Grand Prix Rejects

Simtek wrote:Last night I stumbled upon this excerpt from a nightmarish film called Decasia. Decasia is a 67-minute film made up entirely of decayed film stock and it is at once terrifying and sad to look at. The decay does lend a new meaning to these old dramatic films and newsreels, it is certainly an interesting aesthetic, but watching it does make me think of my own mortality and also how much of film history is now lost, possibly forever.

There are many obscure films that have gone missing, but even landmark directors have lost material. The vast majority of Georges Méliès' films are lost, as are at least two Alfred Hitchcock films (one feature and one short) and some of D. W. Griffith's early works. Fritz Lang's Metropolis was only rediscovered in its complete form (well, 5 minutes are missing) fairly recently and even that has suffered from having been exposed to the elements.

I to have an interest in the preservation of lost or incompleted films. I'm glad that we can finally see the roadshow version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World!" for future generations to see, even if it isn't perfect. But there are so many I would like to see a restoration sometime. Such as John Wayne's "The Alamo" in which the full cut is on VHS and Laserdisc, but the only known print that was used for those transfers are pretty much deteriorated beyond whachability. Please Robert Harris, restore this one for us before it's to late!

Saw Deadpool this weekend. Best Marvel movie by far, even if it isn't part of the MCU. Its nice to have a (mostly) faithful adaptation in a comic book movie for once.

This can also serve as an announcement I guess...

When doing some research for a potential Johnny Claes profile, I came acroos a more detailed account of his life as a jazzman. This included, apparently, cameos in multiple feature films as a bandleader, almost always as himself. Intrigued by this, I took to *ahem* completely legal means, and found the single one of these movies that has survived: 1946's "George in Civvy Street", the last film starring George Formby.

The film itself is quite short, and not very good, but in the final ten minutes, George Formby (who owns a pub) throws an outdoor concert to celebrate some occasion, and sure enough...



Claes appears in the background for a large amount of shots in the final ten minutes, and even has a spoken line.

This, by the way, gives our favourite 50s reject a Bacon number of 3.

tommykl wrote:*Johnny Claes awesomeness*

Now that is a fun fact! Can't wait for the profile!

Simtek wrote:Went to see the 4K restoration of Akira Kurosawa's Ran last night.

I liked Ran a lot, it's an impressive piece of art. On the technical side of things it is impressive indeed plus it has an amazing ensemble. I really should knuckle down on more of Akira's films (Ikiru piques my interest the most). But when it comes to the destructive nature of humanity, my favourite film that covers that theme is probably Downfall, which has possibly my favourite acting performance ever by Bruno Ganz.

Oh wow I was looking for a film to watch, and on these last few posts I gave Ran a watch. Wow, what a film GPRejects ain't a bad place to get good film recommendations!

Just bought "The Revenant" on Blu Ray today, and I highly recommend it. Very tense, and violent, but stunningly beautiful cinematography, and wonderful acting. Especially Leonardo DiCaprio, who won and Oscar for that role. (Which was a good call in my book.) That bear attack sequence was one of the most suspenseful, and technically impressive moments I've seen in a film in quite a while. It's one of those moments where you look at it, and wonder how the hell they managed to achieve such a brutal moment. If you haven't seen it yet, then go see it. See it right now!

Just found out about a new F3 documentary "Senna vs Brundle" which is released on demand tomorrow :

http://senna-vs-brundle.com/

Looks pretty interesting ...

I originally saw about it on James Allen's site here :

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2016/04/new-film-tells-dramatic-story-of-ayrton-senna-vs-martin-brundle-epic-f3-battle/

Saw Threads for the first time a few months ago in a double bill with Grave of the Fireflies at our house. Damn, that program is bleak. I think if I hadn't already seen Grave of the Fireflies a few years back I would have mentally died that night. Both are just brilliant accounts of the folly of war.

Rob Dylan wrote:Saw Threads for the first time a few months ago

I saw it on its first broadcast when I was 11. To say it scared the shite out of me and my friends is something of an understatement.

After many months of saying I would, I finally got around to watching Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels this afternoon. Absolutely brilliant stuff (if slightly gory at times, with a ton of black humour, the best kind of humour.

I was saddened to learn that the actor who played Barry the Baptist died a few months after filming wrapped in 1998. He was brilliant, and provided this quote which, as someone from the south of Britain, I totally agree with.

Barry The Baptist wrote:F***ing northern monkeys!

To be impartial and prevent a forum riot, the quotation directly afterwards is

Lenny wrote:I hate these f***ing southern fairies!

