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

butchersapron said:
Optimistic Tragedy - bizarre anti-anarchist Soviet Union film from 1963. After the October revolution anarchist sailiors gain control of ship at Kronstadt. A Bolshevik commissar is sent to deal with them and take the ship to fight in the civil war. The drunken, dirty wild haired anarchist immediately attempt to rape her.She kills one on the spot. Main theme established - anarchists are rapists who refuse to fight the whites (if you're reading this cockers this is not true). The anarchists then proceed to try and mete out their own form of justice and kill a sailor for robbing a granny, when it's revealed the woman made a mistake and their was no robbery they then kill the old lady too. Theme number 2 established - there can be no order or justice among coward anarchists. The commissar then establishes trust through her confident actions and build a working relationship with the ex-officer in technical charge of the ship and off they sail to the black sea to fight the whites as infantry. Along the way the anarchists squabble and kill each other unjustly, run away from battle, kill others on a whim and cover it up with political justifications etc whilst the commissar steadily establishes fighting order and proletarian discipline through exemplary bravery and military and organisational intelligence and preparedness to make tough decisions. When they finally reach the black sea they are sold out to the whites by the remaining anarchists. Theme 3 established, anarchists will sell out class conflict, don't trust anyone who isn't an official of the regime (then and now). The only honourable people in the film are the two upper class characters, the commissar and the former officer who has fallen in line and become a good bolshevik.

Nietzsche and the Nazis - an overlong and pretty crude doco on...guess what. Tells the story ok but rather lifelessly. Don't really know why i watched it.
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There's a 1980s film (made by the Moldovafilm studio) about Mikhail Frunze in the civil war with Makhno and the anarchist fighters as the baddies. It's called The Great-Small War (Bolshaya-malaya voina). I haven't seen it, mind, but it's on YouTube I think.
 
Man of T'ai Chi
Really quite good martial arts film. Well directed by Keanu Reeves, who unfortunately spoils it by also actually being in it. He's just totally unnecessary and his part could have been played much more effectively by, well pretty much anyone. Still, worth watching.
 
Starred Up - didn't do much for me, tbh. Well done in how it is relentlessly unglamourised and explores real dynamics of violence in prison rather than lurid pulp fantasies, and some good acting all around. But overall just nearly two hours of violent shouty men shouting violently at each other with the occasional punch/stab up in between. It's a bit crass to draw the comparisons but to me it just didn't have the attention-grabbing power of other jail classics (say Scum or The Prophet or Ghosts of the Civil Dead for instance.)

The Punk Singer: a film about Kathleen Hanna - completely uncritical hagiography, and a lot of it is a bit embarrassing (privileged arty upper-middle-class rebels talking about oppression) but I didn't know much about this era (90s riot grrrl/ Bikini Kill / Le Tigre etc) and it comes over as a really interesting portrait of whether it's possible to be a good artist, a genuine force for change, and a bearable human all at once.
 
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The Blue Dahlia - Raymond Chandlers first screenplay, and it's a doozy. Tho the film is let down by Alan Ladd, who surely never convinced anyone he was a tough guy.

Gone Girl - pretty good first half/two-thirds. Not convinced by the stuff with Neil Patrick Harris, or even that it really made sense. Better than I expected it to be tho
 
seventh bullet said:
There's a 1980s film (made by the Moldovafilm studio) about Mikhail Frunze in the civil war with Makhno and the anarchist fighters as the baddies. It's called The Great-Small War (Bolshaya-malaya voina). I haven't seen it, mind, but it's on YouTube I think.
Click to expand...

Ta for that, will have a look when i get a chance. What struck me as he most bizarre thing about Optimistic Tragedy was it's timing.I could see why they would make it in 1917-28 say, or the period after 1952 and 1956, but 1963? What was the point? What internal enemies were they facing that mirrored that of the anarchists in the revolutionary period?

The Adventures of Werner Holt - east german production from 1965, from a Dieter Noll novel that i've not read. Surprisingly good. Follows two young boys/men over the last two years of the war - one well up for it and full of nazi goodness and the other (from a politically dissenting family) not so, but going along with his mate out of camaraderie and wanting some excitement. Of course, the whole story is contained in that. One grows further into the machine, one steadily disillusioned (albeit through the emotional fall out of an individual love affair gone wrong). The we reach the last days of the war, the nazi is killing people who want to retreat or surrender, which his mate does. The red army are everywhere - the proper nazi one gets hung for cowardice himself at which point his mate then turns his gun on the remaining german soldiers (oh yeah, he finds out about the camps and so on from his dad and his experiences shortly before this). It really is that didactic and driven by the need to establish founding myths fore the east german state, but that's what gives it's interest i think - that each character simply symbolises one reaction to the large (nazism, war) and the small (following types of orders, individual conscience) issues and that you're then invited to map those reactions onto society or groups etc. The sort of film that i thought american sniper was supposed to be.
 
Ted - The moving story of a man trapped in an a emasculating relationship. His state of mind has led him to construct a foul mouthed companion who enables him to lose any sense of responsiblity when it comes to his actions.
 
Slaughter High - awful shite. Not even enough decent kills or boobies to make it worthwhile. :oops: I actually switched my HDR up to double speed to watch the last half. :D
 
butchersapron said:
Ta for that, will have a look when i get a chance. What struck me as he most bizarre thing about Optimistic Tragedy was it's timing.I could see why they would make it in 1917-28 say, or the period after 1952 and 1956, but 1963? What was the point? What internal enemies were they facing that mirrored that of the anarchists in the revolutionary period?

