Testy Area 51 (1 Viewer)

[Parker Clack]

....is like saying the B-52 is just a plane.

But it IS just a plane. A really BIG plane.

Now Lawrence being just a movie. That is another story.

 

[Steve Christou]

Okay okay Lawrence of Arabia isn't just a movie, it's probably my 2nd or 3rd favorite movie, along with Ben-Hur (1959) and 2001 Space Odyssey, and if I was put on the spot and asked which film I regarded as the best ever made it wouldn't be Citizen Kane or Casablanca or Gone With the Wind, I'd pick LoA.
But I wouldn't lose any sleep on missing a theatrical viewing of LoA. Cinema going has lost a lot of it's magic for me and I feel far more comfortable watching films at home, the only time I'd go is if some spectacular new film comes out or if she-who-must-be-obeyed drags me kicking and screaming to yet another crappy new horror flick.
I went to see X-Men 3 last night, with my young nephew who thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked it but it was the worst of the trilogy. Plenty of mutant action but the film felt a little off to me, almost like a sci-fi channel movie of the week version of an X-Men movie. The Golden Gate Bridge sequence was impressive though. One huge continuity flaw I thought was a scene where characters are walking across the bridge in bright daylight and than turns to dark night when they reach the end of the bridge, now I know it's a long bridge but this is ridiculous. We left as soon as the credits appeared so I guess I'll have to wait for the dvd to see which character wasn't quite dead.

 

[Cees Alons]

No, Steve, that's all right. Closer to the equator, the suns sets more quickly.
It's the steeper angle, you see.

Cees

 

[Steve Christou]

Cees that bridge is long, here's a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge I took recently while I was in orbit over the West Coast, amazing eh?

Here's Brooklyn Bridge for comparison:

And London's Tower Bridge, which doesn't look like the Tower Bridge from above:

 

[Steve Christou]

 

[Joe Fisher]

Home Sweet Home.

 

[Steve Christou]

Joe is that you waving down there?
Here's where I live:

Sorry, wrong photo, here we go. Somewhere in deepest darkest London:

 

[Zen Butler]

Parker, thank you so much! That's much better. Steve, yes the worst of the trilogy but still strong. I missed tickets for the 70mm Lawrence of Arabia presentation at the Arclight. My fault, as I always tend to regard their e-mails as junk. Amazing, it's been near 13 years since I've seen it on the big screen.
Steve, I read your comments over in the Blade Runner software. Looks as if your preferred version is coming also on the "Ultimate" set coming 2007. I'm picking up the "tide me over" dvd coming in September if only to upgrade my screenshot. Who's getting that dvd review here at HTF?

 

[Steve Christou]

I think you should review Blade Runner this September Zen, see if you can get a copy before the HTF reviewers do. If not than I hope it's David Boulet, he seems to like the film. I still remember the official Return of the King review debacle of a couple of years back, where by pure bad luck the reviewer, who shall remain nameless, wasn't a fan of the trilogy and refused to give it a "recommended" tag. Needless to say his less than stellar review resulted in hundreds of posts all attacking the reviewer (I joined the fray too). How dare he?
I'll probably buy the september release, can't wait for a good copy of this film, and buy the box set next year. Double and triple dipping is all the rage now, my last 5 dvd purchases have all been double dips. Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Dirty Dozen, Kingdom of Heaven and Silverado.

 

[Haggai]

Herb Kane is the (only?) Warner Bros reviewer at HTF, so he'll probably be the one doing it.

 

[Zen Butler]

Herb Kane would be great! I love his reviews.

I will most likely be writing(at least assisting) on a review and a bit on the dvd's struggle for a local rag here in Long Beach.

 

[Haggai]

Maybe there'll be an arrangement for David to do it, since he's such a big fan of the movie, but he and Herb are both great reviewers, so it'll be good either way.

 

[Ruz-El]

RE: X3.
I caught this on the weekend and really liked it. I found it was missing the character moments of the first 2, but I didn't really miss them too much as at this point in the game you don't really need them. I do think this one has the best all out action of the 3 films. My only comic book geek nit pick would be that Beast was wearing shoes.
I'd love to catch LOA again in 70mm, but the odds of it playing here are slim to none now that they tore down all the big screens that would make it worth while. Before the land redevelopement rage of the 90's, I was able to catch both this and Sparaticus (which I think was 70mm, but definatly a RAH restoration.) My pals and I still pine for the old Medowlark theater that would show these.
It's now a Safeway gas station. :frowning:
I also re-visted DUNE this weekend. I watched the theatrical cut, and I still don't like it. I love the imagery and atmosphere that Lynch brings to it, but the story just bores the hell out of me. I don't know if I'll ever watch the Smithie cut. Maybe I'll just wait for the Christou version.

 

[Steve Christou]

Russell, that may be by far the worst (and funniest) spelling of "Spartacus" ever seen on the internet. Congrats.
*cough* mercifully "Dune" was only 4 letters long...
Messing with ya Russ The "Christou version" has been sadly postponed (who cheered?), until I can find out why on my edits Max Headroom is on the prologue instead of Virginia Madsen.

 

[Haggai]

Didn't Alicia Silverstone's character pronounce "Spartacus" as "Sparaticus" in Clueless? Maybe Russell was referencing that. Or not...hmmm.
My mom once told me that when she was growing up in Israel, they had a hard time pronouncing "Kirk" properly, since there's only a hard "r" sound in Hebrew. So they called him "Kreek" Douglas instead, which is easier to say with those pronunciations.

 

[Steve Christou]

My parents always used to pronounce Sean Connery - "Seen" Connery.
Kirk Douglas was pronounced - Kirk "Danklas"

 

[Haggai]

"Danklas"? Heh...yeah, that "uh" sound isn't really used in Hebrew either, so I guess it would have been more like "Kreek Daglas" for my mom and her friends.
So there isn't really a "sh" sound in Greek, Steve? Is that right?

 

[Steve Christou]

There are a few words starting with "sh" Haggai, I suspect more so in Cypriot Greek than "Hellenic" Greek. The Cypriot word for shitting is "shezi", in mainland Greece I think it's "hezi"
I think they just pronounced the name as they saw it written, "Sean", "Seen".

 

[Zen Butler]

I'm in there somewhere. This is a test.

 

[Joe Fisher]

Though Google earth is a nice thing to use, I just wonder how accurate or recent the images are?
The 1st image is of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. To the left is the remains of Veterans Stadium that was demolished in March 2004 and has since been paved over into a parking lot.
Photo 2 is of my job in Eastchester, NY. This photo is before July 2004, when we began construction on a second floor to the building. Construction was completed in November 2005.
It still is a cool thing to use.