Sunday, June 1, 2008

Sunday Afternoon

Here's a new link to video footage (not live) of the fire at Universal Studios.

Someone was just on the radio saying — I'm not sure who it was or how sure they are — that nothing irreplaceable is being lost in the film or video vaults. That's probably true but there was a time when it might not have been. In the age of digital transfers and home video, it's a lot harder to lose the only copy or copies of an old movie or TV show.

In the meantime, the KNBC TV "live feed" channel in Los Angeles has stopped running old DIC cartoons and is now running an infomercial with Jane Seymour selling skin cream. It's been pointed out to me that there's a good reason why they're airing Archie's Weird Mysteries and shows like that. The F.C.C. still has that requirement that stations must broadcast X hours per week of shows for children. It doesn't matter if they air them on a sub-channel nobody watches but putting those cartoons on fulfills the rule.

So that's why they're on. Still, I think that if you have a channel that's there to present raw news footage of local interest and you have raw news footage of something like this, you might decide the cartoons can run later. Or maybe even bump the Jane Seymour infomercial.

• Posted at 2:51 PM · LINK

Flame War

It may (we hope) be out by the time you could go look but right now, this link is showing live video feed of a huge fire up on the Universal Studios lot. So far, it's destroyed several soundstages, a video vault and the King Kong exhibit. A spokesperson has already said that the material lost in the video vault is all replaceable from other sources.

None of this video is available on my TV. It's on the website of the local NBC affiliate. On my TV set, I can watch their "live feed" high-def channel that usually shows things like this...but at the moment, it's running old DIC cartoons like Archie's Weird Mysteries. So the video is only on their website. I think someone has odd priorities.

• Posted at 10:52 AM · LINK

Go Read It!

John Hodgman is the Daily Show correspondent that you also know from all those "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. In this weekend's New York Times book section, he writes about new books on comics, including my Kirby: King of Comics. He's just being nice because it was written on a PC.

• Posted at 10:26 AM · LINK

Not Even Nominated

The other day, I linked to a video of Steve Lawrence and Sammy Davis singing "Not Even Nominated" songs at the Academy Awards. A blogger named Lis Riba writes, in part...

I listened with interest until they reached "Lucky Star" from Singin' in the Rain and realized that song wasn't eligible for an Oscar.

Only original songs are eligible for Academy Awards.

"Lucky Star" originally came from Broadway Melody of 1936. Singin' in the Rain was conceived as a vehicle for MGM's existing song catalog. The only original piece in the movie was "Moses Supposes."

It's one thing to advocate a change to the Oscar rules, but singing a lament to songs that weren't even eligible as if they'd been tragically overlooked -- it seems disingenuous and misleading.

Uh, first of all, do I have to point out that I didn't pick the songs in that medley?

Secondly, as you note, "You Are My Lucky Star" was written for the movie, Broadway Melody of 1936. As I understand it, it was eligible for that year...and not nominated. "Singin' in the Rain" was introduced in the movie, Hollywood Revue of 1929. I think you're laboring under the impression that someone thought these two songs should have or at least could have been nominated for the 1952 movie, Singing' in the Rain. Not so. Whoever crafted that medley was right that those songs were introduced in movies but were not nominated for Oscars.

However, there was a bit of misrepresentation there. A possible reason "Singin' in the Rain" wasn't nominated was that it was introduced in a 1929 movie and the Academy Awards didn't add its Best Song category until 1934.

There may be a few others in there that weren't nominated for that reason. I don't think it changes my view that it was a swell medley and that its point is valid: That there used to a lot more great songs written for movies than we have today.

• Posted at 10:19 AM · LINK

Fast Food Facsimile

Since my big weight drop, my taste buds have changed. Sugary things do not have the same appeal to me and also a lot of "fast food" items taste more packaged and processed. I do not think McDonald's hamburgers have changed much in the last year or three but I have and they just aren't as good as they used to be...to me, anyway. A few weeks ago, I had an In-and-Out Burger that worried me because I didn't enjoy it. Is it me? Or did I just get a bad one? We'll find out next time I try one.

Obviously, there are upsides and downsides to this. One of the latter is that I like the convenience and timing of fast food. I just don't like most of the fast food anymore. In an airport recently, I had a Burger King burger that shouldn't have made it through the metal detector and still hasn't fully made it through me.

