I’m not sure what I think of it. I love the original, and it was fun to see someone try and do something with it. I don’t really think it was “good”, but it was interesting.

The concept behind it is that the filmmakers took the original film and digitally pulled out the sets from the original 1920 film. They then filmed the actors on a green screen and placed them into the old sets. It gives it a similar feel to “Sky Captain”, and I kind of dug that. I sort of liked the bizarre combination of old-style look and modern acting. It took a little bit to get used to, but I ultimately enjoyed it.

Sadly, the main reason I was excited for the movie ended up disappointing me. I was eager to see legendary Doug Jones play Cesare the somnambulist, but he really didn’t have much to do, and just kind of looked silly. I think all the other actors did surprisingly well, and the guy playing Caligari himself hit all the right notes for me. I also thought the actor playing Alan had some good charisma.

Overall, it was a worthwhile oddity for a “Caligari” fan to watch, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that isn’t a fan of the original.

This is something that has hit home (literally) as we have been trying to eat healthier and avoid processed “food like substances”. We’ve been at it for about a half year now, where we have drastically limited our meat and dairy consumption and increased our intake of whole grains and vegetables. One observation I have made so far is that convenience is such a huge part of our culture, and that is one of the things is hard to change. I find it hard to just go and grab some lunch that is healthy with little to no preparation. The stuff that is cheap is bad for you, because they prepare it in a way that is cost-effective and “tasty”, not healthy. I usually end up grabbing an apple and some noodles.

The big thing that kills me (and the American People) is that this is all done for profits. Little changes here to slice off a half a cent per unit during this process, modifications to the ingredient there to save another fourth of a cent, and as each step progresses, it makes the food more and more… well… “non-food”. The fats and preservatives are pumped in, High-fructose corn syrup added to make it taste better, and then it’s flash frozen or pasteurized or sprayed with some sort of “edible bleach” to kill all the germs on it. It’s beautiful from a technological and accounting perspective. But it’s a nightmare from a health one. We were made, designed, created, adapted to eat for nutrition. Our bodies have cravings for what we are supposed to eat. This assembly line food masks this by chemically engineering it to “seem” like it’s what we are supposed to be eating, but really isn’t.

In turn, we aren’t satisfied and keep eating. We get fatter, requiring more “food” to fill our stomachs.

The food manufacturers win again.

How do we solve this problem? How do we get the food manufacturers to return to a state of “natural” without changing the whole process they have so carefully built? My pessimistic guess is that they are just going to lie to us. We are going to demand better, healthier food, and they are just going to “technically” meet the requirements without really changing anything.

And things will keep on getting worse for us.

The kiosk that sits in McDonalds (or various other places now) and allows you to rent a DVD for one night for the low price of a buck and tax, of course (the Government has a healthcare plan to fund).

I started to wonder why some of the posters and “cover art” wasn’t the actual cover art for the movie.

Examples can be seen here:

http://johnnydriver.com/2010/01/11/redbox-kiosk-generic-movie-posters/

I then heard that RedBox was having problems with certain movie studios pushing back on allowing them to carry their titles. So It seems that RedBox just goes and buys the discs from WalMart and sticks a “generic” poster up there to show that they have the movie, but without all that pesky copyright infringement.

It’s Tricksy, I likes it!

Well, than I stumble across this article that sort of sums up the whole whining and crying bitchfest that the studios are playing up right now.

http://mashable.com/2009/12/08/redbox-study/

We previously reported that studios were trying to force the hand of Redbox and Netflix to delay new release rentals by 30 days. While Netflix ponders the option, Redbox is suing many of the major studios who refuse to sell them their DVDs. The battle wages on, with some reports indicating that Redbox buys its DVDs from Walmart. If the data from the study can be trusted, we now have further insight into why the struggle is building up to be a battle to the death.

The LAEDC paints a picture of doom and gloom. From the report:

“In the event that new releases are available in Redbox kiosks at street date, there will be erosion of retail revenues. Additionally, to the extent that consumers substitute away from higher-priced rentals to lower-cost rentals, there will be erosion of rental revenues. While the magnitude of the revenue loss is difficult to disentangle from the myriad factors threatening this revenue stream, we estimate overall industry revenues of $1 billion or more will be foregone.

