What DVD have you just watched?
Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 27 November 2005
All the best from Fredrik
The Killing Fields on Studio Canal Blu-Ray.
I can still so clearly remember the first time I saw this film. I was staying in London with my sister and her husband and the plan was to go to the cinema one evening and see this film. I knew little or nothing about it before we went and was utterly riveted throughout. I had learned little about Cambodia at school. The only thing of note as I recall was when our Geography teacher explained that what was once Cambodia had been renamed Kampuchea. We didn't ask why, and he didn't go on to explain.
In later years I was lucky enough to attend a talk given by Dith Pran who was then working as a photojournalist for the New York Times in the US. And more recently our book club was reading Jon Swain's River of Time and he came to dinner to talk about the book and his experience in Vietnam and Cambodia. So, you could say that thanks to this film, I have learned a great deal more about the events behind Cambodia becoming Kampuchea, and it's a film I can return to again and again, with a lovely soundtrack too, courtesy of Mike Oldfield.
This latest viewing of the film was the first time I've seen it on blu-ray. Previously I had favoured the US Region 1 DVD, which was the best way to view the film outside of the cinema. I can't really say that the blu-ray improves on that excellent Region 1 DVD that much but it's certainly a good step up over the old non-anamorphic pan and scan UK DVD.
Drikus posted:
I very much like that film. So many memorable scenes. Caine is excellent in it. Must watch it again soon.
If you like Get Carter then I can highly recommend a slightly earlier film from 1970 called The Reckoning starring Nicol Williamson.
Here's a short synopsis from IMDB:
Michael Marler, a successful business man in London, is about to make his way to the top. The death of his father brings him - after 37 years - back to his hometown Liverpool, where he is confronted with his lost Irish roots. He finds out that his father died because of a fight with some anglo-saxon teddy boys. It becomes "a matter of honour" for him, to take his revenge without involving the British police. —Michael Schoemburg
Ring any bells...?
The good news is that there's an excellent limited edition Blu-ray + DVD release from Indicator that's still available.
Trailer from The Reckoning looks good Richard so I ordered the Indicator blu-ray together with these other three, also from Indicator;
From 1978. Crude, rude, , offensive, insanely successful, hugely influential and very funny. A career-defining performance from the late great John Belushi.
As an Englishman, I find the American Frat/Sorority system both baffling and rather creepy (we don't have an equivalent here) but hell, I would join the Deltas!
Richard Dane posted:The Killing Fields on Studio Canal Blu-Ray.
I can still so clearly remember the first time I saw this film. I was staying in London with my sister and her husband and the plan was to go to the cinema one evening and see this film. I knew little or nothing about it before we went and was utterly riveted throughout. I had learned little about Cambodia at school. The only thing of note as I recall was when our Geography teacher explained that what was once Cambodia had been renamed Kampuchea. We didn't ask why, and he didn't go on to explain.
In later years I was lucky enough to attend a talk given by Dith Pran who was then working as a photojournalist for the New York Times in the US. And more recently our book club was reading Jon Swain's River of Time and he came to dinner to talk about the book and his experience in Vietnam and Cambodia. So, you could say that thanks to this film, I have learned a great deal more about the events behind Cambodia becoming Kampuchea, and it's a film I can return to again and again, with a lovely soundtrack too, courtesy of Mike Oldfield.
This latest viewing of the film was the first time I've seen it on blu-ray. Previously I had favoured the US Region 1 DVD, which was the best way to view the film outside of the cinema. I can't really say that the blu-ray improves on that excellent Region 1 DVD that much but it's certainly a good step up over the old non-anamorphic pan and scan UK DVD.
Browsing through cassettes for sale as I did lately I saw that this soundtrack is available if your interested.
I watched this again last nice. A random selection really. I've never thought it as good as the original but it still has merit. Obviously the special effects are well done. Gort is much more impressive in this than the 'bendy toy' of the original. Reeves does a passable job of being the cold and emotionless alien, though I still prefer Rennie. And I think the writers deserve some credit for how they imagined the apocolyptic means by which the aliens decide to cleanse the earth.
If anything I think I enjoyed vol 2 more than the first movie, which is a bit unusual for sequels. The wit was fast and clever. I'll be watching both movies again and looking forward to the next instalment.
Out at last on BRD in the UK (an HMV exclusive). Could this be the greatest American picture of the 1970s? Maybe - there's a lot of competition though - Coppola's Godfather flicks, plus The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, Polanski's Chinatown, The Last Picture Show by Bogdanovic, Spielberg's Duel and Jaws, Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Friedkind's French Connection, along with other contenders like Five Easy Pieces, A Woman under The Influence, MASH, Serpico, All The President's Men, Malick's second film, Days Of Heaven...
I think Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973) is my favourite, though. It's also the most striking debut by an an American film-maker since Welles' Citizen Kane back in 1941; and perhaps the most poetic piece of movie-making since The Colour of Pomegranates (Sergei Paradjanov, 1968).
A haunting and jaw-droppingly beautiful tale of violence perpetrated by teenage runaways, it's inspired by a true story - the notorious 1958 killing spree perpetrated by the 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and his 15-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate – which left 10 people dead and shook Ike's complacent 1950s America to its core.
Here the story is transposed to 1959 and stars 31-year-old(!) Martin Sheen as the Starkweather figure Kit Carruthers (clearly modelled on James Dean) and 24-year-old Sissy Spacek as Fugate (renamed for the movie as Holly Sargis).
As well as placing his characters in the vast Midwestern landscape, ensuring that they seem as lost as we know them to be; Malick's genius is to contrast the horror (and poetic beauty) of what we see with Holly Sargis' banal and unreliable narration. And the cinemastography of Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Probyn is just as masterful (as is Malick's script, and the performance of the two leads, supported by Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri).
A film this good, and this ravishing, deserves to be seen in the best possible quality, and this is an excellent Blu-ray transfer.
Started binge watching Bosch Season 4 on Amazon Prime.
MDS posted:
I watched this again last nice. A random selection really. I've never thought it as good as the original but it still has merit. Obviously the special effects are well done. Gort is much more impressive in this than the 'bendy toy' of the original. Reeves does a passable job of being the cold and emotionless alien, though I still prefer Rennie. And I think the writers deserve some credit for how they imagined the apocolyptic means by which the aliens decide to cleanse the earth.
I've never seen the original, but thought the 2008 movie stood well on its own merit. Often low/negative ratings associated with the remake, I found it engrossing enough to re-watched some years after. The interaction between Reeves and Jennifer Connelly is good, and who'd have cast John Cleese as a Nobel-prize physicist? It all worked for me.
joerand posted:MDS posted:
I watched this again last nice. A random selection really. I've never thought it as good as the original but it still has merit. Obviously the special effects are well done. Gort is much more impressive in this than the 'bendy toy' of the original. Reeves does a passable job of being the cold and emotionless alien, though I still prefer Rennie. And I think the writers deserve some credit for how they imagined the apocolyptic means by which the aliens decide to cleanse the earth.
I've never seen the original, but thought the 2008 movie stood well on its own merit. Often low/negative ratings associated with the remake, I found it engrossing enough to re-watched some years after. The interaction between Reeves and Jennifer Connelly is good, and who'd have cast John Cleese as a Nobel-prize physicist? It all worked for me.
The original is well-worth a viewing joerand. It's black & white, the effects are very creaky, but the story is excellent. Should be easy and cheap to find.