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The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

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    Originally posted by Atticus View Post
    Finally watched my Criterion release of Barry Lyndon. Only the second time I've seen it and the 4k resto looks absolutely stunning (the film is famous for basically looking like a painting in motion) ... it's one of the best looking films I've ever seen. In fact it's one of the best films I've ever seen, full stop. Can't wait to dive into that second disc full of special features.
    That just look incredible with HDR. I’ve never seen it but always heard about how incredible the photography is and how he used chiaroscuro in it with the candles etc. didn’t know it was on 4K now - will 100% check this out.

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      Adam Project: Great romp. Very funny if you like Ryan Reynolds, which I do.

      Black Hawk Down: Bizarrely I’d never seen this. I thought I had but I was thinking of Behind Enemy Lines. Anyway, Great War movie of course.

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        Originally posted by wakka View Post
        That just look incredible with HDR. I’ve never seen it but always heard about how incredible the photography is and how he used chiaroscuro in it with the candles etc. didn’t know it was on 4K now - will 100% check this out.
        It’s not a UHD release, it’s the Criterion blu which features a new 4k resto. Like Strangelove it may well come to UHD but for now the Criterion blu is outstanding (region A only).

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          Finally got round to watching The French Dispatch last night. It’s probably the most overtly Wes Anderson-y of Wes Anderson films. It looks fantastic with a mixture of colour, B&W, animated models, cartoon sequences and even a video game style chase sequence. The film has a introductory sequence and three stories followed by an epilogue. The second of the three stories is a bit weak but the other two are great. Jeffrey Wright gets more to do than anyone else in the film and doesn’t waste it. He is superb.
          If you like Mr Anderson’s stuff you’ll enjoy this but non regular viewers of his stuff may find it a bit much.

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            Spider-Man No Way Home - I've really enjoyed the 'Home' Spidey films and the third instalment is no disappointment. I'm not normally a fan of multiverse shenanigans but everything works here, creating some genuinely special moments. Also, the ending ... that's how to end a film ... a trilogy for that matter. Absolutely spot on.

            Originally posted by CMcK View Post
            Finally got round to watching The French Dispatch last night. It’s probably the most overtly Wes Anderson-y of Wes Anderson films. It looks fantastic with a mixture of colour, B&W, animated models, cartoon sequences and even a video game style chase sequence. The film has a introductory sequence and three stories followed by an epilogue. The second of the three stories is a bit weak but the other two are great. Jeffrey Wright gets more to do than anyone else in the film and doesn’t waste it. He is superb.
            If you like Mr Anderson’s stuff you’ll enjoy this but non regular viewers of his stuff may find it a bit much.
            Ta for the impressions ... if I'm in the right mood I do enjoy a bit of Wes. This is on Disney+ so I'll have to get round to watching.

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              Ratatouille

              Just like they nailed NYC’s smoky jazz bars in Soul, Pixar captures the atmosphere of candlelit Parisian restaurants. Chef’s kiss.

              Eurovision

              Endlessly watchable. I love everything about it. Let’s go sex nuts!

              JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

              This was a weird one. Unlike other Hollywood remakes of beloved Japanese mangas that try to stick closely to the source material, these guys decided to tear up the rule book and just go bonkers.

              It’s an origin story in the literal sense, with JoJo as a young boy. Of course he’s blonde and blue-eyed, because it wouldn’t be much of a whitewash otherwise. But they don’t stop there because - and this is pretty controversial - they make JoJo a Nazi!

              Not just a Nazi, but one with Hitler as his imaginary friend! Hitler with a NZ accent that creeps in. The actor is called Taiko Waitititi and Taiko is Japanese for drums and that’s the only link this film has to the story’s Japanese origins.

              You’d think that by this point the makers wouldn’t risk jumping the shark but here they are hanging around the seaside in their finest leather jackets because guess who plays JoJo’s mum? That’s right! Scarlett Johanson from Ghost in the Shell! Remember that kerfuffle?

              I wish I could say it was all uphill from there but I’ll just say this is the second Nazi-themed film I’ve seen that has a rather unhealthy obsession with feet.

              Murder on the Oriental Express

              Death on the Nile popping up on Disney+ persuaded me to watch the first one. Great stuff with a stellar cast.

              Death on the Nile

              Sumptuous. Also great stuff. Another stellar cast (French and Saunders!), and I was on the edge of my seat throughout.

              The Conjuring 2: Rentaghost

              I was in the mood for some horror and decided to check this out. I thoroughly enjoyed it - even more than the first film. My Apple Watch tells me my BPM was 90-100 through most of it, topping out at 108 near the end. Lovely! Early on the story seemed to match that of Ghostwatch and it pulled me out of it because I kept picturing Craig Charles and Sally Green. Soon it occurred to me that Ghostwatch was likely based on the same true story this film was, causing Craig and friends to vanish into that shadowy corner of my living room…

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                The Northman - proper beef-on-the-bone Viking grit from Robert Eggers (The VVitch and The Lighthouse). Violent as it is at times I'd say this is more accessible than the other two ... being more a straight-up revenge story. But it's all rooted in a dense ancient lore and an atmosphere that feels authentic. Enjoyed it. Cinema was packed too, like sold out.

