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

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

Previous topic - Next topic

Potier

Finished Giri/Haji (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8001106/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3) on Netflix last night.

Essentially about the relationship between 2 brothers as well as their relationships to family and beyond wrapped into a Yakuza at home and abroad kinda crime drama story...
Definitely worth seeing. Good cast. Some cool soundtrack bits. Doesn't necessarily work with a lot of the typical Yakuza-clichés which helps. Apparently a big hit in the UK towards the end of 2019.

online prowler

I think Keith would've approved of the newly restored Edge of the Axe film. Looks fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgz4kT8_KNc

FallOfNature


aububs


Balor/SS1535

Quote from: holy ghost on January 22, 2020, 11:52:13 PM
Castle Rock Season II - Lizzy Caplan is thee worst actress. Her Annie Wilkes voice will haunt me to my grave. Kathy Bates won a friggin' Oscar for Misery, I can't even imagine her sitting at home watching this. Overall the show was ho-hum but I finished it almost out of spite.....

It is too bad to hear that the second season did not turn out well.  I thought the first was quite good, and had been looking forward for a chance to watch the second.

DSOL

"I do not get bored of nude ladies nor good Japanese noise"


DSOL

seen The Color out of Space Friday


was great - highly recommended
"I do not get bored of nude ladies nor good Japanese noise"

C601

Quote from: DSOL on February 10, 2020, 05:32:33 PM
seen The Color out of Space Friday


was great - highly recommended

It was very uh dvd quality I literally laughed at some parts due to the shit of it all. Very disappointing

Yrjö-Koskinen

Paha maa (2004)
With a script written and structured around the unofficial Finnish anthem (hrm)  Murheellisten Laulujen Maa I didn't quite know what to expect from this film. It won the "Best Movie" prize from the Church of Sweden in 2005, but also a number of serious awards. Finnish cinema is simliar to general Scandinavianin the sense that it is very fond of day-to-day human debasement - not only in the form of alcohol, drugs, sex and violence, but also and more importantly as it manifests in boredom and all-too-human shittiness. The difference is that whereas Swedish movies are often based on a narrow social clique's political views and social experiences, Finnish elokuvat are usually more convincing. When you're stuck with social realism, Swedes and Danes tend to focus on the "social", whereas Finns go for "realism" - you haven't seen an actor playing "drunk" or "alcoholic" until you've seen a Finn do it in a Finnish movie. None of that American shit with people being on their ass one second, and clear as day the next.... Paha Maa basically depicts a series of depressing events, some closely interrelated, some randomly produced in a butterfly effect fashion, and the story moves through all stages of humanity and subhumanity, only to offer some vague hope at the end.

If you're into politics, the "upper class" shadily fleets by as it ever so often does in Finnish films, but for the most part Paha Maa presents a series of highly believable underclass/lower middle class characters involved in more or often less incredible events. There is very little mercy and romanticizing here. The major model for each and every participant is this: an individual is dealt a bad hand by life/fate, and chooses to make the absolutely worst possible decisions for some or no reason. Having aggravated an already intolerable position, the character proceeds to pass some or most of the terrible consequences on to someone else. There are some seriously touching moments, and not a few black comedy highlights, but there are also very stupid (but hence also surprising and effective) plot twists. The impressive part of this film is the portrayal of each and every character, whether it be the castrated family man or the old Alcoholics Anonymous drunkard turned vacuum cleaner salesman turned murderer. Each and every participant is brought forth as a manifest failure of a human being, while still retaining a (realistic) degree of humanity, in the sense that you could actually know any of these guys and think they were decent enough people to hang around with. Perhaps preferable to the guys you hang around with now, in some cases? The song on which the movie is based is often interpreted as a parody of irresponsible, fatalistic thinking and romanticism. This is reflected in the story, absurd as it may often be, since while the film acknowledges and bemoans social misery in a "progressive" manner, it also exposes horrible and unnecessary choices leading to doom in a way that could surely be seen as "conservative". This attitude is symptomatic of the never-completed Welfare state of Finland - there is a certain empathy for the unlucky, but also an iron clad contempt for many forms of failure amoral behavior (this attitude is perhaps even more common in Sweden, believe it or not, since the populace has been deprived of any social responsibility by the state - for better or for worse, I might add,).

Paha Maa has vacuum cleaner lethal beatings, male-on-male as well as male-on-female rape, far-worse-than-The-Office socially uncomfortable situations and any number of strange occurrences. It is, however, not directed by Gaspar Noel - the story, with its odd undertones of humor and Suomen C'est La Vie, proceeds without bothering you with self-centered attempts on the part of the director to keep you squirming by making unpleasant things more unpleasant than they would be in real life. Silly as it may seem, I found it unsettling and won't be watching it again for a while, but it was a good film.
"Alkoholi ei ratkaise ongelmia, mutta eipä kyllä vittu maitokaan"

Ahvenanmaalla Puhutaan Suomea

absurdexposition

Bad Lieutenant (Abel Ferrara, 1992)

Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981) - Caught a screening of this Saturday night after work. Not my favourite Carpenter and some of it "truly looks like it was shot in a cardboard box" but damn, all of it is amazing to see on 35mm.

How to Seduce a Virgin and The Perverse Countess (1974, Jess Franco) - Filmed back to back with essentially the same cast of Lina Romay, Alice Arno, Howard Vernon, Robert Woods, Tania Busselier. I preferred the former, though the ending of Countess Perverse was amazing. Psychedelic sex, murder, cannibalism, trophy hunting abound.

Lorna, the Exorcist (1974, Jess Franco) - 3/3 from yesterday's Franco marathon and my favourite of the lot. One of his best for sure. Lina Romay is incredible in all three of these.

