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Do you wish you had a home theater? Would it be nice to bring together the family around a large screen TV with an excellent sound system? If you have a basement or spare room in your house, you can design your own home theater to enjoy your favorite movies with your friends and family.In most homes, the basement is used as an extra storage space. But this can also be used as a great entertainment room. Having a theater right in your home basement makes sense since it is dark enough and isolated from outside life.You’ll never run out of options when designing your home theater since technology is constantly developing. This allows you to have the newest and most innovative items available. Unlike before where home theater systems were exclusively used by movie stars, today’s models are affordable and can be enjoyed by nearly everyone.A vital point is the design of the theater room itself. While not everyone can afford high-end consumer electronics, that will not prevent you from creating a terrific home theater on a restricted budget. With the right design and moderately priced products, you’ll get a better experience than using expensive gear with no design planning.To make the most out of your home theater, here are a number of things to remember: Always use a carpet or rug to cover a hard wooden floor. This will prevent sound reflections. Cover your windows with dark treatments to control light and prevent eyestrain. Never use white paint in the room that will serve as your home theater.This increases ambient light. Keep the room free of glass tables or cabinets that can create visual reflections and interfere with picture quality. Never install speakers in the ceiling directly over people’s heads. Make sure your TV isn’t too high; this can cause neck pain and eyestrain.

Clearly, many shows are carried by the personality of the presenter though they frequently reflect a triumph of style over substance. This, arguably, excludes Dickinson, who dominates the screen, demonstrating boundless enthusiasm and an opinion on almost everything. He is somewhat redolent of the eponymous Lovejoy, that roguish, careworn but charming dealer, so successfully played by Ian McShane in the BBC series, but his piece de resistance surely has to be his hair. Whatever authority he may exude examining a Victorian tortoise shell box or a chipped Minton plate, one cannot but be drawn to his vertiginous mullet, a shock of hair so dense it could comfortably accommodate a nest of birds. I think he could probably make a passable living as an Elvis impersonator such is his showmanship but this is in marked contrast to another member of the bouffant brigade, the erstwhile host of The Antiques Roadshow, Hugh Scully, who looked as though he’d taken a dose of mogadon every time he stepped in front of the camera.

Then again, The Antiques Roadshow experts generally come over as a pretty uninspiring crowd. Some of them are well qualified on their specialist subjects and, indeed, are often a fount of knowledge but I’ve seen more verve from a blind man crossing a busy dual carriageway. They come from near and far, many representing leading auctioneers, but their delivery and mode of questioning are so entirely predictable, this show must possess the most threadbare autocue in television history. Can it be a complete coincidence that The Antiques Roadshow is scheduled alongside another BBC stalwart, Songs of Praise, a programme that appears to be populated by precisely the same audience, albeit the host is in a frock? Perhaps they’re all seeking salvation for ghastly misjudgements or overinflated expectations.

Anyhow, some experts are notably well informed so should, for example, James Braxton of Edgar Horn or Roy Butler of Wallis and Wallis pop up on your screen talking about Tunbridgeware and guns respectively, please pay attention. These guys know what they are talking about. The problem is that the producers seem hell bent on incorporating all manner of rubbish in their desire to be egalitarian and inclusive and fail miserably in the process. It would be far better television, frankly, if the nominated expert took one look at a given object, profusely thanked the owner for shlepping it over land and sea, and then recommended it for firewood. Why has The Antiques Roadshow not created a Christmas special of all those unmitigated disasters brought in by the deeply earnest, deeply greedy and deeply ignorant? Don’t you secretly long for a sarcastic appraiser to enquire “You really dragged this piece of crap in here thinking it was worth something? What do you use for brains? Stop wasting my time!” Is anybody home at Broadcasting House? And is anybody listening?

Part two in the series of articles by Howard Lewis.
(Read part one… The Price is Right: Appraisal, Valuation and Inspired Guesswork or the Rise of TV Antique Shows and the Collecting Bug in the invaluable blog at www.invaluable.com).

Howard Lewis,
Chairman, Invaluable group of companies.

http://www.invaluable.com

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Where have characters like steely faced Humphrey Bogart standing in the doorway with a cigarette in one hand and a revolver in the other gone? Where has the likes of John Wayne, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, and Robert Mitchum gone? The fact is that these actors are no longer in the land of the living, but they had such character and screen power. The women of the era were also tough cookies themselves, such as Betty Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Lauren Becall. These women had moxie and a sexiness that jumped out through the screen.

Today’s actors seem to not have the presence that the actors of yesterday possess. There are many very good actors today. Robert DeNiro is a great example of this but they are few and far between. Could it be the type of movies the actors today are given? Movies today are relying more upon the remake and that could have an effect on the acting quality in Hollywood, but even the original productions today do not have punch they once did. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, such as The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, Shindlers List, which are exceptional movies with great acting.

The discussion often rages about comparing eras in any genre, but today’s actors generally have a lot of catch up to do. As more and more movies are made the balance may swing back to today’s actor, but for the moment the greats still have the upper hand.

Rilio Mastrantonio publishes the web site Hollywood Snitch at http://www.hollywoodsnitch.com featuring entertainment news, gossip, movie reviews, dvd reviews and other Hollywood related material.