Re:gparted and ntfs-3g on live cd?
on
Fedora 12 Released
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· Score: 3, Informative
I don't know about gparted but I doubt ntfs-3g will ever be included by default because of IP restrictions. Fedora has always been very careful about anything with IP attached and doesn't include it in the repos. You have to get it from RPM-Fusion.
Actually, ntfs-3g was a ground-up design, and is part of Fedora, and included in most installs. If you have an existing Windows partition on NTFS, you don't need any special utilities or a third-party disc. You can simply resize the partition using the built-in functionality in the installer, and then install into the freed space. There's even an easy "Shrink existing system" option in the installer to make it clearer to those who aren't experts on partitioning mumbo-jumbo.
That aside, thanks for the understanding about legal encumbrances. We make it a point to treat all users as potential remixers and redistributors of our distribution, and want to ensure we're not passing any legal problems off to them.
Hopefully you've heard about the Usability SIG that one Fedora contributor recently started. He needs help from the community in getting it off the ground, but if it gets traction it could help solve some of the problems to which you refer. If you'd like to pitch in, you can find the SIG's page here. (The SIG's principal is not a native English speaker, so please excuse any usage oddities there.)
When I saw the headline in my RSS aggregator, I wondered who this "Gate" guy was. Then I realized that the editors were using new Microsoft VisualApostrophe.
You are quite right. Movie stars work damn hard for a living, often having to work with only two or three months off a year. In compensation all they recieve is $10 million or more. Per picture.
I can't believe you haven't thought this through more clearly. With this attitude, I can't imagine you're employed full-time, much less supporting a family, as I am.
Movie stars are not the only people who are employed when it comes to making a movie. What about the literally hundreds or even thousands of craftspeople and crew? Gaffers, set decorators, costumers, model makers, lighting and electrical workers, construction, and so on? They are not making $10 million per film. A lot of these people are just eking out a living. Illegal downloading deprives a movie studio of income (whether you think they "earned" it or not). The less they make, the less likely they are to make more movies -- or the more likely they are to make fewer movies, to be a bit more exact. The fewer movies they make, the more crew and craftspeople will be unemployed. Now the government can support them with unemployment checks.
Hooray! You've really bucked the system there!
Movie stars get paid what the market will bear, just like I do for my job. If you want movie stars to get paid less, don't go see blockbuster films where the stars are getting paid millions for their performance. See independents or low-budget major studio films instead. But don't put crew and craftspeople out of work, simply because you lack the common sense to realize you're doing it. That's inexcusable.
Directors have always been forced for one reason or another to cut out footage they originally intended to include in a film.
It's not always the case that directors have to be "forced" to cut their films. Many are good judges of pacing and story who enjoy and embrace the trimming process, and can be quite ruthless on their own. For instance, Ridley Scott considers his original 1979 theatrical cut of Alien the best version, and was not forced into it by any stretch of the imagination. (See his interviews and commentary on the recent Alien Quadrilogy set for more details.) In fact, the studio had to beg him to revisit the cut for a 2003 "Special Edition" that would serve as a kind of reverse advertisement for the DVD set, as well as the upcoming Alien Vs. Predator.
The md5sums are GPG-signed with the Fedora public key, so substituting bad ones isn't really an option. Verify the signature on the md5sum file and check the contents against the md5sums of the images and you're good to go.
And yes, I'm aware that Bittorrent hashes the downloaded blocks, but that wouldn't prevent someone from sending hacked images and along with the original MD5SUM file, hoping people wouldn't bother checking the images.
Incorrect. The audio portions (especially the commentary) use far less bitrate than the video, and in this case you have an approximately four-hour total running time spread over two discs, instead of three hours (plus) on one disc. That leaves a LOT of room for the video bitrate to be boosted. The FOTR extended DVD definitely looked better than the "early" theatrical DVD, due in part to a higher video bitrate, and I have no doubt that TTT will be the same way.
What you're talking about is the intermission from the original theatrical release. They restored it to the film, including the original score from that segment. Going to the movies to see a big-budget epic was a lot more like going to the theater in those days. Having an entr'acte (opening musical segment) to quiet everyone down, and a scored intermission in the middle, was more common. Many restorations of classic films also include restoring these segments as well.