The Adventures of Werner Holt - east german production from 1965, from a Dieter Noll novel that i've not read. Surprisingly good. Follows two young boys/men over the last two years of the war - one well up for it and full of nazi goodness and the other (from a politically dissenting family) not so, but going along with his mate out of camaraderie and wanting some excitement. Of course, the whole story is contained in that. One grows further into the machine, one steadily disillusioned (albeit through the emotional fall out of an individual love affair gone wrong). The we reach the last days of the war, the nazi is killing people who want to retreat or surrender, which his mate does. The red army are everywhere - the proper nazi one gets hung for cowardice himself at which point his mate then turns his gun on the remaining german soldiers (oh yeah, he finds out about the camps and so on from his dad and his experiences shortly before this). It really is that didactic and driven by the need to establish founding myths fore the east german state, but that's what gives it's interest i think - that each character simply symbolises one reaction to the large (nazism, war) and the small (following types of orders, individual conscience) issues and that you're then invited to map those reactions onto society or groups etc. The sort of film that i thought american sniper was supposed to be.
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There was a fair bit of unrest in the 1960s after the distorting effects of extreme authoritarianism in place before Stalin's death were lessened to a certain extent, with strikes and riots over falling living standards, poor housing, food prices etc. The well-known protest (outside the USSR) by workers instead of intelligentsia dissidents was in Novocherkassk in 1962. Do you think the film was made/timed for immediate reasons? Is it not just a good (depending on your taste) action-drama film with an appropriate theme (for the authorities)?
 
seventh bullet said:
There was a fair bit of unrest in the 1960s after the distorting effects of extreme authoritarianism in place before Stalin's death were lessened to a certain extent, with strikes and riots over falling living standards, poor housing, food prices etc. The well-known protest (outside the USSR) by workers instead of intelligentsia dissidents was in Novocherkassk in 1962. Do you think the film was made/timed for immediate reasons? Is it not just a good (depending on your taste) action-drama film with an appropriate theme (for the authorities)?
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I really don't know - it doesn't work as a sort of action-based historical epic (for which it actually won at award at Cannes) because there is no action - it's pretty much all debate and walking around. I think it must have been a pet project of someone as it really looked out of time and place to me.

Bonnot's Gang - Rubbish crude retelling of the Bonnot gang story. Doesn't really bother looking at their beliefs or, failing that do action based stuff (for that see The Tiger Brigade). I suspect it was just a cash-in on what was being sold as the spirit of the times (all that politcal shouting plus the fashion for old style mobster films - Borsalino etc) - the directors career seems to bear that out.

4 notable things though:
1) Jacques Brel playing Raymond Callemin
2) Victor Serge was in his last teens early 20s during the events - he was played by a 55 year old.
3) Bonnot's last words in his letter just before dying are actually from the last letter Vanzetti ever sent (to his son) just before his execution in 1927 - 15 years after Bonnot's death. Lazy.
4) The utter arseholes actually shot a dog for real - on purpose, not by accident - in the final scene, for a 3 second shot.

Tokyo Tribe - Sion Sono is the most exciting japanese director around right now, and i'm glad he feels the need to make films like this ( a piss take hip-hop gang-war OTT mess) but fucking hell that was shit.
 
Insidious 2 (2013). The first was a fairly pedestrian haunted family type jape, but was at least a reasonably diverting, mildly creepy b-movie. This one is just a confused mess., and many of the characters' actions don't even make sense.
 
Edge Of Tomorrow - Reasonable Tom Cruise sci-fi thing. Bit of a crap ending but the premise & effects were alright. Passable nonsense.
 
The Fifth Element. Has aged badly, but still quirky enough to watch. Tricky lol.

Edge of tomorow was one of my fave sci fi films of recent time tbh ringo, the groundhog day style of it has been done before in pprint and film but it made it work for me. Tom Cruise in something half decent for a change
 
DotCommunist said:
Edge of tomorow was one of my fave sci fi films of recent time tbh ringo, the groundhog day style of it has been done before in pprint and film but it made it work for me. Tom Cruise in something half decent for a change
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Heh, I'm ill and feeling bad tempered. I actually quite liked it apart from the end :)
 
Paranormal activity 4 (2012). Watched for the sake of completeness as have sat through the first three which, in terms of quality, went: good, ok, meh. Two issues with this one: it took me a while to figure out that it was a sequel to the second film, and; it's not very good. Not very good at all. In fact, my heart sank when I discovers there is a fifth on its way.

Pantani: the accidental death of a cyclist (2014). Saw this at the pictures, but fancied revisiting. I'd go with my initial assessment: ok, but the only stand out stuff is the archive footage. Some of the dramatisations are naff too - pantani climbing on the hoods?
 
The Boy said:
Pantani: the accidental death of a cyclist (2014). Saw this at the pictures, but fancied revisiting. I'd go with my initial assessment: ok, but the only stand out stuff is the archive footage. Some of the dramatisations are naff too - pantani climbing on the hoods?
Click to expand...

That was his style, no?

Tbh, the footage of the Uropa stage are worth the entrance fee alone, though way too much myopic, fawning, context-free guff about him riding on 'pure spirit' (by people that should know better). He was goofed up to his eyeballs ffs (just like everyone else).

Plus, it was just a bit...flat :oops: (quite deliberately, I know). Made me yearn for a more classic US/Trashy over-dramatised storytelling of, say, the Slaying The Badger docu.
 
Ted Striker said:
That was his style, no?
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Nah, he used to sprint up the climbs on the drops in the way only someone with blood like jam could.

Agreed about the rest, though I think my favourite footage was the young pantani riding in the amateurs. Weird seeing such big crowds out for those sorts of races. Doubt that even happens in Italy anymore.
 
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