Hello!

Thanks for all the notes and emails. CineSavant Central is not close to any of the fire sites (the ones up ’til now), although the Hollywood (Sunset) Fire a few nights back had us checking the news every twenty minutes. As of this writing the firefighters’ battle rages. The winds in some places have subsided enough to allow effective firefighting.

Wednesday morning we woke to some really strange lighting … dark billows of smoke directly above (from Altadena, we think) but clear skies to the West. The combination threw colors off — white things had a bluish cast. The ‘key light’ was from the side, which added to the artificial look. Definite End of the World lighting. The photos are just as they came off my phone; they enlarge.

We don’t make light of this — entire communities burned, so many lives kicked into the street — and the threat continues mostly unabated. Some really good firefighting saved West Hollywood. Lots of power outages; so far we’re not affected. Can’t let this lucky feeling make me feel complacent … most everything burns under the wrong conditions.

 

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And our friends at Classic Flix have finished several years of work on their disc set

The Little Rascals – The Restored Silents, Volume 1.The Classic Flix ad copy tells us that there were 220 Our Gang comedy short subjects, later re-titled Little Rascals. This is the silent series begun in 1922.

The company has put a restoration comparison up on YouTube. The shows had to be rescued from 16mm copies, and the demo shows how improved they are:  The Restored Silents, Volume 1 Restoration Comparison.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson