Erkki

In the US, Streaming may be viable. In Estonia there's Netflix with a dismal selection of a few hundred movies. No 4K AFAIK. There's Mubi but that's more like a theater with only a few movies playing. Of course Estonia isn't big enough to be in anybody's business plans anyway (we're not even in the list of PSN countries), but I can order physical media from anywhere (ok, from he UK if I want English subs) and it's the most reliable way to play quality content. About legal downloads for movies, I'm not aware of any serious efforts to do that. Also, isn't Blu-Ray mainly Sony's format? Why would they neglect their own.

It's comforting to know that the press has just been misinterpreting the polls.

A couple of days ago I discovered for myslef another genius of soviet cinema - Sergei Parajanov. Just look at the opening scene of his Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: The whole movie is full of exciting camerawork like that. I guess The Color of Pomegranates is better known among his movies, and I want to watch that soon. There really should be an effort to get these movies properly restored for HD or even 4K, along with the works of Mikhail Kalatozov (Soy Cuba, The Cranes are Flying) and Elem Klimov (Come & See). Also, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is currently on Mubi, in Estonia at least.

4K Blu-Ray capability was the exact reason I was waiting for this console, even though I don't currently have a 4K screen. I expect a console I buy now to last me at least 5 years and I'll likely get some kind of 4K capable imaging device before that.

Now I'm thinking I might be better off with a crappier monitor, then I wouldn't rely on details that won't show for other people

Thanks! Maybe it's just my computer, graphics driver, or something.

What OS?

Curious how other people see the black levels of this photo in browsers -- in Edge it looks fine, but in Firefox or Chrome there's a lot of blocking on the statue.

So when Hillary was leading by 10 "points", I was getting my hopes up that there is some sanity still in the U.S., but hell, it's was just temporary, wasn't it? Trump's catching up fast without even having to do much.

[deleted] Oops, wrong thread.

I liked The Neon Demon. I think it was a pretty good audiovisual experience -- Refn just wanted to portray certain things in a certain way visually and aurally, didn't have much to say with the whole thing.

The new restoration of Chimes at Midnight should be out now from Criterion. Unfortunately, since I don't have a region free player, I'll be waiting for the rip to appear. It should be glorious, though. I think it will be my movie of the year, unless I manage to see the new Mosfilm restoration of Stalker somehow.

I wanna be a pirate!

I finished my series on Tallin's tap water: https://flickr.com/photos/47129281@N00/sets/72157672126777321 Realizing that I'm not very good at photographing nature. I don't even like it that much compared to the streets.

I saw A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night for the fourth time and this time I payed more attention to the way some subtle hints were used to create tension. However, I think the intent to create tension isn't that successful in this movie (maybe it was too subtle, and was never meant to be very strong?), so I'm kind of starting to lean towards "maybe it's not THAT great". Still, I think it's one of the better and more memorable movies from 2014-2015).

I'd love to hear your own thoughts on your compositions because I also think they are great and currently for me it is really hard to get good composition - maybe 1/20 photos turn out in a way I like.

Same building with tilt-shift lens

I wonder how long they last if I link to image files posted on Facebook? Anyway, was experimenting with new lens at an old silo. Some chromatic aberrations, but I think they are not that visible.

Oh man, I have to do a "thesis"(? Final work) for this photography course and somehow got the idea to do something like the movie Psychohydrography (about LA water supply), except for Tallinn, and for drinking water only. Pretty excited, although of course my project is much smaller and I'll just do a photo series.

After watching The Trouble with Harry, I'm now aware that besides timeless masterpieces, Hitchcock also made some real turds. This movie is a complete failure as a movie. Some of the individual elements work - the visual style and look is exquisite, the music is well cued with the action (although the oft-repeating themes began to annoy me). There are even some good jokes in it, especially in the opening chapter. But as a complete package, it just falls apart for me. The deliveries by the cast don't seem to work, and the repetition of the same joke over and over again becomes tedious instead of funny. In fact, tedious is how I would describe watching this piece of excrement. There is almost no use of film as medium to deliver comedy. Almost all of the jokes are delivered by deadpan dialogue. This is totally unlike Hitchcock and I think it's because he went into a completely different genre and suddenly didn't know how to apply his skill any more. He seems to have lost his basic abilities with timing... when we know what's going on inside a house, nothing too sinister is visible... he shows a policeman slowly approaching it and ringing the doorbell twice, a completely useless waste of time, as there's no suspense. Later on, a cupboard door (that's been hinted various times) suddenly opens by itself to reveal... yes... we knew there was nothing in there and it still revealed only a completely normal household thingamajig.

Very nice shots!

To celebrate Hitchcock's birthday, I watched some of his most famous movies (along with some extras on the Blu-Rays) that I hadn't seen for a while - Psycho & The Birds. Psycho is a magnificient masterpiece that will stand forever as one of the top achievements of cinema. It's just so perfectly crafted that it's hard to find any fault, besides 1) why did the detective have to exit the car through the passenger door? and 2) was the explanation by the psychiatrist really necessary? The Birds is, I think, generally a somewhat underrated movie. IMHO, it's almost as good as Psycho. The downsides I can think of is 1) the length of the second part -- where some quick action was needed after it turned into a monster movie, we got a long dialogue that seemed untypical of Hitchcock, and the rest is also a bit sluggish 2) the leading woman needs to be rescued by the leading man 3) the special effects and some studio shots just look obviously wrong considering the generally realistic style. What seemed cool to me (maybe because I was reading about diffusion in photography yesterday) was that all Tippi's close-ups seemed to have been shot with diffuse lighting or a diffuse lens(?) while I didn't notice this with other characters. I'm now curious to see if this was mentioned in Truffaut/Hitchock

https://flic.kr/s/aHskBAEQVH P8091387 by Erkki Lindpere, on Flickr

I started going to photography courses about a month ago and also got myself a camera (OM-D EM10 Mark II, for it's lightweightness). Avenue in the Evening Sun by Erkki Lindpere, on Flickr

Man, I can't delete this double post so I'm using it instead to post a link to Erdmann-Rohrer-Möbus-Courtois I don't listen to jazz a lot, but this is great shit (luckily discovered through Deezer's recommendation engine), reminds me of John Lurie (Lounge Lizards etc.).