River ,'Ariel'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I *just* saw Slumdog.
Other than having to close my eyes, pause it and grab a precautionary bucket in an early scene, I quite enjoyed it.
And when I got to the end, there was some notice about it being a screening copy. Um? A neighbor loaned it to me, figuring I might like it. Doesn't look like a bootlegged copy or anything. Weird.
eta: just looked closely at the label, and it's probably a very well done copy. Interesting.
Well, screeners are floating around now. Is your neighbor in the business?
Nope.
It might have been bought used - since almost no studios encrypt their screeners any more, a lot more of them wind up in used video stores. (And the screeners for Slumdog went out months ago.)
[eta: Nevermind, saw your edit.]
AHA! That's how my mom was able to buy a decent copy! It was a fucking Oscar screener. I was surprised because I knew the movie hadn't been released on DVD anywhere.
Well, anyway, I'm glad I saw it!
13 Obscure Horror Classics (part 1)
13 Obscure Horror Classics (part 2)
So who's seen Lemora, or Paperhouse or Reeker or Dust Devil?
Is the last one about a killer vacuum cleaner?
If you guys who watched illegal copies of Slumdog want to assuage your guilt- it's still in the theatres, so you could go watch it again on the big screen.
I saw PAPERHOUSE when it was in the theaters. It's closer to KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (minus the witches) or HEAVENLY CREATURES (minus the homicide) than it is to PAN'S LABYRINTH, though it is terrifying at points. Definitely worth a rental.
The only movie I hadn't heard of was the one they said not to see in the dubbed version (and I'm spacing on the name) and REEKER. I've seen a couple of the others.
Also, I'm not sure whether to be happy or embarrassed for Maitland McDonagh. I own a great book she did on Dario Argento's work (which was basically an adaption of her college thesis - go team her!), so it's a bit weird to see her in this context. As long as she's enjoying it though, why not then. I guess if you do your college thesis on Argento, this must be part of your nature.