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

I’m enjoying “He Kills Coppers” tonight which is available on the STV catch up app which seems to be available outside of Scotland too. Good cast including the wonderful Paul Ritter
 
Emil und die Detektive (1931). Probably the earliest film I've ever seen and well worth watching. Apparently it's superior to the remakes and book it was based on which lack the subtleties contained herein.
 
Written by billy wilder with emeric pressburger. The Disney version is good as well.

I had a quick look at that and seemed rather trite in comparison.

Kinda depressing that at least three of the leading kids in the 1931 movie died in 1941/1942 fighting for the Nazis...I haven't really seen any pre-war German stuff before.
 
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Together Together - Comedy (apparently) a young woman becomes a surrogate mother for a single, middle-aged man who wants a child. Don't think I laughed once.

Georgetown - An eccentric and smooth-talking social climber is investigated after his wealthy, well-connected and much older wife turns up dead in their home. Quite enjoyed it.
 
Soul - visually splendid Pixar flick, unusual

The Rise of Skywalker - 2nd time round and not as bad as it's made out to be

Cairo Station - 1958 classic exploring madness/ obsession/male violence and workers rights. Fascinating and disturbing.
 
I'm rewatching Gotham (it's sooo fucking good). Did the whole of S1 in a day last time - this time, who knows? :D
 
After watching a lot of new films which I found disappointing, I decided to revisit the Indiana Jones films. I needed some cinematic comfort food and I had not watched these in a while.

Re-watching the first three, the first one still is the best of course, but I was always a bit of a Temple of Doom apologist and never cared much for The Last Crusade. That changed this time round. I saw Temple of Doom when it came out at the Empire Leicester Square, soon after I'd moved to London. I'd never been in a cinema this big and the reaction of the audience, whooping and hollering with delight at the outlandish action scenes (especially the mine car chase) made watching this a hugely fun experience. The Last Crusade I saw at the small Screen on the Green in Islington and it lacked the type of big set pieces of the two earlier films and I remember being disappointed at the time.

Temple of Doom still has the best individual set pieces of the series (the opening musical number followed by the jewel/antidote brawl, the spike trap with the giant insects, the deep dive into heart ripping horror, the mine chase) but tonally it's a mess and Willie Scott and Short Run are the most annoying sidekicks till Chris Tucker ruined The Fifth Element. I even was a Willie apologist at the time, but to make a character like that more appealing, it would have needed better writing and a better actor than the future Mrs Spielberg. Despite this being a prequel, after Marion it seems inconceivable than Indie would be attracted to her, she has no redeeming qualities. Short Run isn't quite as bad, but the one liners are groaners and the kid actor tries way too hard. Tonally the film is a mess, lurching from unfunny knockabout comedy to horror scenes far too gruesome and intense for the intended audience, though as a horror movie fan I still enjoy the garishness of those. And of course there is the racism which caused a minor diplomatic rift with India at the time.

The set pieces in The Last Crusade still feel underpowered, making this an oddly low key Indiana Jones movie. There are scenes which try to recreate moments from the earlier films (the rats, the tank race, the invisible bridge) which don't recapture the excitement of its predecessors and the plot is an unimaginative retreat of Raiders. What works here is the character work, something Spielberg clearly became more interested in than thrills and action, as his work shifted towards awards bait drama at this point of his career. The interplay between Jones dad and son of course works thanks to the chemistry between Connery and Ford, but I especially liked Alison Doody's conflicted Nazi femme fatale this time round. Revealing herself to be a bad girl, she's of course not as likeable a character as the plucky Marion Ravenwood but she's the most interesting female character in the series. It says a lot about how awful a character Willie Scott is, that I had more sympathy for the opportunist Nazi temptress here.

Still got to rewatch Crystal Skull which I didn't hate as much as others but which I have only watched that once.
 
After watching a lot of new films which I found disappointing, I decided to revisit the Indiana Jones films. I needed some cinematic comfort food and I had not watched these in a while.

