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I was going to add this to the 'Film 2005' thread, but that's at 563 posts at the moment, and no sane person is going to bother trying to get to grips with that, now.
So, yeah, anyway.
I had a minor film festival over the weekend: Watched Black Hawk Down, 8 Mile, Don't Look Now, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Lethal Weapon 2 and Die Hard With A Vengeance. Time well spent, I'm sure you'll all agree.
The only one of that lot I hadn't seen before was Don't Look Now which I picked up for £2.99 in the HMV sale. I suggest you do the same: it's a super creepy supernatural movie with some superb chilling moments. I don't want to give much away (the movie was slightly marred for me by an Empire article 10 years ago that spelt out the entire final scene), but if you've got £3 burning a hole in your pocket, and you like mad 70s films that make you go brr, it's worth checking out. Plus, it's got this great bit in it where Donald Sutherland bangs the living shit out of Julie Christie. I mean it: he really lays the pipe on her. It's great.
The other thing that came out of this was watching The Shining last thing at night, and then A Clockwork Orange the next morning. Kubrick is the man, man! Off the back of that he's like, totally my new favourite director. Meanings vitually pour off the screen; you can slice those films any number of ways and they yield weighty explorations of their subject matter - taking their ideas and drilling deep, deep down with subtlety and finesse. I wish there were more others like him.
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The secret identity of Jack the Ripper, Jack the Ripper (x2), Confessions of Jack the Ripper, The Ripper Diaries, and two others that I can't remember the names of, but were about Jack The Ripper. None have been much cop. The Jess Franco one was especially bad, having been filmed on location in Zurich, starring Germans. I watched Ghost in the Shell again for fun, and went to the pictures to see "Wolf Creek", which was ok, but not as good as I was expecting. It isn't really scary or spectacular or new or anything. It works, but it doesn't have high aspirations. I'm going to check out Land of the Dead this week, even though that's not supposed to be great either. Cronenburg's new one is out next week, and I'm looking forward to that.
I watched Brazil the other day, and didn't like it. Good ideas, but the film overall was a mess.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: The other thing that came out of this was watching The Shining last thing at night, and then A Clockwork Orange the next morning. Kubrick is the man, man! Off the back of that he's like, totally my new favourite director. Meanings vitually pour off the screen; you can slice those films any number of ways and they yield weighty explorations of their subject matter - taking their ideas and drilling deep, deep down with subtlety and finesse. I wish there were more others like him.
Coincidentaly, I have just bought A Clockwork Orange on DVD and watched it for the first time this weekend. It was bloody great! I loved the use of language and the main character had charisma oozing out of every pore. I am very glad I bought it. I will look out for the Shining too as I havn't seen that either.
Christ, its like I've been living in a bubble.
Oh, I watched The Skeleton Key at the cinema last week. It was boring. I'm not a fan of horror movies and they normally make me uncomfortable but this was neither scary nor interesting. In fact it was a waste of money.
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I like Strangelove. The scene with the colonel and Mandrake, where the Colonel is talking about chlorine, is beautiful cinema. Sellers realising that the guy with his finger on the button is completely mad is both very funny and very frightening. I saw Salo a few weeks back, which I'd left for ages because I'd heard it was tough to watch, and it's really not that bad. A couple of wince worthy moments, but overall it's really watchable. Considering the content (nazis sexually torturing, degrading and humiliating their captives), this is a real credit to the restraint of the director, but it's also the restraint and distance that give it such an uncanny feeling. Other films of the time that followed this line tended to be titilating and exploitative, but don't expect Love Camp 9 or SS Experiment Camp from Salo. The way that the camera rarely moves, and the torture scenes are all set in the same room make it seem like a series of paintings or poems, and this makes it both less and more disturbing than it would have been if it had been sensationalised. Less because you don't feel like you are being asked to get off on it, and more because you are able to remain as distant to the suffering as the nazis are. It feels dreamlike, which is fitting considering its roots in De Sades fantasies. Well, I say 'roots', but it is entirely lifted from '120 days of Sodom', with just the setting changed. Honestly, I know that it's heralded as a bit of a nasty, but if it's good enough to be a bfi classic, then it's good enough to be recommended to anybody after something unusual. I teamed it with 8 1/2, which is great, and pretty raunchy in places for its age. The women in that are total babes.
I'm currently trying to get hold of a Jap film called "Biotherapy", which is supposed to be pretty nasty.
[ 26.09.2005, 07:26: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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Thanks for that Benway, I've just added Salo to my Amazon Wish List so hopefully I'll get round to buying it in the next couple of months. Also - I was going to watch Devil's Rejects over the summer, but Octavia bottled it. She doesn't like scary films: I'm in the doghouse for showing her The Shining at the weekend, after I assured her it wasn't really that scary.
