Cinema - Comments by albert

Cinema - Comments by albert

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Member	Item		Review/Comment
albert 3rd Oct 2016		Cinema Ein Kitten für Hitler (A Kitten For Hitler) (2007) (2007)	Ken Russell and Melvyn Bragg have a bet on censorship, something along the lines of 'a script that would be so offensive that even Ken would want it banned'. Ken wrote a script and Melvyn agreed that it was very offensive and Ken won the argument. But years later Ken did make the film, therefore he lost the argument. Or something like that. Anyway, it was all a fairly pointless exercise as most scripts don't ever get made into films, but "it will cause offense" isn't usually the reason why. Ken did however have problems making the film as he could not get a child actor to play the part of the child. Here is the film, the blackest of black comedies, but typical Russell nevertheless, Warning, it may cause offense: [YouTube Video]
albert 3rd Oct 2016		Cinema Savage Messiah (1972) (1972)	Caught this halfway through on TV donkey's years ago and loved it, but it took me a good many years to discover its title and the director. Now I'm hoping it will eventually come out on DVD, ....but please not another widescreen version squashed onto 4:3 like most of Ken's recent DVD releases.
albert 19th Sep 2016		Cinema Mondo Cane N. 2 (Mondo Pazzo) (1963) (1963)	YouTube has the whole film if you look for it
albert 18th Sep 2016		Cinema Africa Addio (Africa Blood And Guts) (1966) (1966)	Has some of the most wretched images of the whole series, the hunting scenes are not for the faint hearted, the war-mongers and cruel dictators and the real killings are as you can expect.
albert 18th Sep 2016		Cinema Mondo Cane (A Dog's Life) (1962) (1962)	The whole film, starting slow and relatively sweet for the first 15 minutes then comes the first savage wallop, this is the uncut version so keep the smelling salts close at hand. [YouTube Video]
albert 17th Sep 2016		Cinema Death May Be Your Santa Claus (1969) (1969)	The existence of this film was disputed for years until it was included as a bonus on the Joanna DVD (BFI Flipside). The enticingly weird plot and the fact that it included early versions of the songs by Second Hand (the band) made it a hot wish-list item. Nothing available on YouTube (videos get pulled very quickly).
albert 17th Sep 2016		Cinema The Holy Mountain (1973) (1973)	What can I say about a film that defies description, an original Midnight Movie, setting the bar too high for any other in its wake. Maybe not recommended for animal rights activists. The thief's journey to the Alchemist's lair is far more eventful than the ascent up the mountain, but I don't want to write an essay. The ending is a bit disappointing though I guess the build up made the finale something that would be insurmountable anyway. [YouTube Video]
albert 15th Sep 2016		Cinema Optinen ääni (Optical Sound)	Fascinating, hypnotic, here it is... [YouTube Video] (well, most of it)
albert 13th Sep 2016		Cinema Weekend At Bernie's (1989) (1989)	[YouTube Video]
albert 13th Sep 2016		Cinema Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996) (1996)	hmm, what does this remind me of? [YouTube Video]
albert 13th Sep 2016		Cinema The Matrix (1999) (1999)	Browsing some old VHS videos looking for stuff to dump, I came across Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace and gave it a quick viewing. It's not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but then it struck me that it does have some similarities to The Matrix. (I didn't get to watch it all though as it was fairly dire). By the way The Wachowski Brothers are in fact sisters. EDIT: I stuck a trailer on LM2, so you can judge for yourselves.
albert 11th Sep 2016		Cinema Johnny Suede (1991) (1991)	This is a great movie, I laughed all the way through it, there are so many moments of comic put-downs for tragic Johnny - many of which are self inflicted. Note that the American cinema version cuts a fairly crucial scene right at the end of the movie which gives Johnny's character a sort of undeserved redemption. [YouTube Video]
albert 11th Sep 2016		Cinema Living In Oblivion (1995) (1995)	trailer [YouTube Video]
albert 4th Sep 2016		Cinema Naughty Nurse (1969) (1969)	Included on the Criterion Collection DVD of Eating Raoul.
albert 4th Sep 2016		Cinema The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) (1962)	A head that is kept alive in a tray of chemicals, a melted-man monster, a pair of fighting strippers, outrageous dialogue and a bit of telepathy, what more could you want from a cult movie? A wacko story and some much referenced imagery; this film has come to define the monster-movie era of the drive-ins (although it did arrive a little late in the day).
albert 4th Sep 2016		Cinema Bon Voyage (1944) (1944)	Hitchcock's wartime shorts are included as a bonus on the Lifeboat DVD & Blu-ray from Eureka (Masters Of Cinema).
