The sound of silence

Amidst the tumult of the past week, I got an email from a friendly YouTube user informing me of this:


I posted this video almost a year ago, and it contains all PD music from old serials... except for one burst of The Beach Boys near the end. Naturally, Warner Music Group had a problem with this and slapped the unmovable mute button on my short.

The options given to me by YouTube break down as follows: either contest the copyright (which they all but scream that I have no way in hell of winning), swap out the morsel of copyrighted music or render your video mute permanently.

In terms of replacing it, the music is pretty important to the film and is a surprise when it comes up, so it would be hard to find an appropriate replacement. Is there even such a thing as "Public Domain Surf Music"? I just did a Google search for the quote and nothing comes up.

The other option is to leave it mute. Given that it uses title cards like the old serials (and silent films before them), I'm leaning towards this option. It does have the benefit of leaving that message up for all viewers to see and seethe at. WMG is just making friends left and right, ain't they?

But in the end, I'm less mad at Warner Music Group and more angry at YouTube. Not because they leaned over for the music industry. They've had enough legal problems that I can understand their motivations here (and even sympathize).

No, what makes me angry was that they didn't even inform me of it. I have no idea how long my video has been like this (it could be as long as three months, since that was the time someone last commented on it). I'm guessing they stay mute themselves on these sorts of alterations in the hopes that YouTube users don't even notice and, therefore, less people give them grief for it.

It's pretty cowardly, but I suppose they sooth their consciouses by reminding themselves their services are free. True enough, but their not doing their brand name any favors by this kind of behavior.

Update Giganto

OK. After that mysterious post from last week, it's time to give details (in as much as I CAN give details when I run this blog under a pseudonym).

Short story: I was instructed by my superiors on Wednesday of last week that I was being moved to a different branch. The branch I am going to has a larger number of problems and issues than the one I'm at now and is, therefore, not seen as a desirable place to be.

After the initial shock, however, I decided I'd make the best of this. My start date is the 28th. Even if I can get this day off (and I do plan to), I'm going to give the FFF a pass this year much to my regret. I'll have too much on my mind on that weekend before the big move to really enjoy the Festival.

More details to come.

Please Stand By

Acrentropy will return sometime next week.

Taking a walk on the wild (down under) side.

So now that the FFF schedule is finally posted, what are my thoughts (because I know you are dying to know)? It's a nice, varied slate, I must say. It makes me regret that I'm only going for a weekend.

The one title that I have tagged as a must see is Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!. This sounds like pure film buff bliss:

Free-wheelin' sex romps! Bloodsoaked terror tales! High-octane action extravaganzas! They're the ingredients of NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, the wild, wonderful, untold story of "Ozploitation" films of the '70s and '80s. It irreverently documents an era when Australian cinema got its gear off and showed the world a full-frontal explosion of sex, violence, horror, and foot-to-the-floor, full bore action! In 1971, with the introduction of the R-certificate, Australia's censorship regime went from repressive to progressive virtually overnight. This cultural explosion gave birth to arthouse classics, but also spawned a group of demon children rivaling, and even surpassing, their American cousins in sheer outrageousness. Jam-packed with amazing anecdotes from the genre's participants as well as appreciations from fans and foes alike (the former including an effusive Quentin Tarantino), NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD is a fast-moving journey through an unjustly forgotten cinematic era, one unashamedly packed full of boobs, pubes, tubes... and even a little kung fu.

Naturally enough, this will be a midnight screening. Also, in terms of the "B-Grade Cinema History" theme, this ties nicely to one of my FFF favorites from last year, Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story.

As for my other three picks, those are still up in the air. I have until Saturday, when I trek down to Orlando to get tickets, to decide. More to come.

Better late than never

The Florida Film Festival has finally posted their schedule. My reactions soon to follow.

"Available"...PSYCHE!

It was with much frustration that I finally downgraded my Blockbuster subscription yesterday from the $20-a-month plan (3 discs at a time and five in-store trade-ins a month) to their lowest $4.00-a-month plan (2 discs a month with no in-store trade-ins).

The reason for this was their availability of certain discs. When you add titles to your queue, you're told the title is either "Available", "Short Wait", "Long Wait" or "Very Long Wait". About 90-95% fall into that first category. The other three are either for extremely popular new DVD's or obscure ones.

As you can imagine, my tastes bend towards obscure. My long list had included about twenty titles that were categorized into one of those three statuses and had not changed for over a year. It was as if Blockbuster was taunting me: "Yes, we have these movies... but you can't have them! BWAHAHAHAHA!".

Back in January, I decided to drastically cut my list down. Out of the dozen that I had left, I included two that had been forever in limbo: One listed as "Short Wait" and one listed as "Long Wait". I figured that if I had so few movies on the list, they would be compelled to fill these two requests.

So earlier this week, I saw the "Long Wait" disc turn into a "Short Wait" then on Thursday list as "Available". WHEE! I placed the title at the top of my queue and promptly returned two of the three discs I had out. When I checked my Blockbuster account the next morning, I saw the disc had changed back to "Long Wait".

You'd think that after that anticlimax, I'd just cut ties with Blockbuster for good. But, no, their service is still worth something. And though it may seem cruel, I'm going to get as much worth out of them as possible during their likely slow, agonizing death this year.

See, Blockbuster? I can be sadistic too!