Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 August 19

= August 19 =

dunno where to put this...
proportionally speaking, how much can a ballon expand before exploding? also, how fast does the gas made by combining vinegar and backing soda expand? Thornydevil Munchies? 00:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC) U put this in the wrong catagorey --FilmGuySuper8 (talk) 00:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) It depends on the balloon, it is literally to wildly variable to make any reasonable approximations. A kids party balloon will have a very different tensile strength than, say, a condom.  2) It depends on many factors, including concentration of the vinegar, how finely powdered the bicarbonate is, etc.  Again, can't be approximated without any more specific data.  -- Jayron  32  01:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Science easily seems the right place for this. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 05:48, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

What's the name of that song from that early 1900's silent film
I never got the name but I love it --FilmGuySuper8 (talk) 05:43, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't suppose you know the name of that film, or at least remember what happened in it? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 05:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I actually haen't seen the film but I know it's from a film --FilmGuySuper8 (talk) 05:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * 'fraid you're not going to have much luck then, friend. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 06:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Without something more to work on, we'd simply be guessing.  It's like asking "what's the name of that car?  They offer them in red."  Dismas |(talk) 06:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I have the jingle in my head but it would be hard to type out something I hum and wistle occasinlly cuz it would be ununderstandable --FilmGuySuper8 (talk) 06:15, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Wait on a bit. A SONG, from a SILENT film? Are we being had? HiLo48 (talk) 07:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * My guess is you're talking about The Entertainer. There's a youtube of it here. --Viennese Waltz 07:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought the OP was maybe referring to a piece that the piano player would have performed while the silent film was showing. Besides "The Entertainer", the OP might also be referring to the soundtrack of The Jazz Singer which was, according to our article, "[t]he first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences".  Dismas |(talk) 07:57, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

That's it "The Entertainer" --FilmGuySuper8 (talk) 08:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

But I think I remember hearing Robert Redford and Paul Newman talk in that one? -- Jayron  32  12:34, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This was a trick question anyway. A song with no words? HiLo48 (talk) 22:40, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Herr Mendelssohn to the rescue: Songs Without Words. See also Vocalise. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  23:42, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * But seriously, "song" doesn't mean "music with words" or "music with human voice". It's just the plain-speaking name for all musical compositions in any form. Even "composition" sounds a little bit pretentious and it was the least hoity-toity synonym I could come up with. (If you say "piece" you've gone off the edge.) Take a look at Instrumental and follow the links to the famous examples. Can you find one that's not called a "song" in its article? Several have (song) as their disambiguator. 67.162.90.113 (talk) 00:28, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "Song" is indeed the usual term for any piece of popular music. The vast majority of popular music is vocal, so it's of little moment if the small proportion of purely instrumental music also comes under the "song" banner. But the word was not traditionally so widely used; it was reserved for, well, songs - i.e. musical works performed by a singer (see the "song/singer" connection), usually with some accompaniment (piano, guitar, instrumental ensemble) - which are very different animals from symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, concertos, even operas (which contain arias, which can be thought of as a type of song, but they're not called that in that context).  I have to say it's odd to hear a piece of popular piano music like "The Entertainer" referred to casually as a "song without words"; it seems a somewhat circuitous solution, involving first including all music in "song", but then qualifying some of it because it isn't sung, but played.  This sort of raises the question of why call these instrumental works "songs" in the first place.   --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  02:41, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Downer endings in Corean films
So far I have seen two Corean films, The Host and Haeundae and both, while very good films, have had decidedly depressing endngs, or at the very least, it's been the case that you have deaths of main characters that you really like. So is it common in Corean films to have sad to bittersweet endings in films in contrast to the typical Western standard of happy endings? I realise I am basing this off only two films (a monster film and a disaster film no-less), but still, I want to know if I can expect more endings like this from future Corean films I watch. Anyone here have a good working knowledge of Corean cinema? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 05:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Having seen plenty of Korean films, I have to say no. But really every country has their own share of films with depressing endings and it's not like the Korean film industry focuses entirely on depressing the viewer :p -- GroovySandwichYum. 06:23, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, from what I've seen, romantic comedies are the most common genre there-- GroovySandwichYum. 06:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Western film distributors have found a market for shocking, dark, and often violent East Asian horror films (Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike, the Battle Royale films, Dumplings, etc) and therefore have tended to release similar films. As GroovySandwich mentions, western audiences only see a tiny minority of the wide range of films made in Korea.  Similarly, the French or German films that reach English and American screens tend to be serious dramas or arthouse films, not the huge number of low-brow comedies both nations produce, so English-speaking people get a very distorted view of most of the world's cinema. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that because humor probably wouldn't translate all that well? Googlemeister (talk) 13:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * American film studios do seem to have an absulute obsession with happy endings - even Schindler's List has one for goodness sake. Films like Bladerunner have been forced to have a stupid happy ending pasted onto the end of them. If you have been brought up on these films, it must seem rather odd to have a film where everything doesn't turn out to be all right in the end. Alansplodge (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The horror genre is the exception to the happy ending bit. Some horror films have a happy ending (well, happy in that the main character or characters don't die horribly), some do not.  Googlemeister (talk) 14:47, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Watch The Throne
Does anyone know if the track "Lift Off" samples any song? 70.29.247.159 (talk) 09:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

How Many Times Has the First Star Wars Movie Been Released Between 1977 and 2005 in the US?
As best I can remember / google


 * 1977 theatrical release


 * 1977 super-8 home release (clips only)


 * 1978 theatrical re-release


 * 1979 theatrical re-release


 * 1981 theatrical re-release


 * 1982 theatrical re-release


 * 1982 VHS release


 * 1982 Betamax release


 * 1984 broadcast television release


 * 1985 Laser disc release


 * 1989 widescreen Laser disc release


 * 1992 widescreen VHS release / Laser disc re-release


 * 1993 Laser disc release


 * 1995 VHS re-release


 * 1997 special edition theatrical re-release


 * 1997 VHS special edition release (with new footage / special effects)


 * 2004 DVD release (with changes for continuity with the newer films)

Any others I missed? I also seem to remember it being re-realased in the theater around the time of the new trilogy, but I can't find anything for sure about this.

Thanks in advance for any help. --CGPGrey (talk) 16:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:24, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Updated the list.  Anyone know when the VHS and Betamax versions came out?  --CGPGrey (talk) 16:41, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * IMDB has the theatrical releases here. However, I can't find when home video versions were released.  -- Jayron  32  16:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There was a 1985 VHS/Laserdisc release supervised by Ben Burtt. -- k a i n a w &trade; 16:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I found a bunch of stuff here: http://www.starwars.com/hyperspace/member/kessel/f20051017/index.html List updated. --CGPGrey (talk) 16:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)