What DVD have you just watched?

Watched this very engaging and clever  film late Monday night on Film4.

Have seen it before but its been a while.

As good as the first time.

To cheer me up after a dire afternoon of football, this (second disc, so second series):

Who do you play for?

Being rubbish at most forms of physical activity, nobody Winky. But I pay for West Ham United.

I wasn't expecting much of this, given that most of the films Ron Howard makes are meretricious crap (A Beautiful Mind, da Vinci Code, Far & Away, etc), but I was pleasantly surprised. The racing scenes are exciting and extremely well done, and the two male leads put in convincing performances. A brilliant evocation of a more swashbuckling, romantic era in F1 - one that I remember very well as a young boy - when men were men and cars were giant fag packets. Howard's best film, I think (up there with Frost/Nixon), and recommended to F1 buffs if you haven't seen it.

Superlative wisecracking movie (from 1940) about the newspaper business by that great master of American cinema, Howard Hawks. Rosalind Russell is outstanding and sparks off her two male leads, hard-boiled hack Cary Grant and bland insurance man Ralph Bellamy, brilliantly.

They don't make 'em like that any more...

I enjoyed this one, too.  But I didn't expect to. I agree about the disappointing nature of the other Howard movies you mention though Apollo 13 was a good'un. Haven't seen Frost/Nixon yet. 

I thought Apollo 13 was oddly undramatic, MDS. I can remember being on tenterhooks as a kid as the real events were unfolding. BUT i felt Howard's film was flat and a bit lifeless, as if it were more concerned with the Academy members than with creating dramatic tension.

Peter Capaldi and the late James Gandolfini are always worth watching, and the swearing and insults in this movie from The Thick of It team are top-notch:

20 Feet from Stardom, excellent documentary.

First of the 1950s "atomic mutants" flicks, and by some way the best. Remember watching this as a kid on BBC2 in the early 1970s and being pretty freaked out. For a 60-year-old movie, the effects still stand up.

X-Men - Days of Future Past on Blu-Ray (this and the Blu-ray thread need combining). I'm a sucker for Marvel stories having collected the comics back in the 80's. 

Season 2 of this superb US comedy:

Just watched X-Men: The Last Stand, I really like most Marvel type films but X-Men just doesn't have any link to reality. I know it's fantasy but i like some form of grounding in the real world.

Quite enjoyable romp for all that. Doesn't McKellen look a dick in that hat?

Yes, very much enjoyed it. Terrific to hear what is arguably the best rock vocal performance in arguably the best rock song of all time, all by itself.

Vika and Linda Bull weren't in this doco, but for me, their work with Joe Camilleri is right up there with the best...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vika_and_Linda

The Art of the Piano:  Great Pianists of the 20th Century

A very brief look at each of the great pianists largely from say 1970 and earlier.  Hardly exhaustive but a nice introduction.  The overall tone of the video is leaning toward the perception that today we have no one that can match the greatness of these past generations.  The claim is also made that this group has never been exceeded in terms of technical ability.  There is no doubt in my mind that these men and women of this time represent greatness but it is stretching the point a little beyond what it should be to suggest that great pianists do not exist today.  

I would further divide out and put Rachmaninoff in a league above the group he is in as he was one of the last great composer pianists.  Everyone else here were just pianists.

So the debate rages on.  If any of these musicians lived today would they still enjoy the absolute reverence as they seemingly are given in the history books or would they be just one of the crowd?  Were the expectations that same then and now? 

Back in 1999, I went to see this at the cinema and was, I have to say, a bit disappointed. As might be expected from the man who directed two of the very best postwar American movies - that's Badlands and Days of Heaven - I was expecting much more from the first Terrence Malick picture in 20-odd years.

Last night we watched it again, on Blu-ray. It is still, as one might expect, a film of breathtaking and luminous beauty. But most of the things that annoyed me when I went to see it at the flicks still did. The voice-overs are banal, intrusive and profoundly irritating; the movie is just not tight enough (it should be 45 minutes shorter, I reckon); there are too many cast members and too many pointlessly fleeting cameos; Jim Caviezel smirks all the way through; the points about despoilation of nature are clumsily made; and some of the pacing and acting is woeful.

