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Post by Carl LaFong on May 31, 2020 11:54:53 GMT
Started watching Satyajit Ray’s last film The Stranger last night.
Looking great so far. The cast are terrific, even the young son. I like how they switch from Bengali to English at the drop of a hat.
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Post by Midi-Chlorian_Count on May 31, 2020 11:55:23 GMT
I'd agree with that. Was one of those classic films it took me years before getting around to as well. Was ok but nothing spectacular. I've never been a fan of 70s/80s Hollywood gangster films, but I recently enjoyed the Godfather 1,2 and 3 much more than I expected to, so have been unusually broadminded recently. It won't last though! Have you watched Once Upon A Time In America? I watch that every couple of years or so and still can't decide on it...
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Post by Jep Gambardella on May 31, 2020 12:04:06 GMT
I watched “Witness for the Prosecution” (Billy Wilder 1957) last night. First time watch. Courtroom drama with Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich, based on an Agatha Christie play. Great movie. I am rather surprised. Given that you are a big cinema fan I would have assumed you to see that film ages ago. But better late than ever. Laughton was absolutely awesome. Have you seen Hobson's Choice (1954)? if not then I highly recommend. And Billy Wilder is one of my favourite directors! But it’s true that there are many classic movies that I still haven’t seen - 12 Angry Men comes to mind, just to stay in the courtroom movies sub-genre. I agree, Laughton was great in it. I haven’t seen Hobson’s Choice, I will look for it.
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 31, 2020 12:11:31 GMT
Withnail and I is on ITV1 tonight (well, early Monday morning) at 12.15am. Also, there's a bizarre French film on Film4: FILM: Cosmos On: Film4 (14) Date: Monday 1st June 2020 Time: 01:15 to 03:25 A student and his friend experience bizarre and disturbing events during their stay at a family-run boarding house. Thriller, starring Jonathan Genet, Johan Libereau and Sabine Azema. In French. (Subtitles, Widescreen, 2015) Director: Andrzej Zulawski Starring: Jonathan Genet, Johan Libereau, Sabine Azema, Jean-François Balmer, Victoria Guerra Sounds as if it may be quite interesting: www.imdb.com/title/tt4035268/reviews?ref_=tt_ql_op_3
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Post by screamingtreefrogs on May 31, 2020 19:58:11 GMT
NatGeo - 'The Shark Bite State' 'Florida is the shark attack capital of the world' Good summer viewin' folks
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jun 1, 2020 13:25:34 GMT
Jesus, what a shite movie! Sex scenes or not, it’s crushingly dull. Noe’s Irreversible is also available on MUBI, but not way I’m watching it now. Irreversible is an unpleasant movie to watch but it is certainly not dull. I hesitate to recommend it, because I am sure many average filmgoers (if such a thing exists) would hate it, but I think it is worth watching once. Well, I watched it. Wish I hadn't! That rape scene was degoutant!
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Jun 1, 2020 13:49:48 GMT
Irreversible is an unpleasant movie to watch but it is certainly not dull. I hesitate to recommend it, because I am sure many average filmgoers (if such a thing exists) would hate it, but I think it is worth watching once. Well, I watched it. Wish I hadn't! That rape scene was degoutant! Oops! Sorry! Yes, that scene was very hard to stomach.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jun 1, 2020 13:51:25 GMT
Well, I watched it. Wish I hadn't! That rape scene was degoutant! Oops! Sorry! Yes, that scene was very hard to stomach.
Nah, it's OK. I turned the sound off and averted my eyes most of the time. Seemed a bit much having it last so long though. Enjoyed the fire extinguisher bit though. (j/k!!)
