Film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts predicted the demise of local movie theaters. Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s, such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas. In the 1990s and 2000s the development of digital DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction. These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 2000s and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise. The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new DVD format Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality. Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers, 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920?1080 a leap from the DVD offering of 720?480 and the paltry 330?480 offered by the first home video standard VHS. The maximum resolutions that film currently offers are 2485?2970 or 1420?3390, UHD, a future digital video format, will offer a massive resolution of 7680?4320, surpassing all current film resolutions. The only viable competitor to these new innovations is IMAX which can play film content at an extreme 10000?7000 resolution. Despite the rise of all new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online piracy, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.

Movies that teach the value of faith

Two powerful movies recently released on DVD illustrate the importance of faith and virtue in leading a good life. One, "Mother Teresa," tells the life story of one of the world's best-known and most admired women, and "End of the Spear" is the story of five American missionaries to the Waodani Indians of the Ecuadorian jungles. Mother Teresa was an Albanian-born nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity. Called "The Angel of Mercy," many people considered her the embodiment of a living saint. Her work among the poverty-stricken of Calcutta made her one of the world's most famous people. She founded her order in 1950 to care for those she called "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." Golden Globe-winner Olivia Hussey illuminates the holy woman's life story in "Mother Teresa," a DVD feature from Fox Home Entertainment. A shrewd diplomat and an indomitable force, Mother Teresa was unwilling to accept what others deemed impossible, fearlessly fighting for the unloved and the forgotten. In 1956, a small band of missionaries sought to enlighten the cannibal tribes of darkest Ecuador, but for their compassion, they were mercilessly slain. Years later, the wives of the fallen men returned to the village to continue their husbands' missionary work, bringing their children to live amongst the tribesmen in the hope that through their forgiveness the natives might find faith. Now director Jim Hanon tells this remarkable true story of fear, faith and forgiveness in "End of the Spear," based on the book "Through Gates of Splendor" by Elisabeth Elliot, the widow of one of the missionaries. The movie tells the story of the Waodani warrior Mincayani, who kills Steve Saint's father and four other missionaries. Steve returns to the Waodani as an adult and encounters Mincayani; together they confront the meaning of the life and death of Steve's father and the other men who were killed. Through Mincayani, Steve comes to forgive; through Steve, Mincayani comes to understand the lessons of the Bible and a path to a virtuous life.