Page 1 of Personal DVD Viewing LOG w/e Sunday 6th March

The Seven Samurai - A masterpiece of acting, storytelling, direction and editing, The Seven Samurai is Kurosawa's finest movie. :D

Rashomon - A wonderfully told story in which the nature of truth is examined in my second favourite Kurosawa movie. :D

Ikiru - A rather slow and disappointing movie which isn't helped by the DVD which has poor sound, picture and subtitles; I am not sure why I didn't enjoy the movie, whether it was the movie or the quality of the DVD. :¦

Ran - An epic reworking of King Lear with superb direction by Kurosawa, especially in the final battle scene. :D

Yojimbo - A classic movie about the nameless Ronin who descends on a village run by two rival gangs and sets out to destroy them both. Despite the awful subtitles on this DVD, the movie is hugely enjoyable and it is easy to see how it has influenced Sergio Leone amongst others. :D

The Throne of Blood - Kurosawa adapts Macbeth well into a brilliant movie with arguably Milfune's best performance. :D

The Hidden Fortress - Another terrific movie by Kurosawa with Milfune again putting in a good performance; the humour is understated and the action scenes are very well done. :)

Zatoichi - One of the best recent samurai movies, Zatoichi is well directed and acted by 'Beat' Takeshi with wonderful swordplay and bloodletting! :)

Nikita - Much better than Assassin (its remake), Anne Parillaud is perfect as the junkie cop killer turned assassin and Jean Reno puts in a chilling performance as Vincent the 'cleaner' in a movie skilfully directed by Luc Besson. :)

Suspiria - The story itself makes little sense, (a coven of witches running a ballet school in order to get rich), Dario Argente directs the movie very well and the deaths scenes are brilliantly arranged and filmed. :)

Inferno - Slightly more surreal than Suspiria, the movie which it loosely follows, Argente again shows what a skilled film maker he is in a movie that doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. :)

The Royal Tenenbaums - After watching The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, I decided to order Rushmore and watch The Royal Tenenbaums, the first Wes Anderson movie I saw. It is brilliantly acted by the stellar cast and extremely well scripted and directed by Wes Anderson. :D

Raising Arizona - Not the Coen brothers' greatest movie but, given the competition, this is not a bad thing! Raising Arizona is a very good comedy with excellent performances by both Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter. :)

The Dreamers - An American student in 1960's Paris finds himself immersed in French culture, cinema and political upheaval. The uncut DVD is an NC-17 which, to be honest, seems harsh when you consider the content of some movies that get R-ratings; it was rated 18 in Britain so the NC-17 isn't a complete surprise given the sexual content. Wonderfully written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and with strong performances from the three leads, this movie is a lot better than I expected. :)

Leaving Las Vegas - Superbly acted and directed drama/romance with a career best performance from Nicholas Cage. Not an easy film to watch, given its subject matter, but the performances are so strong that it draws you in and keeps you there until the credits roll. :D

Barton Fink - Hell exists, and it's in the Hollywood Hills; a movie about writer's block, the rise of Nazism, Faust and/or Hollywood. John Turturro and John Goodman are both excellent, as is the script and direction in this terrific film. I'm not sure where this stands in the list of the Coen brothers' best movies but it is at or near the top. :D

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - As much of the film is CG'd, I had to ask myself 'why did they bother with actors?' The whole thing was filmed in front of a blue screen and the film looks like an animated movie with real people inserted; why didn't they go the whole hog and animate the whole thing? The story makes no sense, although I'm not sure it's supposed to and the movie felt shallow and weak. :(

Man on Fire - The directing and editing is superb, as is the acting by Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning but Man on Fire is morally dubious and at least 30 minutes too long for the screenplay. Despite the length problem, I thoroughly enjoyed it at the cinema and again on DVD. :)
Commentaries - Both commentaries are good and complement each other well; Tony Scott's is interesting and well presented and the other shows Dakota Fanning to be an intelligent and down-to-earth young girl although her voice does start to grate at times. :)

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"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn`t try it on."
Billy Connolly

My Top 20 Horror Movies ---- My DVD Collection

6 of the best from Alistair MacLean and some more vintage TV -

The Guns of Navarone - This is a great action film but it`s hard to belive that it was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director Oscars as it`s really just escapist fun and not the sort of `worthy` film you`d expect to get an Oscar. All the stars are good but Anthony Quinn stands out as the hard as nails Greek officer. But best of all is the score by Dimitri Tiomkin, the first of several great film scores to MacLean films. :D