I'm with you though, I don't like pausing movies and playing musical chairs during them. It takes me out of the emotional experience and interrupts the flow of the film.
No, WAV (in the form it is extracted from an audio compact disc) is uncompressed. Q.v. the specs. WAV is indeed lossless since it actually contains the real sample data for 16-bit, 44.1kHz pulse code modulated (PCM) wave forms. There are codecs that use the overall RIFF format to propagate compressed audio, but the RIFF/WAV from a CD itself is not. Note also the math, 44100*60*2*2 for a minute of 16-bit, or 2-byte, CD samples in stereo. The extra bytes in a minute of RIFF/WAV data are overhead demanded by the RIFF format.
I wrote a reply to the editors to this effect. I would suggest others do the same, in a professional and informative tone. (I know this is a stretch for many/.ers, so if you can't manage it, please don't make the free/OSS community look worse than this guy Lyons does.)
This is purely a case of the management involved simply not understanding (or worse, ignoring) the licensing terms under which their software falls. I pointed out in my reply that their failure to comply with the GPL's terms is functionally no different than sending their customers illict copies of Microsoft Office without having paid royalties. (Leaving aside propaganda about the relative quality of the software.)
The courts, not the FBI, determine to what extent the interest in a free press outweighs the interest in bringing criminal suspects before the justice system. Journalists' right to keep their sources secret has not been found to be one that is absolute. For instance, check out a quick syllabus on the matter at this link. (That's only the first one I happened upon in Google. Doesn't anyone STFW before they write anymore?)
Oh yeah, and IANAL, but let's be clear that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the law. (Or be a lawyer, for that matter.)
I'm a musician, singer, and sometimes sound engineer and producer, and I am usually able to pick out use of these boxes in a recording situation. In a live venue, it's tougher because the people who can afford their use, maintenance and programming are typically large acts where the typical venue and audience size obscures their sound. Generally, the signs of pitch touch-ups on recordings, such as done by the Antares boxes, are: (1) pitch in the singer's voice that is abnormally accurate when holding a single tone, and (2) unnaturally quantized sounding intervals when the singer is changing pitch.
The most trained human voice still has a characteristic "wobble," warble, or inaccuracy, especially when changing pitches. Even the most notably gifted singers, Pavarotti, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, etc., have their peculiar signatures or inaccuracies, most of which are simply felt sympathetically and probably not recognized, even by highly trained ears, when one is not paying very close attention. When these inaccuracies (or as I prefer to call them, "human touches") are eliminated, a trained ear can usually pick it up.
Just to run a gamut that should encompass the listening habits of some readers, you'll hear quite a bit of this on many country hits of the past several years, like that song that goes "I am Rosemarie's granddaughter..."; a number of cuts on Avril Lavigne's album; of course the infamous Cher single "Believe," which used the auto-tuner as a gimmick for the song's hook and pretty much took the tool "out of the closet," so to speak; and innumerable other dance and pop records. (Oops, showing my age there, sorry.)
You can of course get Antares plug-ins for ProTools (TDM, RTAS), VST or MAS for Mac, or DirectX for PC. (I don't know them, shill for them, or whatever. Just passing on the 411.)
The main differences in Red Hat that allow Oracle to work with it are kernel-related. The Red Hat kernel is not a stock kernel just wrapped up in a package; it's full of backports from Alan Cox and various parts of the 2.5 tree in order to add functionality for Red Hat's paying customers. In a lot of cases this is great, because other people are paying for me to get usb2, ieee1394, and so forth, in my desktop. These might or might not be there otherwise. (At worst, I'd have to pop in a 2.5 kernel and add risk to my desktop... I use my Linux for all my daily professional work, so this is not good. I'd prefer a generally stable kernel which I can count on either (A) working, or (B) having fixes immediately if there's a glaring problem.)
Your suggestion via linking would be apt (ha!) if libraries were the sticking point, but they're not -- at least not the *main* sticking point. The kernel which is designed for RHEL and used as the basis for their desktop product is the key.
