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

[butchersapron]

I know, I know. I just don't think I could bear it. I remember the morning after Bobby died, someone had put black flags on all the lamp posts in our part of Castlebar.

Fair does - your mind is your own. No worries.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Double Indemnity (1944) - Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, directed by Billy Wilder. Great writing, genius dialogue:

Phyllis: He has a lot on his mind. He doesn't seem to want to listen to anything except maybe a baseball game on the radio. Sometimes we sit here all evening and never say a word to each other.
Walter: Sounds pretty dull.
Phyllis: So I just sit and knit.
Walter: Is that what you married him for?
Phyllis: Maybe I like the way his thumbs hold up the wool.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) - Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, directed by Sergio Leone.

Aside from watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly a long time ago, I don't think I've watched any other of Leone's films. 2 hours 46 minutes is a struggle, especially the ultra-slow pacing (I don't think there's a shot under five seconds long), but Jason Robards is brilliant, and once you get past the ridiculousness of the harmonica playing, Bronson is pretty good too.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Beauty - disturbing, but exceptionally well made south African film. Had never heard of it before.

 

[mentalchik]

I really suspect that'll be down to how well it played with our yankee brethren, if the ratings pulled in there it might get a 2nd. Obviously its not going to get renewed based on audience figures from BBC4 lol

have the book

 

[Johnny Vodka]

have the book

Don't think this was based on a book, if you're referring to my post.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Rambo 3, the film the US government probably wish had never been made.

 

[trabuquera]

Binge marathon of Treme season 3. A bit baggy and didactic and finger-wagging in places (when they let David Simon off the leash to vent his own schtick instead of letting the characters speak for themselves) but overall it's another beautiful, strange, touching and enraging story about an American city in crisis, done on a novelistic scale by actors, directors and visual bods at the very top of their game. The sequences in/about the 'Indian Chief' masqueraders of New Orleans are just extraordinary, true kinetic art and done with unusual respect for TV treatments of subcultures.

 

[The Boy]

Started watching series 7: the Contenders (2001). Thought it might be more interesting in retrospective. It wasn't.

So that got dumped and we ended up watching Date Night (2010). Rubbish, but enjoyable none the less.

Night of the creeps (1986). Students on campus under attack from mind control slug things. Top one liners from Tom Atkins.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Started watching series 7: the Contenders (2001). Thought it might be more interesting in retrospective. It wasn't.

Seem to remember this was pretty decent - one of the better films on that theme.

 

[mentalchik]

Don't think this was based on a book, if you're referring to my post.

was quoting dotcommunist

 

[Johnny Vodka]

was quoting dotcommunist

Oh! I can't see his posts for some reason. But there is a book called Beauty by Louise Mensch.

 

[Idris2002]

Dredd.

At first I thought this was going to be Dredd as it should be done, but it while it was true enough to the source material, it was really just an action movie shoot 'em up with little real SFnal angles. The way in which they redesigned the costumes and urban setting for the twenty-first century was quite clever (and must have made it easier to film) but that robbed it of the frisson you get with proper SF and often had with the Dredd comics.

The other thing is that the comics were the product of a generation obsessed with Americana as it was viewed from the far side of the Alantic. That era is long gone now, and the movie reflected that. It also showed up that Dredd the character is barely one-dimensional (but the woman who played Anderson did it pretty well, I thought).

So, not a bad effort at all, just. . . not really what it said on the tin.

 

[DotCommunist]

Dredd.

At first I thought this was going to be Dredd as it should be done, but it while it was true enough to the source material, it was really just an action movie shoot 'em up with little real SFnal angles. The way in which they redesigned the costumes and urban setting for the twenty-first century was quite clever (and must have made it easier to film) but that robbed it of the frisson you get with proper SF and often had with the Dredd comics.

The other thing is that the comics were the product of a generation obsessed with Americana as it was viewed from the far side of the Alantic. That era is long gone now, and the movie reflected. It also showed up that Dredd the character is barely one-dimensional (but the woman who played Anderson did it pretty well, I thought).

So, not a bad effort at all, just. . . not really what it said on the tin.

I always wondered if they called him JOE dredd for an unsubtle nod.

Karl Urban fitted the helmet much much much better than sly. The floor by floor block by clearance was uncannily preceded that year by a very similar set up in Raid: Redemption.


it was also annoyingly obvious which bits were there for the sole purpose of three D. Like when cersie was in the bath
What it lacked, imo, was the hints of satire you got from original dredd. Or sometimes not so subtle (remember 'Democracy Now!' ?)



I watched 'Tomorrow's Worlds' which were an entirely predictable cover no new ground set of two BBC SF histories focusing on space, robots and next week is time travel.

