it was so that, as has become quasi-customary (or at least kind of, look you see) i spent some time over Christmas and New Year watching a few of the videos (discs) what i had picked up over the last year or so. for a "bit" of a change it was so that i only watched what one may well elect (or opt) to call the fanciest of fancy videos (discs) what i have, which are them "blu ray" ones.
despite having a blu ray player it seems, or at least feels like, i still tend to watch just regular DVDs on it. mostly, or for the most part. this is likely due to DVDs being somewhat cheaper and a widespread availability of them exceptionally cheap down the market and at charity shops. still, i do (somewhat obviously) purchase blu ray discs, whilst finding it odd that i rarely watch (or play) them.
above, then, in the form of a not quite so high definition VHS image, is/are the fancy tapes (discs) what i watched lately. mostly lately, as one or two i "forgot" to write of here so have just thrown them in here, for what difference does it make. of course i am going to (vaguely) comment on them all here, in what shall likely be a long, laborious post.
rather likely you reign in too many (or any) expectations about "technical" aspects of the blu ray format being on the go here. yes, blu ray is (even on my relatively basic player and tele) discernibly a step up in quality from "standard" DVD, but you have to bear in mind that the only reason i elected to upgrade to this format was because it was the only way in the modern world to get your hands on the proper, uncut and as the world intended version of Mad Max 2, with mid 80s onwards video and DVDs featuring the hideously badly edited (censored) variation called The Road Warrior.
no particular order is used to show them here, but first off (as shown above) is the class film that is The Return Of The Living Dead. i would argue that this cheaply made, mono sound gem didn't really need any sort of "upgrade", but then i thought that one excellent scene of nudies would be smart in high definition (it is) and this two disc collectors set looked like it was loaded with smart extras.
whereas i thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole film again (not just the famous nudies bit, but yes that proved a highlight) the extras were somewhat baffling. the idea of "alternative and deleted scenes" was intriguing, but oddly peculiar. rather than usual extra scenes it seemed they had just thrown on an edited version of a "workprint". about twenty or thirty minutes into this had me wondering why on earth they had not just put the entire workprint on the disc, as that would have been an even more better, attractive reason to buy it.
i think this set cost me somewhere north of £20, maybe £25. have to say yes, it does feel like pretty decent value, for it is the "definitive" edition of a much loved film, allowing for the fact that i am very unlikely ever to upgrade to whatever "4K Ultra HD" is. how often i shall sit and watch it all again is reasonably debatable with the conversation leaning towards possibly not at all, yet i am rather happy to have it in the collection.
on the off chance that superstition, or precedent, or whatever, is an actual thing i elected to be very careful with my choice of "first film" watched this year (2026). so of course i went with the blu ray of a much treasured Bond film, A View To A Kill. believe i bought this, a fancy "steelbook" edition, a year or so ago, when i saw it on sale on some web thing or another for if not £10 then south of it.
much maligned, this one is, with some considering it the "worst" Bond film. immediately to that i would suggest you try and watch, say, Die Another Day. true, Sir Roger (by his own admission) was likely a bit too old, but all the same he felt obliged to give it a go. never understood people taking apart the plot, which is more relevant today that it was then. unless you think a tech billionaire with some extreme political views trying to take control of the world via technology is somehow outlandish.
with regards to the "blu ray" upgrade here, mostly this tape (disc) feels like it is just the two discs of the DVD "ultimate edition" shoved onto one. that said, the crystal clear picture does neither the film nor the audience any favours, as you are all too aware that mostly you are watching the stunt double of Sir Roger Moore than you are Sir Roger. still, an enjoyable film, and with it comes fond memories of seeing it at the Odeon multiple times in 1985.
brief comment on the oddities of British censors for these first two tapes (discs). whereas Return Of The Living Dead has been "downgraded" from an 18 to a 15 (despite no cuts), i note with interest that A View To A Kill is now a 12 rather than a PG. this despite a rather clumsy and obvious censorship edit when the (agreeably) naked Grace Jones climbs into bed so as to pulverise Sir Roger in a way i can only dream of ever happening to me.
