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July 25, 2009 By idawson Leave a Comment

Films currently in the public domain

Admit one to your computer screen!
Admit one to your computer screen!

One of the fantastic things about the internet is the availability of streaming videos out there. Any film scholar can tell you that issues of copyright and ownership often got confusing at times. For example, many of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Vertigo, were in the courts for years as the legal system was asked to determine ownership. The result was an unfortunate one; one in which we the viewing public were not able to enjoy these films. Another consequence was that the prints were at times left to deteriorate due to neglect. Fortunately for us, many of these treasures have been identified and properly preserved or are in the process of being so.

Another fate suffered by older films is that motion picture companies who own these films hold the films in their vault and debate whether to release them for sale or distribution.

Thankfully, many groups holding these films in either case have come up with a solution to satisfy film fans everywhere – make these films available in the public domain. Take hulu.com, for instance. A click on their Movies (Full Length), will display a plentiful supply of classic titles, enough to whet any movie lovers’ appetite. There is some Hitchcock (39 Steps, Lady Vanishes); His Girl Friday; Orson Welles’ The Stranger and more recent films such as Broken Flowers, The Last Days of Disco, Your Friends and Neighbors, etc. You can spend some time looking at the feature films and documentaries.

The one suggestion I have is to check the offering often. A couple of months ago I watched Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. When I recently checked the movie list, it was not there.

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Filed Under: Essays, Movie Resources Tagged With: feature films on the internet, hulu, streaming video

July 24, 2009 By idawson 2 Comments

DVD Pick: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Robin Hood ... coming to Blu Ray soon!
Robin Hood ... coming to Blu Ray soon!

Pure cinematic confection. What else can I say? Every time this movie comes on, I have to take pause and give it a go. It is bright, the music is lovely and it is a film constantly on the go. It is action packed and has one of the silver screen’s most dynamic and engaging duos – Errol Flynn and Olivia deHavilland. And can I say how much I LOVE Olivia deHavilland. She is so proper and regal.

A simple storyline mixed with almost blinding Technicolor can easily get lost on a generation transfixed with loud explosions and dizzying camera movement. It often makes me wonder what the movie makers of long ago would think of the modern-day motion picture…would they even recognize it as the form they helped pioneer over 100 years ago?

For modern day skeptics who would dismiss The Adventures of Robin Hood as a cheesy, if not cartoon-ish production, I recommend you watch Robin Hood for those very reasons. On subsequent viewings (I have seen it at least 20 times already – probably more) it almost feels like a live-action comic or cartoon but in the best way possible; it is an entertaining piece of movie escapism. The good guys are too good to be true and the bad guys are deliciously villainous.

Trust me you will enjoy every moment of it.

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Filed Under: dvd, Reviews Tagged With: basil rathbone, claude rains, errol flynn, olivia dehavilland, Reviews, robin hood, technicolor

July 23, 2009 By idawson 1 Comment

3D: Old/new Wave of Future?

In the film community there has been a lot of talk surrounding the future of 3D in cinemas. A favorite film critic of mine, BBC’s Mark Kermode, has talked at great length about 3D and the issue of piracy. I have embedded one of his video blogs that discusses that very problem:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2009/04/piracy_240409.html

Meanwhile I had the pleasure last weekend of seeing the sixth installment of the Harry Potter film series (Half Blood Prince or HBP) in IMAX 3D. The Lincoln Center cinema was one of a handful of theatres nationwide showing HBP in IMAX ahead of the July 29th nationwide release in this format (click here to find out why).

I will spare you an actual review of HBP since I am an unapologetic devotee of both the books and the movies. I will however comment on the “IMAX 3-D” experience. Simply stated the best experience for me was watching the trailer for the Disney IMAX 3D version of A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey.

As far as the feature presentation goes, the 3D was reserved for the first twenty minutes. Wow! There was a lot of deatheater flying, and swooping down alleys, across bridges and in narrow alleyways. The result left me a little light headed. For my movie-going companions, the experience was a bit more extreme; the experience bordered on nausea. At first, I thought it was just me but was I glad to find out I was not the only one.

At the end of the twenty minutes, I was more than happy to take off my 3D glasses at the prompting of the flashing of the red glasses on the cinema screen. The whole process of being instructed to do something in a movie theatre was a little disconcerting.

Another observation is that in a few scenes there was a weird ghostly/shadowy thing going on. Maybe it was just the print (hmm?).

My conclusion? Just give the IMAX experience if you want to get me excited about going to the movies – 3D is for the birds.

Filed Under: Essays, Movie Resources Tagged With: 3d, harry potter and the half blood prince, imax, imax 3d, mark kermode

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