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

[rubbershoes]

Watched this Storyville The Fear of 13 a few nights ago. It's really good but not on iplayer any more

It's just one person talking about being on Death Row and what led him to withdraw his appeal and ask that an execution be set

A powerful story, very well shot with no one else in it all iirc

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Donkeys - convoluted low-budget Scottish drama. Just about passable.

 

[KeeperofDragons]

Started the second series of Blake's 7

 

[DexterTCN]

Gandhi. Still awesome.

The Twilight Zone: Five Characters Looking For An Exit. Someone posted a Rod Serling interview last week so I've been revisiting great old episodes.

 

[ringo]

Top Dog - Directed by Martin Kemp, 2014
Possibly the worst London gangster movie ever made, and it doesn't even have Danny Dyer in. Danny Dyer would have made it better. Football hooligan crew take on local gangsters and get smashed up. Silly plot, bad acting, ridiculous script, obvious stereotyping. I knew it was going to bad within 5 minutes when the bad men got out of their car and the driver locked it before the the passengers had shut their doors.

 

[Idris2002]

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

I'd known that his Bobness did the soundtrack, but I didn't know he was in it.

Not that he takes any attention away from the central relationship that between James Coburn as the eponymous Garrett and Kris Kristofferson as the Kid.

This is the real thing: if you haven't seen it do. The theme is the end of the Old West and the coming of law to the frontier - that's emphatically law, by the way, not justice.

The cinematography of the landscapes and the skies is fantastic, I wish I could have seen it on the big screen.

 

[Sue]

Top Dog - Directed by Martin Kemp, 2014
Possibly the worst London gangster movie ever made, and it doesn't even have Danny Dyer in. Danny Dyer would have made it better. Football hooligan crew take on local gangsters and get smashed up. Silly plot, bad acting, ridiculous script, obvious stereotyping. I knew it was going to bad within 5 minutes when the bad men got out of their car and the driver locked it before the the passengers had shut their doors.

 

[ringo]

Imagine

 

[stethoscope]

Paris Is Burning.

 

[shifting gears]

Paris Is Burning.

Great documentary...

Fascinating look into the world of drag balls, vogue offs, throwing shade, NYC disco nitelife and transgender culture... Fierce!

Paris Is Burning (1990) - IMDb

 

[Idris2002]

Girls.

What an appalling person Lena Dunham is.

 

[TruXta]

Girls.

What an appalling person Lena Dunham is.

I almost had a blazing row with my wife over this show as I voiced my disbelief that she could possibly enjoy that appalling travesty of a show.

 

[Reno]

I suppose some people aren't quite getting that Girls is a satire ?

It's about appalling people behaving appallingly, but that doesn't mean the show endorses that behaviour. It's a modern comedy of manners (or lack of) and you either find that funny and compelling or you don't but for what it is, it's well observed. I don't know why that makes Lena Dunham an appalling person unless you don't realise that she's playing a character and not herself.

 

[TruXta]

I don't care, it's shite either way.

 

[belboid]

I suppose some people aren't quite getting that Girls is a satire ?

It's about appalling people behaving appallingly, but that doesn't mean the show endorses that behaviour. It's a modern comedy of manners (or lack of) and you either find that funny and compelling or you don't but for what it is, it's well observed. I don't know why that makes Lena Dunham an appalling person unless you don't realise that she's playing a character and not herself.

except, she does love the characters, which is why they are always brilliant (her getting onto the writing courses, Marnie getting her contract, Jenna being correctly incisive in her therapy classes). It maintains a postmodern distance so she can be critical, but maintains its utter devotion to these vile people.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Are the charachters in Girls so appaling and vile? (I must admit I got bored somewhere during series 2 and stopped watching).

However, they generally seem to be trying to get along with each other and are out to have fun. Ok they are somewhat pompous, full of their own self importance and grandeur. That partly comes from being young, rich, pretty, privileged and living in New York though I would think. I woulnt go so far as to call them appaling and vile. Just young and self obessed.

