past and seen the signs, ask if we are STILL cash only, as if we would have changed to accepting cards and yet have left the signs up.

Two, we only accept the currency of the United States of America, and no bill larger than a $20 one. Yes, I have to be that specific. We accept your dollar coin, your Susan B. Anthony coin, and your JFK half-dollar. We even accept the $2 bill. Just no $50s or $100s. Who really walks into a bank and asks for that large of a bill anyway? Anyway, why do people try to pay in foreign currency? I haven't had the euro, I'm waiting for it (don't do it after reading this or I'll "spill" your soda on ya) but I have had CANADIAN currency. If you are the girl I just talked to today, don't feel bad for trying to use a Canadian quarter (it is similar to the U.S. quarter after all) but you should feel bad for trying to get me to accept it afterwards. Canadian currency is not equal to U.S. currency (ever wonder why your book has two prices on the cover? The larger one is Canadian). I can feel the weight difference (Canadian is lighter) and even though state quarters help camouflage it, our money doesn't have a queen on it! The first time someone used a Canadian quarter, I didn't catch it till afterwards, so we lost money, but I HAVE caught four more and told their owners to pony up U.S. money fast or be denied their food. Also, your friend telling me she passes off pesos at other places just puts me on guard to catch those as well.

So please, bring cash. We are cheaper than a commercial theater, and the profit from concessions pays for staff and helps pay for movies. New blockbusters are EXPENSIVE and we try not to use up your SGA fees on just movies. It's not that hard to carry the $9 you would spend on a movie ticket and use it to buy a large popcorn and two large drinks. If you come to the movies with friends who talk about getting popcorn, please remind them we are cash only, so I don't give them a dirty look when they order or stand in line for 10 minutes without realizing we are cash only.

Quick, third note. $0.50 popcorn is GONE. It's over, we have a new special. It's on the front of the schedule. Every Tuesday and Saturday is 50% Small Popcorn and Small Soda special. Normally, a Small Popcorn is $2.75 and a Small Soda is $2.25. That is $5 total. At 50%, that is $2.50. This, for those not current in economics or math, is a $0.25 popcorn special. We made it CHEAPER! Stop complaining.

Thank you, and come to the Middle East Film Festival.

Getting ourselves out there!

So I'm working in fits and starts, but it's happening. As Vice Chair of PR (Marketing) I'm the one doing the facebook, youtube, and blog happenings. Your updates? Most likely me. Wanna know what some movie is on our schedule? If it's not a Monday movie, I posted a trailer to our youtube page. Look, I'm blogging right now.

New features on the facebook fan page: discussion board topics for all fans to request movies for Classics and Midnights. In no way does this beat actually coming to Film Committee meetings (details when you ask the next time you come to a movie), but it makes more people feel involved and takes some strain off of us. Also, this blog is now an RSS feed into the Fan Pages Notes. Easy access. Upcoming, more photos and some video of SLC and its events.

I'm also working on getting us on IMDB.com as well as other movie websites, so our $5 ticket price for non-students gets more action. Anyone who wants to spread the word is also more than welcome, First Friday at Railroad is a great place to start.

How many people like or don't like the new names for popcorn and soda sizes at our concessions stand? It seemed to fall in place easy enough, though I expected more people to be using the new names.

One last note, people who show up to a movie and are upset that they can't get in. Do you know why they can't get in? It's a packed house. Or they cut in line. If you show up to a movie right at start time, you better hope no one else wanted to see the movie. We open the doors for seating 30 minutes before start time, and by that time we usually have a line. Also, the late showings of movies always are the most filled. If you want to try and guarantee a seat for yourself, show up to the early show and make sure it's a half hour before the movie starts. Don't complain to us that you ran over from somewhere to just get there 5-10 minutes AFTER the movie started. If there are seats, we'll let you in. If not, too bad. We try to show movies at multiple times, on multiple days, just so the highest number of people can see it. We aren't keeping you out on purpose.
Concessions closes 30 minutes after the last show of the night begins...and is CASH ONLY.

This week, 3:10 to Yuma was badass, The Fall was beautiful imagery, Open Mic night needs performances (I know there have to be more people on campus who wanna get on stage), Get Smart looks extremely funny, the ADVANCED SCREENING of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is expected to have enough people show up to fill the theater to capacity at least twice over (so get there as close to 3pm as possible, for it's 5pm start time), and we know everyone is coming out for Donnie Darko. Is this an awesomely scheduled week or what?

HD - BS Buzzword

It's been on my mind since I can remember, what is High Definition? The generic answer that the guys at Best Buy will tell you, is that it's about the pixels, specifically, the height of the video. DVD is at 480 lines, most downloadable content runs 720 (whether it's VOD, streaming, or a good old fashioned download), and Blu-Ray boasts 1080 lines of resolution.

But here's the funny thing, I can rip a DVD to my computer and then re-encode it to a 720 or even 1080 size picture. Guess what happens then? I could legitimately sell that movie (assuming I had the distro rights to do so) and call it "High Def." Is that a load of crap? Absolutely.