At issue is not necessarily whether SCO explicitly GPL'd their code. The fact is that even as they contemplated the inclusion of UNIX technologies in Linux, and even after they had come to the conclusion (right or wrong) that their IP rights were under attack, they continued to distribute the code in question under the GPL. Whether or not this indemnifies anyone by nature of the GPL is secondary to the fact that it makes SCO's claims that their "trade secrets" have been exposed, and that they have thereby been injured, specious at best. Compounding this is the additional fact that they have clearly profited from the inclusion of these technologies in Linux products that they marketed.
Clearly, the onus is not on an IP rights owner to keep their secrets to themselves. The onus is on potential thieves. But nevertheless, their ground becomes far shakier when their own business plan has used Linux extensively, long after they concluded that those rights were being violated. Had they immediately ceased distributing Linux in any form, and notified their customers of the problem, this would have safeguarded their position somewhat. This would be expected of any corporate entity -- to exercise oversight over the products they market, and ensure that they support the company's overall business strategy. Failure to do so, and then blaming outside entities for the consequent problems, is not likely to impress any judicial body.
The issue might come down to whether SCO's publication of the questionable code in their Linux products is equivalent to a willful exposure of their trade secrets. The terms of the GPL may not even enter into the discussion.
You're arguing apples to oranges. The point is not that the originator wouldn't have made a sale to you anyway; the point is that copyright is a right that rests with the work's originator. You don't have the right to make a decision on whether you're allowed to copy the work. The originator does, and if they decide that the only way you get a copy is by paying them, then that is the price. If you don't pay for it, you don't get to enjoy it.
And honestly, your argument is also somewhat specious, because if the work wasn't worth your paying for it in the first place, why would you want it to begin with?
The summary shows an astounding lack of attention to the news story. Please go back and reread the first few paragraphs. Olmos is not telling critics to tell their readers not to watch the show. He is telling hardcore fans that they will probably not like it, and therefore not to watch it. Neither comment would be an extraordinarily wise one coming from a lead actor in the show, but the latter is obviously far less damaging, seeing as how there are quite a lot of people who will be seeing the new show without ever having seen the original.
Certainly a lot of purists (whatever that means, since we are, in fact, talking about a TV show, for Pete's sake) are going to throw up their hands in disgust at any tinkering with the original's characters, plot points, art design, costumes, hardware, and whatever else it is that people of that ilk fuss and obsess over instead of living their lives. But the show's writer, Ron Moore, does bring up some very interesting points in the far more illuminating article available at the Mercury News. There was a lot of deeper drama that was never touched in the original, even though I suspect that the strong thread of spirituality and morality that ran through the original series will probably not be as prevalent in the new one. For some people that's not a problem; my personal view is that good writing is good writing, so I'll judge for myself after I see the show.
I have fond memories of the original myself (well, up to the 1980 abortion they called a series comeback), but that probably has something to do with the fact that I was 9 years old. I'm hoping that the channel that aired the first really decent adaptation of "Dune" might actually be able to pull off something that is a little more filling in the dramatic sense than the cotton candy that was the original series. I mean, let's face it, folks, a good bit of the time the original was about as dumb as a box of hair.
I have to say that, on the whole, I am pretty impressed with Olmos' straightforwardness. It's probably not incredibly politic for him to have done, but it took a lot of guts for him to speak the truth out loud, when other people don't want to for fear of riling up the obsessives and fanatics. That'll get me to watch, and now it's up to the writer(s), actors and director to keep me interested.
This is an interesting move by HP given the SCO situation. Is it possible that the majority of solution providers are unfazed by SCO's accusations and warnings against large companies supporting Linux?
Films recoup costs in both the theater and on video. They also recoup through deals for cable and "big 4" network broadcast, as well as for exhibition on airlines and such. For blockbusters there's also marketing tie-in deals. None of these things really apply for music albums... yet.
I agree completely. But then, New Line has made a habit of releasing some of the best DVD's available. Cf. David Fincher'sSe7en, which also featured four very informative commentary tracks by a number of cast and crew personnel. Admittedly it was not of the scope of LotR, but a fascinating movie nonetheless. That and Fox's special edition of Fincher's Fight Club were pretty much my favorite DVD's as far as fulfilling the promise of "film school in a box." However, New Line's edition of P.T. Anderson'sBoogie Nights is another great one. Basically, no one has done DVD as consistently well as New Line -- with the possible exception of Criterion.