Hello all by the way, I'm new.

On what I'm watching The Walking Dead Series 2. So I'm a long way behind the current series. Its kind of fun, zombies, gore, shock horror moments. I think it may get dull, after all how many zombies can one guy shoot in the head. But its fun at the minute.

I've also just started The Sopranos and I've nearly finished True Detective series 1.

 

[Chz]

I actually think Girls is quite well done. I consider it a fault in myself that I just can't watch a show that lacks a single likeable character. I find it's difficult to enjoy myself when I want to murder the cast.

 

[belboid]

Series One, I think they could just be called self-obsessed and superficial - not wholly inappropriate for middle class teens barely into their twenties. As the series progresses, they learn nothing and are happy to shit all over people not in their clique. Ick.

(which isn't to say there aren't any cleverly written bits, and smart observations about the lives of vacuous, self obsessed, people)

 

[Orang Utan]

Yeah, I abandoned it in S2 cos I hated everyone

 

[Supine]

Started the second series of Blake's 7

God, I used to love that. I bet it has mega-aged!

 

[magneze]

You're meant to hate everyone. That's the point. Apart from Ray, of course.

 

[Reno]

except, she does love the characters, which is why they are always brilliant (her getting onto the writing courses, Marnie getting her contract, Jenna being correctly incisive in her therapy classes). It maintains a postmodern distance so she can be critical, but maintains its utter devotion to these vile people.

Of course she loves her characters as any writer loves their creations be they good or bad, but that doesn't mean Dunham endorses the emotional damage they inflict. She dissects their pretensions and narcissism for the purposes of comedy in the same way Woody Allen did when he was still good. There are characters in this who I do find likeable (Shoshanna, Ray, Adam as the series goes on) and most of them have traits or aims that are at least relatable. I find we now live in a culture where people are mega-judgemental of the flaws of others. In fiction that often translates to people on the Internet condemning flawed characters with the same ferocity of condemning a mass murderer which I always find rather OTT. Fine, you don't relate to this very specific world or to these characters at all and you don't find this type of social satire funny, but I don't see why that makes Lena Dunham an appalling human being. She draws on the world she knows and takes the piss out of it like so many a social satirist.

 

[belboid]

Of course she loves her characters as any writer loves their creations be they good or bad, but that doesn't mean Dunham endorses the emotional damage they inflict. She dissects their pretensions and narcissism for the purposes of comedy in the same way Woody Allen did when he was still good. There are characters in this who I do find likeable or at last relatable (Shoshanna, Ray, Adam as the series goes on) but then I'm find we now live in a culture though where people are mega-judgemental of the flaws of others. In fiction that often relates to people on the Internet condemning flawed characters with the same ferocity of a mass murderer which I always find rather OTT. Fine, you don't relate to this very specific world or to these characters at all and you don't find this type of social satire funny, but I don't see why that makes Lena Dunham an appalling human being.

wow, talk about missing the point. I never said I found Lena Dunham an appalling human being, you just made that up. The problem with her loving the characters goes way beyond how any writer could even love the Hitler they wrote. The point was,as said, that she shows them behaving like scumbags, but then says they were right, she justifies their appalingness. That's why it is vile.

 

[Reno]

wow, talk about missing the point. I never said I found Lena Dunham an appalling human being, you just made that up. The problem with her loving the characters goes way beyond how any writer could even love the Hitler they wrote. The point was,as said, that she shows them behaving like scumbags, but then says they were right, she justifies their appalingness. That's why it is vile.

You didn't say she was appalling, Idris2002 did and I was answering to the general hatred of Girls and Dunham, which I find odd,
However, I totally disagree with you that she endorses her character's terrible behaviour, that's almost like we are watching a different show and I won't go around in circles on that one, so will leave it there.

 

[Orang Utan]

You're meant to hate everyone. That's the point. Apart from Ray, of course.

