LornaHansonForbes
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Posts posted by LornaHansonForbes
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Little tangent here, but it's nice to be writing about something other than DARK SHADOWS...
Over the many many many times I have seen WHITE ZOMBIE I have never ceased to be amused- tickled even- by the JARED KUSHNER LEVELS OF INCOMPETENCE, INEPTITUDE AND OVERT STUPIDITY shown by the ostensible Hero of the film. Like, not for for so much as ONE MOMENT IN THIS FILM DOES THIS GUY DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN **** ALL THE HELL UP COMPLETELY AT EVERY TURN....
So much so that THE ACTUAL HERO, JOSEPH CAWTHORN- who I adore!!!!!!!!- actually has a scene with him on the beach before the last act starts where he basically politely tells this guy to shut the **** up and sit the **** down, and JUST SIT THERE AND DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING TIL I GET BACK FROM FIGHTING THE MURDEROUS HAITAIN VOODOO MASTER YOU USELESS SIMP OF A MAN.
and then the idiot goes to the castle and is INSTANTLY SUBDUED.
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4 minutes ago, Eucalpytus P. Millstone said:
I don't think txfilmfan's suggestion will work for you, LornaHansonForbes.
I have a Roku device. I also have a Hulu account (via Disney+). Like you, I also do not have a cable TV provider. I watch TCM strictly via Sling TV on my Roku device.
I tried txfilmfan's suggestion, and I was unable to log in to Watch TCM because I don't have a cable TV provider. Entering my Hulu credentials alone did not grant me access to Watch TCM.
and thank YOU!
Now, not only do I feel validated in my MOTION PICTURE PRINT QUALITY ASSESSMENT ABILITIES, I can feel a little better knowing I am not THE ONLY ONE who has THIS EXACT PROBLEM everytime they try to get WATCH TCM ON THEIR ROKU!!!!
VALIDATION ALL AROUND TODAY!!!!
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4 hours ago, Mr. Gorman said:
I felt the need to re-watch the '85 PRISM tape yesterday. I noted something I'd missed previously in regards to the print of WHITE ZOMBIE used on the PRISM tape. There seems to be an intentional cut on the print used right after the butler goes to see Beaumont and inform him that Madge Bellamy and John Harron have arrived. Recall that Beaumont at first says "Tell them I'm out" and then changes his mind right away and says "Maybe I better go see them; it would be odd if I didn't!" and the butler chimes in "Very odd, sir". Right there as Beaumont moves off the table the scene cuts away to him greeting Ms. Bellamy in the study. → However, there's some 30 seconds or so missing in between that c/u/t that appears on the version on YouTube. There's no obvious print damage on the tape during that scene so that cut looks to be intentional to speed up the action. Ah, the joys of 'Public Domain' film prints! But, hey, the sound is good on the tape.
Clean-up costs money! 💰
strange.
i've seen the film so many times i can tell you, what follows is the line "especially since DR. BRUNER (the priest who can never find a match) is a trifle skeptical about your motives Sir..." and then BEAUMONT mentions he will be going off to meet with "that person" soon and his butler warns him not to. it's relatively important exposition, but since the film isn't hard to follow, it doesn't really confuse things removing it...
maybe they did it so the VHS tape would run a certain length? or maybe the specific print of WHITE ZOMBIE PRISM used for their transfer just happened to be one where that particular scene had damage and they cut it rather than finding a new print...?
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13 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:
I've had a chance to look at the WatchTCM version of White Zombie in more detail and I think I see what Lorna is referring to. What threw me initially is that the print currently shown on TCM is overall a good resolution scan. Unfortunately it appears to be from a print with quite a bit of damage throughout. The YouTube version that was posted seems to have all of this damage cleaned up.
Here is a WatchTCM shot from the beginning of the film. Notice the vertical scratch mark on the face:
Here is the same shot on the YT version:
At around 35 minutes there's a scene in a study that illustrates the film damage:
More scratches in the image:
Along with this damage there are occasional edit and picture jumps as Lorna has mentioned.
So it would be very nice if TCM could show the cleaned up version, but apparently that is not available to them. (Thanks to EricJ and Mr. Gorman for their comments on this above.)
Usually on TCM you see films in 2 general categories - lower resolution lower quality videos, and newer high definition videos from good prints. This is a less common case where they are showing a higher definition video from a print with significant flaws and not much if any restoration. With the HD video you can really see the defects as they go by.
THANK YOU!!!!!
👍❤️👏🌈🎶💋
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12 hours ago, EricJ said:
Unlike most Public-Domain rescues (like Criterion's rescues of Charade, Carnival of Souls and Night of the Living Dead), White Zombie's never HAD a good studio restoration--
Once one good professional studio rescue-restoration restores the print, it's usually added to film vaults, like Criterion's "Island of Lost Souls" at Universal or RKO's "It's a Wonderful Life" at Paramount. But no one's got a claim on this one, so there's no one to stick up for it, and give us a good "real" version for cable and home video. 😥Yeah, well, maybe if we’re spectacularly unlucky Rob Zombie will give it one of his patented “reinterpretations” and we’ll get a 2 1/2 hour version, with the first half hour comprised of shaky handheld camera footage of 12 year old Murder Legendre, struggling to fit in at Haitian middle school and living with a stripper mom and a witch doctor stepdad who is an abusive prick...
