What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

[belboid]

no it's hilarious. it's you that's not funny

Yeah, but you're renowned for having shit taste.

 

[Orang Utan]

Yeah, but you're renowned for having shit taste.

Moi? I have exquisite taste.

 

[Belushi]

I've never got the Anchorman thing either, didn't find it funny, perhaps I should watch it again at some point.

 

[Idris2002]

Skins.

The Channel 4 series about sexually hyperactive teenagers. Everyone is pretty, and everyone gets some, and no one has to deal with consequences: wherever this is set, it ain't on planet Earth.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Skins...wherever this is set, it ain't on planet Earth.

It's set in Fake Bristol.

 

[DexterTCN]

This Is The End.

A cameo-filled end of the world comedy from Seth Rogen, lots of A-listers send themselves up and suffer enjoyably gory deaths or worse (Channing Tatum). Plenty of laughs but the Danny McBride stuff just didn't do it for me, it would have been better without him imo.

 

[butchersapron]

The Hole - Jacques Becker's last film (probably most well known for Touchez Pas au Grisbi - in anglophone countries at least - and another wonderful film with one of my fav Jean Gabin performances , former asst to Renoir on Le Grande Illusion, as well as being part of the cultural resistance to the nazis and doing a year in their prisons expecting death at any moment - and being half scottish ) - he died a few days after it was completed. The film is one of the best prison escapes films ever made - can be read as a simple story, on which level it is fantastic, the tension of the theft in Rififi dragged out for two hours plus. It can also be read as commentary on occupied france and complicity with power, as a lesson on individual exploitation, as how power structures exploit individual weakness against collective good, on which level it's excellent.

There was one actor who i thought inhabited his character so well that he must at the very least have been a con himself - on looking him up it turns out he was part of the gang from the actual prison break the film was based on and José Giovanni (the writer) had based his book and screenplay on being told about by JK when he was inside with him - and he himself is another very interesting character - writing the Second Breath which Melville filmed and the brilliant Consider All Risks - Lino Ventura being the perfect lead in both of those. Which is a long winded and involve way of telling redsquirrel to watch The Hole as i know he enjoyed Consider all the Risks a few years back.

 

[Yetman]

Prisoners - Very good, surprises you throughout, bit long and the lead role should have been given to someone older than Jake Gylenghall imo but a well thought out and riveting thriller nonetheless.

 

[trabuquera]

Cloud Atlas. So utterly barking mad that I can't figure out if it's actually one of the most daringly experimental and subversive things I've ever seen, or a load of pukeworthy soft-centred New Age hippy bollocks, or an incoherent babble cackhandedly executed. Maybe all three at once (and more). No I haven't read the book and I was beginning to suspect that the ideas "holding it together" (they don't really) were just mushy nonsense about 'everything is connected it's all the big wheel of fate' and so on.
But it gets massive plus points for ambition and for graphic design - the future-world Korean fascist society in particular was great. And how can you not love the idea of Hugh Grant as a painted roadwarrior cannibal?

One thing I did find deeply interesting about it was the playing about with identity (different actors in different parts etc) which has its worthwhile, cheeky, postmodern side. On the other hand there's a random British kid of West African descent cast as a Moriori (implying that all dark skinned folks are basically interchangeable?) and some of the whiteface / fake Asian prosthetics used are truly woeful. Wonder if this sort of playing around has anything to do with Lana Wachowski's own gender transition?

 

[inva]

The Hole - Jacques Becker's last film (probably most well known for Touchez Pas au Grisbi - in anglophone countries at least - and another wonderful film with one of my fav Jean Gabin performances , former asst to Renoir on Le Grande Illusion, as well as being part of the cultural resistance to the nazis and doing a year in their prisons expecting death at any moment - and being half scottish ) - he died a few days after it was completed. The film is one of the best prison escapes films ever made - can be read as a simple story, on which level it is fantastic, the tension of the theft in Rififi dragged out for two hours plus. It can also be read as commentary on occupied france and complicity with power, as a lesson on individual exploitation, as how power structures exploit individual weakness against collective good, on which level it's excellent.

