What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Bullseye1

Lovelace. Somewhat interesting biography of famed porn star Linda Lovelace and the story behind Deepthroat. It's my understanding there has been four biographies written about the woman with wildly differing conclusions. Not sure which is is based on but it does look like she was treated like a piece of dirt by the then husband. Rental at best.

Spring Breakers. Story of four girls trying to finance their spring break. No further explaination from me as I simply did not enjoy this one. Poorly written and acted. James Franco does give a somewhat entertaining performance but not enough to save this movie for me.

I give it a Year. This one was a bit if a surprise as it dealt with a young couple getting married and discovering that they don't really have anything in common. This is a type of romantic comedy but alittle be on the darker side. I guess it's the anti romcom. Certainly worth a rental.

Spying Game. I recall quite liking this Tony Scott movie but base not seen if for the best part of 10 years. It's always good seeing Robert Redford I this kind of form. For me this comes highly recommended. Not a huge amount of action more RR character moving the pieces around the chess board to get the desired outcome.

Call Me Jimmy

Mysterious Skin came on right in the middle of a yoke and it ****ed my head. I was almost like, how did they even get this made?

jcsoulinger

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Mysterious Skin came on right in the middle of a yoke and it ****ed my head. I was almost like, how did they even get this made?

that is some ****ed up ****!

Call Me Jimmy

As i said i was on a yoke at the time so my levels of receptivity and feeling were through the roof so I felt abused after it. Couldn't stop watching it though, it was a very strange film experience.

DazMarz

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

As a fan of heavy metal, particularly that overblown and grandiose style from the 1980's that is being lampooned here, I was in absolute hysterics the first time I watched this. Having seen documentaries on so many of my favourite bands, the similarities and wonderful nods are all there.

This is also one of the most priceless and brilliantly funny comedy films out there. It was arguably too close to the bone for some rockers, who failed to see what was so hysterically funny; Iron Maiden allegedly walked out of the London Premier in a huff, believing it to be about them.

The film's central plot concerns an ageing British heavy metal band (the eponymous Spinal Tap) who are trying to re-conquer America. However the band swiftly lurches from one disaster to another. Sometimes the disasters are just bad luck, but more often than not it is the band's arrogance, stupidity and ego that brings these disasters down upon them.

The 1980's was the age in which rock n roll excess reached its zenith; bands daubed in make-up and wearing leather, high heels and hairspray began taking themselves far too seriously. The arrogance and ego of some of the bands was unbelievable; while some bands had a right to be like that as they were actually huge, some bands who were only mediocre and hadn't exactly broken big began behaving like that and it became one huge creche for childish rockers.

This film wonderfully takes aim at and devastates the whole image of rockstars, their antics and all the nonsense they went on with.

The set-pieces are spectacular and the dialogue is top-notch (most of it was improvised). It is the little attention to detail in certain areas that means that you can watch this film over and over again and still spot something you'd never seen before. Add to the fact that all the actors playing the band were talented musicians and played all their own music just adds to the image.

Turn it up to 11, remember Stonehenge, don't use cucumbers for anything other than eating, be careful if you're a drummer... and let's boogie!!!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

vampire

it's a shunji iwai film so.. I love it. I don't know why. I'm pretty sure he could direct an episode of the big bang theory and I'd find something positive to say about it.

still... I have no idea what I just ****ing watched.

Duggy747

A Good Day To Die Hard

I've seen the reviews and people's reactions but I was bored at home and intrigued by how bad it could be.

Surprisingly.............no, it was an incoherent visual and narrative mess coated in orange and teal with too many annoyances and an unmemorable villain.

McClane is just a complete asshole in this film, with his reign of terror on the civilians of Moscow while constantly quipping that he's "on vacation" despite the whole point he's in Russia is to go to his son who he knew was locked up. He's been turned into a sociopath who enjoys destruction and killing + maiming endless streams of people, commenting how fun his day is to his son at one point.

Zero exposition as to why the son actually hates McClane so much that he puts a gun to his head when they first meet, you don't expect a serious family insight but something to latch onto would've been nice. That being said the plot is full of shìt, with dull "twists", exceptionally fast travel from Moscow to Chernobyl, and the McClanes penchant to resist radiation.

Die Hard 4 was no Die Hard film but it was a decent action film in it's own right. This is no Die Hard film and is just plain bad with no redeeming features.

Judgement Day

You didn't like it then?

