Highly recommended !!
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Donāt think Iāve ever seen this one but if itās got Stanley Baker and Susannah York in it I clearly should remedy that situation.
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Itās the same team that produced/directed āZuluā, Cy Enfield & āourā Stanley ā¦ Not well remembered these days, but itās top notch.
PS: Olive Films released this on DVD, and I think BD also ?
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Well that canāt be bad
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Just watched the last five of my blu-ray prems for the festive season.
The four-hour version of āJustice Leagueā completely blew the theatrical version out of the waterā¦no comparison whatsoever. Excellent!
Always been a fan of Stanley Kubrickās āThe Shiningā, so I particularly enjoyed the sequel, āDoctor Sleepā. A great continuation of the original storyā¦
Spidermanā¦Now looking forward even more to the third installmentā¦
Finishing with Pixarās āCocoā. I love a beautifully animated film, and this is simply stunningā¦a good story, too;
and āSpiderman: Into the Spider-verseā - which is a real treat for the eyes.
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I concur with you on everything - especially Justice League and the Spider-Man films. I was pleasantly surprised with Into the Spider-Verse as I find the majority of modern animation to be disappointing. This was phenomenal though and has me anxiously awaiting the sequel.
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Purely imho, but I found Spider-Man: Far From Home (Watts, 2019) to be one of the weakest, most forgettable entries in the entire MCU. Not to worry, though: The sequel Spider-Man: No Way Home (Watts, 2021) - in cinemas currently - is a very enjoyable picture (if you like superhero movies, of course), and is right up there among the best Spidey movies of the lot imo, alongside Spider-Man 2 (Raimi, 2004) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Ramsey/Persichetti/Rothman, 2018).
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I just watched Fulci for Fake on Tubi. It centers more on Lucio Fulciās horror films but does touch on Four of the Apolcalypse, the White Fang movies, and Silver Saddle. While it is far from being a true documentary, it does contain some nice interviews that offer an insight into who he was as a person, and it shows how incidents from his own life influenced his films. Probably worth a watch for those who are fans of his films.
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Decided to dive into my Lone Wolf and Cub set today. I was excepting them to be similar to traditional samurai films but boy was I wrong. I was planning on just watching the first but I just had to watch the second one straight after and it was somehow even better than the first. I really wish I knew about these films sooner cause Iām having an absolute blast with them.
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Also went to The Kingsman with a few mates yesterday (didnāt even know it existed until they asked me if I wanted to go and see it). Was extremely average but had a couple of nicely choreographed fights and Ralph Fiennes is a great actor no matter what heās in. Honestly, it was just nice getting to go to the cinema with friends again. Iāve sorely missed it over the past few years.
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Re-watch of Kill Bill 1 and 2 together with my son.
Somehow these are the only 2 movies of Tarantino I like so much I would re-watch them. Here his over the top action works.
My son kept asking about the music, āI have heard that before, where is it from?ā luckily I could answer the questions. I think it is time he sees more Spaghettiās.
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I had fun with this one last year. The director said in his interview he wanted to do something different, and not be just talking heads, so he mixed documentary style interviews with scripted footage of the interviewer/actor playing an actor doing research as he preps to play the director in a film about his life.
Finally sat down and watched my Blu Rays of Sette Scialli di Seta Gialli (Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk/The Crimes of the Black Cat) and Un Posto Ideale per Uccidere (An Ideal Place to Kill/Oasis of Fear). Both really excellent and well made Mystery Thrillers, with equally clever twists. ****1/2 stars for both.
I saw on Umberto Lenziās interview about An Ideal Place to Kill that he didnāt like having Ornella Mutiās and Ray Lovelockās characters being porno dealers, feeling it would look dated later, and that he wanted them to be drug pushers, and that Pontiās insistence took the realism he wanted out of the film. While I agree with him that having the leads be on the run drug dealers wouldāve made for more interesting tension, the porno pusher angle still works well, and I donāt feel the film looks dated.
I enjoyed an action-packed evening of Denzel last night.
Followed by the first instalment of the splatter franchise with an edgeā¦
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Iāve started the year on a bit of a 1930s kick and am working my through the films in my collection from that decade in year order. So far Iāve watched:
Party Girl (Halperin / 1930)
The Big Trail (Walsh / 1930)
Animal Crackers (Heerman / 1930)
Dracula (Browning / 1931)
Interesting to see these films from the pre-code era. Party Girl especially, although not a very good film, has themes that would not have been tackled a few years later. Dracula, when you think of it, has a highly sexualised context that probably would get past the code later on even though itās all a bit stagey and low on blood. Not even any fangs! Also, for the most part these films seem almost like silent films with sound which I know sounds ridiculous. What I mean is the look and feel and techniques like heavy use of title cards etc are clearly leftover from the silent era as the film makers get more used to the sound medium and the technology began to push forward more quickly. Only the Marx Brothers really use the sound medium with lots of snappy dialogue and musical numbers but the filming style looks more like a theatre show being filmed than anything else. Very static cameras and lots of wide shots etc. All that said, Iām enjoying them.
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Some of the Marx Brothers best material seems to be a bit risque for the times as well but the lines are delivered in such a snappy, quick-fire manner that if you donāt have a bit of a dirty mind it will slip right past you. 
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That was a problem for me when recently trying to watch one of their early films, from a boxset I picked up - actually canāt remember which one now! but the stagnant recording of their act just irritated me ā¦ and āWeā canāt have that! ffs 
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Actually many of the early sound films were only partly shot with sound, many feature still a lot of silent scenes. Even classics like Hitchcockās Blackmail or Langās M .
And the staginess has also a lot to do with much bigger and heavier cameras and the difficulties of recording the sound with rather primitive techniques.
There is also mostly a lack of music and a stronger concentration on dialogues which adds to the theatre atmosphere.
The first 2 Marx Brothers films are indeed not that filmic, but thanks to the dialogues much more funny than any of their later MGM films. 8/10 and why a duck?
And much better than the stiff Dracula. 5/10
The Big Trail is more interesting for the directing, with some still spectacular scenes, but overall for me also not too interesting from a modern point of view. 6/10
Phil, what do you think about this early western?
Just finished up Yazuso Masumuraās The Black Test Car. A very decent Corporate Thriller with gray area characters, some you understand why they have to play dirty, some are downright in the wrong, and others you feel arenāt too objective. Itās a slow burner, but itās well worth the payoff when you fins out what was really going on. **** out of *****.
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