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

Prey (1977). Not exactly a good (British horror) film, but bizarre and watchable, and loads of laughs which might be intentional or not.

Also watched Elegy this weekend - pretty damn good, surprised to find Dennis Hopper in it.
 
American Horror Story S1 in a big binge. Loved it. Lots of twists and turns and great performances.
Bit far fetched though. Where do all the ghosts get all their clothes and stuff from?

Tried to watch s2 of this after hating s1. I stopped after 15 mins. I really don't understand why people like it. It seems like a mash up of 4 or 5 really shit horror films per season.
 
12 Years a Slave - harrowing stuff
Fright Night - recent remake, better than the original
About Time - Richard Curtis time travel rom com. average.
Line of Duty - latest series, excellent apart from last 15 mins...
 
x men apocalypse. Far better than I was expecting given some mixed reviews but I really enjoyed its set pieces. All of quicksilvers bits were mint for a start. Liked the (and I know its hackneyed but it was new to me when I read the x men) magneto/xavier philosophy face off. I hope if I had Magntos power I would not follow his philosophy.

Also, excellent wolverine set up.
 
10 Cloverfield Lane. 2 hours zips along nicely in an almost instantly forgettable thriller that opens up the 'Cloverfield' franchise to more interesting sequals which are completely disconnected 'survival' stories. I think there's potential to spin some good yarns which are not about man vs alien, but about the people and their lives post d-day.
 
Continuing with the grand ER rewatch, and I'm half-way through season 7. This is past the point where I was a regular viewer back in the day, and season 7 has seen a very noticeable uptick in the speed of the arc stories, and the quality is suffering quite badly. I am still interested enough to give it a couple of episodes a night though, but the prospect of completing all 15 seasons is looking ever more remote.
 
Continuing with the grand ER rewatch, and I'm half-way through season 7. This is past the point where I was a regular viewer back in the day, and season 7 has seen a very noticeable uptick in the speed of the arc stories, and the quality is suffering quite badly. I still am interested enough to give it a couple of episodes a night though.

Stick with it, still lots of good stuff to come over the remainder of the seasons...
 
I added a bit to my post, but yeah, it's still holding my interest now that there's characters/storylines in it I don't remember at all. I'd also forgotten how much I like Maura Teirney...

Yeah she was ace. John Leguizamo and Scott Grimes' characters were also brilliant, in an annoying sort of way.
 
The Zero Theorem - A Terry Gilliam film I had not realised existed.
It starts off a bit over the top and garish with extras in ridiculous clothes at parties all looking at their phones, but it gets better.
Loved the set and production, especially the outside sections.
And I liked the 'message'.
And I now have a crush on Melanie Thierry.
And it features Christopher Waltz doing an impression of Chris Lowe off of The Pet Shop Boys:
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When Snooker Ruled The World. If you like snooker, its 100% gold and is on iplayer. If you don't like snooker, then you probably would avoid this anyway. Its the talking heads bits that make it.
 
Dirty Weekend [Mordi e Fuggi] (1973) - light-hearted Italian film about a fleeing trio of communist bank robbers that kidnap a rich man and his mistress. Starring Marcello Mastroianni & Oliver Reed, it's OK but is rather spoiled by the fact most of the cast have had their voices dubbed in the version I saw.
 
Dirty Weekend [Mordi e Fuggi] (1973) - light-hearted Italian film about a fleeing trio of communist bank robbers that kidnap a rich man and his mistress. Starring Marcello Mastroianni & Oliver Reed, it's OK but is rather spoiled by the fact most of the cast have had their voices dubbed in the version I saw.
Until the 90s Italian films weren't recorded with synch sound and everything got dubbed afterwards, so this is the only way to watch them. When there were English or American leads, the cast mostly spoke their lines in English and often the English dub can be superior to the Italian version.
 
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It was dubbed into Italian although everyone seemed to have been dubbed except Mastrioanni, a reviewer on IMDB mentions Reed's character having a German accent which I couldn't detect (I wouldn't know Italian with a German accent anyway) so maybe an English language version exists with Reed's voice.
 
It was dubbed into Italian although everyone seemed to have been dubbed except Mastrioanni, a reviewer on IMDB mentions Reed's character having a German accent which I couldn't detect (I wouldn't know Italian with a German accent anyway) so maybe an English language version exists with Reed's voice.
Everybody would have been post-synchronised and there would have been Italian and English dubs made in Italy (other countries would have made their own dubs locally). Most of the time the lead actors would dub their own voices in their native language version, as with Mastrioanni here and it's probable that Reed dubbed himself for the English language track. Sometimes actors would have moved onto another job though and then they would have been voiced by someone else.

It's one of those quirks of vintage Italian, Spanish, German and (a lot of) Asian cinema, no sound was recorded on set and everything got dubbed and some films with more care than others. Many of these films were expected to make much of their money in English speaking territories, that's why an English dub was frequently prioritised.
 
Does 'ol Hurricane feature?
he does! says he never learned to read proper till his teens and spent all his time bunking off school to go to play snooker. Great little docu.

edit no he doesn't I'm thinking of Jimmy White, the whirlwind

if I could clear a table as fast as them lads I'd call myself 'the ill wind' or maybe the 'sirroco'
 
Victor Victoria, which I rather liked when it came out but which hasn't dated well at all. Poor songs and the film runs out of steam half way though going on for way too long. A drag.

The first two episodes of the supernatural BBC series The Living and the Dead by one of the writers of Life on Mars. Not that hooked yet and for a period drama, the spunky female lead feels far to modern. It's trying to be Thomas Hardy with ghosts and possessions. There are intriguing things about it tough, like hints at The Wicker Man style folk horror and a plot strand which seems inspired by Nigel Kneale's legendary, lost The Road. The BBC has made all of this available on iPlayer two weeks before it goes out, trying the Netflix model.
 
Continuing with the grand ER rewatch, and I'm half-way through season 7. This is past the point where I was a regular viewer back in the day, and season 7 has seen a very noticeable uptick in the speed of the arc stories, and the quality is suffering quite badly. I am still interested enough to give it a couple of episodes a night though, but the prospect of completing all 15 seasons is looking ever more remote.
Inspired by this post, I watched some early ER last night, the pilot and first episode to be precise. And it does stand up quite well after - well, it's more than twenty years isn't it?
 
watched an episode of columbo from series 1 but fell asleep just before he did the 'final questioning' that always gets them. FML
 
I gave up of The Living and the Dead, which is a snooze and went on to season 3 of Penny Dreadful which is a lot more fun. They've added the last two of the classic monsters to their line of characters, Jekyll/Hyde and Dracula (plus Renfield and a female Dr Seward, both from Dracula as well).
 
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