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

Amundsen (2019) Almost unbelievably dull and hamfisted bio pic about the great (?but HOW great?) polar explorer. If you recorded it, feel free to save hours of your life (it'll feel like many more) and delete before bothering with it. slower than a frostbitten trek over the ice while dragging an overloaded sled.
 
Started watching Dekalog. Rationing myself to one episode a night it's that good.

Balancing it out with an episode of The Crown which is ridiculous.
 
I have never seen......Lawrence of Arabia. That is until last night when in my lockdown boredom, I decided to plug that gap in my film knowledge. It's probably the most famous film I had never gotten round to. Nothing about it appeals to me, I'm not a fan of historical epics, these characters and that part of history holds little interest for me and I've never been much of a fan of David Lean. The film of his a like the most is the atypical and rarely mentioned romantic comedy Summertime. And guess what, I fucking hated Lawrence of Arabia, all interminable 3 hours 47 minutes of it. :D

Now I too have that one unassailable classic of a movie which I hate. I've read plenty of bitching about 2001 and Citizen Kane on social,media, both of which I love. I'm aware of how well Lawrence of Arabia is made and how impressive it must have looked in its day but it's just not for me and neither are Lean's other epics (the Dickens films are fine)
 
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Watched a moody download of Greenland - good disaster movie - if you liked Deep Impact, Armageddon.
 
I have never seen......Lawrence of Arabia. That is until last night when in my lockdown boredom, I decided to plug that gap in my film knowledge. It's probably the most famous film I had never gotten round to. Nothing about it appeals to me, I'm not a fan of historical epics, these characters and that part of history holds little interest for me. I've never been much of a fan of David Lean, the film of his a like the most is the atypical and rarely mentioned romantic comedy Summertime. And guess what, I fucking hated Lawrence of Arabia, all interminable 3 hours 47 minutes of it. :D

Now I too have that one unassailable classic of a movie which I hate. I've read plenty of bitching about 2001 and Citizen Kane on social,media, both of which I love. I'm aware of how well Lawrence of Arabia is made and how impressive it must have looked in its day but it's just not for me and neither are Lean's other epics (the Dickens films are fine)

Looking forward to Mank?
 
I have never seen......Lawrence of Arabia. That is until last night when in my lockdown boredom, I decided to plug that gap in my film knowledge. It's probably the most famous film I had never gotten round to. Nothing about it appeals to me, I'm not a fan of historical epics, these characters and that part of history holds little interest for me and I've never been much of a fan of David Lean. The film of his a like the most is the atypical and rarely mentioned romantic comedy Summertime. And guess what, I fucking hated Lawrence of Arabia, all interminable 3 hours 47 minutes of it. :D

Now I too have that one unassailable classic of a movie which I hate. I've read plenty of bitching about 2001 and Citizen Kane on social,media, both of which I love. I'm aware of how well Lawrence of Arabia is made and how impressive it must have looked in its day but it's just not for me and neither are Lean's other epics (the Dickens films are fine)
Not one of my favourites but when I saw it on a proper big screen (NFT1) a couple of years ago, it looked like quite a different film -- the cinematography was absolutely stunning. (There was also someone there doing a talk/Q&A who'd worked on the film which made it all more interesting too.)
 
Not one of my favourites but when I saw it on a proper big screen (NFT1) a couple of years ago, it looked like quite a different film -- the cinematography was absolutely stunning. (There was also someone there doing a talk/Q&A who'd worked on the film which made it all more interesting too.)
I'm sure the desert looks great on a big screen in 70mm, but I guess it must have been even more obvious that many of the actors wear eyeliner and mascara and that Anthony Quinn's fake looking "Arab nose" doesn't match the colour of the rest of his face. Obviously I was paying attention to all the wrong stuff. :D
 
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I'm sure the desert looks great on a big screen in 70mm, but I guess it must have been even more obvious that many of the actors wear eyeliner and mascara and that Anthony Quinn's fake looking "Arab nose" doesn't match the colour of the rest of his face. Obviously I was paying attention to all the wrong stuff. :D

I saw it on the massive screen at Leicester Square and it was magnificent, regardless of the ham.
 
