Just re-watching Get Shorty. Man, Travolta is fokkin good in that one. He might be the only one who can play that character perfectly: the "tough guy" who really is not particularly interested in being tough or violent, but is just so skilled and confident that he is much better at it than the regular tough guys.
Update: it's weird: my Mac handles a damaged DVD much better than a dedicated, brand new DVD player does. The latter will stutter and halt, and then skip to next chapter. My Mac does not pause, but gives the message "skipping damaged part", and then skips only so much as is necessary.
And now for a little bitching: If you hang around to the bitter end on many DVDs, you are force-fed copyright warnings. In many, many languages. Screen after screen after screen after screen. And you can't fast-forward, you can't skip them, and you can't go to menu. This is absolutely insane. Come on, people, why do you torture your paying customers?
... And a little more: I tried to listen to director Barry Sonnenfeld's commentary. "This was a long day of shooting... This rain came from rain towers... This was our first day of shooting..." Boring. How come so many film makers can't make an interesting commentary to save their lives? They are in the business of entertainment for Pete's sake.
BTW, I was asked about the Sony Bravia HD TV... I now watched some of this movie both on that one and on my 4-year-old Sony 26-inch TV, and the Bravia is shockingly superior, much better color and detail in the shadows.
To drive them into buying copyright-warning-less pirated DVDs, of course. Why else?
ReplyDeleteI've finally found a product where the counterfeit version is actually better than the original!
:-P
P.S.: This is something I learned after the Abu Ghraib scandal: to torture you need to loose all respect for your victim, to start viewing them as "sub-human".
ReplyDeleteNot insinuating anuthing, but... is somebody perceiving their customers as little more than cattle? Namely, as cash cows?
MOOOO!
Another pet peeve I have with legit DVDs, most recently with some purchased BBC ones is in addition to the copyright warnings I am forced to view the same 2-5 minute preview of other BBC programs offered on DVD every time I put the disc into the player. I've been sorely tempted to rip the DVDs into a format that'll allow me to skip the messages, but I'm too lazy since I'll only be watching it once.
ReplyDeleteGetting through the episodes on a DVD I've recently resorted to putting it in the player without switching on the TV until after I've finished fussing around and am fully comfortable in my seat.
KS,
ReplyDeleteThe lazy man's brilliant solution, eh? :-)
It is the same kind of unzealous genius that led to the invention of the TV remote control.
Which is, I dare say, the pinnacle of the human race's many awesome accomplishments.
Pass the chips and soda, will you? You're a couple inches closer to the table. Thanks, Mom...