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Nights of Cabiria 9/10
Repulsion 9/10
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Last movie seen — Page 133
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Mahler (1974).
Ken Russell for most of his career in moving pictures (on the large and small screen) reflected upon the works of others.
Music and music makers are superficially his thing, their lives have provided him with a series of scaffolds on which to construct rococo grotesque dream sculptures while also providing him with narratives and characters of depth with which to paint.
Mahler is in some ways quintessential Ken.
Painterly almost conventional biopic narrative, crisply photographed and performed with intense depth, collides with some of his most extreme, abstract, poetic, eye-bludgeoning, brain-exploding, visual symbolism.
In isolation either would be sufficient but together they work where they shouldn't. which is a bit of a miracle.
I couldn't suppress a smile during the Cosima Wagner sequence (which defies description) when Robert Powell finds himself on the cross.
Our dear friend, Kenneth Colley briefly turns up at the beginning of the film by way of one of two reminders of The Music Lovers (1970).
By 1979 both actors would play Jesus and while Powell's performance would be practically Papally endorsed, Kenneth's would become an almost forgotten contribution to a very controversial film.
Five rings of fire.
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Attempted a Harry Potter Marathon this weekend. Unfortunately we squandered too much time "eating" and "sleeping", so we ended up skipping Half-Blood Prince.
The neat part was that I was complaining on Twitter that I'll never get to see "The Philosopher's Stone" since even my "Ultimate Edition" Blu-ray only has the American "Sorcerer's Stone" version. So I get to my friend's house and look at his boxed set, which I'd never seen before:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Complete-Collection-Numbered/dp/B005GTJEZC/
He got it imported from the UK which means none of the DVD bonus discs work, but it did mean I got to see the movie the way it was intended to be seen. So happy.
I think we might make this an annual thing. It was fun!
ALSO: Since we skipped HBP, we didn't find out why it had two Blu-ray movie discs, "1" and "2". Did they split HBP into two discs over there?! That makes me even more mad about my "Ultimate Edition"!
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I don't remember. It was years ago !
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doubleofive said:
The neat part was that I was complaining on Twitter that I'll never get to see "The Philosopher's Stone" since even my "Ultimate Edition" Blu-ray only has the American "Sorcerer's Stone" version.
Other than the title, is there actually anything different about it?
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The title card is different, the page Hermione reads from says "philosopher's stone" when they show a close up, and the kids say it 3 or 4 times. The first time is an alternate take from the front, I think the rest had their backs to the camera.CP3S said:
doubleofive said:
The neat part was that I was complaining on Twitter that I'll never get to see "The Philosopher's Stone" since even my "Ultimate Edition" Blu-ray only has the American "Sorcerer's Stone" version.
Other than the title, is there actually anything different about it?
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A Better Tomorrow (1986)
The first John Woo-Chow Yun-fat collaboration that singlehandedly ushered in the era of "heroic bloodshed" Hong Kong action cinema. Considered by many to be one of the greatest Chinese films ever made.
It's nice to see where all of this stuff started, but being the film to usher in a new trend isn't always the best thing. ABT comes off as a bit dated and takes a while to establish its story rhythms. It is certainly not up to the standard of Woo's later efforts, but seeing as this was the first time around all is forgiven. It's quite enjoyable if you can find good enough subtitles. And Chow Yun-fat steals the movie. As usual.
A respectable 3 balls out of 4. Wish there was a better subtitle track.
And this happens in the first 5 minutes:
It's as if the gods said: let us create a badass actor who combines the right qualities of Clint Eastwood and Cary Grant. And thus there was Chow.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
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Well thank goodness you didn't end up going through life missing out on all that!doubleofive said:
The title card is different, the page Hermione reads from says "philosopher's stone" when they show a close up, and the kids say it 3 or 4 times. The first time is an alternate take from the front, I think the rest had their backs to the camera.CP3S said:
doubleofive said:
The neat part was that I was complaining on Twitter that I'll never get to see "The Philosopher's Stone" since even my "Ultimate Edition" Blu-ray only has the American "Sorcerer's Stone" version.
Other than the title, is there actually anything different about it?
:p
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Hey, "Philosopher's" is what the director and author intended, "Sorcerer's" is like a Special Edition for Dumb Americans.
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So do you Americans call Philosophers, Sorcerers?
Chortle!
You primitive Yanks are so quaint!
Guffaw! What what!
Also, I saw the Ealing Film 'The Magnet'.
A lovely little story about a little boy who thinks he kills another boy. (It makes sense in Context.) Incidentally, it seems to pioneer the use of the 'dies of a broken heart' plot point decades before Mr Luca$.
<span style=“font-weight: bold;”>The Most Handsomest Guy on OT.com</span>
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A Better Tomorrow II (1987)
What the heck happened here? This train wreck is somehow still enjoyable. The original cut supposedly ran about 160 minutes and the director and producer fought over getting it down. Eventually a third party just cut all kinds of things and threw it together.
The action is first rate, even for John Woo. Spellbinding, really, and the final sequence is unmissable.
But everything else just seems thrown together because they didn't have much of a story. Of course, you can't really get around the fact that a major character who died in the first film SUDDENLY HAS A TWIN BROTHER WHO WAS NEVER MENTIONED BEFORE!!