Christina, Princess of Eroticism (1973, Jess Franco) - Was still in a mood for Uncle Jess today. Very dream-like with a worthy score from Bruno Nicolai and with the legend Howard Vernon. I watched the 'director's cut' which removed the zombies that were added in by Jean Rollin. Another great ending.

Looking forward to seeing Stephen Thrower give a talk on Jess Franco in a couple months courtesy of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror in Brooklyn.
Primitive Isolation Tactics
Scream & Writhe distro and Absurd Exposition label
Montreal, QC
https://www.screamandwrithe.com

Hakaristi

Quote from: Yrjö-Koskinen on February 17, 2020, 11:09:03 PM
Paha maa (2004)

Thanks for the review, great film! Super depressing with just the right touches of pitch black humour as you describe. Fully agree on Finns being the most authentic onscreen drunks too, lived experiences and all that...

deutscheasphalt

Quote from: Sadomaniac on February 20, 2020, 11:56:21 PM
Quote from: Yrjö-Koskinen on February 17, 2020, 11:09:03 PM
Paha maa (2004)

Thanks for the review, great film! Super depressing with just the right touches of pitch black humour as you describe. Fully agree on Finns being the most authentic onscreen drunks too, lived experiences and all that...
It's probably so authentic because they fucking are drunk onscreen

Balor/SS1535

Quote from: Yrjö-Koskinen on February 17, 2020, 11:09:03 PM
Paha maa (2004)
With a script written and structured around the unofficial Finnish anthem (hrm)  Murheellisten Laulujen Maa I didn't quite know what to expect from this film. It won the "Best Movie" prize from the Church of Sweden in 2005, but also a number of serious awards. Finnish cinema is simliar to general Scandinavianin the sense that it is very fond of day-to-day human debasement - not only in the form of alcohol, drugs, sex and violence, but also and more importantly as it manifests in boredom and all-too-human shittiness. The difference is that whereas Swedish movies are often based on a narrow social clique's political views and social experiences, Finnish elokuvat are usually more convincing. When you're stuck with social realism, Swedes and Danes tend to focus on the "social", whereas Finns go for "realism" - you haven't seen an actor playing "drunk" or "alcoholic" until you've seen a Finn do it in a Finnish movie. None of that American shit with people being on their ass one second, and clear as day the next.... Paha Maa basically depicts a series of depressing events, some closely interrelated, some randomly produced in a butterfly effect fashion, and the story moves through all stages of humanity and subhumanity, only to offer some vague hope at the end.

If you're into politics, the "upper class" shadily fleets by as it ever so often does in Finnish films, but for the most part Paha Maa presents a series of highly believable underclass/lower middle class characters involved in more or often less incredible events. There is very little mercy and romanticizing here. The major model for each and every participant is this: an individual is dealt a bad hand by life/fate, and chooses to make the absolutely worst possible decisions for some or no reason. Having aggravated an already intolerable position, the character proceeds to pass some or most of the terrible consequences on to someone else. There are some seriously touching moments, and not a few black comedy highlights, but there are also very stupid (but hence also surprising and effective) plot twists. The impressive part of this film is the portrayal of each and every character, whether it be the castrated family man or the old Alcoholics Anonymous drunkard turned vacuum cleaner salesman turned murderer. Each and every participant is brought forth as a manifest failure of a human being, while still retaining a (realistic) degree of humanity, in the sense that you could actually know any of these guys and think they were decent enough people to hang around with. Perhaps preferable to the guys you hang around with now, in some cases? The song on which the movie is based is often interpreted as a parody of irresponsible, fatalistic thinking and romanticism. This is reflected in the story, absurd as it may often be, since while the film acknowledges and bemoans social misery in a "progressive" manner, it also exposes horrible and unnecessary choices leading to doom in a way that could surely be seen as "conservative". This attitude is symptomatic of the never-completed Welfare state of Finland - there is a certain empathy for the unlucky, but also an iron clad contempt for many forms of failure amoral behavior (this attitude is perhaps even more common in Sweden, believe it or not, since the populace has been deprived of any social responsibility by the state - for better or for worse, I might add,).

Paha Maa has vacuum cleaner lethal beatings, male-on-male as well as male-on-female rape, far-worse-than-The-Office socially uncomfortable situations and any number of strange occurrences. It is, however, not directed by Gaspar Noel - the story, with its odd undertones of humor and Suomen C'est La Vie, proceeds without bothering you with self-centered attempts on the part of the director to keep you squirming by making unpleasant things more unpleasant than they would be in real life. Silly as it may seem, I found it unsettling and won't be watching it again for a while, but it was a good film.

Thanks for sharing!  I have not heard of this movie before, and it sounds really interesting.  I will have to check it out.

Theodore

On Netflix : Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski , documentary about Stanislaw Szukalski, sculptor and painter. I didnt know him and man this is great art ! The film has his life story, big parts of Szukalski speaking / explaining / teaching on camera, his american later friends / fans talking about him, part of his works / plans etc. Very good, mostly cause of the man's personality, story, art. - Creators faced a problem, searching about his past they found out that he was a nationalist and was publishing antisemetic magazine in Poland ! Ouch, haha ! Then they continue with the 'necessary' 10min propaganda about how modern polish nationalists dont know about the 'real' Szukalski, that they exploit his work, that Szukalski wouldnt like / aproove that blah blah blah. OK guys we believe you, the old semi-crazy grandpa Szukalski who started to have insane theories and you met, maybe he wouldnt aproove, maybe not. But when he was younger, hey, it was him ! Stop excuses, concetrate on the art and the man himself ...

Nevertheless, this is a film worth watching, especialy if you dont know about him.
"ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες"