Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sexy Beast

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Topic: Sexy Beast

David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 04-27-2002 11:16 PM

04/27/2002, 7:00PM, My Living Room, Sony 53" 4:3 HDTV-capable RPTV, Sony DirecTV satellite receiver using MPEG compression, S-video connection between receiver and display, nominal 330-line NTSC video resolution. Dolby Pro-Logic Surround. Scope image thoughtfully cropped to 1.33 by DirecTV, so none of those annoying black bars (actually the pan-and-scan didn't look all that bad), and DirecTV allocates enough bandwidth to pay-per-view movies to make them look pretty good. Running time only 1 hour 29 mins.

DirecTV has this classified as a Comedy. ??!! This was a serious, intense film. Ben Kingsley definitely earned his Oscar nomination. Story is about a middle-aged English crook who "retires" to a villa in Spain with his beautiful wife and another couple. One day an old associate, Ben Kingsley, shows up at his door and wants him to do a job. Both couples obviously are deathly afraid of Kingsley, for reasons which quickly become apparent. Kingsley will not take "no" for an answer (kind of like 1-800-555-TELL) and things spiral from there in strange directions. The movie really is riveting. Glad I saw it at home and not at the local art house because the English accents are so thick I had trouble understanding the dialog sometimes; would have been impossible in a theater with less than good sound. Not a conventional heist movie. If you haven't seen this, it's worth checking out for its unique approach to what seems like a familar plot.

Tons-o-profanity and violence, some nudity. Might want to put the kids to bed before you watch it.

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Don Anderson
Master Film Handler

Posts: 312
From: West Bend, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 04-28-2002 01:35 AM

Kewl... I've had the video screener sitting around for a while. Judging from the title I figured it would be stupid, but now I have a reason to watch it! Thanks for the mini review.

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James R. Hammonds, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 931
From: Houston, TX, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 04-28-2002 03:35 AM

Just for clarification, Sexy Beast was scope

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 04-28-2002 10:43 AM

James, thanks for the correction! The opening credits looked to be in about 1.85:1 so I assumed flat. This might be Super-35 cause in 1.33 it didn't really look all that cropped. Anyway I fixed that in my original post.

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