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                  Manhunt - been meaning to watch it for ages. A return to the old skool gun-fu with a heap of Woo hall marks, the paused scene transitions, doves, slo-mo, motorbikes and guns, lots of guns. It could have been great, it seemed very, very low budget. Choreography was pants to be honest. None of the ballet of old. Still was enjoyable if disappointing at the same time.

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                    The Batman:

                    Utter tripe. They should just stop making Batman movies. Point awarded for not spending half an hour on his parents death like they usually do but otherwise overly familiar territory that in some with. The best Batman movie is still the Gotham tv series.

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                      I watched Inside Man over the weekend. It was well made and yet just didn't fully land for me. I think I was probably hoping it to turn out smarter than it did. But it was good to see Clive Owen. I'll always wonder why he wasn't bigger. I think he's great.

                      Then I just wanted a comfort watch so rewatched the classic Kickboxer. Again. I could just keep watching that movie.

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                        I’m with you on Clive Owen. Should be as big as Cage really.

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                          Clive Warren, you mean.

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                            Stan and Ollie

                            I hold Laurel and Hardy in the highest esteem possible. They were better than any of their contemporaries, and they’ll always be my comfort watch. Their influence on the comedy world is simply staggering, even to this day.

                            With this in mind, I had some reservations about this film. I wanted their flame to be kept alive, but I didn’t want their legacy to be abused by made-up nonsense.

                            I needn’t have worried. It’s a deft, light-touch film, that showcases them as friends as well as work partners. The whole film is a very touching tribute, lovingly crafted, and the recreations of classic scenes really did bring a smile to my face. John C Reilly is excellent as Babe Hardy, with a performance that packs a real punch. Steve Coogan is astonishing as Stan. He has the voice and mannerisms down to a fine art, but this is no impression. He affords Stan’s desperation to keep the Boys together real weight. Mind, the facial tics, movements and subtleties of Stan’s performances is captured brilliantly, too. I’ve watched the films so many times over the years, yet, hand on heart, at times I couldn’t tell Laurel and Coogan apart.

                            A lovely film for a lifelong fan like me. 8/10

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                              I've seen that ^ twice now and it is a great piece of drama with the two leads giving outstanding performances.

                              As a side note my father got genuine Laurel and Hardy photo + autographs whilst they were on one of their post WW2 British tours - no idea what happened to it but I remember seeing it when I was a kid. I also even remember the first time I saw a Laurel and Hardy film on TV when I was probably only 6 or 7 years old at friends house.

                              They regularly showed their films on BBC 1 in the mornings during the school holidays for decades so there must be at least three UK generations who grew up enjoying their work.

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                                I’d love a photo autographed by them. It’s the type of grail collectible that I can’t see me ever getting, though.

                                I grew up with them. My dad used to show their films on a vhs recorded off the tv. There weren’t many until one summer holiday, when BBC2 showed a season. Every morning, two or three shorts, either before or after Why Don’t You? came on. It must’ve been 1991 or 1992. We recorded them all, and I watched them on loop for years. They ended up battered and fractured. Some models of old vhs had a function whereby you could start to record the programme showing in the ‘background’ over the recording you were currently watching. I’ve no idea why. But as I fumbled with the remote, trying to use the ‘rewind’ function in-picture so that I could see a gag again, occasionally I’d hit record instead. It was only ever for a second until I realised, but it meant that several of my Laurel and Hardy recordings occasionally jumped to a second of whatever was on tv at the time. Eventually I got fresh copies and filled in any gaps in their filmography when I bought that big box of DVDs.

                                It’s scandalous that in these days of streaming and mega-libraries on demand, it’s so hard to watch their films. Talking Pictures occasionally show a short, but it’s not hitting new audiences at all.

                                I much prefer them to Keaton, Lloyd and Chaplin. They are all legends, but Stan grasped something about film-making far quicker than all of them. Laurel and Hardy’s transition to sound was utterly seamless. Immediately, he started to experiment with the possibilities of sound. Verbal gags flooded their output, whilst still retaining the core of slapstick and comic mannerisms. In one film, Unaccustomed As We Are, he introduced a section whereby Mae Busch starts nagging Oliver. Hardy turns around and puts a record on to drown her out. Oblivious, Mae blends her rant into the pace and rhythm of the music. Stan starts to quietly dance along behind them, until she realises what’s happening and smashes the record over Hardy’s head. This was 1929. It’s an astonishingly aware piece of filmmaking at a time when most film comics feared sound, never mind considered building a gag around it. Not just a quick verbal joke, either. Something far more ambitious.

                                It would be criminal to allow two hugely influential titans of film to be lost to the ether when films have never been easier to see.
                                Last edited by prinnysquad; 23-04-2022, 07:15.

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