ringo
Macaroni cheese controller
It was OK, but only OK. Hard to translate books that good and of that style into film.
What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)
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It was OK, but only OK. Hard to translate books that good and of that style into film.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Also watched this weekend, a Melange of Minor Marlowes, with very mixed results.
The Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery as PM). Most notable for generally refusing to show Marlowe’s face, and using the camera as him – so everyone speaking to Marlowe addresses the camera directly. When you see the intro – where ‘Marlowe’ tells us the set up, you are very glad we don’t see more of Montgomery, he seems like a perfectly good radio actor, but wooden as hell. But then the film starts, and within five minutes the ‘trick’ becomes annoying. Within half an hour it’s unbearable, so it gets turned off.
Brasher Doubloon (The High Window, with George Montgomery). A much better film. Not first rate, but good, and a pretty coherent version of a confusing tale. This Montgomery is no Bogart, but he is watchable, if a tad passive-aggressive in how he switches between flirting with all those dames and playing hardball with the big guys.
The Falcon Takes Over (George Sanders as The Falcon, based on Farewell, My Lovely). The first Chandler adaptation, and it replaces Philip with the gentleman detective ‘The Falcon’ (Sanders’ third outing as that detective). It’s still a good story, tho moving much of the action from the black underbelly of American society to a posh nightclub makes various scenes and characters seem completely out of place. Watchable, but only just.
Murder, My Sweet (Farwell, My Lovely, with Dick Powell) Shouldn’t really be on a ‘minor Marlowe’ list, it’s the third or second best film with him in it (depending on whether you consider Altman’s film to be anything to do with the ‘real’ Marlowe), but lots of them are quite short, so I ended up watching it again anyway. Powell is no Bogart, and can be quite wooden, especially in the supposedly charming scenes, but he can come over convincingly, certainly better than the other performers, and could propel a sense of menace. They stick to the story fairly closely (tho they remove most of the racial references), and the support are excellent. Dmytryk certianly knew how to create the full repertoire of noirisms, and it’s the most convincing of the other forties films. The title was changed because apparently the producers were afraid people would think 'Farewell, My Lovely' would be a musical.
Farewell My Lovely (Robert Mitchum) – the first of the Mitchum remakes (why do they always start with Farewell?) and it’s the better of the two, as I recall. Altho made in the seventies, it has all the looks of a eighties made for TV film. Mitchum could have been a great Marlowe, but he’s at least twenty years too old in this and really dialling it in. it is probably the most true to Chandler of any of the films tho – right down to all that charming language about ‘shines’ and far more explicit references to homosexuality. They add a few references to the date (seemingly so that we can all go ‘ohh, it’s so long ago, they were allowed to speak like that then), but otherwise it’s pretty pure Chandler. Roger Ebert, for some reason, really rated this film, god knows why. I would have turned it off after half an hour, but then Charlotte Rampling turned up. No one can substitute for Lauren Bacall, but if anyone could….it could well be Charlotte Rampling. She is very good, deliciously sultry and a convincing femme fatale. Still doesn’t stop it from being a pretty lousy film tho. Also contains an early appearance by Sylvester Stallone, who isn’t the worst thing in it, and Harry Dean Stanton, who is one of the best things in it.
Marlowe (The Little Sister, James Garner). One I hadn’t seen before, and a big omission. Updated to the sixties this is almost an anti-noir as all the outdoor scenes are shot in ultra bright daylight, no chiaroscuro here. One whole plotline is removed from the book, but it makes few odds, and it otherwise sticks fairly close to the original. Garner is excellent – a little too light perhaps, you can see exactly where Jim Rockford came from in this – handling the wit, the charm, and the menace with ease. Excellent supports – especially Rita Moreno as Dolores Gonzáles – well paced, and strongly directed. Bruce Lee makes his Hollywood debut (?) in a couple of quite amusing, if wholly misplaced scenes, until he is removed from the action with a quick dollop of slight homophobia. Despite that, it is still well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it before.
