Helen Mirren in The Queen. What a great movie, what a great actress.
Couldn't get over how they came up with the Blair look-a-likes. Also confirmed me in my belief that Tony was a good guy.
Had to get out the hanky for Diana's funeral, wtf I'm a bloke, I don't do that.

Recently also watched The Iron Lady again. Watch it from time to time to remind me what a real leader is like.

Enid.
A treatment of the life of Enid Blyton, you know the children's author whose books were banned from libraries because she had "golliwogs" in them.

I was gobsmacked to see at the end that she had written 750! books.

She was a very flawed person according to this movie and I suppose much of it is true. Still it does not take away from the fact that she would have given great joy to countless thousands of children.

Isn't it surprising how many movies now just go to DVD and don't get any cinema release. I tend to be seeking out more & more of these.

PS Hey this is not just a thread for me.

bogarde73 wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2014 at 10:08am:


Eeeenid!!!


We watched Big Brother.

Redmond Neck wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2014 at 5:10pm:



My husband loves MotoGP. That's the one with Jorge and Lorenzo and stuff, isn't it? I watch it with him because it makes him happy, but I talk all the way through it which is probably really annoying.

What I watched last night

Porn 

John Smith wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2014 at 7:29pm:


Why don't I believe you John?

No Country For Old Men is on tonight, right after totality of the eclipse ends.

It's like Christmas.

Soren wrote on Oct 8^th, 2014 at 9:19pm:


true, but as yet no one has been able to work out why you are  ...

cods wrote on Oct 3^rd, 2014 at 5:34pm:

jilted 

Annie Anthrax wrote on Oct 9^th, 2014 at 2:56pm:


No, in her 30s. I've threatened to come & sing and bring her career to an end.

Bit hard up for anything to watch atm so am watching this series "Coming Home" again.
I remember thinking the first time that the schoolgirl in it must be a young Keira Knightley, so this time I paused the credits at the end and there it was.
She couldn't have been more than 14 and she was just so good in the part (as well as beautiful). Also features Joanna Lumley & Peter O'Toole.
Pre WW2 setting, my favourite movie period.

I'd forgotten this thread, so figured I'd use it again.

Kevin Costner always seemed to make such long movies. What was the one where he lived with the Sioux?
Any way watched The Postman for the 2nd time. Some people might think this is a silly movie, but it's quite interesting as a post-apocalyptic idea. It's also that epic struggle between Good & Evil.
I enjoyed it.

Also an old movie from 1954, Hobson's Choice. It's of its time but I found I got a lot of laughs out of it.
That old actor Charles Laughton strutted his stuff and pretty good too.

I have the unbelievable ability to fall asleep in front of the television, no matter how much I try to stay awake. Keeping the volume up, or having the lights on won't help. Tonight, I fell asleep in front of watching "The Simpsons" and then "Euro Trip" for a good 20 minutes, despite wanting to watch both.

I got banned for POSSIBLE spamming earlier this morning.

All I was trying to do was post about the movie we watched last night.

Oh well......

bogarde73 wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2015 at 10:28am:


Downed half a bottle of cola (caffeinated). Once again, tonight, I fell asleep for half a television episode. I have decided that the spontaneous sleep is to do with my new vitamins that I have been taking. Metabolises the sugar in my system quite fast, that I need to fall asleep. Cold weather and dry spell leaving me to yearn sleep more. I can push on during the day, but crash half an hour after sitting down.

I freely admit to being a total Anglophile when it comes to film & TV. No, not quite true, I like European movies as well.

Last night I watched "Carrington" for 2nd time. Emma Thompson, who is just brilliant, stars as the early 20th century artist Dora Carrington. (Google for a huge gallery of her work).
It's mostly the story of her love affair with the homosexual writer Lytton Strachey & sundry others.
A roll-call of what were known as the "Bloomsbury set" make an appearance as well, if you're interested in that kind of thing.
A very moving film.

Blue Jasmine with Cate Blanchette. She really is an amazing actor. Her face can change expressions so slowly and completely it's like watching a portrait being painted.

I saw that it was directed by Woody Allen and I just assumed it was going to be funny. But it was in fact very sad and depressing but very good.

I took the dog for a walk. We found 3 cats.

Thanks Bogarde, I will check it out sometime.

We watched another episode of 'Lost Girl'.
A TV series, ok really.

bogarde73 wrote on Aug 26^th, 2014 at 10:45am:


Nothing.

bogarde73 wrote on Feb 5^th, 2016 at 6:55am:


No, it was boring - I've seen it before.  It was still better than what was on television that night though.

Watched the first episode of the new series of The Doctor Blake Mysteries tonight.

OK Its official. "Here come the Habibs" is my knew favourite TV show. Nobody in his family knows Fufu Habib won 22 million bucks, but now half of Bankstown is coming around to his Double Bay mansion.

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Feb 10^th, 2016 at 8:52am:


Why, isn't he allowed to be entertained?

I hardly think "insight" comes into it at all. If you have a TV set, you watch what you want to watch, that's called being entertained. You are using his choice of entertainment to voice your opinion about him which is quite pathetic.

