We cancelled our Discas membership because we do not really have enough time to watch DVD (certainly not because there was anything wrong with the service itself, it is excellent).

1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (8 points)
2. A Shot in the Dark (1964) (7 points)
3. Drunken Master 2 (7 points)
4. Bullets over Broadway (7 points)
5. Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (3 points)
6. Basic Instict 2 (5 points)
7. X-Men: The Last Stand (7 points)
8. Proof (5 points)
9. Mystic River (7 points)
10. Serving Sara (4 points)

Cissy is a big fan of Sisi, but Tsutaya Discas has nothing in the way of Romy Schneider or even Helmut Berger. Amazon and the BBC to the rescue. 11 hrs and 50 minutes (plus bonus materials) of British television drama about the tempestuous reigns of Emperors Franz-Josef, Nicholas II, and Wilhelm II. Of course, only the first episode deals with Sisi, but hey, who wants to miss Patrick Stewart as Lenin?

Not having watched a minute of it yet, I cannot speak on the quality of the series, I just want to proclaim my happiness that Japan and Europe share DVD Region 2, and that orders from Amazon UK take only four days to get here. But would someone please fix the exchange rate ?

1. The United States of Leland (8 points)
2. The Shipping News (8 points)
3. Raising Arizona (7 points)
4. Elizabethtown (7 points)
5. Match Point (7 points)
6. Matchstick Men (7 points)
7. The Shawshank Redemption (8 points)
8. Timeline (unwatched)
9. The Jacket (7 points)
10. The Pink Panther (2006) (4 points)

1. Shadows and Fog (7 points)
2. City Hall (6 points)
3. The Graduate (7 points)
4. Everything is Illuminated (8 points)
5. Analyze This (7 points)
6. All the President's Men (5 points)
7. The Freshman (6 points)
8. Analyze That (6 points)
9. Donnie Darko (9 points)
10. Grosse Pointe Blank (6 points)

1. Escape from Alcatraz (7 points)
2. Hart's War (7 points)
3. Chinatown (8 points)
4. The Aviator (5 points)
5. Stand by me (8 points)
6. Once Upon A Time In Mexico (4 points)
7. Cradle will rock (9 points)
8. Iron Giant (6 points)
9. Team America: World Police (7 points)
10. Seven Year Itch (8 points)
11. The Third Man (8 points)
12. Kiki's Delivery Service (7 points)
13. Insomnia (7 points)
14. Rumor has it (7 points)
15. Porco Rosso (8 points)
16. Permanent Midnight (7 points)
17. Amadeus (9 points)
18. Mission Cleopatra (4 points)
19. Under Suspicion (5 points)
20. The Party (4 points)

1. Cool Hand Luke (7 points)
2. Duplex (4 points)
3. The Big Lebowsky (8 points)
4. Old School (6 points)
5. Brazil (9 points)
6. Napolean Dynamite (6 points)
7. Spy Game (7 points)
8. La Marche de l'empereur (6 points)
9. The Fisher King (7 points)
10. Do The Right Thing (7 points)

Cissy goes over my Discas queue, so here is what the female touch turned my original list into:

1. Do the Right Thing (no time to watch it, requeued)
2. Bottle Rocket (7 points)
3. Densha Otoko (6 points)
4. Huckabees (8 points)
5. Jersey Girl (6 points)
6. Crying Game (8 points)
7. Alfie (7 points)
8. Eros (4 points)
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's (7 points)
10. Tokyo Tower (I skipped that one and replaced it with Orange County from the regular rental store, 6 points)

I just joined Tsutaya Discas, which seems to be Japan's equivalent to Netflix (although it is still not nearly as popular). The business model seems to be the same: For a fixed monthly fee of about 2000 yen you can build a queue of DVD that you want to rent, they send them to you two at a time by mail, you can keep them as long as you want, then send them back by dropping them into the mailbox, and they send you the next two. Here is the list I wrote down beforehand:

1. Hollywood Ending
2. Do the Right Thing
3. Bottle Rocket
4. Flirting with Disaster
5. Jersey Girl
6. Crying Game
7. The Big Lebowsky
8. Donnie Darko
9. The Fisher King
10. Brazil

Finding these on the Discas web site was a little tricky, because the title search does not work with the original titles, and the Japanese titles are often completely different. Fortunately, you can also search by actors or directors (most of the time even in English). I am also happy to report that nine of my ten titles were available: I just had to replace Flirting with Disaster with Huckabees and move Hollywood Ending down the queue because it is currently in high demand (or low availability).

Always - Sunset on Third Street

Several nostalgic episodes (based on a popular comic book series) about the residents of Third Street, set in Tokyo in the late fifties (recreated with lots of impressive computer generated images).
7 points

True Romance

Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Michael Rapaport, Val Kilmer (just a little), Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Tony Scott, written by Quentin Tarantino.
9 points

Today's lesson: Fixing screening times and clearly communicating them works much better than waiting for everyone to arrive before starting the DVD, because that leads to serious problems with catching the last train.

From Russia with Love

A James Bond without flying or invisible cars, just a booby-trapped suitcase with hidden compartments, a periscope into the Russian embassy, and shoes with built-in poisoned blades.
7 points

Memento

Some movies just have to be watched (at least) twice. The idea of showing the scenes in reverse chronological order is not just a clever device here, it effectively imposes upon the audience the same memory-disorder that the protagonist is suffering from.
9 points

Thanks to the latest addition to our electronics department we are now able to beef up our social life by hosting weekend DVD screenings.

Sunday two weeks ago was the first such event, with an audience of seven (partly on the floor, we have to come up with better seating arrangement, I believe). With our current equipment we are still at the very low end of what can confidently be called a home theatre -- No screen (just projecting against the wallpaper), no sound system (just very cheap 2.1 speakers that also emit an annoying blue light), no means to block outside lights (and Tokyo is quite bright even at night), very cheap DVD player (I still have to find out how to set it to 16:9), and annoying colour wheel effects if you look for them -- but hey, it's big !

Casino Royale

A real train wreck. Star-packed ensemble (Peter Sellers, David Niven, Orson Welles, Woody Allen), but quite incoherent, probably because of the large number of directors and writers involved. On the other hand, not worse than Austin Powers.
4 points

The Hudsucker Proxy

You cannot go wrong with the Coen brothers, and this one has Paul Newman, too.
8 points

And one more session today:

Ghost World

In the brief period of time between high school graduation and working life Thora Birch and Scarlett Johannson play a cruel joke on record collector Steve Buscemi that eventually back-fires. Goes to show that comic book movies do not have to involve super heroes in silly costumes.
7 points

Out of Sight

Solid Soderbergh with George Clooney as gentleman gangster (that seems to be his trademark role) and Jennifer Lopez as a US Marshall trying (and at the same time not really wanting) to catch him.
8 points

I would also like to point out that I had originally planned to present Infernal Affairs, but Cantonese with Japanese sub-titles just does not cut it.