purchasing Satyricon was very much an impulse thing. i had a few moments to spare and was browsing the "world cinema" section of HMV. mostly this was because i have clocked the just mentioned censors at the BBFC have an odd thing where "foreign language films on blu ray" are clearly "art" and so usually lots of nudies get left uncensored. every now and then you see a decent film too, but that's secondary to nudies being on offer, thanks. £10, or a penny short, i think, was the cost.
this was a film i had (vaguely) heard of in passing, and was aware that the maker of it, Fellini, is one who(m) is celebrated and revered. plus there was a line in Class Of Nuke Em High which suggested that Fellini films were ones that featured nudies. it thus struck me that i would have little to lose, bar £10 and two hours, giving this a go.
indeed i do have a kind of "what the f*** did i just watch" sense with Satyricon. really don't like to do this kind of comment but i would suggest "at the time" this must have been regarded as highly subversive. filled, mostly, with curious vignettes that are sometimes interesting rather than being a linear story, i am glad i (eventually) saw it. but, overall, probably a bit too artsy for moi.
arguably at the other end of the artistic spectrum is Spies Like Us, which i picked up down the market. yes it is a "double bill" disc, with something called Funny Farm on the same video (disc), but it was this film i was curious about watching again. not 100% sure why, and it was months after i picked it up that i watched it. the reason for giving it a go (again) was the internet becoming littered with comments in some way celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release. which felt strange, as my memory of it was that it was a disappointing bore.
maybe time really does mean memories fade, for i can't recall exactly if i went to the cinema (it would indeed have been the Odeon) to see this or just rented the video (actual). i think it was at the cinema, back when it was 99p for a ticket and it was a forever lasting summer. still, int my 1985 mind, it was a coming together of the dude out of Ghostbusters and Trading Places with the dude out of National Lampoon's Vacation, so it was bound to be really funny. except it wasn't really.
on watching again it did, unexpectedly and pleasantly, turn out to be a good deal better than i recalled, with some genuinely funny moments. no spoilers here, but that "impact training" scene is class. to suggest or state it is a "lost" or "forgotten" comedy classic is going a bit too far, but still it's really decent.
exactly how i came to watch a three hour French film is partially covered in the comments above (or if you will earlier) about the BBFC and how they give "world cinema" a free pass. mostly, though, i was reading something on the internet about "most explicit that sort of thing scenes in mainstream cinema" and Blue Is The Warmest Colour featured quite a bit. with the promise of (admittedly French but still) nudies i ordered it off of the internet, think the cost was south of £10.
hmn. on a base, or purely honest, level, this is 20 (or so) minutes of agreeable nudies, plus two hours and forty minutes of melodrama that borders on soap opera. it's as good as it can be for what is essentially the plight of middle to upper class, well to do French people growing up amidst wrestling with their sexual identity, but the audience of such feels fairly niche. oddly, and unexpectedly, i was rather taken by some of the social commentary, in particular the different ways in which the parents of the ostensible two main lady characters were treated. mostly, though, i rather doubt this film would have had rather high levels of praise, critical acclaim and awards thrust upon it were it not for the somewhat graphic (if not really all that explicit) moments of "intimacy".
for the second (of two) films what feature both Sir Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee in this post it's the U certificate (!) Sherlock Holmes In New York. see, not everything i elect (or opt) to watch has to come with the promise of nudies and/or violence (but mostly nudies). didn't even know this film existed until i saw it on offer for sale on some website or other, with me being of the view that seeing Sir Roger have a go at playing Sherlock Holmes was well worth £5 of anyone's money.
this one i watched over that "where and when am i in time and space" weekend between Christmas and New Year, for such felt like a period which exists purely to indulge a Sir Roger Moore film. yes there is a precedent for this here on this blog. believe last year was when they showed the Sir Roger Moore documentary on home videos over Christmas.
