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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Levas

Mainly stumbled through this thread while sick and watched movies that were mentioned here and that were not seen before. And some other random flicks. My impressions:

Massacre Mafia Style (1978) - A decent movie about mafia. A Sicilian guy who sees how everything changes and "now there are niggers, greeks and Mexicans doing our job" is fighting against the newer formed circles of mafia. well.. the movie is fast and characters and so on not too developed, and it constantly has a shadow of comedy, but all in all - not bad thing. Fights, shootings, swears, boobs etc.

Just Imagine (1930) - a movie of 1930 about how the life will be in 1980. heh. people flying with their own planes, numbers instead of names and so on. but overall - crap. boring to watch. they were singing every couple of minute because this of that happened, or dancing and laughing. 20 minutes from the start of the movie couldn't wait till it ends.

The Mechanic (1972) - Not bad. Charles Bronson as a professional killer and another young blond guy as his disciple. Nice mood, music and overall very nice eurocrime. Watched with pleasure.

Valhalla Rising (2009) - I've heard various opinions about that. Some people were saying wow what a bleak and brutal movie, others were saying meh. I'd be more with those who'd say meh. yes, the visuals are good and it's filmed nicely, but it didn't buy me, didn't present the mood I expected and so on. Or perhaps I had to come to this movie with different attitude. I'd say average.

The Road (2009) - Though I  barely can watch Mortesen in screen for more than 10 seconds, but this movie was good. Post-apocalyptic tale about a father and son, travelling towards the ocean. I think one of the best post-apocalyptic tales I've seen during the last couple of years. Good fights, thoughts and overall.. bleakness.. liked this one.

Calvaire (2004) - One very good psycho movie a la Texas chainsaw massacre etc. Singer with broken van in the woods, strange inn-keeper, villagers who fuck pigs and dance and play piano, inn-keeper remember his run-away wife and imagine that singer to be her. and here we go. Very good mood and excellent scenario.

Fausto 5.0 (2001) - Weird psychological drama/horror. This movie I suppose has more to say than I could understand apart from clearly seen references to Goethe etc. The doctor goes to other city to some convention where he meets a guy with operated stomach. Doctor did that operation 8 years ago. And the guy does not leave him alone and the happenings become weirder and weirder. Reminded me slightly of Jacob's Ladder. Intellectual horror movie. I still have to read some more about it to put puzzle pieces together.

Seven Days (2010) - Wonderful and magnificent rape-revenge movie!!! Highly recommended. Rapist rapes and kills young girl whose father frees rapist from prison in order to bring him to desolated place and to torture him for a week. Without any soundtrack - it's mostly silence, crying-screaming or short talking episodes. But true bleakness and true game with your own thought and feelings when it's already enough for the rapist to be tortured and when not and so on. Truly recommend this gem.

Before the fall - Spanish movies still have to disappoint me. This one's just excellent movie. 3 days until the apocalypse, but it's not about superheroes or trying to save the Earth, but about a small town, dozen of people and happenings in their lives trying to live the last hours. Truly great and enjoyable flick. Recommend.

halthan

"Blooded"

Bit different kinda thriller (?) about how hunter becomes a prey. Recommended
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1845211/

A.R.GH

Quote from: terror on March 27, 2011, 11:18:00 AM

The Road (2009) - Though I  barely can watch Mortesen in screen for more than 10 seconds, but this movie was good. Post-apocalyptic tale about a father and son, travelling towards the ocean. I think one of the best post-apocalyptic tales I've seen during the last couple of years. Good fights, thoughts and overall.. bleakness.. liked this one.


Before the fall - Spanish movies still have to disappoint me. This one's just excellent movie. 3 days until the apocalypse, but it's not about superheroes or trying to save the Earth, but about a small town, dozen of people and happenings in their lives trying to live the last hours. Truly great and enjoyable flick. Recommend.
Yes, I second those recommendations, I think I mentioned both before

I'm gonna check out the others, seems that you have a good taste in films he

A.R.GH

Watched "Seven days"... not bad, but I expected something more psychologically devastating, could be better.

