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Stigmata is indeed awful. Not "End of Days" awful but not far away.
I've seen the trailer for The Olive Tree and though reviews seem very good, the trailer makes the movie looking like it has one of the silliest premises. It certainly didn't make me want to go and see it.

tenia wrote:Stigmata is indeed awful. Not "End of Days" awful but not far away.
I've seen the trailer for The Olive Tree and though reviews seem very good, the trailer makes the movie looking like it has one of the silliest premises. It certainly didn't make me want to go and see it.

Well maybe next time I'm tipsy and skimming through Netflix I'll give it a go (probably with some mates). Obviously no need to ever get it if I don't even enjoy it in a novelty way!

I just took a look at the trailer for The Olive Tree, and assuming it's the same one you're talking about (this?) it certainly isn't a very well-made trailer. Or at least, it has that over-emphatic stock trailer music playing over most of it so you can't really get a good feel for it. It looks like a sales trailer though, as it says 'now in post production' at the end of it.

It looks similar in tone to last year's The Rocket in some respects and might be a surprising little drama. I just noticed it has been written by Paul Laverty, who has written almost every Ken Loach film for the last two decades. Even more interesting is that the director (Iciar Bollain) also did the film Even the Rain (starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Luis Tosar) which I actually have a copy of somewhere but never got round to watching. I remember hearing good things about it though, hence why I picked up a copy.

That said, it doesn't look as compelling as Aloys, Creepy or even Sweet Bean. But I guess it's just down to tastes. It's nice to see Eureka are still interested in tapping into international cinema that might otherwise fall by the wayside (or in all honesty, get picked up by Metrodome for a barebones DVD that'll be £3 in a few months).

PS: just looked up Iciar Bollain and now I understand why I was getting deja vu watching the trailer for this film after watching the new BFI trailer for Victor Erice's El Sur - Bollain actually starred in that film as the little girl! Looks like Erice and that film in particular might have had quite the effect on her own filmmaking...

L.A. wrote:Marty @ Beaver

Does anyone know if indeed / why the UK disc is 4 minutes shorter ?

PAL speedup?

Blu-rays aren't in PAL format.

swo17 wrote:Blu-rays aren't in PAL format.

And even Eureka’s DVDs are NTSC, unless the material originated at 25fps.

According to DVDCompare: "As with the DVD editions and the French Blu-ray, this presentation of Marty is short a four minute scene featuring Clara and her parents reportedly present on the VHS release but only restored to Kino's US Blu-ray and DVD. Presumably this was not an accidental deletion as the ~89 minute running time reflects the length of the film's UK theatrical release."

And here you go. Thanks for the link explaining what's what.

Had to say it, but George Romero’s not a Master of Cinema? Regarding the upcoming Monkey Shines Blu ray.

M Sanderson wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 5:17 pm Had to say it, but George Romero’s not a Master of Cinema? Regarding the upcoming Monkey Shines Blu ray.

Well, it would be a bloody awful film to induct him on! Between Arrow and Criterion all his good films are taken, with the exception on Dawn/Martin (and they are going nowhere 'til Rubinstein comes to his senses!)
Don't get me wrong, I love a good psychotic-primate movie (Night of the Bloody Apes was the first region 1 DVD I ever imported - talk about priorities!) but Monkey Shines is a drag. It's a good premise, but poorly executed, with a pace so lethargic it proves fatal. The same situation was done and dusted in half an hour in the underrated anthology horror The House on Terror Tract, with Bryan Cranston battling a helper-monkey in a much more entertaining fashion (weirdly, Cranston was also terrorised by a helper-monkey in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle as well, which must be some sort of record!).

Ha, you make a strong case. And, I’m guessing, an off the shelf transfer that will be lucky to be really good.

Romero’s direction did become listless during this period (namely, his contribution to Two Evil Eyes).

Still, Monkey Shines does have its admirers, and Kim Newman wrote this for Romero’s obituary “Monkey Shines is still underrated - Ann Billson was right when she tagged it as a better film about disability than My Left Foot, but it’s also a perfectly judged suspense film with a strangely sympathetic menace in the helper monkey gone mad.”

I don't think it was his direction becoming listless, it was that he didn't get to properly finish editing his films because money was tight or gone (The Dark Half doesn't even have finished effects because Orion basically went out of business before the film was finished with post.)

I look forward to revisiting so I can have a more current opinion, having not seen since the mid ‘90s on videotape. Might get along with Shout Factory’s upcoming Creepshow, for the sake of Romero completism.

Yes the unfinished Dark Half effects are unfortunate and jarring (similar to, although not as bad as Schrader’s alternate Exorcist sequel).

So what you are all saying is that with respect to Monkey Shines the Simpsons did it better?

Picnic coming in February.

Nice, I can sell my TT edition for like three times what this will cost

Mr. Deltoid wrote:

M Sanderson wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 5:17 pm Had to say it, but George Romero’s not a Master of Cinema? Regarding the upcoming Monkey Shines Blu ray.

Well, it would be a bloody awful film to induct him on! Between Arrow and Criterion all his good films are taken, with the exception on Dawn/Martin (and they are going nowhere 'til Rubinstein comes to his senses!)

By contrast, I have absolutely no problem with Yuen Woo-ping getting an MoC nod since Drunken Master is undoubtedly one of his best. And while he’s never going to rival Bergman or Lubitsch, he’s certainly a master of a particular kind of cinema.

June title is up on Amazon...Last Hurrah for Civalry & Hand of Death: Two films from John Woo

Also Roger Spottiswoode's Under Fire.

Getting tired of this crap.

I guess that's one Twilight Time I'll be keeping.