Movie Magic (and the ones you'd like to disappear...)

905 wrote:

Don't you hate it when the telly shows two very good films at the same time? Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was on last night at the same time as Das Boot.

I noticed that.

Which did you watch then? Crouching Tiger for me, I have a thing for Michelle Yeoh.

905 wrote:

Which did you watch then? Crouching Tiger for me, I have a thing for Michelle Yeoh.

Yeah, so do I

Girl With A Pearl Earring is just starting on RTE 1 now. I haven't seen the film but the book was great. I taught it at one time and it was one of those texts that everyone enjoyed.

Kate P wrote:

Girl With A Pearl Earring is just starting on RTE 1 now. I haven't seen the film but the book was great. I taught it at one time and it was one of those texts that everyone enjoyed.

Started to watch it once but didn't stick it out. Visually a big disappointment, not enough exterior shots - I had expected a succession of shots like Vermeers.

unaligned wrote:

Films that unaligned likes:

The Life Aquatic
There Will Be Blood
Brick
City of God
Garden State
Half Nelson (Not to be watched if one is feeling fragile)
Breakfast On Pluto

TV shows that unaligned likes:

The Wire
The West Wing
Six Feet Under
Arrested Development
Shameless

On that subject...

Recommended films

Syriana
The Big Lebowski
Batman Begins and the Dark Knight
The Star Wars Trilogy
Downfall
Cradle Will Rock
Man on Fire
Spartacus
The Goonies
The Departed
Indiana Jones I-III
Empire of the Sun
The Last Emperor
Hero
Amazing Grace
etc...

Recommended Series...

Fictional
Star Treks TNG, DS9 and VOY
The West Wing(I have a presidential library of the complete series now so I can watch it whenever and however I like!)
John Adams
Dexter
Big Bang Theory
Frasier
Seinfeld
The Simpsons
Futurama

Non-Fictional

University Challenge
QI
The View
Questions and Answers
The Daily Politics
Mock the Week
Have I Got News for You

cactus flower wrote:

Kate P wrote:

Girl With A Pearl Earring is just starting on RTE 1 now. I haven't seen the film but the book was great. I taught it at one time and it was one of those texts that everyone enjoyed.

Started to watch it once but didn't stick it out. Visually a big disappointment, not enough exterior shots - I had expected a succession of shots like Vermeers.

You had high expectations. It is visually disappointing and it has none of the subtlety or charisma of the novel. Quite a few liberties taken too with the original, but I watched it anyway and enjoyed it.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

unaligned wrote:

Films that unaligned likes:

The Life Aquatic
There Will Be Blood
Brick
City of God
Garden State
Half Nelson (Not to be watched if one is feeling fragile)
Breakfast On Pluto

TV shows that unaligned likes:

The Wire
The West Wing
Six Feet Under
Arrested Development
Shameless

On that subject...

Recommended films

Syriana
The Big Lebowski
Batman Begins and the Dark Knight
The Star Wars Trilogy
Downfall
Cradle Will Rock
Man on Fire
Spartacus
The Goonies
The Departed
Indiana Jones I-III
Empire of the Sun
The Last Emperor
Hero
Amazing Grace
etc...

Recommended Series...

Fictional
Star Treks TNG, DS9 and VOY
The West Wing(I have a presidential library of the complete series now so I can watch it whenever and however I like!)
John Adams
Dexter
Big Bang Theory
Frasier
Seinfeld
The Simpsons
Futurama

Non-Fictional

University Challenge
QI
The View
Questions and Answers
The Daily Politics
Mock the Week
Have I Got News for You

My God, where do you get the time?????????

My favourite films are

- A Matter of Life or Death
- Casablanca
- Blood Simple
- Airplane
- All the President's Men
- Rear Window (the original)
- Naked Gun
and almost anything in the French language and most Hitchcock films.

My favourite TV shows are:

- Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister
- Fawlty Towers
- The West Wing
- Frasier
- Newsnight
- QI
- House of Cards
- Friends
- X Factor
- Star Trek TNG
- Blackadder
- The Simpsons

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it
- anything with Mel Gilson in it
- any bastardised 'historical' films, eg, Michael Collins, which was a crock of sh1te in terms of accuracy.
- Big Brother
- anything with anyone who has been on Big Brother
- daytime television

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with Mel Gilson in it
- any bastardised 'historical' films, eg, Michael Collins, which was a crock of sh1te in terms of accuracy.

Not a fan of Braveheart then?

Snap there for a lot of the films. Anything by Powell and Pressburger or Hitchcock does it for me. A Matter of Life and Death would be my absolute favourite film of the lot, closely followed by a tie between Vertigo and Rear Window.

Slim Buddha wrote:

My God, where do you get the time?????????

I make the time . I also quite like stuff on the television, so I have broad tastes.

905 wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with Mel Gilson in it
- any bastardised 'historical' films, eg, Michael Collins, which was a crock of sh1te in terms of accuracy.

Not a fan of Braveheart then?

AAAAAAGH!

The only good reason to watch Braveheart is to spot the number of continuity errors. There are some howlers, like seeing Gibson charging the English with an axe in his hand which after a few steps becomes a sword, then changes hands, and then returns to be an axe again, all in the one run for about 10 yards!!!