ButtersSuki

Watched all 6 episodes of The Corner back to back today. I read David Simon and Edward Burns book "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood" a few years ago and bought the DVD series immediately after same but was waiting for a rainy day to watch it all in one go. Grim, gritty, dark and depressing it's the story of one family's year in and around a drug-dealing corner in Baltimore. As you'd expect from the writers it's very The Wire-esque in terms of style and setting, and features an awful lot of The Wire's cast - in fact it often looks and feels like you're watching The Wire! An excellent piece of television that serves as a fantastic accompaniment/prequel/alternative perspective to The Wire. If you liked The Wire, you simply have to watch this. An easy 8/10, maybe even a 9 :eek:

johnny_ultimate

Millennium Actress - oh poor Satoshi Kon Perhaps the man's masterpiece (and arguably his most atypical, although Tokyo Godfathers could also lay claim there), this is a whirlwind tour through and celebration of Japanese cinema, told through the perspective of a Setsuko Hara inspired actress. History, memory and cinematic fiction collide in a visually robust, structurally inventive and gorgeously animated film. A film that I only appreciate more as I've grown and older and learned about its various contexts.

Early Summer - from a fictionalised Setsuko Hara to the real deal. Has anyone in feature film's first century ever had such a distinctive, memorable and cinematic smile?



As for the film, it's a sort of Yasujiro Ozu greatest hits, taking bits and pieces from his favourite themes, alongside drafting ones he would revisit later. A large cast of characters provide a rich tapestry of material - the cheeky kids desperate for their train set (reminiscent of Good Morning / I Was Born But...), the aged parents dealing with adult kids carving their own path (ala Tokyo Story), the free spirited 'Noriko' under social pressure to get married (ala Late Spring and others). But what Ozu might have lacked in variety he made up for in sheer force of delivery, and this is endlessly comforting in its familiarity and confidence. Expertly realised, as is to be expected. It's the affection for his characters that makes Ozu such a distinctive figure in cinema history, and it's business as usual here - a probing of society's many complications and hypocrisies, but all realised with absolute stylistic control and a deep-rooted humanity.

A Time to Live and a Time to Die - a brilliant Masters of Cinema transfer, this is a war story with a difference. A Hollywood war film with a German perspective, it's certainly a major change from the norm, once you adjust to the slightly odd array of accents on display (around half the actors are American or English, the rest native German - including an early minor role for a one Klaus Kinski). In (German native) Douglas Sirk's hands, it's a triumph - a perfect mix of melodrama and subtlety, of grand scope but sharp focus. As Godard notes, the title sum it up perfectly - a love story set against a dangerous, impossible backdrop where tragedy is rarely more than an air raid siren away. It's a brilliant shift in perspective from your typical 1950s American war story, humanising individuals so often demonised. Sirk infuses the tale with visual echoes and motifs, adding that extra layer to an already satisfying, complex whole.

Chikamatsu Monogatari (the Crucified Lovers) - An accompanying video essay on the BluRay by Tony Rayns suggests this is something of Mizoguchi on autopilot. Well, perhaps the greatest Japanese film director who ever lived (and probably my own favourite director, point blank) on autopilot still has the ability to woo and bewitch me almost completely. A period tale of misunderstandings and repressed passions, it might not be the most stylistically accomplished film the man ever made, but it still offers stunning design, emotional intensity and thematic depths in abundance. I look forward to continuing my trek through this year's best boxset.

poundapunnet

Good Vibrations I was watching the special features of the directors' previous film (Cherrybomb, it's terrible, don't bother) a while back and they were discussing how good it was to finally be able to make a film set in Northern Ireland that didn't even have to mention the Troubles, that the time had come when it could be totally be left behind. I happened to be watching that just as the riots over the Union Jack kicked off in Belfast, so it was interesting to see how they'd revised their position re: the Troubles since then, it's still very much a post-Troubles film but accepts that it has to be acknowledged.

It's strange to see a film that takes financial ruin, sectarian violence and punk music as its primary areas of interest and manages to come up with such an uplifting take on it, it is absolutely relentlessly positive. Good integration of the archive footage, with the exception of Dylan Moran everyone manages the accent reasonably well, and Richard Dormer really is great. There's a bit of a manic edge to his performance, I think without it the uncritical attitude of the film towards the protagonist would have gotten to be a bit much. It is distracting sometimes how obvious it is that the actors playing the musicians aren't touching their instruments, and I definitely would not approach this as a history lesson. But, overall an easy, enjoyable, uplifting film about the 1970s in Northern Ireland that you can watch with your British friends without it being awkward, and there aren't many of those. Doesn't pretend to be anything it's not and succeeds very well on the terms it's set out for itself, in fact it manages to be actually nostalgic about those days through how it handles the subject without glossing over anything, which is frankly impressive. 7/10

Mizu_Ger

After Earth
Jaysus this is bad! A real vanity project for Will Smith and family (only the dog is missing from the list of producers). The cod psychology is taken so earnestly that the whole thing is a bore. The effects are good, but it's basically a live action platform video game.

