Off Topic The Review Thread

Really outstanding documentary about The Specials/Selecter early 2 Tone on BBC1….West Midlands. I hope it is put on the iPlayer, great interviews, including Jerry Dammers, Pauline Black, Noel Davies, Neville Staples…Pete Waterman who I never knew was their first manager and is incredibly complimentary about them. Great concert footage. Highly recommended.

 

Who's the best James Bond? I'm not a fan of the franchise, but really enjoyed this show last night....

BBC iPlayer - Premium Bond with Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet

I was a little surprised to find how few of the films I've seen post Connery, which is a bit of a clue as to my favourite.

 

After a bit of searching I’ve found it on IPlayer (regional).
Looks brilliant and will looking forward to watching it next week after a weekend of night shifts.
Thanks G

 

Question for all the film buffs :

When watching a foreign film how do you watch it ?

Original language with subtitles ?
Dubbed English no subtitles ?
Dubbed English with subtitles ?

Just curious as sitting watching a French film (The Stronghold) and started watching it in dubbed English……dunnno why but what seems to be quite a gritty film became a bit ‘Hollywood’ with crappy American voices and the whole feel of the film is different.
Changed to French and it made the film far better……is it a thing ?
Opinions welcomed

 

Always in the original language with subtitles for me. I used to try and watch the French and German films without subtitles when I was younger as I'd taken both in my O Levels along with Latin, but needless to say tge subtitles went on after 15 minutes as I'd failed to grasp any of the plot lol. Don't watch many foreign films these days , just aswell really as I struggle to understand English these days . For all those who haven't seen it I can strongly recommend A Prophet from a few years ago and any Monsieur Hulot from many years ago

 

Netflix seems to have some brilliant Foreign films at the moment.
‘Mosul’ is probably one of the best films I’ve seen in ages and shows the true horror of that conflict

 

Always foreign language, whether it be films or box-sets. Have always watched a lot of Chinese, Japanese and Korean stuff, and now getting into some European like Gomorrah and the Scandi-Noir stuff.

Jnr is watching a lot of Manga at the moment, and also prefers the subtitled stuff as opposed to the dubbed. For his generation, I reckon it's a good way for them to stay invested in the show/film instead of looking at their phones every two seconds - glance away and you could miss some important plot lines.

 

Can't be doing with with all that Manga lol, I'm more Fantasia or Top Cat when it comes to animation

 

Like the others, original language with subtitles. It forces me to stay engaged (my mind wanders alarmingly easily nowadays) and also take a fairly quick decision as to whether it’s worth the effort.

Saw a bit of Squid Game that my son was watching, in English with subtitles for some reason. He loves it and I really didn’t see enough to draw a conclusion, but I always find a certain degree of well over the top acting in Korean stuff, which seemed even more exaggerated with American accented English.

On the other hand I loved all the badly dubbed spaghetti westerns from the 60s.

 

Me neither, but I did enjoy the live action remakes of both Gantz and Death Note

 

Just watching it….as you say, absolutely superb and brought back some fantastic memories of growing up at the time and the pure energy of the 2-Tone scene at the time.
Seeing a lot of the main players now does make me feel old ‘cos I remember them as youth and I guess that’s how they stay in my head.
On a note of the concert footage, a lot of what I’ve seen is, I think, filmed in mainland Europe and featured on a few German/Dutch/French tv shows….I always found it odd watching the crowd who seemed to just stand there and watch, completely still, while the band gave it everything on stage with Nev and Lynval sweating away while dancing wildly. And then you see the crowds when they filmed ‘Dance Craze’ where everyone gets on stage and joins the band, a lot of it shot on the 2-tone tour in England.
And weird to see the Southall Riot footage where the Hamborough Tavern was set alight….now that was a funny story

 

For the music types on here, there's a really good documentary on Netflix about the underrated role of a drummer in bands. Won't give too much away, but interviews many current band members and looks into some well known names from the 70s/80s too.

It's called Count Me In. I really enjoyed it.

 

Cheers for that, will be giving that a go.

 

Me too. My son is the drummer in his band, so I'm all too aware of the intricacies of the part he plays, keeping them all in time and settin the pace of the tunes when they play live. We'll enjoy watching this I'm sure - thanks

 

Why this was shown at 8 in the evening on the non HD BBC1 West Midlands only is beyond me, apart from the obvious Coventry link. I only caught it by mistake. Seems like a typical high quality BBC4 or Sky Arts documentary. Makes me wonder how much other good stuff is on regional TV that passes me by.

 

I know we get a shedload of decent TV, both on BBC1 Scotland and BBC Scotland, and even the odd program on Alba (subtitles required!) that you don't get down there. Probably STV too, but don't really watch much on that channel. It was the same when I lived in Belfast.

 

Absolutely mate. The programme was top class and well deserved of a wider audience. That’s the great thing about this thread, that I always have a look in and see if anyone has seen something worth watching. The same happened when Steels recommended a programme on Scottish TV about the Class system….was really good and informative…but would have passed me by if he hadn’t mentioned it.
Amongst all the drivel (which has its place) there’s some great stuff

 

The above answer to Steels should have been to this…….sorry just woken up and feel like ****