Is this, or is this not, the lamest promotional item evar? When I picked up the DVD at Costco for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (for educational purposes, mind you), it said, “Free Sky Captain Playing Cards Inside!” When I opened the long box, I saw the card in the image on top…
Category: flicks
Arclight Cinema
This has got to be the coolest theatre evar— exactly the sort of theatre I’d love to own someday.
16fps Countdown
I found this awesome little 16-frame-per-second film countdown leader on an old tape, and reconstructed it, bringing it back to 16fps from a wrong-speed transfer, and removing the timecode burn-in. If anyone wants the full-rez version of this let me know, and we can work something out. Enjoy! [The original is in the SheerVideo codec,…
Removing 4:2 Pulldown?
Calling all video gurus: Help! I have a few clips that I’ve got from a stock tape that exhibit a weird pulldown pattern. The footage looks looks to be originally shot in 25p (such as european film might be), and then converted to NTSC 30i in a 4:2 pattern, so the frame progression goes like…
SKY CAPTAIN and the WORLD of TOMORROW
It is a gorgeous film. A designer’s wet dream. But the pacing is off and the characters, for the most part, fall flat. It’s as if you gave today’s effects technology to someone used to making films in 1935. It tries to be charming and retro, but succeeds only in being… well, of the kind…
Sleepy Hollow
Based on the the short story by Washington Irving, this Tim Burton film makes Ichabod Crane into a bumbling detective from New York, sent to investigate the murders of the the Headless Horseman. Depp’s skittish charm in this role brings a lot of humor to what is otherwise a very dark film, occasionally brightened by…
Dead Man
The first movie I’ve caught of the Johnny Depp series the local AFI theatre is presenting, Depp here plays William Blake. No, not that William Blake, though a reluctantly helpful native american he meets seems to think so. Because of a chance encounter involving a gun, a price is put on his head. Men, both…