albert 3rd Sep 2016		Cinema The Baby Of Mâcon (1993) (1993)	In a possible attempt to become the most boring and tedious person on the planet, Peter Greenaway produced an accompanying book which, amongst other tiresome things, had a picture of every member of the play’s audience each with an invented back story of who they were and what their reason was for coming to see the play. I do quite like Peter Greenaway’s work, sometimes, but little wonder that most of his recent (last 13 years) films haven’t even had a UK cinema or DVD release [exception of Nightwatching].
albert 3rd Sep 2016		Cinema The Devil And Daniel Mouse	A reworking of The Devil and Daniel Webster story. A version of this short film was included on Odeon Entertainment's Rock & Rule DVD in the UK, unfortunately they sourced a cut down print used to fit in a TV slot. You can watch the complete version thanks to YouTube: [YouTube Video] The band Bauhaus took audio samples for their track Party Of The First Part.
albert 27th Aug 2016		Cinema Curse Of The Demon (Night Of The Demon) (1957) (1957)	The British original is Night Of The Demon, the cut down American version is Curse Of The Demon.
albert 25th Aug 2016		Cinema Django (1966) (1966)	The first Django and the best one. It didn't make any money when first released but it gained a massive following, particularly in the Caribbean and in Germany. It was one of those films we talked about but knew it was impossible to see, and then implausibly it got shown on British TV. I have the uncut remastered Blue Underground DVD with Italian and English Soundtracks and English Subtitles and it looks amazing, well recommended. Rough looking trailer (and bad dubbed English) here: [YouTube Video]
albert 23rd Aug 2016		Cinema Those Redheads From Seattle (1953) (1953)	This Wikipedia article mainly discusses widescreen but is also cross linked to other formats so you may find some answers there. It also discusses masking and matte etc, (bit of an information overload really). I was also intrigued that cinemascope was not the first widescreen, though earlier innovations didn't seem to take off, quite an interesting read.
albert 22nd Aug 2016		Cinema Ciao! Manhattan (1972) (1972)	I first saw this at London's Scala cinema and managed to miss the first 5 minutes including the disclaimer/tribute, making the experience all the more bewildering for me. It is a difficult and harrowing film to watch in part, the acting is fairly poor and the scenes of electroshock therapy and drug taking and abuse drag the film into exploitation territory, but when we zip back into the B&W footage all is forgiven. Youtube has no official trailers but is absolutely littered with people's crummy videos plundering the B&W footage and adding stolen music from The Doors and their ilk - please don't watch any of that stuff, it will spoil your enjoyment of this film. An all-regions DVD from Plexifilm was available many years ago and has a great transfer and special features, I would recommend that if you watch the DVD to turn off the volume until the disclaimer at the start of the film has passed. EDIT: now also available on Blu-ray/DVD in the UK.
albert 22nd Aug 2016		Cinema Malpertuis (1971) (1971)	The film is based on a book by Jean Ray (Raymundus Joannes de Kremer), though I haven't read the book. I checked the status of the DVD and it is still available from Cinematek, which is like the Belgium equivalent of BFI, I got my copy from their cinema shop. (actually that link shows quite a few titles I wouldn't mind owning, I wonder if they post to the UK).
albert 22nd Aug 2016		Cinema Wings Of Fame (1990) (1990)	This is a great film, very witty and quite unique, I think some of the ideas presented have a cultural slant and may be more familiar to our European neighbours but there is still much to enjoy. Peter O'Toole and Colin Firth are on top form. The DVD is available, I got my copy under its German title Hotel Zur Unsterblichkeit (it includes the English language soundtrack). I cannot find a trailer on youtube except this Czech one, still it gives you an idea of what to expect.. [YouTube Video]
albert 21st Aug 2016		Cinema Malpertuis (1971) (1971)	Hard to find on DVD, I got my copy over in Belgium and its a 2 disc edition with the Cannes version and the Director's version, both in excellent shape. Both versions are worth watching but I prefer the Cannes version as its in English and the trims do not damage the story despite what the director thinks, [Harry Kümel, he of Daughters Of Darkness fame]. Susan Hampshire plays 3 or 4 parts at the same time. EDIT: youtube deleted the trailer. boo
albert 10th Aug 2016		Cinema The Reflecting Skin (1990) (1990)	Rejoice, The Reflecting Skin has finally had a proper release on DVD, with the director's involvement, so throw away your video tapes and dodgy foreign language versions. (Note that the DVD extras prove that no frogs were harmed during film making). [YouTube Video]
albert 10th Aug 2016		Cinema Meet The Applegates (The Applegates) (1990) (1990)	A very funny film, I saw during its cinema run and I have it on VHS but its never been available on DVD (top of my wish list). Trailer here.. [YouTube Video]

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