But if everthing is so storyboarded and timed down the moment that you can't have options, you can't discover anything in the edit at all.
If you're George Lucas, you don't discover anything in the edit, you simply use CGI to change the actors' bodies to fit what you want. If you listen to the Episode I and II DVD commentaries, you will hear some very interesting details about how actors' positions on "set," their limbs, and even their faces were changed in post to suit Lucas' direction. It's no wonder the new Star Wars films seem so flat and lifeless -- why have a collaborative experience with an actor when you can do CG puppetry?
I'm not a big anti-Lucas guy (his money = his prerogative), but I am a big fan of actors. I find this sort of gimmickry very off-putting and definitely detrimental to the quality of a film. It's not that you can necessarily finger it on-screen while you're experiencing the film (although the fireplace scene in Episode II is an exception), but it can't help but contribute to a sense of detachment in the actors' performances, and thus it makes their scenes stilted and somehow "off."
Premiere Magazine has been reporting for years about how H'wood chooses and sinks projects. Now they do it at the speed of broadband. Thank god Wired was on the scene to break the story that someone in a big office now has a teenager.
A knock on the door of the KID's room, heavy, authoritative. The EXEC enters loudly.
EXEC Young lady, you need to explain the bill for your cell pho-- What's that?
KID (glued to screen, typing) I'm on a talkback board.
EXEC I think you talk back plenty already.
KID Dad! No, it's like when you want to discuss stuff with people. You know, like movies or stuff.
EXEC Is this that Internet thing I keep hearing about? Wow! (beat) You know, that gives me an idea...
That is the one part of the film we could have all done without. It's no secret that a lot of geeks dabble in music in their spare time; the ones depicted here should probably try pottery instead. Nevertheless, they did hang 'em out on the table, so you have to give them credit for that, at least. I do plan on buying the DVD, but I sure hope it has chapter stops so I can skip that god-awful song. Even my wife, who is much more forgiving than I, begged me to turn it off when we saw the movie on IFC. Good film other than that, though.
Hear, hear. My wife and I saw this just after moving into our first apartment. It was Memorial Day weekend 1991, and it was around 104F in the shade, humid as hell, and our A/C didn't work when we moved in. All morning and all afternoon. I still can't figure out why my friends who helped us that day still take my calls.
Anyway, we went and sat in the blissfully chilly theater and saw Hudson Hawk because we generally liked Bruce Willis, and the commercials looked funny. Maybe it was just heatstroke, but we laughed until our sides actually hurt. I think I just completely lost it after the whole "Bunny? Ball-ball!" gag with the dog and the bazooka (?). I was howling.
And you know what? I bought the DVD when it came out, and there's probably not a single person I know who hasn't asked, "Why would you buy that?" when they see it on my shelf. Then I lend it to them, and without exception every person to whom I've lent it loved it. Don't get me wrong, Citizen Kane it ain't (I own that too), but it's a hellagood larf.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about gparted but I doubt ntfs-3g will ever be included by default because of IP restrictions. Fedora has always been very careful about anything with IP attached and doesn't include it in the repos. You have to get it from RPM-Fusion.
Actually, ntfs-3g was a ground-up design, and is part of Fedora, and included in most installs. If you have an existing Windows partition on NTFS, you don't need any special utilities or a third-party disc. You can simply resize the partition using the built-in functionality in the installer, and then install into the freed space. There's even an easy "Shrink existing system" option in the installer to make it clearer to those who aren't experts on partitioning mumbo-jumbo.
That aside, thanks for the understanding about legal encumbrances. We make it a point to treat all users as potential remixers and redistributors of our distribution, and want to ensure we're not passing any legal problems off to them.
Hopefully you've heard about the Usability SIG that one Fedora contributor recently started. He needs help from the community in getting it off the ground, but if it gets traction it could help solve some of the problems to which you refer. If you'd like to pitch in, you can find the SIG's page here. (The SIG's principal is not a native English speaker, so please excuse any usage oddities there.)
When I saw the headline in my RSS aggregator, I wondered who this "Gate" guy was. Then I realized that the editors were using new Microsoft VisualApostrophe.
Headline fix? Anyone?
http://paul.frields.org/?p=500
So how does this qualify as "news"?
