Ah choo

[threemonkeys]

I have a cold. Nothing serious - just a bit of a sniffle really. Anyway, I thought I'd look after myself and wrap up warmly and watch a DVD. I looked through my collection and found something light and fun. It wasn't until after I started watching it that I realised just how appropriate it was that I chose Cold Comfort Farm. Well I was amused.

There is something about the DVD of this film that I really like. Something that other production companies should take note of. When you put the disk in the drive, it immediately boots to the main menu. No preliminary anti-piracy notices and the like, no trailers for other films and no overblown animated opening sequences for the production company that you cannot bypass. You can go from putting the disk in to watching the film in just a couple of seconds. I appreciate that.

Comments

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Disney implemented a very cool "Fastplay" feature on their animated films a few years ago, that actually defaulted straight to the movie and bypassed trailers, menus, etc - perfect for films that four year-olds might want to put in the player and watch with a minimum of hassle.

The worst were some Fox DVDs a few years back that they produced for the rental market. Not only did you get four or five trailers at the start of the disc, and an anti-piracy advert, but they disabled the fast-forward and menu buttons, so every time you put in the disc you basically had to walk off for 15 minutes to let the thing finally reach the main menu.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

The disabling of the fast-forward button annoys meg. I usually spend the time seeing if I can get to the main menu by other means.

The anti-piracy ad shits me, too. I've bought the damn thing! I'm being good!

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I love how rampantly inaccurate the ads are.

"YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR!! SO WHY DOWNLOAD A MOVIE?"

Gee, I don't know. Maybe because grand theft auto is not remotely similar to downloading a film, which is not actually theft because the studio still actually have their movie. Now if I broke into Warner Bros and stole every print of Batman Returns they had, then potentially that would constitute theft. But downloading a copy of something that you've still got? That's actually closer to fraud. Not so cool an ad though, is it? "Don't download! It's sort of like fraud!!"

"PIRACY FUNDS ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM!!"

Oh really. Now organized crime I can buy. The Triads in particular have their fingers in a lot of stuff in Hong Kong and Macau, so I can see how buying pirated stuff over there could potentially fund those guys. But terrorism? Really. Give me one example. Just one.

That's right - you haven't got one. Morons.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Yeah they are completely moronic, coz how do they know whether I'd steal a car or not?

Are the writers of the ad so sure of their claim that they would be willing to leave their car unlocked somewhere near me? I somehow doubt it.

[thoatherder.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the pirated disks that you can buy in Hong Kong etc still have the anti-piracy ad in them?

There are people out there, you buy a DVD, then rip it straight to disk so they can avoid all the crap at the front and get straight into the actual, you know, content. Also then you can have this groovy jukebox thingy attached to your TV and watch any movie in your collection.

I watched my son the other day, the anti-piracy ad came up, and he just pushed 'next' on the remote and it went away. It seems to work for a lot of the disk we have.

BTW, downloading a movie doesn't fund anything, because you don't pay anything when you download, unless all the ISPs are secretly owned by organized crime and terrorists.

Not to mention that the target audience is saying to itself "I shoplift" so yes, I would steal a movie...

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I have a special hatred for Fox for that and all the other things under that banner. So many sins from so many branches and yet so much good viewing too.

Didn't know about Disney since I haven't watched anything of theirs for ages but that is something to applaud.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

For all the criticism they get, Disney are actually pretty cool.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

It'sa good film, too. Not as good as the book (nothing can ever be as good as a favourite book) but still, a great deal of fun.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I have three times in my life loved a book and then found the film to be actually better, and that's The Silence of the Lambs, Fight Club and The Lord of the Rings.

But every rule needs exceptions.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I've not read the book for Silence, or seen either of Fight Club, and - being a Medievalist - the things tht make Lord of the Rings slow are the things I love most. From which I deduce two things. The first is that JRRK (why is it disrepsectful to abbreviate his name, simply because he has a funny acronym?) was writing chiefly for himself and Jackson was filming for other people. The second is even more obvious: I need to see more films and read more books.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I think the difference for me was that Tolkien would extensively describe a very beautiful mountain range for four paragraphs, whereas Jackson had the easy advantage of just showing you a shot of a very beautiful mountain range for 10 seconds.

It's a taste thing. I'm a very impatient reader, so deliberately measured and lengthy books frustrate me a bit. Which is not to criticize The Lord of the Rings, which is a masterwork of literature. It's a bit unfair how it gets saddled in with all the other high fantasy stuff, because it's much more like a Norse epic than Terry Brooks or David Eddings, and should really be dragged out of popular fantasy and dumped in with classic literature where it would fit more appropriately.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Or we could be consist in classifying back. Richard III would go alongside The King's Grey mare, while A Midsummer Night's Dream would fit nicely with Luna's new paranormal romance imprint. The Old Man and the Sea would be classified with adventure novels and the Secret Seven books alongside books by Nicholas Freeling. Not that I'm makign any statements about these books, you understand (I love them all for different reasons). Just finding thematic links, like the LOTR/fantasy one.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting idea. I love the idea of shoving Shakespeare's plays into new sections. Midsummers and The Tempest go into fantasy. Macbeth goes into horror, etc.

The way bookshops classify stuff is all about the marketing anyway. I remember a convention I was involved with once getting knocked back about a particular author we'd considered as a guest of honour because their publisher had re-categorized their work from SF to Literature, and therefore the author in question couldn't possibly attend a sci-fi con any more.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is so many authors hover in between and spend half their lives trying to pretend they live in one group or another. I'm just working on my hovering skills, personally, because I refuse to write non-speculative fiction and I want to write small tales about small lives.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The thing that annoys me the most about genre is authors who have clearly written a work of science fiction or fantasy but are too snooty to admit that this is what they've done.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

The genuinely snooty need to learn a lesson about intellectual and creative origins. Most literary writers, though, I suspect are guilty of trying to explain that they don't write 3 volume epic fantasy to audiences who mainly know Peter Jackson rather than trying to disown a hoi polloi. We need to find better vocularies :). 'Fantasy' only works as a description of a novel that plays with realities when it doesn't have a 3 volume default setting.

[littenz.livejournal.com]

"deliberately measured and lengthy books frustrate me a bit."
You are confusing long winded and poorly edited (or worse, unedited) with literary style.

While I disagree with you about LOTR being a masterpiece of literature, it is head and shoulders above most fantasy wannabes. LOTR had characters that changed and developed through the course of the books (reflecting I presume JRRT's life experiences), whereas characters in the other books suffer similar journeys and remain unchanged.

JRRT - realise must defeat powerful overloard, become anxious and suffer doubt.
TB or DE - realise must defeat powerful overloard, get new sword and haircut.

At least the unfashionable Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant stopped being a whining, self-pitying, self-obsessed, neurotic.

[roaring40s.livejournal.com]

Some libraries take all the 'old' (pre-1950s) books and put them together under 'nostalgia' which annoys me, it's condemning them to a fusty side shelf. Who actively thinks 'oh I'll read a classic today"? I think they're more likely to be read if you find them alongside newer books. On the other hand, we've just bought a new copy of 'Little Women' which has a chick-lit cover. It's pink and glossy with lovely little pictures of flowers and gloves and things, and the back highlights each sister as if they were high-school friends. It's fraud, because the reading is much harder going than your normal chick-lit or pink-lit book.

[lauriefleming.livejournal.com]

There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm...

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

..who will do their duty by Robert Poste's child.