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Jun 1, 2020 14:23:54 GMT
For the third or fourth time, I watched one of the scariest movies ever. DUELSteven Speilberg's classic take on road-rage between Denis Weaver's compact and a big truck driven by a malevolent nutter who didn't like being overtaken. This cat and mouse duel takes place over (I assume) the Californian plains and the terror is sustained from start to finish. This was Speilberg's directorial debut (he was 26) and was made initially for TV. I can't believe that, apart from a Primetime Emmy award for editing, it got so little recognition. The photography and location are outstanding and amazingly there is little or no dialogue.
When I was growing up, the family would often go on long road trips, either for summer vacations or to visit my grandparents in my father's home town. One of the ways that my father had to keep the three kids quiet in the back was to tell us about movies that he had seen. One of those was a movie about an ordinary man who runs afoul of a truck driver in a deserted road and is hunted mercilessly by him (in retrospect probably not the best story to tell impressionable children stuck in a car on roads filled with trucks). It was only much later that I found out that this movie was "Duel" and that it had been directed by Steven Spielberg before he shot to fame. Yet somehow I never got around to watching it, even though I've owned the DVD for more than ten years. When I saw your post yesterday, I thought "that's it, that will be my movie of the day".
Wow, what a great movie it was! Incredibly tense. Unbelievable that it was directed by a freaking 26-year old! It's no wonder that he was trusted with "Jaws" a few years later.
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Jun 2, 2020 14:57:35 GMT
After reading somewhere that Clint Eastwood had turned 90 the day before, I decided to honour him by watching one of his movies yesterday. I wanted one that I hadn’t seen before, and preferably one that he directed AND starred in. I settled on “High Plains Drifter” from 1973, which fulfilled both criteria.
I did not like it. I just could NOT put out of my mind a scene early on in the movie where the character played by Clint rapes a woman. This was not one of those situations that we see in old movies where a man holds a woman, starts kissing her, she resists for 15 seconds and then enthusiastically kisses him back. No, in this scene he drags her kicking and screaming to a barn in broad daylight and rapes her. That ruined the movie for me. I still watched it to the end, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about that earlier scene. I’ve often laughed about people criticising older movies for having scenes that today would be (rightfully) considered sexist or racist or homophobic or whatever, but rape is where I draw the line.
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Post by WullieFort on Jun 2, 2020 15:24:35 GMT
Must have been a Harvey Weinstein production
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Post by klawrencio79 on Jun 2, 2020 15:27:04 GMT
I finished Mr. Robot the other day.
It isn't perfect, there are characters (namely Vera and Dom DiPietro) that are pretty weak and the episodes focused on them aren't great, but the antihero's central arc, from beginning to end, is really terrific. Rami Malek, Christian Slater, Carly Chaikin (who does wonders with a sometimes under-written and cliched role), Martin Wallstrom, Michael Cristofer, BD Wong and Gloria Rueben are all outstanding. Malek is so unique looking and so much of the performance comes from just his face and eyes, it's a real testament to what you can do with committed actors.
After I finished the series finale, I went back and watch the pilot as I often do when finishing up a show. They clearly had a vision of how they wanted to story to finish, including with specific story beats and it's impressive how they managed to tie it all back together when re-watching the original episode. I'm often fascinated with how you can completely recontextualize an episode, or sequence of episodes, after you know the outcomes. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it worked here.
The show is so well shot, you have to wonder what other shows are doing sometimes. In most shows, everything is over-lit, the characters are statically positioned in the frame, things are so sanguine, even on shows with tremendous budgets and crews like Game of Thrones, it's so often rather stilted. Mr. Robot does incredible work with long shots, with characters moving within the frame, with empty space, with shadows. Everything is character driven, they play around with narrative structure in ways that few shows dare. There's an episode edited to look like a single shot that's amazing, there's another episode that has two lines of dialogue (in the first 30 seconds and last 10 seconds) with a spectacular and nerve-wracking heist sandwiched in between. It's about mental illness and the repercussions of dealing with it, including collateral involving family and loved ones.
And the score! I'm a sucker for a great score and while it sometimes borrows a bit too heavily from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Mac Quayle's score adds an integral piece of the mood throughout the entire show's 4 season run.
