TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV series) 2014

Dual Survival

"Demonic Toys 2" (2010) Disappointing, years-too-late sequel to the 1990s Full Moon B-movie sends a group of antiquities experts to an Italian castle to inspect an ancient doll... which, naturally, turns out to be evil and begins picking them off with help from the killer baby doll and jack-in-the-box from the first movie. Pointless, plotless, piss poor even by Charles Band standards. Avoid.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot

S.D. wrote:

Brigadoon (1954)

I remember teching that show in high school! We always had an end-of-the-year musical production.

Can't remember if I ran lights, sound or stage for that one.......... gettin' old sucks!

nevermore wrote:

Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Nice!!! I am still pissed that my parent wouldn't let me go to that exact show.... probably a good thing so I didn't end up in it!

Mad Max 2 (blu ray)

That's what "The Road Warrior" is called in this blu ray release. This is still pretty violent but there's a sense of humor running through it thanks in large part to the gyro pilot.

tohostudios wrote:

Mad Max 2 (blu ray)

That's what "The Road Warrior" is called in this blu ray release. This is still pretty violent but there's a sense of humor running through it thanks in large part to the gyro pilot.

I always enjoyed 2 over 1, kind of like the Evil Dead movies. 1 was intense but structured oddly with a strange flow to it. 2 had more of a cohesive story, the dialogue is easier to comprehend, the action is better, and like you said there's some added humor. It was just stronger overall. 3 was enjoyable as well.

Regardless, what Miller did with those first two with such a baseline budget, they are both masterpieces of Australian cinema.

What I found really interesting is that my TV apparently corrected that "sped up" car action in the first one.  I noticed it didn't have that annoying feature in all the car chase scenes so I talked to some people and they think it's the "true motion" feature of my TV correcting it.  Which is cool because that always annoyed me in Mad Max.

Ugh, I hate that "true motion" crap, first thing I did when I bought my TV was turn it off. I would prefer to see the film as the director intended, not with some built-in filter changing it. It is so easy to spot those filters if you know what to look for and I've yet to see anything positive from them.

For the record the first Mad Max is my favorite by far. Road Warrior is good, the third one is horrible.

S.D. wrote:

Ugh, I hate that "true motion" crap, first thing I did when I bought my TV was turn it off.  I would prefer to see the film as the director intended, not with some built-in filter changing it.  It is so easy to spot those filters if you know what to look for and I've yet to see anything positive from them.  

For the record the first Mad Max is my favorite by far.  Road Warrior is good, the third one is horrible.

Yeah, that's what the "movie geek" I talked to at work said too, almost word for word.   

I didn't even realize it until the movie was over and then I went "where was that annoying sped up car action I remember?" 

So I like it.  I might even be able to watch Blair Witch or Cloverfield now.

And I agree that the third one sucks.  It's been a while since I've seen it so I'm curious to see if my opinion will be changed by rewatching it.

True Motion would probably make Cloverfield worse, honestly man, those filters screw with the motion and frame rate of every film, if you are using it then you aren't see the movies the way they were intended to be seen.   You might as well add a pitch control to your CD player and listen to every CD too fast or too slow, it's basically the same thing.

That sped-up effect in Mad Max (which is actually under-cranking the camera so when you play it back at normal speed it appears faster than normal) was done on purpose to create a specific type of effect. I believe he also chopped frames as well to make it seem a little more visceral.

The exact opposite of that is used in every Godzilla movie you watch, they over-crank the camera and film the actor in the suit moving around wildly...so when you play the film back at normal speed it slows everything down and adds to the illusion of mass.

Since I HATE the "shaky cam" thing that was popular a few years back I've never even seen Cloverfield, Blair Witch or any of the "REC" remakes.  I do have the Diary of the Dead DVD which also contains a lot of shaky cam crap so I may try running that through the filter on my TV even though that film will still suck even without all the "shaky cam" stuff.  I just want to see if my TV eliminates one of my pet peeves of current filmmakers.  I don't care if it's their original vision or not; I absolutely HATE shaky-cam POV movies.