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16 minutes ago, Mr. Gorman said:
Currently, I have two VHS copies of WHITE ZOMBIE. One of them is a 1985 PRISM Entertainment release. Just a straight transfer of a film print. Full of hisses, pops and scratches (but I like that stuff -- makes the movie more eerie to my viewing enjoyment).
Then I picked up a 3rd VHS tape on the 'Hal Roach Studios' label. → This version was a lil' different. It had been cleaned up to a degree in terms of 'picture quality' except it was missing various bits of footage. It looked to me like what was done, in order to make the picture quality overall look better, was that small amounts of footage was trimmed out of the movie that was considered "unsalvageable"; the footage in question being in such poor condition there was no way to make it look better with the technology at hand at the time that tape was issued. Ergo, some of the 'worst' footage was cut out and there are *noticeable* jumps in the picture
I used to enjoy the pops and hisses and scratches but then I saw the FULL RESTORATION OF "DRACULA" THAT UNIVERSAL DID IN HONOR OF THEIR 100TH ANNIVERSARY, and it is a different and more effective film without that omnipresent hiissssssssssssssssss on the soundtrack because there are extended scenes of DEAD SILENCE throughout the film that are very eerie as they were originally intended.
i noticed even with the RESTORED WHITE ZOMBIE PRINT, it looked like they paid more attention to cleaning up the LUGOSI scenes and the opening, there is a dull conversation between the priest and the worthless "hero" of the story in his office where the picture still looked a little "iffy" to me.
there's also still some light hissing on even the restored WHITE ZOMBIE print though...but the SUGAR MILL SCENE looked GREAT, as did THE OPENING CREDITS overlaying the BURIAL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD- in some versions you can't tell what the hell's going on it's so grainy/out of focus,
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Just now, HoldenIsHere said:
"Three flavors for chicken . . . and one fish."
WONDER WHY FISH ONLY GOT ONE...?
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I bet you someone's great aunt has a box of SHAKE N' BAKE FOR FISH in the back of their pantry still....
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I wonder if this ad actually aired during DARK SHADOWS...(1968)
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Mom has got quite the rack and she is downright insolent about the fact that she don't fry chicken no more, isn't she?
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AAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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CAN YOU EVEN GET SHAKE N BAKE ANYMORE?
(Not that you'd want to...)
ps- I live in the South, so it might be illegal here
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1 minute ago, HoldenIsHere said:
Haha! Yes that girl with the very noticeable Southern accent.
AND THE SPOOKY MELON HEAD!
Like the lovechild of SCOUT and BOO RADDLEY.
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3 minutes ago, scsu1975 said:
I watched all the initial episodes on Amazon Prime. They end at a certain point, and then the episodes on TUBI take over. I also know that Pluto TV was showing episodes, but I'm not sure if they start at the beginning.
I can't with PLUTO TV, THERE ARE SO MANY GD COMMERCIALS AND THEY ARE NOT GRACEFULLY PLACED within the program, they start abruptly. One great thing about TUBI is there is ONE COMMERCIAL at the start of the show, then ONE COMMERCIAL BREAK hafway thru and that is it, so you can watch each episode in 26 minutes easy (they also cut the end credits short, which I wish they wouldn't, but it makes it easier to binge five episodes in the same time as a movie)
i legit think an episode on PLUTO would be about 38 minutes long with all their effin commercials
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3 minutes ago, HoldenIsHere said:
Only a few of the pre-Barnabas DARK SHADOWS episodes (aka THEBEGINNING) are kinescope copies. Most of them are the original black-and-white broadcast recordings. It is quite noticeable when you suddenly come upon a kinescope copy versus an original.
It is truly remarkable that all episodes of DARK SHADOWS, even if some of them are kinescope copies. Most daytime television recordings from that time were routinely erased so that the tapes could be re-used.
please tell me, fellow child of the 90's, that you know what i mean by THE CREEPY SHAKE N' BAKE GIRL, yes?
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11 minutes ago, txfilmfan said:
When it asks you to select a provider, select the "View all TV Providers" button at the bottom, and then in the search box type in "Hulu", and then click on "Hulu." It should then redirect you to auth.hulu.com, which will ask you for your Hulu credentials.
This is on the Watch TCM website. I'd try it there first to make sure it works, and then try it on the Watch TCM app.
I have YouTube TV, and it works for that, in both cases.
thank you again!
I will try to re-download the app again!
(I apologize, I'm 43 but I am practically Amish when it comes to technology.)