M Night S has taken a turn with this and The Airbender film. The Happening and The Lady in the Water may have been crap, but at least they were his own films. Now he's just making other people's crap!

ButtersSuki

After the highs of The Corner yesterday I undid all my good work by watching The Hangover Part III late last night. Absolutely awful. I didn't laugh once in its 100 or so minutes. It has absolutely no redeeming features, is lazy, pointless and just unfunny. 1/10

upstairs for coffee

The Idiots (1998) - Lars Von Trier

Glib. The movie has high pretensions which it fails to realise. A group of bored middle class and middle aged people group together with the aim of fighting their own middle class beings. This is despite the groups home being a luxurious country house home; the epitome of middle class.

The group, led by Stoller, rebel by "spassing" or bringing out their inner idiot. Stoller is an angry man, but he doesn't seem to know what he is angry at. He is sarcastic, condescending, arrogant and rude. His half-baked ideology -"spassing" - is nothing more than pseudo-intellectual attempt at self-actualisation. Stoller and his group "spass" out together in the comfort of their community. However Stoller wants to see if the member's of the group can "spass" not within the confines of the "spass" community but actually "spass" in their own personal work/family lives.

Instead of Stoller proving the legitimate aspirations of the "spass" community by "spassing" out in his own personal/work life, he lets a game of spin the bottle decide who has to "spass" out at home. However the chosen member cannot "spass" out in his workplace, infuriating Stoller. The implications being that the member is "spassing" not because he has a genuine belief in the ideology but in the hope that it raises his artistic ability.

The redeeming part of the story deals with the character Karen. A personal tragedy has occured but she cannot grieve. Her ability to grieve has literally been retarded by the shock of the tragedy. So by joining the group and by "spassing" she is able to convey her grief.

There is an unsimulated penetrative sex scene which adds nothing of cinematic value to the story. It is an indication that the director's ego is subverting his actual story telling/directorial ability.

It is filmed in accordance to Von Trier's Dogme 95 manifesto and it suffers as a result. In one scene you can quite clearly see a camerman holding the handheld camera thus making it seem like a college film and the workings of an amateur director rather than Von Trier.

Overall 3/10.

Available to buy on Amazon for about 6 euro - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00A17W0GE/ref=sr_1_2_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1384790497&sr=8-2&keywords=the+idiots&condition=new

jcsoulinger

ButtersSuki wrote: »

After the highs of The Corner yesterday I undid all my good work by watching The Hangover Part III late last night. Absolutely awful. I didn't laugh once in its 100 or so minutes. It has absolutely no redeeming features, is lazy, pointless and just unfunny. 1/10

Surley the sight of Ken Jeongs
gigantic member deserved a giggle.

charlie_says

I saw in the last week or so:

District 9

Boy A

Memories of Murder

A Hijacking

All very different, but enjoyed all of them. In particular Memories of Murder was excellent. A Hijacking is a superior film the similarly themed Captain Phillips imo.

briany

La Haine (1995)

In a project somewhere on the outskirts of Paris, three friends deal with the consequences of the riot that they partook in the night before.

A solid, gritty slice of urban life and a well acted drama. It's not action packed or anything but it's more a look into the whole situation the friends find themselves in; on that day and just in general.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

watching picnic last night before vampire, just forgot to include it in last nights post as vampire had me full of wtf

decent movie. cheap looking, not terribly well acted in most parts and kind of a ridiculous premise but it's shunji iwai so I liked it


tonight I watched hana-bi, been a couple of years and it was excellent as always. i always feel like that little gag with the junkyard owner and the small dude he was bullying is meant to go somewhere... never does, or maybe it's just meant to be a two-time small gag.

