On Casablanca, Netflix, and Apple, Three Sides of the Same Coin

On March 21,2012 My wife and I took my youngest one to see the TCM 70th Anniversary showing of Casablanca . Casablanca, a long time favorite film of mine, starring Humphrey  Bogart  Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet.
The film was one of many made in the time before tv, when they were all done in a almost factory like production, and churned out and released one after another. No one thought much of it at the time, other the myriad of problems they had making it mainly being the lack of script and daily rewrites, and no real ending. Somehow it got made. While it did get generally favorable reviews and a good reception from the public . Time have proven to be its best friend.  The lasting impression of this movies and a few movies like it are what every movie made strives for. 99.9% don’t even come close. Casablanca was one of those rare cases of the right script actors, and directors and the the right moment in time. When you watch Casablanca, particularly like I had the pleasure of last week, you forget where you are and for a while you believe there is a Rick’s Cafe’ Americana . Bogart become Rick, and seems to embody the character. In  watching it last week I recall seeing scenes that I don’t remember seeing before, when I’ve watched the movie, and I’ve seen the movie more times than I can count. Everything seemed sharper and and more defined , I know it was on a big screen, and had been remastered to be as near perfect as they could get,   It seemed almost surreal  .  
Of course of bigger moral questions still abound on either  screen, At what point does one put aside one's feeling and do what needs to be done for the greater good of country, or in this case possibility even the world. Rick by, making it possible
for  Victor Laszlo  and Isa Lund, his wife to leave and continue Victors work. In spite of his feelings for Ilsa.  In doing so, Rick set himself up to finely  become a more than a spectator of WWII .
Every movie should be seen the it was intended on the big screen, with a audience and the whole experience. For thoses of you you are  not a Casablanca fan heres a link to the wikipedia article on it;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)



The last 2 months or so have been eventful. One of the more significant  events was the introduction of Apple's next Generation IPad, Officially known as “The New Ipad” The rest of us call it the Ipad3. While it did seem to make several advances from the Ipad2  I got the impression from what I saw and heard that many tech reporters/ pundits etc, they were less than blown away by it other then its new screen, the retina display, which claims to pack more pixels then a HD screen into a small screen. Adding more connectivity  options including models that will use the new LTE as it become available  is a definite plus, However I’ve already read articles says that most of the use they get is on Wi-Fi, even that those that have 3g build into them don’t use it that much or even at all. If most the the use the 3g and potentially LTE units are getting is on Wifi, then one wonders if is it really  that big of a selling point.The question then becomes to upgrade or not. If you don’t have one at all, the the new one is a no brainer. Also if you still have one the originals, it's pretty obvious that the Ipad 3 is a huge upgrade from the original. However, if you the the Ipad2, The question is more interesting. What do you do with it? How often do you use it and what apps  that you use will like benefit from the new display and  other advances under the hood.  If you're happy with the Ipad2 and it does what you need it to do, and you feel like its working for you long term, then wait.

    Other big news I’ve been reading about is the huge upswing in streaming of the last year, q11.  Netflix has been reporting record numbers in over 2 million hours of content streamed, globally primary us The point of this and other streaming venues is that for the first time streaming is projected to beat out physical media .
http://www.videonuze.com/article/it-s-hard-to-see-how-streaming-movies-will-surpass-dvd-blu-ray-in-2012
The question becomes how much will the public let themselves  depend on streaming media? They allready depend to a large degree on cable and satellite for their media intake, with the help of DVRS they can time-shift their content to watch when they want. It took a few years but content owners have embraced the DVR and are now including DVR viewing in the rating.   And have realized that even time shifted eyes are better then no eyes seeing their content, and thus their ads.
The advent of streaming media over the last few years have forced content owners, providers to rethink their game plan, as to how they package their content and sell their content.   Being able to pull netflix up on almost device from my Ipod Touch to a Ipad, or android tablet and any number of tv/internet connected devices,ie,  Roku, Boxee, Xbox360, etc, open a whole new world for content owners. They now have a much wider audience to graze their offering, and putting content that was not useable on other venues  suddenly give older underused content a new life.
As much as I like streaming and use my Roku box, have found content that I didn’t even know existed on the various channels of the Roku. My feeling is that there will will always be a place for physical media. There are collectors and folks who don’t believe in have media be it music or movies/tv that they bought and paid for in a cloud, be it Apples or Google’s or Amazon’s. And would rather have a copy in their own hands to use as they please. Thats not even counting have ones own copy of classic movies or tv series that they particularly love.

