Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Viewings: January 2024

Crammed almost the entire run of Nu Who (stopped at Chibnall's reign of terror) along with bouncing around the classic era. Thus, January’s films took a significant hit.

Burt Lancaster’s quest to swim his way home in the psychological drama The Swimmer was the best film discovered this month.

Another notable highlight was the Japanese thriller Door, which has made me curious for Banmei Takahashi’s other films.

 

Film:

The Violent Years (William Morgan, 1956)

Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)

The Swimmer (Frank Perry, 1968)*

The House by the Cemetery (Lucio Fulci, 1981)

Door (Banmei Takahashi, 1988)*

Gleaming the Cube (Graeme Clifford, 1989)*

Doctor Who (Geoffrey Sax, 1996)*

eXistenZ (David Cronenberg, 1999)

At Dawn They Sleep (Brian Paulin, 2000)*

Shredder (Greg Huson, 2001)*

Visible Secret (Ann Hui, 2001)*

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

Project Wolf Hunting (Kim Hong-sun, 2022)*

 

Television:

Doctor Who - Various Episodes (Sydney Newman, 1963 - 2023)*

Mastermind - episodes 18 - 22 (Bill Wright, 2023/2024)*

Masters Snooker Final (2024)*

 

*First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes

  • Other than seeing Christian Slater pretending to perform skate tricks, the funniest thing about Gleaming the Cube was seeing him thirsting for his dead brother's girlfriend. Couldn't be arsed to dress appropriately at his own brother's funeral, but made the effort for her, though. 
  • Spent the majority of my time drunkenly explaining Project Wolf Hunting's plot to my confused mate. The action horror hybrid narrative didn't really work, but its ultra gory violence kept us entertained.
  • Snow based slasher Shredder was a decent time waster. Hardly original, though.
  • Copped the 4K of It Follows and I couldn't spot a blind bit of difference with the picture quality from my old blu-ray. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Paul McGann’s performance as the Doctor and the cozy interior design of the TARDIS were the best things about the lacklustre and lore breaking 1996 Doctor Who.
  • Biggest highlight about the disappointing Visible Secret was Anthony Wong getting decapitated by a tram, and that was at the very start of the film.
  • Easily the weakest in Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy, The House by the Cemetery still has a lot to like about it:
The House by the Cemetery (Bat scene)
Lucio Fulci, 1981

8 comments:

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Fall back Shane Warne and Brett Lee - Slater waa the king of frosted tips.

Was it a good snooker final or was Ronnie on imperious form again?

Movies I saw:
Goodbye Pork Pie
Restless Natives
Poor Things (cinema)
Scala!!! (cinema)

TV I watched:
Doctor Who - Enemy Of The World
Doctor Who - Pyramids Of Mars
Prisoner: Cell Block H (episodes 1 to 26)
Neighbours (new episodes)
Big Zuu's 12 Dishes In 12 Hours (episodes 1 to 4)
Various football and darts

Spartan said...

Poor Things any good? Really want to go and see that.

Ali Carter crumbled under pressure making so many mistakes in that last session. Not many second chances when playing against Ronnie.

I briefly caught the Darts with Peter Wright. Who said punk is dead?

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Wattie from The Exploited as we call him in the pub. Punk's not dead, but Peter Wright's career is the way he's been playing over the past 12 months. A joy to behold as he's one of my least favourite players alongside Rob Cross and James Wade.

Poor Things is great. Emma Stone is (deservedly) getting all the plaudits, but Mark Ruffalo's character is like the greatest Blackadder character who never was. Best Lanthimos movie to date IMHO.

Spartan said...

That's good to hear about Poor Things. Used to find Lanthimos a little pretentious in the past, but his films have really grown on me over the years.

His prodigy, Christos Nikou, made Apples (2020), which is one of my faves from this decade. No region friendly release of it, unfortunately.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Typical!

You ever seen a movie called Chameleon Street? Read a Guardian piece about it the other day which has got me tempted enough to try the BFI player.

https://youtu.be/ad1KSsGhRa8?si=EpQQJvB0YFEn4Y_r

Spartan said...

Never heard of it. Looks very good, though.

There’s a region locked and far too expensive fancy Blu-ray of it via the distributor’s site:

https://shoparbelosfilms.com/products/le-chameleon-street-blu-ray

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Yeah, Amazon has that as well.

If it does live up to the hype then hopefully the BFI release it as a dual-pack.

Spartan said...

When a film is region locked to one specific territory, it usually means another distribution company has the rights to release it in another region. BFI makes a lot of sense as it’s the type of film they’re prone to put out as their occasional international release like their recent Blu-ray of Targets.