Last Movie You Watched

[71 dB]

Saturn 3 (Stanley Donen, 1980) (German Blu-ray)

[asin]B077QZDL5D[/asin]
I love this kind of scifi from this era and Stanley Donen directs this just the correct style.

Christine (John Carpenter, 1983) (German Blu-ray)

[asin]B00LIDEW5M[/asin]
Well directed movie by John Carpenter of teenagers and their problems with an evil car.

[André]

You're welcome, André! I stumbled on Le baron fantôme  when going through Cocteau's  filmography (films directed, written by,  or in any other way connected to him). I've now ordered L'éternel retour (1943, directed by Jean Delannoy), Ruy Blas (1948, Pierre Billon) and Thomas l'imposteur (1965–i.e. posthumously, but Cocteau had apparently worked on the screenplay before his death in 1963–, directed by Georges Franju). I'm having trouble locating L'aigle à deux têtes (Cocteau's 1948 filming of his own play). I have seen Michelangelo Antonioni's later version, Il mistero d'Oberwald (with Monica Vitti), which is kind of the odd man out in Antonioni's output.

With L'aigle... I think I'll have seen the complete JC filmography.

Interestingly, Pedro Almodóvar has just released—at the Venice Biennale—an English language adaptation of La voix humaine (with Tilda Swinton).

And BTW, I definitely need to watch Les visiteurs du soir. Thanks for the reminder!

You're far ahead of me. I'm not familiar with Cocteau's films - except his masterpiece, La Belle et la Bête, of course - a cult movie if ever there was one.

Antonioni was Carné's assistant for Les visiteurs du soir. A young Alain Resnais plays a small role. Script and dialogues by Jacques Prévert. High quality across the set !

A very hieratic film, far from the hubbub and high romanticism of Carné's next film, Les enfants dû paradis. You could be forgiven to think it was the work of Dreyer !

[Karl Henning]

For the second time: The Best Years of Our Lives

[milk]

A Brighter Summer Day

Definitely one of the best movies ever made.

[SonicMan46]

Susan & I have been watching a lot of TV series, PBS shows, and documentaries - BUT, a couple of films owned as BDs in the last few nights:

To Catch a Thief (1955) w/ Cary Grant & Grace Kelly; Alfred Hitchcock, director - short synopsis below - just a few classic comments, e.g. the cameo of Hitchcock on the bus next to Grant (one of the better ones, IMO) and the car chase scenes around of roads of the French Riviera - highly recommended.

The Third Man (1949) w/ Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard - a British film noir w/ a great cast in search of the disappearing Harry Lime, played by Welles; plus a beautiful Valli - short summary below - the Vienna sewer scenes were mostly on location - also highly recommended.  Dave

To Catch a Thief is an American romantic thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  The film stars Cary Grant[3] as a retired cat burglar who has to save his reformed reputation by catching an imposter preying on the wealthy tourists of the French Riviera. Grace Kelly stars opposite him as his romantic interest in her final film with Hitchcock. (Source)

The Third Man is a British film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Set in postwar Vienna, the film centers on American Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that Lime has died. Viewing his death as suspicious, Martins elects to stay in Vienna and investigate the matter.(Source)

     

[71 dB]

Die Neun Pforten (The Ninth Gate) (Roman Polanski, 1999) Liongate Blu-ray

[asin]B079VD2YTB[/asin]

Great movie! If you like Rosemary's Baby and Kubrick's Eye Wide Shut you should enjoy this. Wojciech Kilar's music works very well. This was DVD to Blu-ray upgrade, but sadly the picture quality is pretty pathetic and the improvement was quite marginal. British or Nordic releases don't even exist!

4.5/5 for the movie, 2/5 for the lame Blu-ray.

[Karl Henning]

Susan & I have been watching a lot of TV series, PBS shows, and documentaries - BUT, a couple of films owned as BDs in the last few nights:

To Catch a Thief (1955) w/ Cary Grant & Grace Kelly; Alfred Hitchcock, director - short synopsis below - just a few classic comments, e.g. the cameo of Hitchcock on the bus next to Grant (one of the better ones, IMO) and the car chase scenes around of roads of the French Riviera - highly recommended.

The Third Man (1949) w/ Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard - a British film noir w/ a great cast in search of the disappearing Harry Lime, played by Welles; plus a beautiful Valli - short summary below - the Vienna sewer scenes were mostly on location - also highly recommended.  Dave

     

Two faves, Dave!

