Testy Area 51 (2 Viewers)

[TonyD]

One more thing, I received a phone call from the manager of that theater apologizing and promising the projector issue will be fixd and to
Please come up and give them another shot.
Since the place is an hour away I doubt that will happen and I was also not happy he didn't offer us a free couple of tickets to come back.

 

[Ruz-El]

I was able to get 6 CC blus for a little under $75 and another yesterday for $14.39.

Which CC blus did you get?

 

[TonyD]

Product Description Quantity Ship Date Price
Wings of Desire 1 07-11-2012 $0.00
The 39 Steps 1 07-11-2012 $0.00
Rushmore 1 07-11-2012 $18.74
Modern Times. 1 07-11-2012 $18.74
The Gold Rush 1 07-11-2012 $18.74
Being John Malkovic 1. 07-11-2012 $18.74
And yesterday Gojira

 

[Elizabeth S]

Watched Contagion last night. Very bleak and paranoia-inducing film but wraps up a little too neatly. None of the characters were fully developed and you didn't feel as invested in their fate as you should have.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Watched Malick's The Tree of Life for the first time yesterday evening with a good friend who swears by the film. I honestly am uncertain how to approach the film. This might be the best film to consider the big issues since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. It certainly aspires to that level of ambition.
There are moments of staggering beauty in the film, but anything approaching a traditional narrative is absent. The film's abstract and fragmented nature makes it difficult to assess; it feels like a poem rendered in celluloid. Duality has been a theme in Malick's work and is expressed in terms of grace vs. nature (the two halves of man?) I really feel like I need to digest this film for a while and perform a repeat viewing in the coming weeks to begin to capture the filmmaker's intent. The overall themes are clear enough but I got lost in some of the imagery. This film fits right in with some of the more abstract fare I've viewed over the past year including Valhalla Rising and Le quattro volte where imagery supercedes all other considerations.
- Walter.

 

[Ruz-El]

I loved Tree Of Life despite a less than great showing at the theater. Been sitting on the Blu waiting for the best time to view it a second time. It really is poem/piece of art. Makes you think anyways.

I really liked Contagion as well. Soderberg seems to be in box office hit mode making genre films but with his sensibilities. I'm okay with that if the results are Contagion and Haywire. I've not had a chance to see Magic Mike yet. I think his last art house film was The Girlfriend Experience, which is one that left me a bit flat. I know some raved at porn star Sasha Grey's performance, but really all she did is sit around not talking and looking pretty. Maybe I need to revisit it and her other work to fully appreciate it.

I re-watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in an attempt to get excited for The Dark Knight Rises. It worked! I forgot how good those films are. Christopher Nolan is my type of big summer movie film director. I'll try to check out the IMAX next week.

 

[Ruz-El]

Oh Tony, nice picks! I have 4 of those films on order, I already own Rushmore and Modern Times.

 

[TonyD]

I also thought about Lady on a Train and I remember being good. It's been maybe 15 years since I saw it and remember thinking it to be a bit silly for a Hitchcock movie so maybe next time.

 

[Ruz-El]

I blind bought The Lady Vanishes on the last sale and really enjoyed it. I didn't watch the bonus movie though. You get a free movie with the Bluray starring tow of the guys reprising their roles. Why they thought they would be break out characters is anyone's guess. Maybe Stef Chystoo Knows, he's a Hitchcock expert. I have The 39 Steps blind bought on this sale. No bonus movies on that one though. I hope they do set with the original Man Who Knew Too Much and oddballs like that.

I might jump back in and buy Down By Law with the two Whitman pictures Liz mentioned. Torn between now or waiting for winter. The winter sale is going to be big too, Rosemarry's Baby, Quadrophenia, Royal Tannenbaums, The Game, Eating Raul, Lonesome, I'm probably missing the odd one too. :s

 

[Walter Kittel]

Of the upcoming Criterion release the two automatic purchases for me are David Fincher's The Game and Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love which features some of the most sumptuous cinematography I have ever viewed. On a related note, I sure wish that 2046 would get a Blu-ray release.
Been meaning to watch Contagion, which I own, and Haywire, which I do not own. I would agree that Soderbergh has a knack for breathing new life into genre films. For my money typified by his films The Underneath, Out of Sight, and the excellent The Limey.
- Walter.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Woot woot woot!

