Random photos, comics, etc.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I wish all the discovery algorithms let you assign "modes of viewing" or themes. When I'm in an educational/doc mood I don't want to be interrupted by cat videos, but I do like cat videos. The ad driven spaces are hamstrung by preying to the gods of your eyeballs and just feeding you whatever they think will generate more watch time, mood aside. I also wish they had "comfy" vs "adventurous" modes... show me more of what I enjoy, versus asking it to take you to new things. If everything is eventually AI anyway, just give me a prompt so I can steer it's whims more effectively.

[Leo Enticknap]

We used to joke that the "History Channel" was really the "Hitler Channel". I guess some things never change even in the streaming era.

I once officiated with film and video clips (a challenging show: multiple middle-of-reel 16mm and 35mm clips with paper cues) for a lecture given by David Starkey, who allowed himself to get sidetracked with a rant about the History Channel. Noting that its official slogan was "All history, all the time," he responded that it should really be "All Hitler, all the time." Starkey continued that one of these days he expected to turn on his TV and see a trailer for their new documentary series, Adolf Hitler: His Secret Role in World War II.

Then again, I clicked on a video of someone building a miniature subway for his cats and ever since, YouTube thinks that all I want to see all day long is cat videos...

I did see Operation Finale on Prime about six months ago, which is to all intents and purposes a remake of The House on Garibaldi Street (offered to me on the screen above). But if this is why Amazon suddenly thinks that I'm a Nazi nut, it's strange that it only decided that quite a long time later.

[Harold Hallikainen]

We used to joke that the "History Channel" was really the "Hitler Channel". I guess some things never change even in the streaming era.

I knew a woman who wrote for the History Channel. She also called it the Hitler Channel.

[Mark Ogden]

I wonder how many release prints had been run off before this was caught. I've never seen an intermission set up that way either.


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[Ryan Gallagher]

I wonder how many release prints had been run off before this was caught. I've never seen an intermission set up that way either.

I ran the DCP of Barry Lyndon this summer. Jeez I wish they still included pre-show and intermission music in the shipments... how professional!

I'd be VERY curious to find record of what that music was?

I also find their mid-reel intermission techniques of the old days fascinating. I guess a card was included but the intent was to close a curtain and dowse/stop... but without switching projectors advance forward to a new countdown for Part2 embedded in the same reel. Would be hell to pay if you missed your intermission cue.... not just starting part 2 on accident, but showing a full countdown leader on screen etc.

I'll post our DCP info over in feature info, but tag in this projection note for a bit of fascinating history. The cue mark oops from the lab is certainly amusing.

Also Happy Labor Day! (Labor day also marks the end of our summer classic series... back to live shows until the Halloween film events).

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[Frank Cox]

So much for the "infinite amount of care", though.

[Leo Enticknap]

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Any relation?!

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Possibly not the most tasteful promotion they could have come up with, given what this brand is most widely known for. Maybe the red guy is supposed to be Jim Jones?

[Harold Hallikainen]

"Drink the Kool-Aid" is certainly a well known phrase.

[Randy Stankey]

Everybody knows it's the same silly, over-hyped marketing that goes on Kool-Aid packaging and advertising. Didn't they have a flavor called "Sharkle-Berry Fin?" It's just whatever kids' fads happen to be hot at a particular time.

I loved Koo-Aid every since I was a kid and still do. Everybody always knew that the stuff was completely artificial since the beginning and it still is. There have been all these different changes to formulas of Kool-Aid that have been needed or allowed that have been made. The modern formulas are likely better than ones of old but they are still artificial. Artificial is artificial. Right?

Everybody knows that you aren't supposed to drink it all the time. For the family picnics or camp outs? "Bug Juice!"
How many times has your mother yelled at you, "Don't drink too much Kool-Aid!"

I love Kool-Aid, even after all these years. Just don't drink too much of it!!

My favorite Kool-Aid flavor? Red!... Just red! Yes! Red is a flavor unto itself.
It taste a like cherry but not quite. It's kind of like strawberry but not quite. Is it raspberry?
It's sweet! It's tangy! It's fruity... soft of. It's undoubtedly artificial!
Whatever the flavor actually tastes like it's... RED!

Yes! Red Kool-Aid! With a shot of Everclear!

Just don't drink too much of it!

[Leo Enticknap]

"Drink the Kool-Aid" is certainly a well known phrase.

Sorry if others didn't get the reference. I've just looked up the history again, and discovered that ironically, it was a case of the brand becoming a victim of its own success.

In 1978, a psycho, wack job cult leader by the name of Jim Jones coerced 909 of his followers into committing "revolutionary suicide" by drinking what was widely believed at the time to be Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide. "Drink the Kool-Aid" thus became a dysphemism, meaning to be easily persuaded or deceived by a charismatic individual with a seriously bad idea.

The weird thing is that it wasn't actually Kool-Aid that Jones's followers drank, but a cheaper, knockoff product called Flavor-Aid. It wasn't even misreported (at least, not in the mainstream media) as being Kool-Aid, either: photos of Flavor-Aid containers at the site of the massacre were published in the newspapers and on TV. The problem for Kool-Aid was that it was such a widely known brand that informal discussion of the Jonestown Massacre across the country used the name, and the next they knew, "drink the Kool-Aid" was in the dictionary.

What surprises me, and I'm guessing that this must be covered as a case study in business schools somewhere, is why the brand was not retired when the negative connotation became so firmly established in popular culture. Its owners toughed it out, and it's still there. All I can guess is that now, so few people know about the Jonestown Massacre that it's effectively a non-issue from a marketing perspective. No way could they have decided to go ahead with the "Ghoul-Aid" promotion if their market research was showing that a significant number of supermarket customers still associate the brand with that event.

[Harold Hallikainen]

meaning to be easily persuaded or deceived by a charismatic individual with a seriously bad idea.

Which reminds me of a great movie: A Face in the Crowd

[Ryan Gallagher]

The Studio also plays up making bad movies simply as product placement money makers, guess which brand they picked on. ;-)