For each $1 billion of revenue in the domestic home video industry, the motion picture industry earns $520 million. Using the motion picture industry in Southern California as representative of overall industry activity, an extra $520 million in industry revenue would translate into direct, indirect and induced economic activity, including:

- At least $1,493 million in economic output (as measured by business revenues)

- At least 9,280 jobs with annual earnings of almost $395 million, of which at least
2,290 would be in motion picture and sound recording industries with earnings of at least $109 million

- Up to $35.4 million in contributions to health and welfare funds for guild and
union members, the majority of which would occur in union plans for below-the-line
employees

- Over $30 million of tax revenues at state, county and local levels.”

So what I’m getting out of this is that the movie studios are IGNORING the consumers. Never a good thing. They want to charge what they want and MAKE us like it. That is the goal of all marketing at the core, sure. But it’s visibly public this time and people are noticing it. Studios are complaining that sales of DVD’s will (and have) go(ne) down because of this, to which I counter: release movies that people WANT TO BUY TO HAVE ALL THE TIME. I buy all the movies I’ve enjoyed so that I can enjoy them on my time and in the way I want. If I don’t know if I want to see the movie, a buck is a nice gamble to take. So I BUY the movies that I really enjoy and I RENT the ones that I am iffy about.

Why is this such a hard concept for studios to follow?

Even the price breakdown doesn’t make much sense to me. Studios are complaining that a dollar is “too cheap” for the product. What? They are not comparing numbers correctly.

Let me spell it out for you, studios:

RedBox offers a movie at: $1 for 1 day

Rental stores typically charge $2-$3 for 2-3 days.

I think Blockbuster now does $5 for 5 days.

So in all examples, a movie rental averages out to being *gulp* $1 for 1 day!

Does anyone else not see this? Hundreds of highly paid marketing people are squiggling  the numbers and shifting the facts but it turns out to all be the same in the end.

Typical.

Here are my parting thoughts. Hollywood, make movies people WANT TO SEE and WANT TO SEE AGAIN, and this problem goes away.

Make crap that people can only stand once and you LOSE MONEY.

The End.

He sure is a Super...Guy.

Yesterday my kids wanted to watch a movie. My eldest son went down stairs and brought up a couple that he wanted to “run past me” and see if we could watch. The first was “Superman Returns” from a couple years ago.

I’m not really a huge fan of the film. That is another post for another time, but let’s just say I thought the script was ALL WRONG. Superman needs to fight stuff, not be mopey, not have a super-kid, and not LIFT A ROCK as the climax of the movie.

Anyway, moving right along, I told him my thoughts on the movie. “I don’t think you guys will really like it. It’s actually a really boring movie. How about we watch the two scenes of action and then we will watch something else.”

This was an acceptable proposition to my sons.

So we pop it in the magic-movie box and I “select-a-scene” with my high-tech wizardry. We go to the plane crash/rescue scene. If you don’t remember it, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Go ahead and watch it. I’ll wait till you finish up.

Go ahead, I said! Sheesh.

So as I watched that, I started to tear up. Knowing that I cannot let my children see my cry I immediately used my mighty force of will to resorb my tears back into my tear ducts. If children see their father cry, the whole universe could become unbalanced and possibly implode, so I was just thinking about all of you. Please thank me later.

But I wasn’t crying because I was moved by the film.

I was troubled by the fact that in our jaded society, nobody would ever be celebrated like that. If something like this were to happen, and by that I mean if we had a “hero” to do amazing feats of daring-do that nobody would trust him or her. Maybe I am just seeing this with “modern America” glasses on, but it seems the human nature is to mistrust and question. Maybe we in America have had too many of our “heroes” fail publicly. We want someone to look up to, but we see them fail more often than we see them succeed.

It seems we have come to the realization that there is no one righteous. So where do we go from here? How can we gain our trust back of each other?

I wish I had some clear answers. And that is why I was tearing up. For my children, for my family, for my country. We need something more. We need principled men and women that stand for truth and life and love to start living lives that are an example for others. We need those people to be infectious. We need to spread a virus of morality, an infection of love.

I’m going to stop now before I sound more and more like a hippie.

But I want to encourage everybody to live a life as if you are being watched all the time. To quote lines from Buckaroo Banzai; “History is made in the dark.” and “Character is who you are when you think no one is looking.”

Not much to talk about really. The US Economy still sucks. I have been busy at my job, which I guess is good. School is wrapping up for my kids, meaning all the “graduations” and “special plays” are happening.

I need to do some new art. I just realized that it has been something like 7 years since I have done a painting or sculpture just for art’s sake. That’s lame on my part.

We need some folks to join in here and make this place an interesting place to read again. If you have ever wanted a blog but didn’t know where to start, let us know! We have it all set up already! Instant readership!