I can't believe you haven't thought this through more clearly. With this attitude, I can't imagine you're employed full-time, much less supporting a family, as I am.
Movie stars are not the only people who are employed when it comes to making a movie. What about the literally hundreds or even thousands of craftspeople and crew? Gaffers, set decorators, costumers, model makers, lighting and electrical workers, construction, and so on? They are not making $10 million per film. A lot of these people are just eking out a living. Illegal downloading deprives a movie studio of income (whether you think they "earned" it or not). The less they make, the less likely they are to make more movies -- or the more likely they are to make fewer movies, to be a bit more exact. The fewer movies they make, the more crew and craftspeople will be unemployed. Now the government can support them with unemployment checks.
Hooray! You've really bucked the system there!
Movie stars get paid what the market will bear, just like I do for my job. If you want movie stars to get paid less, don't go see blockbuster films where the stars are getting paid millions for their performance. See independents or low-budget major studio films instead. But don't put crew and craftspeople out of work, simply because you lack the common sense to realize you're doing it. That's inexcusable.
It's not always the case that directors have to be "forced" to cut their films. Many are good judges of pacing and story who enjoy and embrace the trimming process, and can be quite ruthless on their own. For instance, Ridley Scott considers his original 1979 theatrical cut of Alien the best version, and was not forced into it by any stretch of the imagination. (See his interviews and commentary on the recent Alien Quadrilogy set for more details.) In fact, the studio had to beg him to revisit the cut for a 2003 "Special Edition" that would serve as a kind of reverse advertisement for the DVD set, as well as the upcoming Alien Vs. Predator.
The md5sums are GPG-signed with the Fedora public key, so substituting bad ones isn't really an option. Verify the signature on the md5sum file and check the contents against the md5sums of the images and you're good to go.
And yes, I'm aware that Bittorrent hashes the downloaded blocks, but that wouldn't prevent someone from sending hacked images and along with the original MD5SUM file, hoping people wouldn't bother checking the images.
Incorrect. The audio portions (especially the commentary) use far less bitrate than the video, and in this case you have an approximately four-hour total running time spread over two discs, instead of three hours (plus) on one disc. That leaves a LOT of room for the video bitrate to be boosted. The FOTR extended DVD definitely looked better than the "early" theatrical DVD, due in part to a higher video bitrate, and I have no doubt that TTT will be the same way.
What you're talking about is the intermission from the original theatrical release. They restored it to the film, including the original score from that segment. Going to the movies to see a big-budget epic was a lot more like going to the theater in those days. Having an entr'acte (opening musical segment) to quiet everyone down, and a scored intermission in the middle, was more common. Many restorations of classic films also include restoring these segments as well.
I'm with you though, I don't like pausing movies and playing musical chairs during them. It takes me out of the emotional experience and interrupts the flow of the film.
No, WAV (in the form it is extracted from an audio compact disc) is uncompressed. Q.v. the specs. WAV is indeed lossless since it actually contains the real sample data for 16-bit, 44.1kHz pulse code modulated (PCM) wave forms. There are codecs that use the overall RIFF format to propagate compressed audio, but the RIFF/WAV from a CD itself is not. Note also the math, 44100*60*2*2 for a minute of 16-bit, or 2-byte, CD samples in stereo. The extra bytes in a minute of RIFF/WAV data are overhead demanded by the RIFF format.
I wrote a reply to the editors to this effect. I would suggest others do the same, in a professional and informative tone. (I know this is a stretch for many /.ers, so if you can't manage it, please don't make the free/OSS community look worse than this guy Lyons does.)
This is purely a case of the management involved simply not understanding (or worse, ignoring) the licensing terms under which their software falls. I pointed out in my reply that their failure to comply with the GPL's terms is functionally no different than sending their customers illict copies of Microsoft Office without having paid royalties. (Leaving aside propaganda about the relative quality of the software.)
Oh yeah, and IANAL, but let's be clear that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the law. (Or be a lawyer, for that matter.)
I'm a musician, singer, and sometimes sound engineer and producer, and I am usually able to pick out use of these boxes in a recording situation. In a live venue, it's tougher because the people who can afford their use, maintenance and programming are typically large acts where the typical venue and audience size obscures their sound. Generally, the signs of pitch touch-ups on recordings, such as done by the Antares boxes, are: (1) pitch in the singer's voice that is abnormally accurate when holding a single tone, and (2) unnaturally quantized sounding intervals when the singer is changing pitch.
