Last night I watched the latest blu-ray issue of Phase IV. I wasn’t sure what to expect here. I vaguely recalled the film from my school days and a few particular scenes stuck in the memory. In some respects it has dated, but in others it’s still well worth viewing.
Blimey Richard, that’s a blast from the past – must see it again, it really put the willies up me when I first saw it at late night Scala horror fest as a teenager…
Kev, the close up shots of the ants are as stunning as ever. But you may never look at ants in quite the same way again…
p.s. the 101 blu-ray also comes with quite a fancy booklet as well as a second disc of short films by Saul Bass.
Saving Private Ryan 4K. I bought this a year ago and for some unknown reason, never got round to watching it. 4K Dolby Vision picture is excellent. Pretty grainy, but crisp grain. I do like it when 4K resolution is so high, it shows the quality of the film used, not just the picture quality. Sound is very good. The only thing I would say is, years ago I used to have a cheap full surround sound and I distinctly remember the bullets & bombs pinging around our room. Really clever stuff and effective. Now I just have stereo, it’s 4K and a great 4K player, but even though the quality is better, it doesn’t have that magic of surround sound. Not many films I’d say that about.
Great film.
Apart from Eric and Ern, I can’t think of a funnier comic duo than Pryor and Wilder. This tale of two losers incartated in a brutal jail for a crime they didn’t commit is the apotheosis of their schtick – and it’s hilarious. Directed by Sidney Poitier and with a great supporting cast, this is one to enjoy again and again, particularly for the superb comic skills of the two leads.
Gene and Richard are wonderful in this clip:
Nicolas Cage is a funny one.
Much like Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise. Always plays himself.
He seems hell bent on making as many movies as they are days in the year.
I can remember reading some mathematical nerds hypothesis of the ratio of good ones.
This is a good one. Cage is 80% scary dude with 100% nightmare accomplice.
Sidney Poitier was very talented. Watched ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ last week, simply superb.
Humour at the other end of the range perhaps 
M
The Head Hunter. 2019.
From Sky premiere movies.
Bizarre shortish indie type. Not much dialogue or showing whats really going on. Still, compelling, dark humoured and visually fascinating.
Never really sure what the images is supposed to represent or what is actually seen, making one unsure if something grotesque is being witnessed.
One for true horror acolytes.
Braveheart (1995)
The story begins with young Wallace, whose father and brother have been killed fighting the English, being taken into the custody of his uncle, a nationalist and pre-Renaissance renaissance man. He returns twenty years later, a man educated both in the classics and in the art of war. There he finds his childhood sweetheart Murron and the two quickly fall in love. There are murmurs of revolt against the English throughout the village, but Wallace remains aloof, wishing simply to tend to his crops and live in peace. However, when his love is killed by English soldiers the day after their secret marriage (held secretly so as to prevent the local English lord from exercising the repulsive right of prima noctae, the privilege of sleeping with the bride on the first night of the marriage), he springs into action and single-handedly slays an entire platoon of foot soldiers. The other villagers join him in destroying the English garrison, and thus begins the revolt against the English in what will eventually become full-fledged war. Wallace eventually leads his fellow Scots in a series of bloody battles that prove a serious threat to English domination and, along the way, has a hushed affair with the Princess of Wales before his imminent demise.
Impressive movie!
One of my favourite.
SPR does make great use of surround sound. The beach landing scenes are something else.
Still don’t think there’s been a film since that’s captured war scenes as well and it’s over 20 years old.
As you say, a great film.
A bit of Marvel fun last night. I like that they don’t take themselves too seriously with plenty of in jokes throughout the film. It’s hard to keep up with the releases to stay with the Marvel Universe timeline. We watched Avengers End Game at the cinema months ago so should’ve watched this before that but hey ho! 
Still think they let him off lightly at the end 
From the fact that the Scots were wearing kilts to him having an affair with a woman who was a mere babe in arms at the time it isn’t the most reliable historical epic.
It’s a movie meant for entertainment, not a boring documentary …
A lot of people took it as being accurate , but we are drifting into politics…
47 meters down, Apple TV
The movie tells the story of two sisters on a Mexican vacation that are trapped in a shark observation cage at the bottom of the ocean, with oxygen running low and great whites circling nearby, they have less than an hour of air left to figure out how to get to the surface.
There is a large discrepancy between the specific design of the lenses of the cameras that captured the beach landing to make them look like optics used in 1944 while using the last word of digital sound effects of flying bullets ripping bodies.
I am probably the only person on this planet who disliked the film.