ValentineXavier

That plot sounds quite like a soft-core porn film I saw on Cinemax, a dozen or so years ago, but I don't remember the title.

> {quote:title=SansFin wrote:}{quote}My favorite Bette Davis movie is *Another Man's Poison* (1951) which is on tonight! If I'd ever seen it, it's been so long I couldn't remember it. I liked it a lot. It's my new favorite Bette film! Also, I think she looked hotter than she had in years, and that was a very flattering hair style. Edited by: ValentineXavier on Apr 28, 2012 7:14 PM

> {quote:title=willbefree25 wrote:}{quote}*"Lawrence of Arabia". "2001", " Toosie" to name three.* > > garbage - okay - garbage. > > Next? > > > Well said, overeasy. > > > > *In The Heat of the Night* isn't a classic! Or *The Godfather* . *Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The French Connection, Little Big Man, Pappillon, Close Encounters, ET, Christmas Story, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, The Graduate, The Pianist, Blazing Saddles,* and *Amadeus* > > > garbage, overused classic not suited to TCM, garbage, see Godfather, okay, okay, meh, meh, meh, meh, see Godfather, boring crap, meh, major garbage, see Godfather, crap. > > wbf25, I'm afraid that if you want a channel that shows only films YOU like, you'll have to start your own channel. If you do, I'll give it a look, but suspect I'll still prefer TCM. I've been watching TCM almost since its inception. I think it has grown and improved, considerably, while showing every bit as many old films as it ever has. I really don't know why I continue to read the umpteenth iterations of chicken little threads. But this one seems more viscous than vicious.

> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote}To me, this is the only film in which Jane Greer is absolutely gorgeous and beautiful. In her other films, she just seems average. > Why, Fred, I think it's because you like bad girls. I'll agree she never looked better than in *Out of the Past*, but I think she looked great in most of her films. She looked pretty hot in 1951's *The Company She Keeps*. And, although I didn't recognize her at first, she also looked good as Vivian, in three eps of Twin Peaks, and that was in 1990!

> {quote:title=MovieMadness wrote:}{quote}I just got a tweet that Santa is tearing down his old house and workshop to rebuild too. With global warming he says he wants to add a Mediterranean touch with more glass and palm trees at the North Pole. The elves are also expecting to get new housing and condos. Unless they can put down pilings that deep, they better look into the technology used for offshore oil platforms, or maybe huge houseboats.

> {quote:title=hamradio wrote:}{quote}The difference between a civilized and a savage race is very blurred. Thinking back to ancient Rome who claims they were civilized and tribes whom they call the barbarians or savages which included the area that formed todays Germany. Does a civilize society nail people to a cross or scourge? > > Wonder how will America be looked upon centuries from now? (regarding how we treat our fellow man) Ironically, Hitler admired the way we treated the Native Americans > Indeed. I am reminded of Gandhi's response when asked what he thought of western civilization - "I think it would be a good idea."

I exist in a parallel universe, where "above" and "below" have no meaning. I've thought about moving to a skew universe, but I don't know what that would be like.

> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote} > "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races." > Too bad it happened the other way round.

> {quote:title=joefilmone wrote:}{quote}I saw it on the big screen and that is the best way to experince the *Mother Ship* Or, as I like to call it, The Cosmic Chandelier.

Well, there was Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew-Boys, and Shel Silverstein. Both made country music.

I posted this link on a thread some months back, but reposting here seems appropriate to me. It is a site called Retronaut. You can pick your decade, and browse. http://www.retronaut.co/

> {quote:title=FredCDobbs wrote:}{quote} > Anyway, my part of this debate is about the girls/women > in the surf movies being unattractive, when compared to > the women in pre-code films. > > To me, the pre-code ladies have always been more > attractive and seductive, going as far back as when I > used to see them in old movies on TV when I was a > teenager. Easily explained, Fred. By the time the surf movies were made, vacu-forming had been invented...

Mark, according to the IMDb, *It Happened in Hollywood* was written by Fuller, not directed by him. But, thanks much for calling it to our attention. It had slipped by me. According to a poster on the IMDb, it has a VERY interesting gimmick, which I think TCM fans, in particular, will appreciate: >"It Happened in Hollywood" (1937)is a frothy little comedy with a brilliant gimmick. The star of the film is Richard Dix, a rugged actor who usually played two-fisted action roles but occasionally gave excellent performances in romantic comedies. It won't spoil your fun if I tell you the gimmick. Some of Hollywood's biggest stars of the time (1937) make brief appearances in this film, including Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, James Cagney, W.C. Fields ... plus Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, who hadn't officially retired from acting yet. Now here's the gimmick: all of those big stars are played in this film by THEIR OWN STAND-INS, the wanna-be actors and actresses who (unlike most actors) had full-time employment in the Hollywood studios, but who only kept working by copying the physical appearance of a better-known actor (or actress) and following that actor from one film role to the next. (Stand-ins, unlike stunt doubles, almost never appear onscreen: their chief job is to stand in for the "real" actor during time-consuming lighting set-ups, wearing a duplicate of that actor's costume. Stand-ins are required to maintain the same build, hairstyle and complexion as the person whom they're imitating, which limits their ability to get acting jobs in their own right.) > >So, in "It Happened in Hollywood" we meet Bing Crosby, played by an obscure lookalike actor whose real-life job was to stand in for the genuine Bing during all of Crosby's films. John Barrymore (Drew's grandfather) is played here by Barrymore's full-time double. Victor McLaglen is played by his own brother, who was his real-life stand-in. Marlene Dietrich and Garbo are played by their own stand-ins: real-life sisters named Dietrich (no relation to Marlene).

