My Movie Journal

A problem.

I had A Clockwork Orange for a week--and then opened it. It was smashed. I haven't put it in the mail for another two weeks. What to do? I didn't smash it. Anyone had this happen?

I've seen Spanglish and Sideways. What can I say? I liked them. Nothing to write home about, but a pleasant couple of hours.

Were Eddie Izzard's other taped routines as good as Cake or Death?

It's happened to me. I just report it as broken, they send me a new one, and I return the broken one.

I experienced too many damaged disc. They recommend cleaning with window cleaner like Windex. Wrong. The ammonia will eventually cloud the acrylic coating and render the disc unplayable. I dropped out of NetFlix after getting "Spanglish," which I liked and could not watch in its entirety. I do have a disc polisher but sometimes the offending scratch is just too deep. I've also exhausted much of the foreign and independents I was really interested in seeing that I didn't see pop up on Sundance or IFC as well as TCM. Even my hi def INHD movie channels have being showing classic foreign and independent films, recently Kurosawa's "Kagemusha," a thrill to see this film in a beautiful print with all the detail intact.

It's really strange but IMDb has no photo on Kurosawa on its site!

Lightwizard, you should try again with Spanglish -- I thought it was a good film, too, lots better than the reviews would make it out to be. Imdb doesn't seem to be getting updated so often, at least, they don't have a lot of things I've looked for. It is disappointing.



We clean CD/DVDs with a teeny bit of dish soap and lots of water and drying but not rubbing with a soft cloth that's not been contaminated with one of those dryer anti-static-thingies.

Unfortunately, on examing the discs that I was unable to polish with Skip Doctor, there were radial scratches that were just too deep to polish unless I wanted to take an hour. Makes me consider getting the powered Skip Doctor instead of cranking the my present one. It used a wet fine micron polishing wheel which leaves a kind of semi-gloss finish but this doesn't interfere with the laser. I often will use an acrylic wet polishing compound to really get any scratches out. I always wipe discs with a cloth that is treated to get rid of fingerprints and other contaminants.

I have about three Kurosawas in my Q.
Ran, Rashomon and Kagemusha. I have a general outline, but LW or anyone--is one much better--well done than the others?

Thanks about broken disc advice. LW, it was in two pieces. I feel better knowing it happens to other people. I don't know why I was so worried about it.

I hadn't seen this can be taken care of in a click. All done. Thanks.

I can't give any of those three movies less than four stars. Kurosawa astonished the movie critics who said his talent had dried up and fired back by making "Kagemusha," followed by "Ran."

Looking forward to them.

Some of his titles sound hokey--Incident at Blood Pass--Sword of Doom--Throne of Blood-- but the synopsis sound like they may be better than the title. Have you seen any of these Kurosawas?

The hokey titled Kurosawa is also not the best Kurosawa although still they are very good films.

BTW, I wasn't giving advice to your problem of the broken disc, that was toward other suggestions on cleaning discs as I had the same problem with NetFlix. Of course, I've had that problem with discs rented in stores.

INHD just screened "The Egyptian" in hi def yesterday and although the movie lacks a great script, the soundtrack and cinematography is superb.

I saw The Island last night. Yes, I know <fending-off hand gesture>, what was I thinking?! Well, I thought I could do with a good Hollywood film, and we were looking fw: to lounging in comfy seats. And I'd seen Steve Buscemi, Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johanson (or whatever her name is - she was cute in Lost in Translation) in the listing. I did not register the "director of Pearl Harbour" part, apparently.

What a total piece of **** for a movie. I mean, honestly. Absolutely totally freakin worthless.

I can just see the pitching of the producer, concept-stage. "What is it people like about movies? Huh? Action! They like action scenes. So here's an idea: why dont we just do away with all the rest, and cut a movie only of action scenes?!". Yeah, genius, bozo. Doesnt work that way.

I mean, whats the screen testing, the auditions for McGregor and Johansson must have been? "OK, now try screaming "RUUN!!". Yes, good. Now look innocent-oblivious, and ask "What is [whatever]?". Yep, thats it. Now scream "RUUNNN!" again, and run. Now stand still and look oblivious again. Ruuunn! Yep, thats the ticket."

They even succeeded in making pretty Scarlet look like Pamela fukking Anderson.

See, I like action movies nowadays - well, sometimes - homegirl taught me. Like Mr. and Mrs Smith. That was funny. I liked that one. Oh, but wait - that was an action movie with actual humour - like, actually intelligent characters who said witty things sometimes. The only funny line here was when Ewan's sponsor remarked, midway through a car-chase attempted-murder scene, "what's with all the biting?". But I'm suspecting that was just the scriptwriter's gag, secretly inserting that one without the director knowing, it came so out of nowhere.

And then the closing scene. With all the Deltas and Gammas and Alpha Omegas zombielike walking into the sunlight, while symphonic kitsch swells up, and you just dread that any moment now, Sting might start singing. Like the cheesiest, crappiest video clip you've ever seen.

And does Steve Buscemi actually really always play the same character, basically? I can only imagine that most of the actors here did this for easy money, cause all they needed to use was their automatic pilot, anyway.

When the revolution comes, I swear ...

"RUUNNN!!"

Odd, that females liked that movie better than males.

Especially considering how totally rightwing it was.

I mean, wasnt it kinda odd that, whenever there was an actual fighting scene, Scarlet beat herself through as fiercely and capably as Ewan -- but whenever the next occasion to save the world came, she was all "Oh no - go - go and save the world, Ewan - I'll stay here, in this house, or I'll go buy some kids an icecream and betray myself ..."

I've managed to avoid "The Island" because of the critics I trust really did not like it. Just the scenerio seemed like boring, pedestrian sci-fi. Again, with all the great sci-fi our there why don't they wake up? "Mission of Gravity" could be a great film. Problem -- perhaps too cerebral with not enough actgion.

This weekend I saw one of the slowest, dreariest films in a long time: Road to Koktebel.



Was it just me?

I've got this film on my table and will watch it this week: The Drifters by Xiaoshuai Wang.

It looks better.

Sorry for the typo -- just what is actgion? Could it me "action?" Okay, Craven, thanks for turning off the edit -- I usually catch these after the fact.

I just saw a movie called, "Peeping Tom".

http://www.flipsidemovies.com/peepingtom.html

It is from 1960, and as I have learned, was roundly panned at the time of its initial release. The film concerns a young man who works in the film industry by day, and takes girlie pictures in the evening. At night, he becomes a serial killer who films women in their death throes.

I found it to be an oddly fascinating film. It is not sensational, but attempts to investigate the very disturbed psyche of this young man. For 1960, I believe that it was quite ahead of its time.

Question: has anyone seen that movie with Harvie Keiter where he photographs the same street corner every morning at 8am? that's all i remember, but i'd love to see it again...

Thats Smoke, brilliant film. There's an off-take of it too, Blue in the Face, which is hilarious.

Here's the IMDB pages:

Smoke

Blue in the Face

(Odd factlet: though Smoke famously celebrates old school Brooklyn, non-US IMDB users valued the movie much higher (7,7) than US users (6,9). Same with Blue in the Face: 6,7 vs 5,9.)

I loved those movies.



Tonight I saw Intimacy. Writing credits to Hanif Kureishi is what attracted me. (IMDB link)

A hard movie to watch.



(Odd factlet: the movie was rated R even in a heavily cut version in the US; it was rated 12 years and older in France. Certainly some of the most realistic sex scenes (not necessarily attractive)... well, apart from that they were always finished so quickly of course ;-))

Anyone see "Turtles Can Fly" ?