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OK - so has anyone else gone to the cinema in the past week or so only to be subjected to to that fucking H&M advert that purports to be a trailer for a Romeo and Juliet ad? It feels travelling to Skull Island to capture a 100ft tall ape only to discover that the ape is gay and angry and confused and is going chase you down and buttfuck you. At first there's the creeping horror of what's happening, the realisation that there's no escape and then the pounding, relentless interminable nastiness of it all.
Firstly the advert goes on for fucking ever. It's about twice as long as your average movie trailer, and basically consists of this terrible, terrible woman singing this terrible, terrible song, while people act out a supposed modern version of Romeo and Juliet. Amazingly, this short film actually manages to get the plot of the play badly wrong despite the fact that it's one of the most famour stories ever told. Throughout it all people wear clothes that presumably can be purchased at H&M, though I don't really remember much about them, just that every time the advert appeared to be about to end, the woman started wailing, and the whole mess kicked off again. No matter how much you grit your teeth and try and will for it to stop it just starts hammering away at you again.
H&M, of course, recently dropped Kate Moss from their ads, feeling that she was out of sync with whatever values they wanted to assocuiate with their brand. It's hard to imagine that a few pics in the paper of Kate snorting coke could be nearly as destructive as the power of this 'trailer'. Kate would have to be caught injecting heroin straight into the eyeballs of schoolchildren while smothering a new born child with an H&M branded jumper before holding up a placard stating "H&M Gives You AIDS" for it to come anywhere near the devastating effect this ad has for the 'brand values' of H&M.
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I think I'm going to complain to the Advertising Standards Agency- mainly about the length and placing of the ad in the trailers section.
Then Odeon Cinemas on their woeful decision to screen this instead of trailers for things like Harry Potter, King Kong and things that people might actually want to see. Especially as this shite-spew came a few seconds after an ad telling us that piracy is bad, and the Cinema Experience is best.
Then H&M telling them I hate them.
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There was a great anti piracy ad on when I went last night. It started out as a trailer for Narnia. Then, much to my relief, the image started to be come blurry, and the sound tinny, and over the course of about a minute the screen shrank to the size of a postage stamp and the sound became little more than a hiss over the speakers, before a booming voice asked the audience why they would want to watch pirate dvds which looked like that. It was like being at the 5 minute's hate..
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When I last went to the cinema I paid TWELVE QUID per ticket to watch wolf creek, so in that case, they're answering their own question. Warning: Do NOT go to the Vue cinema.
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The kind of advert Ringo refers to there has always struck me as particularly fucking stupid. Of course no one wants to watch dodgy films, I doubt there's anyone in any audience watching that then turning to their mate and going "Fuck, they're totally right, shit quality video and audio really does suck! I'd never realised this before but now the scales have fallen from mine eyes!" It's all so self-evident that it's rendered utterly pointless and certainly doesn't work as an anti-piracy statement because getting your hands on a copy of something that's decent quality isn't a difficult thing these days.
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I picked up a perfect copy of North Pole 37 from one of those guys. Then a shitty Kill Bill 2, so it's ups and downs.
eta: I'd appreciate it if you didn't have a go at the Chinese, Roy. As you've probably picked up already, I'm 1/2 chinese, and my mother is from China.
[ 29.09.2005, 05:42: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I'll say this for pirate dvds - at least you don't get some **** kicking you in the back and talking through the film.
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I love going to the cinema, and fear that piracy (that means you Bamba, you criminal) will be used as an excuse for closing down cinemas and hurrying DVD release dates forward.
I know you can get annoying audiences, but this is on the whole overruled by the experience of sitting in the dark with a bunch of like-minded people all oohing and aaahing at the same scenes, projected on a massive screen with huge sound rolling around you. I genuinely do not understand why you'd want to watch a film on your computer screen at home. There is no way that the best home cinema sound system can ever be as thunderous as that in a large auditorium, nor can the biggest telly at home ever block out all distractions like a cinema screen can.
