Angry the Clown

Studio Canal appear to be prepping a disc of Highlander for Europe (it's possible Lionsgate will clone the disc for the US, but curiously they skipped the opportunity to do so with Base Instinct so who knows anymore? 🤷‍♂️).

Potentially good coffee table book coming to honour the 50th Anniversary of WDW. It's due to be published on September 28th. https://books.disney.com/book/a-portrait-of-walt-disney-world/?CMP=ILC-DPFY21Q3wo0617210031A

Swiss retail listings have appeared for Unbreakable and Who Framed Roger Rabbit for 9th of September and 30th of September respectively. Hopefully these prove accurate! They have UPC codes (Roger Rabbit is 4k/HDR on Disney+/iTunes...etc, and the 4k/HDR remaster of Unbreakable is available on Disney+ via Star is several territories now).

I'm not sure there's much indication that he'll be doing anything of his own under the deal just yet, more that other future Amblin productions have a solid base for funding their projects with other filmmakers. I wouldn't be surprised if he does do something at some point though as Lincoln and The Post barely got their studio funding so it's becoming harder and harder even for him to be able to secure the backing for the more personal and dramatic projects he favours these days. I'd actually really love to see him direct a mini-series just to see what he'd do with a long form project.

It hit £21 here over the weekend funnily enough. I missed out, but it was good to know it can get that cheap. My Switch library is all digital thus far, but I'm thinking of changing that in future as there's just better deals to be had physically, and I can sell on titles that really don't offer much in the way of repeat play value. I honestly don't need to be buying any more games for at least four months though, but I've got that eShop pre-purchased voucher waiting to be used before the end of September as I say, so I think it's either going to be used to get Mario Golf or 3D Worlds.

Tri-x and Ilford HP5 have always been my go to films. I'm used to doing the developing myself. I don't mind getting back into that, but unless I were going to shoot film regularly I'd probably outsource it. The bigger hurdle for me is definitely in the scanning department as I just couldn't find an acceptable route at home to justify the investment in relation to how often I might actually be shooting film. Some use digital cameras mounted to photograph the negative with good results, but I don't really have the right camera or lens lying around to set that up, and again looking at scanner costs I'd really need to be shooting a lot to justify the cost I think. There are several good independent processing and scanning houses here in London though, so right before the pandemic hit my thought was to use them for both duties. I'm probably going to have to sell my summicron though which will leave my M2 without a lens, so will have to abandon thought of shooting film again as my Pentax bodies are in dire need of a CLA, and prices of good Nikon 35mm SLRs are really quite high these days so I can't really entertain buying anything else. I'm on there. Will fire you a DM. I don't post that much really, and this past year has really sucked the life out of getting out and being amongst people. I've still no idea when the UK might resemble something normal on the streets again. The city still feels quite empty and uninspiring at the moment. Weirdly the pandemic has left me really missing the Q as that really opened me up to architectural photography.

It seems like a good team at Motive.

It should be fine. As I understand it every venue is adopting socially distant seating and insisting on masks. I want to see Supernova next which is out on Friday, so I will either head back to an Everyman or go to a Curzon venue. If I decide to see it I'll probably catch Black Widow at a VUE myself too. Their notice when you go to make a booking reads "For your safety, our screenings are currently limited to comply with government guidelines. Please book in advance to avoid disappointment. Additionally, our system will automatically physically distance your seats, so you and those in your booking are apart from others," so it's similar to others really. I didn't have to use the NHS app QR check in at the cinema on Friday by the way. I thought I might have to but maybe that requirement only applies to restaurants I don't know (I haven't been to one in over a year 😩). Perhaps it's voluntary for all businesses to opt into at their own discretion though, in which case it's possible some cinema venues may have it set up and others might skip it so you might want to be sure you're set up to scan QR codes with the app just in case.

Booked online via Everyman's website which didn't appear to be any different than usual (they note that "We've updated our seat selections so there’s always a space between yours and other groups for social distancing"). It was just me and one couple seated a few rows behind me who had the screening room to ourselves (it was a mid morning Friday showing). My mask took a little adjusting to stop my glasses fogging up, but once I'd settled it didn't keep happening which was really my only concern going in. You're allowed to lower your mask if eating or drinking, obviously.

