Feeling a bit lazy again this week, so I'll just share/celebrate/gloat over another list of recent acquisitions from the best DVD shop in the world (the one next to Beijing's Central Academy of Drama).
My latest DVD purchases
The Searchers
(Dir. John Ford, 1956)
Buffalo Bill
(Dir. William Wellman, 1944)
Beneath The 12-Mile Reef
(Dir. Robert D. Webb, 1944)
A cheesy minor classic that launched the career of Robert Wagner. One of the great deep-sea diving films (although I think they're only fishing for sponges, which seems rather unglamorous), which I remember fondly from Saturday afternoon matinées on the BBC in my childhood.
Sullivan's Travels
(Dir. Preston Sturges, 1941)
River Of No Return
(Dir. Otto Preminger, 1954)
King Solomon's Mines
(Dir. Compton Barnett, Andrew Marton, 1950)
Another Saturday afternoon classic!
Scaramouche
(Dir. George Sidney, 1952)
I have been assured more than once by fencing aficionados that this Stewart Granger romp is generally reckoned to boast some of the best (=technically most realistic) swordfights ever committed to celluloid. And it's a romp!
They Died With Their Boots On
(Dir. Raoul Walsh, 1941)
This Custer biopic may be almost completely divorced from reality, but it's a tremendous Western, and probably my favourite Errol Flynn film.
Alexander The Great
(Dir. Robert Rossen, 1956)
La Bête Humaine
(Dir. Jean Renoir, 1938)
The Last Laugh
(Dir. F.W. Murnau, 1924)
A silent screen classic starring Emil Jannings which I've heard praised so often, but have never before got around to seeing. Near the top of the 'to watch' pile...
Yankee Doodle Dandy
(Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Nuit et Brouillard
(Dir. Alain Resnais, 1955)
I hadn't heard before of this documentary about the Nazi concentration camps, made just a decade on from the War. It will be grim viewing, I'm sure, but essential.
La Règle du Jeu
(Dir. Jean Renoir, 1939)
The Desert Fox
(Dir. Henry Hathaway, 1951)
Jakob the Liar
(Dir. Frank Beyer, 1975)
Another film I've often heard recommended, but never got around to seeing. Also, curiously, it is by some twenty years the youngest film on this list.
It seems I have lots of quiet evenings in (and nostalgic "Saturday afternoons") nicely taken care of in the coming too-humid-to-go-out August.
2 comments:
You might be interested (with some qualification) in an online service called MUBI. Here's their About... page, and here, their FAQs. I think you've said the quality of your streaming is still unsatisfactory, and I don't know how well a feature would make its way to you. But you seem almost the one person they created the system for.
I haven't made much use of it yet -- just for a few months and (so far) for free short films. Although I may have taken a side in the e-book wars, I'm a good way from picturing comfort in watching a revered feature film on a computer monitor, at a desk.
Still, they have quite a library. Among their most popular titles in "my" region, at the moment, are Un Chien Andalou, The General, Mon Oncle, L'Avventura, Amarcord, Wong Kar-Wai's Happy together, The Blue Angel, Divorce Italian Style, and two films by Andrei Tarkovsky (!), The Mirror and The Sacrifice.
Currently, they're running a free festival of the films of Jean-Jacques Beineix -- about whom I run hot and cold, but still.
Films range from free to $3 (USD) to watch. You "rent" a film for 7 days, during which you can view it as many times as you want.
All of which said, even if you don't sign on as a member, you probably deserve a seat on their programming board!
Well, thanks for the tip. I may get around to checking it out one day. (How does one apply for the programming job, I wonder? I did once apply for a job with the British Board of Film Censors, but I'm quite glad I didn't get it: I would have been loathe to cut anything, ever - and I think they sensed that!)
Unfortunately, services like this are of little use to me at present, since I have (for over a decade now) been without a credit card. I have no money left in the UK, and it's way too much hassle for a foreigner to get a credit card in China.
Moreover, $3 is about twice what I usually pay for a pirated DVD that I can watch for as long as I like, so the economics of the deal aren't very attractive anyway.
I definitely have Un Chien Andalou, The General, and The Sacrifice. I think I have Happy Together and L'Avventura.
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