All about the talking heads really The narrator revealing that Invasion of the Bodysnatchers might have been linked to reds under the bed paranoia OH WLL THE SCALES HAVE FALLEN

missed opportunity.

Ursula Le Guin is in it talking about Left Hand Of Darkness.

 

[Idris2002]

An unsubtle to Georgia's Man of Steel, you mean Kimble? I doubt it somehow. . . and you're right satire was what was lacking from this remake.

Apparently there isn't going to be a sequel, which is a shame, because something like the Judge Child saga would make a great movie (though you'd probably need an Avengers- size budget to do it right).

 

[The Boy]

Seem to remember this was pretty decent - one of the better films on that theme.

As did I - though very much as the best of a bad bunch.

Given what we watched instead it may have been that we simply weren't in the right mood.

 

[DotCommunist]

An unsubtle to Georgia's Man of Steel, you mean Kimble? I doubt it somehow. . . and you're right satire was what was lacking from this remake.

Apparently there isn't going to be a sequel, which is a shame, because something like the Judge Child saga would make a great movie (though you'd probably need an Avengers- size budget to do it right).

heh just me then

there's 40 minutes worth of very very high quality animation released this year seperated into shorts, follows judge death. Far more 'in the spirit of'

I'll dig them out later. Google 'judge death shortssss'

 

[DotCommunist]

here you go Superfiend

 

[DotCommunist]

An unsubtle to Georgia's Man of Steel, you mean Kimble? I doubt it somehow. . . and you're right satire was what was lacking from this remake.

Apparently there isn't going to be a sequel, which is a shame, because something like the Judge Child saga would make a great movie (though you'd probably need an Avengers- size budget to do it right).

There probably will be another take on Dredd at some point.

WRT the making modern look just futuristic enough- one of the problems with Sly's Dredd was that they tried to faithfully create the hyper-real comic book look and it just looked like 90's crap because they hadn't the money or modern tech or flair to do it faithfully.

It could be done on a big budget marvel superheroes style budget but the studios putting out comic book films have so so many less problematic age wise and theme wise crap to pump out before the spandex craze is done

 

[Idris2002]

The comic book format allowed 2000AD to do little things that might not work in a movie format. Like when Rogue Trooper meets the Souther high command, and they turn out to be three bods who look like FDR, Winston and Joe (now that one has to have been deliberate).

 

[sojourner]

The fella's never watched the Red Riding Trilogy, so we watched the first one yesterday and he loved it Second one tonight!

 

[fishfinger]

Tusk - A very silly comedy horror by Kevin Smith. Michael Parks is suitably creepy, and Johnny Depp hams it up channelling Inspector Clouseau.

 

[Greebo]

American Interior

 

[DotCommunist]

didn't know where else to plonk this but I think it'll be right up the street of some viewers here. 'A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night' Is about a skateboarding female vampire. Shot in B&W and subtitled in english as its farsi spoken, and the protagonists chador looks vampire-cloakish.

will keep eye out for torrents

 

[Belushi]

Café de Flore (Jean-Marc Vallee 2011) Café de Merde.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Dredd....So, not a bad effort at all, just. . . not really what it said on the tin.

What it lacked, imo, was the hints of satire you got from original dredd.

Just for you two:

 

[Belushi]

Battleship (Peter Berg 2012) Ludicrous alien invasion film 'inspired' by the game.

Let Me In (Matt Reeves 2010) Rather pointless American remake of one of the best films of recent years. Not the complete abomination American remakes often are, there's more emphasis on the horror aspects and less subtlety than in the original, but it lacks the emotional impact that made Let the Right One In a great piece of cinema.

 

[butchersapron]

The Black Panther - a superb criminally overlooked film from the late 70s about that horrible piece of nastiness Donald Neilson. Overlooked because when it was released a few years after the events the press went ban this filth crazy lying to the public that it was exploitative filth, when what they really wanted to do was bury the films exposure of the key role the media played in some tragic events (via police corruption - how things change eh?) - they succeeded and got the films distribution pulled and councils to ban it, effectively killing the film. In reality the film is a fantastic piece of almost formalist crime-reporting - sort of an extended mix of Alan Clarke's Elephant and the extended planning and heist sequences of Le Cercle Rouge and Rififi - stunning performance from Donald Sumpter as the panther. Excellent overview of all this nonsense here.

 

[magneze]

Algorithms
Film about three blind Indian kids who are trying to become chess grand masters. Interesting subject, okay documentary. Odd title. Algorithms weren't mentioned or relevant.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Watched episodes 1-3 of series one of Kingdom (the Lars von Trier effort, not the "Stephen Fry as chubby cuddly Norfolk solicitor" effort!).
I'd forgotten how much I hate the theme tune!