indeed
What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)
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Reno
The In Kraut
Love Airplane! but by the time it came along, the cycle of disaster movies which was at its height in the early to mid-70s had run its course. Nobody took The Concorde: Airport ‘79 seriously when it came out, it’s one of the most hilariously awful movies ever released by a major studio. It was mocked at the time and the franchise killed itself off when that movie flopped. Airport ‘79 is almost as funny as Airplane! and includes moments like the pilot opening the cockpit window of the Concorde mid-flight to fire a flare gun.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
“It's just difficult to get any work done in this town, with its possums, and their screams”
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Aquaman. DC effort which seems to be riffing on Splash, Indiana Jones, The Phantom Menace, Avatar, Finding Nemo, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and many more.
That said, it's enjoyable, despite DCs recent output.
That said, it's enjoyable, despite DCs recent output.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
On youtube.
The Magic Christian.
Ringo Starr is the adopted son of eccentric millionaire Peter Sellers, who travels the country staging elaborate and bizarre pranks. Very "of its time", but not in a bad way. Contains scene where Roman Polanski is made to feel uncomfortable by a drag artiste (I think this must have been filmed before the Manson killings, and before Polanski got his rape conviction - but let's face it he was probably up to no good long before that).
The Magic Christian.
Ringo Starr is the adopted son of eccentric millionaire Peter Sellers, who travels the country staging elaborate and bizarre pranks. Very "of its time", but not in a bad way. Contains scene where Roman Polanski is made to feel uncomfortable by a drag artiste (I think this must have been filmed before the Manson killings, and before Polanski got his rape conviction - but let's face it he was probably up to no good long before that).
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
The Morning Show on Apple TV+ - 5 eps in, really enjoying so far.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
American Fable (2016) twisty, mystical-ish, borderline surreal rural noir / thriller about an 11yr old girl on a Midwest farm in the 1980s, discovering that all's not well on the homestead, what with Dad being deep in debt, Big Bro being a psychopathic bully and something nasty in a silo. Won't spoiler it. Gorgeously shot, the lead actress is phenomenal and her relationship with her idolised Dad is very nicely portrayed. In some limited ways it reminded me a bit of Coen Bros' Blood Simple, though far more restrained and less Gothic. The elements of tension & fantasy don't altogether work but it's a very watchable oddball hidden gem. (Not at all gory - it's not horror at all - and not disturbing - I'd say safe to watch for anyone say 14+ even if often scared by films.)
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Low budge British horror from 1958. Forrest Tucker (F Troop, The Ghost Busters) stars and Warren Mitchell provides reliable support as a Professor.
Strange clouds on the mountain, dead mountaineers coming to life, telepathic sisters and nameless, creeping, tentacled horrors are abroad. Forrest Tucker is at hand to sort it out - he's part of a United Nations outfit who investigate strange phenomena. Wouldn't have been out of place in the original Doctor Who saga...
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
Sicilian Ghost Story (2018) - was on Film4 but I think it's on Netflix as well. Insidiously disturbing movie based on the notorious Giuseppe Di Stefano abduction/kidnapping/captivity story. The preadolescent son of a pentito (repentant mafioso who grasses up all his gangster pals to the State) in Sicily is kidnapped in turn; the whole community stays schtum; but the boy's oddball, deeply-attached girl friend (girlfriend? just friend? guardian angel?) won't let the matter rest and rebels against her family, village, schoolmates and society to keep trying to uncover what's happened. It's all done in a deliberately dreamy, symbolic, artsy style and turned into a sort of metaphysical abstract love story; but the horror and moral squalor of what's going on is never underplayed. Not gory, but it doesn't soft-pedal or conceal the violence or the corruption. It's too long and a bit pretentious. Some of it's questionable - was this slightly hippy-dippy tack really the right one to take? - but its heart is definitely in the right place and it ends up far more moving, and even beautiful in parts, than expected. Some terrific performances as well. Give it a chance.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Godfather of Harlem- Epix an American streaming and TV company have produced three watchable series recently ; Perpetual Grace Ltd which was superb, Pennyworth and Godfather of Harlem. Godfather of Harlem tells a reasonable story about Bumpy Johnson a black gang leader allied to the Genovese crime family who gets released after a ten year stretch in Alacatraz. Its got some pace to it, an interesting interplay with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, a bent Black politician who is a Christian preacher, the different sides of those who profit and lose out of heroin and some pretty stark politics on race. I'm half way through , it doesnt do anything new but its a big bold good ride and very enjoyable.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Howard the Duck (1986)
Despite support from Leah Thompson (Back to the Future) and Tim Robbins, despite John Barry and Thomas Dolby on soundtrack duties, this Marvel adaptation really doesn't fly. Finally sat through all 1 hr 50 mins of it (felt longer) and there's nothing redeemable about this massacre of Steve Gerber's comic cult classic.
