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Post by bluetomb on Jun 26, 2021 0:11:42 GMT
Been to the pictures a few times for a Robert Altman season.
Images (1972) Saw this years ago but only remembered the basic outline and the ending. Also was on late night TV and the print was such that you either had to have the volume up really loud or plug headphones into the TV and watch real close or just not be able to hear the narration. So was a bit of a revelation on a big screen. It suffers through no fault of its own from being made up of now pretty much solidly cliched mentally ill women movie tropes, and more its fault through turning on some pretty basic women's angst ideas and being a bit stretched at nearly 2 hours. But Susannah York well earns her Oscar nomination as the lead, strong and sensible and reasonable rather than freaked out and shrill as is more common (she also wrote the children's fantasy novel narration herself), the other actors are strong and it's beautifully made, with much in the imagery and transitions to chew on. Plenty of creepy and weird even if it does go on a bit.
Quintet (1979) Icy post apocalypse sci fi art oddity that falls between drama, action and intrigue and fascinates rather than truly satisfies. Great ice caked repurposed factory higgledy-piggledy design and photography and sterling work from Paul Newman, Bibi Anderson and Fernando Rey, and it gets a lot from all being played totally straight. Can see why neither critics nor audiences were terribly impressed, the whole doomed humanity devoted to an inscrutable game as a substitute for life while preyed upon by an even more inscrutable elite concept is relatively basic stuff and not that developed, and there's not enough action or real tension for it to really work as a thriller, but I loved the whole mood of the thing and though I had reservations while watching it I now really want to watch it again.
The Long Goodbye (1973) Immaculately rumpled Elliott Gould as cool and decent Philip Marlowe adrift in a dirty 70's. I've watched a lot of vintage noir recently and always loved 80's/90's neo noir, so this, ultimately cynical, devoted to time and place and character over plot or morality, was an amazing different experience. Hippie gals, hoods and ineffectual cops all get time to shine, and Marlowe eases his way through the whole lot, out of time and place but never outdone. Lots of chuckles, some jolts, Hemingway-esque Sterling Hayden and a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in a non speaking role, strong story underpinning all the vibes, it's a corker. I kind of wish more neo noir had gone for this kind of openly offbeat vibe, although it's entirely possible that there are greats I don't know about.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 27, 2021 12:30:50 GMT
The Long Goodbye (1973) Immaculately rumpled Elliott Gould as cool and decent Philip Marlowe adrift in a dirty 70's. I've watched a lot of vintage noir recently and always loved 80's/90's neo noir, so this, ultimately cynical, devoted to time and place and character over plot or morality, was an amazing different experience. Hippie gals, hoods and ineffectual cops all get time to shine, and Marlowe eases his way through the whole lot, out of time and place but never outdone. Lots of chuckles, some jolts, Hemingway-esque Sterling Hayden and a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in a non speaking role, strong story underpinning all the vibes, it's a corker. I kind of wish more neo noir had gone for this kind of openly offbeat vibe, although it's entirely possible that there are greats I don't know about. Apart from Chinatown I can't remember another neo noir which has that kind of impact. I have watched this a long time ago, and mostly it is some of the pictures which stayed in mind. Marlowe's flat with the stairs, the relentless sun. I never read all of Chandler, but I read The Long Goodbye and thought it too long. But I liked the ending better than this re-written new version which seemed so out of character. More Bronson than Chandler. When I watched this the first time, I also didn't like Gould as Marlowe much. Later I watched the 78s version of The Big Sleep which put the aging Mitchum in London, and I thought this all so, so wrong, that Gould suddenly seemed to be a cineastic revelation.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 24, 2021 12:46:01 GMT
The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015)
With this I made the grave error to read it up before watching it. One of those We have to explain it to you movies which is never a good thing. I really can't say if I would have understood it or not. While it was beautifully shot, I thought the first half indeed too slow, because the parts were not terrible interesting and nothing new, and the rest where the bloodshed begin not terrible suspensful. Maybe I have seen too many of those movies, I thought the question driving the plot Is she mad or really posessed by a demon not terribly interesting either and the occult angle basically weak. Good actor work, though, even if James Remar of Dexter fame was wasted.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 24, 2021 15:29:56 GMT
Crimson Peak (2015)
I re-watched it. The first time I really didn't like it. Wonderful production design, but a shaky story which can't decide if it wants to be a ghost story or a gothic.
I fear my opinion didn't improve. It even looked better than I remembered it. Spectacular. But all was so over the top and didn't work well. I guess my biggest complaint is that the ghosts basically were not needed for the narrative. Also if you make the heroine alone succeptible to ghosts – whatever the reason is, it is never explained, it just is – it doesn't make a lot of sense to also let the villianess at the end to see her just murdered brother.
Too many narrative threats just went nowhere or were woefully under-developed. The love-story was not believable, he killed three wives, why the change of mind? It was not on the screen. All the stuff about the mother was only exposition, it should have been shown. Wasted opportunities.
Not to mention those dumb Hollywood injuries which kill all credibility. In one second the heroine is thrown from the second floor which should have put her in a wheelchair, in the next she is climbing ladders and fighting hand to hand.
Someday there will be a haunted house movie with a story which does the set-design justice. I hope.
