Today we heard the sad news that Elizabeth Taylor has passed away. She was 79 years old and battled a series of health issues over the years. But she was the prettiest, most glamorous movie star that I can remember. I would call her one of the few Super Stars from Hollywood’s best days. I know I have seen every one of her movies, from National Velvet to Butterfield 8.
Rest In Peace, Liz.
While my grandson was here for his sleepover last weekend, we watched the movie called, “Happy Feet.” I had watched a few minutes of it before, but never really sat down and watched the whole movie. I was very surprised to see so many ethnic references and portrayals, although my grandson did not seem to notice.
There are two or three different types of penguins shown in the movie. The main type is the Emperor penguin. But we had to look up the other ones and found a nice web site that showed pictures of the different types. It was a good learning experience to have that reference on the internet available while we had the movie fresh on our minds.
My brother, Walter, wants to give my parents a special gift for Christmas this year. He has managed to sneak out a big box of old movies from their house and is planning on changing them to digital format by using a Video Converter. My dad is an electronics freak and has always bought the latest and greatest of everything over the years. When I was a kid, he had an 8mm movie camera, then he upgraded to the Super 8 format and then he changed over to the Beta and VHS formats. He always wanted the newest technology.
Walter spent a lot of time looking into the whole process of changing old home movies to different digital formats, and a coworker told him last week how easy it was to get a Video Converter for Mac and watch his old movies on his Mac.
That gave him the idea to change the old home movies that my parents had in the attic and use an iPad Video Converter so my dad can watch them on his iPad. Nothing like trying to do all of this at the last minute! But I know my Dad will be thrilled to have the movies in iPad format and my mom will love being able to watch the movies and add a soundtrack and narrative on the disks.
I really enjoy books and movies that are based on real life circumstances or events. It gives you a great sense of connection to the story. The movie that we watched tonight, “Behind Enemy Lines,” was based on the rescue efforts by our military to retrieve a pilot who was shot down on June 2 1995 in the Serbia/Bosnia conflict.
The real pilot’s name was Scott O’Grady. Although he helped publicize the movie when it first came out, he did later criticize parts of it and eventually in 2002 he sued the production company for some misrepresentation and not getting his permission in advance. I suspect the real reason was that he expected some big money from is commercial success and did not get it. Strangely, I cannot find out if he won that lawsuit or not.
All in all, it is a very good movie and it was made to seem very real. I liked several scenes, including when he was in an area filled with trip wires and he figured it out but the men chasing him were killed by those explosions. Another good scene was in a shopping center that was under fire. In all the commotion, he was able to switch uniforms with another soldier and escape. Those types of ingenuity are surely what helped keep him alive until rescued.
Guest Post contributed by Buford Downs
Movies on demand is a great feature offered by my direct tv packages choice ultimate package. For a small fee, you can rent a movie to watch for 24 hours on your home television. These movies are usually new and some come out before a movie is released on DVD.
I find this service serves several purposes. It lets me preview movies and decide if I want to add them to my DVD collection. It keeps me up to date on the latest movies without paying movie theater prices. One price and the whole family can see it; anyone coming over to my house can see it. Throw in a few snacks, and you have a party.
I find this service also lets me select movies that I may not want to watch with the kids. I have also used my movies on demand to preview movies to decide who in the family can watch them. As I get busier, I find that I am spending more time watching movies because they complete a story and they are original. Movies on demand allows me to feed this need and conserve my time.
Movies on demand has become a fixture in my household. I now wonder what it was I did before I had this feature. I guess I watched a lot of television repeats.