Ah yes, Barry the Baptist, played by the legend that was Lenny McLean. As I recall, he was a famous unlicensed boxer and a bodyguard for a lot of criminals and all-round "dodgy geezas" in the London underworld.

Completely ransom trivia question on something the other day.

Who was the first pop star to sing a theme song for an official bond film?

Correct. The instrumental version was played during the opening credits, the song with monro singing is heard several times during the film proper.

Watched Locke last night. Brilliant film. If the concept of a movie featuring nothing but Tom Hardy sat in a car making and receiving phone calls as his life unravels around him during a two hour journey sounds ridiculous, trust me, Hardy makes it work.

I'm rocking a reference to a certain film. Guess it, and you can win up to three whole internets!

Ataxia wrote:I'm rocking a reference to a certain film. Guess it, and you can win up to three whole internets!

Come off it, Glagnar's Human Rinds was a regular Futurama episode, not the film!

Then y'all need to go watch Repo Man, a film where Emilio Estevez reluctantly becomes a repossessions agent and somehow ends up tangling with the paranormal. The shift in plots is very, very silly.

Simtek wrote: Winner gets... something more powerful than God (warning: if you eat it you will die a slow death).

HWNSNBM's pet papaya?

So the reviews for Suicide Squad are out and oh dear. DC just cannot seem to get a movie off the ground. Apparently, they ordered a fairly large reshoot of SS giving it a lighter tone. All because of the horrible reviews for Batman v. Superman. That movies problem was a lack of any type of plot whatsoever, not being too dark.

I still have tickets for Friday Night at the Drive-In. I;ll give DC one more Shot. BvS was truly awful, but The Killing Joke despite terrible reviews was actually very good. Yes the Batgirl prologue was clunky, but newsflash, if Batman and Batgirl being a thing annoys you, you never watched Batman: The Animated Series, or Batman Beyond both shows express it pretty clearly. Admittedly we've never actually seen them sleeping together before, but still....

Saw an interesting documentary tonight called The Sweatbox. It was a documentary filmed by Sting's wife, after it was agreed that she should be allowed to film the inner workings of the Walt Disney company as they made their upcoming film, Kingdom of the Sun (which Sting was to provide the soundtrack for). As a result the film has very much the same vibe as Let It Be, as the audience slowly observes the main producers and creators falling out with each other and themselves over the direction the film is supposed to be going in. It is mostly from an outsider's perspective, and is really interesting in experiencing how these kinds of films are made, and how much tampering goes into ideas by the heads of corporations to disturb creative processes. Sting especially just watches as the original great idea gets made incredibly safe and uninspired, and everyone has to redo their work to fit the Disney agenda. The final film, The Emperor's New Groove, is agreed upon (by me included) as being a perfectly ok film - it's just that the potential for a truly great film was sucked out by those in charge.

It was quite hard to find, but I'd definitely recommend it if you're looking for something different to watch

Went to see Sausage Party earlier this week (well, it is Freshers' Week after all!). Very crude humour, but it was indeed funny. There were about a dozen or so people in there with me (both male and female, if that makes any difference) and there was laughter at several points from everyone. I reckon it may well have passed the 6-laugh test. And, if you can get past the crudity, I reckon that there are things in there that Christians could learn about evangelism/sharing their belief system...

Simtek, thoughts on Anatoliy Solonitsyn, the Ralph Fiennes-lookalike in Stalker? He gives one of my 5-10 favourite supporting performances ever in that film. His monologue in the room of sand dunes is everything.

Is anyone a fan of Mike Haneke on here? I saw Amour and Cache recently and I loved both of them a lot. Amour had me on the verge of tears, almost for the duration of the film, particularly watching that scene near the end, with that 5 minute take . Haneke's use of long takes in those films almost feels Tarkovskian IMO.

Simtek wrote:I'm toying with the idea of doing a video essay on Vadim Yusov.

That'd be cool. Why not make a video about the cinematography of Tarkovsky's films in general, once you've gotten round to completing his filmography? I don't think anyone on YouTube has done that as of yet.

I have seen Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, they're both great, though I wish I could've connected with what Tarkovsky was saying/doing more, and The Sacrifice got pretty boring in parts (it still has some amazing imagery by none other than Sven Nykvist), but I'd still recommend them.

Changing the subject a little, I recently uploaded a compilation of my personal acting wins from 1993 to 2015. It's simply a montage of pictures, but I hadn't uploaded a video for months and I wanted to see what people thought of my choices.