So where's the real kicker for High Def? It's in the bitrate, to some degree. I'm not saying size doesn't matter, it does (no matter what your mother told you), but the human eye can't even tell the difference between 720 and 1080 if the screen is smaller than 38 inches (and I doubt you've got 38 inches).

So what is bitrate? Bitrate is the amount information the video actually holds. You're probably familiar with this term from the copious amounts of CD ripping you did in middle school (or gradeschool, god I'm old). The higher the bitrate, the better the sound, the bigger the file. This is especially so for video, most people can recognize quality differences in video than in audio, and video has a lot more info.

So why is HD BS? Because the companies telling you that it is the latest and greatest aren't talking about High Def, they're talking about a buzzword they can use for marketing. This buzzword makes you buy tons of new techie toys and allows them to charge more for a product. Don't believe me? Here are some numbers from George Ou.
















As you can see, HD is nothing more than a marketing trick to fool the innocent and weak. Trust in the companies providing HD content? I won't, not for now, except perhaps for Sony (developers of Blu-Ray). But Blu-Ray has less fan 5 years of life left in it, replacements have already been developed. See Ultra High Definition Video.

The bigger problem is America's infrastructure. At the dawn of the internet, we were kings. Now, we have some of the slowest bandwidths, up and down. The beautiful thing is that the providers are investing nothing to fix that, in fact they are doing quite the opposite by instituting bandwidth caps. This means when physical media dies, and believe me it will in the next 10 years, and all we're left with are downloads, they're either going to look like crap or eat up all your bandwidth.

So the next time your cable company tells you it's added more HD programming, it's because they've actually lowered all the bitrates to be able to fit said programing through their shamefully unimpressive bandwidth. The next time you pay more for an HD stream or download, remember that the quality isn't even as good as DVD (which is more than a decade old). Well, America seems to be failing at a lot of things lately, why not fail at the internet and video as well.

In a world where...

In a world where movie trailers can make or break a film, one man stood out: Don LaFontaine. His long and prolific career (over 5,000 movies) earned him the nickname "The Voice of God."

according to the BBC:

"LaFontaine died in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Monday from complications caused by an ongoing lung-related illness, his agent said."

He was 68.

LaFontaine's voice can be heard on such memorable trailers as The Godfather Part 2, Batman Returns, Shrek, and Independence Day among many many others.

He is survived by a wife and three children.

In memory here are some fun links, the first is his version of the pledge of allegiance, which puts all my forced recitations in grade school to shame:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfjZj4NY7EM&feature=related

the second is his Geico Ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMGS7l0wT8&feature=related

The third is 5 Guys in a Limo, where Don LaFontaine, John Leader, Al Chalk, Mark Elliot, and Nick Tate (all voice-over stars) display their unique talents to comedic effect

The New York times has a rather touching obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/arts/television/03lafontaine.html?_r=1&ref=movies&oref=slogin


And the BBC's obituary has more information on some aspects of his life and death:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7595352.stm

Future Midnight Nostalgia: The Dark Knight

If Batman Begins was a stereotypical superhero film, then The Dark Knight is the opposite of that. This is in part due to Christopher Nolan's genius, but also due to his desire to instill a touch of realness to the Batman franchise. What we get is a film that is on some level, light, yet mixed with darker ingredients that just don't mix the way we want them to.

Heath Ledger's Joker character is of course the cause of much hype around the film. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us, but he will no doubt be immortalized by this role. It's Ledger who made the Joker the character he is, even Nolan could not say no to many of Ledger's improvisations. Ledger sets the mood and tone of the film overall, and like the Joker, the film does not follow any set rules that may exist in our minds.

To my personal disdain, I found myself laughing at many of the Jokers' lines, because on some level many of them were funny. As the film went on, I started realizing that while the lines were funny, there was an inherent evil in the character that I just wasn't accepting. There's perhaps a turning point where the Joker is no longer just a menace, but perhaps a character that is simply to be feared, and his humor nothing but sadistic remarks.

There's of course the excellent plot of the film, again looking at the Gotham crime scene, and how the mob responds to the existence of Batman, and newcomer Harvey Dent. At its roots, beyond the superheroes and supervillains, is a city in chaos from crime and corruption, which still relies on a traditional judicial system. Batman can of course fight crime, but can never really provide justice. This is the question posed throughout the film: where does Batman belong, what's his role?

The Dark Knight is now one of my favorites, if not my favorite linear film of all time. Nolan said he based a lot of the film on Heat, but what he's created far surpasses even the great performance between Pacino and DeNiro, as the dynamics between a cop and bank robber are nothing compared to the dynamics between a logical superhero and an irrational supervillain. While my head and my stomach were tied in knots from the amazement and surprise in the film, I'm far from confused on it's rating. There's no doubt it's getting 5.5 out of 5 stars, and trust me, that isn't a typo.