Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: It's time for me to take a holiday (or two).

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 04-30-2008, 02:25 PM:

Tomorrow, Thursday is my last day at work; on Friday morning I'm heading North by coach to Yorkshire. I'll be staying four nights at the same hotel in Bradford where I was last month for the Widescreen Weekend, and making various day trips further North; I haven't decided exactly where to yet, possibly as far as Carlisle, or even Glasgow, one day. Bradford is roughly half way between London and Glasgow, so places which are too far from London to do as a day trip can be done from Bradford.

On Tuesday morning I head back to London, arriving home mid afternoon. On Wednesday I will be back at work for just one day, before departing Westwards on Thursday morning to new Jersey. I'll be there for six nights, departing on Wednesday evening and arriving home on thursday morning. I've the got the rest of Thursday to recover from the flight before returning to work on Friday the 16th.

Hopefully I will have Internet access in both places.

It's costing a lot of money, but I really need a break; it will be going on the credit card for a few months!

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-30-2008, 06:35 PM:

hope you get a good break
holiday what is that [Smile]

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 05-01-2008, 12:03 AM:

How can it cost a lot of money the way the Pound is killing the dollar? Lol

Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 05-01-2008, 05:17 AM:

Expensive is one of the few words that translates to and from any language (and currency) with ease!

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-01-2008, 12:36 PM:

What a bugger! I'm in London staying with the rellies this weekend - if I'd been in York, I'd have happily taken you on a Yorkshire sightseeing tour (there are some beautiful places round here, e.g. the North York Moors or the Scarborough-Whitby coastline which range from difficult to impossible to see by public transport).

Ironically, I'm going to be only about 10 miles from your usual stomping ground (Wimbledon), while you're going to be right next to mine.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-01-2008, 03:56 PM:

I haven't decided what I'll be doing yet; one advantage of Bradford as a base is that it's only a short journey from many places worth visiting, but it's cheaper than staying somewhere like York. I'll basically be heading Northwards, into the Aire Valley, depending on the weather I might take a boat trip on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, or maybe a train ride on the Settle and Carlisle, I might even get as far as Glasgow one day; we'll just have to see, I don't have to make up my mind in advance.

Posted by Tim Rectanus (Member # 3282) on 05-01-2008, 06:11 PM:

Ok, I will bite!
Why New Jersey? Same kind of reason as staying in Bradford, to use as a base and venture out from there?

And for money, sometimes I tend to spend more when everything is on sale, as it will seem coming from the UK and that strong Pound.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-02-2008, 10:55 AM:

I should have been in Bradford almost an hour and a half ago, but only just leaving Leeds, probably getting on for half an hour still to go. Traffic has been terrible (it's a bank holiday weekend here).

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-02-2008, 11:56 AM:

Why New Jersey?

Everyone knows that New Jersey is the place to be! From it's exciting urban night life to the rolling hills and farms and small towns, and of course the ocean resorts, why would anyone want to go anywhere else.

Of course, Stephen is a regular at our screenings at The Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre, a 1929 movie palace that is being operated and restored by the non profit Friends Of The Loews.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-03-2008, 06:36 AM:

I haven't been there for quite some time now Mitchell; it's two years since my last visit.

I finally got to Bradford, about two hours late. Took a trip to Saltaire and Bingley yesterday evening. At the moment I'm sitting in Starbucks near the City Hall, close to the former Odeon cinema, now in a very sorry state, the Alhambra Theatre, which looks very nice, and what used to be the National Museun of Photography Film and Television, and is now the National Media Museum, but you'd never know it because it seems to have no signs since the old ones were removed. Dick, if you're reading this, can't you get some new signs on the building?

A few weeks ago I as given a box of parts which used to be a MPP Mk.8 Micro Technical Camera, 1963-1988, I think this was a fairly early one. I've put it back together and repaired a few things; there are still a few minor parts which are broken or missing, but nothing important, it's usable. Since it folds up spall, and is fairly light, I decided to bring it with me, but I forgot the cable release. I went to Jessops, which seems to be becoming the only camera store in the UK, and asked for one. The young man behind the counter looked puzzled, a slightly older man had heard of them, and thought they might have one; he found one in a clearance bin for £9.99. No film cameras except for a few disposable ones. Plenty of film, in various types, colour negative and slide, and black and white, in 35mm and 120 roll, but no 5x4 sheet; it's a good job I brought some with me. Hotel bathroom makes a very good darkroom for loading holders. I haven't done any photography for ages, I just haven't had the time.

