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

[trabuquera]

300 : Rise of an Empire - absolute rubbish and not even enjoyable rubbish like 'the original' 300 either. (It's blatantly a fascist tract but 300 has style to burn and some coherence, even if it's just coherently fascist.) This sequel is just toss from beginning to end, far too many gallons of spurty gouty CGI blood, busy videogame style megazooms and camera lurches and in Sullivan Stapleton (some tightlipped Australian I'd never heard of) a male lead even more charmless (if less shouty) than dread lord Gerard Butler in 300. Really only worth watching for Eva Green chewing the wooden-ship scenery with fantastic abandon ... but overall it's too dull for even that to save it.

Margin Call (2011) - about global financial crisis-triggering banks over-leveraging and so on ... it tries but mostly fails to build real drama out of a "banking story" and a breathtakingly amazing cast (Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, many many more). All of them act brilliantly but the script's a bit too talky (clunking loudly on the floor at times as it goes on about "but what have we actually achieved that's concrete? what have we actually done for the world?" ) and it still doesn't crack the problem of making complex finance involving beeeeeellions of dollars actually seem to matter on a human level. But maybe that's the point, in a funny way. Very very classily done and more exciting than a film of a lot of suits in meeting rooms has any right to be.

 

[Reno]

do you mean the one with the ape and the boy?

I can't quite remember. Was it a fake ape ?

 

[Orang Utan]

I can't quite remember. Was it a fake ape ?

Yep, Deep Roy in a chimp suit.

 

[Reno]

Yep, Deep Roy in a chimp suit.

That's why I remembered it as an alien, the ape looked too weird. The film looked like it could be a laugh.

 

[Orang Utan]

That's why I remembered it as an alien, the ape looked too weird. The film looked like it could be a laugh.

The story was that they were originally going to use the orang utan from Every Which Way But Loose but it bit the boy actor, so they got a little person in a suit instead.
Good job really, cos you don't get Orangs in Africa, which the film is set in (in a country called Momba-Zomba Land )

 

[Reno]

The story was that they were originally going to use the orang utan from Every Which Way But Loose but it bit the boy actor, so they got a little person in a suit instead.
Good job really, cos you don't get Orangs in Africa, which the film is set in (in a country called Momba-Zomba Land )

I really do need to see this.

 

[Orang Utan]

I really do need to see this.

It's called Going Bananas

 

[krtek a houby]

Mutiny on the Bounty from 1962. Brando and Trevor Howard square off, chew scenery (and what great scenery), able support from Richard Harris, Noel Purcell etc. Not as good as the previous version or the '84 one but a lot better than I expected.

 

[Chz]

Watched Tootsie for the first time since it debuted on VHS. It's held up surprisingly well! Yes, there's a few 80s movie musical montages, but overall still pretty enjoyable and not too schlocky. Most 80s films don't age so well.

Bonus points for the large poster of the Broadway version of Amadeus, which would be the Academy's Best Film a short time later.
(Edit: And one of the few very deserving ones at that time, I might add)

 

[Sue]

Just watched the Marseilles trilogy based on Marcel Pagnol's plays/scripts (Marius/Fanny/Cesar). Funny, charming, touching.

 

[Idris2002]

Control.

The Ian Curtis story, which probably needs no introduction to any here. Much better than I expected, with good acting all round, and interesting direction by Anton Corbijn. I did have to laugh at the divs flirting with Nazi imagery, and then getting outraged when everyone thought they were of that persuasion.

It did make me think, could anything like this happen today? I mean the emergence of the kind of angry young man who assemble their own personal aesthetic world out of rumours of the New York punk scene, Bowie influences etc.

 

[ringo]

The Revenant

Enjoyed it. Can see why some thought it was a bit long and boring, but like Hateful 8 I got right into it and enjoyed the ride. Both relentless and grim, but good stories and well made.

 

[krtek a houby]

Imitation of Life 1959 weepy melodrama with Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Robert Alda, Sandra Dee and Susan Kohner. The ending is extraordinarily moving.

 

[Reno]

I watched Psycho III which I hadn't seen in a long time. It's an odd film, quite interesting in places in how it merges the universe of Psycho with that of Vertigo. Unfortunately it's a bit clunky and it lacks style with the main set pieces which are supposed to remind you of Hitchcock bungled by poor editing. Its reasonably ambitious for a slasher sequel to a great cinematic classic, but its set up is better than its execution. I still find it slightly underrated.

