Category: Sci-Fi

Monsters and Madmen DVD

Monsters and Madmen

My appreciation of Criterion Collection home video goes back to its beginning, when Citizen Kane and King Kong were released on the old Laserdisc format. The discs included a commentary audio track, and extras such as trailers and production stills. These features are now taken for granted, but 20+ years ago they were exciting and ground-breaking.

Criterion specializes in releasing high-quality specialty videos for titles that are hard-to-find and/or haven’t been presented properly. Mike Dobbs has posted some interesting background on a new Criterion set of low-budget horror and sci-fi movies, including a couple that feature Bill Pratt, aka Boris Karloff. I’ll be looking for these cheesy classics on Netflix, but when will there be a Queen of Outer Space DVD?

Star Wars – Missing Minutes

Biggs and Luke

A long time ago, seeing bloopers and deleted scenes from movies was a rarity. But along came DVDs and it started to seem that scenes were being shot solely for the purpose of padding out supplementary material.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/SW.flv 400 175]

This post will be nothing new to die-hard Star Wars fans, but here are a couple of scenes that didn’t make it into the release of the first movie, which is coming up fast on its 30th anniversary.
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Star Trek New Voyages

New Voyages

If you don’t yet know about Star Trek New Voyages, click here. My buddy Bismo introduced us to New Voyages, which is but one of several amateur re-creations of the various Trek TV series. I think it’s by far the best.

For more background on the amazing phenomenon of fan-produced Trek TV, click here. While you’re reading that, you can listen to an NPR feature on New Voyages. Here’s the link.

New Voyages banner

Even More Netflix Instant Viewing

Mohr

It’s Bogart! Wait. Nope. It’s not Bogie, it’s Gerald Mohr. I cropped this from a photo taken of my Sony 32XBR100 screen, while Netflix Watch Now was running, thanks to the 25-ft. S-Video and audio cables running between the computer and the TV. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Add-on Note: I’m taking a break from playing with Netflix, and I’m doing my usual Web browsing. I see that Mark Evanier has Watch Now, too. Maybe everybody does. Click here to read Evanier’s comment.

More Netflix Instant Watching

NetflixVideo.gif

Netflix is rating my connection speed as being merely “Basic.” HA! I don’t think so. I have FiOS, the fastest residential connection there is. If there’s a throughput problem, it’s not with the last mile!

After repeated re-testing, I managed to get a “Good” rating and confirmed that the image is much better. The jaggies are less flagrant, but there’s still a lot of color banding.

Angry Red Planet

In my viewing test I still haven’t moved on beyond Mars, that angry red planet. The script offers seemingly endless lessons on life and, yes, love. How do I compare thee? I compare thee to my dog …

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The distinctive male voice belonged to Gerald Mohr. A radio actor for many years, he switched to TV in the 50’s. Mohr was the voice of Reed Richards in the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon series.