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.

Modern Midnight Movies: The Happening

In my first article I wasn't expecting a midnight movie, whereas here I was. As the saying goes, typically when you're looking for something you don't find it.

After talking with some people, this seems to be Shyamalan's first actual horror film, even going to all the trouble to have it released on the only Friday the 13th of the year. Knowing that may be the best part of this article for some of you.

Rule #1 of a horror film: The cast should be made up of B-list actors, so as not to distract the audience.

Even before seeing the movie, we are already thinking about Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg excels at two things: looks, and using weapons. As you'd expect, neither of these qualities are utilized in this film. Neither of these are usual qualities of a Shyamalan film either, so already there is a bad mismatch even before seeing the film.

Rule #2 of a horror film: The monster or evil is only a secondary evil. The primary evil is usually not a monster, but another human being, or human beings that lack moral convictions. The primary evil is usually killed off by the secondary evil, finally revealing that the secondary evil isn't as evil as once thought, and may actually not be evil.

This is where the movie fails. Everyone in the movie is vulnerable. Whether they're a good person or a "bad" person. The primary evil in this movie is humanity itself. While at times Shyamalan points out little things about our society, primarily how our concern for money doesn't disappear in times of crisis or how people are selfish even when they need not be (or overly unselfish * 10), he fails to recognize any good in humanity. In the end we are led to believe that those who survived were merely lucky.

As for how the movie plays out, it simply drags on. No one is sure what's going on, and what it is they are running from. Only towards the end are we introduced to a truly horrific person, which again has no real bearing on the movie, either. Throughout the movie are disturbing visuals, though I found them ridiculous, in most cases. If you can't tell from the previews, then let me just spell it out better: The movie is about people just spontaneously killing themselves. One minute they act very confused, then the next thing you see is them taking a conveniently placed sharp object and cutting themselves. Sometimes this was too far fetched, for instance there is a scene where a cop kills himself with his gun, then the gun falls to ground. It is then expectedly picked up by another, and another, etc. Some of these people seem to go needlessly out of their way, for being so confused. While this makes for great visuals, it fails in any sense of reality, which unlike Doomsday, seemed to be a goal of the film.

I give the film 2.5/5 stars for stunning visuals alone. As for acting, and story, and all those other things so important to a movie, don't come to theater expecting those.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I was pleasantly suprised when I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kindom of the Crystal Skull. The trailers didn't impress me much, the name sounded retarded and my dad found a reveiw mere hours before it came out saying "It's the Indiana Jones you were afraid of." Overall however, I liked it. I left the theater feeling joyful and hopeful, which is a feeling I haven't had coming out of a theater in a long time. The story was over the top, there were tons of special effects and it was two hours long but George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg managed to weave all the parts of the story together and make it all work.

The following may contain spoilers

The plot weaves together ancient Mayan culture and aliens with astonishing flair. It's believable enough to have a good time and I think that's what the movie was going for. Indiana Jones has a tendency to follow old Hollywood rules and guidelines. There's a good guy, a bad guy and the plucky determined hero will always save the day and his own hide (even if it's at the expense of reality).
This film follows that formula, as do all the others except in this film the bad guys aren't a hoard of savages or nazis, they're ...COMMIES! (though it should be noted that there is a sub plot wherein federal agents are giving Indiana Jones a hard time). The head of the communist agents is agent Irina Spalko, played masterfully by Cate Blanchett (including a superb accent that's different from stereotypical Russian accents in Hollywood). The Good guys are comprised of Indy, his old flame from the first film, Marion Ravenwood (though her last name is now Williams as she has married and been widowed since the first film), and "Mutt" Williams (Marion's son, played by Shia LaBeouf). They fight together as a family using their unique talents to take on the dastardly commies.
The first and third movies were based on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and the second was based around a purely fantastical "tribal" theme (the political correctness of this film has been disputed, not to mention the accuracy). The fourth film seems to take after the second film, but bases it on a real tribal culture and in a respectful fashion, such as gleaning information about the aliens from tribal paintings and the ingenious and technical traps that thwart our heros. It's still a moralizing tale though, as the alien's veiw of treasure is sharply different from that of some of the humans, and there are some severe lessons on greed.
The movie has all the action and wit of the first three films (including gruesome deaths yet bloodless bullet wounds), making the two hours fly by. Not to mention, there are several inside jokes and allusions to the previous films, so there's plenty there for old Indiana Jones fans. There's also plenty of new things for Indiana Jones fans, such as the improved special effects, a solid and original plot, and just the right amount of exposition to introduce newbies to the franchise. All in all I thought it was an enjoyable movie, and left the theater in higher spirits than when I entered. Sometimes there's nothing better than an old-school style movie where good always overcomes evil and imagination and adventure are unlimited.

The Worst Movie Ever

And yet we must show it as a midnight. Seriously, how can anyone resist this atrocity? It looks so delicious.
Zombie Strippers