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

It's also an American's idea of what Europe is like.

That may or may not be a bad thing, your mileage may vary.

I saw it with a German audience . . . there's one scene where the villain's badge flashes up, and at first glance it looks like the SS double lightning flash. There was a noticeable, and noticeably horrified intake of breath from said German audience.

Assume you're talking about GBH rather than Eddie the Eagle? :hmm: (Which looks bloody awful from the trailers.)
 
Two relics from the mists of the 20th century made me think about time, fashion, taste and cultural norms...

Silk Stockings 1957 musical in the classic musical style, with tremendous hoofing (no other word is right) from Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse - he's a Broadway song & dance man, she's a humourless Soviet cultural commissar, they meet in postwar Paris and fancy each other. Apart from some standard-issue 1950s American Red-baiting, and Cyd C being magically transformed into a lighthearted skittish ballerina by her first luxurious touch of French lingerie, the romance isn't too obnoxious. The dance sequences themselves are terrific - that woman was a Goddess. The rest is mostly filled in with Hollywood in-jokes about how musicals are declining, how the movie industry is dying, how "swim queen" movie stars now have to find new fans, how audiences just move on to the next fad etc etc ... watching Fred Astaire trying to do a "rock n roll" number is just painful, and ironic too, and you get the feeling he knows it. There's some great support work from Zero Mostel and others as a trio of Russian roué artistes desperately trying not to get recalled to spend time in Siber-ee-eer-ee-eer-ia. For a bit of blatant Cold War propaganda full of sexist rubbish, I really really loved it. :p

I love a good musical. Watched Singin' in the Rain (one of my favourite films ever) and Easter Parade on TV over the last few weeks. They really don't make 'em like they used to.
 
It's also an American's idea of what Europe is like.

That may or may not be a bad thing, your mileage may vary.

I saw it with a German audience . . . there's one scene where the villain's badge flashes up, and at first glance it looks like the SS double lightning flash. There was a noticeable, and noticeably horrified intake of breath from said German audience.

The film takes place in Anderson's usual obsessive compulsive toy town parallel universe, in this case loosely based on Europe in WWII. It's not some Americans ignorant idea of Europe.

Do German's seriously still act like some "don't mention the war" cliche or is that your interpretation? Germans had an excess of "Vergangenheirsbewaelting" (dealing with the past) for the last four decades and have been inundated with the iconography of WWII in the media, art and entertainment more than any other population on the planet. I doubt there will be a collective clutching of pearls at a Nazi reference in a German cinema in this day and age.

I've never been an unreserved fan of Wes Anderson. His films often are so airless and precious that I find them suffocating and dramatically dead. I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel though, mainly due to Rafe Fiennes fantastic performance, the relationship with his apprentice and there actually is something at stake here. Filed alongside Rushmore and The Fantastic Mr Fox alongside the films of his I like enough to own.
 
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The film takes place in Anderson's usual obsessive compulsive toy town parallel universe, in this case loosely based on Europe in WWII. It's not some Americans ignorant idea of Europe.

Do German's seriously still act like some "don't mention the war" cliche or is that your interpretation? Germans had an excess of "Vergangenheirsbewaelting" (dealing with the past) for the last four decades and have been inundated with the iconography of WWII in the media, art and entertainment more than any other population on the planet. I doubt there will be a collective clutching of pearls at a Nazi reference in a German cinema in the day and age.

I've never been an unreserved fan of Wes Anderson. His films often are so airless and precious that I find them suffocating and dramatically dead. I loved The Grand Bdapest Hotel though, mainly due to Ralph Fiennes fantastic performance, the relationship with his apprentice and there actually is something at stake here. Filed alongside Rushmore and The Fantastic Mr Fox alongside the films of his I like enough to own.
Reno, man, I know about how people round here try to deal with the past. I wasn't trying to be funny: there really was a collective gasp, and shudder, when that badge flashed on the screen. That's what happened. I was there.

I also agree with you about Anderson, by the way - I normally can't stand Fiennes but he was good in that (and good in Hail, Caesar, as well). Rushmore I turned off after half an hour: TFMF I never saw, but a parental type who did told me that in the screening he went to with his kid, all the grown-ups laughed well hard, and the kids didn't laugh at all.
 