Actually - The Shining is a fantastic endorsement of DVD. It really comes alive. The remastered soundtrack is incredible as, by the end of the movie the living room is enveloped in screeches, ghoulish mutterings and pounding horns. I don't remember the film being anywhere near as chilling when I saw it on VHS.
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I noticed that about The Shining as well. I copied it, thus compressing it even further, and it still looked crystal.
As for Rejects.. It's not one to show to somebody who doesn't like a bit of nastiness. If the scene in Dusk till Dawn in the motel was extended for an hour, and set in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then you're pretty close.
[ 26.09.2005, 07:32: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I enjoyed Don't Look Now as well. The 70s really was the best decade for cinema, wasn't it? The HMV sale lured me in and I bought the Director's Cut of The Whicker Man. Watched the theatrical cut last night to remind myself, before I watch the new exciting version. That film is MENTAL. I mean, they just wouldn't make a film like that nowadays. It feels like you are viewing a genuine one-off.
I haven't been to the cinema in ages, this summer's been rubbish.
A big thumbs down for the A Clockwork Orange DVD "special features"- (one trailer). The Whicker Man has got some tasty-looking docus and an interview with Christopher Lee.
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The Kid Stays In The Picture, and of course Easy Riders, Raging Bulls are excellent books about why films were so good in the seventies. It's interesting, but depressing, because they both conclude with the impression that it'll never happen in Hollywood again.
H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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Thorn - your post made me wonder: Does anyone other than me use those DVD rental subscription services? I started off using Movietrak but found that after 6 months I'd watched maybe 10 DVDs, making it quite expensive per view, so I cancelled it.
A couple of months ago I got a free month on the CDWow! rental service, which is provided by LoveFilm.com. Again this was aces in the first month and I watched maybe 8 or 10 DVDs, but then it tailed off and they started charging me £15 per month for the privelege.
Getting fed up with this but still wanting to have a rental service that was relatively economical (since I have, ahem, hooked up my old DVD player to my new DVD recorder), I've now moved to Amazon - 6 rentals per month (3 at a time) for a tenner. Cheaper than buying stuff that I'll only watch once. This is where my thought process came in when Thorn started talking about Amazon wish lists - pretty much anything that is available to buy on Amazon can be rented instead, and my experience of their rental service thus far (1 month and 6 DVDs) has been very good.
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I have been watching the film of Tama Janowitz' 'Slaves of New York' for a bit of late 80s New York artworld fashion porn. It is great! Eleanor (Bernadette Peters) is so cute and all the ***** people trying to self-promote and get other people to their little art shows and stupid nightclubs makes me laugh. (Fuck. I cannot review films at all.) Anyway, funnily it is made by Merchant Ivory even though it's not a historical drama (unless you think 16 years ago is historical, but it was pre-internet AND pre-mobile phone, so that is a little bit like history). I haven't finished it yet because I am watching it in tiny bits to 'reward' myself for forcing self to do some work. But I love the stories and I'm pleased that Janowitz managed to make a good job of turning them into a screenplay.
Here is some fashion porn from the film:
Ginger, an art dealer
Random fabulous lady outside the punk hairdressers where Eleanor sells her hats. Eleanor looking on in horror as horrible beautiful bitch girl Daria flirts with Eleanor's artist boyfriend, Stash.
I've also rented Billy Liar but I haven't watched it yet. I can't wait!
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Also: I have found the Wes Craven classic 'The Hills Have Eyes' in my front room. Should I watch it?
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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I watched Blade Trinity last night. It is totally pants, but Parker Posey is quite good value as always, and Ryan Reynolds is seriously buff in it.
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quote:Originally posted by London: Also: I have found the Wes Craven classic 'The Hills Have Eyes' in my front room. Should I watch it?
I would if I was you. I used to get scared just by the cover of that, when I was childe. If you like it, then why not hunt down an uncut "Last House On The Left" - it's got a bit where they force a woman to wet her trousers!
[ 26.09.2005, 08:00: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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The sound-mixing in The Shining is a masterclass in horror sound-design, my favourite bit is the silence/roar contrast of Danny's tricycle going from carpet to floorboard as he pedals around the Overlook.
I haven't been to the kino for a while as there's been nada I've wanted to see sufficiently to get off my arse. However, as seems to be the way of these things, a glut of interesting cinema now appears to be upon us.
I plan to see LandOTD this week at some point, and 4, and am looking forward to History of Violence, Night Watch and Serenity. I'm also going to be trying to get tickets for the LFF screening of Sympathy for Lady Vengence in October.
