It's such a shoddy affair - don't know what I was expecting to be honest - Marple beheading a suspect perhaps :nod:

Footprints is an absolutely fascinating watch, but don't go expecting The Fifth Cord, very different and the Shameless cut is a bit of a collage (subs and dubbing come & go) but I like that kind of thing anyway.

Yeh, give SNOTGD and let me know what you make of it. I just love the premise so much and there is some superb cinematography in that too.

Was there any evidence of his directorial style? I imagine ITV have a tight control over what they want for their sunday night audience :tsk:...

Today I've watched:


All the Colours of the Dark - Edwige Fenech :love: Really enjoyed this, incredibly atmospheric and creepy and well-directed overall in general. Felt like the ending was a little bit too abrupt and more could have been explained, but being a giallo I'm more than happy to let logic go out of the window a little

Arachnid - hmmm. Not great really. There was no tension in this at all, the characters just ambled from one mildy-perilous situation to the next.

Yeah, I got that from the trailer on the Shameless website - not an ounce of exploitation in sight!!! Did Shameless release a bloody ART FILM :tsk: . . .

Nope. Just a hired hand by the sound of it. He talks about it briefly on the Bronson copmmentary or maybe the Valhalla Rising one? On of 'em anyway... I think...? :confused:

I'd definitely say it wouldn't be out of place in the Arthouse Atrocities thread!

It's best summed up as a giallo that Philip K. Dick would have written if he was Italian. :shocked:

I've just started watching the excellent documentary Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Movie but, this afternoon/evening I've also seen:

HariKiri - A really interesting samurai drama in which a man, saying he will commit the titular act, recounts why he ended up there
The Last House on the Left - In the same way as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Cannibal Holocaust, this does diminish slightly in its power and ability to shock, but is still a really impressive film. I don't even mind the rubbish policemen!
Quatermass and the Pit - A classic Hammer Horror with a fascinating premise, great performances and effects which still stand up today. This BD looks and sounds terrific, but I'm going to watch it again with the commentary and doublecheck on the amount of DNR. I should have the review (along with that for HariKiri) up this weekend.

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Movie is my favourite horror doc. Probably seen it five times now, never get bored by it.

I love Harakiri a true epic film in terms of story, and a great climax fight scene: over the top and realistic at the same time

I couldn't agree more. It was released on DVD on Monday by Eureka and has superb AV quality.

You mean dual format

2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY on Blu, rather than gush on how good this looks and sounds I thought I'd give you my take on it's meaning(I'll be brief) to me it tells the story of mankind's evolution and it's obsession with violence(the waterhole at the start is no different to the 'find' on the moon) Haywood Floyd is just the same monkey but more diplomatic and now the Russians are the other tribe(tho not clear, the bone/spacecraft is a nuclear missile platform aimed at are own humankind) and the mistrust and secrecy around the monolith is no different to the waterhole many tens of thousands of years ago. Hal represents machines doing what they do today, increasingly running virtually every moment we live the further evolved we become(members here can watch all the films they want via the internet, without any human interaction at all... But not without a computer they can't) "send me another zombie movie...Hal". And the infant/baby at the end is us, still after many millenniums and all our technology we're still embryonic insignificant beings until we put the weapons and greed behind us and grow up and become at one with the universe. Feel free to completely disagree.

interesting theory, mine was a bit different...

the film is a series of evolutionary bus stops, the first during the monkey thing, shows how when they discover the obelisk and touch them, they evolve, they make tools, and they form groups or tribes. We fast forward to 2001 and it's time for our next step in evolving which is the obelisk appears again, this forces the crew of the ship to go to jupiter, futher manned exploration of the solar system. HAL is what happens when technology becomes self aware and dave's ability to shut down HAL is human's being able to controll selfaware technology, this shows that Dave has evolved again. Then we have the giant space obelisk, it chose dave to show him the future of mankind by transporting him through time and space which is where we come to the room at the end. Dave watches his life fade in a matter of minutes, and then we have Dave the star child, evidence that he has evolved beyond humanoid and into a higher evolved species...

The purpose of each monolith is to envolve the species.The first one caused ape to become man and the last, man to new entity, a cosmic child but all these doesn't matter because the movie is open to everything.Anyone can make their own assumptions.The real purpose of the film is not to find what happened but to think about our existence and the future of everything.Your take is great though;)

Yes, I forgot about that bit as I've only been provided with the DVD for review. It should look even better in HD.

Right, that's it. I want to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again!

Arthur C Clarke's book does give you slightly more to work with, but as a whole i feel most people who actually "watch" 2001, instead of smoking herbal cigarettes and just letting it wash over you, do get the meaning of the film....one of the few films il be instantly buying when i get a player!!

