DexterTCN
Troy and Abed in the morning
Fair point.
What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)
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maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
The Mysterious Apartment (1948).
A timid, uptight director who for unexplained reasons lives a rather modest bachelor life in his shabby rented room at a more than questionable boarding house gets an offer from his well-connected bourgeois mates during a bridge match he loses to purchase a vacant flat whose owner just died under mysterious circumstances.
They all feel he needs to live somewhere the neighbours won't shush and bang the wall with brooms every time someone raises their voice a little in his room. Being a pretty indecisive and useless type, he hesitates- but feels pressured into accepting the offer, and suddenly finds himself handed the keys to the mysterious apartment...
It's an eccentric bachelor den with 'eerie' modernist expressionist paintings on the wall, curious figurines and 'tastelessly excessive' furniture, a sinister parrot who laughs like a ghost and sometimes speaks in its master's voice, and a mute housemaid who silently swoops in with dinner with disapproving dagger stares. A record of modernist string music on the gramophone unsettles him so much he has to turn it off.
If all this wasn't enough to take on, he also finds himself distracted from his work because he's so unsettled by the strange ambience in the flat, it's like the previous tenant still lives there- it's his art, his belongings- he feels like a stranger in his own (new) home. The furniture and art isn't to his taste at all, yet he feels for some reason it's not in his power to change it. He potters around looking at all the strange objects, grimacing at how repellant it all is (why is the grass in one painting painted blue when everyone knows grass is green? he can't understand it). At the same time, he's subconsciously and involuntarily drawn towards it... it's like the apartment have a personality of its own, and the interior the perfect reflection of the previous owner's personality. Slowly but surely, his own personality starts to change, and the apartment takes over...
Before all this happens though, the central mystery have already been presented: On the first day after moving in, he accidentally comes across a bundle of letters hidden in a secret compartment in the bureau in the living room. It turns out to be passionate love letters to the previous owner, written by a young woman. Our uptight protagonist haven't really thought that much about women before now it seems, but the graphic intensity and the passion and the honesty of these letters first baffles and repulses him (as the thinks it's 'vulgar' and improper for someone to talk that way), then obsesses him more and more. He reads these letters over and over again, and starts wondering how it would be to be on the receiving end of such passion. He wovs to find the woman.
Nightmares and things that go bump in the night continues to scare him, as it's like the apartment closes in on him and the grotesque outlines of these curious objects and shapes looks monstrous in the dark... The parrot laughs ominously. He hears someone walking around in the living room one night, and the front door slamming.
(fast-forward a bit so I won't write the entire plot on here) Yada yada yada, and he manages to find the woman. She's working as a receptionist at the city theatre. It was her who snuck into the place at night, she had a key and was trying to retrieve the love letters, but didn't know where her lover hid them. Our man first denies all knowledge of the letters, but promises to look for them. He finds himself helplessly attracted to this woman, who is polite, but hostile to this man who now shamelessly lives at her lover's place and invades the spaces they used to share. He hatches a plan to see her again, by handing over only some of the letters and promising to look for the missing ones with the premise that they meet again.
A double perspective viewpoint goes on, as we see their interactions developing with him thinking he has a chance to get to know her and perhaps even take over from where the last lover let go, and her private thoughts becoming increasingly resentful and even hateful of this impostor, this frightful man who have stolen her loved one's space, soiling and desecrating their most private and personal place...
All comes to a head, but the twist is a bit dull and improbable
A timid, uptight director who for unexplained reasons lives a rather modest bachelor life in his shabby rented room at a more than questionable boarding house gets an offer from his well-connected bourgeois mates during a bridge match he loses to purchase a vacant flat whose owner just died under mysterious circumstances.
They all feel he needs to live somewhere the neighbours won't shush and bang the wall with brooms every time someone raises their voice a little in his room. Being a pretty indecisive and useless type, he hesitates- but feels pressured into accepting the offer, and suddenly finds himself handed the keys to the mysterious apartment...
It's an eccentric bachelor den with 'eerie' modernist expressionist paintings on the wall, curious figurines and 'tastelessly excessive' furniture, a sinister parrot who laughs like a ghost and sometimes speaks in its master's voice, and a mute housemaid who silently swoops in with dinner with disapproving dagger stares. A record of modernist string music on the gramophone unsettles him so much he has to turn it off.
If all this wasn't enough to take on, he also finds himself distracted from his work because he's so unsettled by the strange ambience in the flat, it's like the previous tenant still lives there- it's his art, his belongings- he feels like a stranger in his own (new) home. The furniture and art isn't to his taste at all, yet he feels for some reason it's not in his power to change it. He potters around looking at all the strange objects, grimacing at how repellant it all is (why is the grass in one painting painted blue when everyone knows grass is green? he can't understand it). At the same time, he's subconsciously and involuntarily drawn towards it... it's like the apartment have a personality of its own, and the interior the perfect reflection of the previous owner's personality. Slowly but surely, his own personality starts to change, and the apartment takes over...
