New Perspectives On Movie Watching

                                    New Perspectives On Movie Watching

                                                                  by

                                                                      Jay Agan

      Back in the day (Yeah, the old guy's gonna reminisce, so pay attention.) before what we know as home video, we were pretty much resigned to whatever the TV stations were going to air at any given moment. When it came to older films, one was stuck with watching lots of defective prints (cuts, burns, splices, etc.) with low quality sound. This was in the days before the film restoration movement wasn't even a glint in Ted Turners' eye.

      The BIG drawback (To me.) was & still is commercials. Tons of em'! Make no mistake. The primary purpose of commercial TV is NOT to entertain you. It is to induce you to buy stuff. Always keep that in mind. It's one of the reasons I don't watch commercial TV.

      Ads can really drag out a movie. Nothing like getting into a flick & BAM!, having to cool your jets for 5+ minutes as they try to sell you junk. I was turned off to a lot of films thinking they were slow paced & dragging. Later, when I started collecting tapes in '91, I noticed how a film I originally disliked would, without ads, pick up & come alive, "magically" transforming into a fast paced actioner.

      I'll use Tohos' The Mysterians as an example (Space alien scum want earth women! Oh yeah!? Bring it on!) Yeah, it's a cheesy (By todays CGI ridden standards.) little time waster. Chs 10 (WBNS) & 4 (WLWC now WCMH) would show this Japanese sci-fi flick off & on during the 60s & 70s. I always tried to see it even if it was a bit (To me.) overlong. Once, in 1965, I had to stop watching it & come to dinner. Half hour later I went back & noticed I hardly missed anything. That's how big  the number of commercials could get. In '92 I snapped up a VHS of it (I think it was a Goodtimes tape.). I was amazed at how much "peppier" it was without the ads.

      After a brief bout with cancer in '94, I got rid of my VHS collection & didn't touch home video again until 2001. When I did ..... Advancements in film restoration & technology opened up new things to me.

      I was cognizant of aspect ratio back in the 80s but I wasn't concerned with it overmuch. A movie was a movie as far as I was concerned. When I started on discs however, I made sure a film made after 1950 was in its correct ratio before buying & found it did make a difference.

Lobby card for The Mysterians. Credit: Toho Co. Ltd.

      Back to The Mysterians. Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock puts out an excellent example (Got it at Best Buy on impulse.). Had to have been gotten from a superior print. I was also pleased to recognize several "anime" names in the English dub cast. Campared to the Goodtimes VHS & past viewings on TV in bygone years, I marvel at what an expansive, colorful film it is. Instead of the washed out, cheesy, claustrophobic little mess I was used to, I was seeing it as it was meant to be without the constraints television has put on it.

      The Mysterians is but one example of the difference this technology has made for me in viewing movies. There are dozens of others. It has made "bad" ones good, & good ones even better.

                                            
                                          Article copyright © 7-1-2011 Jay Agan

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Darn Tribbles, Darn Troubles

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures

Darn Tribbles, Darn Troubles

by

Jay Agan

    
School days. Ah memories. I'll treasure them always. Not! Only the overachievers, jocks, and social butterflies will ever be fond of the high school pressure cooker. Any good memories of that time was from not being there.

One set of good times involved Star Trek (tos). I'd become aquainted with it during its initial network run in the late 60s. In military school, the nuns would (grudgingly) let us watch it ("Cadets don't whistle, chew gum, read comic books, watch cool stuff on tv, have fun, etc.").

I recall the "ruckus" that came up when it got cancelled. Not having been a full bore Trek weenie, I didn't experience the crippling depression afflicting believers. Some disappointment, yes, as it was (then) novel and different. There was so little intelligent sci-fi on tv, (still that way), and if the nuns didn't like it, it had to be good.

Thanks to the zeal and enthusiasm of the fans, stations across the country aired it a lot through syndication in the 70s. WLWC (now WCMH) ch. 4 was the central Ohio Trek pioneer. The time slot was (I think.) 5-6 PM. It didn't matter if it was a school night, (We weren't allowed to watch tv mon-thur.), I'd sneak down the celler and tune in on our older set. I'll always be grateful to the staff of 4 for including Trek in their programming (well into the 80s). A good daily dose of Trek helped in recovery from the indoctrination of several hours before. Usually but not always.

There was, however, an annoying glitch in 4s' Trek scheduling. A glaring defect, sharply curtailing my enjoyment of the show. A nuisance, so vexing, it drove me to obsessive distraction: The Trouble With Tribbles.