I've decided I will go to see 'This is Cinerama' after all, not sure where I am going later.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-03-2008, 11:13 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Everyone knows that New Jersey is the place to be!

I'll second that. I love New Jersey. Just like Mitchell says, it runs the gamut from sprawling urban to small town homebody flavor. I'm in New Jersey almost daily (and live just 10 minutes from the state line)... I could live the rest of my life there and be happy as a clam.

And probably most of all, ever since I drove a truck I've known that there are some very beautiful women in Jersey. [Wink]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-03-2008, 11:26 PM:

How come Jersey always gets dumped on by comedians? George Carlin even has an album called, "What Am I Doing In New Jersey?"

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-04-2008, 03:14 AM:

Well, it's one of the closest parts of the US to Europe, therefore flight time is short enough to be just about bearable, it has an airport which is considerably less bad than JFK, it used to be cheap to stay there, but prices have shot up in the last few years, it has very good transport connections, seems like quite a nice place, but I haven't seen that much of it mainly on a line from Mahwah (I think that's how you spell it) in the North to Camden in the South.

I was warned about Camden, people said it as a terrible place, there was something in the newspaper about it being the fifth (I think) best place in the US to get murdered, but it doesn't seem bad, not the best place that I've ever been, but a long way from being the worst.

As Mitchel said, the Loew's Jersey is there, and there's also the Union County Arts Centre in Rahway, and while not in New Jersey the Lafayette sin Suffern NY is only a few hundred metres over the border. There's also that Omnimax at Liberty State Park, but I've never been there.

The re-developed area around Newport, Exchange Place and Harborside is rather like the London Docklands.

I'm off to Keighley this morning, for a trip on the Worth Valley Railway, where 'The Railway Children' was filmed, amongst other things.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-04-2008, 08:07 AM:

Stephen,
Be sure to spend a weekend in Titfield [Smile]

.

Mark

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-04-2008, 02:18 PM:

That was a long way from here Mark, the other end of the Country. Plenty of cinemas around here though, pity we can't arrange a screening.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-05-2008, 12:03 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
How come Jersey always gets dumped on by comedians?

We pay them to dump on us so that people will not move here and clutter up the state. Same reason we built all those oil refineries and chemical plans next to the New Jersey Turnpike, so that those tourists just keep driving to somewhere else... [Cool]

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-05-2008, 12:28 PM:

ROFL!!! HAAhahahaa! That's hilarious, Mitchell! [Big Grin]

It's just like anywhere else, Mike. There are areas you probably don't want to go to (Elizabeth and Camden come to mind), and there are the garden spots (pun intended). Near me, Washington and Hackettstown are about my speed. [thumbsup]

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-05-2008, 01:23 PM:

Well, that's holiday No. 1 over, I'm on my way back to London tomorrow morning, arrive mid afternoon, and then I've got to work 12.5 hours, 08:00-20:30, on Wednesday. I passed through another film location today. There are certain films which you are just 'supposed' to like; it's just not the done thing to say that you don't. I like many of David Lean's films, 'Lawrence of Arabia', 'Dr. Zhivago', and going back to the older black and white ones, 'Oliver Twist' and 'Great expectations'. However, there's one which I simply cannot stand, Brief Encounter. I haven't seen it for many years, but my memory of is of a boring film about a boring woman who keeps running up the ramp to a boring railway station to meet a boring man and hold boring conversations with him in the boring station buffet on the platform.

The location was Carnforth, in Lancashire, which is famous for just about nothing else. A pleasant ride out to Morcambe, but any mention of that place makes me think of another film, and the awful women who ran the 'Society for the Bereaved' there in the BBC's brilliant production of Jeanette Winterson's 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' It was made for television, and has only had a handful of cinema screenings, a couple at the National Film Theatre and one at a Cinema in North London, as a tribute to Charlotte Coleman who played the adult Jess, and who sadly died a few years ago. She was also in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' and, in her younger days, various children's television programmes. A sad loss at a very early age.

