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Post by andydecker on Mar 10, 2024 20:10:19 GMT
Fear the Dark (UK, 2023) directed by Lawrence Fowler
Also known as The Ghost Within this is a low budget ghost story. The story is simple (even generic). Margot never got over the murder of her sister Evie when both were young girls. Her father was convicted of Evie's murder because he confessed strangling her; Evie wore a mask because of some earlier accident or something. The father was killed in prison soon, and Margot never accepted the estate. Now Margot‘s problems have become so bad that she is one step awawy from the psychiatry. Her husband Mason is a failed writer who is upset when he finally learns of the money; his wife never told him. Also he is tired of his hysterical wife. Margot returns to the house to confront the ghosts of the past – which in this case is the ghost of her vengeful sister. Throw in an old and corrupt ghost hunter and his honest son in the mix and you have a movie which happens 90% in the large manor. One could criticise that basically there is absolutly nothing new in the jump scares. While both the twist and the ending is no surprise, this is not bad. I have seen (too) many of British low budget horror productions in the last years, and the majority was dire and a waste of money. But Fear the Dark is very well shot and professionally edited, this is a surprisingly well made production. The cast is okay to good, and while the middle drags a bit, it even gets a bit bloody near the end. Nothing special, but for a low key ghost movie entertaining.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 11, 2024 17:17:07 GMT
I have been watching the current season of DEATH IN PARADISE. Spoiler: Dwayne returns!
Danny John-Jules, the actor, is not a tall man, normally. Nevertheless, in this old music video, next to singer Princess, he is:
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Post by andydecker on Mar 11, 2024 18:20:07 GMT
I have been watching the current season of DEATH IN PARADISE. Spoiler: Dwayne returns! A step in the right direction. It gets more bland every year with the ever changing cast. I can't even remember the names of the current roster. Now if just Joséphine Jobert also would return,it would be so much better.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 11, 2024 18:31:23 GMT
I have been watching the current season of DEATH IN PARADISE. Spoiler: Dwayne returns! A step in the right direction. It gets more bland every year with the ever changing cast. I can't even remember the name ins of the current roster. Now if just Joséphine Jobert also would return,it would be so much better. Spoiler: She does. This upcoming Sunday.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 11, 2024 19:07:14 GMT
A step in the right direction. It gets more bland every year with the ever changing cast. I can't even remember the name ins of the current roster. Now if just Joséphine Jobert also would return,it would be so much better. Spoiler: She does. This upcoming Sunday. Nice. I guess I will see dubbed season 13 end of the year with some luck. Brokenwood is still 4 seasons behind. :-(
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 11, 2024 19:30:21 GMT
It gets more bland every year with the ever changing cast. I was going to say that Don Warrington has been in every episode of the show, closely followed by Élizabeth Bourgine. But according to IMDb, the latter has been in 84 episodes, the former only 80. Still, I would say they are both fairly well-established by now.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 12, 2024 11:06:54 GMT
ITV at the top of their game just now. Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Breathless (3 part Covid docu drama from POV of NHS staff; as difficult and deeply upsetting a watch as it ought to be) and Trigger Point series 2 (domain of dem makes cameo appearance at start of ep 2).
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Post by andydecker on Mar 12, 2024 16:55:31 GMT
It gets more bland every year with the ever changing cast. I was going to say that Don Warrington has been in every episode of the show, closely followed by Élizabeth Bourgine. But according to IMDb, the latter has been in 84 episodes, the former only 80. Still, I would say they are both fairly well-established by now. No. Warrington and Bourgine have become the fundament of the series. It is hard to imagine it without Warrington who has become my hero. I meant the ever less convincing officers orbiting the detective.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 12, 2024 17:03:52 GMT
Diabolik (2021) directed by Antonio and Marco Manetti I had no idea this existed. I am a big fan of the DIABOLIK fumetti. They are an excellent way of improving your Italian. Accidentally I just got a few current issues from Ebay. The cover is from issue November 2023, the interior from September. The format is rather small, 17*12 cm with 120 pages and a surprisingly low price in Italy.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 23, 2024 18:00:38 GMT
Season 2 of BEYOND PARADISE, the intensely soporific DEATH IN PARADISE spinoff, has started. Frankly I cannot explain why I watch this.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 24, 2024 16:04:02 GMT
Season 2 of BEYOND PARADISE, the intensely soporific DEATH IN PARADISE spinoff, has started. Frankly I cannot explain why I watch this. This still isn't shown hereabout. I didn't think that the couple had chemistry enough for a series, and I read some scathing reviews. Too much soap opera,etc. I read the first original novel of Death in Paradise last year, written by Robert Thorogood, the creator of the series. A Poole story. It dragged a bit and was too long. Also it was a constant deja vu, as the writer recycled a lot of stuff from episodes. But for a cosy crime it was a nice time filler.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Mar 24, 2024 17:34:56 GMT
I read the first original novel of Death in Paradise last year, written by Robert Thorogood, the creator of the series. I read it when it was first published. If I remember correctly, at one point Poole considers killing Harry the lizard, which struck me as weirdly out of character.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 24, 2024 21:31:11 GMT
I read it when it was first published. If I remember correctly, at one point Poole considers killing Harry the lizard, which struck me as weirdly out of character. Right. As if he used a lot of never used material from his days on the show or ideas which didn't work out.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 1, 2024 20:12:10 GMT
Oh, and CRASH, the novel, inspired The Normal's "Warm Leatherette," later ingeniously covered by Grace Jones on an album that changed the world of music forever. CRASH, the novel, is just one of those one-of-a-kind phenomena. Like Brian D'Amato's BEAUTY, another novel I found totally absorbing back in the day and am now afraid of revisiting. As it happens, I recently reread BEAUTY, and it is still utterly brilliant. Recommended.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 13, 2024 11:35:03 GMT
Ripley – directed by Steven Zaillian, 2024.
Another adaption of a famous crime novel. I had never read the novel by Patricia Highsmith, just seen the movie adaptions. I quite liked the one with Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow from 1999. As I hated a lot of similar Netflix production I hadn‘t high hopes. But there were a few surprises right at the start. Andrew Scott as Ripley is not the charming seducer but just a pathetic and off-putting con-man, the pace is really, really slow and according to a lot of people the idea to film it as black and white series makes this a waste of time. The last thing is IMHO ridiculous. The episodes look wonderful, the photography is sharp and atmospheric and enhances the story. In its best moments it looks like Italian neorealism. After watching the first episodes I bought the novel. I was quite surprised how much I liked it and how faithful the series put it on the screen. Even dialogue is repeated verbatim. The tv version maybe puts the often darkly comedic elements of the book more in the foreground. What is just a sentence or two in the book, is here a 5 minute sequence of sometimes absurd macabre comedy. Especially the murders are wicked funny in Ripley‘s fumbling and inept way of doing things. The direction and the photography are helping to make the often hard to believe coincidences go smoother.
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