saw a talkie at the picture show: new film thread

[G.C.R]

from here

I watched the Powell/Pressberger film A Canterbury Tale the other night! I brought it, and Old Yeller, and Out of the Past on VHS cuz I'm old school like that. A Canterbury Tale was consistently charming. In WW2 a land girl, a British soldier and an American soldier get stranded in a village for a day or so, and must solve the terrifying monty-pythonesque mystery of who is running up to young women at night and putting glue in their hair and then running away again. And then they go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and wonderful blessings happen to them, and that could be cheesy and trite seeming, but in this film it feels, well, really touching. These guys to utterly romantically touching really well.

[Ah_Pook]

if you ever wanted to hear adorable old married couples talk about gang bangs be sure to check out American Swing on netflix instant. its a documentary about Plato's Retreat, a huge swingers club in NYC in the 70s. its pretty dang entertaining.

[Ah_Pook]

also im downloading these Star Wars Despecialized Editions. im pretty excited about the whole thing. the guy that did this is totally nuts in the best possible way.

link

[jm]

Man, yeah.  It certainly looks like he put a lot of work into it.  Damn.

[G.C.R]

I watched three good films recently -
Basil the Great Mouse Detective, a pre-Disney renaissance animated film from 1987 or so. I think this is pretty underrated, way better than most of the dross that that studio put out in the years following. And interesting for how both the hero and the villain both smoke constantly; you don't see that in kids films now.

Keeping with the Sherlock Holmes-y theme I had going with Basil, I then watched Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr., which I'd never seen, and I liked it enough to watch it two nights in a row. It's enjoyably daffy, with much of the action being a dream sequence where Buster dreams he's in a film (with some nice bits where he runs through the cinema towards the screen, climbs into it and then is booted out). and some just fantastic stunt work. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Cp5fTvEWdh4 .

Then last night I watched Never Let Me Go, and was surprised and delighted by this sad, languid little film, and by Keira Knightley being better than I always expect her to be.

[clare]

I hardly ever read this thread these days (never go to the movies), but the bloke bought the Steig Larsson trilogy when he was in the US recently, and we've sat down and watched the first one and half of the second - we're old, we have to watch them in installments. We'd seen The Girl Who Played With Fire at the movies (we had a gift pass we needed to use, and though we didn't really know anything we thought it might be OK). We loved it so much that we walked straight to the Borders next to the cinema and bought all the books, which I then read, btu the bloke still hasn't.

So the first movie I like almost as much as we liked the second one. it helps having read it, but it's not vital. the best thing really is that we've decided to watch them.

[edison]

Then last night I watched Never Let Me Go, and was surprised and delighted by this sad, languid little film, and by Keira Knightley being better than I always expect her to be.

Man, I was pretty sure from seeing the trailer for that movie that it would be complete boring sappy garbage, but with you and a couple of other people whose opinion I respect liking it quite a bit, I think I may have made an error of judgement!

The only film I've seen lately was Attenberg, directed by a lady who's apparently a friend and collaborator of Lanthimos, who himself directed Dogtooth - a film I utterly hated - and it was nothing like Dogtooth, or more accurately a little bit like it but with 150% more love and care for humanity, and less of a desire to be as gratuitously shocking as possible. Plus silly dances and Françoise Hardy and awkward sex. Pretty great, all in all!

[elpollodiablo]

I'm screening Southland Tales for some folks from the English department tonight. Got a projector from the libary and everythin.

Debating whether or not to subject them to the Cannes cut with the 20min of additional footage, since I haven't seen it before and I'm kind of curious. Three hours might be a little cruel.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

think it's best to introduce people to the version of the film you fell in love with

given the director's cut of donnie darko, any cuts that kelly made to his film under pressure are probably for the best

[Captain]

Word. Trust the cutting room floor.

[G.C.R]

Then last night I watched Never Let Me Go, and was surprised and delighted by this sad, languid little film, and by Keira Knightley being better than I always expect her to be.

Man, I was pretty sure from seeing the trailer for that movie that it would be complete boring sappy garbage, but with you and a couple of other people whose opinion I respect liking it quite a bit, I think I may have made an error of judgement!

I quite like boring sappy garbage, thank you very much! And speaking of sappy, but really not garbage, oh my, All that Heaven Allows, wow. I especially liked all the SUBTLE references to Rock Hudson being a big ol' gay.

[peacocks]

I see All that Heaven Allows in the library a lot, I should check it out.

I watched Glitter tonight starring the one and only Mariah Carey. It was bad, but the music rules. They had gap band deep zipper effects on all the dance tracks.

