What Blu-Ray did you watch last night?

[Osi Osgood]

Oh, BTW, I own a wonderful low fade super 8 print of the extra extra long trailer for "Papilion" It's almost a mini documentary.

[Graham Ritchie]

Watched two, one being Friday night "Death On The Nile" 1978 Saturday night "Jungle Cruise".

Although "Jungle Cruise" was alright, the one I enjoyed the most was "Death On The Nile" with a running time of around 2hrs 20minutes. It held my attention right to the end. What a brilliant cast, great locations in Egypt, an outstanding "who done it story", excellent blu-ray transfer as with the sound, you really simply can't ask for more.

"Death On The Nile" 1978 is a must have blu-ray, it makes for a great nights entertainment, as such I highly recommend getting this one.

PS....Included in the special features is a interview with Angela Lansbury, it sounds both her and the rest of the cast had a enjoyable time making it and all got on well with each other. One thing I do like about the script, is the addition of light humor in the film, especially between Bette Davis and her maid played by Maggie Smith who are great at witty comments bouncing between each other.

[Brian Fretwell]

I wonder if Angela Lansbury is the only person to appear in a Poirot film then go on to star as another Chritie detective, Miss Marple, in another (The Mirror Cracked)?

[Brian Fretwell]

I started but not finished watching "The Fall of the Roman Empire" "Digitally remastered" edition from Anchor Bay. I found it cropped to 2.35:1 from the original Ultra Panovision and too contracty for my liking, compared remembering the 70mm version I had seen in NFT3 some years ago. At 173 minutes I found it too long for one sitting, though I believe the Lone Wlf Super 8 version was longer than that.

[Ed Gordon]

RE: The Fall of the Roman Empire

I have this in my collection, but I don't think I have watched it in one sitting since I first saw it. I found these comments on IMDB:

There is something flawed about this film that I can't quite put my finger on. It does not reach the heights of other 50s and 60s epics such as The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur. Still, it is a dramatic and at times moving film. It does convey the gravity (some might say tragedy) of the Empire's fall and the pax romana that never was.

"The Fall of the Roman Empire" was the nail in its genre's coffin. Ponderous, expensive, it bombed and put the swords'n'sandals epic in a coma for a good 34 years, until the arrival of "Gladiator", with which it shares quite a few story similarities. But where Ridley Scott's film is lean and mean, Anthony Mann's is slow, stately and overly in love with its production design.

The inspiration and source material for GLADIATOR in case you hadn't noticed. This particular historical romp coming very late in the epic cycle in the 60's was a masterpiece of script, direction and set construction. You may have thought the Colosseum in GLADIATOR was impressive - digitised though it was, but compare it to the jaw-dropping scenes in Commodus' Rome - and they BUILT those! Ridley Scott used LESS than 50 people in his Colosseum scenes - every ONE of the thousands of Roman citizens you see, are there! To film this today with the same realism would cost $600-800,000 perhaps one billion plus!

Other scenes, such as the funeral of Aurelius are simply spinal-tap if you have the slightest understanding of what you are seeing. Most people didn't - leaving the theater (even in the 60's) feeling they'd just sat through a history seminar rather than an entertaining movie.

I wonder if it could be edited down to something less ponderous? The cinematography and acting are spectacular.

[Graham Ritchie]

Last night the remake "Flight Of The Phoenix" 2004, which in itself is very good. I remember screening the 35mm back in 2005, the only thing better than projecting the blu-ray watched last night, would be finding a 35mm print, now that would be nice

Tonight things were a bit different with some old DVDs bought new around 20 years ago from the US. It was interesting to see if after all those years if they would still play. Well they did no problems at all as shown below. One would be over twenty years since I last watched it and that was Super Speedway, this one was very impressive both visually and sound Dolby Digital 5:1. If you can find a copy of this title grab it.

Highly recommend this title as well




Image produced a number of very interesting DVDs titles back in the late 1990s One being this one called "Our Daily Bread" One title I watched tonight was Power and the Land if people think life is hard today they should watch this, an interesting fact covered in this film that during the 1930s 90% of farms in the US did not have electricity, it was a hard life.


Lastly and I must return the blu-ray and "Flight Of The Phoenix" 2004 with Johnny Cash with this brilliant opening number.

[Douglas Meltzer]

I'll be seeing Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga soon, so I watched the prequel's sequel!



Fury Road is one amazing film.

