What's on the idiot box?

[Amentep]

AFAIK, there were earlier films that used the techniques seen in Kane prior to Wells (some of it in the German Expressionists who influenced everybody).  So it wasn't as inventive as it was transformative; as it helped form the language of cinema into a recognizable whole.

[algroth]

There were plenty of films before Kane that employed several of the techniques used in it (see Renoir's films for depth of field compositions or Dreyer's films for long shots for example), but it did employ all these with a remarkable consistency and idiosyncrasy throughout, and then repeated through later Welles films, so that it would become centrepiece example for the "auteur" theory and many other concepts regarding realism and forbidden montage and so on by Bazin some ten to fifteen years later. It was the birth of modern cinema for many theorists largely because of how it unified all these concepts into a complete approach that was deliberately breaking with the classic Hollywood mold (as well as several other narrative aspects and focalization which made it incredibly interesting to break down from a semiotic perspective too).

 

That said, I first saw Kane when I was 14, not knowing anything about its cinematic importance other than it was a "classic", and I was absolutely spellbound by it. I think this is a film that most certainly lives up to its lofty title (even if it isn't my favorite Welles - that honour goes to The Trial), and works regardless of how well you know the technical side of the medium. The rest I'm less fussed about - I largely agree with Gromnir here.

Edited October 4, 2017 by algroth

[algroth]

North by Northwest is worth seeing though. It holds up.

 

As far as Hitch goes, my favorites are Vertigo (easily first in my mind), Psycho, Rebecca and The Rope. North by Northwest is also very good though.

 

While we're at it, my favorite filmmaker of this era is probably Michael Powell. I think practically all of his films alongside Emeric Pressburger as well as The Thief of Bagdad and Peeping Tom are worth watching, but The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death and A Canterbury Tale especially.

Edited October 4, 2017 by algroth

[algroth]

Going back to TV, this looks pretty interesting. Anthology series based on Philip K. D1ck stories:

 

Edited October 4, 2017 by algroth

[Fiach]

Can't make up my mind about ST Discovery, not liking main character, she comes across as an a**hole, also, a girl called Michael is kinda jarring, is she gender fluid? Is she a SJW catch all, gender fluid, woman of colour that experiences alot of anti Vulcan racism?

 

Halfway through epi 3, hope it gets better.

[ShadySands]

I don't mind the name but my favorite character of the first episode was the captain and I've heard she doesn't stick around long

[Fiach]

I don't mind the name but my favorite character of the first episode was the captain and I've heard she doesn't stick around long

Yes indeed, love Michelle Yeoh, she was why I gave it a shot, but yeah 2 episodes and she's gone unfortunately.

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000706/

[Raithe]

I have to admit, I have a slightly juvenile humour response to the short advert for it.

 

"We seek. We Discover. We explore. We find. STD."

[majestic]

Can't make up my mind about ST Discovery, not liking main character, she comes across as an a**hole, also, a girl called Michael is kinda jarring, is she gender fluid? Is she a SJW catch all, gender fluid, woman of colour that experiences alot of anti Vulcan racism?

 

Halfway through epi 3, hope it gets better.

 

The name is just one of Bryan Fuller's shticks, he does that in his TV shows. She shows no signs of being gender fluid so the name might not just be pandering to the hysterics on Twatter.

 

I read a review that suggested Michael Burnham to be a symbol for the harrassment of women of color in general. Like Tilly or whatever her name is wanting to call her Mickey, changing her name. Apparently that's something that happens to women of color in the US. I honestly don't know if that really is a thing. People getting a nickname or a short version of their name at work is very common though, so whatevs. Almost no one ever calls me my full given name, but I'm a white male so who gives a ****.

 

However linking the peer scorn and her being ostracized by the crew of the Discovery to harrasment of women at the workplace is a "bit" of a stretch. She's a convicted criminal - worse, a traitor and mutineer, and according to this week's epsiode the first one ever in Starfleet. I venture most women aren't. As far as stand-ins or mirrors for our society go that's pretty terrible. Nobody trusts Michael not because of her Vulcan background but because to be honest mutineers generally can't be trusted. *shrug*

 

If anything the treatment of Michael Burnham in the show just highlights Discovery's failure as Star Trek. Especially because she's not to blame for starting a war, her actions could have prevented one (most likely, at any rate). In any other Trek show she'd defend herself at a trial and not play the hard ass, get demoted and reassigned, or she would serve some sort of commutable sentence without the shady dealings of Captain Malfoy and his fungal spore version of Sammael the Hellhound. The suggestion to deal with the Klingons in a way they would culturally respect even came from Sarek, for crying out loud. He's only one of the most respected diplomats in Trek history. Nah.

 

I'm not one of the hardcore Trekkers who hated everything that wasn't TOS and TNG. I loved DS9 and Sisko often did things that weren't "Trek" but at the end of the day it was still good sci-fi. Discovery so far is just interpersonal drama against a spaceship background with a war on that was probably meant as a reflection of the problems of our times - mostly religious terrorism and remaining "Klingon", i.e. the current "culture war".

 

I think that's the most depressing part for me. The potential is there and one can see where the original creative team might have wanted to go, before the whole thing got a soap opera redo.

