@McTag,
Once the internet gave access to all the great museums and architecture I stopped buying coffee table books although I wouldn't give up any of them like The Hermitage, Richard Meier Houses (now out-of-date, published 1998), Falling Water, The Impressionists. They're all much heavier than my laptop and gradually the resolution has improved online (often with virtual reality panoramas) to exceed the quality of the superlative images printed in art books. Actually, I got rid of the huge coffee table in favor of a small round one and two ottomans. Seemed practical because everybody wants to put their feet up onto the coffee table! I've used that plan in several interior designs and clients always talk about that feature of the living room over anything else. The coffee table books? Mine are in a wall shelf library with corbels under the stairwell that I poly-chromed myself and I usually end up designing a niche with glass doors and glass shelves for clients who can spend a lot of dough.
On the big screen hi def 1080p screen, Discovery, HDNet, PBS have had some great programs on art. Recently the PBS WInslow Homer which was a biography included images that were close to the actual size of the paintings and looked as good as seeing them in person. The Van Gogh's Van Goghs ( from Holland's Van Gogh Museum) special was recently repeated on HDNet and it was also excellent.
Now, back to my Hawaiian coffee.
Cult film, huh. It's being released on DVD for the fourth time and the latest is Blu-Ray It's AFI's number one sci-fi film. It's always on the list of the top ten by the BAFTA poll of the major world film critics in Sight and Sound magazine. I have never run into anyone who didn't know HAL, the monolith or several other iconic images and lines from that film. However, I think the execs at MGM thought they were being sent rushes from a cult film in-the-making when they began screening the shots of primates on a gigantic soundstage.