Re-watching the first three, the first one still is the best of course, but I was always a bit of a Temple of Doom apologist and never cared much for The Last Crusade. That changed this time round. I saw Temple of Doom when it came out at the Empire Leicester Square, soon after I'd moved to London. I'd never been in a cinema this big and the reaction of the audience, whooping and hollering with delight at the outlandish action scenes (especially the mine car chase) made watching this a hugely fun experience. The Last Crusade I saw at the small Screen on the Green in Islington and it lacked the type of big set pieces of the two earlier films and I remember being disappointed at the time.

Temple of Doom still has the best individual set pieces of the series (the opening musical number followed by the jewel/antidote brawl, the spike trap with the giant insects, the deep dive into heart ripping horror, the mine chase) but tonally it's a mess and Willie Scott and Short Run are the most annoying sidekicks till Chris Tucker ruined The Fifth Element. I even was a Willie apologist at the time, but to make a character like that more appealing, it would have needed better writing and a better actor than the future Mrs Spielberg. Despite this being a prequel, after Marion it seems inconceivable than Indie would be attracted to her, she has no redeeming qualities. Short Run isn't quite as bad, but the one liners are groaners and the kid actor tries way too hard. Tonally the film is a mess, lurching from unfunny knockabout comedy to horror scenes far too gruesome and intense for the intended audience, though as a horror movie fan I still enjoy the garishness of those. And of course there is the racism which caused a minor diplomatic rift with India at the time.

The set pieces in The Last Crusade still feel underpowered, making this an oddly low key Indiana Jones movie. There are scenes which try to recreate moments from the earlier films (the rats, the tank race, the invisible bridge) which don't recapture the excitement of its predecessors and the plot is an unimaginative retreat of Raiders. What works here is the character work, something Spielberg clearly became more interested in than thrills and action, as his work shifted towards awards bait drama at this point of his career. The interplay between Jones dad and son of course works thanks to the chemistry between Connery and Ford, but I especially liked Alison Doody's conflicted Nazi femme fatale this time round. Revealing herself to be a bad girl, she's of course not as likeable a character as the plucky Marion Ravenwood but she's the most interesting female character in the series. It says a lot about how awful a character Willie Scott is, that I had more sympathy for the opportunist Nazi temptress here.

Still got to rewatch Crystal Skull which I didn't hate as much as others but which I have only watched that once.

Will be very interested to see the female lead in the new one. imho, they've never bettered Marion Ravenwood. Strong, intelligent and just perfect as Indy's partner.

Last night we watched a couple of eps from season 4 of Star Wars Rebels and the last Archer ep of the current series.
 
Almost famous, on sky cinema where did this come from, one of the best
films I have seen this year, cool baby.
 
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For some reason I had an overpowering urge to watch Flight of the Pheonix.

This is why remakes are annoying. I so completely ignored the remake of this I'd forgotten it ever existed, but all streaming services only had the remake as if the original didn't exist. I ended up watching it on YouTube.

Richard Attenborough, James Stewart and Ernest Borgnine being tense in the desert. Great film.
 
After watching a lot of new films which I found disappointing, I decided to revisit the Indiana Jones films. I needed some cinematic comfort food and I had not watched these in a while.

Re-watching the first three, the first one still is the best of course, but I was always a bit of a Temple of Doom apologist and never cared much for The Last Crusade. That changed this time round. I saw Temple of Doom when it came out at the Empire Leicester Square, soon after I'd moved to London. I'd never been in a cinema this big and the reaction of the audience, whooping and hollering with delight at the outlandish action scenes (especially the mine car chase) made watching this a hugely fun experience. The Last Crusade I saw at the small Screen on the Green in Islington and it lacked the type of big set pieces of the two earlier films and I remember being disappointed at the time.

Temple of Doom still has the best individual set pieces of the series (the opening musical number followed by the jewel/antidote brawl, the spike trap with the giant insects, the deep dive into heart ripping horror, the mine chase) but tonally it's a mess and Willie Scott and Short Run are the most annoying sidekicks till Chris Tucker ruined The Fifth Element. I even was a Willie apologist at the time, but to make a character like that more appealing, it would have needed better writing and a better actor than the future Mrs Spielberg. Despite this being a prequel, after Marion it seems inconceivable than Indie would be attracted to her, she has no redeeming qualities. Short Run isn't quite as bad, but the one liners are groaners and the kid actor tries way too hard. Tonally the film is a mess, lurching from unfunny knockabout comedy to horror scenes far too gruesome and intense for the intended audience, though as a horror movie fan I still enjoy the garishness of those. And of course there is the racism which caused a minor diplomatic rift with India at the time.

