Ready for primetime - check out Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasence in the insect horror classic, Phenomena, a.k.a. Creepers.
We pulled a few titles from the video download library as well, to make some room for new content in the pipeline. Mesmerized, Richard Diamond Private Eye, and Dr Jekyl and Mr. Hyde were removed from the library for the time being. They’ll be back soon enough. Hope everyone is having a great New Year.
Another new classic movie - the 1937 original A Star is Born, written and directed by William Wellman. This David O. Selnick production is slick, and the writers that contributed was good as gold. Robert Carson, Ben Hecht, Ring Lardner, Budd Schulberg and William Wellman.
Worth the view - the original A Star is Born.
WOW - got some new mega media coming down the content pipeline. We’ll be providing a bunch more new streams, downloads and images. Get ready for hours and hours of new fun stuff to watch.
Coming Soon to LikeTelevision (arriving in May 2005) - David O. Selznik’s Hollywood classic on Hollywood behind the scenes - A Star is Born - which was nominated for SEVEN Academy Awards in 1937. You may have seen the 1954 version with Judy Garland - which was very good, or perhaps the version with Barbara Steisand and Kris Kristofferson, which was ok…. but William Wellman’s original version in 1937 just rocks - old school. Starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March. And yes - it’s great movie, worth watching, charming, funny and entertaining.
And after that - we will be offering one of Charlie Chaplin’s best films - The Kid. The film is directed by Charlie Chaplin, who stars as the tramp character. It also features Jackie Coogan as the loveable kid. Ring a bell? It should - Jackie Coogan grew up to be Uncle Fester on the Adam’s Family Tv Show.
Another literary classic comes to digital life at LikeTelevision in May. The Scarlet Pimpernel - perhaps the best novel about the French Revolution written by Baroness Emmuska Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy. (Read the book online). So what is a pimpernel you ask - well it is a flower, so a scarlet pimpernel is a red flower, which was the calling card of the hero, Sir Percy Blakeney who is the leader of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - a group that fights against the Reign of Terror in Paris and helps save innocent people from getting killed by the brutal regime.
Yes… there will be more… but this should be enough to keep you busy. Go read the book - it will make the movie even more exciting.
Lots of work going on behind the scenes - basically what we might call digital janitor mode, where duty takes on a new meaning. But as in all things - making the site as tidy as possible is a noble enterprise and certainly helps out with the speed and quality of the experience. So - i hope you are enjoying the benefits.
Virtually all the work involved is things you as a user will never see - however, you can view the updates to the movie page, where we added a bunch more movie titles in the “slot machine” line-up. huh? you say…. well, spin the wheels by just clicking the movie channel. You can either refresh the page (Ctrl+F5) or just keep clicking the movie channel link, and you will see what we mean by the slot machine. We do our best to try and weight the selections by quality and what folks enjoy, as well as adding new titles when they become available.
yada, yada, yada - back to digital janitor mode… lots to do.
Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II. Built around March 1942 - the Sobibor camp was created to kill Jews Most were of Polish decent, though some were from the Soviet Union and others were from Western Europe. The film is not just a story of horror and evil darkness. Why? Because on October 14, 1943 - there was the largest escape in the history of the concentration camps. Over 300 condemned men, women and children escaped on that glorious day. Escape from Sobibor tells this story of tragedy and triumph - and the unbeleiveable power of the spirit that refuses to give into despair and holds onto hope in the darkest of circumstances. Here’s Frank Random’s trailer - may God have mercy on those fools choose to follow the evil tyranny that this film conveys. And may all good and loving people be blessed with the hope that carries one through such darkness.
Escape from Sobibor is a very special film. It is rare when a movie can leave you weeping at one moment, and later, hoping with all your might - that the characters in the movie will make it out of their hellish nightmare. Honestly - i could not help weeping when I watched this. Not just crying - but full blown sobbing. It hurts to view it and to immerse yourself in this heinous reality, even just vicariously watching it as a film. No - there are no gratuitous and shocking photos of ematiated men, women and children. The film hits you in the heart - because you get to know the people and you like the people. You admire their courage and respect their strength in a place that is filled with total despair.
We will have this film ready to view in few more days - till then, read a bit more about the story and the people. Just google Sobibor.
Behind the scenes… some changes in the download library. Ready for download - part one of Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy. Also new - Suspiria has just been added to the download library. Several more… we’ll report soon. Suggestions welcome.
For those who own a DVD recorder - please check out the iso files files offered in the download library. What’s an iso file you ask.. well in this instance, it is an image file of a fully authored DVD disc… ready to play in your hardware hooked to you tv. To create a DVD - go to your DVD authoring creation software - and select, burn(record) a DVD from an image file - select the iso file you just downloaded, and record. Our favorite iso is either Owl Creek Bridge, or Hoichi the Earless, or maybe One Step Beyond, vol #1. More on the way. i s out.
Seventy years ago today - on December 28, 1934 - Stalin begins his purges. Exploiting the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Stalin goes on a killing spree - leaving most of the old Bolsheviks dead. For more background - search for czar, Potemkin, Russian Revolution or Soviet, or Stalin.
Also added a very cool free preview of Throne of Blood - Akira Kurosawa’s epic Samurai movie based on William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The film is remarkable - great story, beautiful cinematography, and very well acted and executed. The special FX are so ahead of their time, especially the arrow scene - where strings were used to guide arrows to their designated targets.
Over the Christmas weekend, a Tsunami slams into Sri Lanka - killing over 22,000 people. A sad and terrible tragedy. Typhoons are brutal. Remember Nov. 13, 1970?
For the menu page, Superman, Billion Dollar Limited was added with a link to a terrific sample of the animation quality. Watch Lois Lane pack heat as she squeezes the trigger on her Thompson sub machine gun, a.k.a tommy gun. And who could forget, Billy Mumy (Will Robinson from Lost in Space) hawking a snub nosed 38 and a Tommy Burst, which of course was a machine gun.
Yojimbo - one of Kurosawa’ best films - just got a major data upgrade. For the past few weeks we’ve been working on Yojimbo - cleaning up the subtitle text, major audio improvements, and so sweet, 450kps streaming media files of the movie, plus new mpeg 1 files are ready in the download library. (~1.8 GIG). Check out this sample - free preview or this 6 sec promo, or how about this..
Coming soon - The Mind Snatchers starring Christopher Walken (his 2nd movie) and Ronnie Cox, who makes his film debut. Imagine a movie that grabs from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, throw in a dash of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and add one part Crazy Doctor, with two parts evil military experiments…. and you’ll have a good idea of what this movie is about. Check the latest Frank Random preview - who threw in a pinch of Frank Zappa’s Brain Police just to spice up the mix. This movie should be ready to rhumba sometime early next week… this trailer is offered to tease you and get your brain washed. Go on… Push That Button!
Also - we did a bit of tweaking behind the scenes and added some holiday related shorts that are randomly inserted into the Watch It play lists. Wanna see a few? ok… here’s one, and here’s another. Or how about Jed in some Capri pants… so ahead of his time, what fashion sense. Got to get back to work - we should have the four long form Chrysler commercials for The Forward Look ready for the weekend.
One final note of irony - December 2 - marks the anniversary of the first nuclear reaction - and also the release of Frances, starring Jessica Lange….so December 2 is the kind of day that marks science goes haywire and wacky doctors… Perhaps a good time to revisit the Frank Random re-mix of Duck and Cover. Now that’s insane!