Fuzzball wrote on Feb 10^th, 2016 at 12:49pm:




No I'm using his choice of entertainment as further reinforcement for my opinion, which is called collecting evidence.

Divorce Italian Style.
A bit jerky in places but great in b&w.
Brilliant performance by Mastroianni.

(Ps I think I would have wanted to bump her off too)

Death in Paradise. S4,e1. Been hangin' out for this. Silly, but fun.

issuevoter wrote on Feb 12^th, 2016 at 12:01pm:


I just watched ep 1 of that. Never seen it before
Another good Aussie product

Yep, X Files best left buried.

I've been watching this police show Scott & Bailey (92Gem I think). Best of its kind Ive seen in ages.

Also recorded last night 2001: Space Odyssey. Would you believe its 40+ years since I saw it at the movies. I was stoned then but I won't be this time.

Watched 2001: last night. That Stanley Kubrick is brilliant isn't he, I mean that movie is as fresh as when I first saw it. Same with Dr Strangelove.

I love the whole thing with Hal, it's scary and sinister with humour in it as well. "Daisy Daisy give me your answer do".
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't allow that to happen Dave"

But I still don't understand the end!!

bogarde73 wrote on Feb 29^th, 2016 at 6:39am:


Can anybody explain the meaning of the final scenes to me . . . .Please.

bogarde73 wrote on Mar 1^st, 2016 at 1:48pm:

I am guessing a person of your experience will remember the LP cover on Who's Next where the band appear to have been pissing on the monolith. You could say it was a comment on the director's vague symbolism. I am not big on interpreting abstract art, either in graphics works or  poetry.

Art should be allowed to resonate with the audience. If it is so pedantic that the artist is giving you his opinion, then he better have superb technique, because that is the only thing in it that will save the work.

I will venture a few suggestions that appear to me in that final scene, but when so reduced, it risks simplistic, even cliched imagery. Art explained, is like squaresville. I apologise in advance.

1. Overall we are seeing death and rebirth, so I think this about mortality.
2. An old man appears to be on his death bed. The surrounding room has the "four walls" and convoluted trappings of ordered existence.
3. Having been bound by those formal explanations and rituals for a lifetime, he is still left with an enigma; the monolith.
4. There is the possibility that the foetus is destined for the same enigma.

Religionists and various God Freaks hate this kind of  view. They want simple conclusions and a book of rules.

Mission to Mars.

I saw it at the movies but I think I actually enjoyed it more as a DVD. Maybe because at the movies it's over & done but on DVD you can pause, flick back & watch a bit again.
I just love these space voyage movies.

How About You: a feel good movie about a bunch of characters in a retirement home.
Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton

I saw it at the movies a couple of years ago but I bought the DVD because of Hayley Atwell.

I agree. I watched the first episode for about 10 minutes and that was enough.

Last night, not being any TV I wanted to see, I watched the DVD of Sense & Sensibility maybe for about the 4th time.
I'd say it's about the best Jane Austen movie ever made. I always get something fresh from the acting, especially Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman.
I guess you either like this stuff or don't. I love it.

It occurred to me that the period of the Napoleonic Wars must, for women, been similar to the aftermath of WWI in that so many of the young men were killed or maimed, it would have made finding a partner difficult.

King Solomon's Mines (the 1937 version) starring Paul Robeson, Cedric Hardwicke, Anna Lee, John Loder and Roland Young.  Rather dated, but still fun to watch and, apparently, of all five film versions of the story, the most faithful to the book.

Apparently, when it was released in the US in 1937, it was criticised for its slow pace when compared to American films of that era.  Not a comment that I agree with though - it's rather refreshing to have an adventure movie where things don't move along at breakneck speed all the time.

East of Eden with James Dean. Never seen it before and quite enjoyed it. Boy was he a loss to the cinema world. Gone too soon.

I watched an episode of Scott & Bailey. I don't like police shows as a rule but I make an exception for this one.
I like:
1 the way Scott does her interviews, just gradually & clinically working the questions around till she gets the answers
2 the way they run the team planning sessions, getting it all done so quickly & efficiently
3. The frenetic pace of the senior woman, no wonder she has to drink
4 the shambles of Bailey's succession of love lives and her life generally

Good production compressed into an hour
Wouldn't miss it.

Have you ever seen Scott & Bailey?

I watched, for maybe the 3rd time, The Servant with Dirk Bogarde & directed by Jo Losey.
I suppose it comes into what they called the New Wave of British films.
It's a pretty dark story of the slow corruption of a young upper class Englishman by his manservant and his girlfriend.
So well acted and moodily filmed in b/w with the jazz of Johnny Dankworth fitting so well.

Night Train to Munich: for those not familiar with it, a 1940 British thriller starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood, with a not entirely believable storyline about a British secret agent (Harrison) rescuing a scientist and his daughter (Lockwood) from the clutches of the Nazis.  With a slightly similar plotline and some of the cast (Lockwood and Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) also having appeared in The Lady Vanishes, it is inevitably compared (usually unfavourably) with the earlier film.  It is, nevertheless, good entertainment if you like films of the 1930s and 1940s.  The climax of the film, with the escape across the border to Switzerland, is probably the best part of the film.  I hadn't seen this film for many years and enjoyed watching it again although, given a choice between the two, I would rather watch The Lady Vanishes.