Edited October 4, 2017 by majestic

[Gromnir]

I don't mind the name but my favorite character of the first episode was the captain and I've heard she doesn't stick around long

as a true star trek fan, perhaps you know if the writers ever bothered to explain how/why vulcans (even pre-translator vulcans) and other aliens have americanized english accents, while characters such as michelle yeoh, james doohan and walter koenig had (or affected) unique regional accents? in the case o' yeoh, the issue were obviously unavoidable, but considering how anal the canon/dogma folks can be, we wondered (though not to the point o' distraction or anything) if an explanation were ever given why hundreds o' years in the relative future we still had scotty sounding like groundskeeper willie, but klingons and vulcans were channeling good ol' midwestern and atlantic coast USA.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

No reason that I know of but my knowledge stops at the shows and movies, well, except for Enterprise which I still can't sit through beyond the weekly T'Pol radiation rub down. I tried a couple novels before but they were so bad I couldn't finish them. I just remembered the X-Men/TNG crossover which I did finish but I don't think that was considered canon.

[ManifestedISO]

Supposedly Doohan's accent was one of several performed by James at audition, that Gene liked best, and Walter was added to appeal to a demographic. After TOS (or before, don't know), Roddenberry declared American English the language of the Federation and its member planets.

 

Regional accents were to become officially rare, an excerpt from page 23, 'Star Trek The Next Generation Bible', written by Gene in 1987 as a show-writer's reference: Born in Paris, France, Picard betrays a gallic accent only when deep emotions are triggered. Otherwise, since ethnic accents are no longer common, he carries only a touch of French phrasing in his speech. I can't recall ever hearing even a touch.

 

Also it states Data's name is to be pronounced with a short 'a' (that-a), among other points never-realized, so, the accent situation must have been fluid, too.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

So you are one of those weirdos who have never seen The Godfather or The Wire and whose duty it is to be constantly reminded of this particular failing of their life.  

 

And then some! Ive also never seen: Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Its a Wonderful Life, Citizen Cane, etc. *runs*

 

They made me sit through those in film class when i was a kid. They're all terrible. 

 

 

You don't know terrible until you're forced to sit through all 111 minutes of Blowup.

[Rosbjerg]

he carries only a touch of French phrasing in his speech. [/i]I can't recall ever hearing even a touch.

 

He uses several french idioms and sings a Frere Jacque rather than Brother John. But it is somewhat downplayed, I imagine mostly because of Sir Patrick's lack of skill in French.

[ShadySands]

I never realized the dude that played Picard's brother Robert was also English

 

I just watched the episode again and I have no idea how I missed that. Maybe the smugness sold it for me.

Edited October 6, 2017 by ShadySands

[Zoraptor]

 

he carries only a touch of French phrasing in his speech. [/i]I can't recall ever hearing even a touch.

He uses several french idioms and sings a Frere Jacque rather than Brother John. But it is somewhat downplayed, I imagine mostly because of Sir Patrick's lack of skill in French.

 

 

I've literally never heard anyone sing anything other than the french version of Frére Jacques. It's easy to translate of course, but I'm 99% sure I learn the french rather than english words way back in primary school.

 

I'd imagine that Patrick Stewart could wing french even if he isn't fluent, on the other hand if a scriptwriter cannot write french then there's nothing french in the script to wing. Plenty of actors 'speak' entirely foreign languages (albeit sometimes hilariously, if you know the language) by doing them phonetically.

[Lexx]

Reminds me of the germans in The man in the high castle. You can totally hear who's a real german and who had to learn a couple sentences. For a native speaker this is quite funny- the words are all correct, but everything is pronounced wrong... So wrong, sometimes I had to read the english subtitles to get what the "germans" were saying in german. :>

[Raithe]

Apparently that was part of the fun for all the Mandarin phrases used in Firefly.

 

They had a chinese-american in the writers room who spent half her time phoning up friends and family around San Francisco, Hong Kong and various points around China to chase up current slang and sayings and then fitting them into the scripts. Having them written phonetically, and recordings of how they actually sound before the cast had to try to learn them.

[Hurlshort]

I have a lot of Mandarin speakers in my classes, and at the end of the year I would often show a couple episodes of Firefly. They would roll on the floor laughing at how bad the pronunciations were. 

[Raithe]

I have a lot of Mandarin speakers in my classes, and at the end of the year I would often show a couple episodes of Firefly. They would roll on the floor laughing at how bad the pronunciations were. 

 

Yes, she said she ended up getting a lot of schtick from her family when they watched Firefly over that. But it is kind of amusing that for the cast it was such a trial to learn the lines and say them..that they still remember and can repeat them so many years after the show ended.

[Volourn]

Orville > Nu ST

[Rosbjerg]

Orville > Nu ST

I think this is the point where mainstream tvshows swings away from perpetual grim dark and back towards lighthearted.

They've peaked with Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Westworld and Stranger Things. I think that style is saturated now.. And part of the reason ST Discovery is struggling with it's thematics

[ManifestedISO]

Nice, Batman: The Animated Series remastered to blu-ray, coming next year. No word on aspect ratio, audio, or if they're replacing frames with new animation. I would expect 4:3 and maybe 5.1, compared for no reason with TNG's live-action 1080p at 4:3, 7.1 DTS, and all-new CG planets and ships. 

 

 

Speaking of Trek, Marvel's Inhumans continues to induce face-palms with its writing and a pace that bores even forgiving viewers.    

[ShadySands]

Took the plunge and got the CBS streaming thing and now that I've seen up to episode 4 I gotta say that I'm not really feeling it

 

My wife took even further and said that it feels like they don't get the point of Star Trek and I'm somewhat inclined to agree

[Blarghagh]

Orville > Nu ST

 

+1

 

Gave both of them a shot yesterday and watched a couple eps. Clearly Orville is a Star Trek show despite the occassional juvenile jokes, and the new Star Trek show just... isn't.