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

Space Truckers. Somehow this film had passed me by. A lot more watchable than I thought it would be, and a quintessential 80s film perfect for a Sunday afternoon.
 
8 Mile - enjoyable enough Eminem biopic. Not sure why I recorded this.

Sicario - brilliant action piece about the war on drugs. Cleverer than it makes out to be.

Pale Rider - I enjoyed this moralistic tale. Clint Eastwood is my favourite actor.

The Florida Project - really good dip into the precarious existence of semi-permanent motel-dwellers near to Disney World. Tragic for those living in such but brilliant filmmaking.

The Imitation Game. Didn’t like this much. Cumberbatch overacts this. Quite liked Matthew Goode and Mark Strong in this. Not sure how true this is to history. At least no Americans were involved in winning this one.
 
The Lives of Others. I hadn't seen this for years and my son is going to Berlin for a few months so we watched it despite it not really being his sort of film.

It's still very watchable bit I felt less engaged that I was first time round. Son felt he had learnt some stuff. I don't think he'll be bothered to read Stasiland though.
 
Sean Baker is one of my favourite filmmakers, I've loved every film I've seen of his so far. His new film Red Rocket was shown to great acclaim at Cannes this year and its one of my most anticipated films.
Tangerine is on my watchlist - better get to it soon
 
Watched Luc Besson's Anna on Film4 last night.

Wow, that is one hot mess. Luc's trying to prove that you don't need to be Hollywood to make a completely inexplicable action flick. There's no good reason why it's even set in 1990, let alone how many fucking anachronisms there are for it. Helen Mirren manages to channel Boris Badenov for her "Russian" accent. At no point did it threaten to make a lick of sense, and that's before you consider the completely pointless flashbacks every 10 minutes that either explain something blindingly obvious or fail to explain anything at all.

It's Besson, so it looked good. That's about all I'll give it. Even the action looked tired and boring.
 
Slaxx

A low budget meditation about the relationship between western consumerism and racial stereotyping at home and the oppression and exploitation of third world workers told through the medium of denim.

possibly better described as a pair of jeans goes on a killing spree in a mall.

brilliant.
 
The Widower - Reece Shearsmith plays a mild mannered man who keeps plotting to murder his wives and steal their money.

An ITV miniseries, I really enjoyed this. The banality of evil again. Based on a true story, I felt very sorry for his victims and hope he is having a nasty time in prison.
 
Currently skipping through Shock Treatment on YT to my favourite songs. Hope to watch it in full, along with Rocky Horror and my only liked romance film, Beautiful Thing, in the next couple of days :thumbs:
 
Turkey Shoot - The infamous Brian Trenchard-Smith ozpolitation film. More silly and weak than anything else. It passed the time for me while doing some work emails this morning

Bullitt - Saw this some time ago, but besides the car cash and airport shoot out I could actually remember very little of it. Probably because it is not really very memorable, all very by the numbers.

Crook's Tour - Charter's and Caldicott from The Lady Vanishes (and others) turn up in feature specifically written for them. Sadly it is no Lady Vanishes or even Night Train to Munich, the script it not fast enough or sharp enough to keep things going got 80 mins, but there are some amusing gags. One for those interested in the characters and British films of the 40s

Hatari! - John Wayne leads a bunch of men (and a couple of women) around Africa capturing animals for zoos. You definitely could not make this today. Howard Hawks is in the directors chair so the finished piece does have some semblance of quality (Did Hawks ever make a truly bad film? Some are pretty forgettable but even in those cases he clearly knows this stuff). Took me a while to recognise Michèle Girardon from Buñuel's Death in the Garden, who is one of the best things in it.

The Last Adventure - Another film that probably could not be made now, but in this case that is not a necessarily a good thing. Pilot Alain Delon, inventor and drag car racer Lino Ventura team up with would be artist Joanna Shimkus team up to get some gold from a plane that crashed off the African coast. The film has three parts, first in France where the team has a series of misfortunes, then in Africa where they get the gold, then back in France where people try to steal the gold off them - all this happens in 113 minutes. It should be a rushed, mess but somehow - good acting, sharp direction/editing - it hangs together and while absolutely silly is great fun. Loads of faces/names from French film turn up. Definitely recommend if you want an enjoyable not serious two hours

Town on Trial - There's a murder in suburbia and John Mills is going to bully everyone until he solves it. Competently made mystery with a decent set of actors, the whole thing is over in 96 minutes and the pace that it goes at is in its favour. It's no great classic but it is a well made piece of work.
 
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Watched a few miniseries on Britbox as my subscription is nearly running out.

Birdsong - enjoyed the trench scenes. Not mad on the rest of it

The Naked Civil Servant - quite witty hard to imagine life like that for me, so an interesting insight.

Now - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - one of the finest bond films, in my top 3, great script, the best theme music, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas are superb, though a terrible actor to play Bond.
 
