Cinema Cycle - Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines.

CINEMA CYCLE

(Cardio Workout And Reviewing Movies At The Same Time)

DATE REVIEWED: 02/29/2016

TITLE: Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, (or How I Flew From London to Paris in 25 hours and 11 minutes)

FORMAT: Laserdisc

TIME RIDDEN / FILM LENGTH: 2 hours 20 minutes

DISTANCE RIDDEN WHILE VIEWING: 32.6 miles

TOTAL CINEMA MILES LOGGED: 4274.7 miles

SYNOPSIS: Early aviation pioneers gather in England for an air race from London to Paris.

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER:   Slapstick and farce on a grand scale with over the top stunts and production value

PROS AND CONS:  This project has given me some interesting perspectives on films that I have seen long ago.  This is one of them.  As a small child this type of over the top comedy / adventure film thrilled me in a ‘Saturday Cartoon’ sort of way.

When I watched it here 30 years later, the slapstick is a bit dated and long-winded.  However, the cinematography and soundtrack were much better than I recall, especially with the upgraded sound system I have.  

This is one of the blockbuster roadshow films that Hollywood churned out in the early 1960s to compete with the spread of television.  Other films such as “The Great Race”, “Around The World in 80 Days” and “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” also fall into this category.  A category where large film studios churned out large films, with large casts and huge budgets.  Those must have been heady times.

To read an overview of this project, check out this status posting.  

This film is a part of my LaserDisc Collection.

Clicking on the title will take you to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry for this film. 

This film was viewed while exercising on my recumbent cycle.  A summary of my time spent working out on my journey through movie-land can be found on Strava.com.

Shutter Saturday - 02/27/2016

SHUTTER SATURDAY

Images taken with film cameras. All of these images were shot by me using one of several cameras that I own. The film is developed by myself (unless otherwise noted) and the negatives scanned into a computer. Many of the images or updated / reprocessed in Photoshop. The complete gallery of all my public images is view-able on my Flickr Account. Read the picture details / comments on Flickr to learn more about the particular image.

Five Frames - 02/26/2016

Five Frames

Images Taken With A Lytro Illum Light Field Camera on 02/26/2016.

These images and many many more can be found on my Flickr account.

Cinema Cycle - Salt

CINEMA CYCLE

(Cardio Workout And Reviewing Movies At The Same Time)

DATE REVIEWED:

TITLE: Salt

FORMAT: BluRay

TIME RIDDEN / FILM LENGTH: 1 hour 47 minutes

DISTANCE RIDDEN WHILE VIEWING: 24 miles

TOTAL CINEMA MILES LOGGED: 4242.1 miles

SYNOPSIS: An experienced CIA agent discovers that she is really a sleeper agent for the Soviet Union

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: Having your world turned upside down and then kicking ass to put it back right.  Angelina Jolie is the best bad-ass female action star.  

PROS AND CONS:  I had seen this before, but luckily, I watched the director's cut that had a different alternate ending.  

The film is a conspiracy nuts dream, much like the Manchurian Candidate, where you end up expecting all your neighbors of being some sort of of terrorist.  

While the film is entertaining to watch it suffers from two flaws.  There is too much action.  Seriously, after a while I started to get bored.  The second is that the plot really goes nowhere in the end.  Revenge is extracted, but to what end?  What becomes of the character, what has she learned?

To read an overview of this project, check out this status posting.  

This film is a part of my LaserDisc Collection.

Clicking on the title will take you to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry for this film. 

This film was viewed while exercising on my recumbent cycle.  A summary of my time spent working out on my journey through movie-land can be found on Strava.com.

Five Frames - 02/22/2016

Five Frames

Images Taken With A Sony Mavica FD85 on 02/22/2016

These images and many many more can be found on my Flickr account.

Cinema Cycle - The Net

CINEMA CYCLE

(Cardio Workout And Reviewing Movies At The Same Time)

DATE REVIEWED: 02/22/2016

TITLE: The Net

FORMAT: LaserDisc

TIME RIDDEN / FILM LENGTH: 1 hour 55 minutes

DISTANCE RIDDEN WHILE VIEWING: 24 miles

TOTAL CINEMA MILES LOGGED: 4218.1 miles

SYNOPSIS: A young computer geek becomes entangled in a plot to control government and society.

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER:  Paranoia in the digital age.  A young actress coming into her own.  The ‘chick-flick’ meets space invaders.  

PROS AND CONS:  I had seen this film before, but could not recall any details about the movie.  This time around I walked away with a slightly different perspective. Time will do that.  

This is a good film and it is entertaining to watch, if nothing else for Sandra Bullock’s pre-Oscar winning performance as the coquette that is thrown into the dark intrigue of the budding digital age.

There are some flaws.  Some of the sentimental scenes could have been cut back significantly, and some of the sub-plots (such as the hired killer falling in love with his victim), could really have been dropped.  None-the-less, a better than average film.   

To read an overview of this project, check out this status posting.  

This film is a part of my LaserDisc Collection.

Clicking on the title will take you to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry for this film. 

This film was viewed while exercising on my recumbent cycle.  A summary of my time spent working out on my journey through movie-land can be found on Strava.com.

Shutter Saturday - 02/20/2016

SHUTTER SATURDAY

Images taken with film cameras. All of these images were shot by me using one of several cameras that I own. The film is developed by myself (unless otherwise noted) and the negatives scanned into a computer. Many of the images or updated / reprocessed in Photoshop. The complete gallery of all my public images is view-able on my Flickr Account. Read the picture details / comments on Flickr to learn more about the particular image.

Five Frames - 02/19/2016

Five Frames

Images Taken With Various Digital Cameras on 02/19/2016

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These images and many many more can be found on my Flickr account.

Cinema Cycle - Matrix Revolutions

CINEMA CYCLE

(Cardio Workout And Reviewing Movies At The Same Time)

DATE REVIEWED:

TITLE: Matrix Revolutions

FORMAT: HD-DVD

TIME RIDDEN / FILM LENGTH: 2 hours 9 minutes

DISTANCE RIDDEN WHILE VIEWING: 29 miles

TOTAL CINEMA MILES LOGGED: 4194.1 miles

SYNOPSIS: The chosen one of must find a way to defeat the alien presence that has taken over the world and enslaved humanity.

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER:   Being special and overcoming all odds with the help of a love interest and the disenfranchised that still hold power.  

PROS AND CONS:  After three films in this series, enough is enough.  As I state in the video diary of this film, it starts to get repetitive.  

What I would like to do with his whole series, is take out all the over-the-top action sequences and slow motion fight scenes and just have 3 hours of dialog on the meaning of life and existence.  

The mental part of this trilogy is actually pretty deep, but it gets overshadowed by all the special effects and set design.  Still, at it’s core, this is a film about the human experience and how we are trained to accept and question the world around us and what the meaning of reality really is.

To read an overview of this project, check out this status posting.  

This film is a part of my LaserDisc Collection.

Clicking on the title will take you to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry for this film. 

This film was viewed while exercising on my recumbent cycle.  A summary of my time spent working out on my journey through movie-land can be found on Strava.com.