The Da Vinci Code

This movie version of the Dan Brown classic was one of the most controversial and intriguing, and I doubt there is/was/will be someone else out there who would question that.

Before anything else, let us first establish that "The Da Vinci Code" was not an outright attack to Catholic religion conservatives nor was it an entertainment exclusive for those who had completed their Dan Brown (Langdon) series or their Holy Grail collections. The good thing about this film was that anyone could watch and understand it. Oh no, there was nothing cryptic at all with this Ron Howard masterpiece.

Cars That Started On TV

Every TV show has some type of signature that is known for. Seinfeld has the diner, Friends was centered around their apartment, but nothing beats a show that features a muscle car. You find yourself waiting for the scenes when they jump in and start tearing up the streets. The next thing you know you see the same cars driving around in your neighborhood because everyone wants to be like Mike.

The 1969 Dodge Charger for the Dukes of Hazzard was just such a vehicle. With the big old Confederate flag on the roof, generally was a fixture on our television for about six years. The Duke boys managed to out run the sheriff on many an occasion because no car could fly around like General Lee.

Herbie did not have nearly the punch of General Lee, but the 1963 Volkswagen Beetle sure did have some pretty good moves. The car was first featured on the small screen in the late 60s and early 70s and then finally became a star in 2005 when it hit the big screen. Herbie may not have been able to fly like General Lee, but the Porsche 356 engine was enough to get it around the track and take out a couple races.

The late 60s and early 70s produced some of the hottest muscle cars on the planet. Today's cars may have a little more horsepower, but very few of them can make an entrance like the cars of that era. Another monster to go from small screen to big is a 1974 Ford Gran Torino. Starsky and Hutch took down the bad guys in this bright red and white striped Ford that sported a 351 Cleveland and four barrel Holley carburetor. He lived for the trademark moment when Starsky would slide across the hood and then jump behind the wheel and snag a bad guys. The car may have been done a little injustice when it went to the big screen but it's still brought back the memories of one of the best muscle cars of the 70s.

The first time this band was featured in TV it was actually animated, but how can you ever possibly lead out Scooby Doo and the 1972 Bedford CF Mystery Machine. Sporting about 20 different colors splashed in various patterns, the van came to life in 2002 as Scooby Doo went Hollywood.

Not every vehicle was able to make the transition from TV to big screen as movies often adapt them to the current times that they were shot in. It's quite a shame as you would love to see some of those old 60s television shows have the same cars that they were originally shot with.

The one thing that has always amazed me is when a TV show has been turned into a movie and the first thing that comes out of the guy’s mouth after the movie is over is that they just cannot believe that they didn't use the original car. Just another point of how obsessed we are with the cars that we see in television and movies.
 

About Today's Contributor:

Brenda wrote this article on behalf of trianglerentacar.com

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Titanic - A Moral Deliberation

The film "Titanic" was riddled with moral dilemmas. In one of the scenes, the owner of Star Line, the shipping company that owned the now-sinking Unsinkable, leaped into a lowered life-boat. The tortured expression on his face demonstrated that even he experienced more than unease at his own conduct: prior to the disaster, he instructed the captain to break the trans-Atlantic speed record. His hubris proved fatal to the vessel. Moreover, only women and children were allowed by the officers in charge into the lifeboats.

But the ship's owner was not the only one to breach common decency and ethics.

Video Tips to Bring Out Your Inner Spielberg

Whether you want to capture your child's birthday party, a wedding or the sites from your summer travels, making a home video is one of the most popular ways of preserving the memories.

As digital video cameras have become increasingly popular and much more affordable - average prices have decreased about a third in the last several years - many people are taking the magic of home videos one step further by doing their own editing and adding special effects and music.

The Matrix

It is easy to confuse the concepts of "virtual reality" and a "computerised model of reality (simulation)". The former is a self-contained Universe, replete with its "laws of physics" and "logic". It can bear resemblance to the real world or not. It can be consistent or not. It can interact with the real world or not. In short, it is an arbitrary environment. In contrast, a model of reality must have a direct and strong relationship to the world. It must obey the rules of physics and of logic. The absence of such a relationship renders it meaningless. A flight simulator is not much good in a world without air planes or if it ignores the laws of nature. A technical analysis program is useless without a stock exchange or if its mathematically erroneous.

Yet, the two concepts are often confused because they are both mediated by and reside on computers. The computer is a self-contained (though not closed) Universe. It incorporates the hardware, the data and the instructions for the manipulation of the data (software). It is, therefore, by definition, a virtual reality. It is versatile and can correlate its reality with the world outside. But it can also refrain from doing so. This is the ominous "what if" in artificial intelligence (AI). What if a computer were to refuse to correlate its internal (virtual) reality with the reality of its makers? What if it were to impose its own reality on us and make it the privileged one?