"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

It's not.

I see you got your teeth whitened today.
Is that supposed to be payback for all the cryptic hints I’ve provided over the past years?

At first thought, the BIG thing this month that would bring sunshine to my house is if District 9 starting picking up some Guild or Society nominations prior to the Academy noms…………………..
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ng#post2386710

I know that it is too early for the 2010 CAS nominations to be announced so, I checked on the ACE nominations and viola, as the local press recently reported –
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...0,660010.story

But the rest of your riddle made no sense, so I checked the Arsenal news and found this….http://www.arsenal.com/home

Sol = Sun, and he is getting long in the tooth for a Premier league footballer.
Is that it?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Dennis M

Thanks Penton,
I'm figuring it's some type of snafu.

No word yet, as the mod who has knowledge of the situation is currently on the road.....everything in life is compartmentalized these days.

Meanwhile, tell him that he has good taste in cinematography, as The White Ribbon (shot on color stock but finished in B&W) picked up an ASC nomination on Monday.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Is that it?

Brilliant deduction, Mr. Holmes. Now mind that enormous over-cranked explosion behind you!

He's on the back of one of my old home shirts ('95, I think) and I'll be wearing that one on Sunday.

... but to the purpose of my game... what do you think?

[Jeff Kleist]

I see you got your teeth whitened today.
Is that supposed to be payback for all the cryptic hints I’ve provided over the past years?

How long did I keep you flummoxed for Penton? We didn't tell you the solution for like 2 months I think

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

...
Is that supposed to be payback for all the cryptic hints I’ve provided over the past years? ...

Oh, heck, even I can play this game.

Penton, concerning the sequel to the four letter franchise, will you be using the artist that performed one of the first classical recordings to go gold for the soundtrack? If not, why not? (assuming you can answer)

[Penton-Man]

^
Oh Lord, here we go.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Brilliant deduction, Mr. Holmes. Now mind that enormous over-cranked explosion behind you!
He's on the back of one of my old home shirts ('95, I think) and I'll be wearing that one on Sunday.
... but to the purpose of my game... what do you think?

Hey, like Brett Favre with the Vikings, if there's a spot in that position open on Arsenal for Sol......and he can still play, age aint a factor.

[Doctorossi]

But how do you feel?

[Penton-Man]

I feel like this is the time to post a 911 –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiNRIR8tjFc
(I’ll tell you who the D.P. is that shot the video and what other past as well as upcoming feature film work he has done later on, when it’s more appropriate).

Meanwhile, you can donate $10 to Haiti relief by texting “Haiti” to 90999.http://redcrosschat.org/2010/01/14/y...+Cross+Chat%29

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I feel like this is the time to post a 911 –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiNRIR8tjFc
(I’ll tell you who the D.P. is that shot the video and what other past as well as upcoming feature film work he has done later on, when it’s more appropriate).

Hmm... not bad, but on the overlit side for my taste.

[Bullseye]

Penton not sure if you have already discussed the Spider-man 4 film getting pushed back until 2012 with new cast and director. Can you confirm if this is going to be a retelling of the origin? A retelling of the origin would be a waste.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Hmm... not bad, but on the overlit side for my taste.

Really? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
Oh well, then I think I can remedy that for you……………..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ucz_pm3LX8

Or, if you don’t have a taste for Beyonce, they try alpine/mute (The Brothers Strause), middle right on the page
http://www.claudiomiranda.com/longform.html

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Penton not sure if you have already discussed the Spider-man 4 film getting pushed back until 2012 with new cast and director. Can you confirm if this is going to be a retelling of the origin?

Sorry, I am not at liberty to say anything about that.
Although, I can confirm that Sony is donating at least $250,000 to relief efforts in Haiti and Disney has donated $100k.

[Doctorossi]

I don't know, man... I guess it wouldn't be rude to say that something "looks like a music video" if that something is a music video, right?

It's an interesting 'hard-bounce' (if you will) look and I'm trying to figure out his technique. I'm guessing he's hitting the diffusion pretty hard and has lots of little eyelights everywhere. It just feels too manufactured/contrived for me. I tend to like a manufactured/contrived look that feels (to my own internal definition) like maybe two bumps above "natural", where this is maybe five...?

A lot of people probably wouldn't draw a distinction because it's all hyper-real, but to me, this is a different effect from the hyper-real guys I like, such as Tonino Delli Colli, Bob Burks, Chris Doyle and my personal king, Jordan Cronenweth.

[Oliver K]

Hi Penton-Man,

long time no post but I would like to add to what has been said before on the topic of classic titles on Blu-Ray and say that I prefer quality to quantity so I appreciate it that Sony gets all their older stuff right and does not sacrifice quality for quantity.

