First Weblog

Computer Games and Me Redux

Michael:

Given your interest in—and frustration with—video games, perhaps a new direct-to-disc film, “Scourge of Worlds” will intrigue you. It’s an animated sword-and-sorcery flick, apparently drawing heavily on “Dungeons and Dragons.” Okay, I grant you, that doesn’t sound too promising, but the interesting part is that it’s at least partly interactive. According to an April 19 story in the L.A. Times (which you can read here):

The movie has multiple breaks in the story’s narrative in which the player must make a decision. Fight or flee? Explore or stand firm? Each decision is registered with the press of a button on a DVD remote controller, which forces the story onto different paths that could include fights with aliens and debates over loyalty and friendship. The movie contains 900 possible story combinations and four different endings.

I admit, that got me thinking about whether such a multiple path/multiple ending structure could be utilized in the context of a somewhat more ambitious production. Granted, to date, “literary” fiction and film has generally preferred the straight and narrow linear story path (even if occasionally presented out of order), but that may have been the result of technological limitations.

After all, it seems like most highly stylized comedies could work out nicely with alternative story lines. I’m confident that Lawrence Sterne would have written “Tristam Shandy” in a parallel architecture if it had been workable in his day. And I daresay Thomas Hardy would have been enthusiastic about such a structure, because then he could have demonstrated that, no matter what choices his characters (or readers) made, they would all still come to bad ends.

Far From Dungeons, Dragons and The Madding Crowd

In any event, in what is news to me, the L.A. Times story maintains that interactive formats have been experimented with before, particularly in the porno industry. (I guess I’m just behind the times once again.) I’ve never seen anything in this format, dramatic, erotic or otherwise, but apparently “Scourge of the Worlds” has obtained a distribution deal from Warner Brothers, and will presumably be available at a retail outlet near you. (According to GamingReport.com, it will be available for a mere $24.95 on June 10.)

Have you ever checked anything like this out? Be interested to hear what you think. (Especially before I chunk out $24.95).

Cheers,

Friedrich

P.S. Another interesting fact from the L.A. Times story—did you know that 87% of the 5600 video and DVD titles released never appeared in a movie theater? The notion of DVDs being a sort of afterthought to a theatrical release is obviously rapidly becoming antique; DVDs seem on the verge of becoming their own medium. I know you're a fan of DVDs--how do you see them evolving?

Computer Games and Me

Friedrich --

Despite age, fatigue, and ever-increasing self-absorption, I still make the occasional effort to get in touch with the directions pop culture seems to be going. Computer games, for instance. Every few years, I go to a videogame parlor and drop a 20 trying games out. (I always wind up at the old-fashioned games, the ones with steering wheels or revolvers. Joysticks confuse me.) After we got our Imac, I watched over the Wife's shoulder as she got very good at Bugdom, the cute game that came with the machine. Remember the hullabaloo some years back about "Myst"? Finally, art and a computer game together, etc etc? I bought it and gave it a try, even if I did quit within 30 minutes. (The game insisted that I solve puzzles before moving on. Fat chance of that.) The Wife and I even watched (if mostly on fast-forward) "Resident Alien," the videogame-based movie that I'm told true videogamers approve of.

Idea and artwise, I do get what's interesting about the computer-game experience, or so I like to think. On a more basic level, though, I'm worse than hopeless. Last week, for instance, I became convinced for who knows what reason that what I most needed in life was to give myself the experience of getting really, deeply involved, with a computer game. How would I know what that's like otherwise? So I went out and bought Hexen II, which is said to be pretty good and to work well on pokey ol' Imacs too. I'm willing to put hours into exploring this game, I really am. I load it on the computer, I click into it ...

