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

[redsquirrel]

The Killer Elite - Sam Peckinpah action flick. This has a bad reputation but while it is not a patch on Peckinpah's best work I thought it was enjoyable enough. Robert Duvall and James Caan give solid, in not ground shattering performances, and there are some nice set pieces. It is too long and the ninja stuff is pretty weak. But certainly better than the zero out of ten Caan supposedly gives it (he's made a lot of films worse than this one)

Lady Snowblood 2 - much weaker than the original, there are some glorious scenes full of colour that stay with you, but the story is badly paced, at some points too slow, at others too fast. Of interest to those that like the genre but passable.

Rally Round the Flag Boys - Really rather bad comedy starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Joan Collins. There are about 2 genuinely funny jokes in the whole thing. Swerve and take in a different Newman/Woodward picture.

The Lonely Man - Decent black and white B-western starring Jack Palance and Anthony Perkins, nothing special and some of the father-son psychology will raise eyebrows but it looks good and has some solid performances, from both the stars and supporting cast.

 

[seventh bullet]

The Sister Brothers (Netflix).

Never been a John C Reilly fan but he stole the show. Enjoyed the peculiar atmosphere of the film.

Really been getting into Westerns lately...

His wonder at this strange, fancy thing called a toothbrush, and the luxury experience of a flushing toilet.

 

[DaveCinzano]

La Prochaine Fois Je Viserai Le Cœur (AKA Next Time I'll Aim For The Heart). Sort of timely.

It's a semi-fictionalised version of the story of Alain Lamare, a young gendarme in rural Picardy who terrorised women around the Oise in a year-long misogynistic spree of violence that saw at least five attacked, one fatally.

Guillaume Canet (perhaps most familiar to anglo audiences from bit parts in things like The Beach or The Siege At Jadotville, or as a director of films including Ne Le Dis À Personne AKA Tell No One and the English language Blood Ties) is excellent in the lead role - exemplifying this would-be serial killer not as an exceptional-but-flawed or troubled-and-misunderstood cipher, but as an unlikeable, ascetic dick, who leaves massive clues all over the shop yet is overlooked as a suspect for almost the entirety of his blood odyssey, because cops don't think other cops commit crime.

Ana Giradot (Les Revenants) is also very good as a woman who for various reasons comes to feel close to him, but who never gets anywhere near knowing him.

Written and directed by Cédric Anger, who never tries to spectacularise what are grim and pathetic crimes of hate, and who chooses stillness over movement.

 

[Orang Utan]

Rain The Colour Of Blue But With A Little Red In It
A Tuareg (a desert tribe living in Niger and Mali who recently declared independence as the state of Azawad) remix of Prince’s Purple Rain, with a purple clad guitarist arriving in Timbuktu on a purple decked motorcycle and wowing everyone in town with his left handed Hendrix style virtuosity.
The acting ain’t up to much but it’s better than it is in Purple Rain and the music is joyous.
Thoroughly recommended

 

[redsquirrel]

The Phenix City Story - Noir giving fictionalised account of the crime wave, including murder of an elected state Attorney General in Phenix city. Plenty of better noirs

The African Queen - Hepburn, Bogart and Huston what more could anybody want

The Spanish Apartment - a sort of liberal wet dream of the EU/Erasmus program. Despite a good cast it is all very by the numbers, parts 2 and 3 in the trilogy coming up on MUBI shortly

The Twentieth Century - Canadian "comedy", that uses William Mackenzie King (former PM) as a sort of centre point for a "biopic". The mix of filmic styles is done with style and smartness and maybe if you have a better knowledge of the real history the film works but for me it was just was not funny.

 

[DotCommunist]

finished the red riding trilogy last night, it sticks with you. If I'd seen that in my 20s I think a good deal of it would have gone straight over my head.

 

[Part 2]

Slumber Party Massacre...1982 slasher film that does what it says on the tin. I do like a good sub 90 minute horror.

El Sicario: Room 164. Former cartel soldier of 20 years speaks from the hotel room where he previously held and tortured hostages. Wearing a black mesh cloth over his head to hide his identity he doodles and writes in a book with a marker pen while narrating the kidnap methods of his bosses. It's all very matter of fact explanation of a boring nature and reminded me of the same sort of violence described by the same sort of people in The Act of Killing.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Not watched them yet, but the Blakes-7 box set and also Tripods arrived today. Not watched either for donkeys years so will give them a go at some point.

 

[T & P]

Just started HBO’s new mystery crime-comedy series, The Flight Attendant. Two episodes in and it is fast paced and perfectly entertaining so far.

 

[krtek a houby]

The Lads (2018)

Bunch of lads get caught up with local heavies and owing a lot of money.

Shot on a budget of 250 Euros and despite pacing problems and cartoonish violence, it's ok.

