The Ryan Cantor thing was a little thing between Jerry Chase and I and after I understood the Ryan Cantor reference, I realized that it wasn't for the reason I first thought, so I deleted it. Jerry and I sent a few email messages back and forth and we both deleted part of our posts afterwards. There's no problem. It was a rather humorous side effect of the Joe icon, the details of which don't need to be elaborated here. It was sloppy housekeeping (or should I say sitekeeping) on my part 5 years ago!

When you're a system administrator and set up a WWW/ftp server (like on March 2, 1995), and control of it gets transferred to someone else (like in January 1998), make sure everything you put on it gets cleaned up. Let's just say that Ryan Cantor was a ghost in the machine.

An exorcism has been performed and well, you know, if you photograph a ghost, you're not supposed to be able keep the photographs.

I'm glad this was discovered, because there was a directory full of jokes on our department's anonymous ftp site. I put those there in summer 1993 back before our current organization existed in its current form. Over the years, I'd throw files in there simply for convenience, and, well, they were all still there for the world to see, in a place that is now totally inappropriate since we're under stricter configuration control, under a different type of organization that evolved slowly since then. The WWW server was put in place oin march 1995 and I soon abandoned the ftp site, leaving it as it was. I'm thankful that this was discovered by Jerry. It may have saved our admins (and me) embarrassment in the future!

The [primary] purpose of the smileys is to express emotion to clarify or enhance writing so that readers will clearly understand how you feel when you're writing if words alone don't make that clear. Sometimes, the smileys are used effectively to put extra emotion or humor, where appropriate, into a post. The first icon of a person, Ian Price, struck me as odd, since I can't think of a way to use an icon of a person to put any useful emotional information into a post. I wouldn't use the icon to refer to the person since some readers would not know the person by the icon. This is the strangest developments of icons I've ever encountered on the net. Heck, I even created one myself (of Joe). I was definitely hip to it.

The icon that was recently created of me is funny, but I certainly wouldn't want it to appear in anything other than Film-Yak threads, since it is so downright freaky looking with long hair trailing from one side of a tiny head. It looks like something from a horror movie. Long hair really looks strange on a head-only picture that has no body because it's just there. An icon of a short-haired person works better since it yields a fairly elliptical figure.

I noticed a body-less sketch of Neil from "The Young Ones" and it's a face with long hair hanging down on both sides (no neck or anything). It's struck me as odd since I first saw it in 1994. My hair has been 33 inches long at certain times in the past.

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

curta s

Signed...
The speel chocker

But you probably already knew that...

 |  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged

Speaking of Regal theatres in my area and aspect ratios, can anyone from Regal give an update on whether that is getting approval to be fixed? The problem is not going to go away by itself. I need to make up some "Stop the Chop" bumper stickers. Maybe that would get some attention. Let movie lovers put them on their bumpers, and have the fine print explain what it's all about.

For now, I guess I need to work on an icon for that problem. Maybe a 2.39:1 image with two pairs of scissors on each side, cutting the picture to 1.85:1. If I make a vector-based version, it could be rasterized at different resolutions for printing on T-shirts or bumper stickers, or for WWW banners or icons.

I think many people can identify with not being able to read text sometimes on those screens, especially in movies like Dogma. Several people told me they couldn't read the opening text that appeared in that movie because the sides got chopped.

Something like "Now at Madison Square, all cinemascope films 1/3 OFF! That's right, 1/3rd less picture to distract you, all cinemascope pictures chopped off for your convenience.

or:
What do Loraina Bobbit(sp?)and Hollywood 18 have in common? Hint: Ever get the feeling your missing something? Stop the chop.

or:
The next time you pay to see a cinemascope film at Madison Square, tear off the ends of your $20 before giving it to the cashier. Chopped films deserve to be paid for with chopped money.

or:
When you pay for a pound of nuts, do you expect the store to keep 1/3 of them? Stop the nuts at Regal from cutting off 1/3 of our movies.

Since Regal does not produce the product, and a reasonable person would expect to see all of the film, there could be a legal argument that there have to be large signs at the box office and warnings declaring the entire scope film is not shown. In cases where subtitles and credits are chopped of, the claim could be made that Regal is selling an unmerchantable or defective product. Also, since credit placement is part of many actors contracts, failure to show those credits could be a technical violation of those contracts. Maybe a few letters to prominent actors could get wheels turning. It is much easier to push downhill than push uphill.

I can't say "At Madison Square, all scope films 23 percent off" because 4 of their 12 auditoriums do have adjustable masking, and the other 8 don't.

The Lorena Bobbett (sp?) thing probably is a lost reference on many people, since that was in 1993.

The trick is to find something that is totally true that is playful without having to be too wordy.

About the legal aspects of what these Regal theatres are doing: I consider "scope at 1.85:1" presentations to be defective. It would be interesting to know what the studios and actors think of such presentations. It would be neat if studios would stop letting those theatres show scope movies in their small auditoriums until the problems are corrected.

Maybe when I visit these theatres, as I walk to the auditorium my show is in, I should notice which movies are playing in the small auditoriums and note any scope movies and start writing the studios that produce them when I have a substantial list. It would be neat to find some scenes where an actor's only appearance in a movie is in the chopped area and see how the actor feels about it.

Now I'll try to make an icon that is as small as possible that conveys a message about "scope a 1.85:1", which may be a challenge. Ah, a dollar bill is almost exactly the size of a scope image. The idea of chopped money may come in handy.

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site