Don't mistake the style used in those found footage films with normal use of handheld camera, which has been around as long as films have existed and can be used very effectively.  Most people have no idea what style is being used when they are watching a film and that is usually because multiple styles are mixed together in every movie.  It's not uncommon for a single sequence to feature locked down camera, cameras on a dolly track, steadicams, handheld and crane shots.  All the different styles combined helps to sell the the sequence as a whole.

Found footage is different because it uses a single style, mimics what a consumer-grade camera looks like and mimics people without film experience shooting the footage.

So I guess I won't be checking out Blair Witch or Cloverfield after all.  I do want to see if this TV affects Diary of the Dead though (because I own it unfortunately) and like I said, it will still suck.  But I just want to see how much this feature affects movies.

True Motion, which used to be a factory setting in most available HDTV's, is what kept me from buying a TV for the longest time because I didn't know that it was just a filter option. Every regular Joe would show of their new TV to me without knowledge of the setting and proudly exclaim, "now THAT'S High Definition!" And I'd be like, no. That's awful. It looks like a documentary, or even worse a dated PBS feature. I think they just had to find a way to justify their $2000 purchase even if met with disappointment because they had no idea the preset could be changed. Even if you walked into a Best Buy here in Fresno, all the TV's were set to True Motion. Even the retailers didn't know about it.

When I did find out the setting could be changed, I bought an HDTV. Then I went around and did everyone a favor by changing their settings. Amusingly enough some guys told me they preferred the "High Def setting."

I'm one of those guys.

I prefer the "soap opera" look of DVDs to the natural "filmed look". 

And for sports?  Forget it.   I have to have it on "true motion" or it looks like I'm watching a video game.

tohostudios wrote:

I prefer the "soap opera" look of DVDs to the natural "filmed look". 

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about there.   

Plug a standard DVD of something like MASH into a blu ray player.  With true vision on, it looks more like a soap opera as opposed to something that was filmed.   It looks more like a "direct to video" offering instead of something that was filmed.  The difference between watching "All In The Family" and MASH on regular TV.

Supposedly this is due to a combination of the way the TV is set up and the natural up-convert a blu ray player does to a "regular" DVD.

This is also why I can't watch all my Godzilla DVDs on one of my blu ray players because it makes it real obvious that it's just some guy in a suit stomping around on model sets.

It sounds to me that you prefer the fuzzy, lo-fi definition of old TVs and DVDs (480p).  There is a certain unreality to that look, a softness that drives me batshit but sounds like you prefer it.  

In talking about Godzilla you are noticing the flaws in the original film because the resolution is now high enough that you can see it.  Nothing has changed about the film, it's just you've never seen that clean of a transfer.

Yeah, I get that about the Godzilla movies. 

What I'm trying to say is that the combination of my TV and a blu ray player makes stuff that used to look like film (MASH for example) look more like a live-action "soap opera".  The guy I talked to at work said a lot of people call it the "soap opera effect" and I can see why.  Between the true motion sensor of the TV and the blu ray player I can make something that was "filmed" look like a reality show.

The downside of that is that it enhances the phony sets of stuff like Godzilla movies and the original Star Trek seriss (which also looks horrible on my blu ray/HDTV combination) because it's really obvious that some stuff in the sets are made out of cardboard or paper mache.

And I actually prefer the "soap opera" look.  I just have to learn what I can watch like that and what I can't.

I kind of know what Toho is talking about, i absolutely hated the settings on my TV when I first bought it. I tried watching Independence Day and it did look like a cheap soap opera, same for Batman The Dark Knight on Blu Ray, but my friend played around with it until I didn't want to throw it out of the window anymore (considering it had cost me £1300 that might not have been wise   )

Yeah, that's what my movie geek friend at work said too.  "Dude, you need to turn off that setting."

Except that I prefer it as long as I'm watching sports or relatively recent movies.  The only time it bugs me is when I watch something that is around 20 years old.

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