Jolson ‘blacking’ up was ridiculous - never saw the point in that. Just loved Parkes portrayal and the music …
Not a fan of Jolson …
The Book Thief is really good, I also enjoyed Non-Stop.
Sitting at the bus stop this morning to go out and get my newspaper (not being lazy, that hill kills me!), a lady waiting started off talking and informed me she was thinking of going to the cinema, and might see The Book Thief. It looks good, she added.
Hmmmm… And I wanted to know your plans, why?!! Did I tell you where I was going?
Why DO people at bus stops tell you their life story?
For the record, is it a good film, TBT?
Can I ask, how did you manage to put DVDs, (I’m presuming they’re originals and subject to copyright) onto a hard drive?
You need a program called ‘DVD43’ which strips the DRM from the disk as it plays and something like ‘Freemake’ or 'Fair Use Wizard’ which converts the files to MP4 or MKV. (there are several others)
They are all freeware or open source software. Just do a search for them.
OR…
You use a bit torrent program (like utorrent) to download versions that other people have created.
Thanks Bruce, but are these programmes legit? It’s not legal to copy these DVDs, as we all know. Or do we argue that the process is for our own use?
I don’t want the DVD police knocking on my door!! 
All those programs are legit and freely available. Don’t worry unless you sell pirated videos then no one is going to come knocking on your door.
Using utorrent to download videos is a much grayer area. Personally I use it to download programs recorded off air eg Series 5 of Outnumbered which has gone to air in the UK but we will wait weeks or months for out here.
(But it does show why Murdoch is so anti our NBN as a threat to his payTV networks)
Harrowing and kinda exhausting film about 3 half caste girls taken from their mother and transported 1200 miles to a camp. Apparently this was carried out all over Australia by so called do-gooders for the sake of the Aboriginals, with a view to integrating them to the white’s way of life where they would eventually be assimulated, with the Aboriginal traits ‘bred’ out in future generations. Not sure who thought that up but it stank to high heaven in all sorts of ways.
Anyway, these 3 children escaped, whereby 2 managed to walk home whilst evading a rather sinister tracker and police - eh … 1200 miles taking 9 weeks! They did this by following the Rabbit-Proof fence which was god knows how long and erected to keep rabbits enclosed.
The film was good and atmospheric but the end of film credits really drove home to me the life these girls led - especially the oldest (14).
Don’t suppose you will ever watch this film but if you do don’t read the next part.
2 of the girls managed to get back to their mother. The family then moved in to the desert to avoid recapture. The eldest girl, Molly, married and had 2 children but were caught and taken back to the same camp. Molly then escaped with the youngest and walked all the way back once more! 3 years later her remaining child was taken from her and she never saw the child again.
The end of the film showed the 2 old women still together in Jigalong - the home they kept walking back to.
An excellent film.
A more recent and more harrowing film to watch is:
Samson and Delilah 2009
I won’t say anything about it but if you get the opportunity it is a must watch film and relates to aborigines now. It was filmed in and around Alice Springs.
If you want a much happier film (and a true story) you can’t go past last year’s The Sapphires which stars Jessica Mauboy and Deborah Mailman (with Chris O’Dowd as the foreign talent)
Will try to get hold of that un.
I have watched The Sapphires a number of times - cracker 
.
Watched Hotel Rwanda again on Sunday night, an excellent film and too little was done to help the refugees there…makes me so angry!!
Agree with you on the anger scale re that film, another one to rile you would be ‘rabbit proof fence’ .
There are so many true stories like these, that unfortunately will continue to be :twisted:
Not sure why you recommended the film? Tis like watching modern day cavemen and women with hardly any dialogue?
I endured it till the point where the girl is car napped and a little after. I will watch the rest some time today but I can’t see what I will learn from it? I will say though that it seems a lot of Aborigines just while away the time doing eh - nothing, which when you think about it at one time is probably what they did and have always done. As long as their requirements are met - food, clothing, housing etc - then that was fine. But this film is taking it a bit too far I think as in depicting them as a complete subspecies or something, completely ostracised from everyone and everything.
“Ok, I thought, this Artist film has won an Oscar so lets get it on - bound to be a good film”.
What a crock of s*** :shock: .
Right from the start I thought this surely can’t be right? “Nah, no way, it will improve in time”. Did it heck. Absolutely dreadful. I can honestly say I don’t think I have watched a worse film. Well, I didn’t watch it all the way through in fact as I couldn’t take anymore after about 30 mins.
Why didn’t I like it?
Well, the film director must think the audience - me in this case - was a complete moron: scenes played over and over, or way overlong, so that I would understand them eventually when it was bloody painfully obvious right from the start; exaggerated actor body movements which were just embarrassing; contorted facial expressions that were so coy they made my skin crawl, and on top of that a stupid, ridiculously silly plot. Absolutely incredibly bad film dressed up as a tribute to the silent movies of the past. Blimey, I would have thrown this film out with the director if I was boss of a studio.
Re. The Artist.
I thought I was alone in thinking this was one of the worst films I have ever had to suffer through, totally dreadful.
Thanks for that Jem, I was looking forward to seeing it - now I don’t care :-p
Oh, it is worth watching but you will question your sanity and judgement after that is for sure. I mean this travesty had all the critics raving, an Oscar and scored over 8 on IMDb.
I feel as if I have missed something obvious but what that can be I have no idea.
They couldn’t pay me enough to watch it all the way through.
Wow, was it bad eh - lol. So bad it makes me laugh thinking about it.
The world is getting crazier by the minute.
I’m sorry Patsy if I put you off it, it was never my intention, I love films even some bad ones, but this particular film and all the hype that went with it was a huge letdown for me, so much so that it sticks in my mind forever, it’s got to be real good or real bad to do that to me.
Its fine Jem 
- it usually happens, so much hype around a film and then the big let down.
I never go by the Oscars learnt that lesson a long time ago …