I'm hoping to watch Volver, Severance, The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu, A Scanner Darkly and maybe something else this weekend between shifts of decorating.
[ 01.09.2006, 05:25: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
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quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: last night I watched 'breaking up with the joneses', which wasn't very funny.
I watched about ten minutes of that and it looked way too depressing. Only other thing I saw was (most of) The Dragon's Den which remains almost essential viewing. One thing I love is that the dragons seem to not only loathe the pathetic little peasants that come to see them, but each other as well. They're genuine cuntrepeneurs, the lot of them.
In fact, I'd love to walk in there carrying a mysterious steel box, and they'd sneer, "What's that then?" and I'd say, "It's a barbed-wire and salt gun" and they'd rolleyes and say, "And what sort of market is there for that?" and I'd say, shrug, "Dunno really. Anyway, watch this..." presses button.
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: One thing I love is that the dragons seem to not only loathe the pathetic little peasants that come to see them, but each other as well.
It's almost as if they did it on purpose...
What I hate about this programme, and perhaps all television these days, is this:
One of the dragons says "I'll offer you 200 grand, but I want 45 per cent of the equity." The hopeful says "Hmmm... that's a lot more than I was aiming for. Let me have a think for a moment." Then the voice-over says: "Deborah Meaden has offered her the full £200,000, but wants 45 per cent of the equity. That's a lot more than she was aiming for, and will need to think about the offer before making a decision."
It's almost as if they think people who watch TV are idiots...
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posted
I didn't watch any telly last night or any films or anything at all, except looking up music videos on Youtube.
I'm currently reading Dan Brown's Deception Point which is marginally better than the other two books of his I've read. Mostly because he's not ripping furiously into the clergy, which is refreshing. He's ripping the government instead, which is disappointing.
And I'm also reading Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill which I mentioned on another thread and is simply brilliant.
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Saving up tinker tailor soldier spy on freeview recorder, and reading Our Man in Havana. I've only read Brighton Rock before of Greene's books, but this is a lot better, lighter and somehow more realistic characters, or perhaps simply closer to how era than Brighton Rock?
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I'm really enjoying it, but for what seems to be such a small book, it's been taking me a long time to read.
I've got a book called something like 'History of Giant Monster Dogs' or something. I'm completely judging it by the cover at the moment, and haven't actually started it so not much to say yet... er, great
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Slightly off topic, but is it possible to record films from digital on a 'normal' video recorder? I ask because I've fallen asleep in front of numerous FilmFour offerings in the past month or so, simply because they've been scheduled at crazy times (the exceptions: Re-Animator and Apocalypse Now - both of which were unfallasleep-able). The issue is particularly vex' as many of the poncey foreign films I fancy are on at, like 1.50am.
Also: watching Apocalypse Now again I was struck by how crystal-sharp the cinematography is - none of the mushy look you get with most films shot in the decade before (and, indeed, after). Can anyone provide a brief explanation of Coppola/Storaro achieved such high definition, twenty years before HD?
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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quote:Originally posted by Benny the Ball: I've only read Brighton Rock before of Greene's books, but this is a lot better, lighter and somehow more realistic characters, or perhaps simply closer to how era than Brighton Rock?
I read BR recently too - I think it's more about the ideas of good and evil he works through than about being a realistic story, or an evocation of an era. He wasn't particularly familiar with Brighton gangs. It has made me want to see the fillum though, to see whether they picked up the morality story or the gangster story. You'd probably enjoy The Human Factor and The End of the Affair too. I don't like his Riviera/European stuff much.
Other than that I'm reading a book about the invention of zero (v interesting, but a bit selfconsciously poetic for a book about the history of a digit), and Henry Bech by John Updike.
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: One thing I love is that the dragons seem to not only loathe the pathetic little peasants that come to see them, but each other as well.
It's almost as if they did it on purpose...
You think they go for a pint and a chuckle after filming? I suppose you have to be a good bluffer to get on in business, but that lot look don't look like chums of each other to me. I am one of those born every minute types which another famous enterpeneur once referred to though.
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Ben, if you mean can you hook a VCR up to a digital box then the answer is yes, you just have to make sure the video is on the digital channel you want to record and the same for the digital box..
You can't get the video (or at least I can't) to change the channel on the digital box, so if you accidentally leave the digital box on the wrong channel the video will just record that insteadof what you wanted..
if it's SKY there are bits of kit available that you attach to the box and the video which allows the video to change the channel, but I've not played with them yet.
I think I have it setup so it's scart to TV for Skybox, and then coax out from Skybox to video and coax out from video to televison tuned to channel 0.
That should work, so leave the TV on Film 4 and away to bed recording a movie to watch later..
Of course if you still have an arial which picks up normal TV remember to run the coax from that into the digital box, then the coax that you have running from the digital box to the video will carry the old analog signal allowing you to tune the VCR to the analog channels and also have them routed back into your TV on the outward coax, so you could watch BBC1 or Channel 4 on analog while recording Film 4 on the digital..
You could also hook the video in via scart as well if you wanted too, but I think you'd need the coax running from video to TV to getthe analog signal tuned in on the TV.
