Last movie seen — Page 132

Weird day so only had time to watch Ken Russell's interpretation of Holst's OP.32 The Planets Suite.

He does this using mostly found material from adverts and documentaries etc but with a few especially filmed sequences.

My favourite movement is Saturn: The Bringer Of Old Age.

It opens with a city graveyard with the tomb stones mirrored with skyscrapers.

He then represents entropy with motor cars both in traffic jams and wreckers yards and then with a production line and the toxic effects of the production line on the natural environment.

The message being that all things new must return to dust (or in this case rust).

Top marks for doing Mars : The Bringer Of War without actually showing much in the way of actual war footage (at the request of Holst's daughter)

7 Worlds.

That sounds like a great idea for an editing project.

Getting individual editors to take a single movement from an orchestral or instrumental piece and interpret it visually and then packaging them together as collection.

Ziggy Stardust could do an ode to low definition images set to Glass' Symphony No.1.

Bingowings said:

Weird day so only had time to watch Ken Russell's interpretation of Holst's OP.32 The Planets Suite.

He does this using mostly found material from adverts and documentaries etc but with a few especially filmed sequences.

My favourite movement is Saturn: The Bringer Of Old Age.

It opens with a city graveyard with the tomb stones mirrored with skyscrapers.

He then represents entropy with motor cars both in traffic jams and wreckers yards and then with a production line and the toxic effects of the production line on the natural environment.

The message being that all things new must return to dust (or in this case rust).

Top marks for doing Mars : The Bringer Of War without actually showing much in the way of actual war footage (at the request of Holst's daughter)

7 Worlds.

Bingowings was this on t.v. ?.

Long detailed version of the one word answer "yes" follows :

It was taped off the television (from the South Bank Show 1983).

The video vault here in the Chateau runs the whole length of a wall and is crammed with all manner of oddities (so much so that every time I open a door something of interest usually falls out)

When we got the notion to run a retrospective of Ken's work (prompted by a recent BBC Documentary).

I had a bit of a root around.

Actually I didn't need to root around much because I've got a nice little niche for Ken's stuff though I was hoping to wait for the totally restored version of The Devils to come out.

Seeing as Warner Bros now seem to want to pretend that film doesn't exist I have pre-ordered the BFI DVD of the UK Theatrical Cut which I have on VHS but it's one of my favorites so I'm pressing ahead and buying it again anyway.

I believe copies of The Planets are to be found in the usual places, to my knowledge it has never received a commercial release.

I mention it here because 99% of what we will be watching will be his cinema works.

Though I hope to get my hands on his television pieces (most of which predate my now ended habit of taping anything that took my fancy for consumption during my present dotage) as soon as finances will allow.

Inglourious Basterds

This is another fine example of a movie I've been holding out on for a while, despite the fact that everyone and their dog has been urging me to see it. I guess I really need to stop doing that, because this movie was FANTASTIC.

Being familiar with Tarantino's work, the first thing I knew what to expect was one thing: deplorable violence. And, since this is a film from him, I got exactly what I expected.

For those of you who haven't seen the film, it goes a little like this:

Surreal version of Nazi occupied France that appears to be really exaggerated. The Jews become Nazis, the Nazis still remain well, Nazis. There is also unexpected deaths, blood, morphine, more blood, David Bowie, historical inaccuracy, and even more blood.

In other words, it's a great watch.

One thing I noticed is that this film doesn't skip around. When a scene starts off in a vet's office, it's going to stay in that vet's office until it's time for the story to move on. This type of film making is very effective, and I wish there were more out there like it.

The best part of the film were the last thirty minutes or so.

Plus, Brad Pitt made me laugh so hard, particularly in the scene were he speaks Italian. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about

If you haven't seen this film already, don't do what I did and wait. Get off your lazy ass and see it now. You're doing yourself a favor.

9/10 REELS OF FLAMMABLE NITRITE FILM

the sea that thinks - 4/4 - a quasi-documentary/philosophical treatise/optical illusion/practical joke film about the screenwriter writing the screenplay for the movie while it's happening (this being a grand metaphor for how the mind creates the "I" that believes it is writing the script of its life). Unavailable in America due to distribution problems, the Dutch director sent me a DVD copy himself after I emailed him, which was quite nice. He said he doesn't fault Americans from downloading the film since it's otherwise impossible to get.

The Caller (2011)

Not too bad a film, even with the time travel-related plotholes. 5/10

doubleofive said:

 

Ziggy Stardust said:

Inglourious Basterds

...

10/10 REELS OF FLAMMABLE NITRITE FILM

That one got a huge "meh" from me. I can't remember anything about it, really.

 

Did I really give it that high of a rating?

(checks)

Yes. Yes I did. I guess I'll have to fix that.

doubleofive said:

 

Ziggy Stardust said:

Inglourious Basterds

...

10/10 REELS OF FLAMMABLE NITRITE FILM

That one got a huge "meh" from me. I can't remember anything about it, really.

 

You, sir, are dead to me.

I had a thought once that it would be interesting to do fanedits of Tarantino movies that really toned down the violence, because honestly that's the least interesting part of his movies to me.  Not sure if it would work, however, as I haven't thought about it that hard.

greenpenguino said:

TV's Frink said:

doubleofive said:

 

Ziggy Stardust said:

Inglourious Basterds

...

10/10 REELS OF FLAMMABLE NITRITE FILM

That one got a huge "meh" from me. I can't remember anything about it, really.

 

You, sir, are dead to me.

I had a thought once that it would be interesting to do fanedits of Tarantino movies that really toned down the violence, because honestly that's the least interesting part of his movies to me.  Not sure if it would work, however, as I haven't thought about it that hard.

Inglorious Ridiculousness?

Wouldn't it need to be Inglourious Rediculousness?

I love Tarantino, violence and all (I think wanting to edit out the violence, unless for censorship purposes, is kind of missing the point), but Inglorious Basterds definitely ranks as my least favorite of his films. Just slightly below Kill Bill. Not to say I don't like either of those films, I just don't think they are as good as his other stuff.

Hobo with a Shotgun

6 out of 10 spent cartridges.

The Ken Russell season continues.

Last night we watched Savage Messiah (1972).

Ken's biopic of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and his partner Sophie.

If you like fast but quotable dialogue, beautiful photography and Helen Mirren in her prime walking around in the nuddy you will love it.

If that's not your thing see a doctor.

Five molotovs.

Okay so with these movies, I have now seen 18 Best Picture winners in a row.

The English Patient 8/10

The Great Ziegfeld 7/10

My Fair Lady 8/10

The Life of Emile Zola 9/10

Mrs. Miniver 8/10

Unfortunately, watching solely BPs have become something of a chore. There's only eight left that I haven't seen, but I just need to take a break. So I watched:

Tootsie 10/10

In Cold Blood 9/10

captainsolo said:

And Reservoir Dogs is an inferior copy. This is the movie they accused Tarantino of ripping off, and I thought it wouldn't actually be that obvious. IT IS!

That's exactly what I thought after seeing David Lynch's Wild at Heart.

    BURIED. The best film made for a $1.50- EVER!