Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[struth]

Reach for the Sky (1956) starring Douglas Bader as Kenneth More ...lol yes, probably the role that made More a real star and thrust Bader into the limelight ... Great WW2 story this and a true tale of achievement

[Spectral Morn]

Criterion Eclipse Series box Kinoshita and World War II

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The Living Magoroku

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Propaganda piece by Keisuke Kinoshita, his second film made in 1943.

Despite the fact that this film was made to comply with a government directive about cinema highlighting the importance of Japan's wartime agricultural production, Kinoshita manages at times to tap into a broader view of Japan and her culture pitting wartime expediency against rural superstition.

Onagi, a sickly and self-obsessed man too frail to serve in the military gradually rises to a broader sense of self and to a growing awareness of the Yamato-damashii or Japanese Spirit. The symbolic bridge between the past and present is exemplified by two examples of the samurai sword, one, a famous blade forged by Magoroku in the 16th century, the other is one being made for an officer shortly leaving for the front who vows to wield it to great effect against the '...weakling Americans...'.

In the end modernisation trumps the old superstition in the form of a curse on the males of the Onagi line should they allow an old battle site owned by the family to be farmed. The cultivation of the hitherto hallowed field begins so as to provide more food for Japan's war effort.

Certainly not the greatest Japanese film but it does at times manage to escape the constraints imposed by the wartime nationalist state.

Sounds interesting.

[struth]

The Vikings season 3




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[struth]

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp(1943) starring Roger Livesey and Deborah Kerr, with Anton Walbrook. Cinematography by Georges Perinal and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Fully restored Blu-Ray, and stunning it is.

[struth]

Having one of my Carry On nights again.... Likes me smut

Carry on Doctor for starters



Dont fancy Geoffs one on the left much although they say she was a goer

[Virtual-Symmetry]

Hattie Jacques.. Sad innit cos most those old Carry on Actors are no longer with us..

[struth]

Barbara Windsor (1937), who appeared in 10 Carry Ons, is 78. Jim Dale (1935) appeared in 11 Carry Ons and is now 80. Think thats the only 2 of the semi regulars alive Andre. The main gang are all as you say gone. Julian Holloway is I think still alive too, although doing 9 films, most would struggle to frame his face in their minds.

[Virtual-Symmetry]

Carry ons are not carry on without old Sid James..

[struth]

Aye, he was a mainstay, and did 20 films I think. 4th most prolific. had an affair with Babs that nearly got him done in, and liked to claim to have been a boxer etc, but in fact was a ladies hairdresser, and a good one at that. A face that launched a 1000 ships in reverse

[struth]

now dont lose your head..... with Sid as the black fingernail