| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10764 Registered: 05-2005 |
I finally started watching Slow Horses today, years after people started recommending it to me. They were right, I do love it. I've watched the first five episodes of the first series and now I'm about to watch the sixth and final episode. And there are three more series waiting after that. Hurrah. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10776 Registered: 05-2005 |
I never thought I’d be promoting a morning TV show, but this interview with Bob Ezrin on a Canadian channel about why he renounced his US citizenship is very interesting. You can probably guess why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b68NGF6c 16U | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10777 Registered: 05-2005 |
Also, I’ve just finished watching the first season of Bad Sisters, which was great. Ireland looks so beautiful in it. Knowing some of the places it was filmed helped. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10790 Registered: 05-2005 |
Oswald Acted Alone: JFK Assassination Solved https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdr Y | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10791 Registered: 05-2005 |
James Carville, telling it like it is about the state of the Democratic Party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdNO7n3L p-4 | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10801 Registered: 05-2005 |
A fascinating series by a man who set up a reissue label, about the process, how shoddily he was treated by some major and indie labels and how the likes of Cherry Red and Edsel often rip tracks from vinyl for their CD reissues even though the master tapes are available. https://www.youtube.com/@RubellanRemasters-j8t | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 843 Registered: 08-2005 |
The Eyes of Laura Mars One of two films I saw at the short-lived President Cinema in Bath about a million years ago. https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/349 45 The only other film I saw there was Fellini's Satyricon. I think I enjoyed The Eyes of Laura Mars more... High culture, low culture, Yin, Yang... | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10822 Registered: 05-2005 |
This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afetnw70 S04 | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10823 Registered: 05-2005 |
And this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1xR3Xid q84 | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 864 Registered: 08-2005 |
Pádraig, that's great. At least somebody isn't cowed by Trump! (Oddly, of course, Rupert Murdoch hasn't been, yet...) | ||
| Burgers Member Username: Burgers Post Number: 264 Registered: 05-2005 |
The second series of Karen Pirie. Drama about a woman and her son who were kidnapped about the time Spring Hill Fair was released. 40 years later the boy is told that his mother’s surname wasn’t McLennan it was Grant. A coincidence or is Val McDermid a fan? | ||
| Burgers Member Username: Burgers Post Number: 265 Registered: 05-2005 |
Just found a post from Simon in 2009 about the novel it’s sourced from. Doesn’t look like a coincidence. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 868 Registered: 08-2005 |
Burgers, I thought I'd posted on here about the Karen Pirie episode but apparently not. I picked up on it straightaway, though had forgotten about posting about the novel in 2009. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10829 Registered: 05-2005 |
I googled “Val mcdermid the go-betweens” and something called AI overview offer this response: “Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer, not a character in L.P. Hartley's novel "The Go-Between". While Val McDermid's novels feature complex characters and intricate plots, similar to the way Leo Colston is a character in "The Go-Between" who becomes entangled in adult affairs, Val McDermid is a real-life author, not a fictional one within that specific novel.” Stupid robot. And people are afraid these no-nothing clowns are going to take over the world? They don’t even recognise a stellar indie pop band name. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 869 Registered: 08-2005 |
Yep, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like Musk's Grok could suddenly spout pro-Nazi views... This does make me very glad that I'm very near the end of my working career; I'd hate to be starting out in journalism these days - even the very specialised areas in which I work. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4974 Registered: 03-2005 |
For a moment I got really excited thinking that McDermid is pulling together different threads from the band and also from the Hartley book just to tweak the sort of people who might cross between literature and music. But no. Not even the vaunted AI can do that I guess. Simon, I've been glad I'm no longer working on a lot of occasions for a lot of reasons. I'm sure many companies are now thinking they can use AI for the legal advice I used to provide. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10830 Registered: 05-2005 |
I can scarcely believe I wrote “no-nothing”, rather than “know-nothing”. AI must be having a right laugh at me. Oh, the shame. (And the irony.) My only excuse is it was late where I am. But AI wouldn’t care what time it was. Maybe it’ll take over the world and lead us into damnation after all. I, for one, bow to our artificial overlords. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 870 Registered: 08-2005 |
I didn't notice - and I've been a sub-editor for 30 years or so. I'm pleading age! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10831 Registered: 05-2005 |
David Byrne shopping for records in Amoeba in Los Angeles. This is just lovely and joyous https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQJT1H5O LeE | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10832 Registered: 05-2005 |
I went to see Weapons in the cinema this afternoon. It's great. If you like Blair Witch/Twin Peaks-style gothic horror, then go see it. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10847 Registered: 05-2005 |
Spinal Tap II. Of course it's not as funny as the original, almost nothing is. But there are some laugh out loud moments - most of which come as the credits roll - and it's well worth seeing. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10856 Registered: 05-2005 |
I saw One Battle After Another this afternoon. It's fantastic. It's going to be recognised as a classic. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10861 Registered: 05-2005 |
I went to A House of Dynamite this afternoon. Tense, thought provoking and brilliant. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10862 Registered: 05-2005 |
Interesting video comparing and contrasting The Go-Betweens’ and R.E.M.’s 1980s albums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8CzxXEt i-w | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 884 Registered: 08-2005 |
I went to the local art-house cinema to watch Hitchcock's The Birds - genuinely disturbing at times, and some great - and much less great - cinematography. I don't remember it being in colour! It's possibly so long ago that I saw it that we only had a black-and-white TV. Liked the minimalist soundtrack a lot - a largely electronic affair played on a Mixtur-Trautonium, an early synthesiser. In two weeks' time I'm going to see Rear Window, which is one of my very favourite films (up there with The Third Man and A Matter of Life and Death. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 888 Registered: 08-2005 |
I went to Wembley to watch England vs Australia in the first Ashes rugby league test on Saturday. My word, that was a woeful performance from England. If Australia get in to third and fourth gear in the next two games it could be embarrassing... At least my union club Bath beat local rivals Bristol 40-15. 6-26 with England scoring a consolation try at the death knell. I'm now glad I couldn't get tickets for either of the other two tests! | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 889 Registered: 08-2005 |
Went to see Rear Window at the cinema yesterday. I think this has to be in my top five films along with A Matter of Life and Death and The Third Man. Yes, I know, that's only three but I want to consider the other two... As with The Birds, I was massively impressed with the sound design. Hitchcock is known for his visuals and editing, but the sound is superb throughout. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2390 Registered: 10-2006 |
I wouldn’t mind revisiting Rear Window, Simon, one of my favourite actors in great form with his skills usefully roughed up and shaken by three of his excellent Anthony Mann westerns and Hitchcock improved by the all-studio setting without (at least as I remember) any of his sometimes rather dodgy backdrops. Lots of dark woody shades? A languorous Grace Kelly? Lovely. With life getting all a bit time’s winged chariot, I’m trying to get around to the untouched part of my DVD collection, which unfortunately included a dark-smudged A Man Escaped, a film I’ve been saving for years – too many, it seems, unless it came out of the factory like that – to watch. So half-way through it all stopped functioning. Fantastic piece of work, hope I see the finish one day! So instead I unwrapped the Duellists and enjoyed that quite a lot, despite Keith Carradine’s wisp of a performance. Surrounded by the cream of the Great British Cinematic Repertory Company – Robert Stephens, Albert Finney, Alun Armstrong, Tom Conti, Edward Fox! – the two American stars had a hard time of it. Why not Jeremy Irons and Bob Hoskins? Think of the money saved! The writer cannily created a part for a woman that Conrad had thought unnecessary, and the part was just as cannily given to Diana Quick, who burns up the screen with radiant sensuality. And just four years later she’d have Jeremy’s breeks off too. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1596 Registered: 04-2005 |
Re: Ridley Scott's "The Duellists" A film I've never seen, but since living in France have heard that the last duel scene was filmed not far from us in one of my favourite castles, Commarque. it turns out to be on YouTube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoUrmCn 8Ec ...and is very atmospheric. Filmed before the castle was sold and restored by the Commarque family. Amazing to see it so lost in the forest. In 2007 one of the 2 Commarque brothers joined us in a café (I was drinking with someone who looked after some of his forest). He seemed an interesting character, but then the conversation took a turn for the worse. He asked me if I could distribute leaflets for Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign at my workplace (!). I politely declined as I have always detested le petit Nicolas and his views. I found it incredible that someone whose father had been in the resistance during WWII and died in Buchenwald could ask me to help the election of such a racist right-wing individual as Sarkozy  | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1597 Registered: 04-2005 |
Kelly Reichardt's "The Mastermind" During my hols in Scotland managed to get to the reopened Filmhouse cinema. Great to see the old place going again. But unfortunately the film is a right dud. I've managed to see all of the Reichardt's films and consider her an original talent. But this misfires completely for me. Set in the 70s the atmosphere of the era is amazingly done and Josh O'Connor's accent seems pretty impeccable. But it's as if they forgot to actually write a story that holds your interest. I kept waiting for the moment when it upped speed and took off. Never happens. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2391 Registered: 10-2006 |
That's great news! Hope to get there myself one day, it'll be strange going in without waving my UB40 card. Have they kept the old look of the place? | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1598 Registered: 04-2005 |
It's gone "up-market" I would say in terms of the bar/café. Lacking in character for the moment: only one film poster on the wall for example ! Wasn't in Cinema 1 but everyone says the new seats are much more comfortable. I worked there around 86/87 and there were the afternoon showings at 25p for OAPs and the unemployed. | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 894 Registered: 08-2005 |
Andrew, I went to see The Mastermind yesterday (and Bugonia last Monday for a bit of mix and match). It seems I liked The Mastermind more than you: I loved the setting and the cinematography, and the jazz soundtrack, and even the slow pace of it, but ultimately it went nowhere. We're very lucky in Bath to have the two-screen Little Theatre art house cinema (part of the Picturehouse chain), of which I'm a member, plus a multi-screen Odeon and a newish art house cinema, the Everyman, with four screens and dining. My favourite-ever cinema is the long-closed Valhalla in Sydney. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10867 Registered: 05-2005 |
I miss the Valhalla too, Simon! For a short period I lived round the corner from it. I used to go there when I didn't live nearby too, of course. What it used to be like https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/256 62 What it looks like now https://www.flickr.com/photos/kencta/546 1708306/ | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 895 Registered: 08-2005 |
Aww - it was always going to be hard to compete against a 10-screen multiplex and a 4-screen art house cinema nearby. And I've just been trying to remember a name of another Sydney cinema I used to go to in 1988, which I thought was the Dendy. Nope, a bit of googling and it was the Encore on Devonshire St. They used to show three episodes of the original Star Trek at the weekend. The Corbomite Maneuver! Happy days!! | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 896 Registered: 08-2005 |
And yesterday I watched the third Ashes rugby league test on TV - I'd have gone to Leeds (c300km) to watch it but it sold out ages ago. Normal service, of course... |