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

Phantoms (1998). Lady takes her sister for a retreat at the sleepy ski resort town where she lives, but they find that everyone is either dead or missing. Based on a dean Koontz novel.

First half was a decent enough creepy horror flick with some atmosphere in spite of its flaws. Then it descended into a typical alien-themed action movie type affair along with the usual nonsense like whole chunks of dialogue who's sole purpose is to move the plot along. And the whole standoff with the alien thing that goes on for ever. Pete O'Toole though.

Pretty meh overall.
 
Watched Dredd again last night. They really should make another one.
only this time with humour. One thing that stallones dredd did manage- both in the schlocky cheap 90s looking scenery and the odd aside- was a bit of the comics often sick surreal flourishes of visual and spoken humour.

Karl Urban wears the helm much better than stallone though. Stallones 'I am the Law!' line was delivered with not enough quasi fascsit conviction
 
Sexy Beast

off the back of that massive diamond heist they pulled in london the other day.

Just as good as recalled. Obviously Kingsleys Don Logan is a matter of legend but I had forgoten Ray Winstones ageing hardman was also good. Also: how did I not spot the first time round that he had palmed a little jewellery for himself? Years I thought Lovejoy waved him off with a tenner.
 
Pilot episode of The Americans. Much better than I expected. 1981 Washington DC didn't look as alien as it might have done, so maybe the art direction could use some work - but the plot, script, tension etc. all very well done. And very politically interesting, in that not only are the two deep-cover KGB agents presented sympathetically, they're also pretty much designated the good guys.

Of course, all these things (Breaking Bad especially, but also the Sopranos and Mad Men) are wish-fulfilment fantasies for the harassed and worried white-collar wage slaves who populate contemporary American suburbia. But this show manages to overcome the limitations inherent in that.

And then - To Be or Not To Be.

Later remade with Mel Brooks, this is the wartime original. It's the story of a troupe of Actors who find themselves trapped in Poland after the occupation. Discovering that a double agent has arrived in Warsaw with a list of names of the resistance, they have to use their dramaturgical talents to, amongst other things, imitate Der Fuhrer himself. Great fun altogether. Carole Lombarde as the love interest.
 
The Babadook. Genuinely spooky at first but went on a bit, then I fell asleep. People I watched it with said the end was good though so I will finish it at some point.
 
Affliction (2014). Found footage film that I hadn't seen before. Ultra low budget story about two friends who go on a round the world trip which they document in an online interactive project. Apart from them being annoying dicks, it's a decent enough effort - although it does have is issues as you would expect from a straight-to-streaming effort.

The set-up does also to an extent deal with the problem of presenting amateur found footage in the style of a regular movie. Basic plot is that one of the characters falls ill and starts experiencing odd physical changes. Horror ensues.
 
Drifting Clouds - the first part of genius Aki Kaurismaki's Finnish trilogy. Not quite as good as the follow up, the stupendous Man Without A Past, but still a wonderful portrait of life in a depressed Helsinki, centred around a woman who loses her job as a head waitress and then tries to make ends meet. Wonderfully human and humane.

Orange Is The New Black - yes, a little late to the picnic, and I hadn't realised it was written by yer Weeds woman, which explained why it was far more comic than I'd imagined, and solves its problems a little too easily. That said, it's a great watch, with largely believable characters and situations. Well worth keeping up with.
 
Couple of episodes of Sky Arts' latest attempt to prove they're oh so down with European arty telly (well, sort of), an Italian series called 1992 which purports to be a look at the Tangentopoli scandal, corruption, bent coppers, dubious TV game shows and all of the dirt of Italian politics in that era. (it's all totally different now, of course ...)

Bit hard to tell at this point what is really going on and what its own politics are - if it even has any, other than 'politicians are all a bunch of devious robbing bastards, so don't bother paying your taxes').

