Michael's Musings
Still No Bandwidth
by Michael B. Druxman on 06/29/14
June 30, 2014
I'm hoping my "stolen" bandwidth will be returned on Tuesday (1). At least, that's what the tech at Earthlink said would happen.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because you haven't read last weeks blog entry in which I reported that all of my Earthlink websites are currently unavailable because some schmuck pirated by bandwidth, causing visits on one site to go through the roof; more than I'm allowed during a single month. I think we've corrected the issue, but we won't know for sure until Tuesday.
BTW: This site is not Earthlink, which is why you can still access it.
Luckily, I've had no new reviews for Best Bets on DVD this past week, which is one of the sites that is down.
I'm continuing to write on my new play, but this is not an easy one. I like a lot of the scenes I've written, but I think I'm going to have to rethink the overall structure. When I come up against problems like this, I find it useful to just walk away from the project for a few days...until the solution comes to me.
You have a creative week.
Michael
Somebody Stole My Bandwidth!
by Michael B. Druxman on 06/21/14
June 24, 2014
Early last week, I received a message from my primary server that, because of exceedingly high traffic on my websites (e.g. Best Bets on DVD) that they would no longer be accessible to me or the public for the rest of the month, but that they would be back up in July.
This made no sense, because I've had these pages for over a decade and, whereas I'm pleased with the traffic I get, the totals don't even come close to the 4000+ visits per day the server said I was getting for about a week.
After several hours on the phone with three different techs, we discovered that some "thief" was linking to a photo on a page that I'd pretty much abandoned years ago and that visits to his site were being charged to my bandwidth totals. [Please don't ask me to explain "bandwidth," because I can't.]
In any event, I had one of the techs remove the offending photo, so by the first of the month [fingers crossed], things should be back to normal.
In the meantime, you're not going to be able to access Best Bets on DVD, so until we're back up, I'm going to post those reviews in this blog.
You'll find the first one below: The Criterion Collection's new release of director Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK.
You have a creative week.
Michael
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK
Australian director Peter Weir made his first major impression with both film critics and the public with Picnic at Hanging Rock, a strange, haunting underplayed horror story. There are no monsters...no ghosts...simply a frightening, sexually suggestive, yarn that remains in a viewer’s consciousness long after the picture has ended.
On Valentine’s Day in 1901, three young schoolgirls and their teacher disappear without a trace while on an excursion to Hanging Rock, a peculiar geological outcropping.
What happened to them? We never find out.
Eerie, moody, the 1975 release is based on a novel by Joan Lindsay and stars Rachel Roberts as the school’s headmistress, Helen Morse as a teacher and features Jacki Weaver as a maid at the school. Russell Boyd’s color cinematography is stunning.
The new 3-disc set (1 Blu-ray/2 DVD) from The Criterion Collection contains a remastered high-definition digital film transfer, supervised by Weir with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Extras include an extended interview with Weir, a new featurette on the making of the film, featuring interviews from 2003 with executive producer Patricia Lovell, producers Hal McElroy and Jim McElroy and several cast members. There is also a new Introduction by film scholar David Thomson, a vintage on-set documentary that includes interviews with Weir, actress Rachel Roberts and source novel author Joan Lindsay. Additionally, the set includes Homesdale (1971), an award-winning black comedy by Weir.
Printed matter in this impressive set consists of a booklet containing essays on the film and Weir by Megan Abbott and Marek Haltof, plus a new paperback edition of Joan Lindsay’s original novel, which was previously out of print in the United States.
Restored Versions Rant
by Michael B. Druxman on 06/14/14
June 16, 2014
Start of Rant:
The other day, I read that Warner Home Video is going to release a "restored version" of one of my favorite films, Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA...and my reaction was "Why?".
The picture is already four hours long. I've seen most of the deleted scenes on YouTube, and though interesting, they really add nothing to the picture. Indeed, just because a scene is deleted does not mean that, at some point, it has to be restored. Back when the movie was being edited, those scenes were deleted for a reason; probably to pick up the pace of the picture.
Although I would love to see a "restored version: of Leone's picture that clarifies the film's somewhat ambiguous ending, but none of the deleted scenes I've seen do that. So, leave them as deleted scenes in the disc's "extras" and don't integrate them into what is already a perfect picture.
I understand the a newly released version of Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY does that same thing (i.e. adds unnecessary deleted scenes to the film, thus slowing the pace).
Another film that I enjoyed in the 3-hour version was Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900, but when it was released onto DVD in a restored 4-hour edition, I found it to be a total bore.
End of rant.
Michael
