What I Watched This Week (w/e September 14th 2008)

Blu-ray

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - It's been years since I saw this so decided to watch the Theatrical version and move onto the Special and Director's cuts later. It stands up after three decades as an impressive sci-fi drama with a fine performance by Richard Dreyfuss and great support by the whole cast, especially Teri Garr, Bob Balaban and François Truffaut. I much prefer Spielberg's early films when he was 'just' a writer/director than a writer/director/producer/activist so give me the likes of CE3K, Duel and Jaws over Schindler's List, Munich and War of the Worlds any day.

It's stunning how good a 30 year old film can look at 1080p and the soundtrack, when turned up high, is reassuringly loud and bassy, shaking the furniture and floor. :D

DVD

The Liar (& Jackpot 2) - Mika Kaurismäki's student film and a sci-fi short made a year later; review here.

Zombie and the Ghost Train - Interesting black comedy from Aki Kaurismäki's big brother Mika; review here.

Shutter - Mediocre remake of a mediocre J-Horror; review here.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space - I love this movie, it's just a shame that Optimum's release is so vanilla; review here. I much prefer and recommend the region 1 release.

The Roger Corman Collection - Six films from the prolific and influential director/producer, five of them on DVD in the UK for the first time, in one collection; review here.

Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream - Interesting blaxploitation take on the vampire story; review here.

Cinema

The Duchess - It took a long time and countless films but I've seen it - Keira Knightly CAN act. However, it's just a shame that, in order to witness the previously unthinkable, I had to sit through such tortuous and turgid material. The film is stunning in its attention to detail: the production design, set dressing and costumes are superb but the material is just incredibly dull. Knightly plays a person from the lower ranks of the aristocracy who is married off to the Duke of Devonshire (a moody Ralph Fiennes) principally to provide him with an heir. When she gives birth to a daughter, he sulks and continues to sulk when another daughter pops out. His mood doesn't lighten much when she finally provides him with a son and her misery is compounded when he takes on a mistress. Her gambling problem and political involvement seem either underdeveloped or fail to provide much in the way of a distraction from her as a victim. I thought it would turn out to be a heavy handed Diana metaphor but was pleasingly subtle though I didn't like it as much as I expected. :(

Books

Rosemary's Baby - It's a credit to Ira Levin's writing that Polanski can stick so closely to this and make such a great movie. The book sucks you in and, even though you know the ending, it still comes as a gut punch as the tension increases and Rosemary doesn't know who, if anyone, she can trust. :D

Television

Premiership Rugby - As I was out last Sunday I missed the televised games but V+ed them and watched them at the beginning of the week. Watching in reverse order as I knew the results, I started with the Gloucester - Leicester game where Gloucester had several opportunities to win the game but a mixture of their ineptitude and the Tigers' tenacious and powerful defence saw them win at Kingsholm for the third time in a row and deny Gloucester a point for the first time in 34 games. Watching the early game between newly promoted Northampton and Worcester saw a drop in quality as the Saints came back from a first half deficit to narrowly win the game in front of a huge crowd at Franklin's Gardens.

Bath vs. Gloucester - After losing at home to Leicester and going to the Rec where they had never won, the odds on a Bath victory would be short but the Cherry and Whites impressively took on the home team up front and, unlike Butch James, kicked their goals.

Tri Nations - After all these games it came down to a winner takes all clash between Australia and New Zealand at the SunCorp Stadium to decide the destination of the Bledisloe and Tri Nations Cups. These games are played under slightly different ELVs than those used in the Northern Hemisphere so offences like not releasing the ball are only free kick offences, not penalty as in the Premiership. This leads to a quicker game and this one was fast, powerful and thoroughly engrossing from first minute to last. Australia led going into the second half, with tries either side of the break but New Zealand scored three tries in a period of sustained pressure to retain both trophies.

F1: Belgian and Italian Grands Prix - As with the rugby, I missed the race at Spa as I was out and listened to it live on the radio then watched the race from the V+ box on Monday. The racing was incredible, with the rain during the last few laps making for fantastic entertainment but the stewards' enquiry into Hamilton's overtaking of Raikkonen and his subsequent penalty putting a damper over the weekend. Running on into this week where the wet weather followed the teams to Monza for a wet race for the first time since the 1970s, qualifying was highly eventful, with the promising young German driver Sebastian Vettel on pole. The sport's youngest pole sitter showed maturity beyond his years to drive flawlessly and break Alonso's record as the youngest winner of an F1 race.

Timothy Bradley vs. Edner Cherry - I got up in the early hours to watch the highly anticipated clash between Nate Campbell and Joan Guzman only to find that the Dominican had pulled out for reasons that are still not clear. The chief support became the top of the bill and it wasn't a memorable fight by any stretch of the imagination, with Bradley pulling out a easy victory over the 'Cherry Bomb'.

NFL - Monday was a busy day for catching up on sport and the game between Chicago and Indianapolis turned out differently to their Super Bowl encounter as Manning failed to shine, the Colts seemed stuck in pre-season mode and Chicago ran all over them.

Last night I watched the Favre-less Packers open up a 21-0 lead over the Detroit Lions courtesy of an extremely accomplished performance by Aaron Rodgers but the Lions came back with two touchdowns and forcing a safety but after taking the lead imploded with Kitner throwing three interceptions, two returned for touchdowns.

Following that, the Patriots showed that they can win without Brady - who's out for the season - with Matt Cassel doing a workmanlike job and the defence and special teams doing the rest. Filling in for a future Hall of Famer and starting your first game since high school was never going to be easy but Cassel did pretty well, moving the chains and not throwing any risky passes to be intercepted. At this rate the Pats may have a winning season but the post-season seems unlikely.

As soon as that game finished, the coverage switched to Investec Stadium where the Broncos were hosting the Chargers. Denver had opened a massive lead which San Diego had whittled down and even took the lead with just over four minutes left. Trailing by seven, Denver scored a touchdown which a successful PAT would have taken the game into overtime but Coach Shanahan went for the risky 2 point conversion which was successful and won them the game by a point. Last minute heartbreak for the Chargers for the second week in a row as they lost against Carolina on the last play and they are now 0-2 whereas the Broncos are 2-0.