Film

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Couple more second time after long interval rewatches, both of highly acclaimed films I just didn't dig all that much myself; Drive and Birdman. Still have to say, they're both pretty damn good, but definitely not "all that", as the Yanks say.

Next up for the same treatment, Blade Runner 2049...

[Carnage]

I thought Drive and Birdman were both excellent, but have no need to see either again. Blade Runner 2049, on the other hand, I could watch on a loop. Fanstastic film.

[Blackout]

Was v disappointed with Birdman after all of the hype.

[Eoin McLove]

Drive was shite. Birdman was cool. But now on to a real classic, none of your posh fancy țwaddle. Yup, it's City Slickers!

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Posh enough to win an Oscar for Jack Palance!

[Carnage]

Just spotted that "Wake In Fright" - 1971 is up on MUBI now. To my mind one of the greatest films ever made - if you have the stomach for it (

Spoiler

there's a prolonged, not simulated and rather dark kangaroo hunt midway through the film

[close]

which may upset certain people).

Thought lost for decades until a print turned up in the storage room of a cinema in Galway of all places.

Set in the Australian outback, it follows a bonded school teacher making his way home from his remote school through a mining town in order to catch a Christmas flight to Sydney where his girlfriend lives. Directed by Ted Kotcheff  the man who went on to make "North Dallas Forty", "First Blood" and also, inexplicably, "Weekend At Bernies" - this fact burns my brain & starring Gary Bond and Donald Pleasence.

It's worth getting MUBI for the free week just to see this film. It is a masterpiece.

I've just finished this. Jesus. Bleak stuff, and I've seen Naked, A Serbian Film and The Bunny Game. While this isn't on any of those escalating levels, it's seriously downbeat for a 50 year old film.

Excellent though, and one to be watched again. Not anytime soon, however.

What's the craic with the print turning up in Galway? A friend of mine, now sadly deceased, had a huge library of hard to find films on film, I wouldn't be surprised if this was among them.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Watched that Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt yoke Passengers last night. Fairly standard fare soft sci-fi, but entertaining nonetheless.

[open face surgery]

I'm the same as McLove in that Drive was shite, style over substance nonsense, but enjoyed Birdman.

I also watched both City Slickers in the last 6 months.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Judas and the Black Messiah - good, but not great.

[StoutAndAle]

Judas and the Black Messiah - good, but not great.

Yeah. Those were my thoughts too. It's very good but not worthy of the praise heaped on it.

I didn't think that Daniel Kaluuya's performance as Fred Hampton was better than Lakeith Satnfield's turn as Bill O'Neal.

[StoutAndAle]

Watched "Nobody" on Saturday - loved it - just a great piece of ass-kicking, not giving two fucks about reality, high-octane fun. It blows by at 90 minutes, not a minute wasted. Bob Odenkirk is class in it as well. Heard him tell a great story about it on a podcast too;

"So, I decided that if I was going to do this, I was REALLY going to do it - my own fights, stunts, everything so I trained hard for 2 years. Did the movie. Hurt myself a few times. The producers said 'You know, Bob - if this goes well - we might have a trilogy like another John Wick on our hands'. I told them hey, I'm 58 years old soon, I'm no Keanu Reeves. Then they told me that Keanu Reeves was only a year younger than me. MOTHERFUCKER!"

[Emphyrio]

Watched "Nobody" on Saturday - loved it - just a great piece of ass-kicking, not giving two fucks about reality, high-octane fun. It blows by at 90 minutes, not a minute wasted. Bob Odenkirk is class in it as well. Heard him tell a great story about it on a podcast too;

"So, I decided that if I was going to do this, I was REALLY going to do it - my own fights, stunts, everything so I trained hard for 2 years. Did the movie. Hurt myself a few times. The producers said 'You know, Bob - if this goes well - we might have a trilogy like another John Wick on our hands'. I told them hey, I'm 58 years old soon, I'm no Keanu Reeves. Then they told me that Keanu Reeves was only a year younger than me. MOTHERFUCKER!"

Ya, tis a great little movie. Defo scope for another movie or two.

[Carnage]

Judas and the Black Messiah - good, but not great.

Yeah. Those were my thoughts too. It's very good but not worthy of the praise heaped on it.

I didn't think that Daniel Kaluuya's performance as Fred Hampton was better than Lakeith Satnfield's turn as Bill O'Neal.

All of this, plus I'd add that Kaluuya's American accent was seriously ropey for the first half of the film. Enjoyable overall but fairly familiar and predictable.

[StoutAndAle]

All of this, plus I'd add that Kaluuya's American accent was seriously ropey for the first half of the film. Enjoyable overall but fairly familiar and predictable.

Yeah, 100%. I said much the same a few pages back. He's from Nahrf Lahndan, innit. And it does indeed sound like a Londoner doing a bad American accent. The 2 proper monologues/lectures that he gives are fairly indecipherable. My missus actually paused the film and asked me if I could follow the dialogue.

Fred Hampton in real life had a much more measured and commanding tone - you can hear it his speech after the film ends. 

[StoutAndAle]

What's the craic with the print turning up in Galway? A friend of mine, now sadly deceased, had a huge library of hard to find films on film, I wouldn't be surprised if this was among them.

Everyone that I recommended it to has the same gut reaction. It stayed with me for ages afterwards. I told a buddy of mine to watch it - he did with his missus who is a hardcore vegan. Phone rang one Friday night - roared at me down the phone for telling him about it.

My memory is hazy on the Galway bit, it's a long time since I read the article about it around its re-release but - I think it had been screened at a film festival or something like that in Dublin. When it came time to send the prints back - the fest's budget wouldn't cover it and because it had already been shown theatrically in major markets, the studio just left them go so the reels of all the films did the rounds in Ireland some lost forever - "Wake In Fright" left buried in the storeroom of a Galway cinema. There was another print found in Dublin but it was so degraded that the picture couldn't be used but (again, I might be getting this mixed up) they were able to lift certain missing portions of the soundtrack from it. The print that you see now is mainly from a US print found in a skip or something (complete and in excellent condition) with splices from the Galway print and other library sources thrown in.