Seen and not seen's, recommendations and queries on top films in general.

Started by GEWALTMONOPOL, December 29, 2009, 06:31:05 PM

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Araxis

Quote from: EXU on July 23, 2019, 10:01:28 PM
REVENGE - Pretty bad. Visually stunning yadda yadda. The amount of suspension of disbelief needed for this one is mind numbing. The actors are very good. The script is shit. People bleed more than anime and nothing makes sense. It starts nicely before the "accident". The desert feels like a backyard, people walk thru it in seconds. The desert scenery is gorgeous. The ending fight is kinda ok but the directors can't handle even a small enviroment, it makes if feel smaller and sterile and boring. I don't recommend this one, lots of craft gone in a shitshow.

HAPPY DEATH DAY - Competent Groundhog Day gone slasher flick. It leans more on comedy and is well done, not brutal or anything but in fact it's a "feel good" horror movie.

SUMMER OF 84 - 80sploitation is a genre yet? I wanted to dislike but it is actually nicely put together, the characters are good, all the usual 80s trappings (scenery, nods to pop culture, synth soundtrack, horror movie references) are not overwhelming and the ending is COLD. Good when you are in that "Stranger Things" vibe.

FIRST REFORMED - Fuckin' masterpiece, Taxi Driver for grown ups.


First Reformed also has a soundtrack by Lustmord

ashraf

First Reformed is my favorite film of recent memory and Lustmord's score is incredible.
A good read about its visual aspects: https://filmschoolrejects.com/visual-austerity-of-first-reformed/

bitewerksMTB

Last night was Harvey Weinstein's classic slasher, The Burning.

Speaking of slashers, Scream Factory has announced that they will be releasing My Bloody Valentine. It'll be a 2-disc set. I'm guessing it'll be like the dvd set with the theatrical version & almost fully uncut version with some color correction for those wonderfully brutal scenes. It'll be interesting to see what they are able to do with the color correction. It'd be nice if they locate the one gore scene that was completely cut out but I'm not holding my breath for that.

Scream Factory is also releasing Prophecy , which, I remember being horrible fun.

ConcreteMascara

Actually had some downtime this weekend so I was able to get quite a few movies in.

Saturday was Teruo Ishii's final film "Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf" (2001). a no-budget surreal detective story based on writings of Edogawa Rampo, starring Lily Franky and Shinya Tsukamoto. Considering it was made completely independently and with no money it's still pretty visually ambitious at times but I couldn't help but feeling how good it could have been if it was directed with studio backing. it's also damn hard to follow early on, which was made worse because I was physically exhausted while watching. Considering I've fallen completely in love with Teruo Ishii in the past 6 months I still thoroughly enjoyed it, but newcomers will probably cry uncle 15 minutes in.

Sunday was a triple feature! I live a life of leisure apparently.

First was "What Have They Done To Your Daughters?" (1974) by Massimo Dallamano. I've seen 4 Dallamano films and this is easily my favorite, beating out "What Have You Done To Solange?". The police procedural / giallo hybrid really works, the subject is high school girl sex rings, and the writing is pretty dang good for this sort of thing. Audio recordings play prominently into the plot and it's my favorite part. real voyeur vibes throughout. It also makes me happy that the protagonists know nothing they do will amount to much since rich and powerful pedos will stop the investigation and so they basically leave it, like it would actually happen in real life. Oh and the score is absolutely great!

Second was my girlfriend's pick, "The Bourne Supremacy" (2004). I've never made it through this one without blacking out/passing out, so it was cool to finally see it. I'm not a big fan of the hyper fast cuts they do throughout all three of these movies. I know it's supposed to make the action even crazier but I think it just makes the sequences shittier. And these movies basically made that style the Hollywood style for a while, which became painfully prominent in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. also the lack of graphic violence due to the PG-13 rating annoys me to no end. But as far as PG-13 action films go you could definitely do worse.

Last was Beat Takeshi's "Outrage" (2010). I read a few negative remarks about this one so I had low expectations but apparently people are idiots. While it's certainly not as original or poignant as Takeshi's '90s Yakuza-esque films, it's relentless violent in that very Beat Takeshi matter of fact way. Gangsters being shitty to one another as they vie for more power and money, and many fingers, teeth, eyes and rips are destroyed along the way. there's no one to root for, it's just parade of meaningless violence. which is a compliment. Apparently Takeshi only used actors who hadn't been in his films before, but many of them are actually familiar faces if you've watched Takashi Miike's films. will be watching "Beyond Outrage" and "Outrage Coda" soon.
[death|trigger|impulse]

http://soundcloud.com/user-658220512

absurdexposition

Quote from: ConcreteMascara on July 29, 2019, 06:49:22 PM
First was "What Have They Done To Your Daughters?" (1974) by Massimo Dallamano. I've seen 4 Dallamano films and this is easily my favorite, beating out "What Have You Done To Solange?". The police procedural / giallo hybrid really works, the subject is high school girl sex rings, and the writing is pretty dang good for this sort of thing. Audio recordings play prominently into the plot and it's my favorite part. real voyeur vibes throughout. It also makes me happy that the protagonists know nothing they do will amount to much since rich and powerful pedos will stop the investigation and so they basically leave it, like it would actually happen in real life. Oh and the score is absolutely great!

