Film

An archive of blog entries about films and film production.

The Wandering Earth
Classic TV

Orange Wednesday: The Wandering Earth (2019) and The Water Margin (1972)

8 May 2019 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

No superhero movies this week. That’s got to be an improvement, hasn’t it?

In fact, I feel doubly impressed with myself this week, since I’ve gone totally foreign language. Following on from previous Orange Wednesdays’ forays into Japanese cinema, this week we’re heading to China for both our movies.

First up is The Wandering Earth, based on Hugo Award-winning author Liu Cixin’s novella of the same name and which despite having only been released in February is already:

  • China’s second highest-grossing film of all time
  • 2019’s third highest-grossing film worldwide
  • The second highest-grossing non-English film of all time
  • One of the top 20 highest-grossing science fiction films of all time.

Secondly, we have the 1973 adaptation of that classic of Chinese literature, The Water Margin. That has more martial arts fights in it than that description might suggest.

Both of those after the jump

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Godzilla
Film reviews

Orange Wednesday: Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Godzilla (1954)

1 May 2019 Rob Buckley 24 Comments

Two reviews this week, both of which are a moderate disappointment to myself. Last week, I worried that I was only reviewing superhero movies. To be fair, most new movies these days seem to be superhero movies, but I was trying to quit the habit…

…just as the concluding part of the Avengers‘ 11-year-long, 21-part series of movies hit the silver screen in the UK. Doh!

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up superhero movies.

Avengers: Endgame review after the jump. I’ll try not to be too spoilery.

Secondly, last week, as you may recall, I took out a free trial/subscription to the BFI Player to try to ensure I watched something moderately cerebral for a change. Look at all those Kurosawas, I thought to myself. Yet, while I did end up watching a black and white Japanese movie, it wasn’t a Kurosawa.

Yep, original Godzilla after the jump, too. Sigh.

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Mystery Road
Australian and New Zealand TV

Orange Wednesday: Mystery Road (2013), Goldstone (2016) and The Name of the Rose (1986)

24 April 2019 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

It’s been noticeable over the past few weeks that basically the only movies TMINE has been watching of late have been superhero movies. This is somewhat lamentable for someone who used to edit film magazines, including the magazine of the Cambridge Film Festival.

This cannot hold. However, since I’ve just downsized my Cinema Paradiso subscription, I’ve had a few pennies spare. And one of the advantages of running TMINE is that you learn about things like Amazon Prime Channels and the BFI.

BFI woe

Now those of you who’ve tried the BFI’s iOS app will know it is literally the worst. It’s just awful. It’s got a rating of 1.3 out 5 on the App Store. It’s barely even worth calling it an app. I mean look – this is what you get when you launch it.

This is not an app. This is a travesty

Which is why I never bothered to use it.

A better choice

But if you read TMINE frequently – like I do – you’ll know that if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can also subscribe to the BFI Player channel within Amazon Prime for a mere £4.99/month and use the Amazon Prime app (also available on Roku et al) to watch all the movies, including downloading them for a commute.

This is much better
This is much better – on iOS

Lovely. Plus it seems to have a better catalogue and to be cheaper than Mubi.

Anyway, when I’m not lowering my IQ watching non-stop superhero movies, I’ll be endeavouring to plough my way through a big chunk of classic movies on the BFI Player for Orange Wednesday – probably starting with everything Kurosawa, but you never know, I might diversify.

This week’s Orange Wednesday

But since this is ostensibly a TV blog, I thought I’d start with a double bill related to a TV show: Mystery Road (2013) and its sequel Goldstone (2016), which led to one of last year’s top TMINE TV shows, Mystery Road.

However, since I only reviewed one movie last week, I probably owe you all an extra review. And since I’ve been watching Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose) of late, I decided to delve into my archive of movies and rewatch the 1986 movie version.

All three of those TV-related films after the jump.

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