And I'm completely stumped. Back in our day, games came equipped with rules, and these rules were easily accessible, and you learned them before playing the game. With computer games, figuring out the game seems to be the game. Right. So I stare at the screen, jab at some of the keys on my keyboard, and try to puzzle this thing out. There are corridors. There are doors. There's some blah-blah under the embarrassing, movie-wannabe opening credits about something called "levels," and there seems to be some kind of backstory involving bad-fantasy-novel characters whose names I can't remember. I manage to deduce that using the arrow keys will move me through the corridors. But, despite my best efforts, I have yet to be able to fire off a bullet -- or a missile, or fireball, or whatever it is I'm meant to wield. I have yet to be able to defend myself, in other words, let alone actually get anywhere. Only a minute or two after I set out, Darth Vaderesque bad guys blast me into a zillion polygons.

Once again, I feel like I'm trapped and helpless in someone else's nightmare database. So I went Googling for help. Here's what came up:

The four horseman of the Apocalypse lurk in the shadows before you. They are Death, Pestilence, Famine and War. They are the root of all that is evil. They are the least of your worries.

The last known Serpent Rider, Eidolon, lives. As the Necromancer, the Assassin, the Crusader, or the Paladin, you must defeat the dark generals and their Hell-spawned legions before you can face the Archfiend and attempt to end his ravenous onslaught.

With the destruction of D'Sparil and Korax, the forces of Light believed that they would gain respite from the vicious attacks of the Serpent Riders. They were wrong. As you clinch your bootstraps and ready your weapons, you can only hope and wonder what lies in the depths of the recently besieged castle that stands before you. All of humanity rests on the edge of your blade. Go in peace and you will surely die.

What the ...? Yet this passage is meant to help me be able to play this game. Can you make any sense of it?

I'm beginning to get the feeling that I'm going to be frustrated in my attempt to get really, really involved in a good long game of "Hexen II."

Best,

Michael

The Internet and Social Memory

Michael:

Thanks for sending me the link to the page on Rebecca Alzofon's website dedicated to Pierre-Paul Prud’hon and his life-drawing technique (which you can visit here.). Ms. Alzofon has carefully analyzed not only the technique of this master draftsman, but has identified modern art papers and chalks that can be used by contemporary artists to derive similar effects. In her quest for authenticity she has even developed a recipe for making black chalk, as commercially available chalks—according to her—do not allow for the same technique as used by Prud’hon.

P. Prudhon, Female Academies

In looking at this, I was struck by Ms. Alzofon’s generosity in posting this stuff on the Web, since she had evidently spent hundreds of hours researching and experimenting to develop her expertise on Prud’hon’s materials and methods.

Make Your Own Black Chalk: It's Easy!

It also reminded me of a comment that Degas apparently repeated throughout his life—that since the collapse of the apprenticeship method of art training, countless studio secrets, formerly handed down from one generation to another, had been lost. When I first read these comments in college, I thought they were just the result of a certain middle-aged crankiness of a fanatical art technician, but as I’ve gotten older it keeps dawning on me how much practical information has to be laboriously rediscovered, generation after generation. Naturally, this type of “craft” information is not confined to the world of art. But Ms. Alzofon’s website suddenly suggested to me that the Internet may eventually serve as a giant, yet accessible social memory for all sorts of information or technique that would otherwise fall through the cracks.

So carry on posting stuff to the Web--especially stuff that you've laboriously figured out for yourself. Somehow the "we-all-live-in-one-big-media-village" trend downgrades small-scale, hardwon, localized, personal knowledge. So by memorializing the particular, the unusual, the specifc you’re performing a vital social function! (Be sure to tell your boss and/or your significant other how important this stuff is.)

Cheers,

Friedrich

Web Folk Art

Friedrich --

Internet folk art, gotta love it. At least I do.

* Here you'll find a musical-animal charmer. Be sure to click on the horses. A Blowhardy Award to anyone who manages to refrain from saying "Awww" or "Too cute!"

* Brace yourself for some gangsta Hobbits here.

* Completely independent of any political preferences I might have, I'm often delighted by the inventiveness of home Photoshoppers. Here are a couple of recent creations (no idea by whom) that made me laugh. Both are pop-ups, so be sure to click on them and enjoy a more fullblown experience.

The artistic power of the people, unleashed at last! What do you suppose the Marxists will make of this?

