A brief summary of the films I saw, even though that was now a few weeks ago.
Dokkoi - a very rare showing, apparently that was the UK premiere. Introduction by the films producer and part of a season of films on Ogawa Productions. Very early screening at 9.15, too early for some as half-most on the people who came left during the film, very disrespectful to any film. I loved it even though i was very tired (had been up since 6am). The film is set around a poor farming town where jobs are limited due to the poor economy at the time (late 70s), it opens with a funeral and death features prominently throughout the film. People apparently came up to the film crew and asked them to take pictures of them so that would have something in case of their own funeral. It wasn't uncommon for the crew to be interviewing someone who only a few days later they would find out who just died. Powerful indeed, there's no DVD release on this or any on major distribution on any Ogawa's work. I may never see this again.
SWTH - a local short film that seems to be bordering on acted drama. Quite good, i enjoyed it.
Japan - Nicely (but no intentionally) follows n the subject of Japanese economy, this shows modern day poverty in a successful Japan. A BBC/NHK co-production that will be on TV in the new year and an extended version will be shown in Japan. McAllister was there to answer questions afterwards as was the star Naoki who got a huge round of applause. I loved this documentary and there were alot of heart warming and funny moments. I recommend this to all when it shows next year.
No Manifesto - Rough cut, still has a bit to go. Bit difficult to work out what this film is about watching it. It's stuck between a retrospective of the bands career, darting back to various events and themes at several moments and a look at the band current working process as they are seen working on the album Send Away the Tigers (probably too much footage is shown on them working on Imperial Bodybags) Another great film, but then I enjoyed the whole day. Lots of fantastic interviews and footage. Can't wait till its finished.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Sheffield Doc/Fest
Two weeks till Sheffield Doc/Fest and I will be attending, I will be seeing:
Dokkoi! Songs of the Bottom (1974) (intro & Q&A)
The ‘bottom’ of the title is that of society itself. Ogawa’s subject had shifted from Sanrizuka to Kotobukicho, an area of great social deprivation. Filming was tough and the budget was far too small. Once again the team lived in the place where they shot, in this case renting doss houses. Everywhere they looked, people were clinging to life with their fingernails. The film became a series of poetic portraits – songs – of those people, some of whom died during the production. Alert camerawork, inventive intertitles and, most of all, a complete immersion in the world of the story, contribute to Dokkoi’s unforgettable power.
Smoking With the Hawk (2008) + Japan: A Story of Love and Hate (2008)(with Q&A)
Smoking With the Hawk - Clyde is hard. Fucking hard. He's also a pool impresario whos got £8,000 riding on his boy against a young whippersnapper from Chesterfield. Meanwhile Clyde has to deal with a mild machete attack and train his hawk to be a killing machine.
Japan: A Story of Love and Hate - Naoki had it all in the boom days of the Japanese economy. Now he shares a one-room windowless flat with a girl who’s half his age. At fifty-six, he is one of thousands of Japanese who have fallen through the cracks to become a class of working poor. He grits his teeth to perform the obligatory morning calisthenics at the post office before earning his pittance. The twinkle of rebellion is still alight in his eye but this love story is bound by work, pride and necessity. The destructive push-pull cycle between Naoki and his lover is only broken when Naoki must finally meet her father, which wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t the same age. British documentary's sinner and saint, Sean McAllister, again offers extraordinary access and returns with an absorbing a portrait of inescapable contradictions, of life and the narrow lines love and hate share.
No Manifesto (2009) (Work In Progress with 30 min Q&A)
Manic Street Preachers fans unite! This is the doc you’ve been waiting for and its almost ready. The most colourful and contentious band South Wales ever produced face off with their equally colourful and contentious fans in a verité-multimedia-documentary-experiment-work-in-progress. Out-takes, raw and untamed touring footage and of course, the magic of the music will be screened for the first time in its embryonic stage. You can safely expect absolutely anything. With the director in attendance, the audience has the rarest of opportunities to have their input into the shape and feel of this long overdue rockin’ Manic’s doc.
Website: http://www.sheffdocfest.com/
Dokkoi! Songs of the Bottom (1974) (intro & Q&A)
The ‘bottom’ of the title is that of society itself. Ogawa’s subject had shifted from Sanrizuka to Kotobukicho, an area of great social deprivation. Filming was tough and the budget was far too small. Once again the team lived in the place where they shot, in this case renting doss houses. Everywhere they looked, people were clinging to life with their fingernails. The film became a series of poetic portraits – songs – of those people, some of whom died during the production. Alert camerawork, inventive intertitles and, most of all, a complete immersion in the world of the story, contribute to Dokkoi’s unforgettable power.
Smoking With the Hawk (2008) + Japan: A Story of Love and Hate (2008)(with Q&A)
Smoking With the Hawk - Clyde is hard. Fucking hard. He's also a pool impresario whos got £8,000 riding on his boy against a young whippersnapper from Chesterfield. Meanwhile Clyde has to deal with a mild machete attack and train his hawk to be a killing machine.