The Satan Bug - Made by one of my favourite directors John Sturges this is a tight thriller about biological warfare. Star George Maharis (who?) lacks any real presence but Richard Basehart more than makes up for it as the villan, no one can say `Botulinus` with quite the same menace as Basehart. And another good score, though not up to Navarone level, this time by Jerry Goldsmith. :D

Ice Station Zebra - Sturges again and this is even better than Satan Bug. One of Rock Hudson`s best (`We operate on a first-name basis. My first name is Captain.`) but the film is stolen by Patrick McGoohan even though he`s only doing a variation on his Danger Man role of John Drake. And this time the score, by Michel Legrand (who?), is as good as if not better than Navarone. :D

Where Eagles Dare - Perhaps the best of the lot and the first from a script by MacLean. The last 50 minutes are non-stop action, and while Richard Burton may have been the bigger star at the time and had more lines Clint kills more Germans, in fact he kills about half the german army! And it has one of the best War Movie scores of all time by Ron Goodwin. :D 8)

When Eight Bells Toll - Anthony Hopkins as James Bond? Well almost, he`s the secret service agent assigned to find millions of pounds in gold pirated in the Irish Sea. Not as big in scope or budget as the previous films this is still a lot of fun and it makes you wonder - what if Hopkins had been given the role of Bond? :D

Fear Is the Key - It`s not hard to see why Barry Newman got the lead in this film, coming the year after he made the ultimate car chase movie, Vanishing Point, the first third of this film is one long car chase so he`d have been the first person you`d think of. It`s not a bad film, a revenge thriller with Newman after the people who killed his wife, it just pales next to the rest. It features the first film appearance by Ben Kingsley as a hitman. The DVD, from Denmark, hardly helps - it`s full screen and has very poor picture quality. :)

The Sweeney Season 3 - `May` A young Carl Howman guests is this average episode. :¦
`Sweet Smell of Succession` A young Hewel Bennett outsmarts everyone in this. :) `Down to You Brother` Regan shows, yet again, what a bastard he is. :) `Pay Off` Some nice friction between Regan and Carter make this episode stand out. The series could have done with more of this. :D `Loving Arms` Dull episode about replica guns. :¦

Strange Report - `Revenge - When a Man Hates` John Thaw guest stars in this Anthony Quayle series that`s featured as an extra in the Sweeney box set. A bit boring. :(

Red Cap - Another extra in the Sweeney box, this time Thaw is the star in a story about rape on a military base. Probably very daring at the time but tame now. :¦

And that`s the lot.

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`.....be nice until it`s time to not be nice`

Inner Sense: Classed as a ghost story, but the ghosts are few and far between, and when they do come, there not that scary compared to Dark Water, The Eye, Ju-On and other Japanese ghost movies.
It starts off like Sixth Sense, but then suddenly changes course and becomes more of two people haunted by their past and they somehow have to resolve it together.

There`s no shock ending, but the film on a whole was good, but not scary.

Game of Death 2: A total surprise, a very good homage to Bruce Lee, and a 100 times better than the botched up original. Excellent fight sequences, a good if silly story, and the commentary by Bey Logan is excellent as always, plus you get to find out something very interesting regarding a particular symbol, which is regarded as a symbol of hate, but has a totally different meaning in the Asia.

Sky Captain: Went down to stop over at me dads house this weekend, and brought this down for him to see, as he was brought up on 30s/40s/50s Sci Fi serials when he was young, and is still a fan of the old

He thought it was good fun to watch, and my nephew thought is was cool, but I thought it was okay, yet I still felt that the characters were empty and needed time to get to know them. Also it would have been good to see the scientists plan and escape from the machines, just like we saw the different characters in Star Wars or in the Indy movies when they planned their escape or something, which not only added to the plot, but made the characters interesting. But with Sky Captain a lot of the scenes felt too coincidental and spoilt it in a way.

Collateral: This is the third time, and with every viewing it gets better and better. My dad thought it was excellent, but we had to have the subtitles on because the voice was muffled and he couldn't understand what they were saying half the time.

I loved it the third time, apart from the scene when Foxx lets the two wild dogs cross over the road and that grunge music comes in, I felt that it ruined the mood of the film, and was a bit like one of those cheesy Rocky montage.

floyd

And if you survive till 2005, I hope you`re exceedingly thin, For if you are stout you will have to breathe out, While the people around you breathe in.