 

[Steve Christou]

Woot indeed, looking forward to Lawrence of Arabia on Blu-ray, about time too. I hope the only prominent grain on display is the sand. Btw I had a dotty aunt who referred to Sir Larry as Laurence of Olivier.

Originally Posted by Russell G /t/81187/testy-area-51/28410#post_3949676
I blind bought The Lady Vanishes on the last sale and really enjoyed it. I didn't watch the bonus movie though. You get a free movie with the Bluray starring tow of the guys reprising their roles. Why they thought they would be break out characters is anyone's guess. Maybe Stef Chystoo Knows, he's a Hitchcock expert. I have The 39 Steps blind bought on this sale. No bonus movies on that one though. I hope they do set with the original Man Who Knew Too Much and oddballs like that.

Russ those two Englishmen Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, became instantly popular from Hitch's film and starred together in other films, they also appeared in a comedic segment of the classic 1945 horror omnibus Dead of Night where one of them becomes a ghost.

I've read some of the The Dark Knight Rises reviews a couple of them were negative, "bloated and humourless" said one Brit reviewer, which could describe the previous one too. But I'm really looking forward to this last Batman of the growly Bale trilogy. Reviewers mention a shock surprise, what can it be? Does Batman die? That wasn't in the comics was it? Another rumour is that Joseph Gordon Levitt takes over from Batty as Robin or Nightwing before the end credits, hmmm.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Steve Christou /t/81187/testy-area-51/28440#post_3949997
Btw I had a dotty aunt who referred to Sir Larry as Laurence of Olivier.

My wife had an Aunt Dot. One and the same?!? She was of hardy Vermont stock and recently passed at about age 95. And she had the most beautiful handwriting. A lost art, really.

I, too, am quite enthusiastic about the Blu of LoA. This was a film I knew precious little about back when I joined up in these here ranks of the HTF. I got schooled pretty quick. LoA and The Wind and the Lion were two that stick in my mind that I got teased about--back in the early days--for not knowing much about.

My wife and I watched Quill: Life of a Guide Dog the other night. This is a 2004 "documentary" from Japan (with English subtitles). It just got released on DVD. It follows the life of a Labrador Retriever puppy through selection, training, life and death--all in an hour and a half. Ebert loved it. He was most happy that the dog ws not given CGI moving lips so that he could talk to the audience! For those who know little of what it takes to train a dog to work with the blind it will be an eye-opening film. For those who love dogs, it is a feast. For those who are disinterested in either subject, stay away. There seemed to be parts of the film that made little sense which I attributed to the differences in eastern and Western cultures. And, for some reason, the fellow who ends up with Quill as his dog was an unlikeable nasty sonuvabitch the entire film. We kept waiting for the expected transformation. It never came. Kind of a head scratcher. They also made the story's narrator the man's daughter. She had no consequential role as a character in the film. Another odd choice.

Watch this...if you dare!

 

[Mike Frezon]

My wife and I went and saw the DisneyNature flick Chimpanzee tonight at

This is a 2600+ seat beautiful old theater. They are running some documentaries this month. $5 tickets. You get the idea.

Well...there was maybe about 36 people in the entire audience. Nothing you can do about that.

But then there was the crying/squawking 2-year old during most of the film. The print was dirty filthy. Lines running through it constantly. The quality of the film before the reel changes was even worse. Part of the image was being projected below the bottom of the screen onto the stage. The sound was certainly not good either. I cannot imagine what sort of projection/sound system they are using...but I don't think the phrase "state of the art" could apply. Oh, and the fillers before and during the previews looked to have been created in the 1980s--a red circle with a slash superimposed over a giant cigarette and the biggest honkin' cellphone you've ever seen. Again, you get the idea.

And then there was the film itself. I saw the trailer and really wanted to see this film in the theater. Well, I missed it on its initial run (like most films, it seems) and thought this would be a great opportunity to see a film in this grand old theater. Well, it sucked. The photography of the chimps in their natural environment is breathtaking and phenomenal. I think it would have been 100 times better to have seen it without any sound. Making up one's own story based on what was happening on screen would have been an improvement over what the Disney writers created. The script was clunky, obvious and dull. There was one group of adults sitting behind me that were reacting to some of the very obvious attempts at humor in the script. This was the same group that also fancied making chimp-like noises during the viewing of the film itself and thinking they were being very clever in doing so cracking themselves up. These were not college age kids folks. I put them at 40+!

