mtadkins

Adjusting office chair, aiming speakers. We are go for Monday. http://blip.fm/~clyfi

Saturday is within smelling distance. Ahh…breathe it in. Looking forward to hanging with Steve & talking about getting our shit together.

Whenever I start feeling a bit snooty about preferring/demanding the widescreen version of a film, it helps to watch a bit of “pan & scan” footage so I can get all uppity again.

Today Jason Kottke posted a link to the video below, in which some big name filmmakers school you on exactly what’s happening.

[This also brings to mind the Steven Soderbergh rant from a while back about how some networks (HBO, Showtime, AMC, etc) chop down the films they show:

“…it’s fucking lame to watch Jaws—a film that uses the 2.40 ratio as well as any ever produced—in the wrong format on HBO. Does Universal so badly need a few extra pennies that it’s willing to ruin a classic? And does HBO really think its viewers are so stupid as to forget movies currently come in two sizes?

The original link to the article seems to be unavailable, but a kind soul on the AVS Forums had reposted it here.]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJhM3So4y8

Ack.

The place where I spent my formative cinema-going years is going away, likely thanks to bone-headed miscalculation on the part of the national management. I worked as a lowly ticket-taker, then a manager, and then a projectionist at the best movie house in New Orleans, the Canal Place.

Canal Place Cinema

Not only did I met some of my best friends there, but it’s where I saw many of my all-time favorite films, either in first run, at the New Orleans Film and Video Festival, or all by my lonesome at 3am after the customers had left.

I crawled around the floors, replacing tiny bulbs in aisle lights and repairing seats warped by too many fat tourist asses. I teetered on (no doubt) non-OSHA-approved decrepit wooden ladders to adjust ceiling tiles, screen curtains, and floodlights. All of the work was made quick by the awesome surround-sound system pumping out Tom Waits or Sidney Bechet, no doubt increasing my love for both.

For the people still in New Orleans, it might turn out to be for the best. Even when I was there Landmark was hesitant to invest in maintaining and upgrading the facility and I can’t imagine that it got a lot better post-Katrina.

Always kept running by string, duct-tape, and force-of-will, I hope patrons make a point of stopping by before it closes to offer the staff and managers a tip of the hat. Believe or not, they love movies even more than you do.

The French Quarter will get a newer, shinier place with more expensive treats, digital projectors [Boooo! 24 fps is film! hissss! — Ed.], and a newer crop of insolent, binge-drinking, under-paid cinephiles to make fun of the way you mis-pronounce the titles…but for this selfish, nostalgic, ex-New Orleanian: bah humbug.

Canal Place theater to close for $4 million upgrade, but will retain indie focus – NOLA.com.

Beautiful chart from Information Is Beautiful

Timelines: Time travel in popular film and tv | Information Is Beautiful.