[peacocks]

Today I watched half of blue velvet and then the dvd stopped working :/

I watched fire walk with me Friday night and wow. A month of David Lynch viewing has influenced me in ways I did not foresee. A weekend full of dreary rainy weather isn't helping.

[nonotyet]

Dear nonotyet,
It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.
This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.
While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.
We're constantly improving our streaming selection. We've recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we've added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.
We value you as a member, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get your movies & TV shows.
Respectfully,
The Netflix Team

[elpollodiablo]

What a shitshow. I think we're going to finally cancel our Netflix (again) because honestly the marginal convenience of streaming stuff instead of downloading it just isn't worth it any longer. Especially since the stable of content is still relatively stale.

[nonotyet]

I can see that.

I have only ever gotten DVDs, and Evan has streaming, so I am keeping it because it is like I get BOTH FOR THE DVD PRICE. 

[jm]

What a shitshow. I think we're going to finally cancel our Netflix (again) because honestly the marginal convenience of streaming stuff instead of downloading it just isn't worth it any longer. Especially since the stable of content is still relatively stale.

For me, there's still plenty of stuff on there that I haven't yet seen and won't exhaust in the next, I don't know, five years. Plus I don't have unlimited space on my machines, not unlimited time for downloading.

[YojimboMonkey]

Man I dig my netflix streaming.  All that delicious Star Trek.  Also Troll Hunter ruled

[Thermofusion]

I've been watching DS9 on my android at work. Maybe I should add this to my Experience Highlights.

[auto-da-fey]

Man, I have not been watching films at all lately, mostly because I spend most of my life on trains going back and forth across frickin' New Jersey. I have, nonetheless, become a member of the International House in Philly, mostly to help out a friend who's volunteering there and hoping to land a job.

So now I have all this free access to screenings and no time to actually attend them--which leaves me considering drastic action on Friday, seeing a 224-minute Bollywood film about ... cricket?

I know virtually nothing about the whole Bollywood phenomenon, except that I get a sense that these are mostly films that would seem not to generally appeal to me, save for a wild exuberance that might make all the dancing more palatable. I am a sucker for exuberance, not so much for dancing.

So, has anyone seen Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India? Would it be a good intro to this particular style of spectacle? Or will I wish I had stayed home to watch three grimy 70-minute grindhouse features from 1968 instead?

[jebreject]

Man I dig my netflix streaming.  All that delicious Star Trek.  Also Troll Hunter ruled

This.

Though, yes, Netflix is a shitshow right now, WTF are they thinking.

[clare]

So now I have all this free access to screenings and no time to actually attend them--which leaves me considering drastic action on Friday, seeing a 224-minute Bollywood film about ... cricket?

I know virtually nothing about the whole Bollywood phenomenon, except that I get a sense that these are mostly films that would seem not to generally appeal to me, save for a wild exuberance that might make all the dancing more palatable. I am a sucker for exuberance, not so much for dancing.

So, has anyone seen Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India? Would it be a good intro to this particular style of spectacle? Or will I wish I had stayed home to watch three grimy 70-minute grindhouse features from 1968 instead?

I haven't seen it, but I suspect your initial feeling about it is correct. If it were about something other than cricket, I'd say "go for it" but this one reeks of "Commonwealth" to me, so unless you're particularly interested in exploring those facets, I'd say "not this time". I mean, generally what you're going to get with Bollywood is a simple tortured love story that runs over 3+ hours with lots of colour and movement. Sometimes they skip the love story to make way for a 'social commentary' kind of thing, which is what Lagaan sounds like, though there may well be a tortured love story in there too, sometimes you get both...

[Good Intentions]

I have to disagree with clare on every point. GCR showed my Lagaan, and it's hardly about cricket at all. It's about the English being dicks (with exceptions) and Indians being able to overcome adversity (ie foreign assholes) by banding together across cultural divides - ie its an artefact of the Indian national project. It has exuberance and colour in spades, as well as out-of-the-blue painstakingly choreographed dance sequences. It's also important in the history of Bollywood (I've been told), given that it's one of the first enormous blockbusters. Can't say it's an especially deep or meaningful film, but it's certainly a boisterous one and not without considerable charm. I know GCR and Anne will rep for this film just as farmers praise the rain.

[auto-da-fey]

"boisterous" is what drove it home there; after an exhausting week, that sounds like nice recuperation.

not that your warnings are going completely unheeded, clare--still not convinced this will deeply resonate with me, just that ... well, how often does one get to see a film like this on the big screen, for free?

let this not preclude the sisters R. from repping, I may need the added motivation-boost to, like, get out of bed in time to make it.

[auto-da-fey]

(on which, there's also Bela Tarr's new one at the Philly Film Fest screening at noon on a Saturday {!!! }, but that's not for a few weeks and can wait)