Things That Made Me Happy This Week, Week Ninety-One

[glenniebun]

• I trust everyone's already seen Marc Shaiman's contribution to the political discourse, yes?
• FailBlog really does have to acknowledge a win sometimes.
• Ralph McQuarrie's Battlestar Galactica.
• Even if it's nine months too late, Ebert can still bring the goods on Ben Stein's creationist claptrap.
• There was one saving grace to this week's dose of football

Comments

[zanduar]

The prop 8 musical might have been a rip off of a webcomic.

http://boxbrown.livejournal.com/265852.html

http://boxbrown.livejournal.com/272138.html

Down at the bottom of the second link is the author's response.

[glenniebun]

Uhm...making fun of silly religious people in song is something only one person can think of?

But now that you mention it, maybe they should've seen if George Takei can sing.

[zanduar]

I know. I know. It is tenuous at best. I'm really just using it as an excuse to link people to box brown. Nothing is really original anyhow. Something has always been thought of before. :B

[glenniebun]

I'm really just using it as an excuse to link people to box brown.

There are definitely worse motivations in this world.

[sevencloud]

've seen a channel I had no idea existed: Kung Fu HD. Scott and I discovered it rather late on Thursday and stayed up way too late watching random silly kung fu movies

That sounds absolutely divine.

[glenniebun]

Come on over sometime when you have a chance. Let me know in advance and I could even, y'know, clear off a chair or something.

Hey! Do you have any plans for Boxing Day?

[swashbuckler332]

Kung Fu HD occasionally also shows Akira Kurosawa films in HD. A few weeks ago my brother and I watched The Seven Samurai broadcast pillarboxed.

[glenniebun]

Cool. I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

At first it seemed absurd to me that a channel (seemingly) devoted mainly to 35-year-old low-budget films would be exclusively available in HD, but the clarity they get out of many of the movies is stunning.

[swashbuckler332]

There tends to be an assumption that only newer films will benefit from a high definition presentation. While it is true that the more recent the movie, the better the picture tends to be (although this is not always true), the fact is that films that were well shot will tend to look really great. Most of those kung fu movies were shot in the 'scope ratio, which will tend to look fantastic in high def, regardless of whether it was originated as two-perf or anamorphic.

[glenniebun]

That was my assumption, yes, that more recent films would generally benefit the most since the materials would be less degraded and, one would hope, better and more consistently cared-for.

That these films (not to mention the TV shows broadcast in true HD) have the opportunity to look this good kind of makes me want to try out some Blu-ray movies. (The only BRD in the house is Spider-Man 3, which came with my brother's PlayStation.) That way lies budget depletion, though.

[astute_reason]

At least those damned Cowboys lost. Seeing the Steelers run 17 points on the board in the 4th quarter was some redemption on Sunday.

[glenniebun]

Yeah, I guess if the Giants have to go out there and play like a bunch of rookies it's some consolation for the Cowboys to get embarrassed in their own right...giving the division to the Giants anyway.