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Post by Middoth on Aug 12, 2021 18:37:53 GMT
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Post by helrunar on Aug 15, 2021 13:26:09 GMT
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Post by Michael Connolly on Aug 25, 2021 12:12:14 GMT
The 1920 film version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde turned up on television on Saturday night. Apparently, John Barrymore dislocated his jaw to look like this as Hyde. The film is absolute torpor now, but the first transformation sequence, which looks like it was filmed live up to the cut at 2 minutes and 3 seconds in this clip, is startling: www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0DK1dl8eRcThe organ music soundtrack is dreadful. It is continuous and any relevance to the screen action is by sheer chance.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 16, 2021 17:45:14 GMT
Pentagram (2019) - Low budget horror movies are an acquired taste. A lot are awful but still can be entertaining. I still think Flesh for the Beast is a lot of fun, but can understand why it has so bad ratings. This on the other is a boring piece of tediousness.
The plot itself is not even bad. Four young people - 2 guys and 2 girls - are on their way to sunny California. One of the girls is an addict and her brother wants to bring her into a rehab. The other guy, the leader, is the criminal with a gun. They finance the trip with armed robbery, doing diners and - supposedly - liquor stores. When the last robbery somewhere in redneck country goes wrong, they find an abandoned house. Here they stumble about a guy in a pentagram who waits for someone he can sacrifice. In a jiffy they all stand in the pentagram and can't leave because a demon kills everyone who leaves the pentagram. The first one to get killed is the guy who drew the pentagram, as the criminal kicks him out and see the demon in action. How can they escape?
This happens half an hour or so into the movie. The rest happens in the pentagram in which the four endlessly debate their situation and basically kill each other. The budget is so low that there was only money for a terrible CGI demon which is basically four seconds on the screen - twice - and a cast of eight, one room and one pentagram. Shot in that flat style with a bleached colour palette which I guess is the substitute for atmosphere it looks terrible, the pace is non-existent and the story never comes to life. Can't remember when I started fast-forwarding so early.
How they managed to sell this to Netflix is beyond me.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 16, 2021 19:38:56 GMT
Currently I watch at least one episode of WHAT'S MY LINE every day; they are all on YouTube. There are still people around who sound like Bennett Cerf, but they are not allowed on television anymore.
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 16, 2021 20:00:05 GMT
A family member started "encouraging" me to watch this yesterday. I never watched it before as I'm not into anything that focuses mostly/only on military life. I'm now expected to watch all 22 episodes, which sounds a bit much, but there are worse fates than watching Sean Bean for 90min a day.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Sept 16, 2021 21:25:09 GMT
Currently I watch at least one episode of WHAT'S MY LINE every day; they are all on YouTube. There are still people around who sound like Bennett Cerf, but they are not allowed on television anymore. I saw this a while ago. I thought it was the same programme, but it has a different title. The guest has an amazing link to history.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 16, 2021 21:27:24 GMT
Now I am a major Sharpe fan, but I have to say that those tv movies are a bit slim. They would have needed twice the budget.
Don't watch too much of them in a too short time. It will kill your interest. But Sean Bean was born for this role. And he has a nice chemistry with Daragh O’Malley who played Harper.
But why 22 episodes? It is 16 tv-movies at 100 minutes.
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 16, 2021 21:32:36 GMT
Now I am a major Sharpe fan, but I have to say that those tv movies are a bit slim. They would have needed twice the budget.
Don't watch too much of them in a too short time. It will kill your interest. But Sean Bean was born for this role. And he has a nice chemistry with Daragh O’Malley who played Harper.
But why 22 episodes? It is 16 tv-movies at 100 minutes.
BritBox has 22, for some reason, & we're trying to watch them all during the 30-day free trial
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Post by andydecker on Sept 17, 2021 8:08:24 GMT
Now I am a major Sharpe fan, but I have to say that those tv movies are a bit slim. They would have needed twice the budget.
Don't watch too much of them in a too short time. It will kill your interest. But Sean Bean was born for this role. And he has a nice chemistry with Daragh O’Malley who played Harper.
But why 22 episodes? It is 16 tv-movies at 100 minutes.
BritBox has 22, for some reason, & we're trying to watch them all during the 30-day free trial I guess they edited them. The episodes follow the books mostly only in broad strokes. This is especially true of the last ones. Sharpe`s Challenge and Sharpe`s Peril. These are the India adventures, which were later written as prequels. The movies use some parts of the novels Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph and Sharpe's Fortress. Tiger is the story of the battle of Seringapatam and the Tippoo Sultan in 1799, Triumph chronicles the battle of Assaye in 1803 and Fortress is the tale of the siege of Gawilghur in 1803. As those movies are set 15 years later, none of this is featured. But they are nicely done.
I recently heard the novels as audiobooks again and they are still a lot of fun, even if the character Harper is missing in them. As they were written years after the main series finished they are often better done in terms of craft. When I came to the first original novel Sharpe's Eagle from 1981 I was quite astonished though how good it still is. While the later novels may be better written, it put the character on the map. It is one of those first novels where everything works.
End of the month there will be a new Sharpe novel Sharpe's Assassin after 14 years.
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Post by ripper on Sept 19, 2021 11:42:46 GMT
Bean is great, but agree that the TV films could have used a bigger budget. As for the books, I have not read them all, but really like the ones set in India.
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