Dillinger

This is a great gangster film. I liked it very much although the 1973 movie Dillinger starring Warren Oates was good, let's face it , although Oates may have looked more like the real Dillinger there is no mistaking Johnny Depp's adding something to the role. Besides, Depp's brooding look adds so much to the character. I liked the music to this one, it wasn't some banjo picking of some '30's vintage jazz.

I like the gangster films. I guess it's the rat-tat-tat of tommy guns and the "high-speed" car chases. I thought there was a serious flaw in this one . I remembered that Dillinger was betrayed by "the woman in red", but noticed the "the woman" in this movie wore an orange dress. Further research shows that the movie was historically correct and "the woman" wore an orange dress. However, the lights of the the theater made the dress appear red to the FBI agents in the ambush. Another interesting fact was that Purvis had a problem lighting his cigar as a signal to the other agents to ambush Dillinger but they recognised his attempts as the signal which allowed them to surprise Dillinger and successfully shoot him in the back.

As an aside, I'm amazed at how easily the gangsters and G-men handle the tommy guns. I picked up one of these, Thompson sub-machine guns, the other day and found that it weighed about ten pounds without the drum magazine.

Notes on the FBI's list of public enemies of this era:

* John Dillinger was killed and not captured.

* Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed and not captured.

* Baby-faced Nelson was killed and not captured.

* Machine gun Kelly was the only notable public enemy that was captured rather than killed. he died in prison of natural causes.

Video Doodling

I am continually working on ways to make my video stuff more interesting. I am currently working on a short piece concerning my great-grandfather's service in the American Civil War. i doing so i had to find a way to animate maps to illustrate his travels. By the use of the transition features of the Ulead Video Studio program I was able to do this. however in order tho perfect this task, experiments were necessary. There for the results of my experiments are shown here. The term" video doodling" comes to mind. The images and effects have no significance but did induce a certain amount of humor.

Bang! Bang!

We jumped at the sound of automatic weapon fire. The sound echoed off the cement block walls and after the burst the clink of spent cartridges falling on the concrete floor. There was a heavy smell of cordite in the air. And it smelled good! I sent Claudette to see the girl behind the counter for some hearing protection because my ears were ringing. The earplugs used for rock concerts didn't come close to doing the job. When safe inside the earmuffs I filled the cylinder of the revolver with .32 caliber Smith and Wesson long cartridges. Taking careful aim at the silhouette target down range I squeezed off three shots. . Then Claudette had the opportunity to further ventilate the target. With a flip of the toggle switch on my left the target comes to us on a device similar to clothesline apparatus. Upon care observation we found that all bullets had perforated the torso of the target. This lead us to believe that we could have stopped and intruder during a attempted home invasion.

Fishing and so on...

It has been good week. Several good movies watched, daily gym trips, and the Wednesday morning apple fritter breakfast with friends. Did I mention fishing? This week I think we went 3 times to our neighborhood lake. Some days we were lucky and some days we weren't. One thing of interest though, alligators. When the gators are close I keep one eye on the bobber and one on the alligator!
I finished the Shutterfly picture book for Mama. It took a little while but I think it came out good. I had a coupon from Delta Airlines for a free 20 page book. all I had to pay was the shipping.
I won my auction on Ebay for a deHavilland DH-3 Otter model airplane kit. I will construct it as a turbo Otter like the one we flew on in the Misty Fjords of Alaska. And speaking of Alaska, I spoke with David this week and he is doing well. Making music and making beer! He has also caught a lot of salmon that he is processing for the winter food supply.

Paper vs. Pixels

I recently watched two films via DVD based on comic books, Ghostrider and Electra. Although they were beautifully done, they seemed to be missing something. What was it? I don't know but I think it has to do with the imagination. We all know that story telling, especially in print, feeds the imagination. When we read those words in print we interpret them into visual images. When you first read Tom Clancy, did Jack Ryan look like Harrison Ford? Probably not. I think that the same is true when making the transition form comic book or graphic novel to movie. Regardless of how the artist has depicted the events, the images remain static. For that reason the movies take away that bit of the imagination used to animate. And , besides, you miss the great pictorial layouts in film.

By the way I liked both movies, but the comics appeal more to me.

The drawing below was done during vewing the films....