Thursday, August 23, 2007

On Again/Off Again

My Internet connection has been cutting in and out all day. I'm connected. I'm not connected. I'm connected. I'm not connected. A man is supposed to come tomorrow to figure out what the problem is.

While I'm connected, I thought I'd post something to just mention that I may not be posting much here until this is cleared up. E-mail may also not be as voluminous as I might like. But all will someday be well.

And now I'd better hurry and post this before I get unconnected again.

• Posted at 8:26 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Hey, how about an encore from Tom Lehrer? This is "National Brotherhood Week," also with one line changed from his original recording.

• Posted at 6:09 PM · LINK

Well, Blow Me Down...

I'm hearing from several sources that the Popeye DVD set is selling quite decently. This is good to hear as it may inspire more studios to haul classic animation from the vaults for home video release and (big AND) spend the bucks to fully restore the material. This is not only great news for us consumers but it's beneficial to film fans as yet unborn. Over the years, a shameful percentage of the movies made have been lost. Negatives were allowed to rot and prints were lost because current management — whoever was in charge at the time — didn't see an immediate financial benefit to restoration and preservation.

That has changed in the era of home video, DVDs and digital storage. The negatives to the Fleischer Popeye cartoons can rot, fire can destroy the vaults, every 35mm or 16mm can of film can be thrown away...but the material will endure. I'm happy to have this collection but even happier to think that no matter what happens, they'll never be unavailable and they'll never look any worse than they do on this new DVD set. And like I said, they look pretty darned good there.

• Posted at 6:05 PM · LINK