Anyway, holiday over, suitcase to be packed, and then a long journey home. There are a lot of other places that I would liked to have visited while I was here, but no time. Maybe another trip later on.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-05-2008, 10:35 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
North York Moors

Stay off the moors! [Wink]

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-06-2008, 01:19 AM:

quote: Tim Reed
It's just like anywhere else, Mike. There are areas you probably don't want to go to (Elizabeth and Camden come to mind)

What's wrong with Camden Tim? Everybody seems to say that it's a bad place, but it seems ok to me the couple of times that I've been there.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-06-2008, 01:47 AM:

I haven't been through Camden since the bicentennial, but my impression of it at that time was that it looked like it had been carpet bombed. All burned out and abandoned buildings, it looked depressing and dreary. Does it look better these days?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-08-2008, 07:23 PM:

Camden didn't seem too bad the last time I saw it.

I'm now on holiday No. 2; my body clock is telling me it's 1 am at the moment, so I'm half asleep. We were a bit late into Newark, the plane was held over Albany for quite a while waiting for a slot into EWR.

I'm going to get some sleep now, then a ride out to Poughkeepsie on the Metro-North Hudson Line tomorrow morning, then 'A Clockwork Orange' at the Loew's Jersey in the evening.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-08-2008, 11:26 PM:

Well, maybe it HAS changed. It's been 27 years since I've been around there for any length of time... but I was in an industrial area there just 2 or 3 years ago, when I drove a truck, and it looked like it hadn't changed much.

Who knows, maybe I'll get a wild hair and venture over one day to scope it out...

Btw, WELCOME BACK to the states! I certainly would like to meet with you sometime while you're here, Stephen, but I'm off on holiday myself starting tomorrow night. I'm leaving for Kentucky and Ohio. Didn't you visit here about this same time last year? Seems like I remember missing you the last time, too.

Have fun in Poughkeepsie (birthplace of Ed Wood)! I service the South Hills Mall theatre there, and always enjoy the trip up. The managers are very nice to work with, too.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-09-2008, 04:21 AM:

Two years ago Tim, arrived on the 15th of May; saw the date in the passport yesterday.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-09-2008, 06:42 AM:

quote: Stephen Furley
...then 'A Clockwork Orange' at the Loew's Jersey in the evening.

He goes all the way from South London to New Jersey, only to see a film shot in South London!

A few years ago I went to a conference in Minneapolis. Almost as soon as I arrived I met a friend in the hotel lobby, who suggested we have a drink (even though I'd been awake for 20 hours or so, it was just too early to sensibly think about going to bed). Thinking that it would be nice to find a bar with a bit of local colour, we headed out of the door, and the first place we came to was the 'Brits' Pub', with a huge Union Jack in the window! Furthermore, their main promotion was for Newcastle Brown Ale: about 20 hours earlier, I'd driven right past the place where they brew the stuff on the way to the airport.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-09-2008, 07:13 AM:

I'll be projecting Clockwork Orange tonight...

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-09-2008, 07:37 AM:

When I land at Newark one of the first things I see is the Budweiser brewery; reminds me of the foul-tasting stuff they brew at Mortlake. I did wonder if it was just the British-brewed stuff which was terrible, but I'm told that the stuff they brew here, at Newark, or their main brewery in St. Louis MO, or several other sites, is just as bad.

It's a bit odd, because Anheuser-Busch is a long-established brewer. It's a bit like The Sun (newspaper), everybody says how terrible it is, yet vast numbers of people seem to buy it. Maybe tastes are improving however, a couple of years ago huge amounts of shelf space in the local Tesco were given over to the stuff, but more recently it's shrunk to maybe a third of the size, and I've noticed the same thing in other shops, with many more vastly better beers, ciders and even perry from smaller producers.

I think the last film I saw here was 'Brazil', and that has some scenes filmed at the old Croydon 'B' power station, now the site of Ikea. I don't think the still-existing chimneys were seen, but the very distinctive brickwork of the main building was.

The rather grim row of blocks of flats seen in 'A Clockwork Orange' is at Thamesmead North, I've passed quite close by when visiting the old Crossness pumping station and engines. This reminds me of a story in a local paper some years ago, before the preservationists took over the place and restored one of the engines to working order, with regular open days. In those days the engines and building were largely derelict, and there was no public access, but a private visit had been arranged by a group of industrial archeologists. This as reported in he local paper, but they had mis-understood the purpose of the visit, and they described it as a visit by a group of 'Sewage enthusiasts'! I somehow doubt there are such things, but I can just imagine it; they would travel all over the World, visiting sewage works, collecting samples in glass jars that they would display on shelves. ..."And this is a particularly fine specimen of Beckton 1992; you will observe the scum floating on it"

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-09-2008, 06:58 PM:

LOL, Leo! [rofl]

Have fun, guys! Be safe.