Best,

Michael

Free Views -- Virtual Fireworks

Friedrich --

An instant mood elevator: Virtual fireworks! I find the colored haze and smoke they leave behind especially beautiful, mere pixels though they may be. Viewable here.

Best,

Michael

Free Reads -- Amy Harmon on computer chess

Friedrich --

It's become one of our themes, I guess: the wonderfulness of digital technology, but the new quandaries and conundra that seem to come along with it. How to resist the convenience and fun of digital photography? Yet the images are so ... so ... Well, they're kind of twinkly, metallic and overdetailed in some inhuman way. How great that DV videocams and computers can put a mini movie studio on just about anybody's desktop. Yet the imagery tends to lack poetry, and what gets made often bears little resemblance to traditional movies.

Now: chess. Amy Harmon reports in the New York Times that similar discussions are taking place in the chess world (about which I know less than zilch). Chess players are using computers for study, for competition, and in online matches as silent partners and crutches. "We don't work at it anymore... We have lost depth," she quotes one top player as saying. Computers make it possible to study lots of games and moves, but some players have noticed that studying with computers "detracts from an ability to concentrate intensely on devleoping a personal style or strategy." More people are getting better at the game, it's being noticed -- but they're burning out faster too.

Aha: sounds familiar. Computers make so much available -- yet they can also tend to pancake matters, including (sometimes) style, personality, and imagination. Maybe we're all onto something. Or maybe style, personality and imagination are simply going to be taking new forms and working their way through different channels. Or maybe all of the above, and more.

In any case, the piece is readable here.

Sample passage:

"Because of computers, humans are playing more broadly, and there are astonishing numbers of new ideas," said John Watson, the author of several books on modern chess strategy. "Computers are opening the game up much more than they are closing it."

But others say chess is becoming more like checkers, with so much known or memorized that games now more often end in draws. They complain that players have become slaves to their software, so fascinated with the myriad possibilities it presents that they do not bother to work out their own new strategies.

Best,

Michael

Free Views -- Overheads

Friedrich --

Sometimes when I "discover" something on the Web, I feel like I must in fact be the last person in the world to run across it. So perhaps you've seen this site here already. If not, you might enjoy a visit. Type in an address, and in a few seconds you'll be given an overhead photograph of that neighborhood. Zoom in, and you'll be able see the actual building you're looking for. I tried the apartment monstrosity I live in now, the suburban house I grew up in, and the in-law's beach bungalow, and they all showed up promptly. Cool!

A bit freaky, too. If computers and lenses get much more powerful, we're going to be able to sit at the computer and dial up images of ourselves sitting at the computer dialing up images of ...

Best,

Michael

Ghost Pen

Friedrich --

Another impossible-to-describe Web-art doohickey. It's a pen. It kinda floats. You control it with your mouse. You can actually draw with it. It's too bizarre, and too cool. Play with it here.

Link thanks to Andrea Harris, here.

Best,

Michael

Google Searches

Friedrich --

I can't explain why, but the Google searches that have led websurfers to our blog haven't been as outrageous as they once were. Are we falling down on the job? Although there have been a few gems, among them:

+Batman +porn
+little +girl +slave +hunting +erotica
+pregnant +women +smoking +pot

And I sometimes think my web-surfing interests are kinky!

The two topics we've raised that have brought in the most traffic (and that, amazingly enough, continue to bring it in) have been Jenna Jameson and science-fiction. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Note to all bloggers: you want to drive up your traffic? Write a posting about Jenna Jameson and science fiction. I won't be held responsible for what visitors make of your site once they arrive, though.

Best,

Michael

Google Searches

Friedrich --

Fun to keep track of Google searches that have led surfers to this blog. For every one earnest and arty search string (+bertolucci +besieged +moral +analysis), there are at least ten that are grotty (+young +boys +private +parts +gay +fuck +video). Are we aiming too low? Not yet low enough?

Here are some others.

