Masterofoneinchpunch wrote:I also picked up KITTY FOYLE
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Brian, what films (and especially HK) have you been working on lately? Do you keep a list of what you have watched?
Has HK film become less popular over the last few years? My interest has actually gone up this year.
I know the feeling. My interest in Hong Kong cinema has never gone down, even if I've deliberately restricted my viewing habits the last year or so. I'm DYING to get back into Hong Kong cinema full time--that's why I rarely miss picking up a new release, not to mention many catalogue titles. The stuff still enthralls me, and I've known for ages it'll be my little "specialty" for a
long time to come. When I visit the DVD/VCD shops around here, they often have new movies playing on the in-store screens and I find myself loitering much longer than I should.
I had to take stock, though. Years of Deep Discount sales, DVD Planet sales (with trades!), Amazon sales, Wal-Mart Bargain bins, Used DVD shops, Big Lots Cheap Racks (and now illegal stock liquidations!) and even the recent Criterion sale at Barnes & Noble have pretty much netted me everything I've ever wanted to own, and then some. It's the "and then some" that tends to get out of hand at these bargain bins and liquidations. KITTY FOYLE, for example, was a title that probably would have remained an interesting entry in a few of my film books for the rest of my days, as it wasn't something I felt compelled to buy at full price, let alone see, regardless of whatever I may think of it once I view it (and I suspect I'll love it!). But $3 changes all that, and too often. Part of me wishes they'd stop this liquidation pricing; another part is grateful, if so much the poorer for it. I suspect we'll be seeing a LOT more of it as the months roll on and retail space for physical DVDs becomes more and more limited.
I enjoyed a pretty good tear through Hong Kong cinema up until about a year-and-a-half ago (from the point of view of number of the films I watched, not necessarily their quality), but to better focus
later on Hong Kong cinema, I decided to focus more
now on getting through a lot of the American/European titles I'd accumulated. After all, those retain
some resale value where Hong Kong DVDs/VCDs generally don't, and I wanted to make sure that anything I thought would be worth selling--if I decided it wasn't a keeper after all--would actually
be worth selling!
Again, when you pay $3-5, and can unload a title for the same amount, it makes blind buys just too damned easy.
I suppose HK cinema is less popular, in no small part because of its reduced output obviously, but that's no reason to write it off, as some even here in our own forums have done over the years.
The only list I keep of what I've watched is at IMDB, and I only started using it a few months ago, so it's not very long just yet. When you "vote" for a movie using their star ratings, it ads the film to your vote history. That's about the only way I keep track, outside of the occasional reviews I post there, here and at Amazon, and of course the "watched" pile.
As for what I'm watching at the moment, I've been working my way through the
WARNER FILM NOIR VOL. 4 box set (films at home; commentaries at work). Finished three so far, so seven to go. Nice stuff! I've been cutting that with episodes from the
BIRDMAN & THE GALAXY TRIO set from big lots (still awed that I got all those for $3 each). Also rented
THE INTERNATIONAL on the weekend. Much better than I was expecting, although the lengthy deleted sequence on the DVD
really belongs in the movie, where it might have deflected some of the criticisms leveled at characterization during the theatrical run. I also caught
TRANSFORMERS 2 on the big screen last week, and was of two minds: it generally deserves much of the scorn heaped upon it, and represents everything dumb and pandering and derivative (of himself) that defines Michael Bay's style, but I was still impressed with it as a technical experience, and it's something I'd likely buy on (cheap, maybe used) Blu-Ray months after it streets just to tickle my HT system every few years!
I think the studio was wise to skip media previews on G.I. JOE in light of what happened with TRANSFORMERS; clearly critical and internet-geek consensus means beans on pictures like these.
The end goal, of course, is to lighten the load (by watching AND by selling) enough that I can make Hong Kong cinema a priority once again. I get anxious when I read the reviews a lot of you folks post here, but I gotta hold back . . . for now.