Movie/film thread: resurrected

Foul language?? In Deadwood?? Nononono, you must have watched the wrong show, Stil. They hardly ever swear..errr...and the men in the show are all real gentlemen and nice to women...err..maybe not. But I agree it is "expletive" good.

I watched an interesting movie last night - "Rocket Post" - based on the true story of a German rocket scientist who having failed to gain from from the German gov't after WW1 to continue his researches ended up on the island of Scraf in Scotland.

Interesting side-light was the 1000 executed rocket scientists in Hitler's Germany.

The first time I saw an episode of DEADWOOD I didn't really dig it. I thought it was trying to hard to reinvent the wheel. However, when HBO On-Demand offered up the entire first season before season 2 premiered, I gave it another go, starting with its first episode. It made more sense to me and I had another hour so I tried the second one. After that, I spent the next day watching the entire first season on one go.

I even blew off the second season until I was able to watch it all in one sittng and soak it all in.

Season three: same deal.

Ian McShane owned that series! Still stellar work form DEADWOOD's entire cast.


 HBO's OZ was like that as well. I saw one epsiode and was not particualrly impressed, but when I was able to watch a few epsiodes in a row I was hooked on that back in the day.

The series SLEEPER CELL and SLEEPER CELL: AMERICAN TERROR wre also really engaging and worth checking out.

American pay-cable has the best drama on American t. v.

Foul language?? In Deadwood?? Nononono, you must have watched the wrong show, Stil. They hardly ever swear..errr...and the men in the show are all real gentlemen and nice to women...err..maybe not. But I agree it is "expletive" good.

It's too bad David Milch's latest, JOHN FROM CINCINNATI isn't clicking on all cylinders like DEADWOOD did. It has a great ensemble cast, some good dialog and some interesting ideas, but it's not drawing me in like DEADWOOD did.

Bought "Twin Peaks" on DVD a few days ago. Just waiting for a weekend with no family obligations and lots of rain. Now, that was quality TV and no mistake.

Bought "Twin Peaks" on DVD a few days ago. Just waiting for a weekend with no family obligations and lots of rain. Now, that was quality TV and no mistake.

My brother loved the hell out of that. I was a bigger fan of David Lynch's other show (at that time) - a quirky little comedy called ON THE AIR. It almost sounds too surreal to be real, but it was indeed a "David Lynch sitcom." Nearly all of the cast were TWIN PEAKS folks. It was about a fictional American broadcast network from the fifties.

It is impossible not to be a fan of mr. Lynch. I recall having to walk the streets of Copenhagen thin after watching Mulholland Drive and "The Elephant Man" was just pure genius. I mean, you can read about Joseph Merrick all you want but I thought that movie really hit the right note.

And after work it's on to a Die Hard marathon. All 4 movies in one go.

You have the fourth?

The first is one of the greatest action films ever made, no doubt about that.  My dad usually hates violent films, and even he liked the first on the basis that it was very clever in how it was all set in one building.  The third is also fantastic, the second less so but still decent.

WHere do you all find these good serieses on DVD in China?  I have only been able to find obvious stuff like Friends, Lost, etc.  I download a lot but for these big serieses, I would much rather buy as it's much less computer-hogging.  I had to download the Wire (everyone back home keeps going on about it) and it's like 5 gigs or something just for series 1.  Would much rather be able to buy, but can never seem to find DVDs of stuff like Deadwood.

WHere do you all find these good serieses on DVD in China?

I wasn't sure if you asked Eric this. If you were asking me - I am not in China yet. However, I did find some great series like SPACED (not on DVD in the U. S.) in Shanghai a couple of years back. I also noticed many BBC series (THE OFFICE, some dramas, BLAKC BOOKS. MI5, etc.), every season of THE SIMPSONS released legally elsewhere, and stuff like 24, etc. as well.


 

Would much rather be able to buy, but can never seem to find DVDs of stuff like Deadwood.

Even here, in the U .S. the DEADWOOD series DVD sets are criminally priced at 60-80 bucks a pop. I just recorded them off of the on-demand cable service HBO has and burned DVDs of them.

If you're still China-based when I arrive and are quality TV deprived I'll let you know what I bring with me. It'll be a while, and the files would all be xvids (either a Divx/Xvid friendly DVD player or your computer would have to be used to watch 'em).

Like folks with books on this forum - My thing is with movies and television, and I'll be bringing stuff I know I couldn't even find in China's bountiful blackmarket via some portable hard drives.

I've seen the abyss of what Enlgish language programming might be available in mainland China, looked into it and it looked back at me and laughed; so I know what I'm in for.

EDIT: You're in Guandong, right? I'm surprised there isn't some primo swag coming into the markets via Hong Kong. I remember seeing lots of legal DVD and VCD releases of American and British series that were not even out in the states at the times I've been there (like episodes of THE SIMPSONS before the DVD sets were pressed. I believe similar sets were released on VHS in the U. k., but outside of one video tape of the very first SIMPSONS episode, we didn't get them on video until the DVD sets started in 2003).

I found Deadwood easily in the local DVD market. I think about 60-80RMB, from memory.
 I'm surprised you can't get it - but if you seriously can't, PM me and I'll go shopping for you. The selection here is pretty good.
Deadwood has one of my favourite TV lines of all time - I think it is Series 2 - where Calamity Jane has been asked to deliver a talk to the school kiddies about General George Armstrong Custer, with whom she served and knew well. Her reply is, well, you have to see it to appreciate it (or not - depending on your taste and sensibilities).

WHere do you all find these good serieses on DVD in China?  I have only been able to find obvious stuff like Friends, Lost, etc.  I download a lot but for these big serieses, I would much rather buy as it's much less computer-hogging.  I had to download the Wire (everyone back home keeps going on about it) and it's like 5 gigs or something just for series 1.  Would much rather be able to buy, but can never seem to find DVDs of stuff like Deadwood.

I never have a problem finding them in here but then again, the DVD shops in Beijing are used to dealing with the laowais so we get a lot of bizarre series and movies. But I've actually stopped buying them as of late... I have a PC downloading 24/7 and by the time a get through a season, the next one is downloaded and ready.

Does anyone burn their downloaded stuff to DVD and if so, how do you go about it. What programs / process do you recommend?

I'm in Dalian...

I'm sure most of it is available but it tends to take a serious amount of searching.  I have never found firefly, for instance (I downloaded it).  Don't worry re. getting me anything as I can download most stuff, just wondering where people get it.  As for series I would rather just buy it, but wouldn't want anyone to go round getting stuff for me, if you see what I mean

as to converting downloaded stuff to DVD, you have to convert the AVI files to DVD format using a convertor program.  It takes a while - could take a fair few hours to convert a whole series to DVD, and burn.  I hate sitting watching programmes on my computer, too...

On a different note, and above someone mentioned Spaced, I would like to plug the grossly underrated 15 Storeys High from the UK.  Fantastic.  Like Spaced without the drugs and really really dry.  Also featuring a British Chinese guy.  Very very good.  If you can find it.  It's on torrents.