+sexy +nose +art +for +world +war +2 +planes
+my +wife +thong +public
+libertarian +woman +pose +nude +for +calendar
+PowerPoint +nude +miss +italy
+digital +video +of +me +and +my +wife +having +sex
+white +wife +fucks +only +blacks
+images +of +underage +girls +having +sex
+bikini +women +with +hotrods
+hot +girls +in +bikinis +posing +with +surfboards
+feeling +lousy +making +love

Hey, it's an X-rated country-western song!

I swear, some smart reporter is going to notice this trend of guys making porno PowerPoint presentations and score a journalistic coup....

Best,

Michael

New Cultureblog

Friedrich --

A delightful discovery, "Out of Lascaux," an art-history cultureblog run by Alexandra, whose last name I don't know, here.

Sample passage:

As a kid, I used to think medieval art was ugly because it wasn't "realistic". I think most of us think that way when we're young. Then, we grow up and learn why things are the way they are and we look at life differently. Well, most of us. But now I love medieval art, especially Gothic art.

Alexandra's list of permalinks includes some promising-looking blogs -- more to explore!

One of these days the 2blowhards, computer mediocrities both, will figure out how to add new blogsites to our own list of permalinks.

Best,

Michael

Free Reads -- Philosophy and Literature

Friedrich --

I'm a few days behind on this, but I thought I'd let you know that the wonderful, indispensable, best-of-the-web, [enter superlative here] Arts & Letters Daily is no more, apparently done in by legal/financial/who-can-figure challenges.

But I'm thrilled to report that the brains behind ALD, Denis Dutton and Tran Huu Dung, have kicked off a brand-new site that promises to be at least as good as Arts & Letters Daily. It's called Philosophy and Literature, and you can find it here. It's already looking like the [enter superlative here] thing on the Web.

Best,

Michael

Best of the Blogs?

Michael

I wonder if one could put together a magazine (ezine?) based on the "Best of the Blogosphere." It would certainly be more interesting than Harper's or the Atlantic Monthly.

Cheers,

Friedrich

If I Were an Editor 6 redux

I made a major breakthrough today in my technological evolution which made me think of your posting, "The E-book Revolution." I actually ordered a book online from Amazon, and took delivery about an hour later.

Well, actually, it was potentially ready for delivery an hour later; I had to download Microsoft "Reader" and then install and activate it. (Activating the software, by the way, involves telling lots and lots of information about yourself to Microsoft.) Anyway, after fooling around for about half an hour (and getting help from my staff computer professional) we got the Reader issue resolved, and then it only took a few minutes for the actual download.

The book when it appeared came up on my screen formatted with really little pages. I guess that makes reading it on screen easier, but the result was that there were a daunting 756 pages to this rather short screed. Trying to skim the book, I got quite tired of hitting the "forward" button which takes a few seconds to operate each flip of the page. About page 168 I thought there must be a better way to read this, but I couldn't find any way to print the book out. I grant you, that's probably just my clutziness. And anyway, not being able to print the book out was for the best because I didn't really want to go through one-and-a-half reams of paper and three toner cartridges. It was a little frustrating when I actually found one useful sentence and I tried to block and copy it; the "copy" button appeared to be disabled. They could have just had a little sign pop-up at that point: Napster this, asshole! Ha ha ha ha ha.

On top of that the book itself--"The Culture of Opera Buffa In Mozart's Vienna: A Poetics of Entertainment"--turns out to have virtually no historical information on Viennese musical culture or even on Mozart. I mean, not even one funny anecdote about an opera singer. (How hard is it to dig up funny stories about opera singers--I ask you? The whole profession is an invitation to levity.) Let me sum up the book this way: I cannot imagine Mozart, despite a very healthy ego, managing to read this book all the way through, and it discusses more than one of his operas!

I know, I know, I got what I deserve for disobeying Book Buying Rule #248--Never purchase any book with the word "poetics" in the title.

Still, I'm feeling pretty "hip" and "groovey" about my technological prowess. That is, except for the fact that once I closed the Reader dialogue box the book disappeared and I can't find it on my hard drive anyplace. But hey, it was only $14.95--and it didn't cost me anything for shipping and handling!

The Revolution Lives, My Techno-Brothers!

