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Forgotten Silver

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  • Forgotten Silver

    Watched this for the first time last night, really well done. I'd heard of it but somehow never gotten around to checking it out for whatever reason, even though like most of us here, I went through a phase where I had to see everything that Peter Jackson's name was attached to.

    I think if I hadn't known going in that it was all bullshit I might have been fooled by it. The 'period footage' is pretty convincing even if it's presented in widescreen (which would have been a giveaway). The fact that they got Leonard Maltin and Sam Neill go on camera and play along is a nice touch too. The humor is there though - and they take things to pretty ridiculous extremes, what with 'Colin McKenzie' having built the city-sized set and captured the first person to fly months before the Wright Bros. did it in the USA.

    The AB DVD has a featurette on in wherein Jackson and some of the others involved in the project talk about how it came to be and in there they note that there was a backlash when it was first shown on TV in NZ simply because people did fall for it.
    Rock! Shock! Pop!

  • #2
    How in the world have I never heard of this one????

    Watched all Javksons works from the beginning..or so i thought..seems like this was made after Heavenly Creatures and before Frighteners..two films I saw on their original releases...did this one not get an international release at the time??

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    • #3
      It was made for NZ TV so yeah, it wasn't as 'around' as some of his others and as it's not even close to a horror picture like his other earlier films, it probably doesn't get talked about as much. It really is worth tracking down though. For lack of a cornier way to put it, it's a completely charming film.
      Rock! Shock! Pop!

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      • #4
        I saw it at the London Film Festival circa 1995, but it never got a proper theatrical release. It was made for TV and at 53 minutes it presumably wasn't considered long enough (or commercially viable enough) for full distribution.

        At the LFF, it was the first half of a bizarre double bill with a documentary about 100 years of Polish cinema, which I'd probably find fascinating now but which was deeply frustrating back then (there were loads of walkouts) because it didn't identify any of the numerous clips until the final credits, by which time they were pretty useless. It was clearly made exclusively for Polish viewers of a certain age who'd recognise the clips without prompting and would share the memories being described on screen, and there was no attempt made to make it more accessible to non-Poles besides adding English subtitles.
        MichaelB
        Junior Member
        Last edited by MichaelB; 04-25-2016, 02:43 AM.

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        • #5
          I remember catching, and loving, this on either IFC or the Sundance Channel (back when they were awesome and showed movies, uncut and uninterrupted, and not Malcolm in the Middle reruns.) Unfortunately I never picked up the now long OOP Anchor Bay DVD, so I hope that, whenever Jackson gets around to releasing his early films on Blu-ray, this is included.

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          • #6
            There is a German Blu, but I don't know about the quality. Always wary of German Blu Rays that aren't available elsewhere due to the amount of upscales that get released there. Used to have this on VHS. Has anyone seen the German Blu, would love to know if proper HD?
            I'm bitter, I'm twisted, James Joyce is fucking my sister.

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            • #7
              It isn't often that I introduce Ian to a film. GO ME!
              Ŗǭƈḱ!Ꞩẖȫçꞣ!Ƥӧꝕ!

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              • #8
                I saw it on the big screen at a rare showing a decade or more ago.

                Peter Jackson said that many in NZ found it so convincing that people there were shocked that this guy's accomplishments had been kept from the public! I'm sure a bit of that is Jackson polishing his own trophy, but, it is pretty well done. And, there are always a few gullible folks out there. Rob Reiner tells the story that at some of the early test screenings for SPINAL TAP there were people that thought Tap was a real band!

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