So we got a huge bunch of DVD’s, mostly cheap old stuff from Amazon and a couple of newer items. Tonight we watched Weird Science and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I’ll be honest, I’m in a much better frame of mind now than I was at 6pm.
Full reviews of both tomorrow, but suffice to say Weird Science is as I remember and has aged pretty well in my view, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall was enjoyable.
We finished watching the second Kevin Smith Q&A DVD today (I wrote about the first one here). This time Kevin is in Canada and Britain with the first DVD covering Canada and the second the UK. The Canadian Q&A is really good, very funny. The British one is ok, but I didn’t find Kevin as on-form as he seems in Canada. Maybe the English accents sound weird to me (you don’t often hear natural English access alongside American ones), maybe I just got annoyed by some of the dumb ass British questions.
Either way, the DVD was still excellent and well worth watching for any Kevin Smith fans. It’s not quite as revealing as the first one though, so it’s probably for pure fans of Kevin, rather than just for entertainment.
The questions cover the whole range once again, and Kevin is candid and open about his life, his wife and his mother. I learned a couple of things I never knew about Kevin (and that his wife appeared in Playboy, Kevin took the photo’s), and found it really easy to listen to him. Jason Mewes seemed as out of place as ever, and although sometimes he managed to answer a question he mostly looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.
Kevin is clearly a superb orator, although you have to be prepared for about a 77% hit rate on profanity, and when he has a decent story to tell it’s very entertaining.
Grete got me a bunch of Kevin Smith stuff for Christmas (I hope he enjoyed the pay cheque, and I hope Joss Whedon enjoyed his pay cheque after I got Grete a bunch of his stuff for her). That included the two ‘An evening with ….’ DVD’s (one, two). I’d seen a couple of short clips on YouTube and then mentioned the DVD’s to her so I knew before I watched them the kind of thing I was going to get. I just finished watching the two discs in the first set and it’s pretty good.
I was expecting Kevin to be funny, vulgar and entertaining and he was. But I wasn’t expecting the audience to be quite so annoying in places. I guess I should have expected it – he visits colleges (or whatever they call them in America) and students the world over are pretty similar. There are fans and there are obsessive fans, and obsessive fans, alcohol and meeting their hero don’t always mix.
When the radio is on in the car, I always turn it over during any bit where real people have to phone in. I’m sorry, but there’s something about the kind of people who phone in to the radio and speak, and the way in which they speak that makes me cringe. During at least half of the questions on the DVD I was cringing, for two in particular I almost had to forward past the speaker because they were embarrassing themselves so much it made me hurt inside. The rest of the time though, the questions were interesting and well presented.
In every case (except the two non-questions), Kevin’s answers were interesting and amusing and in a few instances they were long, detailed, really engaging and stomach-achingly funny. I felt sorry for the girl who asked ‘Do you believe in God and why?’ and got a couple of one line answers (yes, because I have a career). I found the answers funny but you could tell she was hoping for something a little deeper. On the other hand in a few instances what start as simple questions lead Kevin into pretty long stories about his career, how he met his wife, working with Prince and starting a fight of words with Tim Burton.
The DVD is a two disc set, with about 100 minutes on each disc. In the UK it’s released as region 2, but NTCS format. It played fine on our player. It’s filmed in front of college audiences in 4 maybe 5 different colleges and intercut. Kevin is personal, open and honest, and vulgar. If you’ve seen his movies you know what to expect, if not, you probably should know to cover the kid’s ears. I really enjoyed watching the two discs, although I had intended to ‘have them on in the background’ while I did something else, I found myself totally absorbed and unable to do anything but watch, listen and laugh (and cringe).
I recommend them to anyone who likes movies, Kevin Smith, or overweight bearded guys making college nerds feel bad.
The DVD description on Amazon says “DVD Description: Director Kevin Smith hits the college circuit with a series of humorous lectures. Through questions from the audience he discusses the pros and cons of movie making.” which is essentially tosh. It’s “Kevin Smith answering everything from the stupidly inane to the blistering inciteful questions, from fans, stoned college nerds and people who wandered in lost from the cold”.
Just watched Hellboy II: The Golden Army on DVD and I have to be honest, it’s even better the second time around. You get more time to look around and see what’s going on, more time to absorb the images and the backstory. Perhaps I just get more from movies when I watched them at home but I really did enjoy it more than the first viewing, and I enjoyed that in the first place.
So, go buy the DVD.
10pm, 2 hours until Christmas day, and we’re half way through Black Adder IV.
Those two things are clearly unrelated.
My memory didn’t fail me, II is best, then III and IV drawn and then I. Not that much in it. The DVD set is a present from Grete a couple of years ago but this is the first time we’ve watched it.
I used one of my Star Wars THX DVD’s to check out what Rab had said about tuning your TV with THX, and he was right! In the language settings section there’s a THX logo and it runs you through some picture setting stuff, mainly around contrast and brightness, along with some diagnostics. Lo and behold, my TV was already spot on! I’m really picky about contrast and brightness, because I’m really sensitive to bright lights. I always have my computer monitor set very dark, and I try and have the TV set so that it’s not too bright, and I’d got it spot on in terms of being able to pick out the different white and black contrasts on the THX thingy.
Very pleased.
Of course, as soon as I stuck the DVD in, the surround sound popped into life and I was able to enjoy the intro Star Wars music blaring out. Man it’s fantastic, and it evokes such an amazing set of memories.
I still can’t watch the 20th Century Fox logo/intro on movies without expecting it to fade into Star Wars.
I’ve already reviewed Wanted based on the cinema experience. We got the DVD a couple of days ago and watched it last night. A second viewing certainly adds some value, it was interesting re-watching scenes knowing how the whole thing plays out, seeing the characters playing out the lie that is central to the story, watching it build towards the end.
If you’ve not seen it in the cinema, and you like a bit of action with some flare, I recommend it. Really.
Clerks arrived and we started our Kevin Smitheron by watching it this evening. It plays a little more like an extended sketch show than a movie, with varying parts of the day as individual sketches linked through some overall theme.
It’s certainly entertaining, and amusing, but it wasn’t belly laughing funny. There are clear moments where the actor’s either forget their lines, or stumble over their lines or just plainly adlib which give the movie a real ‘college project’ feel, but then considering the cost and the background it’s not surprising. There are real moments of pure quality cinema as well, with two-character sparring dialog that reminds me of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in a lot of ways (both 1994).
In general, I enjoyed it. I’m not sure it’s going to be a cult classic in this house, and we enjoyed Clerks II more (and that despite having never seen the first one), but maybe if we watch it a few more times we’ll get more into the swing and enjoy what’s going on around the image.
After enjoying Doomsday last night, we watched Dog Soldiers today. It’s been out a while so I’m just going to write a short little review. It’s gory, it’s a bit scary at the start, and it’s got some jumps. But it’s got a great thread of British humour all the way through it, and the individual scenes are all worthwhile.
There are some elements of the story that didn’t quite gel, but overall the story works really well. I loved the characters, I loved the Britishness and even though it’s not my kind of movie normally, I really enjoyed watching it a second time even though I knew what was coming.
If you’re looking for something to get your adrenaline going and make you laugh at the same time, you should get Dog Soldiers and turn off the lights.
Short review for this one. The freshness has gone, but the heart is still there. Shrek the Third is funny in parts, technically still impressive, but doesn’t add anything new to the franchise. Watch this if you’re a huge fan or have some free time to kill, or can watch it for free. Your kids will love it, and you’ll get a giggle and a good feeling.