| Not-so-silent films in Monterey | | Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2007 3:00:38 PM by Blog57 Team | | Motion pictures have been part of the American cultural landscape since the 1890s. The first movies - or "flickers," as they were called - were only a minute or so long, and showed anything that moved to mesmerized audiences. "Fred Ott's Sneeze," featuring one of movie inventor Thomas Edison's assistants, was a blockbuster. As the novelty of mere motion wore off, filmmakers realized they had to tell a story to capture the attention of the audience, and added music to cover the noise made by the movie projector. (Soundtracks on the film itself wouldn't become widely used until 1930). At first, little thought went into matching appropriate music to the action on the screen, but that soon changed as it became apparent music could be used to reinforce the film's storyline. .... | |
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| | | Pulling out all the stops for silent films | | Posted Monday, November 27, 2006 1:00:41 PM by Blog57 Team | | Silent movies weren't necessarily silent. When heroines were tied to railroad tracks, when lovers embraced, when comedians took a pie in the face, narrative, emphasis and mood were frequently enhanced by a single musician seated at an organ. With today's increasing interest in film's silent era, organists with the expertise to accompany screenings are in demand — none more so than Clark Wilson, considered one of the country's leading theater organists and organ conservators. .... | |
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| | | A muralist's career high | | Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 6:56:43 PM by Blog57 Team | | OVER the next few weeks, thousands of visitors to the revamped Griffith Observatory will look up and see the rotunda mural work of Hugo Ballin. Ballin (1879-1956) isn't quite a household name, but in the 1920s and '30s he was remarkably prolific in Los Angeles as a painter; stage designer; writer (several novels); director and producer of silent films (more than 100 of them, according to the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles); and designer of the 1932 Olympic commemorative medallion. He did the Griffith Observatory project in 1934 and '35. His mural work can be found from Beverly Hills to Burbank, and the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles has documented enough works downtown to fill a walking tour. .... | |
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| | | Denmark's Nordisk Film movie house celebrates 100th anniversary | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 10:58:41 AM by Blog57 Team | | COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Nordisk Film, one of the world's oldest film production companies, celebrated its 100th anniversary Monday at the Copenhagen studios where it started making silent movies at the dawn of the movie industry. To mark the centenary, Danish Queen Margrethe was to tour the facilities in the Valby neighbourhood where thousands of films and TV shows have been produced since theatre operator Ole Olsen founded the company on Nov. 6, 1906. Today, Nordisk Film remains a major production house for movies in the Nordic region, and has also ventured into computer games. The company had its heyday during the industry's early stages, when it had branches in London, New York, South America and Russia. In 1914 alone, Nordisk Film produced 143 feature films and 46 nonfiction movies and sold more than 7,000 copies worldwide.... | |
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| | | IN A FIX? | | Posted Saturday, November 04, 2006 7:05:47 AM by Blog57 Team | | "When I began my career in post production, restoring aging film was a time-intensive and cost-prohibitive process, and in most cases only films with wide audience appeal would ever be considered for restoration treatment," recalls Dan DeVincent, director of digital imaging/head colorist at New York City's Cineric. "Today, new tools have not only improved the restoration process in general, they have made it more economical, allowing for the image and color restoration of much more than just old films. In fact, just about any type of content, at any resolution, may benefit from restoration processes, including DVDs, upcoming movie releases, documentaries and historical films, television programming and commercials." .... | |
