R.I.P. Walter Cronkite

A simple "Goodbye" to our old friend...
News story.

July Moon - The Lost NASA Tapes - Trailer

When I saw the poster for this, I didn't get excited, I instead found myself wondering just how many times documentarians could tell the same story. After all, the mini-series From The Earth To The Moon covered just about any aspect you could imagine of the trials of entering space, including the moon landings. Then, documentary In The Shadow Of The Moon proved to be so exciting, I found myself wanting to be an astronaut all over again. It included launch and flight footage never seen before that caused me to hit the rewind button numerous times in order to see said footage as many times as possible.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I watched the trailer for July Moon, a documentary apparently so secret, it's not even listed on the imdb. My worries were wrong, so rather than ruin it, I will only say, Watch the trailer! It is obvious this one will be worth it.

See it here...July Moon.

The Unseen Classics

The New Yorker magazine recently brought an exciting story to my attention that bodes well for those that like classic movies. (Actually, it was fellow media brother Vince that pointed the story out to me).

WarnerArchive.com has classic titles they are making available on an “on demand” basis. “On demand” simply means that the customer would order the film of their choice, Warner’s would burn a copy to DVD, and then mail it. Many are also are available as digital downloads. While the films have obviously been digitized in order to do this, they have not been digitally remastered as this would be cost prohibitive. Warner’s does claim they have gone to original film stock when available in order to maintain high quality without remastering.

Unfortunately, the DVD’s and downloads are both incredibly overpriced, but this could change as the online market continues to grow and the number of films increases. Another small problem is that none of the films were being offered as downloadable rentals; something I would be much more likely to try.

Since many of the titles have not seen a release since their original theatrical runs, there are many un-heard-of titles in there. And I’m sure many of them are gems.

While I think it’s great to see Warner Bros. raiding their own film vaults, hopefully they will see that good ideas can always be improved.