See yous later... (in a week or so).

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-09-2008, 11:01 PM:

quote:
He goes all the way from South London to New Jersey, only to see a film shot in South London!

I've just come out from the Loew's Jersey, and I'm glad I did go to see it. The film was significantly different to the only version which I've previously seen.

For anybody who doesn't know, the film was officially unavailable in any form in the UK for many years. It is sometimes said that it was banned, which it was not. It was passed by the British Board of Film Censors (as it then was) with an 'X' certificate, which I think at that time was still age 16 and over. I don't know if any cuts were requested at this time. The film was released, but soon afterwards Kubrik had it withdrawn from distribution. There are several stories about why and how he did this, but the result was that the film was not available in the UK. It was still available in France, and was screened there for many years.

I would have been 14 when the film was released, so I didn't get to see it; whether I would have been interested enough to have gone to see it at that age, I don't know, probably not. There were attempts to get the film re-released, but these were not successful. Not long before Kubrik died a television company wanted to iclude a few brief clips in a programme; the matter went to court, and they were eventually allowed to do so. I saw this programme, the first time I had seen any of the film. The film was also screened as part of a Kubrik season at the NFT, I cannot remember if this was before or after his death; it was around the same time. I did not see this screening. Not long afterwards the film was released on DVD for the first time, and I bought a copy. This is the only version of the film which I had seen, until this evening. The version shown at the Loew's contained significant extra material. It's about three years since I last saw the DVD, but the sequence with the lodger was longer, as was the encounter with the two ex-droogs who had become police officers, and the visit by the government minister at the end of the film. The shot of Alex with the young woman at the very end of the film was completely missing from the DVD; in that version the large loudspeakers were wheeled into the room, and Alex, as narrator, says 'I was cured alright', which always seemed odd to me. The missing shot, although it's only a second or two, explains this strange ending.

I don't know if this extra material was included in the film as it was originally screened in the UK, but I find it somewhat strange that it wasn't restored to the DVD. I suppose I can sort of see why the 'police' and 'minister' scenes might have had cuts made in them, but not the lodger one. As for the final scene with the young woman, removing it means that Alex's final comment makes no sense, and the film contains other scenes of sex and nudity, so I can't really see why this one should have been removed.

Did anybody notice the continuity error in the scene where Billy Boy and his droogs attack the 'Weepy young devotchka' in the derelict casino?

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
I'll be projecting Clockwork Orange tonight...

I didn't see you Mitchell; did you not come down from the box after the show.

Sorry to hear about the passing of Bob Eberenz (is that the correct spelling?) I met him just once, Bob Furmanek introduced him to me when I first came over, in 2002.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-10-2008, 05:16 AM:

Kubrick's self-imposed ban actually caused the closure of the Scala Cinema, in Pentonville Road, London. In September 1992 they screened a print from a private collection. Kubrick found out about it and sued for breach of copyright, and the resulting legal bill (I think it was more the lawyers' fees than the actual damages awarded) was enough to make the place go bust.

I've only heard one account as to why Kubrick withdrew it: that he wanted the film to serve as a warning against gratuitous violence, but that after a murder took place which was allegedly inspired by the film a few months after it came out, he thought that his message wasn't being heard and therefore withdrew the film.

He shot himself in the foot by doing so, IMHO. When I was a teenager and first starting to take a serious interest in cinema, there were two things which gained you instant respect among like-minded friends: owning a pirate VHS of Reservoir Dogs (which the BBFC passed for cinema release but not for home video until around 4-5 years later), and having seen A Clockwork Orange. In around 1995 or '96 I visited Paris and was looking round the Fnac video store just opposite Montparnasse station. When I asked the assistant, in halting French, if they had a copy of The Wages of Fear, she replied (in perfect English) that they didn't, but would I like A Clockwork Orange? All the English tourists seemed to want to buy it, she said, and they had it both on VHS and Laserdisc. To boost my street cred in the NFT bar I duly bought one, and two hours in front of the goggle box later was scratching my head, wondering what all the fuss was about.