Despite support from Leah Thompson (Back to the Future) and Tim Robbins, despite John Barry and Thomas Dolby on soundtrack duties, this Marvel adaptation really doesn't fly. Finally sat through all 1 hr 50 mins of it (felt longer) and there's nothing redeemable about this massacre of Steve Gerber's comic cult classic.
Indeliblelink
\......👁&👁......./
Sewers Of Gold (1979) starring Ian McShane & Warren Clarke. ------- bunch of neo-fascists tunnel into a safety deposit vault to rob the contents, based on the break-in into a Société Générale bank in Nice, France in 1976.
Not particulary stylish but a good watch.
Hope to watch the french version of the story tonight Les égouts du paradis (1979)
Not particulary stylish but a good watch.
Hope to watch the french version of the story tonight Les égouts du paradis (1979)
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krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Frankenstein (1931)
The James Whale classic that set the template for countless sequels, remakes and parodies. Quite a short movie (1 hr 7 mins) but it does the job. Disappointed that Igor is called "Fritz", though.
The James Whale classic that set the template for countless sequels, remakes and parodies. Quite a short movie (1 hr 7 mins) but it does the job. Disappointed that Igor is called "Fritz", though.
D'wards
IT'S YOUR DECISION DANIEL
Rambo: Last Blood.
The critics savaged it, but I think they missed the point. Sometimes some people want to watch a 90 minute film where they set up some one-dimensional baddies to be really evil and they get dispatched in ridiculous Itchy and Scratchy type ways. No room for intricate plot development or characterisation here.
Rotten tomatoes critic score - 23% audience score 82%
The biggest gap I've seen I think
The critics savaged it, but I think they missed the point. Sometimes some people want to watch a 90 minute film where they set up some one-dimensional baddies to be really evil and they get dispatched in ridiculous Itchy and Scratchy type ways. No room for intricate plot development or characterisation here.
Rotten tomatoes critic score - 23% audience score 82%
The biggest gap I've seen I think
Reno
The In Kraut
Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda, which is wonderful. This was one of the most acclaimed films of last year, only caught up with it now. It’s about a Tokyo family who boost their meagre income with benefits fraud and shoplifting and who kidnap a little girl, whom they suspect gets abused by her mother. Unsentimental, yet very moving and one of the best films about family I’ve seen.
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Reno
The In Kraut
A few days ago I watched A Bread Factory Part 1 & 2 by Patrick Wang, a four hour indie movie epic spread over two films, about gentrification and arts funding. It’s one of the better films of the year. It’s about a community run arts center in a New York small town, which is about to loose its funding. A rival and far more glitzy center is about to open nearby, run by two high profile conceptual artists and the local government wonks are impressed by the cache and money they’ll bring along.
Made on a small budget but not lacking in ideas or ambition, this has a large cast of characters and the two films are distinct in style. The first part is more naturalistic, like a 70s Robert Altman movie and the second one goes off into fantasy and musical sequences. Tyne Daly is probably the best known actor. She is wonderful as the woman who has run the center for decades with her partner and who is about to loose everything she’s worked for. There are some curious casting choices among the ensemble, James Marsters from Buffy and Nana Visitor from Deep Space Nine turn up, playing a married couple. They blend right into the film‘s large ensemble and the whole thing is frequently surprising and unlike anything I’ve seen.
Made on a small budget but not lacking in ideas or ambition, this has a large cast of characters and the two films are distinct in style. The first part is more naturalistic, like a 70s Robert Altman movie and the second one goes off into fantasy and musical sequences. Tyne Daly is probably the best known actor. She is wonderful as the woman who has run the center for decades with her partner and who is about to loose everything she’s worked for. There are some curious casting choices among the ensemble, James Marsters from Buffy and Nana Visitor from Deep Space Nine turn up, playing a married couple. They blend right into the film‘s large ensemble and the whole thing is frequently surprising and unlike anything I’ve seen.
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krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Breakfast at Tiffany's
1961 charmer with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Holly Golightly is a delightful socialite/escort & and Paul Varjak is a struggling writer and gigolo? Anyway, sadness lies underneath, there's a party or two, a cat and a dreadful stereotype who live upstairs. Would give it 5 stars but the ill-judged Mickey Rooney role really rankles.
1961 charmer with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Holly Golightly is a delightful socialite/escort & and Paul Varjak is a struggling writer and gigolo? Anyway, sadness lies underneath, there's a party or two, a cat and a dreadful stereotype who live upstairs. Would give it 5 stars but the ill-judged Mickey Rooney role really rankles.
Reno
The In Kraut
John Cassavetes' Gloria, which I hadn't revisited in a while. Of all of Cassavetes' commercial studio films as a film-maker, this feels the most like a Cassavetes movie, even if it doesn't scale the heights of A Woman Under the Influence or Opening Night. Gena Rowlands plays a former gangster's moll, who just wants a quiet retirement. She suddenly finds herself on the run with the neighbour's kid, whose entire family got bumped off by the mob in a tense opening scene. The mob of course are Gloria’s former "family".
