iTunes and silent movies, all in one week

I had two multimedia “firsts� this week.

First #1: I bought a complete album online, the Dave Matthews Band new CD, Stand Up off of the iTunes store. By the way, don’t give me any shit for liking the Dave Matthews Band. I’m too old to really care what is (or isn’t) hip, and I was listening to them before they caught on with the frat boy crowd. I like ‘em, so sue me.

I’ve downloaded some music from “less than legal� sources before, but, besides not being quite legal or ethical, I find that it takes way too long and I as often as not end up with a file that isn’t worth listening to. I have bought music with iTunes before, but just a song at a time. This was my first full album, and I’m not sure I will buy a CD from a store again. It’s cheaper by a couple of bucks than buying the actual CD, and all I had to do was download it from the iTunes site to my computer and then to my iPod. Easier than going to a store by far.

Okay, not that big of a deal. But still.

First #2: We all saw the 1924 silent film version of Peter Pan Thursday night at the Michigan Theater. A couple of things made this a pretty cool night. For one thing, the Michigan Theater was pretty much sold out for the show. As Russ Collins (the guy who runs the Michigan Theater) said in his introduction to the show, it was probably the biggest crowd to watch a silent film in… well, in a long time, weeks at least. For another, it featured musical accompaniment by the Ann Arbor Symphony, conducted by Gillian “not the one from X-Filesâ€? Anderson. Cool music, too.

On the down-side, the show started late and we didn’t have Will home until about 10 on a school night. Not good parenting. On the up-side, it was pretty cool to see a silent film the way that it would have been shown way back in the day. After all, the Michigan Theater opened in the late 1920’s as a silent film theater, and back then, they really would have an orchestra for most of the shows (that and/or the extremely elaborate organ they’ve got there). Anyway, good music, good show, good experience.

Incidentally, this version of Peter Pan is quite a bit different from the Disney version, which isn’t surprising. I don’t have the time to rehash it all right now, but most of the intertitles (you know, the words that pop up during a silent film) come from J.M. Barrie’s original story, and it’s pretty clear to me where the whole idea of the “Peter Pan Syndrome� comes from. Weird stuff.

Star Wars Memories




Will at the movies.

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

So, yesterday we all went to see it. You know, the movie, the last one. It.

Here are some thoughts on Revenge of the Sith in no particular order:

  • We pulled Will out of school Friday morning in order to see this. At first, I felt guilty about taking the kid out of school to see a movie. But then one of my neighbors put some perspective on it for me: 10 years from now, there’s no way Will will remember what he did in school that day. But he will remember the day his mom and dad got him out of school to go see Revenge of the Sith.
  • I tried to take this picture of Will in the theater next to the posters for the movie and I was quickly QUICKLY told to put the camera away. So this is a shot of Will after the screening.
  • We all liked it quite a bit, and I think in some ways, it was the best of the series. Sure, the dialog is hokey and the acting a bit stiff in places, but I thought the way that this movie sets up the last three movies (oh wait– the first three movies, which are not the last three movies or episodes; er, ah… well, nevermind) is effective and clever, and the fight scenes and special effects are spectacular. It’s dark and relatively violent, but it didn’t phase Will even a bit. Which isn’t surprising since he saw the much more violent Lord of the Rings movies in the theater, too.
  • There’s all this junk about internet piracy and this movie and how it’s ruining Hollywood because folks are downloading movies. But the folks at Boing Boing have pointed out (and will continue to point out, I’m guessing) is that this is a movie that is going to make $150 million in the theaters this weekend. And I’m here to tell ya that the geeks who are downloading a crappy copy of the movie from a file sharing system are the same ones who are going to see it in the theater four or five times.
  • Personally, I think Hollywood has a different problem. Movies like Revenge of the Sith really need to be seen in a theater to be full appreciated: the big screen, the big sound system, etc. But with DVDs and even not big screen but decent TVs nowadays, there’s no reason to go to the theater. For example, we watch Connie and Carla last night, a movie that my mother would have called “cute.â€? It was cute, but there would be absolutely no reason to see it in the theater.
  • Last but far from least, it does not take a sophisticated literary/political theorist to see the political allegory in this movie. In brief, “the empireâ€? is created as the result of the senate giving the chancellor extraordinary powers because of the fear caused by a state of war. The Sith, the opposite of the Jedi, are powerful because they are greedy, materialistic, and think for themselves. This entry from the blog Daily Kos pretty much sums it up for me. So it seems fitting to me that this movie premieres on the weekend that the Senate is talking about the “nuclear optionâ€? of ending the filibuster for judicial nominees, which will make debate in the Senate less relevant and will weaken the minority even more than it has been by this administration.

Will’s food rating system

We had lovely family dinner at Gratzi last night; it had been a long time since we had gone out to dinner, so we decided to go to someplace nice. A good meal was had by one and all.

Will’s dish of choice at Gratzi is penne pasta with an alfredo sauce (or is that alfrado sauce? I’ve seen both spellings), and he thought it was great. “How would you rate that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best thing ever?â€? Annette asked.

“I’d say… 9 and four-fifths,â€? Will said. And he then proceeded to give ratings to several other foods. Here’s a selection:

Asparagus: 0

Regular Milk: 2

Licorice flavored jelly beans: 2

Broccoli with ranch dressing: 4

Hot dog with bun: 5

Strawberries: 6

Chocolate milk: 7

Hot dog without bun: 7.5

Gratzi pasta: 9.5 (or 9 and four-fifths, though this morning, he said that was a 10 too)

Vanilla-flavored milk: 10

Most kinds of candy: 10

Paraphrase of a conversation I had with Will today

This morning, I made some “no bake” chocolate/peanut butter/oatmeal cookies in honor of Mother’s Day (they were Annette’s request). Here’s my memory of a conversation about these cookies:

Will: Wow, Daddy, these are great!

Me: Thank you, Will.

Will: Yeah, these are so good!

Me: I’m glad you like them.

Will: Yeah, these are so good, they taste like they came from a box! That’s how good they are!

Me: Ahhh….

I guess a few lessons about “home cooking” are in order.