You wouldn't want that many amps internally though surely? I like that Denon have brought pre-outs into their mid range line up now. Having a power amp drive the front three, or main five channels, and then leaving the rest to the receiver's internal amps would be a good way to go.

Mass shortages of semiconductors on top of disruption to supply chains over the past year are playing a significant part.

It's definitely good to see more coming to the market, and again I hope that this time next year we'll be seeing models that have 2.1 across all inputs/outputs. It's also worth re-stressing that there's very little reason to get hung up on any device only having 40Gbps 2.1 support over the full bandwidth 48Gbps as it really only relates to 100-120fps 4:4:4 12 bit 4k signals (and there's no sign of consumer display devices having native 12bit panels anytime soon, and outside of the PC space 4:4:4 isn't even of concern either), so even next year I wouldn't be in the least bit put off by a display or a receiver that was 40Gbps 2.1. HDMI 2.1 also incorporates Display Stream Compression (DSC) which is supposed to be able to compress high bandwidth feeds with an imperceptible loss in image quality (a 4:4:4 12bit 100/120fps 4k feed needing 48Gbps would be reduced to 18Gbps for example), and similarly this can be applied to 8k bandwidth requirements too which as you can see above are still fairly accommodating to a native 40Gbps bandwidth at certain frame and sub sampling rates anyway. The DSC conversion would be required at the source output end of the chain in the device settings. I don't think it hurts to pay up for 48Gbps compatible HDMI cables, but at the receiver/display end I really do think we'll be well served my 40Gbps for a long time.

In the Heights - It's unlikely to win over any unfortunate souls with an aversion to stage musicals ( ), but I thought this was brilliantly adapted for the big screen. Went to see it on Friday and loved it so much. There's some fantastic visual flare and outstanding choreography on display, and it's superbly cast (like the stage version some might say it peaks musically with exhilarating 'Blackout,' but the emotional rewards of the more intimate second half should not to be underestimated). I really couldn't have asked for anything more lively and joyous to welcome me back to the comfort of a cinema for the first time in over a year, and on a rainy London summer's day no less.

Had a sudden desire to finally try this today since it's on Game Pass. I absolutely LOVE it. The controls are quite well set out with a joypad too. I'm going to give in and buy the Return to Jurassic Park DLC I'm sure.

I do from time to time with my M2, but it's been a good while now. I'd actually stocked up on Tri-X with some film plans right before the pandemic hit last year.

That'd be nice. I happened to have 3.99 getting dusty in my eShop wallet and this week the existing Castlevania Collection has been on sale for... 3.99... so I finally bought it.

I like the tone of Temple of Doom just fine, and the score remains one of the most thematically dense Williams has ever written (practically everything has a unique theme). It's the racism that drags the film down. My US copy of the Indy set is in the UK according to the tracking so should be with me any day now. My copy of Kino's UHD of The Good the Bad and the Ugly showed up today. I'm looking forward to watching that.

He basically has the personality of one of the French knights from Monty Python & The Holy Grail. I love him.

Yes, 2023 at the earliest honestly makes more sense, especially since they're using Unreal Engine 5.

Lots of listings for The Thing are popping up via retailers all over Europe for a release in late September from Universal.

I'm glad they did that. It was solid little companion piece to Sunday's presentation with the developer diaries and developer commentaries we'd often sooner not see eat up too much time in a main show.

I mentioned it on Sunday in the Discord but it kind of resembles the look of one of Laika Studios stop motion films which I really love.

Sure. As far as I know it's difficult to upgrade from a lower tier to a higher one, so we can't pay a smaller sum to turn the Game Pass Standard edition into the Premium and unlock that content like you can with Forza Horizon 5. I'd be surprised if it grips you so much as to want to spend money for the upgrades though personally. Much as I'd like a detailed Heathrow the extent of my skills with this sim will not go far beyond just wanting to use it as a sight seeing simulator in which case I'm fully at the mercy of Bing's mapping detail and the hope for the dumbest possible controls and assist modes. I'm not looking to get a pilot's licence to learn how to play this properly.