Japan: A Story of Love and Hate - Naoki had it all in the boom days of the Japanese economy. Now he shares a one-room windowless flat with a girl who’s half his age. At fifty-six, he is one of thousands of Japanese who have fallen through the cracks to become a class of working poor. He grits his teeth to perform the obligatory morning calisthenics at the post office before earning his pittance. The twinkle of rebellion is still alight in his eye but this love story is bound by work, pride and necessity. The destructive push-pull cycle between Naoki and his lover is only broken when Naoki must finally meet her father, which wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t the same age. British documentary's sinner and saint, Sean McAllister, again offers extraordinary access and returns with an absorbing a portrait of inescapable contradictions, of life and the narrow lines love and hate share.
No Manifesto (2009) (Work In Progress with 30 min Q&A)
Manic Street Preachers fans unite! This is the doc you’ve been waiting for and its almost ready. The most colourful and contentious band South Wales ever produced face off with their equally colourful and contentious fans in a verité-multimedia-documentary-experiment-work-in-progress. Out-takes, raw and untamed touring footage and of course, the magic of the music will be screened for the first time in its embryonic stage. You can safely expect absolutely anything. With the director in attendance, the audience has the rarest of opportunities to have their input into the shape and feel of this long overdue rockin’ Manic’s doc.
Website: http://www.sheffdocfest.com/
Thursday, 9 October 2008
At last! Laserdisc!
Well I got this a while back but I am posting this now. I've finally bought a Laserdisc player! As a film collector it a has long been my desire to buy one of these machines. Why? Well not only as a retro novelty but also because there are so many films that are still not available on DVD but were released on VHS and LD. Some examples; David Lynch's On The Air, Neil Young's Human Highway, Shohei Imamaura's Insect Woman etc... And also at times the LDs had extras not available on DVD, such as the Nightmare Before Christmas Boxset which featured an extended documentary and more short films (more on this later).
As for the visual quality: well going by the 14" TV screen I'm using the quality appears to be on par with DVD (though DVD still is higher) and is definitely better then both VHS and VCD. VCD I tend to find to be very flat and sometimes jerky due to the compression to mpeg.
For those who don't Laserdisc is a home video format introduced in the 80's and was successful in the US and Japan up till 1999 when DVD came in. LDs were released in the UK and many titles were available but it just didn't catch on in the general market. The discs themselves are 12" wide (the same as LPs) and are double sided holder 60 minutes per side in standard definition (CLV) and 30 in higher (CAV) meaner who would have to flip the disc or even change discs throughout the viewing, later machines could play both sides.
The machine itself cost initially 44 Pounds but unfortunately being second hand and over a decade old it seized up upon watching my first disc (the ever 'classic' Angel Enforcers), repairs at another 50 fixed the problems. I've bought a few titles so far, nothing too rare so far, discs seem to be around the 15 mark for semi rarities, fiver for the standard films and onwards and upwards for those in higher demand. So far i own: Angel 2, Angel Enforcers, My Crazy Life, Red Squirrel (I think these are all on DVD, i bought these just to test the machine), Talking Heads: Storytelling Giant and Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
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!
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!
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
WarGames: Special Edition DVD
It's been a long time posting but here's some exciting news. WarGames is to get a special edition re-release:
Extras include:
- Commentary by Director John Badham and Writers Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes
- ”Loading WarGames” documentary (NEW)
- ”Attack of the Hackers” featurette (NEW)
- ”Inside NORAD: Cold War Fortress” featurette (NEW)
- ”Tic Tac Toe: A True Story” featurette
- Menu-driven interactive superpower weapons briefing gallery
- Theatrical trailer
Also to be released on DVD is the follow up Dead Code which i admit i never knew existed. Either way i am glad that i held off getting the bare bones edition for so long!
Source: http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=67742
---
Ok so i looked up WarGames: The Dead Code and it appears to be a brand new sequel made this year probably straight to video. Judging by the trailer it has little to be with the original other then following the same storyline
And just for comparison, heres the original:
Extras include:
- Commentary by Director John Badham and Writers Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes
- ”Loading WarGames” documentary (NEW)
- ”Attack of the Hackers” featurette (NEW)
- ”Inside NORAD: Cold War Fortress” featurette (NEW)
- ”Tic Tac Toe: A True Story” featurette
- Menu-driven interactive superpower weapons briefing gallery
- Theatrical trailer
Also to be released on DVD is the follow up Dead Code which i admit i never knew existed. Either way i am glad that i held off getting the bare bones edition for so long!
Source: http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=67742
---
Ok so i looked up WarGames: The Dead Code and it appears to be a brand new sequel made this year probably straight to video. Judging by the trailer it has little to be with the original other then following the same storyline
And just for comparison, heres the original:
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Oh Brother!
New to the collection, a set of German lobby cards for Kitano Takeshi's Brother:
Photos taken on phone camera as my digital camera needs new batteries.
Photos taken on phone camera as my digital camera needs new batteries.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Little Nemo Test clip
Cartoon Brew has posted a very rare test clip for the film Little Nemo in Slumberland, the greatest part? It's by Whisper of Heart director Yoshifumi Kondo, check it out:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/little-nemo-test-film%3Cbr%3E
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/little-nemo-test-film%3Cbr%3E
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)