Before all this happens though, the central mystery have already been presented: On the first day after moving in, he accidentally comes across a bundle of letters hidden in a secret compartment in the bureau in the living room. It turns out to be passionate love letters to the previous owner, written by a young woman. Our uptight protagonist haven't really thought that much about women before now it seems, but the graphic intensity and the passion and the honesty of these letters first baffles and repulses him (as the thinks it's 'vulgar' and improper for someone to talk that way), then obsesses him more and more. He reads these letters over and over again, and starts wondering how it would be to be on the receiving end of such passion. He wovs to find the woman.
Nightmares and things that go bump in the night continues to scare him, as it's like the apartment closes in on him and the grotesque outlines of these curious objects and shapes looks monstrous in the dark... The parrot laughs ominously. He hears someone walking around in the living room one night, and the front door slamming.
(fast-forward a bit so I won't write the entire plot on here) Yada yada yada, and he manages to find the woman. She's working as a receptionist at the city theatre. It was her who snuck into the place at night, she had a key and was trying to retrieve the love letters, but didn't know where her lover hid them. Our man first denies all knowledge of the letters, but promises to look for them. He finds himself helplessly attracted to this woman, who is polite, but hostile to this man who now shamelessly lives at her lover's place and invades the spaces they used to share. He hatches a plan to see her again, by handing over only some of the letters and promising to look for the missing ones with the premise that they meet again.
A double perspective viewpoint goes on, as we see their interactions developing with him thinking he has a chance to get to know her and perhaps even take over from where the last lover let go, and her private thoughts becoming increasingly resentful and even hateful of this impostor, this frightful man who have stolen her loved one's space, soiling and desecrating their most private and personal place...
All comes to a head, but the twist is a bit dull and improbable
he promises to her that he is a new man now and have changed because he now can see the beauty and secrets of the other man's point of view (he knows that the grass is painted blue because it's not pretending to be realistic but pointing to inner, psychological truths... he now loves the atonal string music stabs because he realises it's not pretending to conform to the old rules, but trying to express something new and unexplored... he's certain that he's changed for the better and promises to respect and care for her, if she just moves in with him and they get married... implausibly, she realises that this will be her only chance to relive the memories of her former lover by being able to live surrounded by his things, so she accepts and becomes a good wife to this new man who now shocks his old bridge mates by championing his newfound love for modernist art and music. Before we know whether this will end well, it's The End... and the film is over.
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oneunder
Mind The Gap !
Found this on a usb..must have downloaded it and forgotten..watched it having no idea what it was about..slow paced but strong.. Really enjoyed that.. I was gripped... 
'A Touch Of Sin' 2013 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2852400/
'A Touch Of Sin' 2013 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2852400/
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
The Guard.
An "odd couple" film starring Brendan Gleeson as a Wesht of Oireland Guard, and Don Cheadle as the FBI man forced to team up with him. A lot better than I expected, and Gleeson's performance is absolutely spot on. . . especially in the scene where Cheadle has to say "you have some balls to speak to your superior officer like that". It does recall Flann O'Brien's comment that 'the Irish stage Irishman is the finest in the world.'
An "odd couple" film starring Brendan Gleeson as a Wesht of Oireland Guard, and Don Cheadle as the FBI man forced to team up with him. A lot better than I expected, and Gleeson's performance is absolutely spot on. . . especially in the scene where Cheadle has to say "you have some balls to speak to your superior officer like that". It does recall Flann O'Brien's comment that 'the Irish stage Irishman is the finest in the world.'
rekil
to menny cranks
Didn't like it, and John Michael McDonagh's new one Calvary is worse. Seedy underbelly of post celtic tiger blah blah. Leaden pacing, flabby passages of liberal angst and a surfeit of "only in ireland lads!" oddballs.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I thought calvary had potential, but...they didn't manage to pull it off. Did you notice, both him and his brothers second films both has a seven theme running through them as well?
rekil
to menny cranks
Good first scene and Dylan Moran on a horse. What's the 7 theme here, just the days?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yeah each day of his last week he goes and sees someone whose supposed to represent one of the seven deadly sins - or at least i thought that was it - i've just read JM say it's structured around the five stages of grief instead - so scrub that.
rekil
to menny cranks
I thought stations of the cross something something but I just didn't care about any of it.
I watched Killer Elite last night. Statham. De Niro. More my level tbf.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That was my first thought, and so meaning at least 14 days - but he did say that he'd kill him sunday week, so that's still possible i suppose. It was sort of like something he couldn't decide if it was a play or a film really.
ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
Wolf of Wall Street - Great acting from DiCaprio. Having done a 3 week stint as a nipper working for shouty, pyramid scheme selling, money obsessed tossers and another day in Lloyds of London being instructed in the ways of cocaine addled high pressure brokers I reckon he got it spot on. Proud of my 16 year old self for walking away from all that, it was hard work just watching the film.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
Hard Candy - over-intellectualised rape/revenge fantasy stuff which would like to sell itself to you as a disturbing, taut, feminist thriller - like Ring filtered through jezebel.com - but which is probably just a bit of grubby exploitation in the end. Having said that, Ellen Page is absolutely phenomenal as the ingenue/avenging angel character - the lead male as a dodgy photographer/borderline perv / Terry Richardson sort just sort of fades away in comparison. Some of the dialogue is searingly sharp and sarcastic and for what's basically a closed-room double act it does keep the twists and hooks coming. worth a watch, but in the end it's not worthy of the lead female performance.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Babylon AD
Vind Diesel in some grimy ramshackle future taking a 'chosen one' etc from point a to point B. Of course its not that simple. Felt a lot like Riddick: The Early Years. Solid if not brilliant
Golden Child. Eddi Murphy vs Charles Dance all scored with that fuck-you I have a synthesizer sound of the 80's. Effects hold up ok despite the age and Eddie cracks wise. Nonsense fun
Charlottes Webb- a recentish version. good story, well told. I was wondering if the spider still dies in the hollywood version, and it does.
seeing it again reminded me what a masterful piece of childrens fiction it is. We're so caught up in wilburs fate- the dreaded somekhouse- that as a kid reding that you wouldn't see the real death coming. Sad but funny for the main.
Vind Diesel in some grimy ramshackle future taking a 'chosen one' etc from point a to point B. Of course its not that simple. Felt a lot like Riddick: The Early Years. Solid if not brilliant
Golden Child. Eddi Murphy vs Charles Dance all scored with that fuck-you I have a synthesizer sound of the 80's. Effects hold up ok despite the age and Eddie cracks wise. Nonsense fun
Charlottes Webb- a recentish version. good story, well told. I was wondering if the spider still dies in the hollywood version, and it does.
seeing it again reminded me what a masterful piece of childrens fiction it is. We're so caught up in wilburs fate- the dreaded somekhouse- that as a kid reding that you wouldn't see the real death coming. Sad but funny for the main.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
I was wondering if my eyes were deceiving me, but it turns out that the chief villain in The Guard is none other than TV favourite Davos Seaworth off that Game of Thrones thingy.
rekil
to menny cranks
Yeah, Liam Cunningham, he pops up all over the place.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
I read the book that was based on when it first came out; enjoyably ludicrous tosh, the book, but the film doesn't half make it drag. Impressive foley in the bathroom fight though
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I recognised him as the priest from Hunger in the only dialogue scene
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
very good as the Soviet captain in that episode of Doctor Who a couple of seasons back
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
I still haven't watched Hunger. I just. . . can't.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Oh you should definitely try Idris, fantastic film.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
pilot + ep 2 of Dominion. It's a SyFy production so I wasn't expecting much and it duly lived down to my expectations. Good choreography, effects 7/10. some brief nudity (arse) no swearing, no blood.
the concept is that God has disappeared. The heavenly host recon its our fault and they are incredibly vexed at us so launch all-out war
Anthony Head stars as an evil politicking blokey. Passable american accent
e2a
I can see this one getting cancelled fairly quickly.
the concept is that God has disappeared. The heavenly host recon its our fault and they are incredibly vexed at us so launch all-out war
Anthony Head stars as an evil politicking blokey. Passable american accent
e2a
I can see this one getting cancelled fairly quickly.
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Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Bernard Hill innit
DexterTCN
Troy and Abed in the morning
Angel Heart. Mickey Rourke back when he was good first time...and Robert De Niro (same).
First time I saw this I enjoyed it...but I saw the 'pun' straight away and it kind of spoiled it for me.
This time I saw it not as a spoiler but as an ominous portent. The clues are there but the clues were not for me as I'd thought.
Very enjoyable, noir, gothic, nostalgic. However...one suggestion. Remaster it without the two 1980s special effects, please. It's like hollywood added them in for the ultra-stupid and they are just discordant.
First time I saw this I enjoyed it...but I saw the 'pun' straight away and it kind of spoiled it for me.
This time I saw it not as a spoiler but as an ominous portent. The clues are there but the clues were not for me as I'd thought.
Very enjoyable, noir, gothic, nostalgic. However...one suggestion. Remaster it without the two 1980s special effects, please. It's like hollywood added them in for the ultra-stupid and they are just discordant.
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
Robert De Niro as the devil ("Louis Cyphre"= Lucifer), it's well eerie...
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Noah
this film is nuts, but its really good. Imagine if someone just made the biblical story of noah even more epic. Ray winstone is mint.
ents help to build the ark.
I cried when Noah spared the lives of the two children
miracles and wonders and cgi
this film is nuts, but its really good. Imagine if someone just made the biblical story of noah even more epic. Ray winstone is mint.
ents help to build the ark.
I cried when Noah spared the lives of the two children
miracles and wonders and cgi
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Gods going to have to up his game when it comes to the reboot, cos russel crowe just smashed it
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Season 3 of Sherlock.
I thought I had 6 episodes to look forward to: turns out the last three are just people talking about the series.
I thought I had 6 episodes to look forward to: turns out the last three are just people talking about the series.
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