The set pieces in The Last Crusade still feel underpowered, making this an oddly low key Indiana Jones movie. There are scenes which try to recreate moments from the earlier films (the rats, the tank race, the invisible bridge) which don't recapture the excitement of its predecessors and the plot is an unimaginative retreat of Raiders. What works here is the character work, something Spielberg clearly became more interested in than thrills and action, as his work shifted towards awards bait drama at this point of his career. The interplay between Jones dad and son of course works thanks to the chemistry between Connery and Ford, but I especially liked Alison Doody's conflicted Nazi femme fatale this time round. Revealing herself to be a bad girl, she's of course not as likeable a character as the plucky Marion Ravenwood but she's the most interesting female character in the series. It says a lot about how awful a character Willie Scott is, that I had more sympathy for the opportunist Nazi temptress here.

Still got to rewatch Crystal Skull which I didn't hate as much as others but which I have only watched that once.
Yep. The dinner scene in Temple of Doom hasn’t really aged that well, has it… But then again a number of other themes in the film haven’t either.
 
All I can remember about Willie from Temple Of Doom is her being beset by various threats and screaming a lot in response. Classic matineee herione fare, which was probably what Spielberg/Lucas were aiming for. Not that that excuses their attitudes towards female characters
 
All I can remember about Willie from Temple Of Doom is her being beset by various threats and screaming a lot in response. Classic matineee herione fare, which was probably what Spielberg/Lucas were aiming for. Not that that excuses their attitudes towards female characters
For the first two thirds of the film she screams or whines at everything all the time. She just comes across as dumb and selfish and when she and Indie get together it’s not clear why they would be attracted to each other at this point in the film. She gets a little better in the last third, but the film doesn’t show much interest in her from then on, she just tags along.

I get what they were going for but a 30s or 40s film might have at least given her some witty lines and wouldn’t have constantly humiliated her character. Kate Capshaw is no Jean Arthur, she doesn’t manage to make her predicament funny and is one-note throughout but the screenplay also never gives her a chance.
 
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All I can remember about Willie from Temple Of Doom is her being beset by various threats and screaming a lot in response. Classic matineee herione fare, which was probably what Spielberg/Lucas were aiming for. Not that that excuses their attitudes towards female characters
Don’t you actually remember the dinner scene at a local Indian prince’s palace in which Indi and all the other attendants are served a meal that included eyes floating in soup, monkey brains eaten out of their open skulls, and baby snakes freshly cut out of their mother’s belly? And this was supposed to be the local refined high society rulers of the land, rather than, say, Indi being invited to dinner by a a family of weirdos…
 
Don’t you actually remember the dinner scene at a local Indian prince’s palace in which Indi and all the other attendants are served a meal that included eyes floating in soup, monkey brains eaten out of their open skulls, and baby snakes freshly cut out of their mother’s belly? And this was supposed to be the local refined high society rulers of the land, rather than, say, Indi being invited to dinner by a a family of weirdos…
yes of course. but though Willie is in that scene, it’s more memorable for the food being served
 
Although I doubt the scriptwriters ensured the right one was depicted, it seems a few species of snakes do carry their young in their belly and give birth to them sans eggs, Orang Utan .


Whereas we might never know what creatures the script had meant them to be, them being the snake’s young is far more likely than a snake that had been fed other snakes or eels. Not that it is by any margin the biggest problem with that scene…
 
Cold Sweats - Charles Bronson does his usual thing, this time in the south of France, in a Terence Young film. James Mason (giving a terrible Deep South American accent) and co come looking for revenge and are not above using Bronson's wife (Liv Ullmann) and step-daughter to get compliance. Nicely brutal and even sadistic in parts it sets things up only to not deliver on them. Reasonable enough but there are better films of this type.

Distant Drums - part western part jungle survival flick by Raoul Walsh, starring Gary Cooper. A awful lot happens in 90 minutes, including a lot of running from Indians, but there is more psychological development than you might expect. Again a decent film to pass the time but there are stronger competitors.
 
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