So long Butch...

On Friday the world lost perhaps one of the greatest actors of all time in Paul Newman. While he will probably be best remembered for his role of Butch Cassidy, he also graced us with his presence in many other classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Exodus, The Sting, The Hustler, The Color of Money, and of course Cool Hand Luke.

Perhaps one of his greater more recent roles was in 2002's Road to Perdition, which demonstrated just how great of an actor he was even in his later years. At age 83 it's fair to say that he lived a long and prosperous life and his legend will live on for future generations of film lovers.

The Mighty Bucs.

This summer I actually went to my first complete Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC park. I have been incredibly out-of-touch with baseball, which has been intentional ever since they went on strike many years ago. I don't follow baseball nor do I care to as long as things are still the way they are with rediculous salaries, egos, and juiced up players who lie under oath.

Anyway...

I got to see the Bucs actually win in a 15-8 victory over the Dodgers, which is quite a miracle considering how bad of a team the Pirates truly are and have been. While the score looks impressive it was still a disappointing game despite a win. Disappointing? Yes, how could a team this bad play in one of the most amazing fields ever built? It's not really disappointing, it's embarrassing, shameful, and downright despicable. PNC park is a gorgeous ballfield that harkens back to a day and age when baseball thrived and coursed through the veins of any American. And yet, today we get players that don't really care that much, collect their insanely undeserved paycheck, and yet people still watch these bums play. It's embarrassing to see a team this bad and while they may have won this particular game a field this good deserves a team that is also good, or at least one that is trying to rebuild. The Pirates are simply a recruiting station for the rest of the league it seems.

I couldn't believe just how out of touch I have been and this year the Pirates will tie the record for the longest consecutive losing season....for shame. I saw several t-shirts that day that even mocked just how bad the pirates are, the two that I recall were something like:

"I am used to disappoint....I'm a Pirates fan"

"The Pittsburgh Pirates: Rebuilding since 1993"

Our Pittsburgh Pirates are so bad that they are not only a laughing stock to the entire league, but to fans...it's that bad. We are actually 'proud' of just how bad we are! I guess in the many years since I followed the sport nothing really has changed and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon either. In the meantime, I'll watch the only REAL team that Pittsburgh has, THE PENS!

How the West was Awesome.

People rave all over the place about how good High Definition Video looks, and they are right, but they also overlook just how great true film has always looked, especially in certain formats like 70mm, CinemaScope, Cinerama, etc etc. One recent great example is the release of HOW THE WEST WAS WON on Blu-ray, it's available in a 2-disc set that contains the film in both theatrical versions, including SmileBoxed, which you can see the screen captures here and you can click on the images to see them blown up.

Blu-ray Update.

After spending a large part of the Summer scaling back my DVD collection and making gradual shifts over to Blu-ray, my current collection consists now of 82 Blu-ray discs, they are:

300 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY APOCALYPTO THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD BATMAN BEGINS BEHIND ENEMY LINES BLACK HAWK DOWN BLACK RAIN BLADE RUNNER BONNIE AND CLYDEBRAM STOKERS DRACULA THE BRAVE ONE CARS CJ7 A CLOCKWORK ORANGECLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND CRIMSON TIDE THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW THE DEPARTED THE DIE HARD QUADRILOGY DIRTY HARRYDOOMSDAY THE DOORS EDWARD SCISSORHANDS EYES WIDE SHUT THE FALL THE FANTASTIC FOUR THE FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER THE FIFTH ELEMENT FIRST BLOOD FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM FROM HELL FULL METAL JACKET GALAPOGOSGANGES THE GETAWAY GOODFELLAS HALLOWEEN HART'S WAR HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN LONESOME DOVE THE LOST BOYSMICHAEL CLAYTON MEN IN BLACK NATURAL BORN KILLERS NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS NIM'S ISLAND NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN OLDBOY ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST PAN'S LABYRINTH THE PATRIOT PATTONPEARL HARBOR THE PERFECT STORM POINT BREAK PLANET EARTH THE PUNISHER QUEEN ROCK MONTREAL RATATOUILLE THE ROCK ROOM WITH A VIEW THE SHINING STARGATE STEP INTO LIQUID SUNSHINE TERMINATOR 2U-571 THE USUAL SUSPECTS V FOR VENDETTA WILD CHINA X-MEN THE LAST STAND
Plus 3 operas:

SWAN LAKE
LA BOHEME
CELIA & BRYN

While all of these titles are certainly superior to their DVD counterpart in terms of picture and sound quality, there are a few gems here that are worth noting as they are essential titles to own if you are looking to make the most of your home theater system. Those titles are as follows:

PATTON -perhaps one of the best restorations thus far, read previous thread on it.
NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS -even an animated feature is meant to look and sound this awesome.
LA BOHEME - if you are into opera, this disc is a must.
V FOR VENDETTA - superb color, detail, and depth.
BATMAN BEGINS - demonstrates just how great Blu-ray is capable of showing detail, even when it's dark.
PLANET EARTH - what a terrific series, the sound isn't quite as good as it could be, but the picture is stunning.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN - insanely overlooked epic that arrives here in it's directors cut version and it not only looks and sounds awesome, but is a more competent film.
HART'S WAR - a film worthy of discover and this Blu-ray is the way to go!
FROM HELL - still underrated thriller with Johnny Depp, this Blu-ray will put any DVD to shame.