DVD wise I've recently aquired a bunch of stuff, some Miike, the La Haine Anniversary addition, Zatoichi, The Man in the White Suit, Raising Arizona, and some others, all on the less-expensive.
[ 26.09.2005, 08:03: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
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The LFF is coming around soon, folks! Join BR and me as we sit through hours and hours of arty foreign crap, only to report back on how amazing it all was, happy in the knowledge that nobody else will bother to watch it.
H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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Speaking of arty foreign crap, has anyone seen Howl's Moving Castle and if so would you recommend it? I'm not usually a big anime fan but this seems to have had the general thumbs-up so reviews would be appreciated.
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Have you seen/liked other Miyazake Hippy? I haven't seen Howl's yet, but the reviews I've seen have been mixed rather than wholly positive, but I'm of the opinion that even a sub-par Miyazaki is still going to be worth seeing at the cinema, so add Howl's to the list of movies I will be seeing soon.
If you are up for this it's maybe worth me pointing out that the Miyazake film that was so successful it led to the creation of Studio Ghibli, 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", is getting a UK dvd release this week. It is very good indeed, although I just wish they'd hurry up with releases of My Neighbour Totoro and Porko Rosso.
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We subscribe to Netflix and the latest on our list was Sideways, all about wine obsession and adultery. I thought it was mediocre (wish I knew shit about wine so I could come up with some glib comparison).
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I watched Bangkok Dangerous at the weekend, directed by the Pang brothers it's about a deaf mute hitman and how it's only when he loses everyone he cares about that he realises the suffering he's inflicted on others over the years and comes to terms with what he has become.
The fact that the main character, Kong, is deaf-mute, means that a lot of the story is told visually rather than through dialogue, and some of the camera work and effects used are fantastic, including a sequence shot through the eyes of a lizard clinging upside down to the ceiling of some men's toilets, which gives you some idea of just how inventive and original the film is despite being set in a well-worn background of gangsters, hit-men and seedy nightclubs.
By and large the Pang brothers avoid the usual cliches of this genre and manage to create a film that I found both immensely watchable and not a little moving. Highly recommended.
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PRIMER: oh my god what the fucking fuck. this is a lo- fi- sci- fi film about some men who build a time machine. okay so i understood that much, but only because someone told me. once they have built the time machine- after 40 solid minutes of discussion of argon and freon and meaningful close- ups of 24v batteries- they start travelling in time. at that point the whole film just becomes one great bit time paradox, and i was just sitting there agape, thinking dontgedditdontgedditdontgedditdontgeddit. i think my major issue with it was, no delorean. anyway, if you understand time travel and the paradoxes thereof then go and see this film, i recommend it highly and you will think it is totes aces. if you dont, go and see something else, because otherwise you will wish you had a time machine so you could go back in time and watch charlie and the chocolate factory instead.
pride and prejudice.
it was saturday afternoon, i had just finished one job but had a few hours before i had to be at the next one, which is i reckon the poifect reason to go and sit in a darkened room and watch pictures of people being projected onto a wall. its a bit of a fallow period for film at the moment though so i went for default i- have- a- vagina mode and went to see p and p. which was pretty much like every other pride and prejudice, except that matthew macfadyen was a bit drippy for a darcy, and keira knightly acts almost exclusively with her chin and her teeth, and sounds exactly like jennifer ehle when she talks. so its like, oh, ive gone to see the film, but im essentially watching keira knightly do a jennifer ehle impression for two hours. i think it is really time for someone to think of a new way to play lizzie bennet because the whole sticking- your- chin- out- lisping- a bit- and- grinning- wildly- every- now- and-again thing is getting a little played out. never mind. it passed the time. (it would have passed anyway). the pigs were nice.
the dreamers:
bernardo bertolucci makes a film about an american boy who falls in love with two outrageous rich kids in gay pareee. this film is supposed to be the raunchiest film ever but all it was was one sex scene on the floor and a wanking scene and just basically the rich kids talking about mao or black and white films- which is a bit silly because i just kept thinking 'oh, i wish i was watching 'top hat/ queen christina/ a bout de souffle'- or dancing around showing their bottoms off. or, in the girl's case, swinging her big french titties around like billy- o. ENORMOUS nipples. i knid of wanted to like this film but it was a bit in love with itself and i am a bit tired of watching films where old european guys pretend that there is something depserately radical about a film where epople talk about mao and a beautiful french girl swings her titties about like billy- o. also, the riot bit at the end was WEEEEEEEEEEak- ass, blatantly loads of extras with matching hammer and sickle flags waving their fists about in front of some bad lighting. generally it was pretty lame and i think all the people who gave it good reviews are just as old and just as male as the man who made it and therefore think that as long as a film mentions a bout de souffle/ mao/ jimi hendrix and features a hott french lady showing off her mahousive nipples (seriously they were roughly the size of my palm) then it ticks all the boxes. which is essentially cobblers.
seabiscuit: kept falling asleep in this one. finally got round to watching and thought it was meh.