There was one actor who i thought inhabited his character so well that he must at the very least have been a con himself - on looking him up it turns out he was part of the gang from the actual prison break the film was based on and José Giovanni (the writer) had based his book and screenplay on being told about by JK when he was inside with him - and he himself is another very interesting character - writing the Second Breath which Melville filmed and the brilliant Consider All Risks - Lino Ventura being the perfect lead in both of those. Which is a long winded and involve way of telling redsquirrel to watch The Hole as i know he enjoyed Consider all the Risks a few years back.

I've had that on my to watch list for a while. Only Jacques Becker film I've seen myself was Casque D'Or which I thought was very good, I don't know if you've watched that one.

 

[inva]

Diamonds of the Night
1964 WW2 film directed by Jan Němec about two boys who are on the run having escaped from a train heading for a concentration camp. Thought this was fantastic with a impressive use of flashbacks and fantasies as exhaustion, hunger and injury gets to them more and more. One thing that stood out a lot was really good camera movement, in particular some brilliant scenes of the two boys trying to get away from their captors through a forest, where the camera moves frantically around them to keep up, and seems to be struggling through the lower branches of the trees as much as the actors are.

There were some haunting scenes of the two characters roaming almost completely deserted streets (I think in Prague) in their coats marked 'KL', which apparently stood for 'Konzentration Lager' although I'm not sure exactly what that means, and it was made even more ghostly looking by a blown out white effect in the photography. Also of note the sound design really effectively captured their state of mind, especially through repetitively focussing on particular sounds and sometimes distorting or amplifying them.

A very powerful film.

 

[butchersapron]

I've had that on my to watch list for a while. Only Jacques Becker film I've seen myself was Casque D'Or which I thought was very good, I don't know if you've watched that one.

I have it on my Simone Signoret list which i really need to pay some attention to!

Diamonds of the Night is a great film - the version i saw was horrible and in no way did justice to the film.

I've noticed you like films about people jumping off trains

 

[redsquirrel]

There was one actor who i thought inhabited his character so well that he must at the very least have been a con himself - on looking him up it turns out he was part of the gang from the actual prison break the film was based on and José Giovanni (the writer) had based his book and screenplay on being told about by JK when he was inside with him - and he himself is another very interesting character - writing the Second Breath which Melville filmed and the brilliant Consider All Risks - Lino Ventura being the perfect lead in both of those. Which is a long winded and involve way of telling redsquirrel to watch The Hole as i know he enjoyed Consider all the Risks a few years back.

cheers for the recommendation BA, I'll check it out in the new year.

 

[r0bb0]

Trouble every day, a banging Vincent Gallo film with lots of sex and flesh eating craziness. I had no idea what it was about and watched it with a lady friend who found it quite disturbing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0204700/

 

[Sue]

.

There was one actor who i thought inhabited his character so well that he must at the very least have been a con himself - on looking him up it turns out he was part of the gang from the actual prison break the film was based on and José Giovanni (the writer) had based his book and screenplay on being told about by JK when he was inside with him - and he himself is another very interesting character - writing the Second Breath which Melville filmed and the brilliant Consider All Risks - Lino Ventura being the perfect lead in both of those. Which is a long winded and involve way of telling redsquirrel to watch The Hole as i know he enjoyed Consider all the Risks a few years back.

Saw Consider All Risks a few months ago and thought it was excellent. Have never seen The Hole but will put it on my list of things to see.

 

[Belushi]

Monsters (Gareth Edwards 2010) Enjoyed it much more than I expected to.

 

[ringo]

Homeland - Season 1, episode 1. Should take us through the Xmas hols nicely, although of course there will be SO MUCH amazing new unrepeated telly on we'll barely have time

 

[Oldboy]

Late arriving to the horror/thriller genre, watched the Orphan. Enjoyable without substance.
I'm still looking for that Das Boot with 28 Days Later thrill.

 

[Frances Lengel]

Skins.

The Channel 4 series about sexually hyperactive teenagers. Everyone is pretty, and everyone gets some, and no one has to deal with consequences: wherever this is set, it ain't on planet Earth.

It's certainly not fit to lace the boots of Hollyoaks.

