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    Current Watching

    It is, in fact, Steve Earle, and I think it's pretty good.
    Really? Blimey, I'd never have guessed that.

    Oops. Soz Wyatt.

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      Current Watching

      DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT SERIES FIVE YOU AWFUL MAN.

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        Current Watching



        I'm with Lyra, I just don't see the attraction

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          Current Watching

          So there's nothing to do here so I just went to see Get Smart and then The Dark Knight. Get Smart was much better than I thought it was going to be. Quite inventive and sweet. The Dark Knight was a bit meh. Do we really need Michael Caine and Gary Oldman explaining the exact nature of each moral dilemma/social comment as we go along? No, we don't. And I thought Cillian Murphy was going to be in it and then he wasn't and that was a shame.

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            Current Watching

            Not sure any of these is in circulation enough to merit own threads:

            saw 'Jar City' (Icelandic cop film) at the weekend and really loved it. I'd read the novel already, but didn't get bored at all-the grainy and claustrophobic images were brilliantly done. Hardly an advert for Iceland's tourist board, tho' (unless you like sheep's head).

            also saw French sisters-reunited-after-15-years- with-dark-secret 'Il y a longtemps que je t'aime' in which Kristin Scott Thomas really impressed. Felt it copped out a bit sentimentality-wise towards the end, but still a decent film.

            And also saw 'Wall E' in a matinee-is there a thread on it?

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              Current Watching

              I really want to see Jar City - I liked the book a lot too. I didn't enjoy I loved you so long as much as you did though - I guess I found it a bit too generic. Nicely miserable though.

              Films I have seen recently: mostly too rubbish to really need talking about

              Bangkok Dangerous - stupid, predictable, I hate Nicolas Cage
              Babylon AD - stupid, less predictable, didn't like the muddy style, not what I expect from Kassowitz
              Mamma Mia - had run out of other films to see - truly awful but passed the time. They did ought to have got someone else to sing for the men.
              In Bruges - Liked the look of the city. The plot was stupid - it was obvious all these little things were going to come together at the end and pay off, and it was appalling
              The Mummy 3 - see under Mamma Mia. It passed the time. If you even try to attempt to make sense of it you're wasting your time. Lots of action and that which is what I wanted I guess.
              Mad Money By far the best and most fun film of the week. I'm sure I've seen it before though. I must check that. But yeah, really enjoyable crime caper.

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                Current Watching

                I checked and it is a remake of a TV movie. Which I must have seen and forgotten.

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                  Current Watching

                  Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Well I still love Woody Allen and I don't think I could fail to enjoy one of his. The plot, about whether it's possible to love and be in love and it to be reciprocal and romantic (answer: duh, no, of course not) is beside the point really. It's all very lovely and nice. Oviedo looks lovely too.

                  Before the Devil Knows You're Dead Depressing as all hell, this. Despairing and bleak and grim. Worth a watch.

                  Eagle Eye Entertaining silly fun. Enough car chases and things blowing up to keep you entertained and a nice twist on the conspiracy plot.

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                    Current Watching

                    Ah yes Jar City was good. Another in the long line of films that screams "don't come to Iceland", but that perversely makes me miss it all the more.

                    Vicky Christina Barcelona is supposed to be a return to form for Allen. I know you quite liked even the more derided items in his recent output, Lyra, but was this one a cut above those?

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                      Current Watching

                      Hehe, yeah, I think so. More about people/relationships this time without the more fanciful bits that he felt London needed, maybe. Better than Cassandra's Dream, not as good as Melinda and Melinda, maybe.

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                        Current Watching

                        I thought In Bruges was fantastic.

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                          Current Watching

                          Fringe A decent piece of X-Files-alike hokum with a woman lead, and one of the guys from Dawson's Creek ('Pacey' rings a bell) in it. Lots of reanimation/cloning/weird science. Enjoyable nonsense. One of the things which I (childishly) like, is when a location is mentioned (eg Harvard University) it comes up in 3D as part of the landscape. Cool.

                          Burn Notice A blacklisted spy has to put all the details of his life back together in his hometown of Miami, while helping out people in need. A lot better than it sounds. The lead actor (Jeffrey Donovan) is a tiny bit too cleancut and good looking for me, but otherwise, I love this, after the two pilot episodes. A huge plus point is, the lead character does the voiceover.

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                            Current Watching

                            After getting a nil thread with my Buddha Collapsed out of Shame thread I'm going to play things safe now. It's getting cold out and I've no exams to worry about until April so I'm watching quite a few films lately.

                            The Fireman's Ball
                            Really enjoyed this. Starts off as a comedy but becomes so much more about a study of human and group behaviour. Couldn't believe it was only 70 minutes, it packed so much in.

                            The Birds
                            I love Hitchcock. The only film that I didn't really enjoy of his that I've watched was The Trouble with Harry. I was expecting much more from this. The special effects have dated horribly and I felt more of an urge to laugh than be scared. The last twenty minutes were excellent though. The tension ratcheting up whilst waiting for the attack was expertly done.

                            By the Bluest of Seas

                            Russian film from the thirties. Lovely imagery and explores friendship, love and lost love. Really impressed by it.

                            Sunset Boulevard

                            I'm not sure how I missed out seeing this until now but it's as good as everybody says it is. Billy Wilder could well be my favourite director.

                            Aguirre, Wrath of God

                            Stunning scenery, great feeling of the journey derailing. Kinski was scarily convincing. I can't put my finger on why I thought it was short of excellent but I did.

                            TV wise, I got around to watching Pushing Daisies. I like the premise, the bright colours and look of the programme. Anna Friel is beautiful and the Kristin Chenoweth character is endearingly ditzy. It's just too sweet though. It's brainless TV though so I'll probably keep watching. I fear Entourage has jumped the shark, the mushrooms episode was terrible.

