TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

Her. Profoundly silly film.

[Savonarola]

I own the Image Entertainment BD with two different high-definition restorations of the same 35mm reissue print

Oh to be single again.   

(sadly, neither restoration could use the original sound, as the surviving sound discs don't properly sync).  It also has the 1925 original cut, sourced from the shitty, colorless 16mm show-at-home print that is, apparently, all that's left of that version.

The '29 reissue versions do have the red-green Technicolor for the Bal Masque sequence and it is outstanding.  (They also have the reissue's very well-deployed tinting, versus the show-at-home '25 print's lazy, often-absent tinting.)  The two reissue versions also feature a handpainted reproduction of the Handschiegel process for the Phantom's cape in the rooftop scene.  However, the other color sequences are lost.  Yet, personally, I'm not certain this isn't for the good of the film--as the first and only color in the available film, the Bal Masque scene is mind-blowing, to such an extent that discussing it almost seems like a spoiler.  I wish I hadn't known about it beforehand!

I saw that print at the Detroit Institute of Arts at one of their Halloween spectaculars.  It was really amazing on the big screen (and with live accompaniment to boot.)

This year's Halloween film at the DIA is Paul Wegener's "The Golem and How He Came into the World"  from 1920.  I'm sorry I'm going to have to miss that.

[Ideologue]

Oh to be single again.

It's like $15.  I think you could swing it.

[Capetan Mihali]

Is it Good Movie season yet?  I haven't seen anything 2014 yet, everything playing here has been unappealing junk.  Oh, except for Guardians of the Galaxy which a visiting friend wanted to see -- that's an exception to the first clause of the prior sentence, not the second.

The Great Beauty/La grande bellezza was far-and-away the best/my favorite from last season.   German commercial film-crewman  told me I really need to see Il divo now for contrast in directing and acting.

[Ideologue]

Is it Good Movie season yet?  I haven't seen anything 2014 yet, everything playing here has been unappealing junk.  Oh, except for Guardians of the Galaxy which a visiting friend wanted to see -- that's an exception to the first clause of the prior sentence, not the second.

:s

Oh well, I can buy that.  I'm surprised as many people liked it as they did.  I thought it might well be a commercial failure.

The Great Beauty/La grande bellezza was far-and-away the best/my favorite from last season.   German commercial film-crewman  told me I really need to see Il divo now for contrast in directing and acting.

Still haven't seen Beauty.  It's 2 1/2 hours of a bourgeois wart walking through Rome, right?  Yikes.

And nope, it's not Pretentious Movie Season yet.

[CountDeMoney]

Is it Good Movie season yet?

Fury opens in October.

[Ideologue]

Actually, I was going through what's coming out and I'm not sure there really is a Pretentious Movie Season this year.

[Capetan Mihali]

 

[Ideologue]

The Black Pirate (1926).  Douglas Fairbanks is on a ship that is attacked by pirates, and he and his father are briefly marooned on an uncharted isle.  His father dies; he swears revenge.  The selfsame pirates arrive on the island to bury their treasure, and Fairbanks (un)cannily infiltrates their crew, by killing their leader in single combat and being so awesome at piracy that they elect him their new leader within 24 hours.  You suspect this might be a pretty awesome, even cerebral thriller, where Fairbanks uses his brains as well as his brawn to guide his enemies into death, while he is tempted by the dark joys of the pirate life.  Instead, it's a pretty schematic romantic adventure, where he has to struggle against the dead leader's second-in-command as well as prove to a captured Princess that he is, in fact, Douglas Fairbanks, and therefore hot, and all of this involves a great deal of underexplained motivations for the secondary characters who serves as Fairbanks' sidekicks.

Even adjusting--I think--for a faded print, The Black Pirate is a real miscalculation as an early attempt at color spectacle, with a palette derived principally from a main character who wears black, sets that are uniformly brown, and a cast that ranges from lily white to pallid.  As for the film itself, Douglas Fairbanks climbing on shit is enough for any given scene, but unfortunately he does is often just standing around.  The best action scenes in The Black Pirate are in the first twenty minutes, and feature the most climbing on shit Fairbanks does in the film; the climactic action sequence is mishandled by killing the already-lackluster villain too early, and seems entirely arbitrary due to the appearance of an army of shirtless, swimming men who have no obvious provenance.  The film has a decidedly uneven tone, swinging (sometimes literally, but not often enough) between pretty great swashbuckling adventure and disturbing sequences of cruelly realistic pirate behavior.  The main driver of the plot is not Douglas Fairbanks' revenge so much as it is the omnipresent threat of rape for the leading lady.

I did enjoy the final twist, but just a little bit too little, definitely too late.  Edit: I also thought that one tracking shot was absolutely beautiful.  Not by any means terrible, and in some parts kind of great, but nothing to strongly recommend.

Very low B

[Ideologue]

Ohhhhhh.  I get it now: the signet ring.  Also he wasn't a pirate, fucking silent films.  So now there's only one character who has underexplained motivations and you can pretend due to the intensely, accidentally homoerotic scene, he's just also in love with Fairbanks.  It's a solid B instead!

[Darth Wagtaros]

Started tp watch the latest season of It's Always Sunny.  Excellent.

I'm glad Agents of SHIELD restarted. Not bad thus far.

[viper37]

and Battle of the Brave for a more modern take on the era.

Beurk.
Nouvelle-France.  Have you watched it?

[Eddie Teach]

Anchorman 2. Very funny.

American Hustle. Pretty solid film, nothing spectacular.

Divergent. Ok, I guess. Kinda like Hunger Games, but they spent too much time actually developing the implausible dystopia instead of just presenting it and getting on with the story.

[Sophie Scholl]

and Battle of the Brave for a more modern take on the era.

Beurk.
Nouvelle-France.  Have you watched it?

I have.  I'm not sure it was disgusting, but it wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination.  Ide would give it a B-.

[Admiral Yi]

It's really stretching the definition Celery Ring, but have you seen Black Robe?  Can't remember the French title.