176

(20 replies, posted in Episodes)

Hey, I'm 40 and I still like the Dark Crystal. Actually, I really await you doing that commentary. Ideally, with Trey. Will ya?

Funny, though, "Explorers" I've never seen. Maybe this one missed Sweden? I have seen everything else you talk about (flight of the navigator, goonies, last starfighter etc....) but I totally missed this one(!)

/Z

177

(15 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I didn't get the enhanced from iTunes... it seems. Should it be there?

178

(56 replies, posted in Episodes)

Wow. 1001 huh? Interesting.

You may very well be right because I recall adjusting this # with teague a few times. I do know, tohugh, that I tested it out specifically on a PAL version of "The Thing", and for *that* one, it was exactly the 4.16% that worked. I know this for sure since they were so very specific at events at the very end, and with the 4.27% (more theoretically correct) it was actually off, with 4.16% it was spot on.

But then I tried the same number on the next release, and *bzzt, wrong*. Didn't work.

So there seems to be some give in these numbers.

Although for the record, the one that WORKED was
a) listened to on my computer
b) played on my computer

The one that didn't work was
a) listened to on my iPad
b) Played on my actual DVD player

So maybe it was clock drift (in the latter case) that caused it? I don't think a decent quartz clock should have any measureable drift over such miniscule time as 2 hours.

/Z


Jeffery Harrell wrote:

The number is 960/1001.

Watch me get nerdy up on this shit.

Movies are shot at 24 frames per second, because projectors in movie theaters run at 24 frames per second. Yes, there are exceptions, but shut up.

In order to be broadcast on television in the United States, or released on DVD etc. in the US, movies are slowed down from 24 frames per second to 23.976 frames per second, in order to be compatible with the NTSC time base of 59.94 Hz. (These decimals are rounded off; the actual values are the irreducible fractions 24,000/1001 and 60,000/1001, respectively.)

In order to be broadcast or released on video in PAL countries, movies are usually sped up by 4 percent exactly, from 24 frames per second to 25 frames per second. These are integer values, not rounded-off decimals.

So the difference between an NTSC DVD and a PAL DVD would be the difference not between 24 fps and 25 fps, but between 24,000/1001 fps and 25,025/1001 fps, or 960/1001.

So if the guys are watching an NTSC DVD and you have a PAL DVD, you're going to drift out of sync by about two and a half minutes per hour; after the first hour, you'll be 2:27 ahead of the podcast.

But if you play back the podcast at 104 percent of normal speed, Teague and the fellas will sound delightfully chipmunky … and also you'll drift out of sync with them by only about nine seconds per hour. To get better than that, you'll need more decimal places; the actual factor to speed the podcast up by is 1001/960, or 1.0427083etc.

Most of your good audio packages have a variety of preprogrammed audio pulldown presets for things like this. They work by changing the sample rate of the audio file from 48 KHz to some weirdo fraction that has the net result of playing back the audio either faster or slower in order to match a known video frame rate.

179

(27 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I like the idea, but perhaps not the day-glo execution of the idea.

Honestly, I still miss the leetle cartoon faces from ye olde DIF page. I actually don't like the layout of this DIF page with that huge "logo thing" taking half my screen. Sorry.

/Z

"Hang out" is an exaggeration, but yes, she was within arms-reach of me. She's short. They are all shorter than they look on TV, for some reason.

Funnest part was as they were posing for the crowd for the photo-op, someone beside me said "wow, I can't believe the whole cast is here". I said, rather loudly, "They aren't all here  - the cow is missing".

John Noble apparently heard this... he  turns, looks me in the eye, steps up on the chair and poses for the crowd by the picture of the cow (as can be seen in the photos)

'twas fun. wink

/Z

181

(41 replies, posted in Episodes)

That's nice but you forgot "The Dark Crystal" sad

/Z

So, Armageddon was posted. And Teague passed out.

This somehow reminds me that I havn't really publicly thanked Teague for when he drove me around half of California back in August, when I was in LA for SIGGRAPH.

Teauge was his hospitable self and placed me in an Automobile together with his own self and the Glory that is Cloe Z. We drove around and Had teh Fun, including visiting vasquez rocks, and then stopping by the power plant in which Trey was shootinging a feature film (on the same day as trey's "Ark" was released on Hulu - Trey was quite annoyed that he was not even able to twitter/phazebook that event!). Brian Finifter was also there, as the images tell.

We then continued down to ComiCon where I bumped into the cast to Fringe.

We then met Ryan and Dorkman (which was quite a pleasure), and then Teague passed out wink

But I got to meet pretty much all of the cast of Down In Front, which was somewhat epic, and I am in endless thanks to mr Chrystie for driving me halfway across California, and Cloe Z for driving me the other half back.

/Z

183

(26 replies, posted in Episodes)

Hmm, Teague, you becoming "pleasantly buzzed" than suddenly passing out is becoming a bit of a habit, if-you-know-what-I-mean (*cough sneeze hack*) maybe you should take it a tad easier with the bottles wink

/Z

184

(21 replies, posted in Off Topic)

downinfront wrote:

Saturday.

And the epic part is.... since I'm in LA, and my schedule for saturday suddenly cleared to zero, I will be Teagues hood-ornament for the drive to SD!

Yay! smile

/Z

185

(30 replies, posted in Episodes)

A funny thing with this movie; It seems (in my experience) only Americans can actually "enjoy" that speech (i.e. really think it is "good"), the rest of the planet just cringe.

Not only the blatant Jingoism and the near-parodic swelling music - but Pullman simple don't posess the gravitas* to pull this off.

(* = I think it was agreed that Morgan Freeman has all of it)

/Z

186

(31 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Jeffery Harrell wrote:

"Unbreakable" was that good.