Nothing But The Truth: Not the 1941 remake starring Bob Hope, but the 1929 one starring Richard Dix.  Both films, incidentally, bear a significant resemblance to the execrable Jim Carrey's film, Liar, Liar, but I digress.  The quality of the picture and sound on the copy of the film I had was poor, which detracted from the viewing experience and, although it was a fairly enjoyable film to watch, I think it might be more appropriate to describe it as an interesting relic rather than as a great film.  If the quality of the copy was better, I might watch it again but, as it was, I think that will be my one and only viewing of it.  It is only idle speculation on my part, but I can't help wondering what Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn and Robertson Hare could have made out of this material.  It was rather like an Aldwych farce in some ways.

Bleak House, the BBC series. Watching it again, it's amasterpiece.
A lot of really great actors. Charles Dance as the menacing Mr Tolkinghorne. Scully from the X Files as Lady Dreadlocks (I can never remember her name).
And of course the story line by Charles Dickens.

Moby Dick is one of Peck's best roles. One of his charms was his great tone of voice, but he only had one. His attempts at dialect and accent were dismal failures. Check out his backwoodsman in The Yearling, and his Englishman in Hornblower; bloody dreadful.

Old Gringo was good too.

La Doppia Ora ( The Double Hour)

An Italian heist movie with unusual twists.
Well made. On SBS.

Great Rail Journeys of America.

It's become compulsive viewing for me, first Michael Portillo's Great Rail Journeys of Europe, with his 1913 railway guide, and now this one.

Such an unlikely tour guide, this former Tory Cabinet Minister and possible UK prime minister.
And you've got to love his rainbow wardrobe of casual jackets - lime green, bright yellow etc etc.
(SBS)

bogarde73 wrote on Sep 8^th, 2016 at 12:02pm:


The European series was really interesting too, and I guess I just like travelogues of any kind.

I watched a news report on YouTube that said Donald Trump has been accused of raping a child, and at least three other females.

Has anyone else seen it?

Emma wrote on Sep 13^th, 2016 at 12:28am:


Panther says that nobody cares about the allegations of Donald Trump raping a child, and three other females (ages unknown).

Why would he say something like that?

Emma wrote on Sep 13^th, 2016 at 12:52am:


Panther said that.

Why?

Emma wrote on Sep 12^th, 2016 at 11:55pm:


Is this a rerun of a series shown some years back? I did see one called "The Celts".
SBS seems to be the only free channel running docos like this. If I ran the govt I'd vote them more money.

I watched the second half of last night's episode.
That'll teach them to mess about with Caesar.

Yeah I forgot to check the program. I'm always doing that.
I like that little Scot presenter, I've seen him on a few.things. He's really enthusiastic about his subject.

Yes that is the name. Totally awesome.

Well, the Romans didn't win in the end. They left the British Isles, due to unrest throughout their empire. The Celts were just too much to continue to hold off , in the face of the  breakdown of the Empire. An interesting and quite stirring series, all in all.

Wallander is great with Branagh.
But who is that girl, his assistant? I've seen her in so many things and I don't know her name. I need to know names.

bogarde73 wrote on Sep 27^th, 2016 at 2:53pm:



Google

Have seen Body Hack.. Ist one on being a novice mixed martial artist.. that sure was interesting, reminded me of when I was training in Ju Juitsu.. and tonight hes a hunter gatherer in Africa, Interesting TV.

Emma wrote on Oct 12^th, 2016 at 10:26pm:


Ahn's Brushes with Fame was a wonderful and imaginative concept series. All of the subjects had interesting stories to tell. With Mundine's portrait, Ahn, decided to give the work a dark background. It was a good choice, giving the picture a dramatic and moody effect. Mundine spoke reasonably well, but you have to take his word for being surrounded by a number of policemen with guns drawn. Flat out, I would have to challenge his statement that Aboriginal culture in like Islam. That is self-serving twaddle.

I watched this last night.

I have enjoyed Robbie Coltrane in stuff, years ago.

National Treasure : ABC TV
www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/national-treasure/
Paul Finchley is one half of a much loved British comedy double act, a cherished household name, but Paul's life is shaken to its foundations when he's arrested

in 4 parts

It looks good.

Philomena, with Judi Dench, a film about the horrendous treatment of pregnant girls by Catholic nuns.
I saw another movie on the same subject some years ago, the Magdalen Sisters I think it was called.
I wonder was this system peculiar to Ireland or was it everywhere.
They certainly have a lot to answer for. Can good work ever compensate for the bad?

issuevoter wrote on Oct 22^nd, 2016 at 9:34pm:


Watched most of it.. was also reading a book........ pretty interesting. The piece on the Island at, basically, the mouth of the Murray was quite poignant. I thought it was a great snapshot vignette of a unique place, a unique family, and a fascinating look at an amazing part of Australia. Well done.
Best part of the show,  that I saw. Well done.

I watched this last night:



Hilarious!