We gotta start somewhere....

I guess it would be accurate to say that I have always enjoyed movies.  From my struggle in younger years to try to stay up beyond my bedtime to see a movie and having failed, to get out of bed after everyone is fast asleep to catch that early morning or late-night flic (yes, back when some TV channels closed for the night and commenced broadcasting again in the early morning).  Then the enjoyment of the “VCR” world where my Grandparents were very early adopters of the VCR standard and my visits and stays resulted in repeated viewings of “The Great Escape”, “Duel” and “Bugsy Malone” (the 1976 version, not the 1991 edition).  Then at my Dad’s side of the family who never really got into the whole VCR movement, I recall visits where the comedy duo Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis often played on the TV when we used to visit after Church on a Sunday along with that fantastic movie “Them!” (a 50’s Sci-fi movie about giant ants).  These times at both Grandparents places are etched into my memory along with those very early morning wake-ups to catch the late/early movie before anyone else starts waking up.  So yes, its fair to say my enjoyment of film started when I was young. 

Jump forward to today and my love for movies hasn’t really faded but I must say that Im not that dedicated to wake up early before the sun rises to catch a movie!  I have certainly seen many movies within the VCR days where you could pop down to the local video store to hire a movie and then to the wonderful days of DVD where my first player in the late 90’s cost a staggering $1,500- (I did get a “cheaper” Philips player initially but that had issues where some scenes, especially those containing shadows, were very blocky so I returned that player and went for an Onkyo DV-S717 player which performed perfectly up until I sold it) and I became the test bunny for family and friends of this strange new technology that could fit a movie on to a disc the size of a CD as opposed to a VHS video or Laserdisc (which was the size of an LP record – remember those?).  Since then Bluray (which won the battle against HD DVD) entered the market, then 3D Bluray and now 4K Bluray is just starting to make its mark though I have no intention of moving to 4K as Bluray is more than sufficient for me at this stage.  To me its more important to see many of the older classics remastered/restored (including the 2k/4k scanning) up to Bluray standard than to have 4K discs.

This brings me up to the next thing I would like to touch on.  It seems that the demand for older movies is growing more now than ever before.  Techniques in restoring film have progressed with leaps and bounds.  The move to DVD started the ball rolling however the move to Bluray has more or less forced the need to restore the former glory of film due to Bluray’s higher resolution and of course the availability of much larger TV screens.  This, I believe, is very important in order to keep a measure of history in film making.  For example, the first feature length narrative film was produced in 1906 by a bunch of Australians who made the film “The Story of the Kelly Gang” which apparently ran for over an hour. 

Only a small segment of that remains today as most of the original film has been lost or destroyed however because of the hard work by the people at the National Film & Sound Archive we are able to see a part of this footage that has been restored to a view-able state.  The same goes for many classics that were ahead of their time like the German 1927 film “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang which

would be a real shame to see lost or destroyed (though part of it still remains lost),

 

There is also the restoration of classics from the start of the sound era (Fritz Lang’s “M” comes to mind), the 40’s and 50’s which kicked off what is often termed “Film Noir” such as “Kiss Me Deadly” and “Double Indemnity” and also some great Sci-fi pics like “It Came from Outer Space” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” even to great films from only a decade ago and modern day films.  Whilst the restoration of these films are not the most important things in the world, they are great to keep for generations to come so that just as we can now enjoy many restored movies from the early 20^th century, so too can those after us enjoy both these and those from the early 21^st century.

This therefore brings me to my final point here and that is what movies I intend to review.  I enjoy a vast range of films and they will mostly be ones that I own which range from some filmed during the silent era of the early 1900’s right up to the modern day film.  Genre will also vary though I will say up front that I am not so much a fan of the modern “horror” film as they tend to go overboard and often contain stuff which has a huge focus on evil, so the modern horror will not have too much presence here.  Most other genre’s will get some space here though J

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the reading and, if anything, it will help to show that older movies can also be worth watching.