    Yes streaming is good, in fact it can be very good, There is no substitute  for owning ones own media and content. Content owners and distributors need to understand several things; They can’t put all their egg in one basket, Streaming and DVD are here to stay, however, They are still missing a huge market in not bringing older classic content to the big screen on a regular basis.  There are a number of ways that that programs could be set up to draw in older moviegoers who don’t care to see the newest hit of the week, but would love to see their favorite classic movie they way they first saw it on the big screen.
To me streaming and movies are opposites sides of the same coin, and can definitely complement each other if done right.

   

Old Movie Studio System

The history of movies is very colorful especially in the black and white and early silent era.
The advent of the studio system and the star making machines and in the process created most of the greatest screen legends of all time, many of which still live on in at in in the hearts and minds of many. While none of the glitz and glamor of the old school movie machine still survive, except in studio warehouses and in very short and chopped clips of stars doing what they did best making appearances and generally creating the romance the public so desperately needed at the time.. The old studio system run their stars like horses in a race, however, the really good ones stood out , when they get to a certain point most were able to write they're own ticket or at least keep good steady work and build a very good catalogue of work,, In the process of building their careers they learned their trade, and earned the right to call their own shots, many eventually formed their own production companies allowing them to what they really wanted, if it didn't do as well as they hoped, that was OK, they were doing what they wanted.
Not everyone lead such colorful lives, many thousands of actors and actress did many parts that are now just being remembered and called to folks attention. Its nothing to find that a certain actor has done 15-20 films in a year, thus bring his total lifetime output of material up close to 100 if not more films over 50-60 year career.. How many of today stars can say their output comes anywheres near that kind of commitment. Theses people came to work everyday knew their lines and did the parts the best they knew how. That's not to say all the material they put out is Oscar material, obviously the greater number of work you do the chances increase that you'll get some of the better material..
The other thing to consider while they were making all those films every year, they generally didn't have a huge budget per film. Which by default means the director had to really have a vision in mind when he shot the film and and sent it to the editing room. If a director shoot it right there was really one one way to edit it so it would work and he Essentially edited while he shot. So he had to be really creative to get what he wanted on a tight budget.

Economics won't allow it, and the movie machine has changed too much to allow it, and its well-known that there were a lot of problems with the old studio system, However, the idea of bring back the old studio system dose have merit. One thing is would help insure actors got the training and dedication,they really need. One may wonder how many of today stars would have lasted in the old system,if they didn't measure up and didn't pan out at the end of their contract they studio could cut them loose and they had they're chance to be big stars.. Thee are a lot of very good reason why the studio system shouldn't be brought back , and equally as many reasons why it should be brought back. The people who are responsible for setting up the original system are long gone, However, the people running toady's systems would be hard pressed to try to get actors to sign multi- year deals with the actors knowing that they were at the beck and call of the studio and had no choice but to do whatever project was given them, and if they didn't they were fined. Not to mention the studios to really go back would have to hire in-house acting coaches dancing and a whole host of other specialized teachers to work with the contract players and keeping a staff a of screen writers busy, and stunt doubles and many other support personal, many of which they still have already.
But the bigger question is will the public accept the old studio system ?
I'm not a film movie historian, so I don't know all the ins and out of the old studio system, and even less about how the system works today, However, I do know that I don't see many movies today that can compare with the old movies of the40's and 50's, I don't know any actors today that I have a connection with, oh theres a couple I like well enough, but they don't have style or charisma the older ones had. They wee no angles back then either, but most of what they did pales in comparison to the stunts some of today "actors" have pulled. But they showed up on the set every morning and did the job. and turned in good performances. So in while the old studio system did have problems it still was able to produce most of the greatest films of all time, certainly some of my favorites, such as "Casablanca" And Boogie & Bacall in in "To Have and Have Not"


"You do know how to whistle, do you Steve,
You just put your lips together....
And Blow"

Bogart....Who........?