one of the more striking aspects of Sherlock Holmes In New York, which appears to be a made for television movie, is just how frequently other, more celebrated films have borrowed from it. i am reluctant to give any spoilers, but for a start there's a significant chunk of the plot of Die Hard With A Vengeance lifted from this one. overall there's a certain charm to it, and it certainly wasn't "bad". that said, for an accurate review, Sir Roger Moore has a wonderful hairstyle and does some class eyebrow action but his uneven sideburns are distracting, Patrick Macnee appears to think it is all just a rehearsal going on him fashioning a slightly different accent in each scene, John Huston seems to not know he is in a film and Charlotte Rampling appears keen to break down in tears and apologise for the film every moment she is on screen.
as it happens (or actually) i procured this rather (admittedly blurry image but all the same) fancy edition of The Sword & The Sorcerer all the way back in 2024, but somehow neglected to do an obligatory post for (or about) it. weird, as at £35 i think this is the most i have paid for a video (discs). much like was the case with Return Of The Living Dead, it kind of felt appropriate to procure a lavish if not definitive edition of a film what means a great deal to me. plus, truth me told, my brother insisted i get it.
to the best of my knowledge is this is the first and only one of them "4K Ultra High Definition" discs i have, although no, not having either a player or tele capable of handling it thus far it remains unplayed. from what i could tell it was the only way to get the set with a book, a poster, some cards and all the extras, plus the film is also on a regular blu ray. indeed there was a cheaper "blu ray only" copy, but it just made sense to get the fancy one.
what of the film? somehow we ended up with a copy of this on video (actual) in the early to mid 80s, and my brother and i watched it frequently. quite class it was, and kind of still is. part of a wave of "swords and barbarians" films that never took off, but all the same it features an agreeable level of nudies, some boss fighting and is, overall, well paced, funny and entertaining. once again i am somewhat surprised to see this has been "downgraded" to a 15, but such is the conventions of our present day society, i would presume to assume.
don't actually recall purchasing Bad Biology, but going on the price sticker (which had it less, or "fewer", than the regular price) it was off of Fopp down in that there London (innit). rather likely that i was browsing, saw the warnings (or promise, if we are honest) of explicit nudies in advising why it had been awarded an 18 certificate and went, well, why not.
so no, i had no idea what it was that i bought, and pretty much (as in more or less) went into it in a kind of blind way, unsure of any sort of "plot" or what have you when i watched it. having now seen it, well, i find it (somewhat) difficult to give you a rundown on the plot as it feels impossible to do so whilst maintaining a general idea of refraining from the use of "offensive" or upsetting language. certainly it would be true to say this is most decidedly for adults only.
quite funny, really. a bit of a "throwback" to the type of 80s sex horror comedy kind of thing that used to get made, only unlike most 2000 onwards efforts of this nature it "gets it". possibly due to the film being made by someone who made such films in the 80s. an agreeable level of nudies, which oddly is plot relevant, and a decent watch. that said, if i sat down to re-watch a film for humour, nudies some comedy horror, this would be behind Return Of The Living Dead and Class Of Nuke 'Em High. not all that far behind, but still.
kind of makes sense to have the above together since they are thematically (and indeed theologically) linked, plus i got them both at the same time. for provenance, i was browsing the "world cinema", also arthouse, section of HMV in (why aye man) Newcastle the morning after the Holly Johnson gig. some dude what works there started putting "2 for £15" stickers on select discs as i was browsing, and so i got the two most likely to feature nuns doing nudies. this indeed remains a staunch favourite of mine.
neither of them, as it turned out, was all that good. with respect to the main motivation for purchasing and watching either, which would be (in case you missed it) seeing nuns do nudies, Story Of A Cloistered Nun is superior, as it has more of it and a lot earlier in the film. there are a few bits of nudies in the misleadingly named The Nun And The Devil, but only really towards the end of a quite dull film, and even then the lighting used is rather poor.