[Karl Henning]

And so, taking your cue: To Catch a Thief

[SonicMan46]

And so, taking your cue: To Catch a Thief

+1 Karl - enjoy!  Dave

[Karl Henning]

And then: A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, which gets even better each viewing.

[steve ridgway]

Die Neun Pforten (The Ninth Gate) (Roman Polanski, 1999) Liongate Blu-ray

I've enjoyed it a couple of times on TV, great story.

[SimonNZ]

I've enjoyed it a couple of times on TV, great story.

I remember enjoying the book but being disappointed by the film. I should give the film another chance now the the details of the book have faded and I wont be making a constant comparison.




recently watched:



Dated and baggy, but still of enough interest to not put me off eventually getting around to the John le Carre novel on which its based, and which I'm told it has a large number of very significant differences.

The producers clearly thought Christopher Jones was going to be the next big heartthrob of cinema as far to many scenes are in service of that goal rather than the story.

[aligreto]

Puzzle





Who would have thought that jigsaw puzzles would form the basis of a very good, coherent and meaningful film.

[71 dB]

Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) German Blu-ray

[asin]B005GIB1UY[/asin]

After the disappointment of the The Ninth Gate picture quality I was pleased to see Blue Velvet has good proper picture quality. Somehow I found this movie now even more interesting than before. I feel like my understanding of Lynch's art has improved since last time I watched this (DVD about 15 years ago). I think Lynch has been "testing out" ideas in his movies and tv-shows. Blue Velvet was a step toward Twin Peaks for example and Lost Highway was a step toward Mulholland Drive. Even Twin Peaks season 3 is a refined version of original Twin Peaks (soap opera elements are removed and the weirdness is bolder).

4/5

[Karl Henning]

The Big Sleep

[71 dB]

Ju-On (Takashi Shimizu, 2002)
Ju-On II (Takashi Shimizu, 2003)
(Nordic Blu-ray release)

Being a big fan of J-Horror I am lucky to live in Finland as these iconic Japanese horror movies got their first Blu-ray release outside Japan in Nordic countries. If that's not enough, this set of both movies costs only 9,95 € (about $12) new! Sure, it is a "cheap" release without extras or fancy packaging, but that's enough for me. The picture quality is nowhere near reference level, but it's decent and gives a BIG improvement over the DVD releases. The first movie has perhaps better picture quality while the second movies has very pale picture, but that's probably part of the aesthetics as all Japanese movies of this era tend to be more or less pale with a yellow tint.

This release has ONLY Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish subtitles and is most probably B-locked. Hopefully these movies get a wider release with other subtitles as Nordic countries is quite a small area with only about 25 million people.

These two movies are not the most scary I have seen, but the over "hopeless" mood of brutal excessive realism in these movies is excellent imho. I have waited for these movies on Blu-ray for almost 10 years and now it finally happened!

Sadako (Hideo Nakata, 2019)
(Nordic Blu-ray release)

My order of the Ju-On set included this newer J-Horror flick connected to the Ring-movies. This one has excellent picture quality of course, but the movie is a bit commonplace. The girl who plays the re-incarnated Sadako, Himeka Himejima, does great work in the movies. Again, only Nordic subtitles available, but this one is only for the biggest fans of J-Horror.

[Karl Henning]

In a sense, for the first time (previous viewings were all marred by the odd disc dropout): Revenge of the Sith.  Overall, good. Indeed, some bits are probably as good as anything I've seen of Lucas's.  The script and casting have their weaknesses: I'd call Natalie Portman fair, and I don't think I've ever seen poorer acting in a major role than Hayden Christenson here.

Will I watch it again? Not in any hurry, to be sure.  I do have the  disc, so . . . never say never.

[aligreto]

The Nightingale





A hard hitting narrative about the English colonial system in New Zealand as told through the eyes of a young Irish convict who had [amongst many others] suffered at their hands. Be prepared for graphic scenes of rape and violence as it does not make for easy viewing.

[Madiel]

In a sense, for the first time (previous viewings were all marred by the odd disc dropout): Revenge of the Sith.  Overall, good. Indeed, some bits are probably as good as anything I've seen of Lucas's.  The script and casting have their weaknesses: I'd call Natalie Portman fair, and I don't think I've ever seen poorer acting in a major role than Hayden Christenson here.

Will I watch it again? Not in any hurry, to be sure.  I do have the  disc, so . . . never say never.

Yeah. Episode III. That's the one that actually becomes kind of bearable to watch. And dare I say it, that's partly because Hayden is less of a pain than he was in Episode II.

[Karl Henning]

It says something, if the best actor in the role of Anakin Skywalker has been a child.