Films and TV - What are you watching?

[sanctum]

Matrix 2 and 3 were lousy

I know I've seen The Matrix 2, but I can barely remember anything other than Monica Belluci in latex, which I'm sure is the only thing worth remembering.
I have absolutely no recollection of The Matrix 3, so I can't be certain if I have even seen it.

The original film is cool though, I might watch it again tonight.

see if I believe the stories about Matrix 1 being ripped off from it.

You're giving me flashbacks to when I tried to get people to read Neuromancer and telling them about the similarities and just getting called a conspiracy theorist. ; _ ;
This was also back in the day when you had to explain that H.P. Lovecraft was neither a romance author, or had any connection to HP computers.

 

[flowersofnight]

This was also back in the day when you had to explain that H.P. Lovecraft was neither a romance author, or had any connection to HP computers.

But do you prefer that to "LOL check out my CAT-thulhu plushie"?

I never actually read any of William Gibson. Maybe I'll get around to it sometime.

 

[sanctum]

But do you prefer that to "LOL check out my CAT-thulhu plushie"?

I certainly preferred it to kvetching over him being 'problematic'.

Reminds me that a girl I used to know who borrowed my copy of The Call of Chtulhu and never gave it back. She went full-Tumblr about ten years ago and we lost contact somewhere along the way. I wonder if it is just sitting there on her bookshelf, the very name Lovecraft slowly driving her insane.

Not that she would ever had read it, given that they don't recognise anything in their liturgical canon outside of the Harry Potter corpus.

 

[faith]

Speaking of Monica Belluci, I have several French colleagues who insist that she became every french boy's wet dream with her butt-clevage dress in Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, even the gay ones.
I have nothing else to add, other than that I'll probably see the new Matrix movie.

 

[flowersofnight]

I certainly preferred it to kvetching over him being 'problematic'.

I'll tell you what, his cat was certainly not named "Cat-thulhu"
S.T. Joshi is swimming upstream by remaining a strong Lovecraft booster, it seems. His editions are still the best.

Speaking of Monica Belluci, I have several French colleagues who insist that she became every french boy's wet dream with her butt-clevage dress in Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra

There is precisely one picture of this on the entire internet and it wasn't worth finding "Butt cleavage" is, for the record, precisely as ridiculous as it sounds.

Tonight's movie, I think, is:
Maciste all'inferno

"Maciste is the most virtuous man on earth, which worries the devils to no end. So they send their best inducer up to earth to get him into trouble and they have a tough time managing it. Finally, they get Maciste down to hell but because he's so strong he fights all the devils single handedly."

 

[~Z e n c h o u~]

Malignant was a hot mess and I loved it.

 

[flowersofnight]

Watched the complete "My Fair Lady" here, even including the second tape. Who would have suspected that Eliza ends up

Spoiler

returning to Henry Higgins

in the end?
In truth I had never actually watched past the point where she storms out of the house, I think that's where Tape 1 ended

 

[sanctum]

I might watch it again tonight.

So I re-watched it, it's ok. If you are going to re-watch it you can start at the lobby shoot-out and enjoy the last 30 minutes or so of the movie without really missing anything.

Which is the same thing I thought when I first saw it back in 1999.

 

[sanctum]

"My Fair Lady"

Is that the one with Audrey Hepburn?

I remember a substitute teacher putting that on for us back in high school. My buddy didn't want to watch it and so he dropped to the floor and commando crawled out of the classroom without the teacher noticing.

 

[flowersofnight]

Is that the one with Audrey Hepburn?

Yes indeed, now available on just one videodisc rather than 2 VHS tapes.

It was actually dubbed into many languages, songs included - except in Japanese where they put the original English back on for the songs only.

 

[flowersofnight]

(Jumping threads)

Did you ever watch Kull the Conquerer?

No, only "Krull"
Didn't see that new Conan movie either, I figured there wasn't any point in it.

Basil Poledouris RIP

 

[~Z e n c h o u~]

Loved the new Scream. Also started watching Yellowjackets.

 

[flowersofnight]

Tonight's entertainment: "The Romance of the Vampires"



From 1994, a Western-style vampire movie directed by Hong Kong auteur Ricky Lau (who previously directed "Mr. Vampire", etc)
Surprisingly this has pretty much no martial arts content and it's just a vampire movie/romance/clothes-on softcore porn
The plot, roughly: a blind girl named Rainbow is working as an escort to save up money for an operation to restore her sight, but then gets unknowingly entangled in a romance with a vampire. Meanwhile Rainbow's dorky landlord has an unrequited love for her and the vampire already has a vampire girlfriend. Conflict ensues XD

 

[sanctum]

Anywhere we can watch it?

Is that a DVD or a VCD?

 

[flowersofnight]

Anywhere we can watch it?

Is that a DVD or a VCD?

It's two VCDs There seem to have been VHS and DVD releases at one point or another, but I couldn't find those.
Doesn't seem like it's online anywhere.

Amusingly, I learned that VCDs cram in two audio tracks (Cantonese and Mandarin) by putting one in the left stereo channel and one in the right. You just adjust the balance to hear one or the other XD

Also, now that I mention it - it looks like the original "Mr. Vampire" recently got a Blu-ray remaster.

 

[sanctum]

Doesn't seem like it's online anywhere.

Scratch that, I found a copy.

one in the left stereo channel and one in the right. You just adjust the balance to hear one or the other XD

That takes me back! VCD never caught on in Australia, but, we had a huge community of Filipinos in my city and they all owned VCD players and karaoke machines. In fact, the only reason I know about the format is thanks to them.

 

[flowersofnight]

I got in the original first draft of the "Conan the Barbarian" script (by Oliver Stone with assists from notorious hacks L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter)
It was awful - nothing like the finished product. In this one Thulsa Doom has an army of mutants and takes over the city by replacing the princess with a doppelganger. After an early defeat and a stint on the Tree of Woe, Conan rises to bandit chieftain, rescues the princess, becomes a general, then defeats Thulsa Doom's mutant army in a pitched battle. Valeria is one of the bandits and there's a love triangle between her, Conan, and the princess. Bleah.
Conan is much more of a mouthy jackass in this version, I think it really was for the best that they ultimately settled on early Arnold when he could barely speak English XD

 

[sanctum]

nothing like the finished product.

Sounds like everything worked out for the better then.

I believe someone in a featurette included with the DVD special features said that the original idea for Conan was to create the next James Bond and put out a movie every year chronicling him becoming the King Conan shown at the start and end of the original film.

I'm not really sure how they would follow up the original movie because it was so damn good, but it is a shame that we will never get to old Arnold as King Conan.

 

[flowersofnight]

put out a movie every year chronicling him becoming the King Conan shown at the start and end of the original film.

I think it never could have worked, the first draft really proved it. The higher Conan climbs up the ranks, the more screen time he spends bickering over strategy and shouting orders to his men. Imperial General Conan's great triumph in the first draft was commanding his archers, in so many words, "not to fire till you see the whites of their eyes".

 

[flowersofnight]

Tonight's entertainment: an old Italian production of "Spartacus":
http://www.grapevinevideo.com/Spartacus.html

But they put the most awful Final Fantasy-knockoff music over it I wonder if it's literally "Free Public Domain Music!!" off of Youtube