So yeah, if you're currently without a show to watch, give this one a shot. It's not always easy viewing and like I said, there's a few duds along the way, but it's a worthwhile ride.
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Post by FrankSobotka1514 on Jun 2, 2020 23:35:10 GMT
At the time I’m posting this this thread is 51 pages long so forgive me if it’s already been mentioned. I finished Peaky Blinders so I need a new show. We have narrowed it down to Ozark or Bosch, with The Crown probably after that. Anyone see these? I read a few of the Bosch books a while ago but don’t really remember much. I do like the cast of it. So help me decide my next binge.
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Post by tristramshandy on Jun 3, 2020 3:20:42 GMT
I watched Jojo Rabbit last night, and really enjoyed it. I doubt the director will ever top Hunt For The Wilderpeople, but this one comes close. What We Do in the Shadows was really enjoyable as well.
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Post by WullieFort on Jun 3, 2020 3:36:14 GMT
At the time I’m posting this this thread is 51 pages long so forgive me if it’s already been mentioned. I finished Peaky Blinders so I need a new show. We have narrowed it down to Ozark or Bosch, with The Crown probably after that. Anyone see these? I read a few of the Bosch books a while ago but don’t really remember much. I do like the cast of it. So help me decide my next binge. Bosch is a garbled mess. Ozark is good for the first two seasons that I watched it.
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Jun 3, 2020 13:50:26 GMT
This morning as I was having breakfast I decided to have a look at Space Force, the new Netflix comedy series starring Steve Carrell. I knew I wasn’t going to have enough time to watch the entire first episode, but I just wanted to watch the first few minutes. It was hilarious! That will definitely be the next TV show I’ll be watching.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jun 3, 2020 13:57:23 GMT
At the time I’m posting this this thread is 51 pages long so forgive me if it’s already been mentioned. I finished Peaky Blinders so I need a new show. We have narrowed it down to Ozark or Bosch, with The Crown probably after that. Anyone see these? I read a few of the Bosch books a while ago but don’t really remember much. I do like the cast of it. So help me decide my next binge. I enjoyed Bosch, though I reckon the first four seasons are stronger than the most recent two. Haven't seen Ozark. Just not interested. What about Babylon Berlin? It's brilliant. Set in Berlin during the Weimar period it looks fantastic and the acting and plot-lines are excellent. You even learn a little bit of history too.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jun 3, 2020 14:04:24 GMT
What We Do in the Shadows was really enjoyable as well. I haven't seen that, I've heard it's good though. The tv show's been on here recently, but I didn't bother watching it as I haven't seen the film. Perhaps that was a mistake. Film is better than the show imo. Certainly the film is well worth a watch. I watched Hunt for the Wilderpeople recently and loved it too. I see our hero has been getting it in the neck over a tweet about the George Floyd protests.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jun 3, 2020 14:07:03 GMT
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Post by klawrencio79 on Jun 3, 2020 14:11:32 GMT
At the time I’m posting this this thread is 51 pages long so forgive me if it’s already been mentioned. I finished Peaky Blinders so I need a new show. We have narrowed it down to Ozark or Bosch, with The Crown probably after that. Anyone see these? I read a few of the Bosch books a while ago but don’t really remember much. I do like the cast of it. So help me decide my next binge. Ozark is really good in the first season, the second season is absolute, unadulterated, character-assassination riddled dogshit, and the third season is pretty good. I've never seen Bosch, but I'm a big fan of The Crown. Claire Foy is outstanding in seasons 1 and 2, and Olivia Colman is her usual brilliant self in season 3. Really, everyone in it is terrific. The writing is consistently strong, for the most part each episode highlights a particular historical event and how the crown was either affected by it, how they affected it, or simply how the two co-existed, all the while with the backdrop of how Elizabeth ascended and how her role interacts with her personal life and those closest to her. I don't know how accurate it is but that show I highly recommend.
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