Plenty of cringingly uncomfortable commercial/mercenary sex scenes and leching over adolescent female flesh, though I think the show authors are really wanting to have their cake and eat it by making it all so cringey you can feel properly condemnatory and "Shocked, shocked!" by it all. It looks good, has a good soundtrack, many of the cast are very easy on the eye and some of the acting is not bad either. I'll carry on, for now.
 
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All This Mayhem

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2938416/

Great documentary from the makers of Senna and Exit Through The Gift Shop I'd been looking forward to for ages and it really lived up to my expectations. Brothers Tas and Ben Pappas were two rough edged young Melbourne skateboarders who at one point managed to nudge Tony Hawk off the top spot to be the number one and two skaters in the world before their lives descended into a nightmare of drugs, prison, murder and death. Highly recommended.
 
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ringo said:
All This Mayhem

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2938416/

Great documentary from the makers of Senna and Exit Through The Gift Shop I'd been looking forward to for ages and it really lived up to my anticipation. Tas and Ben Pappas were two rough edged young Melbourne skateboarders who at one point managed to nudge Tony Hawk off the top spot to be the number one and two skaters in the world before their lives descended into a nightmare of drugs, prison, murder and death. Highly recommended.

Never heard of that before, ringo. Sounds good, ta.
 
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015). Netflix series about a woman who is rescued from a doomsday cult and decides to make a new life for herself in New York. Watched the whole series in two days. Proper laugh out loud funny.
 
Is it worth it? I gave up on Green Arrow halfway through season 1 and same for Gotham...

Haven't seen Green Arrow (but I watch The Flash, and enjoy that because it's light and funny and I can watch it with my boy).

I watched quite a few episodes of Gotham before giving up too. Daredevil is in a different league!

The characters are great, but In particular the fight scenes are just fantastic. Grim and violent, and very very well choreographed.

Seen 6 episodes now, geniune tension and "I must see what happens next" feels, love it! :D
 
Penny Dreadful, s1. Liked it a lot, far more than I was expecting to, because this postmodern monster-munch thing of mashing all the horror stories together doesn't really appeal to me - surely each one conjures and deserves its own particular ambience?

But this series sort of carries it off (wolfman + Dracula + Frankenstein + Dorian Gray + La Boheme (maybe) + jack the ripper +probably some Mummy action to come), with tremendous art direction, some cracking performances (Eva Green, Timothy Dalton and Roy Kinnear are all EXCELLENT), and plenty of sly wit and audience-teasing in the dialogue. Plus some proper actual WTF moments. It looks consistently amazing throughout. It's not high art but it's much much MUCH better and more intelligent than (for instance) the Jonathan Rhys Myers Dracula reboot. There are moments when it all gets very arch and meta indeed.

Well worth your time, imho.

There's only one real bum note: Billie Piper, acting atrociously (as usual) as a prostitute (as usual.)
 
John Wick. Keanu kicks ass as a retired killer who comes back for vengeance.

Very watch-able. Good soundtrack, nice visuals, good action.

Judo-headshot! Aikido-headhsot! Punching-headhsot! Somachshot - headshot!

Seriously he does a lot of headshots.
 
Boys don't cry.

Probably the most engaging queer/transgender film I've seen. It had tragedy written all over it from the beginning but it was clear that Brandon wasn't a tragic character; it was the bigotry that was tragic. Don't know why I didn't go and see it 16 years ago. :confused:
 
Olympus Has Fallen (Antoine Fuqua 2012) Ludicrous action movie in which the North Koreans seize the White House and one man takes it back.
 
All This Mayhem

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2938416/

Great documentary from the makers of Senna and Exit Through The Gift Shop I'd been looking forward to for ages and it really lived up to my expectations. Brothers Tas and Ben Pappas were two rough edged young Melbourne skateboarders who at one point managed to nudge Tony Hawk off the top spot to be the number one and two skaters in the world before their lives descended into a nightmare of drugs, prison, murder and death. Highly recommended.

Just about to put it on..

On a similar tip...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271211/
 
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