Andrew McIntosh

http://www.incendies-thefilm.com/#/trailer

Just came home from watching this. Unrelenting human misery from go to woah. I didn't like it but I expect there'll be others here who may enjoy it.
Shikata ga nai.

heretogo

The Piano Teacher

Quite good and would probably interest some of you here. Drama filled with repression & sexual perversion. Leaves a lingering taste of revulsion or maybe it's just me. Strange masochistic fucked-up people behind the respectable facade of well-to-do society.

FreakAnimalFinland

that sounds interesting.
I am not embarrassed to admit, I'm pretty big fan of US/Hollywood movies. Of course not ALL kinds, but that some of the most remarkable films are from there, and lightyears ahead of many "cult films". But lately been wondering where are the good hollywood films now? I may be slightly embarrassed to admit, I actually went to cinema to check out World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles. I tend to like sci-fi, and action is good genre as well, but how fucking lame they can get? G.I.Joe? What a load of bullshit. I couldn't even watch it in one session. Fast & Furious series? Erotic story for teenage fags willing to sniff some Vin Diesels jockstraps?... pff..
With World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles, it is more like charity-funded propaganda film of equality. You got the mandatory negroes saving the world. You got the mexican civilian saving the marines from alien attack. You got the tough bitch woman side-kick acting rough and so on. Whole crew of the film is like still shot of Watchtower pages, if you know what I mean? All genders, ages and races represented well. You got the sobstories and massive emotional hymns playing on background when patriots sacrifice themselves to save planet from aliens. And I guess it was described somewhere, that it is pretty much one-dimensional war movie, where simply out of political correctness, the enemy is hostile aliens. If they would have chosen some nation as opposing force, they could have actually offended someone. So lets choose enemy, what anyone can dislike and have sympathy for the colorful bunch representing "all of us" fighting for common cause. Oh please...  

So, after being so severely violated by this cinema experience, on my way to the car, I walked straight from movies to video rental on same street and grabbed Machete and watched that home. It is good. It is pretty much what you expect, but in this kind of tribute-to-the-grindhouse-roughies style, exaggerating the qualities that films have had and made pretty well working flick. If you're going to make plain brains-off action film, this is the way to do it.

But still, I came into conclusion, that why the hell should I pay or want to watch some new utter BS blockbusters, when there are endless amount of top films what can be either re-watched or watched for the first time. So, decided to check out:
DEER HUNTER. I'm sure this is film that most people know. Voted among best 100 films in the world, I guess, and I've had the dvd sitting on my shelves for years, waiting the moment when I want to re-watch it. And even if I did remember few moments from here and there, the genius quality of the film reveals itself much better now, than for teenage boy. Purely from perspective of appreciation of simple frames. Film is filled with moments, what would simply make perfect photographs. It is not afraid to being little "disconnected", where scenes move from one to another quite abruptly. Vietnam war is covered in handful of sequences, which happen quite far from eachother, and no explanation needed to fill the gaps. Director doesn't need to consider audience utterly brainless, but trusts they will fill the gaps by themselves.
Alienation the characters feel back in their hometown, is so much more pessimistic and you can't really consider too happy ending either. No world saved. No heroic deeds done.
Tension of the russian roulette scenes is pretty intense, unlike the foolishness described in movies above. Now when you think: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, and bunch of others.. In 3 hours war movie, where it's perhaps 2+ hours of small town drama. It may not sound tempting for all, but after being watched, one would say it's pretty safe to stick on the times when movies were movies. Even re-watching the same thing, is more fruitful than checking out what plays now in local cinemas...
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GEWALTMONOPOL

I remember the wedding scene in Deer Hunter being extremely long and boring to the point where I wondered if it was on purpose. I was thinking fuck this scene it just drags on let's get this war underway and maybe that was the idea. To make the viewer feel the monotony and boredom felt by the working stiffs in the film to the point where you the viewers as well as they can't wait to go only to end up in a hell no one could imagine.

I remember his other film, Heavens Gate, having scenes of similar length as in Deer Hunter. Heavens Gate is a pretty good western BTW.
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bitewerksMTB

I'm a fan of THE DEER HUNTER. I don't think I've ever seen it in the proper aspect ratio though; always on cable. There was a dvd version that was like a hardcover book with that great image of De Niro holding the rifle but I never bought it. Too many non-mainstream movies to buy.