for those of you considering watching either and inexplicably have an interest in the plot, well, i can sort of vaguely recall them. i think The Nun And The Devil was all about the "politics" of the church, all the climbing up into positions of power and what have you. pretty sure Story Of A Cloistered Nun was about a young lady being sent off to a convent so as to get out of a deal for an arranged marriage, and if truth be told it was a quite decent story. honestly though the only thing (outside) of nudies i recall was a scene where some young nuns discussed how a visiting Monsignor seemed only interested in knowing whereabouts they touched themselves, which suggested i had missed my ideal vocation in life.
strange that the box, or the website i got it off, makes no mention of the fact that a young Gary Busey is also in it. he also, like to be fair most of the cast here, does a good job in it too. i mean yes, this is a low budget exploitation thing (with some nudies, which helps) but it turned out to be pretty decent. no masterpiece, for sure, and certainly not fun for all the family viewing, but all the same an above average take on the standard stuff for "biker" films, which rarely amounts to more than some nasty bikers taking on some slightly more nasty bikers.
regular readers here will (of course) not be surprised to learn that my mate Spiros was once part of that whole "biker" lifestyle. briefly, as it turned out. he assumed that the key components of their lifestyle - men only gangs, men that were quite large and hairy, men wearing leather, men fretting over things like lubricant - was a perfect match for certain passions of his. similar but different, as it turns out.
i took a bit of a chance on something called Horror Hospital at one of my preferred charity shops, with this second hand copy being on sale for £4.99. quite steep for a charity donation, but for all i know it's maybe rare or "worth more". yes, the main motivation to give it a go was the presence of Confessions star Robin Askwith. his presence in a film generally if not usually means that there shall be some nudies of some description in it. yes, there is in the film, albeit brief. one gets to see rather more of Robin doing nudies than the female cast, but that was the gamble.
leaving aside the plot and the wonders of this disc are all in the bonus material. quite revelatory. a fascinating thing is an interview with Robin Askwith, in which he is asked his opinion on the acting skills and talents of the rest of the cast in the film. yeah, let me leave that there with no further comment.
best of all on the extras is a "making of" documentary, which explains how the entire project is as demented as it is insane. for a start they appear rather proud of the fact that the film was written and budgeted with Robin Askwith in mind. no, it's not that they hired him as he was cheap or no one else was available, they actually wanted to showcase his talents (or whatever he does) and built this around him. then there's all sorts on the making of it which just proved more compelling that the actual film. i would suggest it is worth finding a copy purely to endure the movie and then be thoroughly entertained by the disclosures in the documentaries.
finally, and my this has been a long post, there is Smokin' Aces. had never ever heard of this one, and now i can't remember how, exactly, i did learn of it. probably something or other cropped up online about it. likely i was intrigued enough to read up, discovered it had a quite class cast and then decided to look for the video (disc) of it. as it turned out the fancy "steelbook" of it was south of £10.
plot? somewhat Pinteresque with a twist of what has come to be known as the Tarantinoesque. basically what is believed to be a high value assassination contract is on offer, with the money apparently being front being enough to attract several killers to go and have a go. action all takes place in one location (which is the Pinter bit) and it all goes violent, but not as you are expecting or anticipating (Tarantino).
quite good, really. surprised that no one had suggested it to me in the 20 (or so) years it had existed by the time i heard of it, but then maybe someone had. yes it does indeed have one bit of nudies, but it is brief and not really a focal point. overall a good example of a film one would enjoy watching, a lot, but would be unlikely to watch a second time (or more), so i am not sure it needs the prestige of the rather fancy "steelbook" edition, but hey i have it now.
phew. i am reasonably sure that when i have done a post of this length before (so to speak) i suggested that i wouldn't do such a lengthy one again, only to do it. well, done now. on the off chance that someone has found something of interest or use (if not value) here about any of the movies, well then that's boss.
yes, it possibly would be an appropriate, apt or what have you job for me to do in regards of reviewing films based entirely on nudies rating alone. that, however, has already been done by someone. forgive me if my mind betrays but i am quite sure the bloke what gone done it was Joe Bob Briggs, reviewing films only at drive-ins ("as God intended" i think he said) and his accounts of films watched were rarely more than a list of nudies in them. class, that.
righty-ho, that shall do until i find something else to waffle on about.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment