Stuff: Newspaper films

Well, I'm writing again, first time since May, oh well.

The other week I went in a charity shop and looked through one of those boxes of free newspaper discs they always have and found a childhood classic; Flight of the Navigator. It was 25p and so I bought it. A few days later i went to another and sifted through an even bigger jumble of discs and snapped these films:

Ashanti
The Big Sleep
Buster
The Cannonball Run
Carry on Up the Khyber
Carry On Camping
Educating Rita
The Fourth Protocol
Fried Green Tomatos At The Whistle Stop Cafe
The Ipcress File / Brief Encounter
The Killing Fields
Kiss of the Spider Woman
The Missionary
Prizzi's Honour
Return From the River Kwai
Sophie's Choice
Take the Money and Run
Under Suspicion
Up Pompeii
Zulu Dawn

The total cost was £5, 25p each.Whether these films are good or not I'll have to wait and see, but there's a few such as the Killing Fields and the Carry On films that I have been wanting to see for a while.

Charity shops can be great for bargains if you know where to look, these newspaper discs included as being extremely cheap ways for seeing some classics. FND (Free Newspaper Discs), have become a bit of a problem for charity shops, they get so many of them. On the discs they range from including song compilations, PC software, select episodes / clips from TV shows and even full movies. But as i say charity shops get so many, that it outweighs the amount of demand for them that most are just chucked straight in the bin. In fact most shops i go to don't bother to sell them anymore. But those that do sell them for anything between 10 - 35p, sometimes even just literally giving them away for free.

Most of the selection is trash but there are a lot of great films to be had such as:

- Cinema Paradiso
- In the Mood For Love
- My Life as a Dog
- Godzilla
- Wickerman
- More Carry On films (looks like all of them)
- Death of a Salesman
- Rita, Sue and Bob Too
- Rebbecca
- Notorious
- Donnie Darko
- Last Emperor
- Metropolis
- Paris, Texas
- East is East
- Cabaret
- African Queen

The downside is the discs are bare bones, featuring no extras and usually slightly lower quality then full prices issues, possibly because they are put of DVD-5 instead of 9s. Another problem I found when I watched the first film in the list Ashanti is that you never know what version you are getting. In this case what appeared to be a TV edit, cropped to 4:3 and cut for violence.

However on the plus sides,, the discs are cheap and disposable, just pass them on to someone else or back to a charity shop. Being mostly packaged in slip cases they are easy to store and they outweigh all other reasons for otherwise renting, cost wise and the fact it's a keep copy. The only cheaper alternative is waiting for it to come on tv or downloading, but this way you can watch when you want and not be restricted to a computer. And lastly its a great way to give a bit of money to a good cause.

Right I have a lot of films to get through now, some good, perhaps a lot bad, a lot more films to hunt for! Happy hunting to us all!

Film: Mr Moto's Last Warning (1939)

Kentaro Moto travels to Egypt to uncover a plot to blow up a French fleet of vessels.

In the 1930s film series about Asian detectives were very popular, most famously the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Mr. Wong series. All of course now deemed slightly politically incorrect due to all the title characters being played by caucasian actors in make up going through the stereotypes. Being that I've just seen this Mr Moto film I'll use as an example, the portrayal isn't actually that offensive, just poor. The brilliant Peter Lorre takes up the role, slick back the hair, add some teeth and put on some glasses and he's ready to go. The only problem is that Peter Lorre still looks like Lorre and is hard to imagine as a Japanese. In the routine of 'Yellow Face' as it's called another touch is put on the 'Engrish', switch the Rs for Ls and so forth. Lorre however sounds like Lorre, which is probably good enough for the producers as his German accent sounds foreign and that's all the audience needs. Moto on the other hand does use 'Engrish' himself, merely as part of his disguise to turn the Magnificant Moto into the humble antique dealer Kuroki. As I say Lorre is hard to picture as Asian even more so when his assistant, played by an actual Asian actor (who is killed shortly afterwards) stand side by side with him.

As much as mis-representation of race offends I can't help but be fascinated by the stereotypes which man has come up with. To me these are like abstract characterizations of human kind placed within Hollywood's reality.

As for the film itself, it's a lot of fun, I enjoyed it very much and plan to look further in to the series as well as the others mentioned.

Download

Film: Dushi Fengguang (1935)

aka Scenes of City Life

A novelist uses all his money to buy gifts for the woman he loves who in turn is also seeing a business man, using him for expensive presents. As a consequence the writer is unable to pay the rent, whilst the womans family goes hungry as her fathers business suffers.

A joyful comedy that expresses the dangers of consumerism for the careless spender.

Download

Film: Malu Tianshi (1937)

Aka Street Angel

A street musician helps a girl from being sold into marriage.

Chinese comedy that was also a social commentary of the times for the lower class.

I found this film absolutely brilliant although i had a lot of trouble with the subtitles. I downloaded the film and subtitles separately and they were out of sync for the entirety, fixing it was frustrating and only solved the problem for so long. Next time i see this it will be on DVD with proper subs.

Free Download