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What are you watching? a.k.a. Film Thread v 2.0


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I watched he 1995 Judge Dredd this morning. It was honestly not as bad as I expected, even if Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider were horribly miscast. But otherwise pretty fun - I like that it actually had a bigger scope than the 2012 Dredd. I love the new one, but it sort of has this bottle episode feel - you don't get the full scale of the 2000 AD universe. 

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6 hours ago, J Dog said:

I actually like the tv show. That's the one with the ladies drinking wine and smoking cigarettes right.

Exactly yeah.  The film was alright too really, shit was a bit of a harsh assessment, I guess cuz of the quality of the show i expected more.

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I thought it was a difficult sell stateside because 2000AD is British. How much are Yanks away of Megacity? 2000AD was something I bought growing up. I've never actually seen it (the film) since the year it was released, in the cinema; I recalled it being alright but it was so long ago. I remember that wanky Pam Anderson film being released at around the same time, Barb Wire.

Before my cinema got turned into a weatherspoons!

Edited by DieselDaisy
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4 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

I thought it was a difficult sell stateside because 2000AD is British. How much are Yanks away of Megacity? 2000AD was something I bought growing up. I've never actually seen it (the film) since the year it was released, in the cinema; I recalled it being alright but it was so long ago. I remember that wanky Pam Anderson film being released at around the same time, Barb Wire.

Before my cinema got turned into a weatherspoons!

Thats the first film i ever saw in the cinema, Judge Dredd.  My local got turned into a mosque.  Cinema I mean.  Well, thats not exactly accurate, it was derelict for the first 15 years.

The film is far removed from 2000 AD.

Edited by Len Cnut
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Family Plot (1976)

Hitchcock's final film and from the same writer of North By Northwest so it definitely had some standards to live up to. I think it suffers from revisionist praise in that people are afraid to bash it since it ended up being his last film. The cast is good and the plot is enough to keep you entertained, but it's kind of "meh." You're curious enough to see how it unfolds but there's zero suspense. The more macabre elements of dark humour are pure Hitchcock but it borders on a little too silly at times. It's like watching a Roger Moore Bond flick. Entertaining in its own right, but not necessarily my preferred type of Hitchcock.

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2 hours ago, James Bond said:

Family Plot (1976)

Hitchcock's final film and from the same writer of North By Northwest so it definitely had some standards to live up to. I think it suffers from revisionist praise in that people are afraid to bash it since it ended up being his last film. The cast is good and the plot is enough to keep you entertained, but it's kind of "meh." You're curious enough to see how it unfolds but there's zero suspense. The more macabre elements of dark humour are pure Hitchcock but it borders on a little too silly at times. It's like watching a Roger Moore Bond flick. Entertaining in its own right, but not necessarily my preferred type of Hitchcock.

It has the mother from Freaky Friday in it. Of the later films, Frenzy is the greatest.

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On 20/11/2016 at 3:39 PM, James Bond said:

I'll have to check it out! 

I find that even his lesser films are better than some A-list films of today. He was truly magic.

Frenzy is a masterpiece. He returns to his English roots, and the film feels a lot more gritty and 'exploitation' than what we generally regard with Hitchcock's films, reflecting the trends in cinema at that time and the fact he was not tied to the American censors. It is certainly his greatest film since Psycho. Of the other 'late' films, Torn Curtain and Topaz are espionage (cold war) thrillers. He used B-Movie and European actors on Topaz; he used unknown British theatre actors for Frenzy. I think he got sick of using 'stars'.

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1 hour ago, Oldest Goat said:

Sounds good to me. Gonna watch it for the first time right now

Didn't he say something like "actors are just like furniture. I put them where they need to be. They only add to the film what I can get them to do." etc etc (I'm paraphrasing) so I think you're probably right about him being tired of hollywood stars or maybe even actors in general

Well yes but he also liked pairing a big star name alongside a starlet, Grant-Bergman, Jimmy Stewart-Grace Kelly, etc. The last film in which he used major stars was Torn Curtain, in which he conflicted with Paul Newman's method acting. I think he thought bugger it, I can make this films easier with b-movie, European and theatre actors. He was rather burnt from the experience of star power as Cary Grant had retired rather young and Grace Kelly had of course become Princesses Grace of Monaco. Then you have the whole Tip Hedren thing following that, Birds, Marnie.

I think there was an element of Hitchcock reacting to the times also. Old studio-controlled Hollywood was dead by the late '60s (Hollywood itself was suffering a financial crisis); movie brats; method actors; French New Wave (style) was prevalent - ironically you could cite Psycho as a film that instigated some of these trends, at least in Anglo-American cinema. So Hitchcock made this exploitation gritty British thriller. He was rather reacting to the trends of the time. Frenzy was an old master inspired by the ideas of the young, but recalling in someways his youth (it recalls The Lodger,!). He fashioned a superb film indeed.

Family Plot was a safe film. I think he was just a bit old and wanted a safe comic piece. I like the film but it is a safe film. I'd like to believe that had he had a few more years he would have put out more pieces like Frenzy.

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10 hours ago, Oldest Goat said:

That's a real shame. Haven't seen it yet though so maybe I'll still try it out. What's your favourite Hitchcock film?

I saw North By Northwest a while ago for the first time and, no homo, Cary Grant is charming as fuck. He is one of the main reasons that movie is so pleasant and entertaining and just totally exudes charm.

If you've seen North By Northwest then you've already seen my favourite Hitchcock film (and quite possibly my favourite film of all time). It's so wonderfully written, filmed, and executed, and Cary Grant is just amazing in it. An added bonus for a huge Bond fan like myself is that it satisfyingly answers one of those big movie "what if?" scenarios - what Cary Grant would have been like as James Bond. Bond even stole the entire plane dodge sequence for From Russia With Love!

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