dimland radio 5-2-15 show notes

It's Back!

The new laptop has arrived and the show has resumed! Pretty excited, ain't ya?

 

I gave a brief run down on what happened to the old laptop and such and then I got the show started with...

Pedantic Moment: News Crawl Weirdness

I would have had one of these on the show I had planned on doing before the forced technology hiatus, but in the more than a month away I collected three more.

Have you ever paid close attention to the news crawl that rolls across the bottom of your TV screen while you watch the news? It's quite distracting. Especially when the news folks run a sentence across that just doesn't tell you anything. It just leaves you hanging, waiting for additional information, but it never comes.

 

I gave the following four examples, which I will link to the actual story which will give you more of the story. I discovered that the problem was whoever puts the items into the crawl would often just put in the first sentence of a story from some news organization, but wouldn't include anything else, so the line wouldn't make any sense.

Read these and see if you understand my confusion...

"Broad rivers fed by Sierra Nevada snowmelt brought plentiful water to California’s agricultural heartland and a certain sense of entitlement."

"It sounds like the musical equivalent of Hungarian goulash: take the gypsy fiddles of a leading folk band, blend them with the drums, bells and xylophones of the country's top percussion ensemble, then stir and season to taste."

 

"If your idea of Wyatt Earp is a strong, honorable lawman in the shape of Henry Fonda or Kevin Costner, you'd better think again." 

 

"After responding to a Craigslist advertisement for a cheap Toyota, Fred Wallace and his wife took $5,000 cash and drove to meet the seller at nightfall at a gated community in California."

These news folks need to pay closer attention.

 

Complaints About My Sears Trip

I know I've complained about this before, but, as I went to buy shoes, I faced the situation again and just needed to give it another go on the show.

 

If you shop at Sears, not online, I mean at the store; you will have run into the litany of questions they hit you with at checkout. An older fellow in front of me in line got sucked in and he even apologized to me for the time it was taking.

 

Another sales clerk came to help the next in line - me. The dance began. I gave my phone number, but then a couple quick and firm "No's" and she got the message and rung me up. I made my purchase and went on my way, leaving behind that older fellow and his having to fill out all those unnecessary forms.

 

Sears, I just want to make my purchase, why must we go through the dance?

Movies!

Don't ask me why, but I set myself the task of watching all of the Rocky movies. All six of them. The first was very good. Two and three were good. Four was ok, but pretty silly. Five was awful! But the last one, 'Rocky Balboa', was surprisingly very good. I thought it was a good ending for the series, but I hear Stallone is planning on making another one.

 

Or was that another Rambo. No, I won't be watching all the installments of that series.

Quite A Scene

I still haven't seen the entire film, so maybe I shouldn't say much about it, but I did catch a very intriguing scene from the 1962 film noir 'Experiment In Terror'. The film stars Lee Remick and Glenn Ford. Remick plays a young bank teller who is accosted one night by a wheezing, threatening strange man, who wants her to steal $100,000 from her bank for him.

 

The scene has a very stationary camera, but does cut in for close-ups. We never quite see the man, but we can see the terror on Remick's face.

 

Very effective scene.

 

At first, I thought the scene ran long and that it has said what it meant to say, but as I thought more about it I realized the director Blake Edwards ('Breakfast At Tiffany's', 'The Pink Panther') wanted the viewer to become uncomfortable. The closeness of the unmoving camera, the wheezing stranger, the closeness of her to her assailant, and the amount of time that had gone by had me wanting to get out of that scene. Please! Let me go!

I haven't seen the rest of the film, but that scene was very effective.

Here's just a part of it.

Movie Recommendations: Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010) & Lite Itself (2014)

There hasn't been a movie recommendation in quite a while so this week I gave two. They are both documentaries. One examines the oldest known art, the other examines the life of someone who loves one of the newest forms of art.

 

In 'Cave Of Forgotten Dreams', director Werner Herzog was allowed to bring a minimal film crew into Chauvet Cave in southern France to show the to the audience the oldest cave paintings known to exist. It's a fascinating documentary that was originally released in 3D. (That would have been fun to see.) The artwork is beautiful and the film is a fine showcase for those paintings.

 

'Life Itself' is a documentary based on Roger Ebert's autobiography of the same name. The filmmaker, Steve James, was to follow Roger through his daily life dealing with loss of his lower jaw to cancer. James reveals Roger's life as a Pulitzer-winning film critic, his friendship/rivalry with Gene Siskel, his troubles with alcohol, his life with his wife and family, and, then, life happened and Roger got terribly sick.

 

It is an honest and loving portrayal of a man who, along with Gene Siskel, produced a show I wouldn't dare miss for the better part of three decades. 

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus

First ad break bumpers: 'Back In Flesh' by Wall of Voodoo & 'Here In My House' by 54-40
Second ad break bumpers: 'Back On The Chain Gang' By The Pretenders & 'Here It Is Tomorrow' by Game Theory

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

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