Although I never watch TV, and haven't for a few decades now, I do have a decent TV. I like watching DVDs, both films and series, and I also stream YouTube and other online material to watch on the TV screen. Actual TV suffers from not being controllable, and even worse from annoying advertisements that interrupt the enjoyment of whatever is being watched. This might not much matter during a live sporting event, when ads can be conveniently timed in breaks in the action, but they destroy movies, series, documentaries and other video media.
I've already blogged in response to the
BBC Culture report on the excellent BBC production of Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice, arguably the best novel ever written, at least in English (there is some serious Russian competition, and now that I think about it, Patrick White's
The Vivisector has brought me back more than once).
In
"Ten Films to Watch in October," Fiona Macdonald very briefly reviews ten coming cinema releases for next month, although one of them,
Beasts of No Nation, the story of how a young African Boy becomes a child soldier, will be released at the same time online as in cinemas (2015). Macdonald says that some critics dislike this idea because they think that films "should be seen on a vast screen, in the dark, with no pause button to hand, and no phone to answer," with which idea I sympathise, but don't entirely agree - I think a largish TV is fine, and it is convenient to be able to pause if you want to, perhaps not to answer a phone call, which does annoy me, but for other compelling reasons.
 |
Australian Daniel Craig plays
James Bond in Spectre. |
Of the ten films the Macdonald discusses, I thought that
Spectre, the next James Bond film, will probably be the most enjoyable - I'm really looking forward to seeing it. I've loved the James Bond stories ever since I read Fleming's
Dr. No at the tender age of about 13. Thirteen is a guess. I know I was in high school, but it might have been my second year. Also in high school, I first read studied Shakespeare. The very first think by him I ever tried to read is also coming out in a film version in October, and Macdonald suggests that this version will be pretty good. The play is
Macbeth, and even as a 13 year old struggling with the 400 year-old modern English of Shakespeare, this play about killing a king, marital lust and strife, witches cooking up potions and making predictions, armies warring and plotting nobles, and so on, was gripping. In my high school, we read
Romeo and Juliet next, which was not so gripping for 14 year-old boys, although it improved when we realized how much sex and rude joking is in that play along with the loving, not to mention the child sex that passed unnoticed, or not, in Shakespeare's time.
 |
| Michael Fassbender as Macbeth |
I haven't seen
Spectre yet, but I'm pretty sure it won't be as good as Shakespeare's
Macbeth, which is beaten by
Hamlet and couple of other plays (my favourite was long
Antony and Cleopatra, although I don't think it's as good as
Hamlet,
Lear or
Macbeth). Being enjoyable or fun is not the same as being good. I also tend to enjoy pretty awful action films: things like the
Die Hard and
Terminator films, which really aren't much as art, but are great for some mindless relaxation after a hard day reviewing or proofreading.
A couple of the other films on Macdonald's list of ten seemed to me unlikely to be either much fun or very good, but perhaps you'll disagree with me.
_______________________________________
My question is:
What is the best film you've ever seen? (The question is
not: What is the most enjoyable film you've ever seen?)
McDonald F. (2015, September 25). Ten films to watch in October.
BBC Culture. Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150925-ten-films-to-watch-in-october
Union's writing over the last week came to mind and prompted parts of this response in two ways. First was his choice of film as a general topic; more salient was a comment responding to my question about eating elephant meat, from which I inferred he believes a common notion about morals that I think wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs you may know, my favorite star is Johnny Depp, so my enjoyable film is Pirate of the Caribbean which is a kind of adventure - comedy; however, I would recommend another film which is more attractive for me.
ReplyDeleteThe movie is Les Misérables which is a musical film based on Victor Hugo's novel. I like all of story, music, costume, scene and expression of the characters (maybe every parts of the movie and production).
By the way, I'm interested 2 out of 10 films, the first one is Macbeth as yours and the another is He Named Me Malala which is a story of a girl who fights for women's education and right in Pakistan. I think Punn wrote about this the last term in this blog.
Yes Poy, it seemed that we have the same interest. I wrote about Malala Yousafzai last term and I'm impressed with her pretty much too. She's a girl who is one of the top influenced and powerful in the world today.
DeleteI'm also a Johnny Depp fan, but apart from the first one, I didn't much like the Pirates of the Caribbean films. They seemed carelessly constructed with the parts and stories not working smoothly to support each other.
DeleteEdward Scissor Hands was so long ago I don't remember it well enough to comment. I've sometimes had memories of things as being great, and when I read (books) or watched (films) them again years later, they were really awful. For example, when I first saw Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the 1963 film Antony and Cleopatra, it was wonderful, and sensibly followed Shakespeare's versions of Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, when I recently watched it again, the excessive focus on Elizabeth Taylor's clothes and eye make-up, and the departures from Shakespeare with flowery language that just sounded silly were serious problems. Tt looked exactly like what it was: a 1960s show off piece of expensive cinema. But there have been many much worse films made. I'm more careful now about revisiting past joys.
Yes, that is. Time changes almost everything also change. I am also thinking of Thai series Baan-Sai-Thong (I don't know how to put it in italic) which has been produced eight times since 1956 as TV series - it had be a stage show for four times of different production teams. I watched a TV program about the series which told that the production wants to adapt the story to proper in current situation, but conserves a concept of the series.
DeleteI wonder why I talk about Johnny Depp, it reminds you and the another teacher in the conversation hour last term, Travis, to Edward Scissor Hands. I also watch this and also like it (this movie seems classic). As well my brother who has been in US. posted a picture of Edward Scissor Hands on his Instagram.
Poy, for comments, there are some notes on how to add italics, bold and links in the menu bar at the top of the page. (Or the link I've just created here.)
DeleteI'm a kind of person who enjoy watching movie too and the movies that's coming soon are quite interesting for me, especially Bridge of Spies (I would like to something other than dinosaurs of Steven Spielberg), Steve Jobs (in the new version - I've seen the old one before but the director made it not to be attractive), Macbeth (It's one of basic readings of Shakespeare which we can't miss it), Spectre (I've heard that the next episode will change to the new James Bond but I'm not sure who's going to be), and Malala (the movie which I'm still surprised that how can it be a movie? very interesting! )
ReplyDeleteOf the films I've seen, I think the best is the film version of Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Although the book is also very good, I think the film version, starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, is even better. It's tightly plotted, with all the different sub-plots working together to support the main story, which is the journey of Michael Corleone from World War 2 hero to mafia family hero as circumstances inevitably move him into the very thing he least wanted, but ends up embracing. The action, the drama, the personalities of the characters are all concisely developed and all work together as one unified piece of work, making this old film (it was released in 1972), an enduring great of Hollywood history.
ReplyDeleteOne test I use to judge the artistic merit of a piece of work is whether I can continue to enjoy on repeated viewing, reading or listening. Jane Austen's novels all pass this test: they get better every time I read them and notice more details working to create a beautiful whole. The Godfather also passes this test: every time I've watched it, it's better than before, and never bores. It's not in quite the same league as Homer's Iliad, from which, like so much in Western culture, it has borrowed a lot, but it's pretty good. It's also fun to watch - if you're wondering what to watch one evening, I recommend The Godfather.
Time for bed. I think I'll watch The Matrix again for a bit before sleep. It's a great film I've not watched for a while, raising some cool questions that philosophers got to first from Plato onwards - more recently in Robert Nozick's experience machine (1974), and Hilary Putnam's brains in vats (1981; also Nozick's BIVs in 1981). And it brought the issues into wider discussion in society. I like that.
ReplyDeleteBut I like The Matrix because it's fun. Sadly, the next two films are not nearly as good as the first.