That's so odd. To me "Unbreakable" is the most boring piece of sh%t ever commited to celluloid.

/Z

187

(31 replies, posted in Off Topic)

BrianFinifter wrote:

How the fuck did Shyamalan make one awesome movie and one pretty good one?

Because in Sixth Sense he had

a) One competent actor that could do his job

b) All other actors were _supposed_ to behave like dazed zombies

c) The whole "everyone behaves like dazed zombies" (I dunno what shamalama does to suck all soul out of his actors, he may be some dark side entity using this filmmaking schtick as an excuse to soulsuck) works great in that movie

d) It had "teh twist ending": Which he then FORCE-GLUED and DUCT-TAPED onto every other movie, with the problems of d1) They were crappy "twists"* and d2) every now EXPECTS the twists so they aren't twists any more and lose ALL value

Basically, Shamalama's original success was a fluke. The only other SHamalama film I actually kind of like is The Village (many will hate me for this) coz in that film, even though the first twist can be seen a mile away (there are no monsters, duh) the second twist (..and it's not 1880) then may surprise at least SOME, to deliver an actual surprise to those people. Maybe. Does it make much sense? Not really, but still, it appeals to me on some level, I don't know why.

But poor Shama keeps doing what he thinks works for absolutely all the wrong reasons. And when he's handed actors that actually needs to be *directed* .... it all just implodes into nihilistic dazed zombie hell.

/Z

/Z

188

(26 replies, posted in Episodes)

Be careful, or I might do just that! Not to mention Brad Pitts (in)ability to look 17 again without the help of the very same people*...

/Z

(* = they actually showed me their Benjamin Button work while it was in progress. It's a looooooooooooooooot of manual tweakery.... holy sh%t)

189

(26 replies, posted in Episodes)

Heh. Guys.

You seem to think Arnold made himself "fit" for this film?

One word: "Lola". (Though they weren't called that at the time... yet.... the digital arnold sixpack was kinda the blueprint work for what later become Lola)

/Z

190

(50 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Trey wrote:

An advantage of being an American is our own history is the easiest to learn in the whole damn world.  We had a war with England and became a country and then we had a war with ourselves and stayed a country and then we had a war with Germany and Japan and won, the end.   The rest is just cars, rock and roll, and a moon landing.

Imagine Swedish history. Dude. I mean, I have, literally, thousand-year old shite in my backyard, and runestones within walking distance.

We even used to own Britain, and half of europe. Yes, Sweden used to be a superpower back then. 'twas epic somehow. Pity I missed it, but I have teh interwebs which can bring me downinfront instead, so I think it's a good compromise wink

/Z

191

(301 replies, posted in Episodes)

Astroninja Studios wrote:

My fear is that if the two Eddie's touch, will they melt like Ron Silver did in Timecop?

Wasn't that Ron Jeremy?

/Z

192

(47 replies, posted in Episodes)

Thanks... though this doesn't mean I particularily like the movie, though.  I'm basically "with" the panel on the overall conclusion of the thing.

I thought it was a big "WTF" when I saw it, and I suffered cognitive dissonance between the brutality and the fairy stuff. I think it could have been much better, for example as suggested in the DiF episode, to make her hate the brother first, and then redeem herself in the end, and save the baby.

But wait - THAT "Labyrinth" movie was done by Henson. "You remind me of the Baby. What Baby? The baby with the power! What Power? The power of Voodoo! Who do? You do! Do what? Remind me of the Baby!"

/Z

193

(47 replies, posted in Episodes)

What I find is interesting in the GDT interview, is that it explains that she isn't actually "failing" any tests. Actually, the tests are there to teach her to think independently, so the "proper" reply to the test is to "fail" it in the traditional sense. It's a form of meta-test.

"Here, I give you these bullshit tests with bullshit rules. Your task, which I won't tell you, is to understand it's bullshit, and do the right thing"

Explained another way - she's Kirk, and the Faun is administering the Kobiashi Maru test.

/Z

194

(20 replies, posted in Episodes)

ROFL.

Guys, I'm going to L.A. for Siggraph this year. I totally will have to squeeze in a day where I do a guest appearance on Down In Front.... *evil grin*

/Z

195

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

Primer... OMH. That will be.......................................................interesting.

On a similar yet tangentiall vein...  you guys should do "11:14" too smile

/Z

196

(37 replies, posted in Episodes)

I'm so with Trey on this, and I am somwhat annoyed since this was labelled as a) having Trey and b) to be "most polarizing episode ever".

Imagine my disappointment when we got neither in actuality sad

I would have wanted at least one panelist to rip this film a deserved new a-hole.

In general, the DIF panel has always had at least one person I can go "yup, that's what I woudl have said", but this, and the "military hardware" episode are the lone standouts away from that, m'fraid.

/Z

197

(2,061 replies, posted in Episodes)

I didn't have time to wade this entire thread, so apologies if this has been said 1000 times, but... with Trey in the house, I'd REALLY like you guys to commentarize:

- Dark Crystal (one of my favourite movies)
- Labbyrinth   (less so, but, hey, puppets wink )


/Z

198

(44 replies, posted in Episodes)

I like Constantine - but always thought it was due to my own personal peripheral involvement with the f/x in it that made me biased, coz I never before met anyone that actually did (excepth my Niece, in her über-goth-phase).

However, I have to differ with Trey on the Keanu performance. Frankly, this is what almost breaks it for me. Even though I see the good movie that is there, and watch it for that, Keanu's woodenness takes me out of it completely at certain places.

But looking past that..... which is doable, yet hard.... I like it a lot.

/Z