But it is enjoyable, it isn't something to be disowned. The first film did not need a sequel, but it could be worse.
"IF YOU HAVE ANY DIGNITY APOLOGIZE TO THE RICE RIGHT NOW!!!"
3 balls out of 4. The action gets a balltastic 4 however.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
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I don't often find myself doing this sort of thing but... look *sharp intake of breath*.
Rice... what can I say?
I went too far and... *gulp* whatever I do, whatever I say, well I understand it's never going to bring back what we had but... I'm sorry. I'm just sorry.
I love you rice... there I've said it. I love every last grain of you.
It's not you, it's not even the mashed potatoes.
It's me.
I just screwed up.
Me and my cheating esophagus.
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8 1/2
It left me angry and confused, mainly because I didn't sleep the night before, so I had no idea what was going on. I felt bad that I fell asleep watching it, because it wasn't really the movie's fault, it was mine. I'm going to give it another shot next weekend when I am conscious.
It was probably really good though!
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That new commercial was a sign that I finally had to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off in full. And god DAMN am I glad I did! After one viewing I think it has become one of my all-time favorites, maybe the favorite. One hundred out of one hundred Ferrari GT Californias.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
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I'm glad the commercial is bringing a new generation to Ferris.bkev said:
That new commercial was a sign that I finally had to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off in full. And god DAMN am I glad I did! After one viewing I think it has become one of my all-time favorites, maybe the favorite. One hundred out of one hundred Ferrari GT Californias.
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Today's "Make Frink feel old" post...
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Please don't call me a new generation, you're making me feel like Ziggy... it's not like I hadn't seen PARTS of it. Also most people I know have seen the whole thing
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
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Never seen Ferris Bueller? Next you'll tell me you've never seen Real Genius!
*crosses fingers that that's not true* =P
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I haven't really explored '80s cinema outside of Spielberg, Lucas and The Breakfast Club. At least, I can't think of anything from the '80s off the top of my head outside of SW, Raiders, and the aforementioned John Hughes film. I tend to prefer movies from the late '70s back, and sometimes a few from the '90s.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
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Tommy (1975).
It is Ken Russell's most seen film and divides both fans of the album and general cinema audiences alike but it shouldn't.
Ken's changes to the temporal setting and the characters are entirely justified by the act of adaptation.
For Tommy to be a contemporary messiah he had to be born after the second war instead of the first.
For Tommy to fix on the primal he must idolise his airborne and mostly absent biological father and not his adopted father figure.
His mother's actions make more sense too if she feels the full weight of guilt over the murder of Tommy's father and her son's retreat into an interior life.
Having the war hero remain a hero in his son's eyes allows Oliver Reed's Hobbs free reign to work a strip joint (an obvious downturn from a holiday camp) and employ the Acid Queen as an unorthodox method of 'curing' the boy and in doing so it makes him the sort of person who would be more likely to leave the boy with Uncle Ernie and Cousin Kevin.
The surrealism and religious satire is even more free here than in Russell's previous work (even The Devils (1971) balanced it's more extreme imagery with historical reference and tonal counterpoint).
His employment of genuinely handicapped actors in the Eyesight To The Blind sequence and the later sequences in Tommy's Holiday Camp address Russell's genuine repulsion on the abuse of faith and the vulnerable for financial reward by his adopted Catholicism.
While it may be difficult to swallow Ken's bawdy representation of the sexual and physical abuse inflicted on the title character, it's also difficult to imagine how else he could have handled it within a cinematic opera (the rock aspect only underlines how ridiculous a straight adaptation would have been).
It's as much a Ken Russell film as any of his previous films.
A jobbing director might have brought nothing new to the project and staged a straight forward adaptation of the album without leaving any forensic trace of who made it. Ken took the source material, adapted it with input from the band but still made a Ken Russell film.
All balls are chrome.
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 9/10
The New World 9/10
Midnight in Paris 10/10
Moneyball 10/10
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K-PAX
Don't know how I missed seeing this. I liked it alot.
“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison
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bkev said:
I haven't really explored '80s cinema outside of Spielberg, Lucas and The Breakfast Club. At least, I can't think of anything from the '80s off the top of my head outside of SW, Raiders, and the aforementioned John Hughes film. I tend to prefer movies from the late '70s back, and sometimes a few from the '90s.
That...that sounds like you haven't seen The Goonies. 
(Spielberg did produce and write it though)
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Is it bad that I didn't care for The Goonies or Ferris Bueller?
A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon
Has nothing really to do with the first two films. John Woo had nothing to do with this one, so producer Tsui Hark directed. Woo ha dwanted to do something in Vietnam as a prequel for the second film but left and wound up doing that idea for Bullet in the Head (Next up). This does the same thing although there really is no decent action, and it suddenly becomes a quasi romance (done badly.)
Pointless, and should have been called "people stand around in a cheap movie". Just full of NOTHING!!
1 ball out of 4 for Chow Yun-fat. That's it.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
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Yes.captainsolo said:
Is it bad that I didn't care for The Goonies or Ferris Bueller?