HEY!! Odin and Loki resemble that remark! (especially Odin...I think he could wake the dead with that breath!) And 'they' always say kitten breath is sweet. Well 'they' never met Odin, my 8.5 lb giant - 5 and a half month old RagaMuffin! He's gonna be a monster with the breath to match! (he's on track to be somewhere between 25-30lbs!)

Is Odin a Ragdoll, or is RagaMuffin a similar breed ? A friend of mine has a sleek black cat (Cleo) a leggy ginger and white (Baby) and a sealpoint Birman (Chen).
She used to bring Chen to the Sunday roleplaying when he was a kitten, and sometimes later. I saw him this year at her birthday party. He's not show class, and not as much like a Persian as other birman can be, thank God.
I picked him up and exclaimed "Oh, I want a Birman." He's like a cross between a cloud and a lion.

Someday...

Continuing the accounts of my shopping expeditions, visited hmv.co.uk after seeing ad in paper yesterday.
Big DVD sales on at the moment.

'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure' £8.99 (Dude !)
'Theatre of Death' £5.99 (marvelous camp Christopher Lee flick about demented actor murdering critics in style of Shakespeare deaths)
Kult Kidz All Time Favourites £4.99
Local Hero £9.99 (Oh look, Denis Lawson again)

Bill & Ted! cool...

Local Hero! also cool...

other two: probably cool!

I bought 'Sneakers' in the HMV sale. Bizarrely it was £9.99 upstairs, and £7.99 downstairs. good job I didn't buy it upstairs then.

'Sneakers', good film that. Saw it in Nottingham at 'Shots In the Dark' crime film festival. Would have been on the year I met Quentin Tarantino there.
*assumes look of studied nonchalance*

That's a lot of studying that's gone into that look.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

for a moment I thought the post said 'studded nonchalance'

I had images of a pierced skiffle. Not that I know what an unpierced skiffle looks like.

Sneakers is great. Even Robert "I'm a bit craggy" Redford is good in it. Best thing he's done since Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid.

'The Sting'. That was a good movie Redford was in. Really should watch it again sometime; keep missing it when it's on telly.

Oh, and 'The Hot Rock', also written by Willian Goldman (Butch and Sundance, Marathon Man, Princess Bride). Watched it once on telly, but ITV insist on showing movies panned and scanned, which irriates the hell out of me, so I don't watch them.

I miss it as they usually show it at 1am or something daft. DAmn good film though.

Wasn't The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake? seem to recall it from one of Jon's posts.

Panning and scanning is Bad. Very Bad. Especially now i've got a widescreen telly.

dave wrote:

> Wasn't The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake? seem to recall it from
> one of Jon's posts.

Yes - well, the book is anyway. Did you finish Bad News, btw?



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

It was "Don't Ask", and not quite. Got distracted by 'Effendi' by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.

Enjoying it so far though, v.good.

Pan and scan is the work of Satan

Or ITV.

All right, call me Mr. Fick, but what is pan and scan, exactly?



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Feature on DVD players, to fill up the screen in 4:3 format. It means it cuts off part of the picture. A spectacularly pointless feature for those who think 'I've paid for all of that cathode ray tube, and I'm going to use all of it'



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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

widescreen movies are too wide to fit on a normal (squarish) telly, so the tv companies edit them - when you've got action which happens across the full frame of the movie, they tend to start on one side and 'scan' across to the other. Most obvious when people are talking - in the true widescreen film you'd see a character on the left and the right. In P&S you'd see the person on the left talking, then the film would blur slightly as the film scans across to the right so you can see the other person.

I'd rather see it with the bars top and bottom, at least you're seeing the whole picture, albeit a bit smaller.

Ah, so. I was aware of this phenonemememon, but didn't know the official name for it. I agree. It is vile.



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Cunningly, widescreen in cinema terms, is not the same as when referring to TV, video or DVD.

Films are shot in 3 formats.

Academy (also known as Standard), is the 4:3 almost square format. Was the industry standard until the mid 50's. Fits nicely onto shape of average telly.

Widescreen. This is about twice as wide as the Academy format. When viewed on standard telly, some of the picture will be lost to either side, but not enough to make a huge difference.

Scope. Filmed with an anamorphic lens, which squeezes the image onto a frame the same size as for wide and academy. If you look at a frame of a scope film, the figures will be distorted, long and thin. Must be projected through an anamorphic lens, to make image look right.
Scope films are roughly three times as wide as high - classic letterbox shape. If you try to impose a letterbox on a square (TV), it won't fit. The left and right sides of letterbox do not coincide with square. Anything that is happening in left and right sides of letterbox will not appear on your TV screen.
solution a: pan and scan. TV editor keeps film at full height of square telly and chooses which bit of whole picture to show. Hence shots of people talking to noses appearing at edge of screen. (rest of person attached to nose is somewhere to side of your telly). Also responsible for Jackie Chan being attacked by feet and hands only; rest of stuntman's dramatic action is now taking place off-screen
solution b: To show film in 'widescreen'. Film is shown at full width and height. This means there is area of square TV screen not in use. However, you can now see everything that was actually filmed. You get *all* of the scenery/action and the film remains the way the director intended.

Watching a film like 'The Good, Bad & Ugly' in pan & scan is rather like holding a 6" frame in front of the Mona Lisa and viewing the picture through that, bit by bit.

I think I prefer Skiffle's explanation to mine. Well done that lass.

Still the work of beelzebub, no matter how you slice it.

Agreed.

My grandma has a wiode-screen telly, and is firmly in the camp of 'I paid for all of this screen - I want it filled!'

Watching football at her house is a joy as she has a widescreen TV and it morphs the action - everyone looks like Gazza and seem to be playing hands-free rugby.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.