I confessed a long time ago to being a Bluray philistine when I said I enjoy “tastefully DNR’ed” classic films, especially those shot in black-and-white. (DNR being an acronym for digital noise reduction or, in Hollywood Elsewhere-ese, tasteful de-graining or digital mosquito removal.) In my mind Universal Home Video’s Psycho Bluray is one of the most beautifully DNR’d films ever released. In any event I’m staying in a new abode with a 60-inch flatscreen on the wall, and I’ve discovered a new Philistine pleasure — watching Blurays of classic black-and-white films on an LCD screen with that video-like, frame-duplication setting that almost makes them look like they were shot at 48-frames-per-second. LCD and LED sets call it Motion Plus or Clear Motion or Auto Motion.

These terms all mean the same thing — a setting inside the monitor that you can turn on or off, and which adds fake extra frames to give the action a more fluid, video-like appearance. (In a fake way.) I know it’s not “right” to enjoy this kind of thing and is obviously not what the departed directors and dps would want anyone to see, and yes, I realize that guys like Robert Harris and Martin Scorsese would and should be appalled. My 50″ plasma at home doesn’t offer this feature and if it did I would never use it. But as long as I’m staying here for another three weeks and it’s not my TV, I find it fascinating to re-watch Blurays of William Wellman‘s Public Enemy or Elia Kazan‘s Viva Zapata and in a sense savor them anew with that cleaner, Playhouse 90-in-the-’50s texture and glidey motion.

I don’t see the harm. Nothing is being messed with. The real versions are watchable any time I want.