DVDs For Trade

DVD collection

This item was edited on Monday, 7th March 2005, 01:05

Napoleon Dynamite
X Files season 1
Sub Pop Videos Volume One
Following
Deadly Predators: Big Cats
The Ref
Chaos
Legends Of Rock N Roll


My top 20 subtitled films!

Ronin (2Disc Edition) - Just bought this new edition from Amazon, for about £7 - bargain or what. Excellent film by the way. Just starting on the director`s commentary track.

i think that was it! Spent most of the time playing with my new laptop and wireless network. Got a backlog of things to watch, so maybe next weeks entry wil be more intersting.

*This message was brought to you by Glagnars Human Rinds*

Its been an unusually busy week for me. My mate has just come back from korea armed with a bag full of DVDs for me;

Oldboy - What can you say? As good as the manga and easily on par with the other film in the Vengeance Trilogy (the other being Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. Cant wait for Joint Security Area!) :D

Sympathy For Mr Vengeance see above ;) :D

Shiri Interesting Spy caper. A little fuzzy on the politics and sags a little in the middle, but over all a worthwhile watch. Some amazing action scenes. :)

Shinjuku Triad Society like hard boiled turned up to 11 (and thats saying something. Miike Takashi once again single handedly keeps the fake blood business afloat. :)

Save the Green Planet Very weird film about a crazy guy who is positive the earth is under attack by aliens. very funny. :D

Volcano High If you ever played Rival Schools, this is the film of the game, basically. Funny, slightly heavy on the CGI but still entertaining :)

Casshern Not as bad as everyone is making out. Stupid yeah, but stylistically awesome. Some of the CGI looks a shade ropey at times, but it wasnt as bad as everyone made out. Except for the strange lack of action. that was a bit odd. :¦

Sky Captain As above actually. the western casshern. As someone stated it would probably have worked better with CGI actors as they would have fitted in more believeably. And Chris Rock was right. Why is Jude Law in every film? :¦

Man on Fire Fairly turgid remake of an equally turgid 80`s crapfest. If Scott was going to remake a film I dont know why he chose this. Fanning is annoyingly precocious as the previous Child Darling of hollywood Haley Joel Osment and Denzel spends the whole film gurning. To be honest I probably would have liked it if I hadnt watched all that Korean (with a smattering of japanese) cinema. I think they pushed my action levels up too high..... :(

Ray Charles - Portrait of a Genius - OK but at 60 mins this doc. is more a diverting TV moment than a full-priced DVD. No extras... :)

Angel Guts - Collectors Edition Box Set (Review Copy) just watched the first movie of this notorius 5 film set re-released by Arts Magic. Need to keep viewing before forming an opinion...thought provoking step into some real taboo areas that takes some rationalising...very extreme for tail end of 1970`s. Haven`t listened through the Director`s commentary which might throw some light on the intent... :/

Ella Enchanted (R1) - OK diversion for teens ...(watched with kids) :)

Jaques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris - dated run-through of some high camp and drama by Brel ...all with an `experimental seventies` feel. Reminded me of the Monkees `Head`...an AFT production of the stage show... :/

UFC 50: The War of `04 - the human equivalent of cock-fighting. Rubbish. :(

Fireball Xl5 - Complete - dipped into a couple of magical old episodes... :D

I think that was it...

This item was edited on Monday, 7th March 2005, 13:58

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow - just the film, diverting enough fun...

Hellboy R2 - Film and extras, probably one of the best and certainly funniest superhero stories I`ve seen

AVP - Film and extras plus commentaries. Not as bad as made out but nowhere near the hype either...

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News Editor and Reviewer
www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk

Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn...

And those who dance will spin and turn,
And those who wait will wait no more,
And those who talk will hear the words,
And those who see will fade and die,
And those who laugh will surely fall,
And those who know will always feel their backs against the thin wall...

Kung Fu Hustle. Fantastic film haven`t laughted so much in years 10/10 :D

Aragami. Better than what i thought considering the whole film is set in one room the time flew past :¦

Sword in the Moon. Violent but something missing, could or should of been better :(

Alien Vs Predator. What i Expected , nice Effects though :/

Immortel. French film about gods, Loved this film some dodgy effects :)

Nid De Guepes. French version of Assault on Precinct 13, another great film plenty of action :D

Paranoia 1.0. Bit slow great direction interesting story :o

Sky Captain & TWOT. I liked the effects but Gwyneth Paltrow grated on me :(

Saw. I quite liked this even with the hammy acting ;)

Oldboy. What can i say, a bit to violent for my liking but a good story and the main guy had me in stitches woof woof :p

This item was edited on Monday, 7th March 2005, 19:42