Emma's News Archive
Video Watch
'08:We saw a lot of rubbish DVDs this year. Some of the better movies were: Ruby (1992); Nixon (1995); Hoffa (1992); Wilde (1997); American Gangster (2007); Becoming Jane (2007); We Own the Night (2007); The Brave One (2007); Into the Wild (2007); The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007); Steve Buscemi's Lonesome Jim (2005) and Trees Lounge (2006); MIT-students-take-on-Vegas in 21 (2008); and Vantage Point (2008).
07: Inspired by Lauren Bacall's book, I rented How To Marry a Millionaire (1955) - in which she stars alongside Monroe and Grable - and caught a rerun of her in Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956) with Rock Hudson. Other old movies I've enjoyed watching on TV this year include: the David Lean/Noel Coward tear-jerker Brief Encounter (1945) with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard; Sayonara (1957) with Marlon Brando, Red Buttons and James Garner as military men in 1950s Japan; Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce (1945); and Tom Hanks in the more recent classic Forrest Gump (1994). Back to DVDs, I liked The Lake House (2006) for its architectural shots of Chicago; Mike Binder's The Upside of Anger (2005); Emmanuelle Devos in Gilles' Wife (La Femme de Gilles) (2004); the Oscar-nominated Little Children (2006); Almodόvar's quirky Spanish film Volver (2006); Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006) with Jackman and Bale as duelling Victorian-era magicians; and Siamese-twin spoof rock documentary Brothers of the Head (2005) (most interesting!). I enjoyed Kinky Boots (2005); Bobby (2006); Breach (2007); Infamous (2006) and Factory Girl (2007) (for Toby Jones' and Sienna Miller's portrayals of Truman Capote and Edie Sedgwick respectively); Junebug (2005); and, in particular, The Painted Veil (2006) with Naomi Watts and Ed Norton in 1920s China. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) was an intriguing little tale set in France; and Zodiac (2007), based on the true story of a Californian serial killer, was good - but, then again, I do like Mark Ruffalo! Other enjoyable DVDs include: The Lookout (2007); Secretary (2002); Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002); and Ladies in Lavender (2004). Mike particularly enjoyed 300 (2006).
'06: My first recommendation is Walk the Line (2005), which got me into the music of Johnny Cash and June Carter, followed by Noah Baumbach's Oscar-nominated screenplay The Squid and the Whale (2005), starring Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, and the totally engrossing French-produced Sundance documentary film The Staircase (2004). Those who like suspense and gore should rent Australian horror flick Wolf Creek (2005); or if you want the original Prison Break, then watch Clint Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz (1979), which we viewed again following our visit to the island last year. I really enjoyed Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things (2003), based on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, Steve Carell's The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Paul Walker in Running Scared (2006), a non-stop actioner by Wayne The Cooler Kramer. Fans of Vanilla Sky should check out the Spanish original Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) (1997); or if you want to know how Capote's novel turns out, then watch In Cold Blood (1967) with Robert Blake. I liked Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man (2005) for the gorgeous shots of Chicago's lakefront in winter and Lasse Hallström's Wyoming-set An Unfinished Life (2005) with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez.
'05: Here are some of the better films we've seen on DVD this year: John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940); the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (1991); French thriller Read My Lips (Sur Mes Lèvres) (2001); Fernando Meirelle's City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002); Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle (Gong Fu) (2004) and Shaolin Soccer (Siu Lam Juk Kau) (2001); David Cronenberg's Spider (2001); Doug Liman's Swingers (1999); South Korean revenge thriller Oldboy (2003); Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things (2003); John Leguizamo in Crónicas (2004); Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955) (filmed in Mendocino where we recently vacationed); Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger in The Door in the Floor (2004); "this year's Memento" Dot the I (2003); an early Coen brothers' movie Blood Simple (1984); and French farce Après Vous (2003).
30 Sep '05: I can't let today go by without mentioning the 50th anniversary of the death of James Dean (right now I'm listening to a radio documentary on his short life). It was in 1985, on the 30th anniversary, that, at age 15, I became a James Dean fan: BBC2 showed his three movies and the Radio Times carried a photo spread; I bought a James Dean t-shirt on Carnaby Street and that was the start of my love affair with the 1950s!
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