Skip to content

Movies

Listen to This

On the other hand, I heart my sound & vision system. My new DVD/CD player came today from Richer Sounds. Like the amp/decoder (also from Mr. Richer’s emporium), it’s a Sony model. The whole system, including speakers, as it stands, cost 240 quid, which is a good deal.

Sony’s name speaks for itself, but what I like about their gear is that they’re so user-friendly, and the manuals (for once) are really comprehensive and helpful (rather than the usual badly-written sketches in several languages). For instance, the player was not automatically sending a 5.1 signal to my amp, but the manual pointed the way in seconds. I have so many issues with instruction manuals that this makes a big difference to me.

The new player is impressing me a fair bit. While the old player was perfectly acceptable, the Sony’s sound output has a definite edge. I am hearing things on my CDs I hadn’t heard before. The amp is not a powerful one (you couldn’t shake the walls with it, but in a residential setting, this isn’t a great idea anyway), but I love the complete ‘wall of sound’ I can get from the set-up, which includes a cheap-but-effective sub-woofer.
Read More »Listen to This

Picture This

Well, second week as a Londonder has been… up and down.

On Monday, Paul and Mayko came over to watch X-Men 3. It was only upon her arrival that I discovered Mayko hadn’t seen the first two films! I think she enjoyed it okay anyway, though. She gave me as a gift some bonafide Japanese brush pens, which I look forward to experimenting with. (I haven’t done any drawing at all since the move… yet.)

Fred was his usual combo of cute and temperamental with the guests. We enjoyed a curry and some music before the film itself. A nice evening, though I wish the house was in a better state of organisation for entertaining guests. :-/
Read More »Picture This

In Search of the Third Man (2000)

I said I would comment on my recent reading, so there!

In Search of the Third Man (2000)If you’re looking for an extensive account of the production of the 20th Century’s greatest British film, Charles Drazin’s effort is well worth it. In Search of The Third Man (2000) can’t be faulted in terms of research and detail.

However… I think I saw question marks over the bits where Drazin got into more subjective areas—for instance, the pointless comparisons of director Carol Reed with Hitchcock, providing a rather meaningless and impertinent excuse to be critical of Hitch (for repeating himself endlessly and never taking chances, etc.). It’s true that Hitch had formulae, just as it’s true that Reed really didn’t… he didn’t make any two films alike, nor did he have a particular way of doing things that attracts special viewer recognition… but I don’t believe this can be made into a virtue any more convincingly than it could be seen as a failing. Hitch catches some heat for no good reason.

As does Orson Welles. Taking no chances is a bad thing in this book, but being a maverick with a healthy, independent ego is also apparently a bad thing! Welles is surely the anti-Hitch, though they both have in common the tragic flaw of not being Carol Reed. Welles acolytes have occasionally tried to suggest that OW practically directed and wrote The Third Man himself, but this is a senseless claim. The highly relevant fact that Welles personally made no such claim is dismissed by Drazin as false modesty! I mean, what was Orson to say to make the author happy? Highly puzzling.
Read More »In Search of the Third Man (2000)

God is Dead

I must admit, all the hooey over The Passion of the Christ is quite amusing. I might consider myself a spiritual person—if someone could offer me a coherent definition of the term—but I’m basically an atheist, and feel wholly detached from all this heated baloney.

One argument seems to be that the film might provoke anti-semitism. I’m sad people might take it seriously enough to come away which such a ridiculous feeling. I thought Jesus’ crucifixion was a pre-ordaned inevitability, reducing all involved to mere pawns… but do I even care?
Read More »God is Dead

Quite Notable, at Least

So we watched Hitckcock’s Notorious last night, which I hadn’t seen for years. Fine stuff from the same era as the brilliant Shadow of a Doubt (wherein Joseph Cotten positively rocks). It’s a classic, it’s all been said already… most of the praise is entirely deserved.

The acting? Cary Grant is Cary Grant. I like him fine, so what the hell. But the real plaudits go to Ingrid Bergman and the inimitable Claude Rains (who, let’s face it, thoroughly stole the show in Casablanca).
Read More »Quite Notable, at Least

Fit to Print

About writing: I’ve just completed a 1,000-word review of Mr. D. Boyle’s 28 Days Later, for the next issue of Van Helsing’s Journal (no URL, as far as I’m aware). I’m currently working on a slightly longer piece on The Wicker Man for the issue after that, and I’ve agreed to do something on Italian horror that I haven’t started yet. (VHJ covers non-American horror/fantasy genre films.)
Read More »Fit to Print