All posts by kleucht

An open letter to Hollywood’s DVD industry from conservative parents

Subtitled: How to increase DVD viewership and make more money

This is an open letter from a conservative parent to all the Hollywood-type DVD publishing executives and policymakers out there. I know you’re very busy, so I’ll keep this article short and sweet.

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As a conservative parent, I want to protect my young kids from all the sex and all the violence and all the potty talk and I could go on and on, but I won’t. So many of the feature-length animated films that are released these days are rated PG instead of rated G, and this fact is disheartening to me. There’s a valid and technical reason a particular film gets a PG rating rather than a G rating … it’s got stuff in it that little kids (read toddlers and pre-schoolers) should NOT be watching!

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I’m a big fan of watching a DVD before I let my kids watch it. If there’s a little bit of content that I don’t want my kids to see, I can always fast forward through the part if I know it’s there. But there’s usually too much questionable content in many of the rated PG films these days to try to skip past it all. My solution: I don’t rent PG films for my kids at all.

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But there is a better solution. And it doesn’t even require any fancy new technology to be invented. The old standard DVD format already allows the viewer to choose from multiple audio tracks. And I’ve watched plenty of action/adventure DVDs to know that it’s completely possible to play a totally different “cut” of a film, such as a director’s cut or similar. So why not put a rated G version of the film on the same DVD along with the PG version? This simple idea would not cost the DVD industry a lot of money to implement and it would surely increase their revenues, since it would obviously increase the viewership of their DVDs among the conservative young family population.

Thanks for listening, Kurt

(Anyone who reads this: Please leave a comment/response to this article below and let me know … along with the DVD industry … whether you agree or not.)

STS-126 launch

We got a car pass and watched Endeavour launch last night on STS-126 from the NASA Causeway viewing site. It was awesome!

Elijah waits patiently for the launch.  We got there almost 2 hours beforehand.  Notice the nearly full moon out the window.  A beautiful and clear night for a launch.

 

And we have liftoff!  The picture doesn’t do it justice, because it lights up the night sky as if it were daylight!

We could see it almost all the way down to the horizon.  Very cool.

Kurt

Peter Pan at the Cocoa Village Playhouse

The shows at the Cocoa Village Playhouse are always awesome, but Peter Pan is going to be extra special since they are actually flying numerous cast members through the air in the show. This is as close to Broadway as you’ll see in community theatre, I think. (full disclosure: I am not paid by CVP, but I do try to help them out by building sets when I am able.)

Florida Today put together a very nice little video showing the Peter Pan kids learning to fly. Check out the video below. Just click on the play button to watch it.

[Sorry, folks.  Florida Today removed the video.]

Just call 321-636-5050 for CVP tickets or for more information.

Kurt

Online Store Open for Business

Why would a family website like leucht.com open up an online store? Well, I’m sort of a geek if you hadn’t figured that out already. 🙂 What kind of merchandise is offered at this online store? I have a whole suite of Dee Mack Class of 1988 related merchandise, including the famous 20 year reunion DVD and various refrigerator magnets and photo prints.

I also have a DVD full of old silent movies that my grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, and the Peoria Cinema Club created back in the 1950’s. Then there are a whole bunch of different types of items with my almost famous lemon blossom photo emblazoned on them.

Then there are some books that we have written and have decided to share. And lastly but not leastly, we have some really cool t-shirts that proudly advertise for this fine family website. I make very little profit, if at all, from the sales of this merchandise. It’s mostly just for fun. Enjoy! Here is a link to the leucht.com online store.

Kurt