This weblog, “Prattling Before the Pratfall,” turns 16 today. Someone born when I began posting, using WordPress 2.0.2, is starting the 11th grade. Do blogs have a junior prom?
Category: All Posts
A Long Time Ago…
Much of the third part of Light & Magic, Lawrence Kasdan’s ILM documentary on Disney+, is about the making of The Empire Strikes Back. Something I’ve neglected to say is, the clips from Star Wars and Empire are from the original film elements, with scratches and speckles intact.
Seeing these widescreen HD snippets of the movies as they first appeared in movie theaters, even the color differences compared to the “corrected” digital releases opened doors in my memory. It would be wonderful if Disney were teasing us for an upcoming re-release of the original Star Wars, before the “New Hope” title was added in 1978. What is much more likely is that Kasdan wanted to show examples of the special effects that were faithful to what the ILM team created.
My favorite moment in part 3 is when illustrator Joe Johnston talks about Syd Mead’s portfolio of concept paintings for United States Steel.
One of Mead’s paintings has a vehicle with a split rear window. It reminds me of the 1963 Corvette Stingray, a car that fascinated me as a kid.
https://sydmead.com/category/gallery/us-steel/
To the Library!
With the pandemic being more or less under control, I’ve started visiting the town library. Nothing says I’m an old retired guy more than that.
During a fundraising campaign to renovate and expand the library I donated $1000. The Boston Globe, that I no longer have delivered at home, is there. Along with several magazines of interest, The Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian.
Fewer Than Seven Degrees
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon on the left, and the guy on the right lives up the street.
Another fun fact: That WebP image is about 66 KB. This JPG image is about 155 KB.
The Dog Rat Days of August
Quiet on the Set! Action!
It’s safe to say that GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE is a film for grown-ups. This preview is rated PG-13, for very explicit language.
Emma Thompson Calls Intimacy Coordinators “Fantastically Important.”
I dunno if this controversy is for real. It seems likely to be something thought up to generate buzz for the movie, and that’s okay.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/emma-thompson-calls-intimacy-coordinators-123044188.html
This isn’t the first time Emma Thompson has shown her stuff on camera. Thompson is exceptionally attractive in Carrington, from 1995. The film includes one of the most intense scenes of passion to ever appear in mainstream cinema as distinct from “dirty movies.” It’s done, to borrow a term from the Leo Grande trailer, “doggy style.”
Questions about how love scenes in movies are filmed are as old as the medium, going back to Edison’s The Kiss in 1896. Legend — urban or otherwise — has it that, nearly 100 years ago, Greta Garbo and her leading man John Gilbert “did it” for real on a movie set. Their love affair is covered in Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film.
Early on, one of my goals for this blog was to post the entire 13-part Hollywood series, transferred from my LaserDisc box set. It took a lot of time and effort, but I did it, to my later regret. People started contacting me, offering to pay for copies of Hollywood on DVD. I had, and still have, the hardware to do that.
I quickly suspected that some of those requests were coming from those who were probably not only fans, but dealers wanting to sell bootleg copies. I declined those offers, but having the videos online made them available for downloading by those who were sufficiently tech savvy.*
Which made me wonder if I might be opening myself up to legal trouble. I found an interview with Kevin Brownlow, who produced the series with the late David Gill. Brownlow was asked about a DVD set, and he said some of the family estates were holding out for more money. So I decided to play it safe and took the page offline. It’s still here, but hidden.
Times have changed from the days when YouTube allowed video uploads of only 10-minutes. Someone braver than myself has taken the risk that I didn’t, so far without being deleted. This series has the absolute highest Dog Rat ***** rating. Consider it not just recommended viewing, but mandatory. Some of these transfers were definitely sourced from VHS.
The playlist is missing Part 4: “Hollywood Goes to War”. I’ll add it separately.
Part 10: “The Man With the Megaphone” wasn’t allowed by YouTube, but somebody else managed to post it.
* For all I know, the DVD’s for sale at this link could have been made from my transfers: https://www.moviedetective.net/product_p/holl.htm