Haim, I have this on my Cinema Paradiso rental list. What did you think?
You will enjoy it, Richard.
Excellent acting:
I’ve got Blade Runner on a Laser Disc and I’ve never watched it. This is a reminder that I ought to, though it certainly looks like I would enjoy the modern DVD a lot more.
I was sitting next to the wife trying to be on my best behavior and not whine about another silly film about middle aged women that I am being to made to watch… Anyway, it was so bad that she herself uggested to turn it off midway through. I did not give her an argument.
We watched The Farewell last night, and apart from sometimes finding the subtitles a little tricky to read when there was a bright white background, I did enjoy it, so thanks Haim.
You are right, Richard, about the sub-standard subtitles. It was irritating too hear the grandmother keep calling her granddaughter ‘stupid’ instead of ‘silly’. They should have caught on to it and have made the easy correction.
Were they using Naim’s font Richard?
Ad Astra - 4K disc. Enjoyed it, but was expecting a little better. Picture slightly grainy, but good quality. Sound was fine, although nothing amazing.
…Ouch!
Kodak stock? Swear I saw the name on the end credits. Quite liked the sightly grainy look (Blu-ray), gave the film a bit of a 2001 look/feel.
Enjoyed it but felt the ending was a bit weak.
In Fabric
Bonkers British horror comedy about a possessed red dress sold by witches from a demonic clothes store.
Has a great soundtrack that reminds me of the best hammer horrors.
An absolutely fascinating documentary about the biggest film star there has ever been, Mary Pickford. The archetypal tough cookie, her career lasted from 1909 until 1930, she was the first star to earn $1m a year (back in 1916, aged 23), had complete creative control over her movies and was an extraordinarily astute businesswoman. Most significantly of all, she probably invented the idea of screen acting, abandoning very early in her career the “telegraphing” that had been common in cinema up until that time, for a more naturalistic style. Her marriage to the swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks was the very definition of a Hollywood romance.
Oddly, she is rather forgotten today.
Kevin Brownlow is the pre-eminent historian of the silent era and this is three-part documentary on the first important American director. Most famous for his hugely racist and, to modern eyes, stodgy (but technologically impressive and often innovative) Civil War epic The Birth of A Nation (1915), Griffith is a fascinating and contradictory figure, worthy of three hours’ examination.
Contrary to popular belief, Griffith did not invent the dissolve or the close-up or the cross/inter cut. But he was perhaps the first film-maker to use them in new ways, way which heightened emotional impact or moved the narrative forward. In many of his films, his editing techniques and Billy Bitzer’s use of moving cameras (on cranes, dollies, rails, cars, balloons etc) meant that the viewer was drawn into the action, or saw action from the protagonist’s point of view.
His pictures are often difficult to watch today – many of the attitudes contained within them are at best laughable, at worst deeply offensive; while others are often lurid or creakily sentimental melodramas and potboilers disguised as epics.
If anything fires up your interest in this flawed but important and influential director, it will be this exemplary documentary, which is on Amazon and YouTube:
This was my viewing pleasure tonight.
Brilliant, beautiful and as you say bonkers. If you love Peter Strickland (as I do) this is another Peter Strickland masterpiece.