I still have a couple more to catch up on Time to Kill (High Window with Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne instead of Marlowe) and The Big Sleep (Robert Mitchum) – I’ll try to get round to them, tho my heart wont be in it. I made a start on the latter, but as it opens with Marlowe driving along a road with a signpost for Stevenage I decided I needed to wait before putting myself through it.
Then, once I’ve (re)read the books, I’ll have to (re)watch The Long Goodbye (Elliott Gould) and Poodle Springs (James Caan). Neither read nor watched Poodle Springs before, so that should be interesting, even if it is barely Chandler at all.
The Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery as PM). Most notable for generally refusing to show Marlowe’s face, and using the camera as him – so everyone speaking to Marlowe addresses the camera directly. When you see the intro – where ‘Marlowe’ tells us the set up, you are very glad we don’t see more of Montgomery, he seems like a perfectly good radio actor, but wooden as hell. But then the film starts, and within five minutes the ‘trick’ becomes annoying. Within half an hour it’s unbearable, so it gets turned off.
Brasher Doubloon (The High Window, with George Montgomery). A much better film. Not first rate, but good, and a pretty coherent version of a confusing tale. This Montgomery is no Bogart, but he is watchable, if a tad passive-aggressive in how he switches between flirting with all those dames and playing hardball with the big guys.
The Falcon Takes Over (George Sanders as The Falcon, based on Farewell, My Lovely). The first Chandler adaptation, and it replaces Philip with the gentleman detective ‘The Falcon’ (Sanders’ third outing as that detective). It’s still a good story, tho moving much of the action from the black underbelly of American society to a posh nightclub makes various scenes and characters seem completely out of place. Watchable, but only just.
Murder, My Sweet (Farwell, My Lovely, with Dick Powell) Shouldn’t really be on a ‘minor Marlowe’ list, it’s the third or second best film with him in it (depending on whether you consider Altman’s film to be anything to do with the ‘real’ Marlowe), but lots of them are quite short, so I ended up watching it again anyway. Powell is no Bogart, and can be quite wooden, especially in the supposedly charming scenes, but he can come over convincingly, certainly better than the other performers, and could propel a sense of menace. They stick to the story fairly closely (tho they remove most of the racial references), and the support are excellent. Dmytryk certianly knew how to create the full repertoire of noirisms, and it’s the most convincing of the other forties films. The title was changed because apparently the producers were afraid people would think 'Farewell, My Lovely' would be a musical.
Farewell My Lovely (Robert Mitchum) – the first of the Mitchum remakes (why do they always start with Farewell?) and it’s the better of the two, as I recall. Altho made in the seventies, it has all the looks of a eighties made for TV film. Mitchum could have been a great Marlowe, but he’s at least twenty years too old in this and really dialling it in. it is probably the most true to Chandler of any of the films tho – right down to all that charming language about ‘shines’ and far more explicit references to homosexuality. They add a few references to the date (seemingly so that we can all go ‘ohh, it’s so long ago, they were allowed to speak like that then), but otherwise it’s pretty pure Chandler. Roger Ebert, for some reason, really rated this film, god knows why. I would have turned it off after half an hour, but then Charlotte Rampling turned up. No one can substitute for Lauren Bacall, but if anyone could….it could well be Charlotte Rampling. She is very good, deliciously sultry and a convincing femme fatale. Still doesn’t stop it from being a pretty lousy film tho. Also contains an early appearance by Sylvester Stallone, who isn’t the worst thing in it, and Harry Dean Stanton, who is one of the best things in it.
Marlowe (The Little Sister, James Garner). One I hadn’t seen before, and a big omission. Updated to the sixties this is almost an anti-noir as all the outdoor scenes are shot in ultra bright daylight, no chiaroscuro here. One whole plotline is removed from the book, but it makes few odds, and it otherwise sticks fairly close to the original. Garner is excellent – a little too light perhaps, you can see exactly where Jim Rockford came from in this – handling the wit, the charm, and the menace with ease. Excellent supports – especially Rita Moreno as Dolores Gonzáles – well paced, and strongly directed. Bruce Lee makes his Hollywood debut (?) in a couple of quite amusing, if wholly misplaced scenes, until he is removed from the action with a quick dollop of slight homophobia. Despite that, it is still well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it before.
