There is no TV with enough pixels to rival the experience of watching a great movie in an actual movie theater. Sorry Samsung, it’s true. I first figured this out when Fenzel and I went to see Superman at a midnight showing years ago. I grew up with that movie, and knew it backwards and forwards… but I’d only ever seen it on VHS. Sitting in a real movie theater, hearing the John Williams score, and seeing that “S” logo ten feet tall completely floored me.
Anyway, last week, I got the chance to see It’s a Wonderful Life projected from a real print. It was scratched as hell and barely audible at times, and I still cried like a baby for at least a third of it. And I also managed to notice a few things to Overthink™.
The Harvard Classics Project is a very Overthinking It-type enterprise, in that it combines high culture and pop culture.
On the high culture side is The Harvard Classics. In the first decade of the 20th century, Harvard President Charles Eliot claimed that a five-foot shelf of books could provide “a good substitute for a liberal education in youth to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading.” (Which leads me to wonder, was President Eliot implying four years of Harvard was a pointless waste of time and money?)
