(no subject)

1. There's a black plastic bag, somewhat tattered hanging from a tree outside my living room window. It's too far away for me to take a clear pic with my phone. I tried. I don't know why this is -- I can see it clearly enough from my arm chair. My phone for reasons that I do not understand seems to take pictures as if the objects are much further away than they actually are -- one of us has depth perception issues. While I'm aware that I do, in this instance, I'm thinking it is the phone.

It's an interesting and pretty tree. And that black bag, tattered, is bugging me. But the tree is completely inaccessible and in the backyard of the apartment building next to mine. Even if it were in the backyard of my own building, there's nothing I could do about it. It appears to be caught on an upper branch, and soon, once the tree flowers will be invisible. But for now, I see it and ....It's not that it is ugly (which it is) but that I feel for the tree, who certainly didn't ask for a plastic bag to be caught in its branches. The tree didn't create the bag. Or purchase it or put anything it and then recklessly disregard it. But now that bag is caught. And it may never leave. It may become part of the tree. And it is bugging me.

2. The Great Tragedy of the Buffy HD Remaster -- even if you aren't a Buffy fan, this is interesting in how it explains the importance of light filtering and film grain in film and digital imaging. And why an image with film grain can often look fake or plastic.

What's also fascinating is the studio took great pains to remaster lesser known or praised television series such as Charmed, but failed to do this with Buffy.
Apparently Fox didn't like Buffy all that much or care? (shrugs) Maybe Disney will fix it?

But it's worth watching the video just to discover how important film editing and remastering images correctly are -- and how every little thing matters. If you crop the picture wrong, change the light filter, or filter out the noise -- you change the image in a critical manner.

(no subject)

Hmmm...I re-watched The Avengers today and..it doesn't work from a plot perspective. There are plot-holes that you can drive a truck through. Also the difference between The Avengers and Infinity Game in plot, special effects, character moments, dialogue, direction, etc is night and day. The movies have really upped their game since 2012, which was what six years ago?

The Avengers is fun, but cheesy and way too interested in establishing portrait shots. Also, the Hulk's arc makes no sense. He goes from being unable to control The Hulk to suddenly, out of the blue, being able to do so. And states his secret is he's always angry? Really? There's also this whole bit about Stark saving the world -- which is repeated in the Age Ultron, which doesn't quite work. Nor does Captain America's stragetizing or for that matter why they put him in charge of it -- it's poorly set up.

After seeing Captain Marvel -- it's clear that the writers forgot some of the plot points in this film or changed how they were plotting the story and the villains after it. Whedon paints Thanos as a black and white villain in the first film. While Infinity War is a little less clear cut about it. And provides Thanos and the aliens with more depth, and makes them far deadlier. ( Captain Marvel spoiler )

The direction and script feel messy, or as if the writer is distracted by other things. It's all over the place, heavy on exposition -- almost too heavy -- and busy. The films that don't work as well in the MCU are the ones with too busy a plot -- it's better to simplify the villain's goals and plot, and focus on the character moments. If you go the other way -- you spend far too much time explaining the science and mechanics of the plot, and lose the character moments that pull in the audience.

I remember being disappointed when I saw it in the theaters in 2012, but not clear on why -- now I get it.