I still have a couple more to catch up on Time to Kill (High Window with Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne instead of Marlowe) and The Big Sleep (Robert Mitchum) – I’ll try to get round to them, tho my heart wont be in it. I made a start on the latter, but as it opens with Marlowe driving along a road with a signpost for Stevenage I decided I needed to wait before putting myself through it.
Then, once I’ve (re)read the books, I’ll have to (re)watch The Long Goodbye (Elliott Gould) and Poodle Springs (James Caan). Neither read nor watched Poodle Springs before, so that should be interesting, even if it is barely Chandler at all.
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trabuquera
Modesty Bag
also one of the only films I have ever seen containing a genuinely funny joke about the EU. Even though it goes on for aaaaages and is so arty, I LOVED this movie (although I'd hated other things the same director made) and one of the best things about it - entirely unexpected in a long bleak arty crime film - is the very wry and dark sense of humour lurking around the edges.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
**oops**
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Good fucking movie.
sovereignb
Well-Known Member
I spent most of yesterday watching this show...forgot how hilarious it is!
hot air baboon
Well-Known Member
The Hobbit Ep.1 - as recorded from ITV over the week-end...
......my misgivings about this project pretty much vindicated imho....although I admit this type of film loses alot in the scaling down from large to small screen, once you take out the epic vistas then there's really not much else left at the bottom of the glass....
...in parts it looked like a poor shot-for-shot remake of LoTR...Gandalf & butterfly, a directly repeated bit where a stranded pinnacle of rock topples onto a ledge so everyone jumps off, a lead "dwarf" who looks remarkably like Aragorn, Radagast levered in as a very ill-advised surrogate Tom Bombadil with a huge dollop of sea-gulls droppings down the side of his face, and most deleterious of all lamentably poor CGI : the necromancer at dol guldur was sub-Dr Who - as wehre the battling rock-giants, the wargs show no improvement on what the 2001 technology was producing & particualry the goblins under the mountain escape sequence which looked like some cheap 1990's play station platform game...
......my misgivings about this project pretty much vindicated imho....although I admit this type of film loses alot in the scaling down from large to small screen, once you take out the epic vistas then there's really not much else left at the bottom of the glass....
...in parts it looked like a poor shot-for-shot remake of LoTR...Gandalf & butterfly, a directly repeated bit where a stranded pinnacle of rock topples onto a ledge so everyone jumps off, a lead "dwarf" who looks remarkably like Aragorn, Radagast levered in as a very ill-advised surrogate Tom Bombadil with a huge dollop of sea-gulls droppings down the side of his face, and most deleterious of all lamentably poor CGI : the necromancer at dol guldur was sub-Dr Who - as wehre the battling rock-giants, the wargs show no improvement on what the 2001 technology was producing & particualry the goblins under the mountain escape sequence which looked like some cheap 1990's play station platform game...
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
This film! I must get a torrent!
It got really undeserved stick when it came out. Yes, costner isn't an expressive actor but in this role- the spartan aquatic Mad Max figure- he didn't need to be. Hopper was in great camp villain form and the one eyed baddie 'Dry land is not just our destinination, it is our destiny!'
I'm not really sure why it got so much stick at the time. Its got some great set pieces.
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
I've been binge watching 'Falling Skies' for the past week or so, Aliens invade - kill loads of folks - enslave others with a big parasite which is embedded in the back - there's a resistance - 
enjoying it, can get a bit schmaltzy at times - but the action sequences are pretty good, and it motors along nicely
enjoying it, can get a bit schmaltzy at times - but the action sequences are pretty good, and it motors along nicely
The Octagon
Stop...Hammertime
A Million Ways To Die In The West
Not great, pretty much an extended live action Family Guy parody of a western, partially saved by a few good jokes / slapstick moments, one great cameo appearance and Charlize Theron.