That being said we are well into the 4th year of the Blu-Ray format and 7 pre-1970 titles with 4 of them in the Harryhausen set make for slim pickings from Sony. So here's hoping that we will see a bit more than 2 titles per year in the near future

And reading your new signature made me look around a bit and it seems that for people from outside of the US it is easily possible to help via the red cross or UNICEF. It seems that both accept online donations at least in Germany.

[mark antony]

Penton, as this isn't the first time someone's mentioned the lack of classic titles on BD, might a poll be in order?

If we each listed our top 3 most wanted titles, the list could be compiled and voted for, whichever titles get the top 3 places you could go back to Sony and say there is demand amongst x no. of people for these titles.

A good idea?

For me, as I know Lawrence, G of Navarone & Bridge on the...are definately coming sooner or later i'd vote for Jason & Argonauts, Man for All Seasons & Monty Python & Holy Grail.

M

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by mark antony

Penton, as this isn't the first time someone's mentioned the lack of classic titles on BD, might a poll be in order?

If we each listed our top 3 most wanted titles, the list could be compiled and voted for, whichever titles get the top 3 places you could go back to Sony and say there is demand amongst x no. of people for these titles.

A good idea?

For me, as I know Lawrence, G of Navarone & Bridge on the...are definately coming sooner or later i'd vote for Jason & Argonauts, Man for All Seasons & Monty Python & Holy Grail.

M

That would be nice although I would prefer for a poll that includes a list of ten or maybe twenty titles from which a certain number that does the best in the poll can be released in 2011.

I mean I could just ask for Lord Jim and The Long Ships because I would like to see them on Blu-Ray but I am pretty sure that they would take some time and effort to prepare that makes a 2011 release date rather improbable.
So imo it is better to have a list of titles to choose from that Sony actually could release without years of preparation.

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

That would be nice although I would prefer for a poll that includes a list of ten or maybe twenty titles from which a certain number that does the best in the poll can be released in 2011...

There are so many choices, I would do it by decade. That is, best pick from the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s.

As a cross-check, I would also do it by category: thrillers, westerns, war, drama, comedy, etc.

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by cjamescook

There are so many choices, I would do it by decade. That is, best pick from the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s.

As a cross-check, I would also do it by category: thrillers, westerns, war, drama, comedy, etc.

I think we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit.

We definitely have to also look at this from a studio perspective and if they would even consider it I'd expect that they would avoid movies that are extremely expensive to prepare and this would narrow down the choices somewhat. Also the pre 1970s movies are vastly underrepresented so I would like to see the emphasis there, especially 80s and 90s do fine as it is. I would like to exclude titles like Bridge on River Kwai and Lawrence as they have been slated to be released for a long time already - they should be a given. Also too many categories would make this impractical imo as in the best scenario I would not expect more than a handful of titles to be released due to such a poll.

But let's see what Penton says, I like the basic idea a lot and the more titles we get with the usual Sony quality the better, so if we get lots of categories and every winner gets released I will be even happier

[micks_address]

Guys sorry to drag this up as I obviously missed the boat on this conversation but I popped on Ghostbusters for the first time last night after it sitting on the shelf for a couple of months.. first thing that worried me was when my 7 year old son says 'oh this is bad quality why dont we watch a blu-ray?'.... i laughed at it him and told him to give it a chance.. the audio and colours etc were grand but there is so much grain/noise in the film in the indoor scenes that sometimes it looked like watching a vhs copy of the film.. how come its so bad? is it down to film stock choice? lighting? cameras? or a poor remaster job? again please feel free to ingore as i know this boat probably sailed a few months ago but after watching the first 25 mins of the film last night i felt strongly enough about it to post here.. with the 3rd film in the works is there likely to be a remaster of the 1st film again down the line or are we seeing the best it can be at the moment?

Cheers,
Mick

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

^
The above screenshots were posted on another screenshot site (other than the Beaver) with the caption…..

”The 2005 DVD shows more overexposed white blob garbage. How the hell does a hack "remastering" job like this pass quality control? The 2009 Blu-Ray isn't much better, and the dogs have turned blue! This shot does show how the 1999 DVD isn't perfect either, as it's way too dark - though it does show the most detail in the bottom portion of the frame.”

I realize that the above *screenshot scientist* loves to see as many steps as he can in the bottom portion of the frame (as shown in the ’99 DVD) and I also appreciate the fact that he did not have the opportunity to sit with Lazlo Kovacs, ASC during the remastering session to listen to the direction of this great cinematographer and anything I say would be dubiously accepted since Lazlo has since passed away but –

Perhaps this screenshot scientists should read Lazlo’s book entitled “New Wave King: The Cinematography of Lazlo Kovacs” and pay particular attention to the chapter on Ghostbusters which is based upon an interview from 1984 where he says ….”when the ghost appears we wanted to create this overexposed effect with everything bathed in light”.

Lazlo didn’t give a hoot as to how many stair-steps audiences could visualize in the bottom portion of the frame.
And as for “the dogs turning blue”, obviously when you alter the white balance, the mid-tones are going to change too.