This is Balmoral Castle, Queen Elizabeth's summer home. Nice place, maybe I'll get one. I bet the upkeep is a killer though.
I looked it up, because I have just watched movie The Queen, a really nice and interesting movie. (Ooh, I see now it won an Oscar. Well deserved.)
And pretty amazing, the transformation of beautiful Helen Mirren in this film, both physically and psychologically.
When I see movies like this, I can't help but wonder what the people portrayed think of them. Is the story more important than the concern for real people involved? I don't know.
Here's a note to DVD menu designers:
1: Please don't have any music running in the menus, particularly not looping.
2: Please don't insert gratuitous video clips between menus. It does not add anything, and wastes time for the viewer.
3: Please collect all options in as few screens as possible.
4: Please put commentaries under Special Features, where they belong, not under Setup, which is for sound and subtitles settings. It was only because I read elsewhere that this film had a commentary that I found it, and even then it cost me time and irritation to locate it.
16 comments:
they best enjoy their riches now because you can't take it with you. no, i'm not jealous, i own property myself but it doesn't bring happiness, perhaps status but certainly not happiness.
nice castle though.
TTF said: "i own property myself but it doesn't bring happiness"
Does it subtract from your happiness? If not, what's the point? If, on the other hand, it does make you less happy, why not trade it to something that increases your happiness?
I would like a castle myself. I have been eyeing Dracula's castle which is now for sale.
I once visited Cawdor castle. It was pretty cool too.
Perhaps the coolest of all, though, is Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.
Wikipedia: "Neuschwanstein served as the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. It also served as inspiration for Walt Disney in his concept for the castle in the classic animated feature Cinderella, and thus Cinderella Castle is based on the movie's portrayal."
I can understand how Commentary can be controlled by Setup options, if you hit your audio button on your remote it'll cycle through all the dubs and commentaries. However I agree it should be in Special Features, or even when you are at the top screen, where it gives "PLAY", "SCENES" "SETUP" "EXTRAS" there should possibly be "PLAY COMMENTARY" right there.
One that really annoys me are the StarTrek Next Generation disks, their menus are so stylized you can't easily see your way around at first.
Also, for people like yourself who want 20 options per page, we need proper navigation, to go down to the button below where I am I should click down arrow, not right arrow three times. And as for buttons diagonally below each other...
TV Shows which do not include the title as a scene to itself also annoy me. ADV video did well and some of the Anime, you can skip past the opening credits right to the start of the show. Other disks make you either watch, or FFWD the title Hmph.
One last beef - Easter Eggs. You ever have a disc for three years then someone tell you that if you are on this menu, then go left of that button and you'll highlight the goblins big toe, and that takes you to a scene with Jessica Alba or some such in a shower. If you have features, have them for all to see.
I would have to nominate "House at Falling Water" in the US and "Cragside" in Northumbria as two of my possible castles, though Eileen Donan as seen in Highlander, is a great place too.
I have a friend who still glasses over when you mention Helen Mirren, he saw her on stage in London in the 60's in a daring play.
I never cared for her detective show "Prime Suspect", but I did enjoy "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover". Even more so, as Christoper Walken's wife in "Comfort of Strangers". Lovely footage of Venice. Seems everyone was filming in Venice that year.
I was a little surprised to hear her as Deep Thought in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
"i own property myself but it doesn't bring happiness"
So very true flame, materialism never brings happiness. I have nearly 1/2 a million dollars in the bank, several condos, sports cars, but not lasting happiness.
Security is there but I'm a long way from happiness like the rest of the world.
Good point flame.
Ah, ttl. Quoting Wikipedia? That is a new low.
Well at least you gotta give him this credit: TTL didn't quote Pascal. The internet would have imploded, ending Information as we know it.
TOBAL (There Oughtta Be A Law) against Wikipedia. Imagine, a place where everybody can share what knowledge they BELIEVE they possess! If Pascal ever gets on it, the imbalanced Universe will crumble like Michael Jackson's face after a sneeze, from the strain on the Laws of Meta-Physics.
Actually, RAF, I already made a few modest contibutions to Wikipedia, that magnificent place of Knowledge for all.
Ah. That would explain the minor tear in the fabric of reality that's commonly known as 9/11. You ever went to the Bermudas or Roswell? Hiroshima? Woodstock?
Um... nope, none of the above. Only Beirut. ;-)
But on a full moon, my voice can be heard in this fine piece of architecture.
Beirut! Of course! I should have guessed.
And for violating your parole by quoting Wikipedia AGAIN, you should walk the plank. Backwards.
Gee, I would never tread on a good friend!
"How much for a season pass?"
Pascal,
You visited that fine piece of architecture, but you couldn't make it another 40 miles to visit me?
Or do you just howl very loud.
I wouldn't like to live there, there are two many tourists!
Found another good house to live in.
"Or do you just howl very loud."
Well guessed. Who knew my voice could carry halfway across the world through a common lowly sewer pipe?
Post a Comment