Category Archives: Movies

Blade Runner in HD. Richard’s head gets too big?

Giving a shit, MovieNight stuff, Movies

Pris: your basic pleasure model

Let’s face it… more than enough has already been said about Blade Runner. It was a thrill to see it in HD on the new projector. More HD presentations to come!

You might want to skip this paragraph about our experience with HD disc formats, unless you’re a geek too…
Some of you may know that I scooped up a bargain Toshiba HD-DVD player for a mere $70, when the company announced that they were quitting the race against Sony’s Blu-ray (BD).  Prior to that announcement, both technologies had entry-level players available for about $450. By nature, I felt bad for Toshiba, since the evidence pointed to their system being superior to Blu-ray, but that they had simply not been able to throw as much money into it as the giant Sony had… but then I remembered (showing my age here!) how Sony Betamax video tape system had been trounced by the inferior VHS standard and thought;  maybe it’s Sony’s turn to win. The Toshiba player does a great job upscaling standard DVDs to near-HD quality, and it has proved to be a real asset to MovieNight. It’s hard/expensive to find movies in HD-DVD format, and rental is not an option, so a Blu-ray player will be coming soon. In the interim, prices have fallen dramatically. Sony has a good one for $250. Woohoo!

In other news… it has been brought to our attention that the invitation to Blade Runner was rather self-congratulatory in tone, and that I seemed a bit full of myself. Could this be true? I was certainly excited about the return of MovieNight after the last hiatus, and extremely excited to show this movie in its ultimate form, especially if there was the possibility that one or more of our guests might break their Blade Runner “cherry” at MovieNight. What do you think, readers?

Kinamand? Sangria? Da!

MovieNight stuff, Movies

kinamand

Somewhat amusingly, many of you were expecting a Chinese film. I guess my invitation to “Chinese anyone?” was a bit misleading. Anyway… it was great to have so many Ruskies in the house for this quiet and charming film from Denmark.

The famous MovieNight sangria returned this week… was it good? As Feng would say, Dammit Keld! (take that as a resounding yes!)

Nine Good Teeth, one great MovieNight

Love and Life, MovieNight stuff, Movies

Nana in the kitchen

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to be introduced to “Nine Good Teeth” and to its director, Alex Halpern (by Bob, who at the time of writing is running just one very small point behind leader Andy in the Successful Suggesters list).  Thanks to her grandson’s charming monument to her, Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavaliere, who many of you “met” for the first time on the MovieNight screen as “Nana”, continues to command admiration from the grave. Nana died in January of last year at the age of 107.

As you can imagine, we try very hard to generate interest in upcoming MovieNight features, not just for the sake of just getting butts on sofas, but more importantly to introduce folk to great movies that they might otherwise miss completely. That process involves making a tempting “snippet” of visuals and sounds, and finding a good review to post on the web page. In this case, mostly becaus the film was so little known, it was impossible to find a good review, so I ended up having to use material from the movie’s own website.  There were bad reviews, mind you… critics seemed to be bothered that this movie “doesn’t go anywhere”. Who gives a %*$# if it doesn’t go anywhere? It travels around the heart like a shot of Danny Bo’s chocolate vodka. To me that’s going somewhere.

Judging from your reaction last night to Nine Good Teeth, you agree.

Rachel Getting Married, Richard getting toasted

Love and Life, Movies

A good look for Anne, no?

Like last week, another fine example of a director returning to form after wandering around in a desert of mediocrity.  Although Mr. Demme borrowed heavily from Thomas Vinterberg’s excellent “Festen” and the Dogme ’95 manifesto, there comes a point where “Rachel” simply transcends all of that and becomes its own movie. Ms. Hathaway’s performance is riveting.

Somewhat unusually, I was prepared for MovieNight this week when the first guest arrived. The down side of that? I took the opportunity to shake myself up a Beefeater gibson at the beginning of the night, rather than much later. Of course, one gibson lead to another, and another, and another. My head hurts. In the words of Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.

Rather realistically,  she stopped at four in this quote, so I’m not sure what she would have been “under” if she’d had as many as I. Ground?  It doesn’t rhyme.  Hey, how about this?

After five I’m somehow still able,
after six, “Goodbye” I’m toast.

Live and learn. Will I ever?

Vicky Cristina Barcelona + 1.8 thumbs up

Love and Life, MovieNight stuff, Movies

What's developing in the darkroom?

It’s taken rather a long time to write this post, but this was a fun MovieNight. Woody was completely back to form on this one. Part of me wishes that he’d been the narrator, and another part of me is thankful that he wasn’t. You know. The projector performed beautifully, just like it had done before I sent it for repair. I will be writing a separate page about this. Soon.

Speaking of parts of me… perhaps not all of you know how I almost cut the end of my thumb off recently.  I’m expected to make a complete recovery, aside from a bit of feeling. Time will tell how the nerve heals. If you’re curious about this injury, you can see a few graphic pictures. Not for the faint of heart.