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quote:Originally posted by Boy Racer: I haven't seen Howl's yet, but the reviews I've seen have been mixed rather than wholly positive, but I'm of the opinion that even a sub-par Miyazaki is still going to be worth seeing at the cinema, so add Howl's to the list of movies I will be seeing soon.
Yeah, I've been reading a few reviews as I wanted to watch it on the big screen. I've chosen to ignore them mostly because I feel that most critics will want another Spirited Away, but I really enjoyed Kiki's Delivery Service in it's full twee-ness, so I'll most probably be happy I reckon.
quote:Originally posted by Boy Racer: Have you seen/liked other Miyazake Hippy?
If he did Spirited Away, then yeah, and you know. Along with everybody else, I thought it was alright. I liked the monster that ate everything. I think that I still prefer more adult-orientated animation, and watching Ghost in the Shell again has re-awakened my desire to watch anime. I'll probably watch the moving castle thing, but I'm not as excted as I was about Spirited Away. It's a pretty crappy name for a film, for starters.
I'd like to watch all of the Overfiend films again, in order, with internet breaks to catch up on the story. I'd like to pretend that it would be an exercise in cold cultural evaluation, but the truth is, I'm a sick pervert who likes watching animations about rape. Yeee-Haw!!
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See I thought Spirited Away was alright too, but only alright really, and not as good as Princess Monononononoknee (I think you might also like Moonononoke better than Spirited Away benway) or early joyous kiddy gayness like Totoro/Rosso/or Kiki. Also if you fancy some emotionally devastating Anime, you can't do better than Graveyard of the Fireflies (Ghibli but not Miyazake), about Japanese children during the end of WWII, though I suggest you are certain you feel happy and secure when you watch it, and preferably have someone available to stroke your hair and tell you everything will be ok afterwards.
I am a big gay for Seabiscuit, but then I really like horses and gayass emotionally manipulative stories about redemption innit.
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Like everyone else, I've bought Clockwork Orange recently and was blown away. As a reslut I bought The Shining, Dr Strangelove and 2001 as you can get them each for about seven quid. The Shining is indeed awesome, but I haveen't watched the others yet.
For some reason, I've been buying films about bad cops. Training Day, Narc and Dark Blue. Dark Blue is a film based on a 'story' by James Ellroy and is set against the background of the LA riots. WITH KURT RUSSELL. Ellroy, riots and Russell. What more do you want?
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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quote:Originally posted by discodamage: pride and prejudice. which was pretty much like every other pride and prejudice, except that matthew macfadyen was a bit drippy for a darcy, and keira knightly acts almost exclusively with her chin and her teeth, and sounds exactly like jennifer ehle when she talks. so its like, oh, ive gone to see the film, but im essentially watching keira knightly do a jennifer ehle impression for two hours. i think it is really time for someone to think of a new way to play lizzie bennet because the whole sticking- your- chin- out- lisping- a bit- and- grinning- wildly- every- now- and-again thing is getting a little played out.
Given that (apparently) nobody in the cast had actually read the book, but just watched the old BBC adaptation, this is perhaps not surprising.
Also, I thought The Shining was good, I just wasn't all that buzzed by spending the rest of the night staring bleakly up at the ceiling too freaked out to shut my eyes.
I think it's the things that Kubrick does with music that really impress. He takes a classical piece you've heard dozens of times before, and uses it for a sex scene in triple-quick time, or makes a simple panning-shot cause the hairs on your arms to stand up. I can't believe Spielberg fucked up AI so badly, it might have been really good in Kubrick's hands
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I went to see George A Romero's Land Of The Dead last night. It was pretty good, actually. I especially liked the mindless masses being distracted by fireworks while the agents of the men in suits robbed them blind. That was one of my favourite images of the film; almost as good as the zombie consumers in the original Dawn of the Dead.
Interestingly, this film invites the audience to empathise with the zombies throughout most of it. They're kind of portrayed as an uprising of an exploited underclass realising that if they just stopped gawping at the flash-bang spectacles, and used their heads just a tiny bit, then they could rise up against their oppressors. There's also an anti-zombie tank in the film, called Dead Reckoning, which has guns and shit, and these bad-ass rocket launchers on the roof.
The gore's pretty satisfying, too, despite the 15 certificate. The movie has it's fair share of flesh eating, spine pulling and brain spattering. It doesn't feel much less brutal that the recent 18-rated Dawn of the Dead remake.
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