I remember the first time I went to the cinema (My Little Pony: The Movie I believe), and the awe I felt at being inside the biggest, darkest room I'd ever seen. Who's going to remember the first time they watched a downloaded film on a small computer screen? How could the child-scarring horror of Bambi's mum getting shot be the same watching it in the comforts of your living room with the lights on? What the fuck is wrong with you people?
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I go to the cinema a lot, and I've started developing an anxiety about people talking. If I hear a murmer near me, I start to get agitated and shift in my seat a lot. I think 'Why come to the cinema and talk through the film?' and soon I think 'I'm going to have to say something' but what if it gets confrontational? Do I care enough about Crash to fight somebody over it? And then I'M causing a far larger disturbance than the one that I'm complaining about.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: that means you Bamba, you criminal
Um, my post wasn't actually any kind of recommendation for piracy, just me pointing out how fucking stupid that advert was.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: I genuinely do not understand why you'd want to watch a film on your computer screen at home.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Who's going to remember the first time they watched a downloaded film on a small computer screen?
Ben's made this argument before and it's a bit of red herring. Granted, you can watch it on your computer if you want but given that it's the work of about half an hour to convert a downloaded film to proper DVD and watch it on your TV that's what I, and I imagine some other people, do. Anyway, downloaded films aren't and never will be a replacement for seeing stuff in the cinema, obviously they could never compete with the massive screens and sound systems a cinema provides but they are (or can be) a replacement for buying DVD's. You could argue about the loss of DVD extras or commentary tracks and suchlike and that would be fair enough but saying "it's not as good as the cinema" is sort of self-evident and, I'd say, is missing the point a bit.
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Also - blank dual layer DVDs only cost about seven pounds these days, so when you've downloaded The Bourne Supremacy you can write it to DVD and it'll only cost £2 more than it does in the HMV sale. Granted, it won't have the surround track, and the picture might be slightly worse, but you can't have everything.
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Fair enough, although I do get the distinct impression that downloading happens at the time of a film's theatrical release rather than when the DVD comes out, ie the time factor, rather than the cheapness is the motivating factor with pirate copies. I may be wrong on this though, as I say, I'm not some kind of dirty crim.
I'm not really into DVD commentaries myself, but I do think a well packaged and docu-stuffed DVD is a joyous thing to own (ie the LOTR special editions). They come down in price so quickly, and there's always sales on in HMVirgin, such that the Director's Cut of The Whicker Man, with both theatrical and recut version, with a docu and Christopher Lee interview is pretty nice for a tenner.
I agree that the Cinema Experience anti-piracy ad is missing the point. I do however think that future cinema closures, or at the very least inflated prices, will at some point be blamed on piracy, however misguided and inaccurate that is.
Edit: just submitted a complaint to the ASA regarding the length and placing of the H&M ad.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Also - blank dual layer DVDs only cost about seven pounds these days, so when you've downloaded The Bourne Supremacy you can write it to DVD and it'll only cost £2 more than it does in the HMV sale. Granted, it won't have the surround track, and the picture might be slightly worse, but you can't have everything.
Conversely single layer blanks only cost about 10p and a DivX AVI uncompressed back to MPEG2 fits very easily on one of these. Granted there's a loss of quality there somewhere but it's not actually noticeable unless you've got some stupidly expensive home cinema setup in which case I'm sure you've got enough money to buy every DVD you could ever want anyway. And most of the stuff I download these days (which isn't a lot any more) has the surround sound still intact.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Fair enough, although I do get the distinct impression that downloading happens at the time of a film's theatrical release rather than when the DVD comes out, ie the time factor, rather than the cheapness is the motivating factor with pirate copies. I may be wrong on this though, as I say, I'm not some kind of dirty crim.