The most trained human voice still has a characteristic "wobble," warble, or inaccuracy, especially when changing pitches. Even the most notably gifted singers, Pavarotti, Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, etc., have their peculiar signatures or inaccuracies, most of which are simply felt sympathetically and probably not recognized, even by highly trained ears, when one is not paying very close attention. When these inaccuracies (or as I prefer to call them, "human touches") are eliminated, a trained ear can usually pick it up.
Just to run a gamut that should encompass the listening habits of some readers, you'll hear quite a bit of this on many country hits of the past several years, like that song that goes "I am Rosemarie's granddaughter..."; a number of cuts on Avril Lavigne's album; of course the infamous Cher single "Believe," which used the auto-tuner as a gimmick for the song's hook and pretty much took the tool "out of the closet," so to speak; and innumerable other dance and pop records. (Oops, showing my age there, sorry.)
You can of course get Antares plug-ins for ProTools (TDM, RTAS), VST or MAS for Mac, or DirectX for PC. (I don't know them, shill for them, or whatever. Just passing on the 411.)
The main differences in Red Hat that allow Oracle to work with it are kernel-related. The Red Hat kernel is not a stock kernel just wrapped up in a package; it's full of backports from Alan Cox and various parts of the 2.5 tree in order to add functionality for Red Hat's paying customers. In a lot of cases this is great, because other people are paying for me to get usb2, ieee1394, and so forth, in my desktop. These might or might not be there otherwise. (At worst, I'd have to pop in a 2.5 kernel and add risk to my desktop... I use my Linux for all my daily professional work, so this is not good. I'd prefer a generally stable kernel which I can count on either (A) working, or (B) having fixes immediately if there's a glaring problem.)
Your suggestion via linking would be apt (ha!) if libraries were the sticking point, but they're not -- at least not the *main* sticking point. The kernel which is designed for RHEL and used as the basis for their desktop product is the key.
Clearly, the onus is not on an IP rights owner to keep their secrets to themselves. The onus is on potential thieves. But nevertheless, their ground becomes far shakier when their own business plan has used Linux extensively, long after they concluded that those rights were being violated. Had they immediately ceased distributing Linux in any form, and notified their customers of the problem, this would have safeguarded their position somewhat. This would be expected of any corporate entity -- to exercise oversight over the products they market, and ensure that they support the company's overall business strategy. Failure to do so, and then blaming outside entities for the consequent problems, is not likely to impress any judicial body.
The issue might come down to whether SCO's publication of the questionable code in their Linux products is equivalent to a willful exposure of their trade secrets. The terms of the GPL may not even enter into the discussion.
And honestly, your argument is also somewhat specious, because if the work wasn't worth your paying for it in the first place, why would you want it to begin with?
The summary shows an astounding lack of attention to the news story. Please go back and reread the first few paragraphs. Olmos is not telling critics to tell their readers not to watch the show. He is telling hardcore fans that they will probably not like it, and therefore not to watch it. Neither comment would be an extraordinarily wise one coming from a lead actor in the show, but the latter is obviously far less damaging, seeing as how there are quite a lot of people who will be seeing the new show without ever having seen the original.
Certainly a lot of purists (whatever that means, since we are, in fact, talking about a TV show, for Pete's sake) are going to throw up their hands in disgust at any tinkering with the original's characters, plot points, art design, costumes, hardware, and whatever else it is that people of that ilk fuss and obsess over instead of living their lives. But the show's writer, Ron Moore, does bring up some very interesting points in the far more illuminating article available at the Mercury News. There was a lot of deeper drama that was never touched in the original, even though I suspect that the strong thread of spirituality and morality that ran through the original series will probably not be as prevalent in the new one. For some people that's not a problem; my personal view is that good writing is good writing, so I'll judge for myself after I see the show.
I have fond memories of the original myself (well, up to the 1980 abortion they called a series comeback), but that probably has something to do with the fact that I was 9 years old. I'm hoping that the channel that aired the first really decent adaptation of "Dune" might actually be able to pull off something that is a little more filling in the dramatic sense than the cotton candy that was the original series. I mean, let's face it, folks, a good bit of the time the original was about as dumb as a box of hair.