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| | | Super Furry Animals Announce Tracklist for New LP | | Posted Tuesday, October 31, 2006 2:56:54 AM by Blog57 Team | | Hey kids! Welcome to the Super Furry Clubhouse, where we have another Super Furry Update on those Super Furry Welshmen, the Super Furry Animals. We told you two weeks ago that the psychedelic pop-proggers were releasing a new disc to be called Phantom Power in July. In honor of the French and their fighting spirit, SFA will celebrate Bastille Day with a July 14th (July 15th here) street date via Beggars Group. As a forerunner to the LP, the first single "Golden Retriever" will hit airwaves on June 30th. Phantom Power will be available in both the standard plastic disc with mere 5.1 stereo surround sound and as a DVD, thereby creating a new basis for division of social classes, as foretold by Marx. Tracklist: 01 Hello Sunshine 02 Liberty Belle 03 Golden Retriever 04 Sex, War And Robots 05 The Piccolo Snare 06 Venus And Serena 07 Father Father #1 08 Bleed Forever 09 Out Of Control 10 City Scape Sky Baby 11 Father Father #2 12 Valet Parking 13 The Undefeated 14 Slow Life Talking to the NME (because they're more conveniently located in relation to Wales, we tell ourselves, sobbing), head Furry Gruff Rhys commented on a few of the upcoming album's tracks.... | |
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| | | Cancer Study Finds Promise in CAT Scans for Smokers | | Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 6:54:04 PM by Blog57 Team | | A new study has found that it is possible to find a large number of "silent" cancers in the lungs of heavy smokers by periodically screening them with CAT scans. When the tumors are then surgically removed, most people live five years or more, in striking contrast to patients whose cancers are found only after they experience symptoms. The study of nearly 32,000 people in eight countries boosts hope that early detection by CAT scans may reduce the death toll of lung cancer, much as mammography has done for breast cancer. But while the research clearly shows that the interval between diagnosis and death was longer in screened patients, it does not definitively show they lived longer -- a subtle difference with significant public health consequences. .... | |
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| | | Whither Netflix? | | Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 12:56:23 PM by Blog57 Team | | True paradigm shifts are rare in business. Jeff Bezos was mocked when he created Amazon; who would want to buy a book without holding it in your hands first? An MBA student turned in an assignment to create a business model and was given a poor grade, with a note from the professor to next time try to come up with a plan that was workable; that MBA student turned that business plan into FedEx (or UPS - I forget the details of the story, but you get the idea). The professor is probably still grading papers and telling students what is and isnt possible based upon his vast experience as a tenured professor. Netflix represents a sort of domino paradigm shift. First, there was the shift from videos to DVDs. For a while, not much changed. Blockbuster continued to stock 100 copies of Happy Gilmore the week it was released, while their Ingmar Bergman shelf remained somewhat thin.... | |
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| | | Denton theater hosts midnight horror films | | Posted Sunday, October 22, 2006 2:54:36 PM by Blog57 Team | | For the past few months, Friday midnights in Denton County have gotten scarier.Since June, John Gray - finance professional by day, horror movie empresario by night - and his partner have hosted Friday Night Frights, a monthly midnight screening of classic horror movies at the Movie Tavern in Denton. The screening have started to sell out, said John Gray, a Friday Night Frights organizer."We try to make it as interactive as we can," he said.Usually, the movies screen on the second Friday of each month. This being October and all, the series is running one movie per week. This week's showing will be "Evil Dead 2." Next week will feature "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2." At an 8 p.m. special showing Halloween night, they will screen "Halloween 4" at the Studio Movie Grill in Addison.These are not screenings for those who like their movie viewing to be silent.... | |
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| | | A laugh a minute | | Posted Wednesday, October 18, 2006 2:55:28 PM by Blog57 Team | | In silent cinema two comics stood out: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Their differences were legion: characters, stories, situations, faces. For similarities, they both played an Everyman, alone against a cruel world, trying to prove themselves to the girls they love. Oh yes, and they did it all as funny as comedy can be. A laugh a minute Buster Keaton's films were controlled chaos Steve Dick In silent cinema two comics stood out: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Their differences were legion: characters, stories, situations, faces. For similarities, they both played an Everyman, alone against a cruel world, trying to prove themselves to the girls they love. Oh yes, and they did it all as funny as comedy can be. Whereas Chaplin's Little Tramp registered pathos through his face, Keaton rarely changed expressions, forging ahead determined and stoic as the world around him did everything in its power to make him heel.... | |
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