John Ratcliff's Weblog

I just added a new feature to my growing 16mm film collection. I scored a magnificant LPP copy of " Beetlejuice " for only $300! Surprisingly, for a film pretty much universally considered an all-time classic it has a tomatometer rating of only 86%. Now I am set for Halloween next year, with Beetlejuice to show outdoors for trick-or-treaters and Rocky Horror to show inside the house afterwards. We had a movie showing in our new home theatre on Saturday night. We showed "The Last Starfighter", a mint condition LPP print. About 8 people showed up and it was a great showing. We continue to rework our home theatre till the setup is near perfect. Terry put up flashing marquee lights with a large banner announcing the film we were showing. We had lots of very comfortable seating, and the screen fills the entire end of the rom. I got all of my movie posters put up and it all looks great. I intend to take a few pictures and post them up here sometime soon. With the purchase...

Today is the one year anniversay of this Blog. I began this Blog a year ago in memory of Suz Dodd . Suz was a dear friend of mine, and a beautiful person. Even after I stopped working with her I was always able to keep in touch by reading her Blog. Even when I went for months without a phone call or conversation I still felt connected to Suz by reading her thoughts in her journals. Suz was missed then and still in my heart today. I began this blog in her memory. In the last year of writing this blog I have found that I stay in much closer touch with many of my friends scattered around the country who drop by from time to time and read my journal. This journal has been personally rewarding because it acts as a great helper for my weak and flawed memory. Over the last few months I began to make it more of a photo journal because I enjoy having pictures to accompany the words when I try to remember the times of my life. Over this last year I have had movie showings and great times with my...

I have decided to have a movie showing this Saturday night. We are most likely going to be showing " The Last Starfighter ", a near mint condition LPP print. The party starts at 5pm so we have plenty of time to socialize before the film begins. I will be ordering Pizza or something else so you don't have to worry about dinner. It is BYOB though, and drinking is encouraged. If you plan to come please email me so I know how much food to order.

I invested in a new film last night. I just purchased my very own copy of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Now I have the perfect answer to anyone who dares suggest, "you know... I've never seen that movie." Different people have varying opinions about the film, but after having recently watched it at The Fabulous Fox during their film festival I was reminded just how great a musical it is. I am proud to add this to my growing collection of features, now up to 15 films.

Well, I'm back from the MEIC conference and, while it's fresh in my mind, I thought I would post a review. I came back a day early so I could enjoy my Sunday before I went back to work and to spend some time with all of my kids. I took my son Alex to the conference to offer him a unique life experience. MEIC stands for the Midwest Entertainment Industry Conference. It is in it's fourth year, and this year incorporated film, comic books, and video games in addition to the original music festival it stood for. The conference is the brainchild of Stephen Zimmer, a remarkably mellow and laid back fellow. The conference was a huge success and an abject failure at the same time. Give Stephen credit for assembling such an incredible collection of talent for a conference in Lexington, Kentucky. There must have been fifty bands, film makers, and industry leaders from the field of comics and video games. I definitely felt the conference had value personally, if for no other reason to...

On the same day my Alfa Romeo was picked up by the buyer, I received $40 cash for a 16mm film I sold to a man in Italy. A co-incidence? I think not.

I had a decent weekend. On Saturday morning I gave some technical advice to people who are way smarter than me. It's kind of ironical when you think about it. On Saturday evening we took three boys to City Museum . If you haven't been to City Museum yet, what, are you nuts? You don't need kids to go and enjoy it, though that doesn't hurt either. On Saturday evening they stay open till 1am. They had an amazing musician playing hypnotic techno music to acoustic guitar accompaniment in Beatnik Bob's bar. Next door, in the theatre, they had book readings and were showing movies and cartoons. Unfortunately the movies were all on DVD, it would have been so much cooler on 16mm. I find it interesting that we in the film community get all paranoid about public showings of films, but City Museum will just pop any old DVD into their machine and show it as a 'bootleg movie'. You gotta love it. On Sunday morning Alex and I went on a nature hike in Bable...

It is no longer 75 degrees.

We were fortunate and today the weather is simply awesome. Over 75 degrees on a perfect fall day. Went out for a country drive, in a convertible, with everybody for once. Alex and Lauren happy in the backseat. Here's a shot of the new car sitting in the driveway this morning.

We had a great Halloween evening. We really didn't have that many individual trick-or-treaters, but roving bands of kids would come by every 30 minutes or so. We set up the movie screen in front of the house and showed "The Wizard of Oz". It was very well received by all. On several occasions I had huge groups of kids spontaneously break out into song when they recognized a tune. Once, two little girls came by and just sat down in the grass and started watching the movie. Their exasperated father told them it was time to go, and the little girl curtly responded, "Daddy, we're watching a movie!" After the trick-or-treating was over, we showed my brand new scope print of "Ghostbusters" in our newly remodelled basement-home-theatre. We finally got most of my movie posters up on the walls, and it looks fantastic down there. This morning I purchased a 1997 BMW 328i convertible, red, with stick shift, and only 55,000 miles for the low-low price of only $...