September's films (67 - 76)

[talvalin]

67) DOA: Dead Or Alive - exploitative, mindless, excessive wire-fu, and yet oh so very entertaining. Probably bears no resemblance to the source material, but who cares? Also, Devon Aoki is not remotely attractive. Seriously. Whoever cast her should be taken out and shot. I would have happily settled for a Chinese actress to play the Japanese ninja

Comments

[davenchit]

You *are* a film buff. I know a few people, "casual" watchers of films, who finally got to see Casablanca. They were disappointed. The typical reaction was "Oh, but it was so cliched", a reaction which left me gibbering with rage. I don't kill them though, I just tell them, "It seems cliched because a thousand romantic movies made in Hollywood after Casablanca took some part of that movie- a scene, a look, a line- and made it part of itself." I've seen similar reactions to the Seven Samurai as well. Horsemen riding down to pickets and carefully erected wooden stakes? Thirteenth Warrior. Short cameos introducing the characters? Good, the Bad and the Ugly? A handful of flawed warriors protecting a defenseless village against bandits? Too many to count.

[talvalin]

I'd been looking forward to seeing Seven Samurai for years, but I waited until I could see it in a cinema. Luckily when the chance came, it was a worthy cinema (the NFT Cinema 1) and I was blown away. I couldn't believe how a 50 year old film could be that awesome. Three hours long and I didn't feel it at all - I love Kurosawa's films generally, but this is far and away his best work.

My film buff friend despairs of the fact that his girlfriend loves watching films but refuses to watch anything black and white. At least she watches foreign films without complaining about having to read sub-titles but still...

[davenchit]

>but refuses to watch anything black and white.

The indescribable horror. I think many people associate black and white with obsolete technology and those funny, jerky movies of the 1930s. They don't realise it is a different medium altogether, with its own rules and style.

[rparvaaz]

>> but refuses to watch anything black and white.

Heh. Didn't you have the same problem a few years back?

[talvalin]

I can't honestly remember if it was simply laziness on my part (black and white films required finding them in TV listings and watching at the appropriate time, or buying the video/DVD) or whether it was an actual dislike of black and white films. I know that I disliked black and white comics before reading Sin City.

However, I must concede that your recollection of any conversation we may have had will be better than mine so I may have just been a screaming hypocrite. Oh dear.

[rparvaaz]

so I may have just been a screaming hypocrite. Oh dear.

LOL

Job done. ;)

[rparvaaz]

Btw, talking of B&W greats, have you ever seen 'Roman Holiday'? The original version, I mean.

Also, some of the best hindi movies EVAH are B&W...

[talvalin]

The only B&W classic that I know of is Mother India, oh and the Apu trilogy. Anything else I should look out for?

[rparvaaz]

I wrote a long list and lj ate it up. Bah :(

Tomorrow...

[davenchit]

If you don't want to use a LJ client like Jon does, just do a Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C before you click on the post comment button. That way you can always paste it into a text file if LJ chews your comment. It's happened to me so many times that I do it habitually. I may have said this to you before.

I suppose it's only an issue for comments nowadays, since LJ now autosaves when you are typing out a new post to your own journal. In the meantime, I will wait until tomorrow. :)

[rparvaaz]

I guess you got signed out...

Right, the list:

Sahib Bibi Aur Gulam
Devdas [Dilip Kumar]
Pyaasa
Kaagaz ke Phool
Mujhe Jeene Do
Main Chup Rahoongi
Kaala Baazar
Awara
Anari
Chori-Chori
Bambai ka Babu
Sujata
Kathputli [purely for Balraj Sahni, a great actor who never received the appreciation he deserved]
Jaagte Raho

The list is endless but these would cover almost all the greats of that era [well, no Sohrab Modi, but you can't find his movies on DVD anyway]