watched Dolls after. only my second time watching it and the first time was 7-8 years ago. Didn't remember anything so didn't know what to expect. completely floored. when

the yakuza meets up with his girl only to get shot 5 minutes later and never to see her again. yeah it's nice and all for him that he got to meet her again before he died but it's just so awful for her. her hopes were raised and just crushed in a short space of time, could really see it on her face in her final scene, I very nearly teared up. I suppose it doesn't really end well for anybody concerned, the bound beggars at least got a moment of rememberance and realisation before they met their end. Had to give myself a minute during the credits to compose myself before switching the dvd player off.

its movies like dolls make me wish i knew a little about cinematography and the like. was such a strange looking film at times, like it was filmed on a home camcorder. maybe it was just the lighting, something to do with the bunraku theater mebbe. *shrug* bits of it reminded me of a matter of life and death too... was trying to figure out why but came up with nothing.

charlie_says

I watched Project Europa which was pretty decent Sci Fi even though it was lost footage format. I really liked the EVA scenes with the closeup video feed of the astronauts face as the sh1t hits the fan.

Also on a TV note, have started South Cliffe the UK show. Quite impressed so far. Dark as feck!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Not a film but I rewatched the Cloudstreet mini series made by Showtime Australia a few years back. It's an adaptation of the book by Tim Winton and he wrote the screenplay for them too. I loved the book and this is the best adaptation of a book I've ever seen, probably because of the involvement of the original author.

It tells the story of 2 families, the Pickles and the Lambs over the space of maybe 10-15 years. The Pickles inherit a house but when Sam gambles away all the money they inherited too they're forced to take in lodgers in the form of the Lamb family. The youngest Lamb boy, Fish, was nearly drowned when he was younger and never properly recovered. He sort of lives on a different plane from everyone else and sees and hears things that the rest don't. The house itself is a character too. It's a living breathing house of sorts. There's a bit of mysticism or magic or whatever you want to call it and one of the main themes is the idea of fate, do you make your own or do you just accept what's given to you?

It's beautifully shot and very different stylistically to anything I've seen before. Like I said, not a film, but I really loved it.

The Dom

Seen In Fear tonight.

Had heard some awful reviews but I kinda liked it.

It's very very slow to begin with but gets going once Alan Leech shows up.

Certainty not a great film by any means, editing could have been sharping for one thing but worth a watch for sure.

bellinter

Given the week that's in it....

JFK

I absolutely love this film. Still probably the best editing I've ever seen in a film. Yes, the theories put forth sound more and more bizarre as it goes on... but even if you dont believe any of them specifically, it is hard to argue that there isnt something amiss.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

bellinter wrote: »

Given the week that's in it....

JFK

I absolutely love this film. Still probably the best editing I've ever seen in a film. Yes, the theories put forth sound more and more bizarre as it goes on... but even if you dont believe any of them specifically, it is hard to argue that there isnt something amiss.

There's an interview in this month's Empire with Oliver Stone and he claims to have met a man who was involved in the assassination. He wouldn't say anymore but said he might write about it one day. He sounds a bit mental to be honest.

bellinter

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

There's an interview in this month's Empire with Oliver Stone and he claims to have met a man who was involved in the assassination. He wouldn't say anymore but said he might write about it one day. He sounds a bit mental to be honest.

read that alright... pinch of salt! Would be crazy if true

tunguska

Dark Shadows

Reviews weren't great so didnt bother to catch it in the cinema but I really enjoyed this. Johnny Depp had me in stitches, especially the part where he tells Eva Green to pucker up and repeatedly kiss his posterior. Some very funny scenes and dialogue. There probably wont be a sequel but if there is I'm sold.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Before Midnight

i'd watched sunrise and sunset during the last week or two, planning to finally get around to Midnight.. I'd been putting it off for months, last minute mind changes or suddenly realising I had to watch escape from La again.

the last 15-20 minutes had me really really worried. I don't think I'd have been able to enjoy the first two films again if the movie had ended the way it was threatening to

thought it was incredible anyway. it felt right.

--edit

finished the evening off with hana and alice

was looking through imdb after the movie though and now i'm being driven demented trying to place an actor. the photographer in hana/alice is so familiar, and is apparently in lily chou chou as well.. cant place him at all though.

bellinter

The Internship

Okay I'm going to say it... It's not that bad! Based on everything I had heard about it I was expecting utter b*ll*cks but it was enjoyable enough for what it was; fluff. Watching 2 lads struggling with technology probably would have been funnier maybe a decade ago though (seriously, how many times can they expect a laugh from VV saying "on the line")

anyway, a watchable yet forgettable film that will have dated horribly in a year or two.

poundapunnet

The Skin I Live In I like Almodóvar, but after a while he can get a small bit samey; visually, character-wise, thematically. I guess it's the sign of an auteur (if you're into that kind of thing), but a few years after watching I find it can get hard to remember which psychotic transsexual dressed in bright colours murdered which priest dressed as his mother, or something.