Its most interesting aspect is a fantastic early score my the great Carter Burwell who has since scored most films by the Coen brothers.

Recognise this ?

 

[Orang Utan]

Really loving S1 of Fargo. Gonna have to splurge the rest this evening (eps 6-10)
I'm even impressed by Tim from The Office.
The rest of the cast are amazing too, esp Allison Tolman

 

[krtek a houby]

I watched Psycho III which I hadn't seen in a long time. It's an odd film, quite interesting in places in how it merges the universe of Psycho with that of Vertigo. Unfortunately it's a bit clunky and it lacks style with the main set pieces which are supposed to remind you of Hitchcock, bungled by poor editing. It's set up is better than its resolution, but I still find it slightly underrated.

Its most interesting aspect is a fantastic early score my the great Carter Burwell who has since scored most films by the Coen brothers.

Recognise this ?

What's the connection between Psycho III and Vertigo?

I liked Psycho II but it would have been interesting if they had actually filmed Robert Bloch's novel - apparently it's a kind of satire on Hollywood slasher movies? Maybe they weren't ready for that kind of post modern ironic thingy...

 

[Reno]

What's the connection between Psycho III and Vertigo?

I liked Psycho II but it would have been interesting if they had actually filmed Robert Bloch's novel - apparently it's a kind of satire on Hollywood slasher movies? Maybe they weren't ready for that kind of post modern ironic thingy...

The first scene of Psycho III is a straight rerun of the last scene from Vertigo, involving a church tower (which is an exact replica of the one from Vertigo), a deadly fall and nuns. Then the nun who caused the accident, escapes from Vertigo-world to Psycho-world and becomes a double of Janet Leigh's character from the original Psycho for Norman Bates, just like Vertigo is about a double female lead characters. She is styled to look similar to Marion Crane and her character even shares to same initials. The film turns on whether her resemblance to Marion will unhinge Norman Bates further or whether she will become his redemption.

I know of the Bloch sequel, but haven't read it. What they did with the first two Psycho sequels is better than expected though.

 

[Idris2002]

Kiss the Cook.

Jon Favreau is a celebrity chef who returns to his working stiff roots by running a food truck. This allows him to reconnect with both his authentic self, his ten-year old son, and - well that would be a spoiler.

Not bad at all, one for the "fine for what it is" file.

The son's improbably beautiful Cuban-American mother was a little implausible, I have to say.

Like "Ricki and the Flash", I'd say this is partly an attempt by Hollywood to deal with class issues in America, underneath the schmaltz anyway.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Kiss the Cook.

Jon Favreau is a celebrity chef who returns to his working stiff roots by running a food truck. This allows him to reconnect with both his authentic self, his ten-year old son, and - well that would be a spoiler.

That film's called Chef?

 

[Idris2002]

That film's called Chef?

Nichts auf Deutsch.

KISS THE COOK | Ab Jetzt im Kino!

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Nichts auf Deutsch.

KISS THE COOK | Ab Jetzt im Kino!

I see

Does Chef mean something else in German? Or is just not a word?

 

[Idris2002]

I see

Nein, "du siehst".

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Nein, "du siehst".

ich bin ein engländer

 

[The Boy]

A laughably bad documentary on football casuals I stumbled upon on Netflix. A lot of the interviews might as well have been recorded on a mobile, and a big chunk of the later part paid an awful lot of attention to an online business who appear to have funded the film.

 

[Idris2002]

ich bin ein engländer

Du bist ein ARSCH.

 

[Idris2002]

I see

Does Chef mean something else in German? Or is just not a word?

It's a word, but it just means "boss", rather than being specifically kitchen related.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

The Duke of Burgundy. Didn't realise this was by the director of the excellent Berberian Sound Studio until I started watching it. Interesting and trippy homage to 70s Euro-art/sleaze. I need to check out the soundtrack album too.

 

[starfish]

Catching up on The Last Man on Earth. Very funny little comedy on Dave of all places.

 

[The Boy]

The Duellists (1977). Two Napoleonic officers have a falling out and continue to behave like children for a couple of decades.

12 Angry Men (1957). I had a friend who watched this before serving on jury. He felt a bit short changed by the real world after.

Network (1976). I've somehow managed not to avoid watching this for about twenty years. Nice way to round of matinee Friday.

 

[DotCommunist]

Star Trek: first contact. Still looking good, 20 years on, strong story etc. Had forgotten the cheesy Data bits mind. Followed it with 'Chaos on the Bridge' a shat-fronted docu about TNG