I think this is quite an individual issue to be honest. I know some people will actually download and watch the shitty 'digital video camera in a cinema' videos off the net whereas I wouldn't touch them and think they're the biggest waste of time and badnwidth the internet's ever seen. You do get the odd film out on DVD quality rips while it's still in the cinema if someone gets their hands on a screener copy but, very generally speaking, I'd say most of the time it's people buying the DVD when it comes out in America or whatever and sticking it up on the net. At this point Sabian will likely come along and hint pointedly at an IRC channel that supplies DVD quality films not even produced yet or whatever but I'm talking about your general internet use here and what they can access through the less obscure channels. Anyway, the point I've meandered off of there is that downloading something isn't made any more special for me personally if the film in question's still in the cinema or not. Assuming it's not something I would get off my arse to go and see anyway then I'll happily wait a few months or whatever for the high quality rips to appear before grabbing it. That could just be me though of course.
quote: I'm not really into DVD commentaries myself, but I do think a well packaged and docu-stuffed DVD is a joyous thing to own (ie the LOTR special editions). They come down in price so quickly, and there's always sales on in HMVirgin, such that the Director's Cut of The Whicker Man, with both theatrical and recut version, with a docu and Christopher Lee interview is pretty nice for a tenner.
Speaking again only for myself this isn't really an issue. There are few films I ever actually get round to re-watching (hell, there's enough new stuff coming out I never find time to watch) so downloading a film, watching it one then either binning it or sticking it in a pile depending on how good it is is fine for me. And interviews/making of's/etc seem like a nice idea in concept but I just don't really care enough in practise to watch any of the stuff on the DVD's I do own. I flicked through the stuff on the X-Men 2 DVD once but just got bored aftger a few minutes as an example. I'm similar with CD's in some respects, it seems I just don't see media as collectible in any way and the presentation or format doesn't matter to me at all. Which again is all very individual but does mean that downloading films is more justifiable from my own point of view.
quote: I agree that the Cinema Experience anti-piracy ad is missing the point. I do however think that future cinema closures, or at the very least inflated prices, will at some point be blamed on piracy, however misguided and inaccurate that is.
Oh yeah, I've no doubt it will be but, given that I believe that blame would definitely be misguided and inaccurate, I don't think you can argue that's a reason for me to stop downloading stuff.
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Also: Christ, my already shitty writing skills (hollowlol) have gone seriously downhill recently haven't they? I'm not even sure half of that made any fucking sense.
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No no, that was quite interesting to hear about others' attitudes to owning and collecting films. I guess if you don't watch films more than once, buying nice version is a bit pointless.
I think the hoarding instinct and geeky collector greed features quite highly in my response to the sight of nicely packaged DVDs- the same goes for books and to a lesser extent, CDs.
I can almost understand people not reading books more than once- but I love rewatching films. Some things like Black Hawk Down seem to get genuinely better with each viewing. Also, there is a pleasing comfort factor in settling down to rewatch something you know will soothingly stroke your happy-spaz gland, like X Men 2 or Ten Things I Hate About You.
Maybe this stems back to my childhood when my dad would threaten to record over me and my brothers' tapes if we didn't watch things regularly. This was countered by the inevitable "why are you watching that Bond film again when it's a lovely day and we have a big garden? When I was a child I'd have given anything to have a big garden instead of the slums of Leicester etc etc". Clealy the parents' fault.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: Also, there is a pleasing comfort factor in settling down to rewatch something you know will soothingly stroke your happy-spaz gland, like X Men 2 or Ten Things I Hate About You.
I often soothingly stroke my happy-spaz gland to Ten Things I Hate About You. Larisa, Julia, mmmmmmm.... *slurr*
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i dont own anything on dvd i hadnt already seen when i bought it. i do only own 8 dvds though. most of my home cinema collection is cheapo videos, because theyre so cheap now it doesnt matter if they turn out to be a bit rubbish. whats that film, the one with natasha lyonne, before she turned into a crackhead and she has the big fake titties and does the dildo dance and marisa tomei keeps showing her baps for no reason? i bought that for a quid and its the best video buy ive made in ages. id love to see that in a cinema. also, if its on dvd i think they should do a new version where she does a commentary whilst on crack. that would be greeaaat.
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what i meant to say in that post was, the idea of people watching films on dvd in their homes instead of a cinema makes me do a sad- clown face.
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I used to by a lot of DVDs on spec - even ones I hadn't seen - the aforementioned Black Hawk Down was one of them in fact that I thought I might like, and I did. I've bought a lot of DVDs like this that have then become favourites - Almost Famous is a wonderful film - but I have got some lamers as well (How was I to know The Crying Game was about a woman with a winky - damn you impulse buying!).
