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

[Petcha]

Master and Commander: Far Side of the Earth
have seen this a couple of times before, always enjoyed watching it, great yarn and well realised. I wish there were more films in this 'realistic' wooden-boat naval style

sadly there was never a sequel, but just saw on wiki" In June 2021, it was reported that a second film is in development by 20th Century Studios, a prequel based on the first novel only, with Patrick Ness penning the script.[43] "

New ‘Master And Commander’ Movie In Works At 20th Century; Patrick Ness Penning Prequel

EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century is looking to head back to the high seas as sources tell Deadline the studio is developing a new Master and Commander pic with A Monster Calls scribe Patrick Ness adapting t…

deadline.com

developing means nothing of course, but you never know

recommendations for similiar films welcome.
ive always enjoyed Polanski's Pirates

I can't actually think of a Russell Crowe film I've not enjoyed. He might be a bit of a dick, but he's a fine actor. Um... did you watch the North Water recently on iPlayer? Not that similar but it does involve claustrophobic ship stuff. Amazing performance from Colin Farrell.

BBC Two - The North Water, Series 1, Episode 1

Hull, 1859. Patrick Sumner joins a ship bound for the Arctic with a killer on board.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[keybored]

Searching, stars John Cho as an increasingly frantic dad trying to piece together clues from social media in order to track down his missing daughter. Debra Messing plays the detective investigating the case.

It's like spending 100 minutes flicking between Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch in dozens of tabs on several devices and somehow getting a pretty decent whodunnit story out of it.

 

[Gramsci]

Thanks...been planning to watch it since it's been on Mubi

Its leaving Mubi soon

 

[platinumsage]

The Gardner - immigrant live-in servant who happens to be a gnarled combat veteran (played by renowned stuntman and Charles Bronson lookalike Robert Bronzi) aims to save an English country house family from murderous burglars. It was more entertaining than Don't Look Op.

 

[petee]

Bram Stoker's Dracula - not the lurid, over-egged Francis Ford Coppola 1992 one with Gary Oldman but a much more low-key, low-budget but oddly effective 1974 version with Jack Palance (who has the cheekbokes to look Slavic

that's because he was

Jack Palance was born Volodymyr Palahniuk on February 18, 1919 in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, the son of Anna (née Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk, an anthracite coal miner.[2] His parents were Ukrainian immigrants,[3][4] his father a native of Ivane-Zolote in southwestern Ukraine (modern Ternopil Oblast) and his mother from the Lviv Oblast.[5][6]

wiki

 

[petee]

the criterion Citizen Kane. expensive, but it has so many extras that i thought it worth the price (with the discount).
otoh, it's better than i remember it even. the cinematography, the acting of all the major and minor characters. the entire scene where he's busted by Ray Collins is impeccable.
otoh, i can find things to critique, some parts seem drawn out, some seen rushed.

 

[May Kasahara]

Parasite. It was very good.

A Star Is Born (Gaga iteration). Also surprisingly enjoyable, if formulaic.

 

[ska invita]

Watched and didn't like Cloud Atlas - hammy acting throughout, weird mix of tones from section to section, but above all its key deep point seems to just be that the fight for social justice goes on and on and on for ever. Didn't leave me feeling any revolutionary zeal to fight the good fight in the name of ancestors past and future, more a depressing sense that things will be even shitter in the future than now on, but you've got to keep up the struggle anyway. Not exactly motivational, mainly depressing

 

[Part 2]

Possibly my worst week of telly in memory.

Finished off rewatching The Wire, completely forgot how bad series 5 is.

Watched all of series 5 of Gomorrah. Embarrassingly bad, just utter rubbish.

Don't Look Up. Tbf I watched this to see how bad it was...and it was. A mess that doesn't work.

I should really go out.

 

[MBV]

I finished this which was enjoyable:

Mayor of Kingstown - Google Search

g.co

 

[platinumsage]

I finished this which was enjoyable:

Mayor of Kingstown - Google Search

g.co

I gave up after about episode 5 because there weren't any characters that I cared about, it was just depressingly full of nasty cunts.

 

[Reno]

Possibly my worst week of telly in memory.

Finished off rewatching The Wire, completely forgot how bad series 5 is.

Watched all of series 5 of Gomorrah. Embarrassingly bad, just utter rubbish.

Don't Look Up. Tbf I watched this to see how bad it was...and it was. A mess that doesn't work.

I should really go out.

Season 5 of The Wire disqualifies it from the "greatest series ever made" hype for me. If you can't stick the landing....

 

[Part 2]

Season 5 of The Wire disqualifies it from the "greatest series ever made" hype for me. If you can't stick the landing....

Yea, sad really.

I wasn't expecting much of Gomorrah tbh. Although it was never as gritty as the film it was reasonably entertaining. As many predicted it went downhill when the source material ran out.

