What Blu-Ray did you watch last night?

[Brian Fretwell]

Buster Keaton in (and writing/directing) The General Eurika release froma 2015 restoration with a Carl Davies score.

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Brian

Hi have the same ERK blu-ray release and its a good one, last night it was a return to "The Boat that Rocked" the blu-ray title, and I think that's for the benefit of North American sales is called "Pirate Radio', however for me its "The Boat That Rocked" as I am from the1960s and pirate radio stations like of Radio Caroline, anybody remember them? We ran the 35mm print of this title at the cinema many moons ago, good fun movie.

For fans of good music here is a extract from that film

[Brian Fretwell]

I remember and listened to most of them some only at night due to increased range then. Radio Caroline (North and South) Radio London, Britain Radio, Radio 270, Radio Scotland from boats. Radio City, Radio 390, Radio Essex from ex-wartime forts in the Thames estuary.

[Mike Newell]

The Substance with Demi Moore. Not really sure what I watched a very strong horror movie with best role for Demi Moore in years. Ample nudity and any curiously about what Demi looks like naked is resolved. The violence at the end is off the scale. Let’s say it make those slasher 70s movies look like Disney cartoons. It is not realistic as the poor Demi would be dead at first blow. It does get a bit silly with the monster attending the New Year Eve show at the end and showering everyone with blood Kubrick Brian DePalma style . Sure there is some weird political message buried in there. Thats why Demi didn’t win the Oscar from Academy members they ain’t that stupid.

A movie that leaves an impression. Don’t know about repeatability. The violence is female to female can imagine the uproar if it was male to female.

Suppose there are similarities to the John Frankenheimer Seconds movie with Rock Hudson only a more Hollywood eternal youth showbiz style movie. 🍿

Watch at your own risk.

[Claus Harding]

Over the past week:

On Blu-Ray:

From "Masters of Cinema", the box set "Strange New Worlds: Science Fiction at DEFA"

A beautifully mastered set of four features done at East German DEFA studios, the films made to be a kind of counterpoint and competition to western Sci-Fi of those years. Camp? sure, but also sincere, if quite talky, and very interesting from a film history perspective.

Money was spent on these (one was shot in 70mm with stereo sound) and the imagery is lovely in Orvo-color.

The titles:
"The Silent Star"
"Signals"
"Eolomea"
"In the Dust of the Stars"

I wonder if any of these ever made it out on 16mm in the 70s?


On UHD disc:

"Rollerball" ('75)

Shout Factory made the definitive master of this in UHD/Dolby Vision, and the film, for its shortcomings, never gets old, due to its message.
The stunt work and editing still pack a punch, and the image looks as good as one can possibly imagine in this format, with grain and texture.

Claus.