Films you've seen lately

[Dave2002]

Not sure about "plenty of good films" but there are a few - perhaps. Does this channel have any form of on-demand facility, or does one just have to set an appropriate PVR to record when the interesting ones are on?

[Nick Armstrong]

Is anything good coming Up?

If you keep scanning the schedules, most of the films mentioned recently on this thread will come up, as they are rotated, usually a few weeks apart (though sometimes earlier) - so vigilance and patience, plus as you say, a PVR setting or two, are all that is required (in place of an immediate 'watch again' facility, which there isn't!)

[LMcD]

Not sure about YouView 81 - is that Internet? We can get some Youview channels via BT internet, but not the broadcast ones. Freesat 306 mght work - I'll check it out later this week. Is anything good coming Up?

Terrestrial: Freeview 81
Internet Protocol: YouView 81
Satellite: Sky 328, Freesat 306
Cable: Virgin 445
If you sign up for TP TV's newsletter they'll keep you up to date with details of forthcoming programmes. These can also be found via their website, covering the next few weeks. There are a lot of fairly dreadful stuff, but enough gems to make it worthwhile checking regularly.
If you're a Peter Sellers fan, there's 'Only Two Can Play' (1962) at 2200 tonight, and the first series of 'Callan' continues at 2100. 'Armchair Theatre' series 15 is on Sundays at 2200.
TPTV is increasingly showing 'classic' TV series in addition to old cinema releases.

[gurnemanz]

If you're a Peter Sellers fan, there's 'Only Two Can Play' (1962) at 2200 tonight.

I was a Peter Sellers fan when it came out (Goon show, Ying Tong Song) etc. It was X certificate and I remember wondering what on earth might be going on there to place it beyond my 13 year-old reach. Chance to catch up - 57 years later. It seems to be PG now.

[gradus]

The wonderful I'm alright Jack was on yesterday, just great not only Sellars on top form but a great supporting cast, especially Terry Thomas and Irene Handl.

[Nick Armstrong]

The wonderful I'm alright Jack was on yesterday, just great not only Sellars on top form but a great supporting cast, especially Terry Thomas and Irene Handl.

Yes duly recorded - not sure I've ever seen it all the way through.

Just watched, an early Joseph Losey feature film which I'd never heard of, despite a terrific cast:

Time Without Pity (1957) - tense and compelling if sometimes melodramatic and overwrought. Michael Redgrave plays an alcoholic father who arrives back in the country just 24 hours before his son (Alec McCowen) is due to be hanged for murdering his girlfriend. Peter Cushing is the lawyer, and Leo McKern (guilty of most of the overacting) has a key role.

One of the best things about it is the score, by Australian Tristram Cary of whom I'd also never heard but whose work does a lot to maintain the gritty atmosphere and tension

[Bryn]

The wonderful I'm alright Jack was on yesterday, just great not only Sellars on top form but a great supporting cast, especially Terry Thomas and Irene Handl.

Shame about the censorship, however, not only of the naturists but also of the ethnic slang. Surely the warning about the latter which was given prior to the broadcast was rendered redundant by the brief clumsy audio edit.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One of the best things about it is the score, by Australian Tristram Cary of whom I'd also never heard

Oh yes you had - he was included in an Alphabetical Association about several years ago (one of the D puzzles, as all the composers mentioned in the clues had written incidental Music for a certain long-running BBC Science Fiction series ).

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh yes you had - he was included in an Alphabetical Association about several years ago (one of the D puzzles, as all the composers mentioned in the clues had written incidental Music for a certain long-running BBC Science Fiction series ).

[Richard Barrett]

After reading, in the main, very positive reviews of 'Cold War' [Pawel Pawlikowski], I bought the DVD and watched it the other day. A disappointment. It begins superbly; two musicians/ethno-musicologists are touring around post-war rural Poland in search of authentic performers to recruit for a tour of folk acts. There is some stunning B+W cinematography, combined with beautiful and moving performances of folk songs and dances. So far so good, and the insight into the crushing banality of a socialist-realist artistic dogma is subtle and telling. Post-war Berlin looks and feels cold and austere. The emerging romantic relationship that dominates the rest of the film however slowly strays into cinematic and musical clichés - a terribly bohemian Paris, smoky jazz clubs and the like. For so much passion on display it was lifeless and I cared very little for the protagonists. This is apparently the story of his parents, and although it has won any number of awards and been nominated for Oscars, I was seriously unmoved.