Not if it makes you indifferent to their fates

 

[Orang Utan]

I loved the Sopranos, and that was full of detestable people, but they were fascinating. Girls' characters are too solipsistic to be interesting

 

[belboid]

You didn't say she was appalling, Idris2002 did and I was answering to the general hatred of Girls and Dunham, which I find odd,
However, I totally disagree with you that she endorses her character's terrible behaviour, that's almost like we are watching a different show and I won't go around in circles on that one, so will leave it there.

of course she does.

 

[oneflewover]

The Lady In The Van
Wonderful tale by Alan Bennett, Wonderfully played by Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings.
Just Wonderful

 

[Reno]

I loved the Sopranos, and that was full of detestable people, but they were fascinating. Girls' characters are too solipsistic to be interesting

I suppose that's down to a matter of taste and nuance. The Sopranos were interesting because most of the characters were essentially evil and therefore far removed from my experience, while Girl's characters are frequently appalling in a way that I recognise in people I know and if I'm honest, occasionally in myself, especially when I was young. I may not have tortured anybody to death, but I have been crassly insensitive, talked myself out of a job by saying a stupid thing in an interview or emotionally damaged a lover, so they are two entirely different things. Girls catches the idiocies of youth quite accurately. Young people are inherently solipsistic, that's the theme of the show and that's the main source of its comedy.

One thing with shows like The Sopranos, The Wire or Breaking Bad I always found a little troubling was that the most horrendous characters and actions inspire hero worship in fans. I don't think I've heard a single person who likes Girls express the desire to be anything like those characters and that is to the credit of the show. You can't accuse Girls of being an aspirational show.

One thing which I think was quite groundbreaking about Girls is the honest way it deals with sex. Unlike most sex scenes they genuinely serve a narrative purpose here. I've rarely seen a film and never a TV show which is so unvarnished about sex while never being prurient or judgemental. It shows sex for the mine field it can be in the real world rather than being idealised like most screen sex. And it may not mean much to many guys, but the way Lena Dunham put herself and her body out there is and was heroic and important. The early sex scenes between Hannah and Adam said a few thing about sex which may be uncomfortable but struck me as very truthful, in that our desires may not always conform to our principles and how to navigate that, especially as a young woman. I think that's important stuff to deal with in our sex shaming, sex negative culture which constantly polices how young women should look and behave.

 

[Idris2002]

I suppose that's down to a matter of taste and nuance. The Sopranos were interesting because most of the characters were essentially evil and therefore far removed from my experience, while Girl's characters are frequently appalling in a way that I recognise in people I know and if I'm honest, occasionally in myself, especially when I was young. I may not have tortured anybody to death, but I have been crassly insensitive, talked myself out of a job by saying a stupid thing in an interview or emotionally damaged a lover, so they are two entirely different things. Girls catches the idiocies of youth quite accurately. Young people are inherently solipsistic, that's the theme of the show and that's the main source of its comedy.

One thing with shows like The Sopranos, The Wire or Breaking Bad I always found a little troubling was that the most horrendous characters and actions inspire hero worship in fans. I don't think I've heard a single person who likes Girls express the desire to be anything like those characters and that is to the credit of the show. You can't accuse Girls of being an aspirational show.

One thing which I think was quite groundbreaking about Girls is the honest way it deals with sex. Unlike most sex scenes they genuinely serve a narrative purpose here. I've rarely seen a film and never a TV show which is so unvarnished about sex while never being prurient or judgemental. It shows sex for the mine field it can be in the real world rather than being idealised like most screen sex. And it may not mean much to many guys, but the way Lena Dunham put herself and her body out there is and was heroic and important. The early sex scenes between Hannah and Adam said a few thing about sex which may be uncomfortable but struck me as very truthful, in that our desires may not always conform to our principles and how to navigate that, especially as a young woman. I think that's important stuff to deal with in our sex shaming, sex negative culture which constantly polices how young women should look and behave.

You and your "facts" and your "logic".