John, what about now that you can download feature length full version films off the internet? Not sure if that's your thing or not, or if you can bear watching them on a computer monitor, but it seems like it would help your movie problem.

Here in Japan, movies aren't diced and sliced so much really. Korea was just an extreme example. But they do cut a bit here. I was watching "The Last Picture Show" last night with a friend and they cut out the entire scene on the pool table and a lot of the swimming pool scene. So, if I hadn't seen it before, it would have been a bit confusing to follow.

The biggest thing in Japan is the time lag before movies make it here. Never understood why that is...I guess they've just clamped the lid on "outside" competition in movies and only let select movies in.

Downloading from the web is one idea...but I have to admit I'm not too keen on watching a whole feature length movie on a computer monitor. What I've been doing the past seven years is having friends that go home, or when I go home, picking up lots of DVDs and bringing them back...or ordering through Amazon. Of course, that's limited by how many I can afford to buy.

The one advantage over here, though, is the "all region" DVD player I have...I think they're not so common in the States. Could be wrong now, though.

John,
I have one of those all region DVD players also, they are great, I picked up a copy of Death Race 2000 and Dogtown and Z-boys on DVD when I went back home.

Although the movies get over late, you forgot to tell people how you can order a draft beer at the snack bar. When I saw a movie the first time in Japan, back in '91, I got a nice cold beer in a glass from the snack bar, they now serve them in paper cups. You could even walk in with a pizza and the staff wouldn't blink. I've walked in carrying a large bag of Micky D's and while eating a burger as I gave the staff my ticket. But I do miss the Raisenets, but I found an import store near the theater so I buy a bag of chocolate covered raisins, can't see a movie without them.

I'm getting my 12mb ADSL modem today, so I'll be downloading more stuff off the net, so far I've been downloading episodes of the new star trek series, Enterprise. I burn them to a cd and pass them to my other trekkie friends. Recently got a AVI to Quicktime converter for OS X so I can finally see AVI movies if I really need to see something. which reminds me now I can download several other tv shows since most are put out as AVI files.

But seeing a whole movie on my computer doesn't go well with me, I'd much rather try to get the movie on DVD and then watch all the extra stuff they put in, interviews, making of, etc...

See http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Smithee,%20Alan

Okay now, here's a relatively easy trivia question for you... one of our DV Info Net Community moderators, the spry and agile Mr. Charles Papert, SOC, was the Steadicam operator on an Alan Smithee film. IMDB will not readily reveal the answer. Name it!

chorizo most dvd-rips or episodes or whatever on the net are in DIVX format, which is wrapped by .avi.

http://www.divx.com has the codec for PC and MAC, so no conversion needed.

kermie

Oooooh...ooooh (John waving his hand from the back of the class)...I know!

American History X! What do I win?

Thaaat's right, John... the correct response is American History X. Tell him what he's won, Gene!

"A trip to Japan!"

Thank you for playing!

Well, as I remember the director of American History X (Tony Kaye) wanted to remove his name, but he disqualified himself from being able to do so. The DGA apparently has specific guidelines about this sort of thing, one of which being that the director should not bad-mouth the producers or the film publically which he most certainly did, so they would not allow him to take his name off. Incidentally, he was pushing to have his credit read "Directed by Humpty-Dumpty". He's nuttier than a fruitcake, that guy.