The films are always shown at the same aspect ratio on both TCMHD and SD, unless someone screws up the uprezzing for TCMHD. TCM tries to show everything in its OAR, but they are at the mercy of their suppliers. Usually, they get 2.35:1 films in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and you will see black bars, top and bottom, when watching on TCMHD. Sometimes, but fortunately rarely, distributors will provide 2.35:1 films cropped to 1.78:1, aka 16x9 1.85:1 films are often provided by the distributor in 16x9, resulting in a little bit cropped on both sides. Sometimes they are provided in true 1.85:1, and have very thin black bars, top and bottom.. 1.66:1 films are the most problematic. It seems many distributors provide many of them cropped to 1.33:1, for SDTV. Now, they are also providing them cropped to 16x9, for HDTV. Sometimes, we get lucky, and get them in true 1.66:1. TCM recently showed a lot of British New Wave films in true 1.66:1. For years, TCM has shown *The Green Slime* cropped to 1.33:1. They just showed it in its OAR of 2.35:1, and made me happy! I think the DVD has it in 16x9...

The German-American Bund wasn't too shy about calling attention to themselves, and they were definitely affiliated with Nazi Germany.

They liked our music better.

Although I was never an American Bandstand fan, I can't help but acknowledge what Dick contributed to Rock and Roll. I think he'll be doing the countdown from the other side this year.

This has happened several times in the past, with serials. They have always been shown in proper order, AFAIK. Of course, I DVR them, so it couldn't be a problem for me.

> {quote:title=willbefree25 wrote:}{quote} > > Animals are still being killed and abused and eaten alive in film and television. > Can you provide any contemporary examples of that, in US or European films? Apart from wildlife documentaries, of course, I'd be very surprised that such a thing existed.

> {quote:title=NoraCharles1934 wrote:}{quote} > So these DVD-Rs with hard drives are intriguing me . . . ?:| > > I did a little looking around, and they don't seem to be very common. I only found two versions of a Magnavox model in-stock on Amazon. > Yes, only the Maggies are left, and I believe production has ended on them. So, if you want one, better get it soon. Walmart, Amazon, or J&R for refurbs, are the last sources. > Do you still need the cable co.'s DVR in this case, or could you just opt for the (cheaper) digital receiver box? > Depends on what sort of service you are happy with. You must have a cable co. box of some kind, since most of what you want to watch is scrambled, or soon will be. If you want to record something in HD for later viewing, you'll need the cable co.'s DVR. If you want to record one thing while watching another, you'll need the cable co.'s DVR. Also, most digital receivers can't be programmed to change channels, so you would only be able to record the one channel it is tuned to with your DVDR, while you are away. Having a cable co. DVR makes things much easier. > How exactly do the input/outputs work re: the TV, DVR & DVD recorder? > Assuming you get a Magnavox DVDR, you run the incoming cable from the wall, to the Magnavox, then to the cable DVR. The Magnavox will pass through the raw cable to your DVR. But, the Magnavox will also be able to tune any unscrambled channels (mostly locals) with its own tuner, and record them directly, in SD, without affecting the cable co. DVR. From the cable DVR's outputs, to your Magnavox DVDR's inputs, you run the S-Video cable and the right and left audio cables. From the cable DVR to the TV, you run HDMI cable. From the Maggy DVDR to the TV, you run HDMI cable. > How do you "dump" a film from the DVR to the hard drive? > To move a film from your DVR's HDD to the HDD of your DVDR, it must be played back in real time. You select the correct input on the DVDR, set the recording speed, start recording, then start the film playing on the DVR. Basically, you can do that while you are watching the film, or you can set it up to transfer when you go to work, or go to bed.

> {quote:title=darkblue wrote:}{quote} > What I wondered was whether cable was reconverting the digital signals from OTA back to analog - as that's what you and Val said I'm getting through my cable wire. Or did you? I thought I understood and now I'm not sure again. > Well, your cable company wouldn't be getting many channels OTA, perhaps just a few locals. Some locals give the cable co. direct feeds. In any event, most of what the cable co. gets is from satellite, and is digital. And the stuff it gets OTA is digital. So, yes, for the few remaining channels cable co.s carry that don't require a converter/set top box, they ARE converting them to analog, and sending them out over the cable. But, they will almost certainly have digital clones of those, because pretty much all the newer DVRs and STBs don't have analog tuners in them. So, unless it is tuned by the tuner in your TV set, it won't be analog. The digital cable signal is called QAM. Most of the digital stuff put out is scrambled, but they are not supposed to scramble your local channels. So, if you have a digital set, you may also tune some digital (and HD) channels w/o a STB. Have I gotten you good and confused yet?

