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DVDs and Films You Have Watched Recently 3 - The Final Insult


Devon Malcolm

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Saw Monsters University last night. I'm a massive Pixar fanboy, but I was still a little bit concerned about this one; what the point of it would be, whether it was going back to the Monsters world just for the sake of it, etc. I needn't have worried because it was great (though not a patch on Monsters, Inc). A bit more grown-up I felt, with the nice simple message of 'sometimes the things you plan for your life don't work out, but you can still make it if you work hard enough/have people who care around you', or 'sometimes the thing you want to be isn't the thing you're meant to be, but that's okay', but told in a really good Pixar-y sort of way, with plenty of humour.Lots of fun little nods to the first film as well. I really liked it, as well as 'The Blue Umbrella' short before it.

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Last night I watched a flick that has both captivated and infuriated me - in equal measures - over the years, in 2001 : A Space Odyssey.

 

Many declare 2001 as nothing short of genius. As something that should be studied for centuries to come, and has opened their minds to a new way of thinking. Others think it a contrived, convoluted, pretentious load of pox.

As somebody who started on the latter 'side of the fence', I can absolutely, categorically state that my Reebok Pumps are now firmly planted and rooted in the former.

It's an absolutely incredible experience, if you let it be. From it's Dawn of Man opening to the famous 'Match Cut', Kubrick has you firmly by the bollox, and actually makes me unabashedly proud to be the film nerd that I am. You are totally enraptured and transported back to prehistoric times as you watch humanity's ancestors get inspiration to survive and thrive, and to actually omit millions of years of evolution in the segments climax, with one cut, in one split second, has a jaw dropping, almost horn inducing impact on the senses.

Kubrick briefly let's your bollox go for the next segment (TMA-1), occasionally stroking and tickling them while they hint at the monoliths purpose, but it's from the Jupiter Mission onwards where the film throws up new hints, new ideas and clues with each viewing.

HAL's rational and subsequent villainy/heroism (depending on which side you see) is terrifying at times, much more so than any android/clone etc that has followed on film since, which is remarkable, considering HAL wasn't a physical presence like say, Ash from Alien, Gunslinger from Westworld or even Roy Batty (who I adore).

The relationship between HAL and Bowman is captivating and the heart and soul of the movie to me, as there is a forced friendship and odd respect there, which develops into something requisite and I was actually sad this time around when HAL went 'back to basics', as it were, and this is were Kubrick cups your bollox and gently pecks the tip of your helmet. Magnificent stuff.

I can't say anything more about the Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, that hasn't already been said. Kubrick works the shaft like a 43 year old brasser here, even putting some coconut oil on there out of courtesy, while you're taken on a mindfuck of a voyage through the stars, courtesy of that ridiculously simplistic and genius idea in the Monolith, as Bowman loses all sense of dimension and time. We watch him age decades in minutes, only to be reborn again as something infinite and free from his human chains, as Kubrick and his use of music use two fingers between the helmet and the shaft going 130mph up and down as you flat out brick on the floor. WOOOOOOO!

 

Tonight it's 2010, which I will find tough, as I cannot watch Helen Mirren in anything without wanting to stick my nose slightly inside her rusty bullet hole.

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Branquey, have you seen Excalibur? If not, get it on DVD. It's pure Mirren filth, as well as being a great film.

 

excalibur-7.jpg

 

2001 is one of those films that had aged like a Chateau Rothschild. It looks absolutely fabulous still, there's hardly a dodgy effect in it. I love it, it's genius.

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Branquey, have you seen Excalibur? If not, get it on DVD. It's pure Mirren filth, as well as being a great film.

 

2001 is one of those films that had aged like a Chateau Rothschild. It looks absolutely fabulous still, there's hardly a dodgy effect in it. I love it, it's genius.

 

I haven't Lokester, but I'm fucking well going to now.

I just read the 'parents guide' to it, and to think all these years I thought it was a medieval PG flick!!! I don't peddle to celebs, but I do to Helen Mirren.

 

I think 2001 will be still talked about in centuries, should humanity survive the impending nuclear strike that's coming.

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Who has seen Wake In Fright here?

 

I've watched some cracking Australian films recently but this is the best of them. One of those that it's best not knowing anything about and perhaps not one that militant animal lovers would be able to stomach, but it's a fantastic film. I've heard the DVD restoration is one of the best in recent years but if you can't be arsed with that, it's on YouTube:-

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLS-x57snE0

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I haven't seen it in years, sir, but it is a cracking film.

I was a bit gutted after

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

the Skippy snuff scene as it was legitimate culling

 

[close spoiler]

");document.close();, far as I know, but it's one of those movies you have to see. I'm surprised Gary Bond did fuck all besides sporadic TV roles, as he was brilliant in this, if I remember correctly.

Another one for the revisit list.

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Definitely one to rewatch. It was superb. The scene in question is grim and I struggled to watch it but there's no question that it's a key scene. Great film and companion piece for Long Weekend and Picnic At Hanging Rock, I reckon.

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Does it feature real animal death? I really can't stomach that shit.

 

It does, and it's very harrowing.

 

I strongly disapprove of that shit, it's not clever and it's not art, it's just a cheap nasty shock.

 

(haven't seen this film so I'm referring to what are probably similar scenes in Cannibal Holocaust etc)

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Does it feature real animal death? I really can't stomach that shit.

 

It does, and it's very harrowing.

 

I strongly disapprove of that shit, it's not clever and it's not art, it's just a cheap nasty shock.

 

(haven't seen this film so I'm referring to what are probably similar scenes in Cannibal Holocaust etc)

 

They're not really the same at all. You have to see the film and see the message at the end to understand the context.

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