help me love my home theater again
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Micah Cohen
Posts: 2,022
Dear Micah: I am afraid I have fallen out of love with my big screen tee-vee and my surround sound system. I don't know what it is, but it just doesn't pop and sizzle with excitement the way it used to. It's been a long time since I've seen anything interesting and exciting, and a long time since I've heard anything fun and loud. What can I do to bring the excitement back to my home theater? Signed, Bored On The Couch.
Dear BOTC: Every year about this time when I lived in Arizona, when the monsoon rain storms herald the coming of the chilly desert nights, and I could look forward to burning a fragrant juniper fire in the fireplace each night, snuggling up with my hot little desert honey bunny (that ****! uh, sorry), a special event would take place. My little group of hiking/climbing buddies would attend this special event at ASU's Gammage Auditorium in Tempe, the last building designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. We'd find great seats in the middle of the awesome floating balcony, and for 90 minutes, in the middle of the desert, we'd be flown and driven to far-flung places on the globe where we'd hang on by our fingernails as we watched some of the most breathtaking films any of us had ever seen. We'd watch that year's Warren Miller film.
What's a Warren Miller film, you may ask.
You know that bit that used to appear on ABC's "Wide World of Sports"; that "agony of defeat" thing with the slalom skier flipping ignominiously **** over teakettle into the snow, a hard fall? Well, Warren Miller makes edge of your seat extreme ski and sports films that make that little spill look like fun. And he's been strapping cameras to skiers and dropping them out of helicopters in the French Alps on sheer vertical faces since about 1950. The most spectacular and magnificent footage you've ever seen, edited for action and set to pounding thunderous 5.1 tuneage: this is just the stuff you need re-energize your couch time.
I recently found a bunch of his films -- there are over 50 in all, with titles like RIDE, JOURNEY, THE POWER OF SNOW, STORM, IMPACT, etc -- on Netflix, and I rented a slew of them. I recommend you do the same. You will see things you have never seen before no matter which Warren Miller DVD you see: a head-on helping of heart-stopping, dazzling, astonishing eye-popping footage of extreme skiers and snowboarders and more, shot all over the world in the most intense conditions from Canada and Colorado to Antarctica and Russia; from Greenland to South Georgia Island (pray for Shackelton!) to Wisconsin and even to Iran! The images are all vividly bright breathtaking, love-my-tv boldness. And the soundtracks are pure adrenalin, mixing every style and genre of music, including pop hits, alterna rock, reggae, even cajun zydeco and whatever. Plus, your host and master of ceremonies, Warren "been shooting skiers since the stone age" Miller, adds his own droll and charmingly subversive narration, taking you on a witty white-knuckle journey of extreme adventure all over the world.
I don't ski, you say.
Hey -- do I look like a skier to you? Skiing is stupid. I mean, go UP HILL on skies, that's a "sport." Going down hill is just gravity; not a sport. I'd rather be on the beach, dude. But still, these are some of the most electrifying, engaging and fun movies about nothing that you can slap into your DVD player, with remarkable visuals and excellent surround sound. And if you do ski, these Warren Miller guys make the black diamond run at your favorite ski slope look like a little bump in the snow in your backyard. You've never seen anything like this.
Rent some Warren Miller. It just wouldn't be winter without it.
My only beef with these DVDs -- are you listening Warren? -- is that they are all presented in "standard 1.33:1" aspect ration, meaning that you have to set your widescreen monster to "zoom" or "theater wide" or whatever your non-anamorphic standard stretch mode is. I can't recall whether they were shot for widescreen or not (the screen at Gammage may well have been a huge 1.33:1 square, I don't remember). Anyway, the images are super crisp and the soundtracks are super rockin. So, it's just a little beef, really.
Do you **** love me, or what? ADMIT IT! Aren't you glad I'm back in your life? (And with nothing much else to do on a Friday night... )
MC
Dear BOTC: Every year about this time when I lived in Arizona, when the monsoon rain storms herald the coming of the chilly desert nights, and I could look forward to burning a fragrant juniper fire in the fireplace each night, snuggling up with my hot little desert honey bunny (that ****! uh, sorry), a special event would take place. My little group of hiking/climbing buddies would attend this special event at ASU's Gammage Auditorium in Tempe, the last building designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright. We'd find great seats in the middle of the awesome floating balcony, and for 90 minutes, in the middle of the desert, we'd be flown and driven to far-flung places on the globe where we'd hang on by our fingernails as we watched some of the most breathtaking films any of us had ever seen. We'd watch that year's Warren Miller film.
What's a Warren Miller film, you may ask.
You know that bit that used to appear on ABC's "Wide World of Sports"; that "agony of defeat" thing with the slalom skier flipping ignominiously **** over teakettle into the snow, a hard fall? Well, Warren Miller makes edge of your seat extreme ski and sports films that make that little spill look like fun. And he's been strapping cameras to skiers and dropping them out of helicopters in the French Alps on sheer vertical faces since about 1950. The most spectacular and magnificent footage you've ever seen, edited for action and set to pounding thunderous 5.1 tuneage: this is just the stuff you need re-energize your couch time.
I recently found a bunch of his films -- there are over 50 in all, with titles like RIDE, JOURNEY, THE POWER OF SNOW, STORM, IMPACT, etc -- on Netflix, and I rented a slew of them. I recommend you do the same. You will see things you have never seen before no matter which Warren Miller DVD you see: a head-on helping of heart-stopping, dazzling, astonishing eye-popping footage of extreme skiers and snowboarders and more, shot all over the world in the most intense conditions from Canada and Colorado to Antarctica and Russia; from Greenland to South Georgia Island (pray for Shackelton!) to Wisconsin and even to Iran! The images are all vividly bright breathtaking, love-my-tv boldness. And the soundtracks are pure adrenalin, mixing every style and genre of music, including pop hits, alterna rock, reggae, even cajun zydeco and whatever. Plus, your host and master of ceremonies, Warren "been shooting skiers since the stone age" Miller, adds his own droll and charmingly subversive narration, taking you on a witty white-knuckle journey of extreme adventure all over the world.
I don't ski, you say.
Hey -- do I look like a skier to you? Skiing is stupid. I mean, go UP HILL on skies, that's a "sport." Going down hill is just gravity; not a sport. I'd rather be on the beach, dude. But still, these are some of the most electrifying, engaging and fun movies about nothing that you can slap into your DVD player, with remarkable visuals and excellent surround sound. And if you do ski, these Warren Miller guys make the black diamond run at your favorite ski slope look like a little bump in the snow in your backyard. You've never seen anything like this.
Rent some Warren Miller. It just wouldn't be winter without it.
My only beef with these DVDs -- are you listening Warren? -- is that they are all presented in "standard 1.33:1" aspect ration, meaning that you have to set your widescreen monster to "zoom" or "theater wide" or whatever your non-anamorphic standard stretch mode is. I can't recall whether they were shot for widescreen or not (the screen at Gammage may well have been a huge 1.33:1 square, I don't remember). Anyway, the images are super crisp and the soundtracks are super rockin. So, it's just a little beef, really.
Do you **** love me, or what? ADMIT IT! Aren't you glad I'm back in your life? (And with nothing much else to do on a Friday night... )
MC