Cheers,

Friedrich

Cultureblogs

Friedrich --

Do you marvel, as I do, at the paucity of cultureblogs? Political blogs are everywhere you look, me-blogs everywhere else. But cultureblogs? Not even enough to fill a screening room.

Here are the pure culturebloggers I’m aware of:

* The one-of-a-kind personality-kid and opera buff, Sasha Castel, here. (She does let fly on politics from time to time, but -- blush -- who doesn't?)
* Kelly Jane Torrance, a newcomer to blogging and already the leader in the race for the year’s “most classy” award, here.

That’s it, though there are other web enthusiasts who do something related. Pro writers, for instance, often include a blog as part of their personal site. An example:

* The wittily resourceful and entertaining sci-fi novelist Neil Gaiman, here.

And then there are the hybrids, bloggers who occasionally comment about the arts:

* The fearless and ever-thoughtful A.C. Douglas, here, seems to split his blogging time about equally between politics and the arts.
* Dave Trowbridge brings together his interests in sci-fi, German Shepherd dogs, religion, and poetry, here, showing a mind that's both mystical and down-to-earth, opinionated yet open-spirited.
* The Canadian journalist Colby Cosh can give Andrew Sullivan some serious competition in terms of sheer volume of brainy-words-on-politics published daily. He pauses occasionally, though not often enough, to make an observation or a crack about rock and movies, here.
* That impossible-to-categorize, multipurpose giant Steve Sailer (evo-bio specialist, immigration skeptic, movie reviewer), does what only he can do here.

And there are the sites that might well be considered metacultureblogs.

* Mobylives, delivering some of the best-informed inside-publishing chat available anywhere, here.
* Arts & Letters Daily, here, for whom the “best of the web” Oscar has already been retired.

Lord knows I’ve spent too much time surfing the blogosphere looking for fellow culturebloggers. But it’s still possible I’ve missed many, many sites. Do you know of any others? Do any readers out there know of any others?

Culture fans: Don’t be such wimps! For god’s sake, stand up for your oddball set of interests! If you don’t, who will? Set down roots in the blogosphere while there’s still room! Don’t let the general culture pass you by yet again! Assert the importance of the aesthetic! Go! Go! Go!

Culture fans, sheesh. Gotta love ‘em. Gotta kick ‘em in the butt occasionally, too.

Best,

Michael

You Want Us

Friedrich --

I'm collecting the Google searches that have led surfers to this site. Here are some favorites so far:

+naxos +gay +video
+gymnastic +teenage +boys
+PowerPoint +presentation +girls +sexy

Are there people out there making porn versions of PowerPoint presentations? Hey, journalists: there's a story to be done here!

My very favorite is one that'll be hard to top:

+movie +girl +fucking +horse

How do you suppose these surfers reacted to what they found on 2blowhards?

Best,

Michael

Free Reads -- New Webzine

Friedrich --

"The Mixture," a slick new online magazine with much to offer multimedia-wise, here.

Don't miss the video footage of surfer Laird Hamilton -- an hour and 30 minutes shorter than "Blue Crush," ten dollars cheaper, and far more enjoyable.

Sample wisdom from Laird:

If you see waves like what you saw here and you don't believe there's something greater than we are, you got some serious analyzing to do and you should go sit under a big tree for a long period of time.

Athletes know what the Zone is.

Best,

Michael

Funny Bloggers

Friedrich --

Though no longer totally new to bloggerdom, I continue to be amazed by the number of smart, funny, and free-thinking bloggers out there. Many of them make the conventional media look like a bunch of stiffs.

This morning I find myself wondering, for my own whimsical reasons, "Who’s the funniest blogger of them all?” Lileks? Hmm: He’s a pro, and his Bleats, while brilliant, are pulled-together pieces. He’s playing a different game than the one I'm thinking about. How about people who toss off a lot of stuff on the run, in true blogger spirit?

Allowing for the fact that there are seventy-nine quadrillion people whose blogs I haven’t yet had time to sample, I’ve narrowed my personal “funniest blogger” competition down to three contestants. On the right is IMAO (site here), who has as good a brainy-redneck act down as I’ve ever run across. Here's a sample:

Search Engines are the Opiate of the People
Now China has blocked AltaVista in addition to Google just to make it clear to everyone they're still evil Commies. They can't have information going unfiltered to their populace making them realize how much better life would be if they just lynched all the Reds in charge. There doesn't seem to be any official statement on either AltaVista's or Google's webpage, but hopefully they'll do the proper American thing by responding, "Screw you, you stupid Commie bastards!" and then make one result of every search something embarrassing to the Chinese government.

On the other hand -- no, actually, also on the right -- is Natalie Solent (site here), a wiz at libertarian-party-girl chat. Natalie?

Stolen: one peal of thunder.
The Blogger Sex War enters its second day. Godless Capitalist and Mrs Elizabeth Capitalist join forces in Gene Expression to make all my best points before I could in response to this post about sexism by Meryl Yourish. Letter from Gotham fires off a few salvos, too. Scroll up, down and sideways for more highly provocative commentary. (Did you know that in blind auditions orchestras hire more female musicians? That Venus Williams ran a 5:29 mile when she was nine years old?) Though I have to say Diane E misses the point about Stephen Den Beste. Although I am not well enough informed myself about Israeli politics to say which of the two is stronger on that topic, surely a high proportion of his audience consists of technically-minded men to whom what she refers to as an "overlay of wargame theories that look to me as if he got them from science fiction novels" is a feature not a bug.

And finally here's Scott Ott, whose blog is called ScrappleFace, here. He shows the Onion how it's really done.

INS to Probe Breaches in Microsoft Windows
(2002-09-12) -- The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) launched a probe today to determine how many illegal aliens are actually entering the U.S. through gaping holes in the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Good work from all our contestants! Big Media, are you reading?

Best,

Michael

Free Reads -- Terry Teachout

Friedrich --

Terry Teachout meditates for Commentary magazine on the future of recorded music, here.

Sample passage:

In the not-so-long run, the introduction of online delivery systems and the spread of file-sharing will certainly undermine and very likely destroy the fundamental economic basis for the recording industry, at least as we know it today. Nor can there be much doubt that within a few years, the record album will lose its once-privileged place at the heart of Western musical culture.

Best,

Michael

Amazon Humorist Redux

Michael

Your posting "Amazon Humorist" reminds me of a Mark Twain story. On a speaking tour, Mark Twain was introduced by a local politician. This politician, as he walked around, waiting to make his introduction, never took his hands out of his pockets. Finally, he introduced the writer as "Mark Twain, a comedian who is really funny." Mark Twain stood up and replied: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a far rarer creature in our midst than a comedian who is really funny. We have a politician who keeps his hands in his own pockets!"

Cheers,

Friedrich

Amazon Humorist

Friedrich --

A reviewer on Amazon who uses the "Amazon Reader's Comment" form as a comedy vehicle, here. Plus, he's genuinely funny.

Best,

Michael

Free Reads -- Cynic's Sanctuary

Friedrich --

This site, Rick Bayan's "The Cynic's Sanctuary," is a well-done charmer, here. A Cynic's Hall of Fame, a Cynic's Dictionary, and much else.

Here's his witty definition of a Cynic:

An idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision.

Best,

Michael

Tivo Redux

Michael

We like our Tivo. My wife is the TV watcher in the family, and she loves it. It has gotten me completely out of the habit of watching commercials--when I watch ordinary commercial TV I am always subconsciously looking for the Tivo remote to speed by them.

Cheers,

Friedrich

Theory of Amazon 1

Friedrich --

Do you use Amazon.com much? I do as a shopper, and also as surfer -- I can get lost there, and happily so, for hours. As an arts fan, I find its existence and (I hope) success heartening.

I'd also make the case that it's an artistically revolutionary force, if I didn't dislike the word "revolutionary." If I were a betting man, I'd bet that in a hundred years art/lit historians will look back and decide that the advent of Amazon was much more important an art event than, say, any Jonathan Franzen or Toni Morrison novel. Why don't editors/writers/critics/artists/profs discuss this? Could it be that they're -- gasp! -- not listening to me?