I really really hate supposed history films that are factual nonsense. The Collins one is a classic for makey-up facts, including the wrong interior of the GPO, car bombs going off even though they were invented until decades later, guns used that were not invented until the 1940s, a TD in the Dáil debating the treaty wearing a 1990s suit and a Peter Mark hair cut, Collins's uniform constantly wrong, Collins wrongly said to head the treaty negotiations, Broy killed off when he actually was Garda Commissioner in the 1930s, Collins sneaking in to see files in Dublin Castle when he actually went somewhere else as the files were not kept there, the burning of the Custom House that if you look closely isn't the Custom House at all but the Four Courts, names mixed up, dates mixed up, people mixed up, references mixed up, and that is before you get to the travesty of claiming de Valera was mixed up with Collins' death. It is an appalling bastardisation of history. The scary thing is that teachers get essays submitted by kids who believe the film is the correct version and what is in the history books is wrong.

A thread on favourite films! here are mine:

Papal Knight wrote:

My favourite films are



My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

I'm fairly ambivilant about sport and a sporting movie is my ideal of hell, especially if that sport is american Football (Leatherheads was apalling) but I really loved Any Given Sunday. Absolutely blows my mind, one of my favourite films and i'd strongly recommend it. Deals with loyalty, trust betrayal etc.

Anyway, favourite films are

The Life Aquatic/Darjeeling Limited
Hunger (Can't believe Irish filmakers haven't dared to tackle the troubles in such a forthright manner - an indictment of them that this was a british film)
Downfall
A bridge too far ( I quite like war films)
The Third Man (Orson Welles was a legend)
Kenny (Aussie film about a portaloo plumbers philosophies on life etc)
The Science of Sleep

And TV programmes,

Rome
The Wire (best series ever made - a number of Irish actors in it)
Band of Brothers (really looking forward to a pacific islands version)

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

Friday night lights
Remember the titans
Any given Sunday
Good films all.

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

Friday night lights
Remember the titans
Any given Sunday
Good films all.

Not forgetting the glory that is John Wark in Escape to Victory...

toxic avenger wrote:

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

Friday night lights
Remember the titans
Any given Sunday
Good films all.

Not forgetting the glory that is John Wark in Escape to Victory...

Have a care, some of the best acting Mr. Stallone ever did was in that film.

tonys wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

Friday night lights
Remember the titans
Any given Sunday
Good films all.

Not forgetting the glory that is John Wark in Escape to Victory...

Have a care, some of the best acting Mr. Stallone ever did was in that film.

Olivier in Richard III couldn't hold a candle to it...

toxic avenger wrote:

tonys wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

Friday night lights
Remember the titans
Any given Sunday
Good films all.

Not forgetting the glory that is John Wark in Escape to Victory...

Have a care, some of the best acting Mr. Stallone ever did was in that film.

Olivier in Richard III couldn't hold a candle to it...

Liked him in Richard I & II, but I felt they only made Richard III for the money & it showed, how many times have we seen that eh!.
On Stallone, when he’s on form, the skin on a rice puddin’ isn’t safe, himself & Rodger Moore, giants of the silver screen.

tonys wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

tonys wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

My pet hates:

- anything with sport in it

Friday night lights
Remember the titans
Any given Sunday
Good films all.

Not forgetting the glory that is John Wark in Escape to Victory...

Have a care, some of the best acting Mr. Stallone ever did was in that film.

Olivier in Richard III couldn't hold a candle to it...

Liked him in Richard I & II, but I felt they only made Richard III for the money & it showed, how many times have we seen that eh!.
On Stallone, when he’s on form, the skin on a rice puddin’ isn’t safe, himself & Rodger Moore, giants of the silver screen.

I liked him as Hugh Dowding in The Battle of Britain, thought he portrayed the slightly over-tired and downbeat tone to a tee. Not a patch on Michael Caine, of course.
Ah, Roger Moore. Giant of the eyebrow-acting world (and best friend of Caine, a fellow Cockney)...

toxic avenger wrote:

I liked him as Hugh Dowding in The Battle of Britain, thought he portrayed the slightly over-tired and downbeat tone to a tee.

He always had a fine touch, I thought he was terrifying in Marathon man.

Another to add to your list of must see films for any who haven't seen it yet, Charlie Wilson's war. It has nearly everything, Tom Hanks, not to universal taste I know but I like him, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Politics, witch hunts, war, the CIA and best of all, a script as good as anything in the West Wing and very funny in places. It's also a true story which always adds a little something.

tonys wrote:

Another to add to your list of must see films for any who haven't seen it yet, Charlie Wilson's war. It has nearly everything, Tom Hanks, not to universal taste I know but I like him, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Politics, witch hunts, war, the CIA and best of all, a script as good as anything in the West Wing and very funny in places. It's also a true story which always adds a little something.

Is Charlie Wilson's War a recent one? There's also Frost Nixon - anyone seen that? Download it free on ...

I've still got Syriana, Good Night & Good Luck and Soylent Green lined up.

Say Grand Torino over the weekend. Excellent film. Clint Eastwood is getting better with age.

Also had the misfortune to see Mamma Mia - Terrible, terrible film.

As regards TV programmes, saw Generation Kill recently. Its based on a book by a rolling stones journo embedded with a group of marines for the invasion of Iraq. Produced by the same crowd who did The Wire. Its like a modern Band of Brothers, except its rather critical of US foreign policy and somewhat critical of the agressive culture in the US armed forces. Brilliant and shocking I've to stop myself calling people "dawg" since.

Soylent Green eh - I've heard there is a great twist in that, thanks for reminding me, I will try and find a copy for myself.

How are things shutuplaura? From the news things look pretty grim in the south.

Hope you and yours are all OK.