The Souvenir

Well, I didn't hate it despite the lack of characters I could give two shits about. I'm going to have to add it to my list of films that the critics adore and I can't understand why. It's perfectly cromulent, but didn't really grab me.
 
The Souvenir II - Back with a Vengeance !

The film is autobiographical for Joanna Hogg, so I suppose she’ll continue with that. I studied art/film in London at around the same time and to me The Souvenir struck me as truthful and there was much I recognised, I hung out with much of the same arty crowd as she did. I wasn’t posh but I studied with a lot of people like her. It’s also spot on about how one can fall for a total dickhead when one is young and impressionable.
 
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The Invisible Man (2020). Average at best, despite a good performance from Elizabeth Moss. Some moments that were meant to be horrific were just incredibly silly.
 
The Nest (not to be confused with the British tv series), about a trader (Jude Law) who on a spur, relocates his Anglo-American family from New York to a huge mansion in Surrey during the 80s and everything goes to shit. This is great, probably my favourite film of the year. It is Sean Durkin's second film as a writer-director after the excellent Martha Marcy May Marlene and he has a knack for making dramas which feel like horror films. This has a similarly haunting quality as his debut. Carrie Coon is excellent as the wife who, once far from home, finds out that hubby may be delusional about his "greed is good" aspirations and their financial prospects. It's just a shame that after a highly acclaimed debut feature, these days it takes a filmmaker as talented as Durkin nearly a decade to get another film off the ground.

 
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I enjoyed the storyline, I had to find a small positive.

I thought the whole shining vampire idea was silly and terrible. I don't know if in that crew they were trying to recreate something of Bob & co from Twin Peaks (that was the giant from Twin Peaks, yeah?) but it really didn't work for me. Actually, the more I think about the film, the more I dislike it. :D
 
I thought the whole shining vampire idea was silly and terrible. I don't know if in that crew they were trying to recreate something of Bob & co from Twin Peaks (that was the giant from Twin Peaks, yeah?) but it really didn't work for me. Actually, the more I think about the film, the more I dislike it. :D

Blame Mike Flanagan, he did Occulus and is on a roll from The Haunting of Hill House.
To be fair watched The Shining earlier in the week and didn’t enjoy that as much as seeing it the first time.
 
In Germany they have the puzzling habit of retitling English language films with alternate, considerably worse English titles. They really outdone themselves with Doctor Sleeps, as if this was based on the thrilling premise of a doctor who sleeps a lot.

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Blame Mike Flanagan, he did Occulus and is on a roll from The Haunting of Hill House.
To be fair watched The Shining earlier in the week and didn’t enjoy that as much as seeing it the first time.

I haven't seen The Shining for years (rarely re-watch now, just because I can't keep up with all the new things I want to see), but every time I've watched it in the past, I thought it amazing. It's the atmosphere, not the story. I've never read the book - maybe someday I will, as would be interesting to understand why King hates Kubrick's film so much.
 
I love the book and the film of The Shining for entirely different reasons. The novel is superior and far more coherent when it comes to plot, themes and characters. I think its one of the greatest horror novels ever written and its still my favourite Stephen King book. The film is a poor adaptation of the novel, but its a great Kubrick film and like all of his best films, an amazing audio-visual experience.

I tried to read Doctor Sleep, but I didn't get through it. I too felt that it wasn't a story worth telling. There is something primal and relatable to being stuck with your father/husband going homicidally insane at a remote (and haunted) location in the middle of winter. Energy vampires preying on the psychically gifted, lead by a woman with a silly hat ? Gimme a break. The film is probably as good an adaptation as could have been made from the novel and I thought it was interesting how it managed to be a sequel to the book and the film of The Shining, considering how far Kubrick diverged from the source, but I still didn't care for the premise.
 
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