> {quote:title=slaytonf wrote:}{quote}Thanx for the explanation, VX. I think I got most of it, though I was slipping a little at the end. If I get you right, if I want to get a sharper recording of a wide screen movie from TCM (SD, which is what I get here), I will need to get a converter, which will go midstream between my cable box and my DVD player (DVDR ?). You say you have various flavors of them. Is is worth getting the lower end ones? I may not go for the $200 ones or so, but I don't want to simply throw away $45, either. I imagine I can find them at a place like Fry's (if you are familiar with that big box electronics store). No, sorry, you didn't quite get it. You can only make the sharper, anamorphic DVDs from a *HD* source, such as TCMHD. You can't do it from a SD channel. I've been rather satisfied with the cheaper converters, eevn if they aren't quite as good. But, I may have just had good luck. Some people say they are awful, or don't work at all.

> {quote:title=slaytonf wrote:}{quote} > > > ValnetineXavier said: > > Another word of caution - most cable boxes don't output an anamorphic (squeezed wide screen) signal over the S-Video output. So, to make anamorphic DVDs, (what they call "enhanced for wide screen" on commercial DVDs,) which uses all the pixels to hold the picture info - none wasted on black bars - you'd have to buy an adapter. You'd want one that converts the three wire picture outputs from your DVR, called component outputs, into S-Video, which would give you the squeezed anamorphic picture. Of course most people don't get that involved with it. > >Slaytonf wrote: >I'm not sure I understand--no, I'm sure I don't understand what you posted. But I have a question for you. Right now, I record directly from my cable box to my DVD player. With wide-screen movies, on the playback, I have to use the zoom feature to make the best use of the screen. Inevitably I lose some picture quality. You mentioned not wasting pixels on the black bars. Is there a way to record to my DVD with an enlarged picture that I won't have to zoom and thus not lose picture quality? Well, I'd hoped that my parenthetical additions above would make that at least semi-intelligible for most people. But, I can see that Mark was right, and it didn't. I'll try to give an understandable outline. When you buy a commercial DVD of a wide screen film these days, it is almost always 'anamorphic,' or as it will usually say on the box, "Enhanced for wide screen." What does that mean? A DVD frame has a 4x3 aspect ratio, it can't record any other way. If you record a WS film in letterbox, on a 4x3 frame, well we're all familiar with that. You get the black bars on top and bottom, and that space carries no useful information. So, to make use of that space, making a sharper picture, and saving us to have to "zoom" on our HDTVs, to make a LB picture fill the screen side-to-side, (which also makes the picture grainier,) the WS image is squeezed horizontally, to make it 4x3, not 16x9 (the HD ratio.) Then, with proper settings on your DVD player, and either auto or manual picture mode selection on your HDTV, the image is stretched back out to the original aspect ratio. Then, you have a sharper picture. So, how can you do that at home, with your own DVDR? Your DVDR will record just what you send it, so, you have to send it an already squeezed picture. First, you can only get that anamorphic (squeezed) image from a HD channel, not from a SD channel. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cable and sat. systems only output an anamorphic signal over HD outputs, like HDMI, and component video (RGB) outputs. They output a LB signal, from HD and SD channels alike, from SD analog outputs, like S-Video, and composite (yellow wire.) With a very few systems, you CAN get the anamorphic image output over S-Video, but those are rare. For the rest of us, to make an anamorphic DVD from cable, or sat., we need a converter that takes the anamorphic signal from the component (RGB) outputs, and converts it to S-Video, that our DVDRs will accept. Those converters range in quality, and price, from about $45 to $300, to even $1,000. I have a couple of the $45 persuasion, and a couple more of the $200-300 persuasion. I can go into detail, if anyone is interested. Or, they can go to the AVS Forum's DVDR forum.

A teacher, addressing his class, said: In some languages, such as English, a double negative is a positive. And, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is a negative. But, there are no languages in which a double positive is a negative. A voice from the back of the room said "Yeah, right..."

SansFin, the consensus on the Audio Video Forum is that 8x discs are the best for modern DVDRs, that's what they were designed to burn. I use Taiyo Yuden 8x -R, which I buy on line. SF, and TikiSoo, about "analog broadcasts," yes, they ended, but only for OTA (over the air) broadcasts. Those are all digital now. That has nothing to do with analog vs digital cable. Cable companies are under NO gov. edicts to convert to all digital. They are doing that because digital takes up less bandwidth, freeing up space to add more HD channels. The phasing out of analog cable is in progress everywhere, but at different rates, even with the same cable provider. With Comcast, where I live, I think there are still 17 analog channels. I believe that all have digital clones.