So because Kubrick personally only owned the UK rights (and therefore couldn't embargo the film anywhere else), the ban didn't work: anybody who really wanted to see it only had to hop across the Channel. But because he did it, a film which otherwise would have disappeared without trace (and IMHO is one of his weakest films, if not the weakest) built up precisely the cult following he was trying to avoid. When the theatrical rerelease happened shortly after his death I was working at City Screen York - audiences were virtually non-existent. It was getting 20 punters at most on the Friday and Saturday evening shows.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-11-2008, 04:56 PM:

quote: Stephen Furley
Anyway, holiday over, suitcase to be packed, and then a long journey home.

That line kinda struck me funny... Is any place in Britan to any other place in Britan actually a long journey? Isn't it smaller than the state of California which one can easily drive the length of in about 8 hours.....

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-11-2008, 09:33 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
That line kinda struck me funny... Is any place in Britan to any other place in Britan actually a long journey? Isn't it smaller than the state of California which one can easily drive the length of in about 8 hours.....

Well, all things are relative. It's about five hours on the coach from London to Bradford, at least it's supposed to be, the journey up there took almost six and a half, and they don't stop for breaks these days, so it feels quite long enough. Coming bach was better, about five hours 20 minutes, but then I had to get home from the coach station, almost another hour.

The flight out here wasn't too good either, we were kept over Albany for ages, waiting for a slot into Newark. At least the hotels in both places are very close to the stations; just a couple of minutes walk in each case. I've got two more days left before I return home.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-12-2008, 08:34 AM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Is any place in Britan to any other place in Britan actually a long journey?

On most long-distance car trips, I think you can factor in an average speed of 40-50mph once everything is taken into consideration. The one I make most frequently, from my home in York to my parents in Wimbledon, South London, is normally around five hours door to door for the 231 miles. My satnav usually logs the average speed across the whole journey as between 40 and 50.

However, the road and rail infrastructure is a lot better in the populated middle bit of the country than the less populated periphery. Roughly speaking, east of Bristol and south of Newcastle, the transport infrastructure is reasonable. But in the south-west of England, most of Wales (apart from the south) and most of Scotland (apart from the main roads linking the border with Glasgow and Edinburgh), I still find it shocking at how bad the transport is. Example: the week after next I'm going to a meeting in Aberystwyth, on the coast of mid-Wales. It's 189 miles from home. There are no trains which would get me there and back in a single day, and the quickest journey time available is almost six hours. Multimap reckons that I should be able to drive it in three and a half, which is what I'm going to do; but once you get west of the Liverpool/Manchester conurbation, it's single carriageway roads the rest of the way.

I'm sure it would be completely impossible to do Land's End to John O'Groats (south-western to north-eastern tip of Great Britain) in eight hours. It would take you three just to get out of the Devon and Cornwall peninsula! At a rough guess I think it would take at least 15, and even that's assuming clear traffic all the way.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-12-2008, 08:48 AM:

Leo... I guess what you're saying is that all this keeps Britan a bit more on the quaint side of things. Perhaps thats how the general populous wants to keep things. 6 lane super highways would sure ruin the countryside in a flash!

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-14-2008, 07:14 AM:

Well, that's it. Holiday over for another year. Bag packed, and I leave the hotel in just under an hour. Flight is at 18:30 this evening and I should arrive home Thursday morning, London time. I've got Thursday off work to recover from the flight. Back to work on Friday.

The next few months at work look like being a difficult time, as the re-building starts, my department will be moving to a much smaller temporary area for about two years; I will have retired before the work finishes. Everything except the outside walls will be demolished and completely re-built; I'm not looking forward to the noise and dust.

Today is also my birthday; not a happy time.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 05-14-2008, 08:01 AM:

Stephen,

Happy Birthday!

Hope your trip is a pleasant one.

KEN [beer]

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-10-2008, 04:19 PM:

I shouldn't do, and I can't really afford it, but I'm going away again. I didn't have time to visit all the places I wanted to, so I'm going back to Yorkshire on Friday, and returning home on Tuesday. I also bought something on Ebay last week which would be difficult to send by post, so I'm going to collect it from Leeds while I'm up there. I'll be staying at the same hotel in Bradford.

This year I get an incredible 37 days leave from work, plus Bank Holidays. I cannot possibly take all of it, after this I still have 16 days left, and I probably won't the able to take any more before the year ends, in August. In theory I can carry five days forward to next year, but then I'd have even more next year which I wouldn't be able to take. If I stay there for two more years then I get an extra day long service leave.