I also watched Black Swan, bit strange but once I got into it I sort of enjoyed it. Bit weird though and couldn’t watch it again!
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I haven’t been to the pictures in years, I tend to wait for them to go onto sky movies before I get to watch them the most recent have been Star Trek Into Darkness and Skyfall.
But I do have a very large dvd collection so usually watch one of them when I have time.
How quaintly old fashioned 
I have spent the last year getting rid of all my DVDs and putting all the films and TV shows on a hard drive(s). Then you can watch them on any TV in the house or stick them on a tablet to watch on the train (if you wanted to - I don’t personally)
Similarly with all my music.
watched the black swan as well, very strange and dark…how do you get dvd on hard drive, what a good idea
I’m old fashioned but I have to say the best thing I every did with my disc collection of films was to put them all on a hard drive, all indexed and in alphabetical order, no more shifting through hundreds of discs that take up a lot of space, and on one small compact portable unit, it’s a joy.
An overlooked film that is very much worth a look is ‘Spinning Plates’. It is a documentary on 3 restaurant owners and their families. Seems dead boring but there is quite a punch near the end where you learn more about them on a personal level. I think most of you will enjoy it a great deal.
Mark - can you ‘only’ watch the docu on computer - shame if so, i’d love to see it …
Wasn’t the Tate &Lyle empire built on slavery?
What annoys me even more is the fact that none of these ‘anti slavery’ films etc ever seems to mention the fact that the start of the trail was in Africa where one village would attack another and capture the villagers and sell them to the Arabs who then sold them on. Whenever blame is being laid it is almost always at the feet of the white slavers who yes were despicable, but were NOT the first link in the chain, that link was other Africans.
Has anyone else seen Ashanti? film with Michael Cain, whose African wife is kidnapped by other Africans and sold to an Arab chieftain?
It shouldn’t matter ‘who’ started the chain, the whites didn’t have to go along with any of it …
Was furkling up and down the channels the other night and came across District 9. Saw this a few years back but worth a second go. Anyone else seen this film? Another little known product of the Blomkamp/Jackson team but still one of the best sci-fi movies ever. This is despite the fact that it starts out feeling like one of those cheapo amateur films made with a hand held video cam, because suddenly you are into the story and it no longer matters.
A few odd facts I discovered when looking this film up. District 9 was actually filmed on a real settlement which was being cleared and the people rehoused, quite literally the ‘prawns’ were being moved into shacks as the inhabitants were moved out. In those early scenes the conversations between the prawns and Wikus were ad libbed, and ‘all’ those initial ‘prawns’ were acted by the one actor.
For all you sci-fi fans who have not seen this film I recommend you do so asap.
Very good film indeed Daisymay, such a shame he seems to have lost interest in the proposed follow up.
It is out on DVD in the US so will be available here at some time or other. If you know where to go though ;-) .
Like I have mentioned in a number of posts - rig your laptop, or computer, to the TV as it opens up a whole new world of entertainment.
Thanks, I’ll look out for it …
Yes, I have seen it and a very good film it was too. The actor who played the main role - Sharlto Copley - played a totally different role alongside Matt Damon in Elysium - another sci-fi - which was rubbish in comparison, but still showed Sharlto Copley’s acting prowess. Very good actor if you ask me.
I actually enjoyed Elysium, I read somewhere that Damon was actually third choice for the part but for the life of me cannot recall who the other two were.
I love to watch the old British films on utube, I like the pre war ones best, the ones made during the war years always had some kind of message in them and I never liked war pictures to begin with, and then you had Arthur Askey, I could never stand that man. When my late brother and me were kids we used to laugh at the names in the film credits to pass the time until we got to the actual film itself, which felt like years at the time. Anyway I copped something in the opening credits that made me chuckle, the film was “The Browning Version” and it was produced by a chap called “Teddy Baird”, seems he did a lot of producing before the war notably “Pygmalion” in 1938. Visions went through my head of him and his family going off on a sunny Sunday afternoon and one neighbour remarking to another “Today’s the day the Teddy Bairds have their picnic”, don’t mind me, silly things go through my head.
Just watched “Paul” which I boxed a while back. Really enjoyed it, there are some really funny digs at American culture, and several references, both visual and verbal to some iconic sci-fi films (made me wonder how much such things had cost). In my humble opinion well worth a couple of hours.
Finally got round to watching Saving Mr Banks. Emma Thomson does a great job of portraying a most unsympathetic character.
Hardly recognised Rachel Griffiths as Aunt Emma.
Just watched an old - very old - DVD of an Australian SciFi/horror film - “Patrick” with Sir Robert Helpmann and Susan Penhaligon.
Seriously weird !!
Watched Tea With Mussolini last night first time I have seen that and loved it !