 

[May Kasahara]

Moxie. Enjoyable YA flick about high school girls fighting sexism culture through zines and collective action. I watched with my 9yo daughter and it was perfectly pitched for her - fired up but cheery and positive.

 

[Nine Bob Note]

I've been liking WP Amsterdam: Vice (All4). I've always enjoyed filums with subtitles, and decided it was time I watched a series or two.

 

[T & P]

I am really enjoying The Flight Attendant. The right mix of quirky action, comedy and drama.

Kaley Cuoco is great in this, and after spending nearly three decades playing the same dumb blonde waitress in Big Bang Theory, she has for once been given a three-dimensional, emotionally wrecked character to play, and she does this pretty well.

 

[redsquirrel]

Destry Rides Again - Never seen this before and cannot believe what I was missing, it is absolutely great! Dietrich and Stewart are great but the real genius is the script which is just superb, from the willingness to take aim at the genre to all the "I once had a friend..." stories. Genuine masterpiece. If you've not seen it put that right ASAP.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Creation Stories. Meh.

 

[imposs1904]

Rewatched 'Midnight Run'.

An almost perfect movie. Fuck Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and that Godfather film; this is De Niro's best film.

 

[MBV]

Beats as recommended by someone on this thread. One of those films where you think you'll watch 30 mins and finish it another day but it draws you in with what is quite a simple story. Great music used in it too.

 

[Petcha]

I am really enjoying The Flight Attendant. The right mix of quirky action, comedy and drama.

Kaley Cuoco is great in this, and after spending nearly three decades playing the same dumb blonde waitress in Big Bang Theory, she has for once been given a three-dimensional, emotionally wrecked character to play, and she does this pretty well.

Really? I lasted 1.5 episodes.. it was terrible! There's a bit of a debate happening about it on the Guardian site. The reviewer gave it 5 stars. Then theres 10 pages of actual people giving it zero stars and questioning the sanity of Lucy Mangan (the reviewer)

She wasn't 'given' the role. Kaley Cuoco funded, produced and starred in the thing. Nice, flashy production but it feels like a film students project to me.

 

[T & P]

Really? I lasted 1.5 episodes.. it was terrible! There's a bit of a debate happening about it on the Guardian site. The reviewer gave it 5 stars. Then theres 10 pages of actual people giving it zero stars and questioning the sanity of Lucy Mangan (the reviewer)

She wasn't 'given' the role. Kaley Cuoco funded, produced and starred in the thing. Nice, flashy production but it feels like a film students project to me.

Not just The Guardian though. It currently has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so most critics seem to like it.

 

[belboid]

Promising Young Woman


Blimey, that was good. Carey Mulligan is magnificent, Bo Burnham plays his role to a T. It's all so horribly believable. That bloke who wrote that stupid review was not only completely wrong, but he missed the entire point by a mile.

 

[Orang Utan]

Promising Young Woman


Blimey, that was good. Carey Mulligan is magnificent, Bo Burnham plays his role to a T. It's all so horribly believable. That bloke who wrote that stupid review was not only completely wrong, but he missed the entire point by a mile.

Which stupid review? All I’ve seen are very positive

 

[belboid]

Which stupid review? All I’ve seen are very positive

an american one that said CM wasn't 'hot enough' for the role. The paper later apologised (which is also ridiculous, even if it was an awful review).

 

[Gramsci]

I've been watching Pere Portabella on Mubi. Not well known here but important film maker from Spain.

He made this documentary near the end of the Franco regime. Franco had died and the country was moving to some form of democracy. Talks with leading political figures from monarchists to communists. Between this an actor gives a short history of Francoism.

Spain at the time was in process of change and nothing had been decided. So the film is documenting history as its made. All the more powerful for that.

It can also be seen as not purely about Spain. Its a discussion of what is democracy. Everything from direct democracy, dictatorship of the proletariat to representative democracy. Also for Spain whether centrised state or federal state is best. The issues of nationalities come up a lot. He interviews ETA and Catalan nationalists.

For Spain the Civil War was traumatic. One bit of film he has two exiles talk of returning to Spain.

My partner says in Spain when Franco died half the country celebrated the other half thought about getting there money out of the country.

One of the themes in the film was the possibility of Francoism without Franco. A danger that some reforms with limited democracy would happen.

The film has a young Felipe Gonzalez of the PSOE. Who would be major figure in the new Spain. The PSOE would run Spain for many years.