Not a problem with TSILI, sticks out from the main body of work without being an incongruous blip. Much closer to a horror than any of his other works, while still addressing core concerns: the complexity of loss and desire and the inward and outward radiation of their destructiveness, the fluidity and artificiality of the identities we impose on ourselves or

in this case very literally

have imposed upon us. Right down to the midway switcheroo it's typical Almodovar but a pretty unique film. A few brilliant bits, one that's particularly sticking with me is

a rape scene which I found to be uncomfortably eroticised, but which punishes the (presumed male, heterosexual) viewer for engaging with it in that way by later revealing the victim to be a transsexual, the bloodstained bed that results from Robert shooting the rapist in the act acquires a different significance in light of later revelations too

. I'm dying to watch this again, the references to art and literature are very deliberate and I'd like to able to pay a bit more attention to them without being distracted by the plot. 9/10

And lest the tone get too high Dead Meat Unless you're a real terribly-low-budget Horror completist or particularly interested in the machinations of the Irish Film Board there's probably not much here for you (there was a fair amount of debate over whether horror fell within the cultural remit of the board during deciding whether or not to give funding for this). It's a hoot to be honest, messes around with the iconography of rural Ireland on screen in a vaguely entertaining way

have you ever seen a rabid/zombie cow brought down by a sliotar to the forehead? Do you want to? Go watch this!

, there's some genuinely funny dialogue and visual gags, and some unintentional comedy from the quality of the acting and the frankly insane wardrobes of the female characters (seriously, it looks like they robbed a clothes bank with their eyes closed). 4/10

Sleepy

The Kings of Summer - Quite enjoyed this. Seems to have half the cast of Parks and Recreation but I particularly liked Nick Offerman's turn as the only sane adult in town father....

DazMarz

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Had put off watching this for a while, so finally sat down and watched it last night. It's solid, if unspectacular, and there are some niggly little things about it that could have been changed/improved-upon, but overall it's an entertaining little run. Quite long, it has to be said (clocking in at 136 minutes), but it never really drags as much as it could have.

I was a bit perturbed initially when the film came out. It had only been 10 years since the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire SpiderMan came out, and only 5 years since the third of that trilogy, so I wasn't sure if it was "right" to reboot it so soon and with the Raimi Trilogy still so engrained in the public's mind. Despite a fairly lacklustre third chapter, I still felt that the Raimi SpiderMan had a lot to offer yet.

There were some spectacular set-pieces and some wonderful moments in the film. Minor gripes for me were that Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield; he was 29 when this film was made, yet easily looked like the doe-eyed, innocent teenager without much of a problem) sometimes came off like too much of a smartass and a bit of an arse at times. The transformation of Dr. Curt Connors from mild-mannered doctor to complete psychopath was a bit too pushed. Peter Parker is gifted, but he's able to construct the web-flinging thingys in his bedroom and gets his hands on Oscorp's web-like substance without much bother? His mad gripping ability seems to come and go when the film calls for it. Minor stuff, but you can't help but think "No way".

I also don't think we needed another rehash of SpiderMan's origins again; I don't think that anyone would need to be reminded of the story of what set young Peter Parker on the road to becoming the web-flinging superhero. Martin Sheen is a nice addition to the universe as Uncle Ben, but it is a story we've all heard/seen/read so many times now, I don't think it needed to be done again.

I remember when the first SpiderMan film came out in 2002 and maybe it's just childhood nostalgia, but I prefer that film. Haven't watched it in a while, but from just memory, I preferred Raimi's effort. Maybe it was from me being a bright-eyed, easily impressed 13 year old, but I found it to be brilliant and still enjoyed it (though, admittedly, haven't watched it in a while).

The Amazing Spider-Man might be overstating it a bit; but then again, I don't think "The Alright Spider-Man" would entice people to watch it.

It's solid film, with some brilliant effects (particularly for The Lizard) with good, solid acting turns from all concerned and a decent plot. There is something lacking somewhere, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it just didn't feel as brilliant as it could have been. Maybe the little moments of humour were a bit too forced or something.

A solid 7/10, but it could so easily have been 8 or 9, were it not for some minor gripes.