 

[redsquirrel]

Possibly my worst week of telly in memory.

Finished off rewatching The Wire, completely forgot how bad series 5 is.

Watched all of series 5 of Gomorrah. Embarrassingly bad, just utter rubbish.

Don't Look Up. Tbf I watched this to see how bad it was...and it was. A mess that doesn't work.

I should really go out.

Follow Gramsci's advice and watch Maeve before it goes. Absolutely brilliant.

Before Maeve I watched An Unmarried Woman (also great), so a bit of a rediscovered/reappraised female view film session

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Stuck in my bedroom with Covid so I've watched rather a lot of films over the last three days:

There Will Be Blood (2007) - Beautifully shot, scored and acted, if a little slow-moving at times. Is the final scene supposed to have actually happened, or was it just in his imagination that he got his final revenge on the one person in his life that ever defied him?

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) - Silly sequel to T2. Linda Hamilton's acting is about the same standard as Karen Allan's in the fourth Indiana Jones film, i.e. it's obvious when you've been out of the game for too long. There's a fun fight sequence on board a plummeting cargo plane, but apart from that it's pretty forgettable. Also annoying that they never addressed why Terminator Arnie has aged despite being a 1st gen android.

The Way (2010) - Emilio Estevez directs his dad in a comic-drama about grief and fatherhood. Surprisingly moving, despite James Nesbitt being annoyingly Irish.

Rush (2013) - Rivals for the 1976 Formula 1 title take the piss out of each other and occasionally crash their cars. The bad guy from the second Captain America film is great as Niki Lauda, and it smartly has no real villain, just two men motivated by opposing desires. Surprising amount of boobs for a Ron Howard movie.

Don't Look Up (2021) - Heavy-handed Netflix satire about impending global disaster. It's all laid on a bit thick, especially once you get to the titular movement, but still a decent way to waste a couple of hours.

Swiss Family Robinson (1960) - I had fond memories of watching this as a kid, but now it just doesn't make any sense; the animals that have no business being there, the complete lack of food, and their dumb priorities that have them spend weeks building a treehouse instead of exploring to see if anyone nearby might be able to help.

 

[Reno]

Some Came Running, 1958 melodrama by Vincente Minnelli, about a hard living Army veteran returning home after 16 years to the embarrassment his snobby family, starring Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine and Dean Martin. At first it's a little meandering but it builds to a last act which is devastating. The sexual politics of this bleak film are deeply uncomfortable but then that becomes its point. Shirley MacLaine makes a character who could have easily become annoying, absolutely heartbreaking. Martin Scorsese regards this as one of the greatest uses of Cinemascope and I can see why, the climax at a fun fair is visually breathtaking.

 

[Reno]

Silent Night, which starts out like a Richard Curtis style comedy about a posh family Christmas, but turns into an example of the sub-genre of apocalyptic films where people come together for one last party before the world ends. It's not bad and if the poshos irritate you, there is the knowledge that they'll all be dead by the end. I can't believe that people would be quite so carefree with the knowledge that they'll only have a few more hours to live. The Australian These Final Hours handled this more believably in that everybody has shitloads of drugs to disassociate, but Silent Night goes more for an arch, stiff upper lip type of British black comedy. Two other similar films I liked are It's a Disaster (2012) and Last Night (1998). This isn't quite as good, but I still liked it's shift from light comedy into something genuinely grim and dark.

 

[Part 2]

After Love....this has very good reviews. It's a film about grief and I'm interested in that. The main character is a woman who's husband dies, following which she discovers his secret other life. I was with it most of the way but there's a crucial moment in the film that you know has to come, following which it could be great or a let down. For me it was the latter.

Dashcam...continuing my bad run of winter break TV experiences, I thought I'd watch the new horror film by Rob Savage who made Host in the first lockdown and which I enjoyed. Unfortunately for me another film by the same name was also released this year. The themes seemed such that it could've been the right film, set in the pandemic, stuff about conspiracy theories etc... although I did think not enough was dashcam footage. One scene involved watching the main protagonist moving files around on a screen for about 20 minutes while suspensful music played. Hopefully I'll find the right film to watch as this was just really boring.

Maeve...1980's... Maeve has left Ireland for London but returns to to visit her family aged 20. The film looks at her present being as a radical feminist alongside flashbacks to memories of her schooldays and former life. As redsquirrel said it's a very political film and for me there was a lot to learn and think about. It's very good.

I just sent a message to my friend Maeve to tell her I'd seen it. She made a similar journey to Manchester and said she knew the director Pat Murphy since school.

 

[T & P]

Possibly my worst week of telly in memory.

Finished off rewatching The Wire, completely forgot how bad series 5 is.

Watched all of series 5 of Gomorrah. Embarrassingly bad, just utter rubbish.

Don't Look Up. Tbf I watched this to see how bad it was...and it was. A mess that doesn't work.

