All things considered, we’re doing pretty poorly at seeing films in the cinema of late. Finally dragged myself off to see Watchmen last night, which meant the late night slot (2245) at the big Odeon in town (not my favourite cinema). Overall, I enjoyed it, even though it wasn’t the film I’d hoped it would be. , you can stop your sniggering now and just say “I told you so”.
Rorschach’s Livejournal Ombudsmen: Scott Kurtz parody with cameos from the funny pages Hitler finds out that there is no giant psychic death squid
Doing the rounds in abbreviated form from various people. I’ve decided to mutate the meme, because 1980 feels like a very artificial start date for film-watching. The full list is taken from here; for each year, the first film listed won the Oscar. Titles in bold are ones that I’ve seen.
A bit of a life roundup for the past week. First off, the cat. She might have stayed around for an extra day, but she buggered off the following day. I suspect that it was the move from luxury single sachet cat food to multipack Waitrose own-brand cat food that did it. The seems to have taken it well, and has accepted the explanation that “she’s gone back to her family” (which in all truth is the most likely outcome), and hasn’t settled for “she was driven away by next door’s army, and is now cowering under a bush with… Read More »Life Chez Gark
I’m a bit of a cineaste, albeit one that doesn’t get to see many films these days. As a child, I grew up with depictions of World War Two on television every public holiday: Easters and Christmases were filled with Where Eagles Dare, The Battle of the Bulge, A Bridge Too Far and the like. While I still have a bit of a soft spot for these, their depictions of WWII are often close to revisionist in the way that they play fast and loose with the facts. I’ve come to appreciate the very specific genre of British-made films, and… Read More »Top Five British WWII films made during WWII
So it’s Saturday night, I’m not at Picocon, and I’m idly surfing the Web… One of my film society contemporaries from my undergraduate days at Warwick was a chap called Paul Hardy. After we graduated, he threw himself headfirst into film-making and the whole starving-in-a-garret lifestyle (there was a time when I visited and found his flat empty of food, and the fridge with nothing in but a reel of 16mm film that he’d spent that week’s food budget on). He’s had some success over the years, with a BBC Drama Award for one of his shorts (Eyeball Tennis), he’s… Read More »Experiment 60713/B
O Lucky Man! arrived in the post this morning, and looks great. Thank you!
I have a favour to ask of LJ friends… One of my long-standing filmic gripes is that so few of Lindsay Anderson’s films are available. Britannia Hospital is available on DVD, as is This Sporting Life. Neither If…. nor O Lucky Man! are available on DVD; both have been on video, but even those are now out of print. It turns out that Sky are running a ‘Not Available In The Shops’ season on Sky Cinema 1, and that they’re showing O Lucky Man! at 10pm on Thursday 30th November. Would one of you lovely, lovely people on LJ with… Read More »If you have a friend on who you think you can rely, you are a lucky man
While I’m not currently a member of a film society, I don’t regret the 10 years that I spent with film societies and the BFFS. For one, I’ve ended up married to as a direct result, but more importantly, I’ve been introduced to a wide range of cinema and filmmakers that I just wouldn’t otherwise have been exposed to (and I’m fairly certain that would probably have put those in the same order). One such filmmaker is Len Lye, a New Zealander who worked in the GPO (General Post Office) Film Unit in the years before WWII. During this time,… Read More »Len Lye
I’ve been looking forward to the release of V for Vendetta with some trepidation since I first heard that an adaptation was seriously in the offing (see my previous posts). and I went to see it last night; I’m hoping that she will also post her views on the film, because unlike myself she hasn’t read the comic and has a different (and more positive) take on the film. Without spoilers, what are my feelings on the success of the film? Is it a bad film? No. Is it a good adaptation? Sadly, also no. It isn’t a disaster, but… Read More »This Vicious Cabaret