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Some other reasons movies are so long these days.

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In the 1980s, CDs became the music industry standard for album releases. Even though CDs were smaller than the vinyl LPs they replaced, they could hold more music. A twelve-inch record can hold 45 minutes (give or take) of music, while a CD can hold more than 70 minutes of music. Some musicians decided that their albums needed to fill up a CD, even if they didn’t have 70 minutes of good music ready, and we got a lot of hour-long albums that would have been a lot better if they’d been edited down to 40 minutes. I’ve been thinking about the overlong albums of the ’80s and ’90s lately because of the overlong movies of the 2020s. I am certainly not the first person to complain that movies are too long these days. Vanity Fair published a piece on the subject last year. The Vanity Fair article mentions that producers and cinema owners and audiences complain about long movies. But those complaints don’t carry as much weight as they used to, and I can think of a couple of reasons for
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Shot on iPhone (and Panavision).

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Apple likes to brag that a lot of their commercials and promotional videos are “shot on iPhone.” But of course Apple can afford some wild accessories for their iPhones, including Panavision lenses! Stu Maschwitz wrote an excellent blog post about how one attaches a pro cinema lens to an iPhone. Blackmagic has created a dual-lens 3D camera for making immersive video for Apple’s Vision Pro VR goggles. I’m not that interested in VR, but I think VR goggles would be fun for watching old 3D horror and sci-fi movies like Creature From the Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space . And it might be fun to shoot a movie in the style of those classic 3D movies with this new Blackmagic camera. Ben Pearson wrote a lengthy and revealing article about the modern state of film scores over at Slashfilm . It was revealing to me, at least. Among other things, Pearson tries to figure out why we have fewer memorable musical themes in modern movies. No details yet, but apparently Kino Lorber i
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King of the “B’s.”

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We lost an honest-to-goodness filmmaking giant when Roger Corman passed away on May 9. Corman was making horror and science fiction movies on shoestring budgets long before the big studios came in and started making those kinds of movies with monster budgets. And Corman also gave many renowned filmmakers and actors their first jobs in the industry — people like Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, and Jack Nicholson. I wrote a bit more about Mr. Corman for my Subspace newsletter . That newsletter also contains info on where you can watch several of Corman’s classic movies online for free.
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Beastie samples and camera gear.

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When a song is built around samples, have you ever been curious what songs those samples came from? WhoSampled.com might be able to help you. That link goes to the WhoSampled.com Beastie Boys search, and the Beasties sampled a lot of cool stuff. If you’re interested in digging more into the Beastie Boys’ stuff, check out BeastieBoysAnnotated.com and “Every Sample from Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’” on YouTube . IndieWire put together a nice list of the cameras and lenses used to shoot 59 of the movies that played at this year’s Cannes film fest.
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Stunt folks and war reporters.

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I like the new Civil War movie (the one about an actual modern-day civil war, not the Captain America movie from a few years back). Turns out it is more about battlefield journalism than modern U.S. politics (though it doesn’t shy away from politics). IndieWire did a piece about the movie’s impressive sound design , and Variety did a (spoilery) piece about the making of the movie’s finale . And if you want a detailed review of Civil War , Film Freak Central has a good one . I really like The Fall Guy . Because I really like movie stunts, and The Fall Guy is packed with incredible movie stunts. And also a lot of inside-baseball filmmaking stuff, which I also like, of course. Here’s a nice NPR story about the movie .
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Ranking classic STAR TREK.

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The classic 1960s Star Trek TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, Star Trek reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times), I have opinions. I decided I’d start making a few notes as I undertake my latest informal rewatch of the show. And I’m going to start a running, sorted list of Trek episodes from favorite to least favorite. I’ll bump this post back to the top of the blog as I add new episodes. “Journey to Babel”: Action, danger, interpersonal drama, silly aliens, cool aliens, Spock’s parents, a high-stakes diplomatic mission… this episode has it all. And it moves — there isn’t a wasted frame. (good) “Mirror, Mirror”: Iconic fo
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Dr. No and Frankenstein Castle.

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Today I found out that there actually is a real Frankenstein Castle . Really! It’s in Germany. That info about the castle comes from author John Scalzi, who also recently wrote about why, after being on it for a year, Bluesky is his favorite social media platform . I haven’t been on Bluesky for a year yet, but it is easily my favorite social media platform. (I like it because: no ads, no algorithm, and it’s simpler than Mastodon.) Via Andrew … who played the greatest guitar solo ever? Was it Prince? It was probably Prince . From 2016 but new to me, writer/director Shane Black talks about some classic Shane Black scenes with Screencrush . From CBR.com, the first time Garfield hated on Mondays . There’s a comic shop called Dr. No’s , and it’s only a couple hours east of me, so I am obviously going to have to visit at some point. And finally, this is a deep cut even for Gen X-ers… Back in the 1970s there used to be a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew TV show . It was based on the
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Eclipseland.

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Stacey and I traveled to Tennessee, a little ways north of Nashville, so we could see the 2017 North American total eclipse. Not to overhype the experience, but it was awesome. Life-changing, even. I’ve been fascinated by astronomy since I was a kid, and seeing the moon block out the sun for a couple of minutes is just mind-blowing for me. Also, it’s beautiful in a way that I’ve never seen captured in a photo. So I’ve been looking forward to the 2024 American eclipse pretty much since I saw the 2017 one. Stacey planned ahead and booked a couple of hotel rooms, so we could go to Texas or Arkansas depending on the weather. But as eclipse day got nearer, the forecast for both Texas and Arkansas was rainy or at least cloudy, and that sort of weather can ruin a good eclipse. So we, along with our friend Kelly , drove up to Clarksville, Tennessee the day before the eclipse. Then we woke up early on eclipse day (Monday April 8), checked the latest weather forecasts, and hit the
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