I completely agree. This film completely lost its way at a certain point. The last film we saw here was the recent Kindergarten Teacher which I found quite moving and disturbing, something that sticks in the mind in a way that most recent American-mad films don't (like the massively overhyped Green Book, redeemed only by Viggo Mortensen's virtuoso rendition of an Italian-American bouncer - but why not use an actual Italian-American actor? they're not exactly thin on the ground).

[Edgy 2]

More Talking Pictures gems to look out for

The Captive Heart

Michael Redgrave,Jack Warner,Rachel Kempson (music by Alan Rawsthorne)

The Man Between

James Mason,Clare Bloom (music by John Addison)

[Dave2002]

On the basis of sex
Assuming (sometimes a big assumption which turns out not to be justified) this is reasonably historically accurate, this is a really good film. Rated for content - but the acting and filming seemed OK too.

Recommended.

[jayne lee wilson]

Kills on Wheels....

Hungarian black comedy about a wheelchair-bound paraplegic contract killer in an assisted-living home, who takes two 20-something varyingly-disabled youngsters under his wing, to help with executions and earn necessary cash for life-improving operations & finance their superhero-comic-writing ambitions....

Terrific film, violent, funny, warm (played by disabled actors), with some wonderful cameos (and great dogs - whose owner, the commissioner of the murders is like a Serbian version of Javier Bardem in the Coens' No Country for Old Men), but I didn't get the ending, in Germany, the operation etc.... can anyone elucidate?

(I'll have another go later...)

[Tevot]

Hello there,

I've been watching over the past couple of months a good number of films by Ingmar Bergman. Having known and admired The Seventh Seal for many years I was curious to see his other output or at least some of it. Imagine this - he had a career of film making that spanned almost 60 years between 1944 and 2003. In this time frame he made films of different genres which were often I suppose hit or miss commercially, artistically and critically. He was no stranger to adulation or stupefaction - often at the same time.

Nevertheless I can say that whether or not the end product in its totality succeeds, resonates, convinces or engages there is always something in his films that holds the attention and prompts reflection - e.g. the acting, the composition, framing, texture and lighting of each film and the music used whether specifically commissioned or referencing some of the all time greats - Bach, Mozart etc.

There is a bit in Persona where Liv Ullmann's character is lying on a bed in a hospital - and she turns and stares at the camera - this is about 12 minutes into the film - and she holds her gaze almost for a full minute while the light dims and what you end up seeing are those haunting and perhaps haunted eyes of hers. Brilliant technical execution - and I suppose that this is a major point when considering Ingmar Bergman.

He had an exceptional team supporting and working with him - not just the actors such as Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Harriet Andersson, Eva Dahlbeck, Max von Sydow and Gunnar Bjornstrand - but cinematographer Sven Nykvist and of course Svensk Filmindustri who stuck with Bergman through thick and thin.

An interesting thing for me is that Bergman because of this had the luxury of taking risks and experimenting with form. It is not all doom laden pretentious navel gazing ;-)

Films like Smiles of a Summer Night and The Devil's Eye are witty and amusing comedies - hell even The Seventh Seal is shot through with humour albeit dry and jet black. He did horror - The Hour of the Wolf - and he did War films - The Silence; and Shame - albeit not in the obvious crash bang wallop sense of the term...

And after his death Sweden has stood by Bergman - SvenskFilmindustri remastered many of his works and allowed The Criterion Collection to re-release them.


Last year was the centenary of Ingmar Bergman's birth and the superb website below introduced me to many of his works that otherwise would have passed me by.

http://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/universe#kronologi

This begs an interesting question - and perhaps a depressing one. Which British Director / Film Making Team ever received such support in life or death? David Lean, Carol Reed, Powell, Pressburger, Hitchcock, Nic Roeg, Mike Leigh, Mike Figgis, Ken Loach, Lindsay Anderson, Peter Greenaway, Peter Watkins, Derek Jarman ?

Why did the Swedes humour / promote Ingmar Bergman in ways that no comparable director would be accorded in the UK or USA ?

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Dave2002]

Birdman

I should have known it'd be utter rubbish - it won the Oscar for best film in 2014!

Some interesting ideas, and some good filming, but despite that overall - thumbs down!

The Grand Budapest Hotel also won some awards that year.