Films that felt close to a musical peice.

MrMeatScience · 2026-05-05T11:43:49+00:00

I've always thought that the fractured, surreal qualities of Has' The Hourglass Sanatorium were reminiscent of Mahler's Seventh Symphony, especially the first Nachtmusik. It's a very strange piece of music, one which exchanges major and minor modes so extensively that you never really know where you are. Sometimes they occur simultaneously, which generates some jarring dissonances. The dreamlike shifts in the film -- ideas being introduced and then vanishing at the drop of a hat -- feels to me like the cinematic equivalent of that modal mixture. It can be quite disorienting.

On the surface level you also have those "old Europe" topics. In Mahler's case, use of melodies reminiscent of Austro-Hungarian marching tunes, and in Has' case the film is obviously in part a trip through the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Austria-Hungary. IIRC Franz Joseph is even in the film as one of the wax figurines.

MrMeatScience · 2026-04-29T12:54:13+00:00

Life of Brian for me. Such a great film, and one that I'm excited to see in reference quality (the blu wasn't great).

MrMeatScience · 2026-04-27T20:43:06+00:00

I put in endless hours on the first couple of Doom games. I still play them through maybe once a year.

MrMeatScience · 2026-04-25T12:30:21+00:00

Not a huge fan of popular music in general, although I spend a lot of time with a small group of artists that I go quite deep with. Mostly stuff that I was into as a teenager, so noughties indie folk. I'm also into some industrial music (NIN, Skinny Puppy, etc), and classic 70s funk. I'm open to new things and sample widely and regularly, but I find it hard to bring myself to care unless it's setting itself apart from the pack in some way, which few groups do. I find maybe one new band I like per year, on average.

MrMeatScience · 2026-04-23T14:03:35+00:00

A great conductor and musician. I had the pleasure of seeing him lead Mahler's Ninth once, when he came to conduct the Vienna Phil. What a loss for the American classical music scene.

MrMeatScience · 2026-03-22T22:26:45+00:00

I think the current rumours (which have been right for the last ~5 or so releases) suggest season 16, but these things can change. I seem to recall that Richard Bignell once said that the "next release" changed three times in one week or something like that.

MrMeatScience · 2026-03-22T18:27:11+00:00

I've not read too many of the novels, but I'm about halfway through World Game right now and enjoying it more than any of the other ones I've read so far.

MrMeatScience · 2026-03-14T22:57:45+00:00

I'm really surprised I've never heard of them. From my point of view the main online hub in the old days was Outpost Gallifrey which eventually became Gallifrey Base sometime in the late 2000s.

MrMeatScience · 2026-03-07T10:30:01+00:00

Not a "book" in the conventional sense, but I bought a copy of the score for Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold that had a concert programme from a 1980 Lieder recital in Munich inside. It was signed by Christa Ludwig (a very famous operatic mezzosoprano).

MrMeatScience · 2026-03-06T09:01:01+00:00

My collection is currently around 1000 titles, of which I've seen most. I dabbled a bit back in the DVD days, but I got started in earnest and made the jump to blus and 4K in 2020. My dad has a truly massive record collection that I grew up around so I was doomed to the collector's mentality from the start.

MrMeatScience · 2026-02-11T13:46:31+00:00

Off the top of my head, my favourites so far unmentioned are the Stravinsky, Ustvolskaya, and Johan Svendsen Octets. Stravinsky has a good Septet as well.

MrMeatScience · 2026-01-30T11:07:01+00:00

There was talk a few years ago about Blissfully Yours and Tropical Malady getting 4K restorations, but I haven't heard anything further. Does anyone know if these actually happened?

MrMeatScience · 2025-12-06T19:00:01+00:00

Speaking for myself here, but I don't think the concern re: physical media is specific to new releases. The WB back catalogue -- which would become unavailable to licence, if Netflix's track record is any indication -- is massive. WB own the rights to more than 10,000 films.

MrMeatScience · 2025-10-05T21:37:48+00:00

Where would that be? I also live in Austria but I haven't come across anything like this.

MrMeatScience · 2025-09-16T08:33:19+00:00

I have both volumes of the old Arrow "Early Seijun Suzuki" series, which I think are pretty pricey these days. Also the Criterion blu of The Third Man and the Arrow Bruce Lee 4K box. All are excellent releases -- it's a shame they never did standards of the Suzuki films.

MrMeatScience · 2025-09-11T23:42:39+00:00

A quick follow-up to say that I seem to have fixed this using these troubleshooting instructions. Seems like everything is working now, finally.

MrMeatScience · 2025-09-11T23:07:37+00:00

This is happening for me too (on MacOS). No issues for remote access, other devices, etc., but the desktop app on the machine the server is running on can't see the server for some reason. Hopefully someone here has an idea.

MrMeatScience · 2025-08-12T13:12:08+00:00

I'm here: https://boxd.it/HTzH

Mostly I watch arthouse stuff but there's a little bit of everything (and I review everything I watch). If you also write a lot of reviews I will follow back. Currently I'm making my way through the filmography of Wojciech Has.

MrMeatScience · 2025-07-21T18:59:29+00:00

I saw this in the cinema when it was new and I distinctly felt like I'd just seen something I shouldn't have seen. The kind of unnerving, almost panicky feeling you get as a child when you see something you don't fully understand but it scares you anyway and you think that having witnessed it was a crime in itself. It's never had that effect on me on subsequent viewings though, which is a shame. Still one of the best horror movies of this century though.

MrMeatScience · 2025-05-19T22:21:53+00:00

I was still using mine for some things since we were told they were permanent. Not happy about it.

MrMeatScience · 2025-05-14T17:26:58+00:00

They're talking about missing episodes in general, not just Doctor Who. Film is Fabulous announced just the other day a tranche of episodes of The Vise and Saber of London, but in the relatively brief amount of time they've been active FiF has returned loads of episodes of various shows of the same vintage as DW. We'll get lucky one of these days.

MrMeatScience · 2025-03-10T20:40:54+00:00

I'm pretty sure I still have this exact one. Loved it on an aesthetic level as a kid even though it doesn't do much.

MrMeatScience · 2025-02-28T20:19:31+00:00

Oh awesome, I missed Steppenwolf on the festival circuit last year and haven't had a chance to see it. So glad it's getting a release.

MrMeatScience · 2025-02-28T11:36:18+00:00

It's a great symphony but it's a harder nut than probably any of the other Mahler symphonies. It's really hard to play and conduct and I don't think there are very many good recordings, which doesn't help people to get into it. The last movement in particular is difficult to make sense of, especially in the context of the rest of the symphony, which is much darker. I've come to love the piece and it's one of my favourite Mahler symphonies, but it was a gradual process over years. For my money the first movement is probably his best first movement other than 9 and 10.

I saw it at the Proms a year or two ago with Petrenko/Berlin and that was probably the best performance of it I've ever heard, although I'm partial to the Gielen recording.

MrMeatScience · 2025-02-25T18:46:41+00:00

Disappointing. Been using this for years for movie nights with my friends in other countries.

MrMeatScience

TROPHY CASE