I have to say that, on the whole, I am pretty impressed with Olmos' straightforwardness. It's probably not incredibly politic for him to have done, but it took a lot of guts for him to speak the truth out loud, when other people don't want to for fear of riling up the obsessives and fanatics. That'll get me to watch, and now it's up to the writer(s), actors and director to keep me interested.
This is an interesting move by HP given the SCO situation. Is it possible that the majority of solution providers are unfazed by SCO's accusations and warnings against large companies supporting Linux?
Bernie? Bernie Shifman? Is that you?
Films recoup costs in both the theater and on video. They also recoup through deals for cable and "big 4" network broadcast, as well as for exhibition on airlines and such. For blockbusters there's also marketing tie-in deals. None of these things really apply for music albums... yet.
I agree completely. But then, New Line has made a habit of releasing some of the best DVD's available. Cf. David Fincher's Se7en, which also featured four very informative commentary tracks by a number of cast and crew personnel. Admittedly it was not of the scope of LotR, but a fascinating movie nonetheless. That and Fox's special edition of Fincher's Fight Club were pretty much my favorite DVD's as far as fulfilling the promise of "film school in a box." However, New Line's edition of P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights is another great one. Basically, no one has done DVD as consistently well as New Line -- with the possible exception of Criterion.
If you're George Lucas, you don't discover anything in the edit, you simply use CGI to change the actors' bodies to fit what you want. If you listen to the Episode I and II DVD commentaries, you will hear some very interesting details about how actors' positions on "set," their limbs, and even their faces were changed in post to suit Lucas' direction. It's no wonder the new Star Wars films seem so flat and lifeless -- why have a collaborative experience with an actor when you can do CG puppetry?
I'm not a big anti-Lucas guy (his money = his prerogative), but I am a big fan of actors. I find this sort of gimmickry very off-putting and definitely detrimental to the quality of a film. It's not that you can necessarily finger it on-screen while you're experiencing the film (although the fireplace scene in Episode II is an exception), but it can't help but contribute to a sense of detachment in the actors' performances, and thus it makes their scenes stilted and somehow "off."
Premiere Magazine has been reporting for years about how H'wood chooses and sinks projects. Now they do it at the speed of broadband. Thank god Wired was on the scene to break the story that someone in a big office now has a teenager.
A knock on the door of the KID's room, heavy, authoritative. The EXEC enters loudly.
EXEC
Young lady, you need to explain the bill for
your cell pho-- What's that?
KID
(glued to screen, typing)
I'm on a talkback board.
EXEC
I think you talk back plenty already.
KID
Dad! No, it's like when you want to discuss
stuff with people. You know, like movies or
stuff.
EXEC
Is this that Internet thing I keep hearing
about? Wow!
(beat)
You know, that gives me an idea...
That is the one part of the film we could have all done without. It's no secret that a lot of geeks dabble in music in their spare time; the ones depicted here should probably try pottery instead. Nevertheless, they did hang 'em out on the table, so you have to give them credit for that, at least. I do plan on buying the DVD, but I sure hope it has chapter stops so I can skip that god-awful song. Even my wife, who is much more forgiving than I, begged me to turn it off when we saw the movie on IFC. Good film other than that, though.
Hear, hear. My wife and I saw this just after moving into our first apartment. It was Memorial Day weekend 1991, and it was around 104F in the shade, humid as hell, and our A/C didn't work when we moved in. All morning and all afternoon. I still can't figure out why my friends who helped us that day still take my calls.
Anyway, we went and sat in the blissfully chilly theater and saw Hudson Hawk because we generally liked Bruce Willis, and the commercials looked funny. Maybe it was just heatstroke, but we laughed until our sides actually hurt. I think I just completely lost it after the whole "Bunny? Ball-ball!" gag with the dog and the bazooka (?). I was howling.
And you know what? I bought the DVD when it came out, and there's probably not a single person I know who hasn't asked, "Why would you buy that?" when they see it on my shelf. Then I lend it to them, and without exception every person to whom I've lent it loved it. Don't get me wrong, Citizen Kane it ain't (I own that too), but it's a hellagood larf.