Watched Code Red's dvd release of RITUALS last night. Great movie, for fans of DELIVERANCE and JUST BEFORE DAWN.

tiny_tove

LOVELY BONES - Peter Jackson-
Morbid, visionary, poetic, sweet. Loved it.
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Litharge

Quote from: heretogo on April 22, 2011, 10:48:46 PM
The Piano Teacher

Quite good and would probably interest some of you here. Drama filled with repression & sexual perversion. Leaves a lingering taste of revulsion or maybe it's just me. Strange masochistic fucked-up people behind the respectable facade of well-to-do society.

I definitely agree with the recommendation for "The Piano Teacher".  It was the first Michael Haneke film I'd seen, and I knew nothing about him at the time.  In addition to the perverse masochism displayed by the main character, there's some brief and satisfying moments of sadism as well.

I just joined the forum, and so have just started going thru all the interesting and useful information here, so I don't know if Haneke is recommended elsewhere in this thread, but really, just about everything he's directed is well worth seeing.  Maybe the one exception I'm aware of would be his own remake of "Funny Games"; I haven't seen it, and don't feel very inclined to, but I've read it's a scene-for-scene recreation of his earlier version, except with known, mainstream American actors in the leads.  With the exception of the father character in his original version of the film, I was familiar with none of the other actors, which for me is greatly preferred -- unknown actors, as opposed to Hollywood celebrities, allows for the quicker suspension of disbelief, and deeper engrossment in the story.

Litharge

I had also seen "The Deer Hunter" first when I was a young teen, and so wasn't able to fully appreciate many of the film's subtleties, nor all of the exceptional film making and story telling techniques.  But when I went back and viewed it as an adult the movie became one of the most memorable I've seen.

For years after its original theatrical release the Russian roulette scene became used as something of a pop culture parody in the U.S., but when I finally watched The Deer Hunter a second time the tension and desperation of that scene and those performances were impressive.  Beyond that, Walken's performance is filled with powerful subtlety; when he's trying to express himself at the V.A. hospital after his return from Vietnam the viewer can almost feel the pain of his inability to verbally express his answers to the person interviewing him.

The Deer Hunter for me is one of many mainstream, Hollywood and independent films that kind of represent cinema in the 1970s; often gritty, honest, and movies that would probably never get made and distributed today.  A couple of years ago when I watched the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" for the first time in many years, and the first time on DVD, I was reminded that not only is it one of the very best horror films of the 70s, but one of the very best movies of that decade, period. 

FreakAnimalFinland

Quote from: Litharge on April 28, 2011, 05:04:21 AMkind of represent cinema in the 1970s; often gritty, honest, and movies that would probably never get made and distributed today.

I watched DVD of PRIME CUT. 1972 film with Gene Hackman, Lee Marvin and Sissy Spacek. Pretty simple 1:23h length gangster/action film, what starts in sausage factory with one of gangsters being minced to make sausages of him, to be mailed back to his boss. Gene is the bad guy, getting young females out of orphanage, selling them drugged in cow-farm conditions. Naked drugged girls in cages, including topless Spacek. Lee Marvin does good job as old nearly retired gangster, taking care of the job with elegance. Violence, nudity, crime,.. very simple elements, but still far more entertaining than just about any movies done within recent years? 2009 Paramount dvd with no bonus of any kind, but brilliant picture&sound quality.
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GEWALTMONOPOL

Two Hollywood 70's greats that spring to mind and both featuring Jack Nicholson.

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE: Nicholson and Art Garfunkel (of all people) are friends at uni and you get to follow them, their first loves, female conquests and wives as they reach middle age. Garfunkel is the gentler more sensitive one and Nicholson is the likeable asshole. Goes without saying of course and both are great. Towards the end they sit and watch Nicholson's home made film of all the women who've had an impact on his life. Needless to say the scene is PRICELESS! The very fuckable Ann Margret makes a noticeable appearance as well.

FIVE EASY PIECES: Nicholson, once again the likeable asshole, a once promising concert pianist works on an oil rig in Texas. He decides to pay his family of stuffy elitist intellectuals a visit and brings his thick a shit redneck girlfriend (brilliantly played by Karen Black) with him. Nicholson exudes subdued anger and weariness at the same time in a way that only he is capable of. It's funny and ultimately quite sad.
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tiny_tove

Martin, add The Last Detail and you have 3 of the best movies with Nicholson!
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