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                              Current Watching

                              I am in the fervid grip of a full on Battlestar Galactica addiction. It's got everything I like. Spaceships, ghosts and religious fervour. And it's so sad so much of the time, so hopeless. I love it.

                              I am about halfway through series 2. I have THE most ridiculous crushes on Starbuck (I so want to be Starbuck) and Helo (so beautiful). Literally the only duff thing about it is the elder Adama's scary teeth, but luckily the plot doesn't call for many smiles.

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                                Current Watching

                                The Firemen's Ball is fantastic, and you've prompted me to go and find a copy so that I can revisit it.

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                                  Current Watching

                                  We really aren't a film family, but there are some familiar names in recent posts.

                                  We were in Bruges/Brugge a few weeks ago and the locals absolutely detest In Bruges (though they evidently made a decent piece of change out of it and are getting more yoofs from the US and the UK as a result thereof). I haven't seen it.

                                  The Wall-E thread.

                                  What Nil said about Sunset Boulevard, though I have never ever been as terrified by a film as I was when I first saw The Birds (when I was 8 or 9). I've been meaning to go back and watch it again (in part because we've been frequent visitors to Bodega Bay, where it was filmed, over the last 25 years), but still haven't managed to do so. It also so happens that one of my closest friends in the world considers The Trouble With Harry to be one of her two or three favourite films of all time, which I find completely inexplicable.

                                  I have some transatlantic flights coming up, and may actually see some relatively recent films as a result thereof.

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                                    Current Watching

                                    last week i watched hunger, a movie about the IRA hunger strikers by a guy called steve mcqueen. it's all about shit and piss and police brutality. the IRA men all seem rather noble, especially the strong, handsome, idealistic bobby sands, who is played by one of the spartans from 300.

                                    ********** these aren't really spoilers, it's not a twist ending, but if you want to see it maybe don't read on ***********

                                    the director says he's trying to get across a sense of what it was like being in the maze, and i suppose, before seeing this, i had never really thought about how utterly squalid and filthy it was. but many sequences drag. the worst one has a guy slopping out the corridor for what seems like half an hour. he walks down pouring out his bucket on the piss then walks back and comes all the way back down the corridor slowly sweeping away the piss and disinfectant yes yes the unimaginable filth yes the quotidian slopping yes in the bowels of hell yes yes the caged horror yes you see the man is cleaning while behind the doors human beings cower in their own shit i get the fucking point yes. maybe the internet has ruined my attention span.

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                                      Current Watching

                                      I seen it reviewed, but only in That Paper, who of course loved it. Have the Mail and that lot had a go at it yet? Whenever there's an Ireland film in which it's suggested that Britain's role may not have been wholly benign, the right-wing press tend to strike attitudes all over the place.

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                                        Current Watching

                                        Literally the only duff thing about it is the elder Adama's scary teeth, but luckily the plot doesn't call for many smiles
                                        True, but he bares his teeth when he's angry or sobs, as well.

                                        Anyway, BSG is up there with the best telly of the last 20 years, if you ask me.

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                                          Current Watching

                                          I've started on the fourth season of "My Name Is Earl", and it's quite a return to form, after the third season really lost its way.

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                                            Current Watching

                                            Anyway, BSG is up there with the best telly of the last 20 years, if you ask me.
                                            I couldn't agree more. I just watched the one with Lee and the prostitute and it was like, you had to rearrange all your ideas about him, but it also made total sense as well. Really great TV. Poor angsty Lee, I do love him.

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                                              Current Watching

                                              Wyatt Earp wrote:
                                              I seen it reviewed, but only in That Paper, who of course loved it. Have the Mail and that lot had a go at it yet? Whenever there's an Ireland film in which it's suggested that Britain's role may not have been wholly benign, the right-wing press tend to strike attitudes all over the place.
                                              The Mail didn't need to bother, that paper have done it for them:

                                              http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/nov/03/hunger-bobby-sands

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                                                Current Watching

                                                david cox is plainly trying to provoke with his talk of how he wished the prisoners were "properly tortured" (what we see in the film is pretty bad). we could sit here all day saying i'll see your birmingham bombing and raise you a set of penal laws, but like DC, we would be missing the point.

                                                the film is not meant to finally settle the question of who was right and who was wrong during the troubles. neither is it meant to "heroise" the republicans, as he says (though i can see why he thinks that: there is lots of brutality towards the prisoners, but only one IRA killing, and the victim in that case is a guard we have seen presiding over some terrible beatings).

                                                the film is about the prison and how it systematically strips both prisoners and guards of their humanity and eventually their lives.

                                                at least twice we see a prison guard grimace while he soaks in water the fists that are bleeding from beating men up. the bleeding fists are a metaphor for these guards who have the terrible job of administering the violence that is the ultimate logic of british state policy towards the prisoners. we keep hearing the voice of margaret thatcher on the radio saying things like "crime is crime is crime". we see the prisoners refuse to wear their "clown suits", we see the guards respond with brutal beatings. in this system of state-sanctioned violence the guards are the fist; the violence cuts them up too. the closing credits remind us that 10 men died on hunger strike, and 18 guards were assassinated by paramilitaries between 1976 and 1981.

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                                                  Current Watching

                                                  Nicely put, garce.

                                                  I went to see it last night. Very impressive.

                                                  More than can be said for my colleague who arrived trailing her teenage son, and THEIR TEA IN A TUPPERWARE (spaghetti of some sort)!

                                                  I think they gave up eating around the time the maggots started crawling.

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                                                    Current Watching

                                                    Spaghetti-flavored tea? That sounds revolting.

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