The Last Adventure - Another film that probably could not be made now, but in this case that is not a necessarily a good thing. Pilot Alain Delon, inventor and drag car racer Lino Ventura team up with would be artist Joanna Shimkus team up to get some gold from a plane that crashed off the African coast. The film has three parts, first in France where the team has a series of misfortunes, then in Africa where they get the gold, then back in France where people try to steal the gold off them - all this happens in 113 minutes. It should be a rushed, mess but somehow - good acting, sharp direction/editing - it hangs together and while absolutely silly is great fun. Loads of faces/names from French film turn up. Definitely recommend if you want an enjoyable not serious two hours
The Last Adventure is my favourite film, which hardly anybody knows. It came out as the French New Wave was in full swing, which it didn't fit and it was dimissed, though it has developed a cult reputation since. I first saw it as a kid and it made a huge impression on me. I don't know another film which dares such a drastic change of tone half way through and it kind of broke my heart. The first half is a light, romantic comedy adventure and then it takes a thoroughly unexpected turn into tragedy and it becomes very bleak. Lovely score as well.
 
The Big Chance
One for the "justifiably forgotten" file, alas. Henpecked husband and travel agency clerk decides to steal the firm's money and abscond to Panama. Before he can board his BOAC flight to the canal zone, he meets a shipping magnate's wife who is also fleeing a boring marriage.

Then their flight is cancelled due to fog, plunging both of them into DANGER.

Not as good as it sounds.
 
Malignant, the new James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring) horror film. I've always been a James Wan sceptic as find a lot of his work far too derivative and he's never encountered a horror movie cliche he didn't like, but this is my favourite film of his so far. The first two thirds feel rather stilted, like this is another killer-stalks-woman-who-he-has-a-psychic-connection-with thriller and it pretends to be a far more routine and serious horror film than it turns out to be. Two thirds in, the film pulls one of the most outrageous plot twists ever out of the hat, goes totally batshit and it becomes clear that this always was supposed to be tongue in cheek and OTT. The clunky dialogue and stiff acting which are initially off-putting, contribute to the campy vibe, the monster is truly grotesque and it climaxes with a fabulously demented show off between heroine and villain. The trailer doesn't give anything crucial away, btw.

 
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Last night I watched “A Very British Coup”, it’s my last week of Britbox so being very selective as to what I watch. Captain Darling playing a security services shit was very good, as was the chap who played the lead.
 
I'm watching the six part National Geographic documentary series 9/11 - One Day in America, which is and will probably from now on remain the most comprehensive documentary made about the day itself. This is tremendously well put together and edited. It consists of witness interviews and an incredible amount of footage, much of it never made public before and it's the closest to being there, I've seen. It's both harrowing and utterly gripping and even after 20 years, it still doesn't feel entirely real. When watching it, it's still hard to believe it happened.
 
Watched The Pembrokeshire Murders on Britbox. Quite an interesting crime drama based on a real life event. I’d never heard of the case before. Keith Allen as a mass murderer convinced all too easily. Rather enjoyed the shots of the Pembrokeshire coastline. Never been to that part of Wales before.
 
Malignant, the new James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring) horror film. I've always been a James Wan sceptic as find a lot of his work far too derivative and he's never encountered a horror movie cliche he didn't like, but this is my favourite film of his so far. The first two thirds feel rather stilted, like this is another killer-stalks-woman-who-he-has-a-psychic-connection-with thriller and it pretends to be a far more routine and serious horror film than it turns out to be. Two thirds in, the film pulls one of the most outrageous plot twists ever out of the hat, goes totally batshit and it becomes clear that this always was supposed to be tongue in cheek and OTT. The clunky dialogue and stiff acting which are initially off-putting, contribute to the campy vibe, the monster is truly grotesque and it climaxes with a fabulously demented show off between heroine and villain. The trailer doesn't give anything crucial away, btw.



Yes. Watched this last night, loved it. Recommended it to my son with the warning he'll be watching through his hands and doing a lot of looking away.
 
Last night I watched “A Very British Coup”, it’s my last week of Britbox so being very selective as to what I watch. Captain Darling playing a security services shit was very good, as was the chap who played the lead.
That would be the late, great Ray McAnally. One of Ireland's best actors.

Even Keith Allen is good in AVBC.
 
That would be the late, great Ray McAnally. One of Ireland's best actors.

Even Keith Allen is good in AVBC.
I didn’t recognise the name Ray McAnally, but it appears he died shortly after it was filmed, so I probably haven’t seen much of his work. I wasn’t so sure about his South Yorkshire accent, but it was a superb piece of acting:
 
Little Fires Everywhere - continuing my Reece Witherspoon binge, and it was very binge-worthy. Great acting by Reece and especially the teens, although I see the book wankers are all over Kerry Washington's portrayal of Mia.
 
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