Rowlands' brand of nervy toughness is the show here and earned her an Oscar nomination. She's supported by a gorgeous Bill Conti score and New York in all its rough, late 70s glory. The atmosphere and glimpses of mob life are great, the gangsters feel authentic in their ordinariness. On the down side, there is not quite enough plot to sustain the two hours running time and Rowlands is saddled with a terrible child actor as her co-star.
Gloria got remade with Sharon Stone (never bothered with it) and was an influence on a few other films, most notably Walter Salles' Central Station and Erick Zonca's underrated Julia with Tilda Swinton, which I think improves on Cassavetes' movie.
Rowlands' brand of nervy toughness is the show here and earned her an Oscar nomination. She's supported by a gorgeous Bill Conti score and New York in all its rough, late 70s glory. The atmosphere and glimpses of mob life are great, the gangsters feel authentic in their ordinariness. On the down side, there is not quite enough plot to sustain the two hours running time and Rowlands is saddled with a terrible child actor as her co-star.
Gloria got remade with Sharon Stone (never bothered with it) and was an influence on a few other films, most notably Walter Salles' Central Station and Erick Zonca's underrated Julia with Tilda Swinton, which I think improves on Cassavetes' movie.
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krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
The Irishman. Despite the CGI, it's quite an absorbing film and if you take the de-ageing process as some kind of makeup, it doesn't jar so much. Pesci was brilliant, great to see him play a more chilled don rather than previous headbangers.
And kudos to Ray Romano and Stephen Graham for excellent support.
That scene where he appears in a blood stained shirt, without explanation was enough to convince that he was still someone to be reckoned with.
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
Eyyyy I'm Irishing here.
You got your dinnner potatoes and your dessert potatoes, and then I got one at home with toothpaste on it so I don't gotta brush.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Seen this poster has mentioned the film.
The Human Condition Trilogy Blu-ray | Arrow Films
I picked it up in Fopps as a two for one deal on Blu Ray. I have Blu Ray player and notice the difference in quality.
I'd never heard of it before.
At nine hours its on three DVDs so got my money's worth.
I've watched the first two parts and part way through the last section.
It is called the human condition as it shows how an ordinary decent man tries to live in an authoritarian colonialist state- Japan. He fails miserably. But its a case of what would you do in that situation?
The protagonist is a Japanese civilian who works in China. Which the Japanese state had ruthlessly colonised . The first section is how he goes to help manage a mine in Manchuria. Trying to put his humanist principles into action to show how a "liberal" colonial state is more productive than the harsh way it has been run.
He fails miserably. The first section has great set pieces in the dramatic landscape where humans appear small against nature. Its in wide screen black and white. Great cinematography.
The second part is him going through boot camp in Japanese army. Having lost his job in the mine and called up for the Japanese army. Despite the suspicion of his superiors of his leftist tendencies he is acknowledged as a good soldier.
What surprised me about this part (film was made in late 50s) was the the basic training / bootcamp was almost exactly the same as in Kubrick's first half of Full Metal Jacket. I am almost certain Kubrick must have seen this film. Its the same plot.
I did find the second part get a bit slow. But maybe because Id already seen the story in Full Metal Jacket.
Third part ( which I've seen some of ) is him in Japanese army fighting the Red Army. I didn't know about this. Thought it was made up. But its not. When Hitler was defeated Stalin opened second front fighting the Japanese in China. Which he had agreed he would do once Hitler was defeated. A lesser known part of WW2.
This section shows the waste and futility of war. The Japanese try to retreat and escape.
The film is very long but does not feel like it. Touching humanity alongside brutal state led violence. No one comes out of this unsullied.
Its a film about the individual and the the bigger theme of colonialist violence and defeat. Its told through the characters our "hero" meets as he tries to stay alive and get back to his wife. An individual living through and being tested by extreme circumstances. Absorbing and fulfilling to watch.
Its interesting to see a take on WW2 from the defeated side.
Definitely a connection with Full Metal Jacket.
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D'wards
IT'S YOUR DECISION DANIEL
The Searchers
Was on itv4 on Sunday.
Ford is a genius, John Wayne is giant of cinema. He's a big imposing guy with a great voice and bags of charisma. You can see why he is so loved.
Me pal tells me he was a stagehand and the director saw something in him and cast him in the film they were making.
The Searchers was a great film
Was on itv4 on Sunday.
Ford is a genius, John Wayne is giant of cinema. He's a big imposing guy with a great voice and bags of charisma. You can see why he is so loved.
Me pal tells me he was a stagehand and the director saw something in him and cast him in the film they were making.
The Searchers was a great film
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