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

Yeah watched that too. It's alright.

Also saw Princess Mononoke for the first time. Incredible film, really well done throughout. Kinda surprised it's only a PG. No idea why it's compared with Star Wars though. It's a better film for a start.
 
Also saw Princess Mononoke for the first time. Incredible film, really well done throughout. Kinda surprised it's only a PG. No idea why it's compared with Star Wars though. It's a better film for a start.

A US review called it "The Star Wars of Animation" and that slogan got put on the promotion, to sell the film to people who would otherwise stay away from Japanese animation. Of course it has nothing to do with Star Wars apart from that its fantasy and that it features creatures.
 
I love Hereditary probably more than most, it's my favourite horror film of the last decade. The way that family disintegrates after
the death of a child
is wrenching and very believable. The criticism people seem to have with the film, is that after most of it is a devastating study of grief, the end dives head first into the supernatural, with a very dark sense of comedy, abandoning the characters to their fate. I've read complaints that this comes out of nowhere but it makes a lot of sense on a second watch. There are many accumulating details which initially pass you by but which point to where this is going from the start. The sense of inevitability is what's so scary about the film for me.
That family never stood a chance, locked in an inescapable fate decided by the family matriarch, with whose funeral the story kicks off. The main villain is dead from the beginning and we watch as the gears of her plot grind into place with the precision of a clockwork. The family is just collateral damage.
I also think it's a beautiful piece of filmmaking with a stunning performance by Toni Colette at its core.
 
Last night I watched 2 1/2 episodes of the Epstein thing on Netflix....then realised I'd already seen it.

This morning I watched The Fountain. Half an hour in my son came in and said 'We watched this not long ago'

That's where my heads at.
 
Ghibli love in this thread :)

I am a Ghibli nut.

The best ones are Princess Mononoke, My Neighbout Totoro, Nausicaa, Laputa, Spirited Away. But they are all fantastic really!

If you want a a different, not so fantastical one, I really recommend "Only Yesterday". It's one I hadn't seen until recently and fell in love with it :)
 
Watched I Am not Your Negro, which I thought was great. Baldwin was a very interesting character. He shagged Marlon Brando did you know!

There was a clip of an old John Wayne western in it, which was there to kind of highlight that Baldwin felt that the black man had more in common with the native that the Duke was taking out with his trusty Winchester than the hero himself.

This clip was great (i'm obviously missing the point of why it was there, but anyway...) so I asked my film buff pal what it was.
It was Stagecoach, the old John Ford film.

Its on its entirety on YouTube so I watched that too - what a brilliant film. Ford was a cinematic genius and John Wayne had all the presence and charisma.

The scene where they are fighting off the apache attack from the moving stagecoach was thrilling
 
I rewatched The Shining. I still think it's a poor adaptation but a wonderful film. I watched the blu-ray based on a new 4k scan which looks glorious. Unfortunately it's only available as the longer US cut, I think the shorter European cut is superior. After the US release was poorly received, Kubrick decided to trim another 25 minutes from the film and the shorter cut, which is still 2 hours long, works far better. The US cut at 144 minutes is simply too long.
 
I rewatched The Shining. I still think it's a poor adaptation but a wonderful film. I watched the blu-ray based on a new 4k scan which looks glorious. Unfortunately it's only available as the longer US cut, I think the shorter European cut is superior. After the US release was poorly received, Kubrick decided to trim another 25 minutes from the film and the shorter cut, which is still 2 hours long, works far better. The US cut at 144 minutes is simply too long.
I do like the fact that although Kubrick was a very controlling and hands on director he allowed his leads to gloriously ham it up - Jack in the Shining, Pile in full Metal Jacket, Alex in Clockwork Orange of course the titular Dr Strangelove
 
I do like the fact that although Kubrick was a very controlling and hands on director he allowed his leads to gloriously ham it up - Jack in the Shining, Pile in full Metal Jacket and Alex in Clockwork Orange
He could go the opposite way as well though, casting inexpressive actors like Keir Dulea, Ryan o'Neil and Tom Cruise to build his films around. Considering that in the book Jack and Wendy are an average couple caught up in extraordinary circumstances, Kubrick cast two of the least average actors imaginable.
 
Re-watching Cheers and am struck by it's subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ridiculing of the rich and shameless. Season 7, esp, where Woody and Kelly start dating. Her friends and family are haughty snobs and patronising. Or Rebecca's boss going on about honesty and then being done for insider trading. Even regular characters Frasier and Lillith's pomposity is regularly shot down, notably by Carla. Who'd have thought his spin off would have succeeded where Carla's failed?