Not great, pretty much an extended live action Family Guy parody of a western, partially saved by a few good jokes / slapstick moments, one great cameo appearance and Charlize Theron.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Have you seen Dodge City? My dad showed me the bar brawl scene from it a few weeks ago and it's got everything. The daddy of all western bar brawls. The one in Blazing Saddles is a blatant copy of it.
Virtual Blue
ready
Get Hard - two or three funny scenes, still, it is a very bad film.
The Octagon
Stop...Hammertime
No, will have a look, interesting to see it's directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca)
For All Mankind
1989 documentary film made by Al Reinert out of footage mainly shot by the Apollo astronauts over the course of the various moon landings and interviews with them which were used as a voiceover. It's a very interesting and well put together documentary and there was some really fantastic shots that were amazing to see in high definition.
Ikarie XB-1
1963 sci-fi directed by Jindřich Polák, based on a novel by Stanisław Lem and another film with a screenplay written by Pavel Juráček. I haven't watched that many of this genre although I have seen the excellent Andrei Tarkovsky version of Solaris which was based on a book by the same author and has some similarities in its tone and themes. The plot is fairly simple – a mission to somewhere near Alpha Centauri hoping to find some aliens, but the drama is largely focused on the crew of Ikarie and the tensions that develop over the course of their journey. The characters are all quite quickly drawn but effective and well acted and the filmmakers' efforts to portray the everyday life of people during long distance space travel and some of the routines and practicalities of it are quite clever (with a special mention for the strangely formal space disco scene).
There was some good use of the film camera as if it was the ship's onboard cameras – some of the slow panning shots using wide angled lenses both showed off the well designed sets and also had an alienating and slightly sinister edge to them which becomes more pronounced as the film progresses.
Overall a really good film that stands up very well today given the time it was made. Fantastic futuristic score by Zdenĕk Liška too.
1989 documentary film made by Al Reinert out of footage mainly shot by the Apollo astronauts over the course of the various moon landings and interviews with them which were used as a voiceover. It's a very interesting and well put together documentary and there was some really fantastic shots that were amazing to see in high definition.
Ikarie XB-1
1963 sci-fi directed by Jindřich Polák, based on a novel by Stanisław Lem and another film with a screenplay written by Pavel Juráček. I haven't watched that many of this genre although I have seen the excellent Andrei Tarkovsky version of Solaris which was based on a book by the same author and has some similarities in its tone and themes. The plot is fairly simple – a mission to somewhere near Alpha Centauri hoping to find some aliens, but the drama is largely focused on the crew of Ikarie and the tensions that develop over the course of their journey. The characters are all quite quickly drawn but effective and well acted and the filmmakers' efforts to portray the everyday life of people during long distance space travel and some of the routines and practicalities of it are quite clever (with a special mention for the strangely formal space disco scene).
There was some good use of the film camera as if it was the ship's onboard cameras – some of the slow panning shots using wide angled lenses both showed off the well designed sets and also had an alienating and slightly sinister edge to them which becomes more pronounced as the film progresses.
Overall a really good film that stands up very well today given the time it was made. Fantastic futuristic score by Zdenĕk Liška too.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
Black Jack - 1979 Ken Loach film adapted from a kids' book by Alan Garner. 18th-century lad's adventures in the company of a dodgy French heavy (hanged but survived), a bunch of travelling fair folk and a girl declared a lunatic and cast off by her evil rich family. It's all very Loachy - lots of poignant moments of cruelty and oppression and social critique ordinary folk chatting about not much - and doesn't really grip as a drama at all. Full of anachronistic language and behaviour, and the low-key sort-of-realist style doesn't sweep the story along. But there are amazing faces and some ravishingly beautiful shots (fire-lit conversations and misty country dales etc etc).