That said, the scenery is beautiful, the photography stunning, the attention to detail unimpeachable and the battle scenes are handled exceptionally well. As a contemporary war movie, it's better than examples like Saving Private Ryan, Platoon or Full Metal Jacket (but not as good as Band of Brothers, which at least allowed the viewer to engage with the characters).

However, it still feels like a step backwards from the glories of Badlands and Days of Heaven.

Bloody Daughter:  A Film by Stephanie Argerich

This is a fascinating look inside the world of Martha Argerich mainly and Stephen Kovacevich as viewed by their daughter Stephanie Argerich.  If you are a fan of Martha or Stephen you may want to avoid this documentary altogether though if you want to continue living in the glory of the perfect images you get of these people from the concert stage or all the albums you own.  In that world, stars they are but it is quite clear how the children of these stars certainly pay the price for their dysfunctional parents. 

The majority of the documentary focuses on Martha herself.  The concert stage and her music is where Martha lives.  This is the only form of reality that she seems to have conquered and understands.  Of course I do not know but the impression I get is that she simply cannot function outside of this specialized world where she is the queen and untouchable.  Within her private life though she seems unable to come to terms with any emotion.  She avoids answering direct questions and is evasive about this from her daughter's questions.  Being a mother or having nurturing qualities clearly seems to scare her and it was easily to go off somewhere in the world on tour.  What surprised me the most was her inability to articulate a clear thought as she stumbles through with half thoughts or incomplete sentences and just lets this fade out before changing the subject.

The title of the documentary, 'Bloody Daughter,' is actually attributed to Stephen Kovacevich.  He claims that this was actually a term of endearment.  One of the saddest moments of the film is when Stephanie has ongoing discussion with Stephen as to why he will not acknowledge in writing that he is indeed her father.   

Much of the film deals with Stephanie's view on how she came to terms with defining here own identity in the shadow of the two powerhouse parents.  The short answer is that these artists are who they are and can't really be any different than who they are.  It is the price to pay for there success.  The children are a distant second at best.

So this was to me a little perplexing and even sad to watch.  You have the daughter of Martha Argerich opening up the strange and complex world she grew up in a little.  She asks a lot of questions that just seems to bounce off her parents who seem very out of place in the world of parenting and in the end most of the questions never get answered for Stephanie.  But I think she already knew this going in and just has accepted it.

Just a little light fun, and a chance to practice my Italian with the subtitles...

One of those films that's good to have on DVD to re-watch every 5 years or so.

The Merc SL300 looks even more god dam sexy than Jeanne Moreau,

and the exhaust tunes give Mile's trumpet a good run for it's money.

Debs

I might get myself a copy of this DVD for that recommendation alone, Debs.  

Last night:

A (very) slow-paced spy movie directed by Robert de Niro, supposedly based on real people and real events. i can't vouch for its veracity, but The Good Shepherd was an absorbing movie, despite its  excessive length and an oddly (or perhaps appropriately) cypher-like lead performance from Matt Damon.

The cast - Damon, de Niro, Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin, Joe Pesci, Michael Gambon, John Turturro to name but a few - was superb and the movie's exploration of what spying/counter-intelligence does to people (ie, no good) was an interesting counterpoint to the usual Bondish/Bourne fayre.

Any Star Wars fans here? Just watched the Order 66 story arc, from the last season of Clone Troopers. In case you missed this: it completely explains order 66 and plugs one of the two big gaps in Revenge of the Sith. I can't believe how dark this series had become by the end - the quality of the writing, the relevance of the details, the direction, even the acting outshines the actual prequel movies which this series was aimed to bridge. It's a pity some of the Season 1 - 5 threads were left dangling after the premature ending of the series, but Season Six did a lot of things right.

EJ

A rather curious early 80s documentary on the Holocaust. Not a lot new historically, but some moving personal testament. Narrated by Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor; while the former is appropriately measured, the latter's readings of diaries and letters from victims sounds forced and hammy. It covers a lot in 90 minutes, but can you actually cover this subject in just an hour and a half?

I re-watched 'True Grit' which I liked immensely the first time I saw it.

I like it even more now - in great part for the beauty and incidental poetry of its language.