:: Sunday, March 16, 2003 ::

I can't believe that it's after 3:30 AM in the morning (if that isn't redundant enough, and I just finished posting the first group of images, from "The Court Jester.". All images began as "stills" photographed with the digital video camera off the television screen. Then they are "tweaked" as best I can do in Micrografx Picture Publisher. The "photo album" is a Dreamweaver application. One of the reasons I maintain this website is my abounding joy at the wonders available only in my imagination as I put all these programs to work to "create art". My inspiration for creating movie images pages Is Forrest J. Ackerman, the founder of the infamous "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, whose "filmbooks", plot synopses for text, and an abundance of images from the film, introduced me (and a lot of adult males my age) to a great many of the great science fiction and horror films.
The ability to post to the blog program is almost instantaneous. I tried to get on about an hour ago, but couldn't access the program (and started contemplating just buying the professional blogger software.) The dream from the start, for me, in composing computer composites, is to realize anything I imagine, and as I get these wonderful epiphanies by watching movies, and especially now that digital display monitors make it possible for me to experience the films in an almost dreamlike manner unmatched sometimes even by the actual movie theater experience, I want to transpose the feelings and inspiration I get, and hopefully instill in others a likeminded respect for the film medium at it's best. "The Court Jester" certainly qualifies, and I've taken the time to give it "The Image Gallery Treatment."
:: Michael Nyiri 3:43 AM Leave a Comment on this Post ::
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I recently viewed "The Court Jester" in my "media room" on the widescreen television. The DVD master was stupendous, and I was struck, again, as I am so often while seeing movies on the HDTV, that I can only now, after almost reaching fifty, experience to a degree what I have always been told was going to be called "movies on demand". And the movies, like "Jester", which is a wonderful musical comedy film from 1956, starring the genius of Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, the young and beautiful Angela Lansbury, above, and solid character supporting actors like Mildred Natwick, also above, as Griselda, and Basil Rathbone, riffing on his own role in the 1938 "Robin Hood". Alhtough "Jester" is from 1956, the master (in VistaVison widescreen) is so good that it looks like it was made yesterday. The experience thrilled and delighted me. I rented the movie from Netflix, and I "captured" some images, like the one above, by merely aiming the videocamera at the tv screen. I watch in total darkness, and the only light is from the image on the screen. Some came out rather well, and I will be experimenting with these movie images to hopefully make some points about my love affair with the flickers, now that my blog is up again. This is my "getting back acquainted" post to the blog program. "The Court Jester" is the "Airplane" of it's day. It was probably the first immensly popular satire of the movies themselves, and in some instances it surpasses many of the swashbucklers it parodies.

:: Michael Nyiri 10:01 PM Leave a Comment on this Post ::
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By the way, Christopher Walken deserves Best Supporting Actor for "Catch Me If You Can", the best movie directed by Stephen Spielberg this year. Jack for Actor. Dear Ndugu, I think everyone cast their votes for the rebel who became one of the last of "old Hollywood" of the seventies. Gosh, thirty years have passed too quickly to comprehend. And I've got to see if this page posts.
:: Michael Nyiri 10:50 PM Leave a Comment on this Post ::
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Oscars. "Gangs Of New York" deserves Best Picture.

For no other reason than this is the slice of life we, as Americans, need to see and understand so that we can understand the world we come from, and the world we live in. But we won't understand, and we won't see "Gangs" as Best Picture, either. That, I'm afraid, is going to be "Chicago", which is steamrolling itself (over 100 million in BO receipts passed) into the movie I wished "Moulin Rouge" had been. Well, popularitywise, at least.
"Chicago" warrants it's own Oscar ramblings and an image I'm rather proud of. When your mouse passes over Catherine Zeta-Jones, she wiggles.

:: Michael Nyiri 9:54 PM Leave a Comment on this Post ::
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