Sure, not all of it holds up well today. Sam's creepy hitting on younger women - later identified as a sex addiction in the last series (iirc) and the lack of bame characters. But for the most part, the show is a joy to watch after all this time and the writing, when on form, is peerless.

Can't believe it's nearly 30 years since it closed!
 
Re-watching Cheers and am struck by it's subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ridiculing of the rich and shameless. Season 7, esp, where Woody and Kelly start dating. Her friends and family are haughty snobs and patronising. Or Rebecca's boss going on about honesty and then being done for insider trading. Even regular characters Frasier and Lillith's pomposity is regularly shot down, notably by Carla. Who'd have thought his spin off would have succeeded where Carla's failed?

Sure, not all of it holds up well today. Sam's creepy hitting on younger women - later identified as a sex addiction in the last series (iirc) and the lack of bame characters. But for the most part, the show is a joy to watch after all this time and the writing, when on form, is peerless.

Can't believe it's nearly 30 years since it closed!
frasier continues the pomposity-pricking of the wasp metropolitan middle classes pretty well too
 
The Goldfinch . Curious film based on a book I’d never heard of . Marvellously shot , quite slow paced but complex in some places with some twists and turns. Revolves around a painting but the it’s the soulless , tragic , painful lives of the characters that is probably the real story. Got slated on release but its well acted and intriguing enough to watch to the end although I probably wouldn’t watch it again
 
I rewatched The Shining. I still think it's a poor adaptation but a wonderful film. I watched the blu-ray based on a new 4k scan which looks glorious. Unfortunately it's only available as the longer US cut, I think the shorter European cut is superior. After the US release was poorly received, Kubrick decided to trim another 25 minutes from the film and the shorter cut, which is still 2 hours long, works far better. The US cut at 144 minutes is simply too long.
I think your opening sentences sums it up perfectly for me. If it had been a stand-alone script the film would have about zero negatives for me- indeed it works great as a story where Jack Torrance simply has a complete mental breakdown.

But at the end of the day the in the book the events that unfold are firmly of a supernatural nature, which Kubrick omits for the most part. I can’t blame StephKing for being as pissed off with itas he was.
 
I think your opening sentences sums it up perfectly for me. If it had been a stand-alone script the film would have about zero negatives for me- indeed it works great as a story where Jack Torrance simply has a complete mental breakdown.

But at the end of the day the in the book the events that unfold are firmly of a supernatural nature, which Kubrick omits for the most part. I can’t blame StephKing for being as pissed off with itas he was.
I'd be happy for someone to have another go at adapting The Shining, ideally as something like a Netflix series. The book is one of the best horror novels I've read and not much of it survives in the film. There was a 90s mini-series which was more faithful to the book but unfortunately it was directed by the painfully untalented Mick Garris, who had a monopoly on Stephen King adaptations at the time.

I've read that new adaptations of Salem's Lot and The Stand are in the works, both of which could easily improve on previous TV adaptations,
 
I've started to watch Mrs. America, the 9 part Hulu mini-series about feminism in the 70s and the movement to pass the Equal Right Amendment. Three episodes in I'm trying to put my finder on why this doesn't work as well as it should. Great cast, fascinating subject matter and the type of production values you'd expect from "peak tv" these days but I don't find it as involving as it should be. The conceit to make the central character Phyllis Schlaffly (played by Cate Blanchett in grand-dame mode), a prominent antagonist to the feminist movement, is not a bad one but you spend a lot of time with a loathsome hypocrite. In terms of its politics it all feels a little flat and obvious. A made up drama like Mad Men dealt with similar themes with more nuance. It's not bad, so far it's just not as good as I'd like it to be but I'll stick with it.


Saw the first two eps of this on BBC2 last night. If it doesn't work as well as it could (and it does work very well in spite of that, IMO) it's because Blanchett steals the whole thing from under the eyes of every other actor involved. She maybe makes Schlafly - a genuine monster - a bit too sympathetic in the process. . .

As a political lesson, it was a good idea to make Blanchett the centrepiece though. What we're looking at is US "progressives" consistently underestimating the opposition - something they continue to do to this day.
 
I was flicking around the channels the other night and saw Ken Stott. So I stopped to see what it was because I like him in mostly everything I have ever seen him in. It was An Inspector Calls on Drama.
I have heard of it, but have never read it and didn't know what it was about. I absolutely loved it.
Made me think that putting it on now wasn't a coincidence. The big wigs are all responsible for the misery and destruction of the little people and none of them want to admit any part of it.
 
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