These anecdotal audience reactions again (this time second hand !) ;)

I don't care whether kids laugh at Rushmore. The film isn't meant for kids, it isn't about some typical kid nor does it try to say anything about kids in general. It's about one very particular, rather peculiar boy, based on Anderson himself no doubt.
 
These anecdotal audience reactions again (this time second hand !) ;)

I don't care whether kids laugh at Rushmore. The film isn't meant for kids, it isn't about some typical kid nor does it try to say anything about kids in general. It's about one very particular, rather peculiar boy, based on Anderson himself no doubt.
I was talking about The Fantastic Mister Fox being the film kids didn't laugh at.

And what a dickhead Anderson's fictionalised self transpired to be, eh?
 
I was talking about The Fantastic Mister Fox being the film kids didn't laugh at.

And what a dickhead Anderson's fictionalised self transpired to be, eh?

I didn't laugh much at The Fantastic Mr Fox either, I don't think it's supposed to be a particularly funny film. It's rather melancholy and at times slightly disturbing, like a lot of Roald Dahl really.

Dickhead for some, comedy gold for others (and Rushmore I did find funny)
 
Rushmore and Fox are the two I enjoyed most . Not seen Grand Budapest Hotel yet.

I always like the soundtracks to his films.
 
I found the great stuff very enjoyable. I can barely remember what actually happens in it at all
That's the problem with the film. Lots of stuff which should be great in theory but characters so flat not even a great cast can do much with them and nothing much is at stake. It's Wes Anderson at his whimsical worst, like a kid who has dragged you to his room to show you all his favourite toys. I left the theatre half way through the film, I was so bored.
 
FYI - we enjoyed Eddie the Eagle. It sends a good message to the youth and it passed 2 hours out of the wind and rain. AND we got free photo booth pics at the Ritzy. I bloody love the Ritzy.
 
FYI - we enjoyed Eddie the Eagle. It sends a good message to the youth and it passed 2 hours out of the wind and rain. AND we got free photo booth pics at the Ritzy. I bloody love the Ritzy.
seems a great shame they didn't tell his actual story - which is of a very good working class athlete who was treated like shit by the poshoes of the skiing world. But sod that, lets have a plucky brit loser story instead.
 
seems a great shame they didn't tell his actual story - which is of a very good working class athlete who was treated like shit by the poshoes of the skiing world. But sod that, lets have a plucky brit loser story instead.
Eh? They did tell that story.
 
Hmm, really? Not from the reviews I've heard, including from Mr Eagle himself! But fair play, maybe I'll download it eventually
 
Five episodes into Making a Murderer. I wasn't sold initially, hearing people calling it the best show ever, but it's great :thumbs:

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Hmm, really? Not from the reviews I've heard, including from Mr Eagle himself! But fair play, maybe I'll download it eventually

He aint making no money from it, so I doubt he'll have much positive to say about it....or anything else these days given his run of bad luck over recent years....
 
He aint making no money from it, so I doubt he'll have much positive to say about it....or anything else these days given his run of bad luck over recent years....
He is getting money from it. The film is based on his life story, the rights of which he sold. He also gets a share of the profit if the film makes over a certain amount of money.

He's been complimentary are about the film (as he would be under the circumstances) while also saying that not a lot of it is factually right. Of course they made it into a "plucky underdog makes good" British feel-good comedy even if the actual story was darker.
 
He is getting money from it. The film is based on his life story, the rights of which he sold. He also gets a share of the profit if the film makes over a certain amount of money.

He's been complimentary are about the film (as he would be under the circumstances) while also saying that not a lot of it is factually right. Of course they made it into a "plucky underdog makes good" British feel-good comedy even if the actual story was darker.

OK - I read somewhere he wasn't getting a penny from it....but it was a newspaper....so no knowing if anything is true.

ETA: He isn't going to make a penny from it, because he has to spend it all on his divorce....

‘I sold the film rights to my life story for £180,000 18 years ago. That’s payable now, but will be eaten up by my divorce. I won’t see any royalties unless the film makes a crazy amount – something like £65 million at the box office – so I’m not expecting anything other than a resurgence of interest in me and my story,’ he reveals
 
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