In the last two years, two chains where I have enjoyed the "cuisine" (I'm using that word loosely) are chains that are not plentiful in Southern California. One is Five Guys, a burger dynasty based largely in the East and especially in the South. They're opening their first California outlet shortly in Carson, which is 20 miles south of me (I just Mapquested it) and...well, I'd be surprised if I ever had a reason to go there voluntarily. If you kidnapped a loved one and I had to make the ransom drop in Carson, it might get me there. But that's about what it would take.

The other chain I liked was Chick-Fil-A, which is a bit more frequent in my state but not by much. The one nearest to me is 16 miles...in Torrance, a place I'd probably only visit if I had to stop for gas on my way back from making a ransom payment in Carson.

The signature item at a Chick-Fil-A is the fried chicken sandwich — a breaded filet served on a (sorta) buttered bun with dill pickle chips. It's pretty good. The advertising seems to convey the impression that it's fresh (never frozen) chicken and I don't think that's true. But on my recent travels, I've had a couple of 'em and was quite pleased.

Lately, McDonald's has introduced its Southern-Style Chicken Sandwich — a breaded filet served on a (sorta) buttered bun with dill pickle chips. In other words, it's precise imitation of the Chick Fil-A specialty. It's not as pretty good as the original but it ain't bad at all. It also, by the way, is nowhere near as thick as the above photo and advertising promos would indicate. But if size doesn't matter to you, you might be happy with one.

Last night, I was driving home from the Book Expo, exhausted and famished, and I pulled into a McDonald's drive-thru to get the aforementioned plagiarism. The exchange with the drive-thru speaker went as follows...

HER: May I take your order, please?

ME: Yes, I'd like a chicken sandwich and a regular-sized fries.

HER: Which chicken sandwich would you like?

ME: The one that's the shameless rip-off of the Chick Fil-A sandwich.

HER: Would you like a drink with that?

ME: No, just the shameless rip-off and the fries.

HER: That'll be $4.95 at the first window.

Reminds me of the time I was in a Jack-in-the-Box and a lady ahead of me ordered a Big Mac. Without missing a beat, the counterperson called out, "One Jumbo Jack."

• Posted at 9:18 AM · LINK

Today's Stolen Blog Post

From now on, I think I'm going to save myself time every day by stealing at least one blog post from someone else who said something I agree with and couldn't say as well. This one is from Matthew Yglesias...

Meanwhile, people who are seriously drawn to Hillary Clinton's plans on health care, climate change but also think they might vote for John McCain in the fall rather than the candidate with plans that are very similar to Clinton's are being a bit confused. People who are seriously drawn to Clinton on feminist grounds but are considering staying home in the fall so McCain can replace John Paul Stevens with another justice in the mold of Alito or Roberts really need to think harder.

• Posted at 9:01 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here, for those of you who have 23 minutes to spare, is maybe my favorite Buster Keaton short, The Playhouse. It was made in 1921 and it's still brilliantly clever and entertaining. Which is more than I can say for a lot of comedy made since last Thursday.

It was also, at its time, a breakthrough in the area of special effects. Early in the days of cinema, filmmakers learned a primitive but workable way to do split screens and allow, for example, someone to play their twin in the same shot. They'd tape off one half of the camera lens and film, say, the left side of the scene. Then they'd roll the film back and expose the same piece of film again, this time with the other half of the lens taped off. The images usually did not match up perfectly. There was usually a fuzzy line in the center of the image and, of course, the actors in the scene had to guess how to coordinate their actions but it worked. Sort of.

For The Playhouse and a few other early films, Keaton and his tech crew devised a way to do it better. They built a shutter mechanism to fit over the camera lens — a series of interlocking windows that could be open or closed to matte off part of the lens. It gave them a more precise fit than tape on the lens. They also worked out elaborate charts and stopwatch handling that would enable Keaton to do his motions precisely on certain beats so they'd coincide with actions in other takes.

This is all something to keep in mind when you watch the trick shots in this film. They could not edit two takes together or do parts of a shot out of sequence. They'd film the left side of the scene, then Keaton (if necessary) would change outfits and they'd film the right side. And if the two performances didn't match up right, they'd have to throw the whole thing out and start over. It must have taken days to do some of these scenes. The rest of it's pretty darn clever, too.

• Posted at 8:15 AM · LINK

June 2, 2008 • Current • May 31, 2008