On first seeing it in the late 60s, I sorta' liked it. Cutsey, funny, not all that great though. Little was I to know TWT would later become the very fuel powering the ch. 4 Star Trek machine. I understand the station showing the more popular eps more often. Ad revenue and all. But ..... The Trouble with Tribbles? Every other day? Yeah, I exaggerate. It only seemed that way. It could have been once a week, or at least twice a month. Aw what the heck! It was on too dang often!

There I'd be on the bus home. Mixed feelings at conflict in my brain."Star Trek! Oh boy! Oh boy! Yeah! Trek! Please no TWT! Oh golly! Oh yeah! No TWT! Please! Please! PLEASE!"

And seemingly, more often than not. After a particularly depressing day of scholastic brainwashing, there it was, in all its fuzzy non-glory, The Trouble With Tribbles. (Aghh! That's it! I'm doing my homework!)

Why? Why this one? "All the time?" They played the other "top 20" to death too, but not seemingly every time I turned around. Arena, The Changeling, The Doomsday Machine, etc. These I could understand. They were great. But TWT? What a nauseatingly, sickeningly saccharine, piece of crud! It got to the point where I'd be ecstatic to see Miri, Turnabout Intruder, The Empath, or any of the other of the least popular ones.

I've no proof but I suspect there was a group of 5 or 6 Trek weenies in Columbus, constantly calling the station & urging them on (Ooo! Ooo! Can we see TWT again?! Huh? Please?! TWT! Ooo! Ooo!"). I recall a particularly annoying one (who shall remain nameless) showing up at wargame gatherings bugging the crap out of everyone over Trek. (Claimed he was a rear admiral in Starfleet in charge of research.) He had to have been the ringleader.

At a place I worked at in the 90s, we had a tv. 4 had a Trek marathon one Sunday, 8AM-8PM. The top 12 of all time. Naturally, we enjoyed ourselves as we went about our tasks. An older fellow I worked with (left the scene due to cancer) was a sci-fi fan as well. I was pretty much down on Trek weenies and he would kid me a lot about me being a "trekkie" as I knew more about the show than I cared to. (I like the show a lot. It's not my reason for being, however.) I found his word for word co-recital of Celia Lovskys' lines from the duel in the Amok Time episode to be quite amusing.

Things got a little tense as the marathon wore on. We knew TWT was in there somewhere. (He hated it too.) We KNEW an hour long bout of hypoglycemic, pseudo-cuteness was approaching .There were a few tense moments during the "A Piece of the Action" ep. (He didn't like that one either. I always did. Criminals as politicians? Never happen!)

As it turned out, TWT was the last one, thus the best "voted". As we were prepping to close that hour, we didn't care. Still don't.

I'll always have a place in my heart for Star Trek (tos), but not for "The Trouble With Tribbles". Those in love with TWT are TWiTs!

                                                 
Article copyright © Jay Agan


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Transylvania Noctourne

                                                                by

                                                                   Jay Agan

              Photo credit: Universal Studios.

          One AM, an early July or August morning 1983.

     

          I was a bit tired & had just quit DXing (station hunting) on AM & shortwave. Not wanting to do any reading either (it was my heavy Lovecraft period) I thought I'd turn on the tv in the hope something watchable was airing. Had no idea what could be on. The Mt. Vernon News had this annoying habit of putting only "movie" in the listings spaces. Sure, you knew a flick was on the way but.....what?

           Saturday Night Live wound down & ch 4 (WCMH) proceeded with the All Nite Theater (Jerry Beck long since left that gig by then. Sad.) Oh. The 1931 Lugosi Dracula. Hadn't seen that one in a while (Had an old audio tape I recorded of it back in the 70s.) What the hey! I settled in to enjoy myself.

           What the hey, indeed. From the moment the opening credits ended I noticed something different right off. Not only was the picture sharp & clear, but the sound (except for a slight background hiss) was as well. To say I was astounded would be an understatement. Never before had I seen such a clean, viewable example of an old film of any kind let alone this one. No scratches, burn marks, "hair", jumpcuts/splices either. I never thought beutiful prints like this ever existed. By far, worlds better than the worn examples I'd seen on other stations.

           This was a time before Ted Turner et al. grabbed the bull by the horns & got the film restoration movement of today rolling. What's routinely commonplace today was certainly a treat back then, I'm here to tell ya. You younger film buffs have no idea how good you have it now. Cheers.

                                                 Article copyright © Jay Agan

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DISCLAIMER: All images used on this blog are strictly copyrights of their owners. I do not claim credit/ownership for any images used here in my blog unless stated otherwise. If I have offended anyone by posting any images on my blog, please contact me via email and I will remove specified image(s) ASAP.