I seem to remember Arthur C Clarke saying something like 'If you understood exactly what was happening in the film, then we failed', inferring the film is deliberately ambiguous so each viewer can take away something different from the viewing experience, whether you watch it as a visual spectacle, watch it and drop acid during the spaceflight sequence (as I believe people did!) or tackle it on a more intellectual level.

I won't put my theories on the meaning but while you guys are on the subject of 2001...What's it like on BluRay? I've yet to see the BluRay version. Kubrick is one of my all time favourite film makers so I will eventually be picking it up but just wondering what you guys thought of the Blu?

The HD restoration is stunning as it's been taken from the original 70mm negatives so, in terms of the AV quality, there are few discs which come close to the sheer spectacle. As a Kubrick fan, this is one which you should definitely add to your collection - you won't be disappointed.

Yeah, 2001 is one of the best looking (and sounding) BDs I've seen thus far. Absolutely stunning. :coolblue:

As above, 2001 is a reason to go Blu. The HD mantra of "looks more like a window than a screen" fits perfectly here, reach your hand toward the screen during the Dawn scenes, it's kinda like you can reach into the environment(no herbal roll ups required:lol:) sod 3D. Stanley sure knew his stuff.

What they all said. It's literally STUNNING. No exaggeration, I thought I was going to cry I was that overwhelmed with it. Incredible.

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Also, in case you didn't know, Takashi Miike is currently working on a remake of HariKiri.

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films i have watched...hmmm...

BLOOD OUT - i don't know what possessed me to rent this action movie, the cast reads like this; Vinnie Jones, Tammer Hassan, Luke Goss, Val Kilmer and Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson. Wow was this a piece of shit, bad acting from everyone except Luke Goss who to be fair was pretty cool, CGI gun fire, it was so obvious even the bullet holes still moved. Fiddy Cent is in it for about 6 seconds yet gets top billing and the film ends mid sentance. Shit.

X-THE UNKNOWN: interesting second film from Hammer, Good Jimmy Sangster script and an intriguing premise about a species that strives of energy that is going around eating up radiation. Sort of the Blob meets the Thing. Worth a look for fans of hammer and old school british sci-fi. The new budget release from Icon is ok, there are no extras and the PQ is quite bad in some scenes but due to the age and the materials used, it's understandable, still a million times better than anything released on the Elstree entertainment label.

Watched The Case of the Bloody Iris earlier. Thoroughly enjoyed this, really liked the setting of the luxury high rise. Kept me guessing until the every end as far as the killer was concerned although that's probably just because of how unlikely it seemed. Still worth watching though.

I knew about that but, after watching Kobayashi's masterpiece, I don't see how it could be bettered or even equalled.

Doubtful ,probably an action flick

Just watched Eden Lake highly enjoyed this deffo a on your edge or your seat thriller / horror very well made.

Watched Frankenhooker....not bad...not good...buit did make me laugh.

Just watched The House By The Cemetery.Not Fulci's best ,but was ok

I'd say it's my fave. I'm currently persuading someone I know to give it another go, but they seem quite reluctant. I love Dr Freudstein, he's a brilliantly ****ed up creation and reminds me a little bit of that sand-filled nazi from Hellboy. :crazy:

I completely get you there. :nod:

All through Hellboy, Freudstein would pop into my head every-time the sand-filled Nazi was on screen.

Was the sand nazi in Mignola's comics? I haven't read them. If not then I wouldn't be surprised if Del Toro had Freudstein in the back of his mind... this would please me immensely if it was true :nod:

I've just finished a triple bill of excellent, but very different films:

Frantic - Roman Polanski directs Harrison Ford (now one of his best friends) in this fine thriller in which Ford plays a doctor who, with his wife, travels to Paris for a conference and, only minutes after settling into their hotel room, she disappears.

The Big Country - A brilliant western directed by William Wyler and with a superb central performance from Gregory Peck and the supporting cast, including Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons and Carroll Baker, is exemplary.

Pandora's Box - This 1929 silent movie from Austrian director Georg Wilhelm Pabst has a fairly simple story [about the rise and fall of a naïve trapeze artist called Lulu] but is superbly directed, has a great lead actress in the American Louise Brooks and features the first lesbian character in film history.

I haven't read the comics either, I'm afraid. It would be pretty good if Del Toro was a closet Fulci fan, though. :D

Look also for Diary Of A Lost Girl for another great perfomance by Louise Brooks

As it's also directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, I know it'll be very well directed and have an immensely talented lead actress. The Eureka DVD is already in my wish list.

Charlton Heston was so wooden in The Big Country he had splinters. All he seemed to do was lean on fences, until his big fight with Peck of course.