The orphaned little chimp's name was "Oscar." Huh? The leader of Oscar's family (the big gorilla) was called "Freddy." Huh? The big gorilla in the enemy tribe was named "Scar." Huh? And Oscar's mother was...Isha? Izza? I actually checked several on-line reviews wondering how to spell the name and they ALL ignored it because no one must've been able to figure out what it was! So...our main characters are named after the Academy Award, a character from My Fair Lady, the bad guy from The Lion King and ??? Huh?

It was as if the crew went out and shot all this beautiful footage and said, "okay we've got shots of the mother and child chimp playing, shots of chimps fighting, shots of the chimp leader playing with the baby chimp, etc. Now let's try to write a story using those elements and make it work." Guess what? It didn't. And having Tim Allen--he of the fabulous voice and friendly disposition--do the narration and build in some of his personal schtick was a huge mistake...just as bad as having Samuel L. Jackson narrate the African Cat film. Bad, bad casting. If they had just given him les to say and let the visuals speak for themselves, everyone would have been a whole lot better off.

The very best thing about the film...outside of that gorgeous photography (a coffee table book would have been a much better use of the shots)...was that it was only 78 minutes long.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

That's too bad for an experience.
Funny how all those old theaters date from such a short period in the 1920's. Grauman's Egyptian (1922) and Chinese (1927) theaters, your Proctor's (1926), and the Boise Egyptian theater (1927). http://www.egyptiantheatre.net/

 

[Mike Frezon]

Slim Timblin needed places to perform...

And where else would you go to see TV?!?

 

[Ruz-El]

Woah! All that hate for Chimpanzee?!?! Didn't you see his cute little monkey face and he became friends with that Alpha Monkey AND FUCK THEY WERE SO GOD DAMNED CUTE !!! MONKEY!!!

Errrmmm.... I'm not sure what the monkey is doing in this picture... I might of violated the T&C on the HTF....


I didn't like the Tim Allen narration either but found it as restrained all things considered. Allen isn't exactly subtle. Also, using that song at least twice for two seperate montages was a bit of a time filler. I saw a gorgeous release print with no flaws in it. It was sumptuous and gorgeous and beautiful and OH GOD THOSE STUPID MONKEY'S WERE SO GOD DAMNED CUTE! So yeah, I'll probably buy the Blu. I really liked Africa Cats too and thought Nick Fury was fine narrating.

My patience has paid off, I ordered that DVD William Castle Collection for $25. Not bad! Well, hopefully it's not bad, I think the only film out of the 8 that I've seen is The Tingler and it was pretty good.

I think I have to stop buying movies now, I'm literally running out of space between them and books.

The oldest theater running in our town is the Princess from 1915, It's shit though, I hate it. Tiny screen and even in the front row you feel like you're a mile away. The dug out a second theater in the basement and it's better.

 

[TonyD]

Russell have you ever seen Matinee?
The laserdisc has a feature that allows you to watch Mant.

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by TonyD /t/81187/testy-area-51/28440#post_3951250
Russell have you ever seen Matinee?
The laserdisc has a feature that allows you to watch Mant.

I have seen it but not in years and years. Maybe it'll get a blu with the same feature. I really liked House On Haunted Hill. Vincent Price was great in it.

 

[Elizabeth S]

My wife and I watched Quill: Life of a Guide Dog the other night.  This is a 2004 "documentary" from Japan (with English subtitles).  It just got released on DVD.  It follows the life of a Labrador Retriever puppy through selection, training, life and death--all in an hour and a half.  Ebert loved it.  He was most happy that the dog ws not given CGI moving lips so that he could talk to the audience!    For those who know little of what it takes to train a dog to work with the blind it will be an eye-opening film.  For those who love dogs, it is a feast.  For those who are disinterested in either subject, stay away.  There seemed to be parts of the film that made little sense which I attributed to the differences in eastern and Western cultures.  And, for some reason, the fellow who ends up with Quill as his dog was an unlikeable nasty sonuvabitch the entire film.  We kept waiting for the expected transformation.  It never came.  Kind of a head scratcher.  They also made the story's narrator the man's daughter.  She had no consequential role as a character in the film.  Another odd choice. 

I intended to import the Asian DVD of "Quill" many years ago and never got around to it. I guess I can just see the U.S. DVD eventually.