Director/Writer John Hughes died yesterday! What a loss…
A nice story here… Sincerely, John Hughes
DVD speed
Did you know that PAL DVD’S run 4% faster than NTSC and cinemas?
So Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which runs for 153 minutes at the cinema, will only run for 146.88 minutes when you buy it on DVD. So you are losing 6 minutes!
You’re unlikely to notice as the whole film is being played fractionally faster, not that 6 minutes of action has been cut. Technically everything moves faster and the sound is a slightly higher pitch.
For the technical minded, it’s all to do with films being 24 fps and PAL DVD’S being coded to 25 fps to fit PALS 50hz refresh rate.
I believe it’s not an issue with HD though as HD TVs can adapt and therefore HD DVDs don’t need to be adjusted.
There you go… Todays random fact was brought to you…
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Harry Potter
I like Harry Potter. I think the books are a good story well told. Yes, they might not be the best written books in the world, they seem to commit many writing cardinal sins, they often meander a tad, and they could definitely have done with a more strict editor, but generally
they do what they say on the tin. And you can’t argue with the amount of
pleasure they seem to have brought to readers around the world.
I have been reading the books to Rebekah, we just started Half Blood Prince over the weekend, and it has been interesting how more acutely aware I have been of aforementioned shortcomings this time around.
Still enjoying them though!
Since we had finished Order of the Phoenix during the week, we were able to watch the film on Saturday. I am amazed at just how much of the books Rebekah must absorb because she is so clued into the changes that have been made to the films.
I enjoyed the films Philosopher’s Stone, and Chamber of Secrets. Didn’t enjoy Prisoner of Azkaban, but did enjoy Goblet of Fire. I really didn’t enjoy Order of the Phoenix. It just didn’t work for me. I would love to have watched it without the back knowledge of the books, because it seems to me that in order to work, you have had to read the books.
I understand the process of adapting books to films and am not adverse to changes that are made in order to make a film script work. As a general
rule, good film makers understand what their audience want and how best to twist a story to make them fulfilled. Yes sometimes they get it wrong, but often just minor issues.
It felt to me that in order to make Order of the Phoenix work, the script writer or director decided to remove all the soul of the story and leave in the hi-lights, the visual bits, knowing that the majority of their audience could fill in the missing parts. Thus the film could move from scene to scene without much explanation or motive, a bit of a collage really.
Really disappointing!
Harry Potter, Half Blood Prince, Order of the Phoenix, Philosopher’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire
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Captain Correli’s Mandolin
I watched Captain Correli’s Mandolin last night. Firstly and importantly, I enjoyed it. It did everything I want from a book adaptation – it made me want to read the book.
It’s obvious from the viewing that there has been a lot cut from the book to make the film, but that said, from a story point of view, I never felt I was missing anything that I could not piece together by reading between the lines. So by that measure the film holds its own as a story, if not necessarily the same story as the book.
What I did take from the film is – just how shit Nicolas Cage was. His attempt at being and Italian was really so poor. There were moments when I thought he was going to turn into Borat. I have never been a cage fan, although I admit there are films where he seems perfect in, but I thought he was particularly badly cast here. I guess he’s just one of those actors that grate on me, a bit like Jim Carey. However, by the end of the film he starts to become acceptable as the film enters the final action stage.
Captain Correli’s Mandolin, Nicolas Cage, Borat, Jim Carey Captain Correli’s Mandolin, Nicolas Cage, Borat, Jim CareyRelated Posts:
Celebrity Spotting…
When Victoria and I were in Italy last month, we walked past Noah
Wyle (Carter – ER ). He was stood back in a little booth in a side
street in Florence. He looked like he was sampling some drink or another,
a little at the back of a group of people, almost keeping in the shadows.
Anyway, as we walked past I pointed him out to Victoria with the very
enlightening, “Isn’t that thingy from ER…” to which she replied “Carter,
yes I think it is.”
Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning so did a quick Internet
search… I found a few stories that confirm that Mr Wyle and his family
were indeed in Italy the weekend before, in particular Rome (so there is
every possibility that they would have decided to take in Florence – it’s
only 180miles away, and not only that I found a picture of him in Rome
looking as he did when I saw him – same jacket etc…
The power of the internet…
…Today has been a slow news day…