Its difficult for people here to imagine what a big social and cultural change this was

General Report (1977) | MUBI

Shot in the months after the death of Franco, Informe general is a “documentary” shot with the techniques of a fiction film—exploring the limits of film representations. The speakers are concerned with one question: How do you go from a dictatorship to a democracy?

mubi.com

Also watched this early short film of his from 1970

Umbracle (1972) | MUBI

Umbracle is made up of fragments (some are archive footage) that resound rather than progress by unusual links, with dejá vu scenes that promise us more but remain intensely unfinished. It stars Christopher Lee, wandering around a dream-like Barcelona.

mubi.com

Featuring Christopher Lee wandering around Barcelona. This is quite surreal experience. One part is discussion of censorship in Franco Spain. The near impossibility of making film. Then Portabella goes on to make film so absurd (in a good way) that it cannot be censored. Whilst poking the censors in the eye so to speak. Christopher Lee in Franco Spain as the wandering British flaneur is an experience in itself. He is outstanding. I really enjoyed this film. Something exhilarating about it. The way he cuts through the artifice of film making is also seen in the documentary Informe General. The way he shoots scenes in somewhat surreal settings is seen in the doc as well.

 

[DaveCinzano]

The film has a young Felipe Gonzalez of the PSOE. Who would be major figure in the new Spain. The PSOE would run Spain for many years.

Periodic reminder that González was intimately involved in, and possibly the leader of, the PSOE cabal which conspired with Franco-era police military and intelligence officers, as well as various far right paramilitary nutters from all over the world, to unleash murder and violence on Basque people in Spain and France through the GAL terror network.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I streamed "Soylent Green" and it holds up pretty well. It takes place in 2022 and parts of it looks pretty much like San Francisco or Detroit 2021. My main beef with it is that 2022, looks an awful lot like 1972 with green shag carpet and avocado appliances. The other thing that doesn't translate well is the casual sexism, where most of the women make their living as "furniture", aka women who work as housekeeper and sexual partners in exchange for a place to live and come as part of a furnished apartment. I'm not sure Soylent Green would fly in the current, "me too" environment. In any case, I hope they don't remake it. It would lose too much context.

 

[krtek a houby]

I streamed "Soylent Green" and it holds up pretty well. It takes place in 2022 and parts of it looks pretty much like San Francisco or Detroit 2021. My main beef with it is that 2022, looks an awful lot like 1972 with green shag carpet and avocado appliances. The other thing that doesn't translate well is the casual sexism, where most of the women make their living as "furniture", aka women who work as housekeeper and sexual partners in exchange for a place to live and come as part of a furnished apartment. I'm not sure Soylent Green would fly in the current, "me too" environment. In any case, I hope they don't remake it. It would lose too much context.

And marvelous support from the great Edward G Robinson.

 

[seventh bullet]

I streamed "Soylent Green" and it holds up pretty well. It takes place in 2022 and parts of it looks pretty much like San Francisco or Detroit 2021. My main beef with it is that 2022, looks an awful lot like 1972 with green shag carpet and avocado appliances. The other thing that doesn't translate well is the casual sexism, where most of the women make their living as "furniture", aka women who work as housekeeper and sexual partners in exchange for a place to live and come as part of a furnished apartment. I'm not sure Soylent Green would fly in the current, "me too" environment. In any case, I hope they don't remake it. It would lose too much context.

Some great matte painting backgrounds used in that, of the fucked near-future NY.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

And marvelous support from the great Edward G Robinson.

That was probably the performance of his career. It (almost) made up for his miscasting in The Ten Commandments.

The other thing that I liked about it was that it was librarians that were the secret heroes of the film. I also noticed that Celia Lovsky was in it. She's one of those supporting actors that everyone knows by sight, but don't know their name. She also was in Star Trek-TOS where she played T-Pau.

 

[ska invita]

I watched the Scottish Beats thing. Didn't love it, the rave scene was well done yes, Spanner did some great facial acting, but only when it was finished and it said "based on a play" it all made sense. This kind of slightly unrealistic story telling makes more sense in a play , but I don't really like "issue" based fringe theatre either.
Similar experience with Steve McQueen's Lovers Rock - left me wondering what Id just watched, all felt a bit off, and I concluded it was like a bit of fringe theatre you might see.

Somehow this is confusing when its on TV, and especially when its in a film format.
I watched History Boys once, made no sense to me at all, a massive shrug, but at least I knew it was a film of a play from the off.

I think if Id seen either of these things on a stage Id have been more into them, but as I rarely watch films these days and always seem disappointed at the end this felt another let down. I miss watching a satisfying good film.

moan moan moan

that said they're both memorable.

 

[T & P]

2/3rds into Wonder Woman 1984. Whereas I am bored overall with the superhero genre I still enjoy some films, and in fact thought the first Wonder Woman was reasonably entertaining.

This one is nowhere near that, so far at least. Needlessly elongated scenes, uneven pace, and miscast or badly written characters. Pedro Pascal is undoubtedly a great actor but his character here just doesn’t work very well. If the final act manages to rescue the film I’ll be back to eat my hat.