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one clue: in the poor copy of WHITE ZOMBIE that I watched on TCM ON HULU, during the scene where MONSIEUR BEAUMONT MEETS MURDER LEGENDRE IN HIS OFFICE AT THE SUGAR MILL AND JUST AS LEGENDRE HANDS HIM THE PHIAL OF ZOMBIE DUST, there is a bad jump as the film is missing a couple of frames, that is where I really sat up and noticed the bad quality, because I've never noticed missing frames in the version of WHITE ZOMBIE i've been watching for years.
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17 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:
Sounds like I would not be impressed with Hulu. Maybe cable isn't so bad after all... (of course, I'm paying for it) 🙂
for the most part, I've been happy with HULU, but there are a few things that annoy me (as is the case with everything though!)
TCM ON DEMAND ON HULU tends to offer about 70% of what has aired on TCM for the past 15-30 days, and it's usually the stuff I want to watch 9although some things "fall through the cracks)
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24 minutes ago, NipkowDisc said:
tcm is peculiar because they...are slackers. when the great iconic horror star Christopher Lee passed away did the show the 2012 BFI restored cut of Hammer's Dracula?
THEY DID NOT.
That is true, especially since they have such a cozy relationship with WB (Who I am pretty sure still own the rights to the film, although maybe I’m wrong.)
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Literally, in the scene that I’m watching right now between the witch doctor and the priest, where the witch doctor is warning him not to go to the castle, there have been numerous scratches and there was just a severe jump (missing frames) in the film. There’s clear damage on the print and negative...
But it’s sounding like it’s just entirely possible that for whatever reason TCM on Hulu is showing a bad print, whereas the net work itself showed the restored version courtesy of UCLA.
I did catch some of the mystery of the wax museum, and they definitely ran the pristine restored version of it.
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14 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:
Lorna, I'm somewhat a nut about video quality so I took a look at White Zombie on WatchTCM. I have to say that if that is what you saw I'm surprised that it would evoke such a strong reaction from you. It is not HD / blu-ray quality there but not bad compared to other prints TCM shows. Here's a frame grab:
So this makes me wonder if what TCM showed live is different from what is posted on WatchTCM. From some of your past comments I suspect you don't have access to WatchTCM to make a comparison, but it would be nice if you could.
Kino Lorber released a blu-ray version of White Zombie in 2013. If you saw a similar version of that on TCM previously then what they have now would be a major step down.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/White-Zombie-Blu-ray/56753/#Screenshots
White Zombie is currently scheduled to be shown again on October 31 at 8:45 am ET so we can all get up early on Halloween and check it out.
🙂
The mystery deepens!!
I use Hulu, I have actually tried to download the watch TCM app because someone recently told me that they have adjusted it to where it will work on Hulu or Roku television, unfortunately it still asks me for a cable provider which I don’t have.
I recorded White Zombie off TCM using Hulu a year ago, and it’s very strange when you record a movie off of Hulu, the recording actually expires after 30 days, but if the movie is re-broadcast the recording automatically frees itself up and you can watch it again, It is literally pointless to record some thing then, I may as well just watch it in TCM on Hulu because the films there expire in about the same amount of time, But whatever, whenever TCM shows white zombie it shows up immediately in my feed, and that’s what I watched yesterday with a TCM logo, and it’s what I’m watching right now, (the version that is running with a TCM logo) and I can tell you after just having watched the really clean version that Fausterlitz posted, this version is just not as good. There’s a lot of flickering and a very unclear picture. Granted it is not like a “walls of Malapaga” type situation, or a 1940s “ Gigi” type situation, both of those are inexcusably bad prints that TCM has shown in the past, but what I am watching right now with a TCM logo is DEFINITELY NOT THE BEST PRINT OF EHITE ZOMBIE OUT THERE!!
All apologies if this was a long, confusing, and badly misspelled post, I made it with my phone. Also I’m really terrible at explaining technology.
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3 minutes ago, TikiSoo said:
All I'm saying is that picture does not look like a properly restored movie, it's too contrasty to even see the faces. It was only made "high definition" which means upping the black/white levels in PhotoShop.
Oh yeah, it’s not a perfect restoration, not on the level that universal did with Dracula, but it’s still unbelievably better than a lot of prints that are out there because this movie is in the public domain.
The print TCM ran yesterday was so bad that I could not make it through the film, and it’s one of my favorites. The print I’m watching on YouTube right now is clean enough that I can appreciate the film and at least understand the dialogue, although there is a humming sound. But what I’m watching is, I think pretty close to our audiences in 1933 saw. I mean the print that aired on TCM yesterday literally had missing frames Where characters would jump across the screen.
Someone somewhere has taken some time to clean out the picture on this to some degree, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for again, that copy that ran on TCM.
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That print they ran of WHITE ZOMBIE (1933) was bad.
in General Discussions
Posted
SADLY, the actor who played the OSTENSIBLE HERO of WHITE ZOMBIE passed away in the late thirties...can't remember the cause...Polio?