Absolutely my favourite Dallamano.
Primitive Isolation Tactics
Scream & Writhe distro and Absurd Exposition label
Montreal, QC
https://www.screamandwrithe.com

bitewerksMTB

Last night was the out the top film, I Saw the Devil. I kinda like it more with each viewing. The first, years ago on dvd, I thought it was trying too hard and overlong. It's definitely a little overlong but no longer feels that way to me. It moves pretty quickly.

I just read a few comments on Arrow's release of Cruising. Friedkin has the club scenes with a blue tint but not as much as the previous dvd & there's no silly added effects when Pacino does poppers. Too bad an untouched version that was seen theatrically wasn't also included along with the director's 'improved' version.

AbstractVenom

I watched Climax over the weekend and was thoroughly impressed. Irreversible is the only other Gaspar Noe title I'd seen, many many years ago when my tastes were less "sophisticated" and while I didn't hate it, I didn't really get it. Experiencing Climax has definitely sparked a new appreciation and interest in his work. So much so that I even watched Love the following day.

Many things to unpack and explore with Climax, but aspects that really stood out for me were:
The soundtrack, more specifically how the music weaves in and out of the narrative, much in the same way the camera work does.
Noe has this uncanny ability to twist and stretch space; at times you feel like you're floating around the set like a ghost or an insect, other times you feel trapped in a static shot.
Characters arguing or pleading through a closed/locked door seems to be a recurring motif in his films, anybody else noticed this?
Also I've only done shrooms once and had a really good time, but I've seen plenty of online videos of freakouts, people having full on psychotic breaks, and I felt the actors emulated all that very convincingly.

Eastern Embargo



Binged watched The Naked Director on Netflix, a loosely based series on toru muranishi aka the emperor of japanese porn. Great cast of directors and actors (Lily Franky, Jun Kunimura, etc) and loads of porn for your entertainment. Fun watch!

holy ghost

The Last Czar on Netflix - pretty cool history of the final days of the Romanovs, Rasputin, and the events leading up to the 1917 Revolution. Frankly I would have liked to see a series more about the actual revolution but this is pretty tight. Really informative (lots of contemporary expert talking heads interspersed with the actors). Well worth watching imho.

A-Z

Pura sangre (1982)
a rich Colombian businessman blackmails his employees into kidnapping and murdering young men to provide illegal blood transfusions for his ailing father
a documentalist, prosaic, near emotionless depiction of pure unreflecting evil
in that regard it is not unlike Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Angst
interestingly, this movie is also very close thematically to Carne de tu carne, which came out in 1983
both Colombian films use their unconventional takes on vampirism as means for social commentary

available on Vimeo in excellent quality, english subs included
https://vimeo.com/320311027
watch it

Balor/SS1535

I just watched an old Japanese movie called Kwaidan.  It was a collection of four ghost stories, though I would not call it a horror movie.  While long, it was very interesting, and the set design was amazing.  There were several scenes with bizarre painted backdrops (the sky with giant eyes/in strange colors).  The best part of the movie, in my mind, was the soundtrack (which will likely appeal to some users here).  It entirely consisted of weird ambient sounds and disturbing drones.  Scenes were punctuated with cracking noises and moans.  I would highly recommend it for the soundtrack alone.

ritualabuser

Quote from: ConcreteMascara on July 17, 2019, 04:42:54 PM
"Martyrs" dir Pascal Laugier (2008) - I don't know why I thought I'd like this because I hate 90% of the New French Extremity...it gets so fucking insufferably boring and dumb...

1000% agree. Every single one of those movies I've had recommended to me has ended up being a cringeworthy turd.

cr

Third day of heavy drinking (and it seems I'm getting too old for this) - so I came across Yellowbeard, haven't watched this for 15 years or more. According to John Cleese "one of the six worst films made in the history of the world". Love it.

GEWALTMONOPOL

Worshipped Winding-Refn's series Too Old To Die Young until the end where it took a turn into some feminist shit message about "it's the womens turn to be violent now". Thus another timeless masterpiece about amorality and violence as a natural and necessary force in humanity has been turned into a guilty compromise of current and soon to be very dated values.

Winding-Refn of all people. What a let down.
Först när du blottar strupen ska du få nåd, ditt as...

absurdexposition

Quote from: GEWALTMONOPOL on August 31, 2019, 12:46:53 AM
Winding-Refn of all people. What a let down.

It is a bit surprising coming from him. In interviews said that he had no intentions to do anything of the sort but that he basically couldn't help it when dealing with being in Trump America.
Primitive Isolation Tactics
Scream & Writhe distro and Absurd Exposition label
Montreal, QC
https://www.screamandwrithe.com