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i am reading a compilation of lesbian pulp. it is okay, but they sucker you one by putting all the excellent smut at the beginning. and then when you think all the stories will be full of buttock spanking and rosy pink nipples they force you to read nine extracts in a row from books set in dark smoky east side dyke bars in 1958 where all that happens is a butch called mickey looks moodily across the room at a blonde fat arsed cape- wearing femme called sylvia, who cannot admit her true nature to herself and so instead chugs a warm flat beer and tears up beermats before retiring to her tenement apartment in order to alternately stub out cigarettes almost immediately after lighting them and stand on a balcony, weeping, wondering how all of this came to pass and why she couldnt just have loved brice the way she wanted to. and youre like, screw this mama! what happened to all the fresh young bosoms and healthy young co- eds rolling around on beaches, panting?
im going to see volVER in an hour or two. you have to call it volVER because otherwise, as my sister pointed out, its sounds a bit like youre saying 'vulva'. 'have you seen vulva?' ' no i havent got around to seeing vulva, is it good' 'oh you must see vulva, its absolutely marvelllous.'
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I've got that Zero a Biography of a dangerous number (or something) book also, any good?
As for the quality of A' Now - it was probably partly down to the film stock and lens, and partly down to what they were photographing, a lot of good natural light in that part of the world probably helped - the higher film stock made it look ritcher and the lens helped - I'd imagine, and partly down to a probably cleaning of the film print for the DVD release.
Although camera's aren't really my area....
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Last Friday I watched Severance, as recommended by a friend. The fact that he and his girlfriend hammered two spliffs en route to the cinema suggested to me that perhaps I wouldn't enjoy a similar viewing experience, as I have long since given up smoking weed.
The film was... I dunno - different. Not often that you are surrounded by an audience laughing out loud as someone's leg is cut off by a bear trap, but the theme of comedifying otherwise gruesome incidents works very well throughout the film. I was puzzled as to how Danny Dyer's magic mushroom chomping character could have made it into any successful corporate team, let alone one specialising in military arms, but he plays the part very well, nonetheless.
All-in-all: a fairly entertaining film, but not worthy of serious recommendation.
Also, watched Adrift last night - the sequel to the highly impressive Open Water - hoping for a good old shark-filled piece of Sunday night action.
This time around a group of friends are left stranded next to their yacht, in the middle of the ocean, because the fucking wanker 'captain' (aka pseudo-financial guru/highschool drop-out) doesn't know how to get back on the blasted thing. Duh.
Inevitably, as time passes, they each drown one by one. 'Captain' cunt also causes the death of the one guy who almost figures out a way of getting back on the yacht (sticking a knife into the flap on the side of the yacht and letting someone - preferably of light stature - climb onto his shoulders and back onboard) and conclusively becomes one of the remaining survivors, being rescued by the woman who he threw in initially - thus causing the whole deadly scenario. This angered me.
In summary, it was nowhere near as dramatic or realistic as Open Water. It was all very depressing and frustrating. And there were no sharks in it either, which was particularly galling.
It was an impulse purchase, while I was buying Initial D
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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My head is hurting and my eyes are dry and tired today. I blame staying up late to watch Fight Club on FX and to chate to enwad on MSN.
I feel that if someone put a bullet in my brain, or a stingray barb to the chest, they'd be doing me a bit of a favour, right about now.
And I have to clean the house tonight because my mum's coming to stay tomorrow so that I can go out and be the breadwinner whilst I have 'people' in on Weds & Thurs, so I can't even crawl into my den like a wounded animal when I get home.
Mondays suck.
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When I wasn't doing it myself this weekend I managed to see both Volver and Severance at the cinema.
Volver is, simply, marvelous. After the masterful gloom of Talk to Her and Bad Education it’s an altogether more enjoyable affair from Almodovar, a sensational(ist) story of female friendship, familial love, murder, and ghosts. As consumately constructed as any of his recent work, this film also has real warmth. It's everywhere in the film, from the vibrant colours that surround and clothe the character’s to the relationships between the various women. It is, simply, marvelous.
Severance was good fun, managing to balance the horror comedy thing well. It sets up and maintains an effective sense of dread, keeping the emphasis on the horror but allowing brief comic interludes, before cutting to the next inevitable shock-scare or gore-effect. Percy from Blackadder has a couple of particularly fine moments. Not as grippingly terrifying as The Descent, nor as funny as Shaun of the Dead, this was nevertheless highly enjoyable.
I also watched the entire first season of Deadwood on dvd. I believe I’ve raved about it’s brilliance before, but Deadwood really is fucking superb, a wonderfully profane, bleakly romantic view of a murderously dangerous western frontier town illegally set up in Injun territory during the gold rush.
Prinicpal attraction is Lovejoy reprising and embellishing his dead-eyed-psycho shtick from Sexy Beast to stunning effect as terrifyingly crooked town-overlord Al Swearengen, but he's really the icing on a hugely complex and involving layer-cake of characters and relationships.
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posted
I watched Rocky last night, which is actually a thoroughly brilliant film in every sense. I forgot that Stallone actually used to act for a living..
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last night I watched something on bbc3 where that Sandeep fellow off newsnight etc did some training in russia on scientology and then underwent the auditing procedure. It was alright, but it managed to stay fairly hazy, and came to a shrugged shoulder conclusion. Scientology is obviously very mysterious, and it's a shame that the show didn't go very far in penetrating it.
Still, what little was shown, was still interesting, and it did seem like at least initially, the overall benefits of the burden-relieving processes were beneficial. As somebody who is crippled by an inability to think clearly and live in the present, it was interesting for me to see how seemingly easy it was for Sandeep to not only confront things, but to do so under his own power, and to gain a sense of relief. But then at the end he's like "Will I continue with scientology? I can honestly say I don't know", which is very frustrating.
I mean, I wouldn't actually consider scientology as a means of 'spiritual enlightment', but it didn't come across as being as bizarre as I'd expected. Certainly the emphasis on finding clarity of meaning and the pursuit of personal truth seems reasonable, but then, how does that manage to escalate into believing that the souls of dead aliens are the main factor in human spiritual enlightment?
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