I should really go out.

We’ll have to agree to disagree about Don’t Look Up. An extremely enjoyable film, amusing throughout and with plenty of actual laugh-out-loud moments even though it’s not a comedy- at least not a full-on comedy genre film.

Every single person I know who’s watched it felt the same way. Perhaps the surprisingly A-list heavy cast might be leading some people to expect an Oscar magnet, which this is not (or even tries to be imo). But as an offbeat comedy-drama launched without fanfare despite its superb cast, and free to Netflix subscribers right away to boot, I could never in a million years describe it anywhere near as a bad film. In fact, anything less than a 7/10 seems a very puzzling judgement to me.

Twenty minutes too long admittedly- the middle but starts to drag badly. But it more than makes up for it in the final third.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Punishment Park - Peter Watkins.


I think Watkins deserves a thread of his own TBH.

 

[Gramsci]

Punishment Park - Peter Watkins.


I think Watkins deserves a thread of his own TBH.

I saw Punishment Park some years ago and thought it should be better known. From what I read at the time he used real hippies and rednecks for this. Its documentary style near future where radicals are hunted down in the desert.

I also liked his film about Edvard Munch. Which puts his work in the context of the times he lived in.

After The War Game he couldn't work in UK any more so went to Europe and US.

Aftenlandet Set in near future where European country is going through political crisis leading to rise of right. Not so well known but I remember it as heady stuff at the time.

Lot of his work uses documentary / news reporting style with no professional actors.

For his epic film on the Commune he gave the actors bios of each character and background on the politics and basically let the camera roll. Used a lot of improvisation. Gives his work an immediate feel.

 

[krtek a houby]

Don't Look Up. A satire on climate change/trump etc (although I'm sure that'll go over the rednecks' heads who will probably think it's just a disaster movie) with the most unbelievable cast. Beautifully done. And putting DiCaprio and Streep together, well it's clearly gonna win the Oscar.

"rednecks"

 

[krtek a houby]

Bram Stoker's Dracula - not the lurid, over-egged Francis Ford Coppola 1992 one with Gary Oldman but a much more low-key, low-budget but oddly effective 1974 version with Jack Palance (who has the cheekbokes to look Slavic and brings an unusual sort of quiet, almost silent, tragic dignity to it.) The film is dated and tonally odd but has some brilliantly creepy tableaux and it's from a whole different and much more serious world than the lurid campy shocks of the Hammer films treatments of the theme. You can see that Coppola ripped it off wholesale. Weird, baggy, not totally together - as always, the ladies' makeup is far too obviously 1970s not 1870s - but if you're a vampire completist this one is definitely worth a go.

Would like to see it. Depending on mood, kinda love/hate the Coppola version.

Also, 'scuse my ignorance, but how does one look Slavic?

 

[belboid]

Don’t Look Up

It’s neither as good nor bad as most people seem to think. It makes Oliver Stone look subtle and is nothing like as funny as it should be. Rylance is annoying, Streep quite bad and Chamolet pointless. But it raised a few laughs, the Ariana Grande song was great, Queen Cate was good as alwaysand they kept it zipping along.

Far better was our other choice, the Icelandic Lamb. Sold as a (folk) horror, which is deeply misleading, the horror parts are just a framing device for a bizarre tale of loss and longing - and probably something something power of nature. Darkly comedic and sometimes quite moving, it’s well worth a watch, though no masterpiece.

 

[platinumsage]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The best Potter movie IMHO. A step change from previous films in the franchise, with Quidditch matches and flying cars replaced by thoughtful cinematography and character development.

 

[Sue]

Watching The Eagle Has Landed. (((Donald Sutherland's Oirish accent)))

Eta Every time I'm horribly disappointed in Jenny Agutter. .

 

[Elpenor]

Watching The Eagle Has Landed. (((Donald Sutherland's Oirish accent)))

Eta Every time I'm horribly disappointed in Jenny Agutter.

I used to jog where it was filmed in the Mapledurham estate

 

[Orang Utan]

The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)
The Roger Corman/Vincent Price masterpiece - incredible sets, esp consdering they were reused from another production (Becket) and filmed in just a month. Wasn't surprised when I saw Nicholas Roeg on the credits as DP. There's an amazing sequence in which Price's bride-of-satan wife is tormented by demons - absent from YouTube unfortunately

 

[Sue]

I used to jog where it was filmed in the Mapledurham estate

...while wearing a German uniform under your jogging kit I hope?

 

[Sue]

The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)
The Roger Corman/Vincent Price masterpiece - incredible sets, esp consdering they were reused from another production (Becket) and filmed in just a month. Wasn't surprised when I saw Nicholas Roeg on the credits as DP. There's an amazing sequence in which Price's bride-of-satan wife is tormented by demons - absent from YouTube unfortunately

Yeah a load of people got their start on Corman's films.