The Bay - recent found-footagey eco-disaster/horror thing. Breaks the premise all the time (there's sequence after sequence which just wouldn't ever be filmed that way at that time) but so many nested layers of recording/editing in the film itself it can probably get away with it. It's basically every mutant-horror-monster-movie ever, but quite snazzily updated and larded with LOADS of eco-paranoia and even a bit of anti capitalist deep green thinking you don't get much in US films. (bit too reminiscent of u75 conspiraloons at times in fact…) needless to say big business, nuclear waste and industrial chicken farming are mostly to blame, governmental agencies pass the buck furiously while a whole idyllic small town die grisly deaths, final girl signs off at the end. Really not bad.
The Bay - recent found-footagey eco-disaster/horror thing. Breaks the premise all the time (there's sequence after sequence which just wouldn't ever be filmed that way at that time) but so many nested layers of recording/editing in the film itself it can probably get away with it. It's basically every mutant-horror-monster-movie ever, but quite snazzily updated and larded with LOADS of eco-paranoia and even a bit of anti capitalist deep green thinking you don't get much in US films. (bit too reminiscent of u75 conspiraloons at times in fact…) needless to say big business, nuclear waste and industrial chicken farming are mostly to blame, governmental agencies pass the buck furiously while a whole idyllic small town die grisly deaths, final girl signs off at the end. Really not bad.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
That Ken Loach thing sounds like the sort of thing the Young Adult market would go for, trabuquera.
Anyway, last night I watched Pain and Gain - one of the great stupid movies. Mark Wahlberg plays a nasty bit of work who recruits a couple of poor eejits for a plot that involves kidnapping and extortion. This movie will do for gym rats and personal trainers what The Boston Strangler did for door-to-door salesmen. The Rock plays one of the eejits and turns in an impressive performance. I think it was butchersapron who recommended this one a while back. . .
Last week I watched What we Did on our Holiday, which also involves poor eejits, but of a different variety. David Tennant and Rosamund Pike are the middle-class whose marriage is crashing and burning, but who return to Scotland for the 75th birthday of Tennant's father, played by Billy Connolly.
Anyway, last night I watched Pain and Gain - one of the great stupid movies. Mark Wahlberg plays a nasty bit of work who recruits a couple of poor eejits for a plot that involves kidnapping and extortion. This movie will do for gym rats and personal trainers what The Boston Strangler did for door-to-door salesmen. The Rock plays one of the eejits and turns in an impressive performance. I think it was butchersapron who recommended this one a while back. . .
Last week I watched What we Did on our Holiday, which also involves poor eejits, but of a different variety. David Tennant and Rosamund Pike are the middle-class whose marriage is crashing and burning, but who return to Scotland for the 75th birthday of Tennant's father, played by Billy Connolly.
I'm not convinced, somehow, that some children aged roughly six to ten would be to organise a Viking burial at sea for their deceased grandfather .
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DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
episodes 2-5 of Sense8.
This is really good. If netflix can keep buying/producing/commisioning stuff like this its going to easily rival HBO in terms of subscriber base.
From the bro and si who boughtyou the Matrix, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending etc. People are linked in the mind by a mechanism they don't understand. From London to NY to Nairobi to Seuol. They can somehow tap into each others muscle memory, experience what the other is doing and so on. Shot beautifully, can cheeser it in places but regardless, its great.
Freema Agyeman is in it as well, so bonus.
This is really good. If netflix can keep buying/producing/commisioning stuff like this its going to easily rival HBO in terms of subscriber base.
From the bro and si who boughtyou the Matrix, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending etc. People are linked in the mind by a mechanism they don't understand. From London to NY to Nairobi to Seuol. They can somehow tap into each others muscle memory, experience what the other is doing and so on. Shot beautifully, can cheeser it in places but regardless, its great.
Freema Agyeman is in it as well, so bonus.
renegadechicken
Live and don't learn, that's me.
The gunman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2515034/ - with Sean Penn, Ray Winstone, Idris Elba - pretty good film really enjoyed it.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014). Much the same as the other four, but this time following a group of working class Latino kids instead of middle class white families. Diminishing returns. And the attempts o shoehorn the previous plotlines into the new films are getting silly now.
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