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Last night the Warner Archive release of The Three Musketeers, with Gene Kelly. It showed just how good the Derann Super 8 release of this was.
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Tonight's blu-ray, Star Trek "The Wrath of Khan" projected using the Panasonic VP, and boy did it look good. Hard to imagine it came out way back in 1982, its still one of the best Star Trek films in my book, also brilliant soundtrack by James Horner you simply cant ask for more.
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Well a few nights ago I followed through with "The Search For Spock" blu-ray, good movie, two nights ago Gerard Butler on "Plane" and last night "Airport 75"all blu-ray titles. One exception though was a DVD I picked up on my rounds "Lebanon", based in 1982, it tells the story of a tank crew. much of what you see is through the cross hairs of the gunners sights as he motors the turret around to view things. One scene where a car approaches head on the gunner hesitates does not fire, with tragic results from the army guys up front due to the fact the car did contain armed terrorists. Shortly after that incident, a second vehicle comes over a hill, this time and not to make the same mistake the gunner fires. After the dust has settled and as you the viewer, looking through the sights he moves his turret around only to find a badly injured civilian but only boxes of chickens all over the place. This time it was not a terrorist, but tragically this time someone taking his chickens to market much to the gunners shock.
How those two scenes play out is disturbing, now I am not sure about this film, the whole story is about one tank crew and mostly filmed inside a tank, although the reviews are very good, I still have my reservation about it.
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Been in a Michael Crichton mood as of late, so this week I've watched ANDROMEDA STRAIN (MON), CONGO (TUES), and tonight I will watch JURASSIC PARK!Comment
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We're in kind of a change of pace on our home screen. Our son is taking a summer course in International Film Studies and we are putting them up on the big screen with the VP and sound system and watching them together. Our conversations at Dinner are somehow different lately, too!
This is not our usual Blackhawk and Derann kind of film watching.
So far:- Un Chien Andalou
- Amélie
- Run Lola, Run
- La vita è bella
- A Separation
- Bajrangi Bhaijaan
Yet to come:- Raise the Red Lantern
- Spirited Away
- Pan's Labyrinth
- City of God
- Timbuktu
As I said, these are kind of new territory where our film watching ever goes. English soundtracks are naturally our comfort zone (I can do German and maybe Spanish if I can slow down the frame rate to 18FPS and have several screenings to catch the details!). So far, we've really enjoyed several of these. Bajrangi Bhaijaan last night is a visually beautiful movie and a great story. It was compelling enough that the subtitles stopped being noticeable pretty quickly.
"Turn it up! -I can't hear them!"
"You...understand them?!"
"Well, no...-but!"
Super-8 and 16mm are currently on standby, but they'll be back in force after the Final Exam!Comment
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ELO in concert in Hyde Park 2015 and the documentary on Jeff Lynne for me yesterday.Comment
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Brian,
That ELO taping was so well done. A terrific performance was captured perfectly.
Steve,
That's some list! It reminds me that the first time I ever saw Un Chien Andalou was in 1976 at David Bowie's Station to Station concert in Madison Square Garden. The lights dimmed, the film ran and then Bowie came out. Buñuel's (and Dali's) short got an enthusiastic response from the crowd.Comment
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Un Chien Andalou was kind of challenging as the first film out of the gate! Maybe Amélie would have been a little less stunning for the new students.
This course is classic among art-introductory ones: basically it all comes down to keeping up with the schedule as far as experiencing the presented material and being prepared for discussions and exams. I had an Intro to Classical Music when I was a freshman and the key to whole thing was just going to the library and popping a cassette in their player and listening to the music while reading about the pieces in the textbook. Then when the music came up on the exams we had to name the piece and composer and describe highlights of it.
Any real adult would have no problem with this, but we are talking college freshmen here! Half the class didn't listen to the music which resulted in this poor little music class being bomb-scared at every exam!
When the Final came, we met at the Lecture Center (as usual) and then, suddenly we were divided up and whisked off to undisclosed locations! They Bomb-Scared the Lecture Center into oblivion (40 years later, it's still there...), but the Final Exam came off on schedule!
It's hard to have a good Bomb Scare these days: especially summer courses tend to be remote learning!
My kid is really growing up! He's handling the work just fine without his "roomates" (parents) nudging him along.Comment
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Un Chien Andalou certainly has earned it's mark in film history. They set out to make a pointless film designed to offend everyone and were disappointed when it failed to do that.
Source: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpres...sian-dog-1929/In 1929, both men were young, cocky and rebellious, and quite ready to take on the world. Un Chien Andalou was an early example of an effective piece of independent film-making. It was made on a small budget, and funded by money that Buñuel had borrowed from his mother.
What made Un Chien Andalou memorable was shock value. It must be the most famous shocking film of the silent era. It includes such images as an eyeball being slashed by a razor, ants crawling out of a hole in a man’s hand, another hand that has been severed, the rotting corpses of two donkeys lying across two pianos, and a couple of young lovers half-buried and seemingly dead on a beach.
It would be several decades before film-makers realised that there was a commercial appeal in images of extreme horror and violence, and these images would become more common on our screens. Yet here we have a taste of what is to come in a short art-house movie lasting barely more than twenty minutes.
When Alfred Hitchcock pushed the boundaries of sex and violence in Psycho, he did so knowing that there was an audience out there who might gasp or scream, but who would also enjoy watching it. The motives of Dali and Buñuel were different. The two men were out to offend as many people as possible.
Film critics love it. Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars. However the first comment on his review got the following comment for a reader:
Is Un Chien Andalou "is the longest emperors-clothes con in film history", of is art? Watch it below, and decide:You know, I don't know. I'm an enormous classic film fan and I've never been able to see the value of this film. I find it to be meaningless pornography of the grotesque. I'm not squeamish by any means, but this thing is just unpleasant and boring and honestly feels like a dumb film school stunt. I feel like this thing is the longest emperors-clothes con in film history.
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I managed to find a Super 8 print of this many years ago, striped but silent.Comment
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