Favourite Films

[noel]

Love & Friendship

*Tuesday BBC 2 1.35 pm

Normally, I don't watch films that score less than 7.0 on IMDB. This one is a fair way below it (6.4). Maybe a cult classic?

Travs, I've seen Heartbreak Ridge years ago. I don't remember it being that bad, but again, only 6.9 on IMDB.

The exception of course is Dark Star, but you probably have to be on something to grasp the true magnificence of it.

[Graham Breeze]

Normally, I don't watch films that score less than 7.0 on IMDB. This one is a fair way below it (6.4). Maybe a cult classic?

The exception of course is Dark Star, but you probably have to be on something to grasp the true magnificence of it.

Ah yes IMBD. DB as in Data Base - compiled by an algorithm?

The only serious film journal published in GB, and probably the most prestigious in the world, is the BFI Sight and Sound and the June 2016 issue allocated six pages to Whit Stillman and Love & Friendship plus the cover. What does it know? I wonder what it thought about Dark Star (which I loved)?

Dark Star was made in 1974 but not released in the UK until 1978.

The BFI review (Richard Combs) in February 2018 included:

"entertains magnificently
coolly absurdist
wonderful finale
crisp comedy
great sophistication and sly poetry
ingenuity
neatly and modesty impressive

without the dazzle of Star Wars but superior in the wit of its design

etc etc

The film started as a University project at So.Cal. and cost $60,000. It was written and directed by John Carpenter who then went on to make The Assault on Precinct 13 and much else.

If I wish to know when a film was made I look at IMDB. If I wish to read a perceptive critique I read Sight and Sound.

As for Love & Friendship - well it is so quick-witted it needs to be seen several times and so watching it yet again next Tuesday will be a joy.

I recommend!

[Graham Breeze]

I sincerely hope your film recommendations are better than your music choices

Oh Sir. You tease!

I have just worked through CDs of 53 of Etta James' Chess Singles. She may have had a life-long heroin addiction and a chaotic private life; but At Last is sublime and will be played forever.

And now to Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, Parsifal Prelude, Rienzi Overture,...

Everybody loves Wagner!

[anthonykay]

And now to Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, Parsifal Prelude, Rienzi Overture,...

Everybody loves Wagner!

Well that's a statement I can definitely provide a counterexample to. In fact, I would rate Siegfried Idyll as possibly the most ghastly piece of classical music ever written. Wagner initiated a Dark Age of classical music which only a few contemporaries resisted (Dvorak comes to mind), and which only 20th century luminaries like Shostakovich have really dragged it out from.

[Mossdog]

There is always the off button

Thing is, once you've settled down for the night to watch the recommended film, stocked up with all yer quavers and a few tins of Special Brew, you're kind of in it for the duration. If the beginning is iffy, there's a tendency to think. "no. I'll give it a chance' but once you're over half-way through you might as well watch the lot, just in case some iota of cinematic brilliance is held back to the end! As my Derbyshire friend says' we live in Hope but die in Castleton'.

[Graham Breeze]

Well that's a statement I can definitely provide a counterexample to. In fact, I would rate Siegfried Idyll as possibly the most ghastly piece of classical music ever written. Wagner initiated a Dark Age of classical music which only a few contemporaries resisted (Dvorak comes to mind), and which only 20th century luminaries like Shostakovich have really dragged it out from.

Well that's a little harsh.

I accept Wagner had his less attractive side but...well I'm now wracked with guilt that I have attended Das Rheingold and Der fliegender Holländer in the Wiener Staatsoper.

Cannot I like the Siegfried Idyll and play "Carnival" Overture, Scherzo Capriccioso, Golden Spinning Wheel, Serenade for Strings, Serenade in D minor, several symphonies?

[Graham Breeze]

Thing is, once you've settled down for the night to watch the recommended film, stocked up with all yer quavers and a few tins of Special Brew, you're kind of in it for the duration. If the beginning is iffy, there's a tendency to think. "no. I'll give it a chance' but once you're over half-way through you might as well watch the lot, just in case some iota of cinematic brilliance is held back to the end! As my Derbyshire friend says' we live in Hope but die in Castleton'.

Mmmh. That is an interesting notion: that a film can redeem mediocrity in its second half. I wonder if you can cite an example?

As a half-hearted subscriber to the politique des auteurs I would argue that a Director who is rubbish in the first half of a movie is unlikely to have a Damascene convertion at the mid-point but hey... I am open to examples?

[Graham Breeze]

I think the critical factor that could influence a negative split in a film is the number of tins of Special Brew consumed; maybe Anthony Kay will have a formula for this

You may have a point there. Although obviously since I argue that films can only be truly seen in a cinema where, one hopes, Special Brew is not allowed, nor entry to the sort of people that drink Special Brew, I cannot comment

[anthonykay]

Well that's a little harsh.

I accept Wagner had his less attractive side but...well I'm now wracked with guilt that I have attended Das Rheingold and Der fliegender Holländer in the Wiener Staatsoper.

Cannot I like the Siegfried Idyll and play "Carnival" Overture, Scherzo Capriccioso, Golden Spinning Wheel, Serenade for Strings, Serenade in D minor, several symphonies?

No need to feel guilty about having different musical tastes from others, or about liking widely different styles of music. I like Bach's preludes and fugues, and I also like many of Shostakovich's string quartets . . .

[Llani Boy]

One of my favourite films, that I had sort of forgotten about, was on television today.

The Heroes of Telemark.

Cracking!