I do enjoy watching films more than once, but I am also guilty of the occasional download - I went through a spate of downloading torrents as for some films (such as Spun for example) it is the only way I will possibly get to see them. And if I watch a film and like it and se a re-watching in it (The Excellent Layer Cake for example) then I'll nip out and get it on my next DVD shop.
As for the cinema, it's nice once in a while and especially if there is a new film I really want to catch, but in general I have a lovely little setup that allows me to watch a film in the comfort of my lovely flat without twats getting up to answer their mobiles every five minutes or chatering chavs interrupting my enjoyment like the last umpteen visits to the cinema - perhaps I should go enjoy some more art house stuff at the cinema mind,
quote:Originally posted by Roy: Does anybody else watch the film with the Director's commentary? I always do, even if its hired from the shop.
One of the first DVD's I bought was Wolfgang Peterson's excellent Das Boot - I was watching it when I accidentally hit the remote and changed the soundtrack (I was watching it subtitled with its original German soundtrack) - What I then heard was the most awful (what I then thought was) dubbing - it went something like this:
Submariner #1: "I think he has made a small fart" (in bad german accent) Submariner #2: "Yes - see how he is making his nose up here huh huh huh" (in bad german accent but impersonating Beavis and Butthead) Submariners #1, #2 and #3 in unison: "Yes he has made a fart. Hur hur hur hur hur" repeat ad infinitum
I was shocked and appalled - I had originally seen the film as a mini series on late night ITV dubbed, but I could not remember it being this dire - I checked the DVD cover fortunately to find that this was in fact the directors commentary. Scarred by this, I haven't bothered since.
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if it's a film that I'm interested in then I will, or if it's got a proper personality on it, but not by default. I think the last one I listened to was Collateral, because Michael Mann is like my LA daddy. I feel safe when I can hear his voice.
[ 29.09.2005, 09:34: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I bought the special edition Heat for the Mann commentary (About a tenner in HMV). Steven Soderbergh is quite good value as is Ridley Scott. One of my favorites is the Ghostbusters talk track. Nearly as funny as the film.
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I quite like Richard Donner's commentary on Superman Teh Movie.
"Krypton exploding was one of Salkind's testicles cooked in Marlon's microwave. We made Chris Reeve fly with old hairdryers and dog farts. I'd like to see the fuckin' Wachowski kids pull that off."
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It was quiet wierd listening to the commentary if Ilsa the Wicked Warden. They all seemed quite proud of their crappy little exploitation film - it was quite sweet, listening to them all reminiscing about that whole thing, like "Oh yeah this is the bit where they shoot acid into her vagina. Do you remember she was in a funny mood all day she kept giggling everytime the smoke machine came on." Stuff like that. I think I threw that DVD out when I moved in with Julia. God that was a stupid thing to do. The number of times in that relationship I was in the mood for watching dark haired girls getting their vagina's burnt with acid, and I'd chucked it out. Stupid.
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Mel Gibson's Braveheart commentary is real car crash stuff. He waffles on at one stage about this actor he discovered and how he spotted the talent of this particular thesp and gave him his big screen break. The actor?
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I have heard bad things about the H&M add from other sources. It is almost making me curious enough to go to the cinema and check it out.
I am also a non purchaser of films, there are so few thing s that I would want to watch more than once that I have never bought a video or DVD in my life. I’m not super keen on going to the cinema either – it is bloody expensive and you have to go at a particular time which is never quite the most convenient time, and you (I) spend half the time wondering if it would really piss everyone off if I went to the toilet yet, and you cant have a bottle of wine and a blanket. I am also not a fan of watching films a social event at someone’s house or whatever. Either people talk over the film, or the film is rubbish and you have to wait for it to finish until you can do something else. I like films at home, alone, with food and booze. I joined Screenselect recently to further this aim, and they sent me series 3 before series 2, which I sent back quite some time ago and nothing else has reappeared. So it isn’t going too well so far.
And another thing...My mum went to see Downfall last week (you know, defeat, suicide and despair in a bunker), and the man sat next to her laughed the whole way through. That is the kind of nutter exposure you risk in a cinema.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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