I was talking to a young lady of about 14, She was a very pleasant and polite young lady.
At one point I mentioned that one of My cats is named Bogart. At which point I got kind of a blank look, I asked her if the name sounded familiar, after a minute of thinking she finely said yes. She didn't remember the first name. I said the cat was named after Humphrey Bogart . She seemed to kind of know the name. I then proceed to to give a very general sketch of who he was and the movies he'd done, mentioning Casablanca, and the African Queen. Mentioning that he was born in 1899, and if Boggie was still alive, he'd be over 100 years old now. I also mentioned Lauren Bacall and their movies together. By this time, things were moving along and folks to go so, the history lesson was over.

The point of that little story which happens too many times everyday is that young people today have no sense of history . They have no concept that there was another world before MTV ,computers, Internet and 200 TV channels and Mp3s and all the technologies we enjoy today.
What do they think all they things I mentioned a line above were built on?
Granted the story about a teenager not knowing who Boggie was, is trivial in the grand scheme of things, however, insert a another world leader of Major importance in the name blank , and is it so silly? Take a poll and see how many kids know who Kennedy or Eisenhower , or Truman was, the list is far to long, but you get the idea.

As I've gotten older, I seem to developed more of a sense of the importance of history and keeping it alive, and preserving as much oral history as possible and making itassessable , to everyone and making it in formats that they understand. But, the meat of the material along with as much background detail about what is presented is very important to give the viewer a better sense of what it was like to be in the moment when they person is relating is stories, weather it be about the depression of the 30's or WWII, or Korea, or being around when Kennedy was around or when Man first walked on the moon.

A prime example is the Korean War, largely forgotten, in fact its been said the in many was it would have forgotten, except for a tv show called M*A*S*H . There are whole generations of kids who wouldn't know there had been a Korean war if they hadn't seen repeats of MASH, and were intrigued enough to do the research. But that's only a very rare example of the power of tv and a visual media in general.
Most of the time it offers mind numbing noise that is generally called music, propped up by scantly clad woman, whose only propose is to get every male in the sight of the picture, thinking about everything but what they should be thinking about at the time.
The tools are now available to record theses important memories and preserve them. There are volumes of history that not in the books sitting in VA hospitals and nursing homes across the world . Every day huge number of people die who if given the chance probably would have loved to sit down and tell their lives stories about growing up and living in a world very different then ours.
as far general dates and places, granted memory changes over time, however many can remember 1930 like it was yesterday, and can't remember what they had for breakfast that morning. Obviously some folks for various mental or physical reason aren't good candidates for and should be screened for suitability for doing such a interview. There is also the good it may do the All of those interviews should be edited for clearly and researched for at least the basic ground of the times they are regaling us with for acutes patients to have someone interest in their lives.
As this material is collect and cataloged it should be cross-referenced and indexed so anyone wanting a oral history of, say the depression, can put in a search and find interviews that tell about living in the depression, and have supporting information regarding that time and location where the interviewee is talking about so one can get a more complete picture of what they are talking about, that would mean that items that the mention in the interview such as cars, building and historical places should be cross referenced to give information relating to that item.
This database should be made available to every school and institutions of learning in the world. and need to be continually updated.
Lately I have become a big fan of TCM, or Turner Classic Movies, in fact ,I've always like the station as a whole and lately have become to see it as what it could possibly become a treasure trove of historical film and in many respects a window into our history. The history of motion pictures is from what little I can see is largely lost on the youth of today, Many kids don't know anyone older then say, 1980 or so, and have know idea that theres is a rich history of movies both silent and precode movies. While I am not a huge fan of silent movies personally, I do feel that they should be exposed to as many folks as possible, granted many probably won't get into it too much,they should at least know that they and many other movies are out there, there will be a few who will embrace it and help preserve it along with miles of reels of film. The push to High Definition has probably helped with the preservation of old films as they are upconverted to HD or as close as the negatives will allow.
I new class should be added to grade school, some to tie history and movie appreciation something to let teachers show young students a history of movies and tie it together with history or something else that they're doing in class, then students wouldn't be put off by the idea of watching a black & white movie, if its relevant to what they're doing today in life or at least class. Hopefully it would eventually foster a interest for older movies among at least a few students,,,