Sorry, eldergays, but colorized black and white movies look really beautiful.

...There, I said it.

to each their own
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I just watched Miracle on 34th Street on AMC tonight, colorized. I hadn't seen it in a long time, but the real revelation for me wasn't the color but the fact that Maureen O'Hara was a terrible actress. She was dreadful to the point of being excruciating to watch.
Hisssssssss!
They look like shit, OP. Laying in color on top of black and white images looks phony, no matter how well it's done - and it usually isn't done well.
Just because something doesn't look natural or real doesn't mean it cant be beautiful. The look of technicolor is completely unnatural as well. I appreciate the surreal pastel artificiality of the colorized films
How old do you think these eldergays actually are?
Let me tell you how it feels to be all painted up like a birthday cake!
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OP, you're an idiot, but we love your airhead ways all the same. You go ahead and attack any movie you want with your crayons and think to yourself how wonderful they look. We on the other hand will watch classic films the way God intended in glorious black and white.
OK, OP, I'll bite. Which film(s) look better when colorized. And if you call me an "elder gay" I'll cut you.
I love your comment r5, so true. People often don't get that, such as complaining that an old movie has dated, unrealistic effects, but ignoring how wonderfully unreal the movie might look.
R7 just made me spit out my coffee. Thanks! I've only seen clips of colorized films and I wasn't impressed. I'm going to have to check out one to see what I think. Any recommendations R5?
Watched a bit of the colorized Miracle on 34th St last night. Everyone looked jaundiced.
I hate the way people's skin looks in colorized films. It's like they fashioned everyone out of the same ball of modeling clay.
Light Egyptian
In post-racial America, we don't deal in terms like "colorized" and "black and white". That said, you're a fucking idiot.
The only one I saw--years ago--was I think 42nd Street. It looked exactly like when people take B/W photographs and colorize them by hand (not Photoshop). That same strange pastel look. It also destroyed the contrast of the beautiful B/W photography. Really sad.
Has anyone seen the colorized Psycho? I've heard that's one of the best jobs. It would have to be a recent job, obviously anything colorized decades ago looks like shit.
The color isn't just ugly, it's often glaringly wrong. A critic once pointed out that Frank Sinatra aka Ol' Blue Eyes had green eyes in a close-up of a colorized version of one of his old movies. This is not aesthetic license or some sort of artistic abstraction of reality, as some are trying to argue: it's clumsy updating in the interest of commerce, a pandering to bad taste. As John Houston said, "It's like taking a fine roast and pouring a gallon of sugar water over it." To each their own, indeed. And Somehow I suspect OP and other fans aren't watching colorized versions of "Persona" and "Citizen Kane" anyway, so whatever. Colorize old junk and swill it down. Fine by me in the end, I guess.
Not many Technicolor films are considered classics, many in black and white are. If it's a classic in black and white, it doesn't need 'improving.' Of course black and white isn't 'natural', but every art form by definition uses artifice. The artificiality of colorized black and white could be effective within a b/w or color film, say for scenes set in the past; but as an original artistic choice. Not imposed years later by some clueless vulgarian. Any fucking idiot can put lipstick on the Mona Lisa.
Agreed, R2. She is constantly playing to the back row.
I haven't seen a colorized film in ages. I take it from the comments here that the process hasn't improved since the 80's.
If the man wants to colorize movies, let him colorize movies. It's show business, for God's sake!
R16, the color Psycho is a remake (by Gus Van Sant) of the original (by Hitchcock), NOT a colorized version of the original.
Don't understand why not liking colorization is an "eldergay" trait. I'd be against painting color on Michaelangelo's David but I can assure you I wasn't around when it was created.
They have improved the process, r20. Look halfway down on the wiki page on colorization, it show two stills from colorized versions of Night Of The Living Dead, one from 1986, one from 2004. They are quite a bit different, the '86 version looks like they're spray-painted, or like they're CGI, and the background is just ignored. The process has improved, but they're shown much less often. I haven't seen one since the 90s, probably. I have seen and like the first two seasons of Bewitched colorized, but the bar is lower on that than it would be with a classic movie. r22, I wasn't talking about the remake. I read there was a really good colorization of the original, I don't know if it's been released on dvd or bluray.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_colorization
I read last year that the marble Greek statues were actually colored and not all white as presented in movies. It's just that the colors had faded/washed away in the centuries since. So would it be sacrilegious to repaint them to their former glory? In the computer recreations the color makes them look tacky. Like mannequins.
R23, it's an "eldergay" issue because OP has issues with anyone older and thus uses the hateful stereotype to make him feel better.
I’ve only seen the colorized version of “Miracle on 34th St.” Since they hadn’t touched the background, I thought, “Why bother?” From the link, it looks like they’re improving that process. In any case, I’d rather watch an old favorite in black & white. I can’t even imagine how horrid “Casablanca” would look colorized. Also, I like to imagine what color the clothes and backgrounds really are. For example, in my MARY!-addled brain, Mary Haines’ harlequin jumpsuit in “The Women” is yellow and gray (“No, Jane, I think I’ll wear my new pink.”). I don’t need to know what color it really is.
Yes OP, sure they do. I especially love the creative license they take when colorizing them. My favorite example is the colorized version on the Frank Sinatra film "Suddenly." They gave him BROWN eyes.
OP is color blind which would explain everything.
I used to like, and collect, old-days postcards, when they would color the souvenir photograph. Sometimes it is an interesting statement. But I sooo miss silver nitrate black and white photography, and the projection of the 20s, 30, 40, not so much 50s, but again in 60s, films on a big screen in a big theatre. Too bad, computer kids. You'll never know. Gone like flaming film stock -- poof!
Wow, you guys really get your panties in a twist over this!
I once saw a colored ALL ABOUT EVE and Bette Davis looked sunburnt all over.
Young people won't watch b&w 20th century movies.
The problem with colorizing Night of the Living Dead R24 is that while the technology for doing so has improved - or more likely, the original B&W version was restored to its original look and that version of the movie was then colorized - making the process look "better," the colorization actually makes the film look less frightening. Part of the horror of the B&W version - especially when you see a restored print - comes from the film being so drab looking. The sky looks overcast and gloomy, not unlike the characters (such as they are), and gives off a sense of dread. Colorization in this particular situation instead perks things up, in contrast to the way the movie was photographed. In an odd way, it actually takes away from the movie, not adds to it. (It would be like colorizing a B&W film noir.) Now take that same movie, rethink it in color and then photograph and light it in that way - that would make sense to me.
[quote] Gone like flaming film stock -- poof! It is no more than a dream remembered, a civilization gone with the wind...
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[quote]ake it from the comments here that the process hasn't improved since the 80's. it hasn't