Films

Anyone seen hundreds of beavers? On Prime for £1.99 rental. Looks interesting.

Not googling that

Conclave was on my watchlist but I just read the book, which is pretty terrible. I don't think even Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci could rescue it.

It's a decent watch imo, but almost any film will be a dissapointment after you read the book first.

There are multiple downloads at PB. The 6.03 Gig one has English subtitles.

tried watching hundreds of beavers but it was a bit disappointing, pretty much the same thing over and over for the first 30 mins got bored and moved on
interesting idea and quite unusual but didn't quite live up to the type of cartoons it's trying to emulate

hundreds of beavers

Nearly went to see it at HOME when it was on, but missed out. My friend went and liked it a lot, she's French and into unusual films, but I very much trust her opinion.

I think the book is bad, so the risk isn't that the film wouldn't live up to it, but that it would live down to it.

Have we had Anna Vs the Apocalypse?

A musical, Christmas zombie film in Scotland. It's a surprisingly enjoyable afternoon watch.

Curzon Soho - 2nd Jan
Nosferatu 35mm and Q&A with Robert Eggers
https://www.curzon.com/ticketing/seats/SOH1-47592/

We're having a Spielberg fest over the break. So far watched Jaws, Indy 1, Close Encounters..., Duel,

He's so good, especially at 'show don't tell'.
All these films were almost without dialogue.

I do wonder if there is a film aficionado forum where they think it’s fine to steal bikes and advocate it to each other.

I guess if they could steal the bikes but leave an identical copy behind so no-one knew in between buying their own bikes when they can afford or find them, or while they pay over the odds to borrow a bike from one company and want one from another and can't pay for both at the same time.

It's like stealing a Lime bike.

IIRC vhs hire was about £1.50 mid eighties and a cinema ticket was similar.

As such £5 to£10 streaming fee seems reasonable compared to a cinema ticket these days. Given the film industry and cinema model is struggling I don’t think watching pirated movies is an ethical activity.

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Watched Heat yesterday for the first time in quite a while.

Watched it when it came out in the ABC in Croydon when I was 13 - we managed to get into 15s there. Also remember seeing 12 Monkeys the same year.

It didn’t make a huge impression on me. Mostly as I was young and dumb and was comparing to stuff like Goodfellas and Scarface, so the noirishness of it was totally lost then, as it was less so in the proceeding years, but not at all now. Loved every second of it.

This scene and especially the music totally rules.

https://youtu.be/2YZ6E7hn45g?si=Y4o8TAUX-ePiF4P4

That wouldn't normally be my type of film, but it's a Michael Mann film, so it's done better. It's still a very Hollywood "two big movie stars face off" film, but it's better than most of them. The scenes most fans rave about are

• De Niro and Pacino meeting for coffee
  
• The police detectives being tricked into gathering in one place so that the criminals know who they all are
  
• The shoot-out at the end of the bank robbery. Military types (and wannabees) make a particular fetish of that one because it's apparently one of the most realistic firefights in film; for a while it was shown to U.S. Marine recruits fresh out of base camp, until somebody realised that using even fictional bank robbers as training material didn't look so good.
  
  

Michael Mann's record is hardly perfect (I mean, "The Keep"), but he's done several where I was surprised how good they were compared to my expectations when I went in. If you haven't seen "Collateral", do.

Yeah I read at the bank robbery they were allowed to use live ammo (obviously still blanks, but real gunshot noises) and the sound is all recorded live rather than overdubbed with bang bang sounds so the echoes around the streets and buildings sound absolutely terrifying

Marine recruits are shown Val Kilmer reloading during training. Perfect technique.

I quite enjoyed The Keep in a very strange, absolutely incomprehensible way. That's not to say it's good.

Mann has done some bangers. Manhunter, Thief are great. I enjoyed Collateral and Miami Vice as well. Some stinkers in the mix for sure though. Public Enemies is one that comes to mind.

I liked the Keep. Very rewatchable. Great music.

I quite enjoyed The Keep in a very strange, absolutely incomprehensible way. That's not to say it's good.

Accurate. I recall enjoying the vibe but also thinking "this is a mess" while watching. The plot has a series of stages to go through and it just proceeds through them without doing much to hold it together.

I don’t think watching pirated movies is an ethical activity.

I’m not arguing right or wrong here but the industry never helped itself with the old practices of geo blocking and split release dates for different territories, and these days it’s doing the same with the increasing fragmentation of the streaming market. Customers will only be taken for fools for so long.

I loved Collateral (and Manhunter). Is Thief any good?