On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

I finally got to see this movie. By signing up for LinkedIn Learning through my local public library's web services. I'm a little annoyed at myself for putting off that choice for however many years it's ended up being.

I gave myself an indulgence on the weekend: The Atlas of Imagined Places.

Five thousand or so fictional places, and the author and cartographer putting this book together tried to figure out where they'd all be. Don't even try to figure out how to string together the backstories of how all these places from different fictional universes could co-exist. Just enjoy and debate the placements. I will.

Details here:

https://apt613.ca/the-bytowne-cinema-welcomes-patrons-back-to-the-theatre/

My comments, here as there: congratulations, good luck and screen safely!

(Interesting sidebar: today on Spark on CBC Radio, the topic of discussion is the lens, and how that technology has affected humanity across the centuries...)

Wishing I could see Black Widow at the cinema. But I don't think Ontario's movie theatres can safely reopen in time. I'll have to wait for the DVD release. If it happens.

If you see it before I can...don't give me hope. Okay?

Just got announced on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/cinefexNOW/status/1364282780490682369

If there's no rescue for this publication, it will indeed be a sad day for movie makers and the people learning those arts.

For politicians as much as movie and TV soundstages, apparently.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/26/books-by-the-foot-washington-dc-covid-books-440347

https://www.wonderbk.com/bookseller/theyre-gonna-put-you-in-the-movies/

And yes, I've seen news reports of libraries on cruise ships. I have a Haynes Manual detailing the history of the Queen Mary II, and that vessel does have a reading library aboard her. I suppose Books By the Yard's management and staff have already heard of such themselves more directly.

This is as much a statement of opinion as a pulling-together of what facts I know. I want to believe that the announcement is premature. Therefore, I've written this to see if I can help make it become so.



Today, Bruce White, owner of the Bytowne Cinema, announced that he was closing it down effect New Year's Eve, 2020. For myself, I found out via Twitter from "NotBruce" who runs the Cinema's Twitter account, like just about many others who knew to care.

As Mr. Whyte explained, the Pandemic's knocked the stuffings out of the Bytowne's finances and business model. We can and will leave it to other threads here, on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere across the Web to better explain or debate the reasons why the Pandemic stretched out as it has.

My first visit would've been back in the winter of 1986-'87, to see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I think I saw it with my brother, but I can't be sure at the moment. It would have been operating as the Nelson Theatre back then. Since the change of name and management in 1988, I've been to see several other movies there across the decades. The ones I can remember with certainty include:

• Good Night, and Good Luck
• In the Shadow of the Moon
• Inside Job
• The Way
• Particle Fever
• The Death of Stalin
• Dark Waters

(Possibly Akira in 1990 as well, because of the Animation Festival that year, and Algonquin Animation students got passes to that. Whether that was for volunteer work or as a benefit of attending Animation History class, I'm not sure. I do remember seeing it. Just not sure where right now.)

(And that was a lot of documentaries and docudramas there, right?)

Anyway, I'm getting bogged down in the specifics of what I saw, instead of noting the reactions to it. Like City Councillor Shawn Menard arguing - dare we hope - for some sort of support from Ottawa City Hall via Twitter.

Like former Capital Ward councillor David Chernushenko posting similar sentiments.

Another Ottawa resident suggesting that the Bytowne be reorganized as a co-op.

We also know that Mr. White is looking for a buyer to revive the place post-Pandemic. If any of you know someone with the cash and the will to do this, now would be a good time to send that e-mail or make that phone call.

This place is worth either saving or reviving. And it's not just my thinking here, as you've seen.

I don't know how many of you know of this particular site. It's designed to make its money supporting job searchers looking in the film and TV business, on both sides of the cameras and microphones.

Anyway, it looks like it's beginning a funnelling of employers and workers into six different geographic silos: the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, India and "International" for everyone else on the planet who don't fit into the first five regions. I expect this is partly due to Time of Pandemic and partly due to geopolitical stuff.

Figured you'd be interested. Just in case.

I'm the last person to denounce this, and maybe after yesterday's instance of practicing my Hockey Night fandom I shouldn't even admit to noticing this. But this compartment design for 3D animation-ware looks familiar. Am I wrong?

https://www.daz3d.com/optronic-computer-core

Back to the job search...

Dayton Ward notes that this is apparently a real thing, though not yet widely observed in the US:

https://daytonward.wordpress.com/2020/04/03/today-is-national-film-score-day/

This might be a good way to take a break for an hour or so today.