What's the last movie you've seen?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Krótki film o zabijaniu

[Filuwaúrdjan]

"Tsotsi" will be, in a little over two hours.

Any good?

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It is a fact, BTW, that "Eastern" and Western cultures are distictively different.

Yeah, but what is East and what is West? Personally I don't think of Achaemenid (or modern day for that matter) Iran as being, in any way, "Eastern".
And if East stands for opression and West for freedom (which seems to be what you're getting at), then Sparta was clearly more "Eastern" than Persia.

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You know, the Persians didn't actually have god-kings; by this point they were Zoroastrians (and would remain so until they were converted to the youngest branch of the worshippers of the God of Abraham).

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I was unaware that killing people because you enjoy doing it is something to be praised.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Network

Excellent.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Network

Excellent.

Saw it last night. Fantastic. Which reminds me there was a specific reason why I came on this forum tonight..

The disturbing part is quite how prophetic it's turned out to be.

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This Is England

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Goodfellas. A while since I've seen it; some parts work a lot better than I remembered.

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Hot Fuzz

I know the town where they filmed that very well. The film is disturbingly accurate in so many ways.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hot Fuzz

I know the town where they filmed that very well. The film is disturbingly accurate in so many ways.

Al, for the greater good is it disturbingly accurate on so many levels?

Well, I'm not aware of the people that run Wells (and places like Wells) going around killing people* but some of the other elements of that, yeah... very much so. The children in the the pub, for instance. That's so true that it's painful. And the mafia-style running of civic bodies and so on, although I don't think it tends to be so formal.

*not these days anyway. It's possible that things like that used to happen, actually, but on a very small scale.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Once Upon A Time In America

I've been meaning to see it for years but never got around to. Saw a DVD of it the other day, thought "why not". Watched it. Loved it, and in several different ways.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Meh. Repeating the Hollywood view of Bush's America does not an interesting film make.

(just going off what thou wrote. Not seen the film myself).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm currently somewhere with a telly and Channel Four were showing Persepolis. Excellent.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The subtitled French version or the sh!tty English dub?

Subtitled French version

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not exactly films, but I recently watched Karaoke and Cold Lazarus on the internets (they're on 4od. Which is good because the fact that they were a joint BBC-Channel Four production caused all sorts of problems regarding repeat broadcasts, DVD's...). My current username is that of a character in Cold Lazarus who kills off something like half the cast but is still, more or less, a hero in an oddly traditional sense (emphasis on "oddly", though). Karaoke is about as close to being a "typical" Dennis Potter work as there is - a beautifully twisted plot structure, various forms of repitition, use of lip-synching popular songs, an association of sex with abuse and violence, a main character with many shared features of Potter but numerous important differences, the bizarre reality of illness and hospitals, fun with semiotics, prostitution and the sleazier side of urban life generally, subtle religious themes, acidic comment on society, class, the media and consumer culture... and many other things including a total rejection of realisim. Cold Lazarus is different. The religious, ethical and political themes are far more overt (especially the former), there's a much more constant bleak-satirical feel to much of it, and the setting (an impressively bleak futuristic dystopia) is an unusual one for Potter. But it isn't really sci-fi; the futuristic setting is largely an excuse to attack much about society and the media at the time Potter was writing/dying (one character is obviously based on Rupurt Murdoch - and dies horribly, of course) and it is, in many ways, a strongly anti-modern, anti-technology work. Predictably there are echoes of 1984 and of Brave New World though the latter might not be intentional (the former certainly is). There are also numerous echoes with Karaoke and it can't really be watched without seeing it (Karaoke) first. There are problems with it, largely stylistic flaws by the production team in a couple of places, but they don't detract from the astonishing power of the work. There's more to say than that, but this'll do.

Of course if you don't "get" Potter, then both will make absolutely no sense whatsoever. But if you do, they're worth seeing.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

"Seems to be"?

I've only seen that one film and haven't read much about him. I'm wary to hurl such a crippling insult at someone I know so little about.

lol

Loach is... um... waaaaaaaaaaaay out there, so to speak. I think he still supports Britain's most popular Stalinist party (the SLP). He did a few years ago, anyway.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The BBC were kind enough to show Citizen Kane so, naturally, I watched it. Remains one of my favourite films.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The King of Comedy

Excellent.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The King of Comedy

Excellent.

Rupert Pupkin (or is it Pimkin or Pumpkin?) or Howard Beale? My favourite Characters (I'm not sure favourite is the right word but whatever...)

Easy way round this; you like them as characters in an abstract sense, but you don't like the characters as people (if they were real).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hot Fuzz

Wells, the place where they filmed it, is actually like that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hot Fuzz

Wells, the place where they filmed it, is actually like that.

Everything is done for the Greater Good?


...the Greater Good.

It certainly feels that way. One of those films that I felt the urge to say 'that's so true!' every few minutes. I mean, I don't think they actually kill people, but...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Network

Best film I've seen in a while.

Good man.

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Well, at the time it was made, TV executives hadn't decided that the things done at UBS in Network ought to be a blueprint for the future of television.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Damned United was shown on telly the other day, so I watched it. Enjoyable enough, but nowhere near as good as the book. Sheen was a very convincing Clough, even if he sometimes sounded more Port Talbot than Middlesbrough.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lesbian Vampire Killers. Man, that was awful.

Were you in a masochistic mood or summet?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Road

Brilliant. I guess a lot of critics couldn't handle the fact that the end of the world would be, you know, pretty depressing.

Critics often shirk away from visions of a hellish future that are genuinely depressing.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Really, really racist though. Not that many Vietnam War films aren't, of course.