I'll bore you with my fullblown Theory of Amazon later -- or, more likely, I'll do it in dribs and drabs, as time and mental energy become available. For today's installment, I focus on one fact: that Amazon has given a number of good writers and critics a venue.

For example, here's an Aussie who's terrific on Popper-ish subjects.

Here's a dazzling Irish film critic, of the annoyingly-radical-grad-student ilk.

Here's an English conservative who's smart and provocative about the Mideast.

Here's another Englishman, this one an elegant and helpful guide to early movies on DVD.

All of them strike me as considerably more interesting and entertaining than 9/10s of the writers commercial (and otherwise conventional) magazines are publishing these days.

All hail the Web. And power to the people --at least those I approve of.

Best,

Michael

Pixelvision redux

Michael --

I don't know if you saw the announcement by a new company, Foveon, that claims that they have developed an imaging chip that (1) has much better color than previous electronic "photography" systems and (2) collects more data per square inch than film.  Of course, Foveon's technology may or may not deal with issues such as video's relative inability to create whites as white or blacks as black as film.  But in any case, you can create quite beautiful images with video if you allow for its quirks.  I mean, look at early silent films, shot on film stock that probably has nowhere near the technical capabilities of today's best products.
 
Anyway, the real reason to back video rather than film is that film is dependent on a deeply entrenched distribution channel that holds more or less total power over what gets seen by the masses.  Who cares if your movie is beautifully photographed if nobody will distribute it?  I say, we need Napster for videos. 

Cheers,
Friedrich

Pixelvision

Friedrich --

Did I mention that I dragged the wife to the latest "Star Wars"? Showing at the Ziegfeld, digitally projected. What a turkey, as bad as the last one even if more richly produced. As David Ansen put it in Newsweek, by this point you either buy into the "Star Wars" world almost religiously, or you shake your head and say, basically, go figure. But it was bad, bad, I can't tell you how bad -- as bad as any Ed Wood movie, and considerably less fun. (To paraphrase one reviewer on Amazon, I defy anyone to tell me what the movie's story was.) At least the Ziegfeld's air conditioning was first-class.

All that said, I was there to see what the movie looked like, digitally projected. (The world of moviegoing has come to a sorry pass when perfectly good and willing movie buffs go to a movie just to see what the computers have been up to.) And the answer is.... not bad. After about a month of use, the image was eerily perfect. Not a scratch to be seen, not a dust fleck, not a shimmer or a shiver. And the colors were perfectly consistent all through the movie.

But the image was also dilute and flat -- I muttered to the wife at one point, "If a good celluloid movie image is like snappy fresh-squeezed orange juice, this is like watered-down Tang." It's a decent facsimile of a movie image, but it's sterile, and missing that je ne sais quoi. I think of it, for some reason, as chi -- that Chinese word for something like (so I gather) the life force. Maybe I should just say zing.

For one thing, the digital image just isn't dense enough yet. We moved up to the front-ish part of the theater at one point, and there you really register that the image simply needs more pixels. Darks are especially bad -- things get lost in a kind of dim, apricot-jam murk.

But judging digital projection from a Lucas movie is an odd challenge, because Lucas doesn't ever aim for poetry or even glamor or sex. He wants his imagery to be clean and functional, no matter how spectacular. ("Gladiator," which I didn't enjoy, did have a very juicy look, at least by comparison to the new "Star Wars.") And the digitally-projected image is certainly at this point a perfectly clean and functional image. But that's its problem, too. Watching it is like watching a PowerPoint presentation that happens to move.

I wonder if these problems will be solved as the computers and projectors get better. In other words, are more pixels all that's needed to solve the missing-chi problem? But I can't help worrying that when art gets sliced and diced into discrete digital bits, something falls away -- the connective tissue, the flow, maybe the poetry.

But maybe I'm being sentimental.

Your thoughts?

Best, Michael