Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[struth]

Latest bluray 2k version of Tremors, 1990, and released here in dec 2020 in ltd edition form.

It stars good ol' boys Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward with Finn Carter, Michael Gross, and Reba McEntire.


Although it made a modest profit, it didnt do as well as hoped, and that may be due to the very poor marketing. It is now a major cult hit. A classic.

[struth]

Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, 1959. starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason.







North by Northwest currently holds a "Certified Fresh" 97% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 9.3/10. The site states the critical consensus as, "Gripping, suspenseful and visually iconic, this late-period Hitchcock classic laid the groundwork for countless action thrillers to follow."On Metacritic it has a score of 98 out of 100, based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The film ranks at number 98 in Empire magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time. The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay No. 21 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. It is ranked the 40th-greatest American film by the American Film Institute. North by Northwest was ranked 13th in BBC's 2015 list of the 100 greatest American films.

Time magazine called the film "smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining." A. H. Weiler of The New York Times made it a "Critic's Pick" and said it was the "year's most scenic, intriguing and merriest chase";

[Macca]

Interesting film that, nothing like as good as it's made out to be, and Cary Grant seems like he's just taking the piss in some scenes. Or was that what people liked about him? It's a bit before my time.

It's worth a watch though like most Hitchcock.

[struth]

Interesting film that, nothing like as good as it's made out to be, and Cary Grant seems like he's just taking the piss in some scenes. Or was that what people liked about him? It's a bit before my time.

It's worth a watch though like most Hitchcock.

Yes, it was his charm. his easy way; light hearted with the occasional bit of seriousness. he was the star who had the rare ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. He treated his leading ladies as people, not sex objects. He was also bi sexual and lived with Randolph Scott for many years.. A comic genius and a great all round actor.. was rated one of top 5 ever

[Macca]

Yes, it was his charm. his easy way; light hearted with the occasional bit of seriousness. he was the star who had the rare ability to turn a mediocre picture into a good one. He treated his leading ladies as people, not sex objects. He was also bi sexual and lived with Randolph Scott for many years.. A comic genius and a great all round actor.. was rated one of top 5 ever

I just had a look through his films and North By Northwest is actually the only one of his I've ever seen. And I only saw that for the first time a few months back.

[struth]

I just had a look through his films and North By Northwest is actually the only one of his I've ever seen. And I only saw that for the first time a few months back.

he has quite a few top films to his name, but obviously they are perhaps older than you would wish to watch.

[struth]

One of his best now. The Criterion bluray of Notorious, 1946 starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains. Hitch again directs.






This is the Criterion BluRay and alas is only available in region A. Fortunately my Oppo will play them so I imported it from the states.


This new digital restoration was undertaken by The Walt Disney Company and the Criterion Collection. A new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution on a Lasergraphics Director film scanner at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging in Burbank, California, from three elements: the 35mm original camera negative and a 35mm nitrate fine-grain, both held by the Museum of Modern Art, and a 35mm safety fine-grain held by the British Film Institute. Several sections of the original camera negative, the primary source for this restoration, have sustained damage over the years and been replaced by duplicate negatives; for some of these portions, the fine-grains were used. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed using MTI Film's DRS, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for jitter, flicker, small dirt, grain, and noise management. The original monaural soundtrack was first restored in 2001 from a 1954 35mm acetate release print and a 35mm nitrate fine-grain master. Additional restoration work was performed by the Criterion Collection for this release, using Pro Tools HD and iZotope RX.

Scanning supervision: Theo Gluck/The Walt Disney Company, Burbank, CA.
Colorist: Lee Kline/Criterion Post, New York.
Digital scan assembly: Cara Shatzman/Criterion Post."

Superb

[Macca]

he has quite a few top films to his name, but obviously they are perhaps older than you would wish to watch.

I don't know about that, I've seen 'Intolerance' and that's so old it doesn't even have sound!

[struth]

I don't know about that, I've seen 'Intolerance' and that's so old it doesn't even have sound!

Yeah i didnt mean you dont watch older films, just that a lot of folk dont find them as relevent these days.


Now a less old film, and one few will like i guess... Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, and Eugene Levy star in Ron Howard's 1984 aquatic oddity, Splash.



The film is notable for being the first film released by Touchstone Pictures, a film label created by Walt Disney Studios that same year in an effort to release films targeted at adult audiences, with mature content not appropriate for the studio's flagship Walt Disney Pictures banner. Splash had received a PG-rating for some profanity and brief nudity.
It won one Academy Award(Screenplay).
I agree with Roger Ebert that a switch of roles for Candy and Hanks would have worked better.

[struth]

The Green Man, 1956. Its based on the play 'Meet a Body' by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who produced and adapted the big-screen version, which is directed by Robert Day and stars Alastair Sim, George Cole, Terry-Thomas and Jill Adams.





A quality film and superb performance from Sim.