[Steve Klare]

Tonight? Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

-kind of an old standby of ours when picking what to watch gets to be too involved! When I was dating my wife and found out she'd never intentionally seen Star Trek of any flavor before, this is what I chose as an introduction.

For our son it is different: for a very long time he thought James T. Kirk only looked like Chris Pine, but that's just the way it was when he was growing up.

Just for the record: I checked Wikipedia after I rolled the screen up and turned everything off: Humpback Whale populations worldwide fell to 5,000 by the 1960s, but have rebounded to about 135,000, are still growing and the species is actually not considered endangered anymore. It's almost certainly an exaggeration to claim Bill Shatner and Leonard Nimoy saved this species, but then again maybe they helped a little.

[Brian Fretwell]

Last night Soylent Green, which I saw in the Camberwell ABC cinema in 1973. I was now shocked to see that it was set in 2022, now two years ago.Thankfully the greenhouse effect has not got us to that state yet. However we do seem to be trying to get "assisted dying" but not as shown in that film. Edward G Robinson's 101st and last film.

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Brian

Regarding "Soylent Green" being set in the year 2022, add "Blade Runner" to the list, photos taken below are from a previous blu-ray screening

[Ed Gordon]

Here we are at Stardate -298502.73 pondering the significance of Sci-Fi with dates that have come and gone. It's been 23 years since we should have had a base on the moon, and ships capable of reaching Jupiter.

[Graham Ritchie]

Watched this title on blu-ray tonight, Winner of 6 Academy Awards. The last time I screened this film was on 35mm, so I think its time, to again put it together for a soon to be future screening. "The Hurt Locker" is a good film and is certainly well made

[Graham Ritchie]

Back to blu-ray and the Epson VP tonight with this release from "Imprint", I bought it around the same time as there other release of "Batteries Not Included" which I should add was brilliant. Its taken me a while to get around to watching "I'm Not Scared" until tonight. The movie is in Italian with English sub-titles, the blu-ray picture quality and DTS 5:1 sound is excellent.

As for the film, well its edge of the seat stuff right to the end. I was really surprised as to how good the movie is, so if you are looking for something a bit different and don't mind sub-titles, then this one wont disappoint I certainly can recommend this one.

[Graham Ritchie]

The Epson has been working overtime of late, four titles I watched in the last couple of weeks were

1...."The Man Who Never Was" from 1956 I fist watched this film on 16mm Scope and was impressed with it ever since, that was over thirty years ago. Its a movie like to watch every so often. If you have never seen it then its one I highly recommend. The Man Who Never Was is based on a true story.
2....."Deepwater Horizon" also based on a true story, its another blu-ray title I would recommend.
3.....I have watched The Hindenburg a number of times now, a brilliant film, the music by David Shire adds so much to the mood of the visuals. The blu-ray quality is very good.
4....."Boychoir" What a cast with Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates, this film came out in 2015 and my understanding is that to date, its been blocked in the US for dvd/blu-ray/ release for years now, also unlikely to be able to see it on US television, hopefully that attitude towards it has changed since I last checked. Thankfully the Becker film group got the rights to release it in Australia and NZ.

Tonight it was not blu-ray but dvd using the Epson with one of my all time favorite films from the the 1960s. I have the 35mm of it and posted it onto you-tube a while back

[Ed Gordon]

4....."Boychoir" What a cast with Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates, this film came out in 2015 and my understanding is that to date, its been blocked in the US for dvd/blu-ray/ release for years now, also unlikely to be able to see it on US television, hopefully that attitude towards it has changed since I last checked. Thankfully the Becker film group got the rights to release it in Australia and NZ.

It was released in the US, but it was a dud at the boxoffice.

Boychoir premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2014 before receiving a limited release in the United States on April 3, 2015.

Hallmark Cards subsequently bought the distribution rights to air the film on its Hallmark Hall of Fame program. Boychoir was retitled Hear My Song and was planned to air on CBS on April 16, 2016. However, on April 13, 2016, the premiere was cancelled at the last minute.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boychoir_(film)

It only grossed just over three million dollars worldwide. I tried to find out why it bombed, but it there is not much out there. The wiki on it states:

Boychoir received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 45% rating based on 44 reviews for an average rating of 5.22/10. The consensus states: "Boychoir rests heavily –and not always comfortably –on the shoulders of Dustin Hoffman, whose typically excellent work isn't always quite enough to compensate for an overly predictable drama." On Metacritic, the film holds a 51 out of 100 rating based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

The DVD is still out there. You can buy it new for $12.98 (US) at Amazon.