 

[Indeliblelink]

Documentary film A Band Called Death about the black, proto-punk band Death who started in early 1970s Detroit. Interesting and quite touching at times.

 

[avu9lives]

The Fighter (cant remember what year) i mean wow!! what a film!! you come home stick film 4 on and youve partaken in a few beers and it grabs yer,. so then you roll a fat one and then BANG! humility, empathy, punch bags, drugs, wrong and right, music, western culture, and fecking MOTHERS!! old people tell ya you cant pick yer parents (thank god) but at least you can pick youre friends Eh! any way im off ta look for me lighter coz ive lost it somewere.....

 

[butchersapron]

The Drummer-Crab - odd confused mess of a film from Pierre Schoendoerffer, sort of like heart of darkness but in the north atlantic - which means it had some fantastic sea-shots if little else. Basically, a dying old French Navy high up type sets off to find an old navy comrade of his trawling the sea around newfoundland who he thinks he sold him out 20 years ago - one of those french men of honour films. A little research reveals that the person he was looking for (a real person this) was Pierre Guillaume, a notorious violent extreme far-righter at the heart of much of the far-right plotting in france post-war. This is only hinted at in the film when we hear little snippets about the coup attempt he took part in.

(Oddly enough, the other Pierre Guillaume i know was also a far-righter of sorts, an infamous holocaust denier but from the ultra-left (well, that's his spiel) and centre of the La Vieille Taupe network)

 

[belboid]

Documentary film A Band Called Death about the black, proto-punk band Death who started in early 1970s Detroit. Interesting and quite touching at times.

Ash, that was meant to be on at ATP earlier this year. Except it wasn't, I've been meaning to try to look t up.

 

[DotCommunist]

The Black Death
a bleak affair really. During the height of bubonic plague a gtoup of armed rogues with a monk as guide seek a village to bring its necromancer to justice. Sean Bean is captain of the hunters. Mellisandre from Game of Thrones plays the witch (again)
low budget, in places overdone on the acting front but all in all not too bad. Excellent marsh scenery



Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities
A three part documentary detailing the three major epochs from Byzantium to Constantinople to
Istanbul. Done by everybodies favourite Stalin biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore. Hes wattles are amusing. Bit of an education as I know sfa about the eastern church/ottomans/etc. On my list of 'see before you die' buildings there is now the agia sophia. Looks like one of the finest church/mosques in the world. Also the Blue Mosque looks amazing.

 

[DexterTCN]

Despicable Me 2.

Very funny, the minions are brilliant. The short scene where the fire alarm goes off sums it up.

 

[MellySingsDoom]

"Death Smiles On A Murderer" (1973) - the debut directorial effort of Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D'Amato. This one falls into the horror/thriller vein, and involves a woman who comes back from the dead and kills off various people. Not bad stylistically speaking, and has its moments, though some of the death sequences are a bit silly and unbelievable. Features Klaus Kinski, who gets bumped off fairly early on. D'Amato inflicted some truly woeful and boring films on the public later on in his career ("Anthropophagous", anyone?), but this isn't too bad for a low-budget exploitation effort.

 

[butchersapron]

"Death Smiles On A Murderer" (1973) - the debut directorial effort of Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D'Amato. This one falls into the horror/thriller vein, and involves a woman who comes back from the dead and kills off various people. Not bad stylistically speaking, and has its moments, though some of the death sequences are a bit silly and unbelievable. Features Klaus Kinski, who gets bumped off fairly early on. D'Amato inflicted some truly woeful and boring films on the public later on in his career ("Anthropophagous", anyone?), but this isn't too bad for a low-budget exploitation effort.

Nice to see you again comrade.

 

[MellySingsDoom]

Thanks butchers - it's good to be back again Hope you're keeping well.

 

[Voley]

I've never watched a Harry Potter film until now but have been catching up on them as ITV have had them all on and I recorded them all. Not bad so far, tweeness aside. I'm onto the third one atm. I like the Robbie Coltrane fella Hagrid.

 

[belboid]

Black Swan. Still great. That toenail tearing scene remains as horrible as ever.