Hello!

Lots of interesting email input this week. People are finally receiving their 4Ks of  The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,  and some were nice enough to write in and say that I didn’t steer them wrong. Friend Craig Reardon wrote a very detailed note saying that he thinks the new encoding is the same basic scan as the earlier Indicator disc that we liked, given greater attention and the simple ‘plus’ of 4K contrast and detail.

Charlie Largent took a look at our review disc and (happily) endorsed my coverage as accurate as well. Both of them did say that they wished ‘something could be done’ to enhance the audio track, as good as it is.

I was also struck by responses to the review of the 4K  Abandon Ship,  which a lot of people seem to have seen. As I guessed, everybody has an idea of what Tyrone Power should have done. At one point in the review I stopped to observe that the people in the lifeboat were an unusualy cooperative, civilized bunch. Readers pointed out to me that when survivors and castaways stay organized and productively on task, it’s usually because they are a group with some internal cohesion, like the soccer team that was lost in the Andes.

In Abandon Ship we have a group of mostly white Anglos wealthy enough to afford steamship tickets. They’re wet and miserable and scared, but they accept Power’s authority, at least in theory. One writer reminded me that in the original 1841 incident, the sailors in the boat just started throwing people out with no particular plan. All the sailors stayed, of course. An agonizing thing about the Titanic disaster is that plenty of pushy people jammed their way into boats against the officers’ instructions, taking some places meant for women and children. Polite and obedient passengers were out of luck that night. If that’s not enough, the stiff class division on board carried an unspoken assumption that the third class immigrants down below were not as lifeboat-qualified as the rich folk up top.

I remember having to deal with crowds of unhappy, self-important Beverly Hills types at movie premieres, people that normally refuse to wait in line even for a few seconds. I saw older women in gowns and wearing diamonds, ignore our instructions, push barriers aside and threaten us. I should never even have tried to be a good movie usher.

One writer said that any group of people put in an inconvenient situation with random strangers can start getting unreasonable. Tyrone Power really needed that gun, I think; I’m surprised that Abandon Ship keeps its grip on plausibility.

And I had some fun notes about  The Odyssey,  which I’m not likely to see in a theater. It sounds really attractive, even though it’s been a long time since I was carried off by the glamour of a grandiose spectaclar. And my thoughts are truly ignorant. How can that big Polyphemus hand prop work well?  Descriptions remind us too much of the pasty rubber blob that once represented Allison Hayes’ dainty mitt. I’ve also read no direct description from anybody who has seen The Odyssey in the full-gauge film IMAX format. How can they possible compose shots for two shapes of screens?  Perhaps Gary Teetzel will have the answers.

And finally, I wonder how many of those gigantic Trojan Horse popcorn containers are being sold?  Something tells me that it must be a big moneymaker. That has to take the prize for The Most Decadent Purchase of 2026.

All these uninformed notes and questions come from a reviewer who spends all of his free time digging into discs. I’ve clearly lost track of what remains of American moviegoing. And I’m right here in Los Angeles, with some of the best theaters around.
 

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson