What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

dark crystal

The People Under The Stairs (1991)

Well this was a strange one....

Wes Craven's darkly humorous look at suburbia sees a couple of opportunistic thieves attempting to steal from the wrong people in the wrong house. Horror awaits them as they attempt to flee from the murderous home owners, who harbor some nasty little secrets in their sprawling old manor.

Have to say, I really enjoyed it. Well worth a watch, if only to see Ving Rhames taking on a guy in a gimp suit, three years before that more well known encounter in Pulp Fiction.

7 out of 10.

kerry4sam

Borderline Murder had me freaked out watching it on RTE1 (finished moments ago)!

This sister goes missing after crossing the Mexican border to get implants. Believing that her sister is just being irresponsible, the main character is shocked to find out that her sister travelled to Mexico and then disappeared.

It was a crime thriller based on the true story of several patients who had visited Mexican plastic surgery clinics on the border!

Oh lads I'd one serious negative experience in the Czech Republic earlier this year and this somehow just brought it all back. Surreal Experience watching this film & re-living a nightmare!

Also a stark reminder of Different countries; Different rules & Different laws.

Borderline Murder is one to watch, but don't expect to sleep easy afterward

johnny_ultimate

Come & See - As much as a horror film as a war epic, Come & See is perhaps the most literal cinematic interpretation of 'war is hell'. Hellish indeed: this is a disorienting, miserable journey full of unspeakable violence and tragedy, brought to life by Elem Klimov with relentless intensity and surrealism. Case in point is the remarkable sequence where the young protagonist Flyora - who effectively ages several decades over the course of several days in the films, frequently emphasised in disturbingly intimate close-up - returns to his hometown following a Nazi bomb attack on a Soviet resistance base. It's fifteen minutes of sustained, discomforting dread, with a frantic camera making the viewer as uneasy as the content. There's a single shot, where Flyora's female companion looks backwards fleetingly. It offers a more devastating emotional blow in five seconds than most films can manage in 1,000 times that.

The film's other key centerpiece is a lengthy village massacre that dominates much of the second half. It's shocking and horrible to watch, the look of pure horror and confusion on Flyora's face throughout utterly justified. It's not subtle, though: there's a strong argument that, given the subject matter, it needs to be bold and obvious, but eventually the constant misery does almost become a little too blunt. This is particularly true of a sequence near the very end where the film betrays its existing stylisation completely to present this strange experimental archive 'montage'. The point it makes is important, but the execution feels decidedly inelegant given it doesn't really match cinematically with anything that's come before.

That said, it is undoubtedly a remarkable films in many ways: a visually robust effort that pounds you into submission, and for huge chunks of the 140 minute running time it's effectively impossible to look away as much as you want to. It's a desperate plea to remember the futility of war, and the human beings that become embroiled in it. It's a film of anger and passion. It might not trust the audience to make up their own mind quite as much as some other great war films (although the first half offers many strange, ambiguous scenes to ponder), but then whoever said a descent into hell was going to be subtle?

Oh, and avoid the Artificial Eye DVD. It's horribly digitised. For a prestiguous distribution company with a huge and worthy back catalogue, it's a damn shame they put so much effort into presentation at times.

Tony EH

I must admit to always being somewhat confused by the amount of kudos 'Come and See' gets all the time.

I've seen it about three or four times at this stage and always come away feeling very short changed.

It's really just a short about an atrocity that's been artificially inflated well beyond it's scope and for the majority of the picture is a tedious bore. Everything that happens before the famous village massacre scene ranges from the inane to the tedious.

I've always felt that if Kilmov had restricted his film to simply telling a straight story, instead of filling the screen will silly and sometimes inept surrealism, with some ridiculous characters, 'Come and See' might have been a much better film as a whole.

Instead, it simply comes across as a screenplay that someone had written about a massacre that's been embellished by another writer.

Baked.noodle

Tony EH wrote: »

It's really just a short about an atrocity that's been artificially inflated well beyond it's scope and for the majority of the picture is a tedious bore. Everything that happens before the famous village massacre scene ranges from the inane to the tedious.

I think the shelling in the forest was very impressive. I expect shooting such a scene is dangerous. For me the film is reasonably well put together, though I agree much of the disorientation and surreal can drag on a little. The German SS Major with the Prosimian is genius.

johnny_ultimate

The forest bombing is an incredible scene: I've never seen cinematic explosions with such devastating force, and the way the audio and visuals acknowledge that and its physical and psychological effects on our protagonist is deeply impressive. From there to to the sequence on the 'island' a quarter hour later I was completely transfixed. Beautiful, creative filmmaking - fluent in the language of cinematography, and just memorably strange, disturbing and upsetting.

Oddly enough Tony, I think I'd somewhat have the opposite response to you overall: I felt the film was at its most effective when it was surreal and ambiguous (barring the aforementioned Hitler montage). It was moodier and more distinctive, and felt the eccentric tone suited Klimov's intense directorial style.

I'm torn on the whole final act. It's certainly demanding, affecting cinema: one of the most vivid portrayals of human brutality and suffering I've seen. But I also thought it was somewhat cartoonish. I feel a little off saying that because actions that extreme, unpleasant and unforgivable did take place during the war: a fact the film reminds us of on a couple of occasions. But I don't know, it almost felt like a lecture where the audience is being told exactly what to think and feel. The scene under the bridge goes some way to course correcting and portraying at least some of the perpetrators as human beings with complex 'motivations' (hardly the right word!) for their deplorable actions.

Even as I'm trying to respond to this I'm finding my brain in conflict: one side is saying the themes could have been articulated in a more interesting, 'subtle' way, another is saying that the unrelenting brute force is exactly what Klimov intended and he undoubtedly managed to present a terrifying vision of the misery of war, especially the civilians caught up in it. Overall, it's a powerful film, but it's also pretty much the complete opposite of La Grande Illusion, which I'd consider something of a pinnacle of fictional cinematic representations of wartime. Ultimately, it's probably a good thing we have such radically varied approaches to themes and 'genres'!

upstairs for coffee

Moonrise Kingdom

Brilliant. My first Wes Anderson film. Hypnotic, mesmerizing, funny, sad, beautiful, perfect. Great film, one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Highly recommended.

6 euro on Amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B007IGGN46/ref=sr_1_1_olp?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1386424531&sr=1-1&keywords=moonrise+kingdom&condition=new but I got it in HMV/XtraVision 2 for 12.

Capote

Phillip Seymour Hoffman delivers an epic performance. Would recommend reading "In Cold Blood" before watching the movie. Very solid biographical film.

Bullseye1

Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) some really fantastic acting and cinematograpy but nothing that we haven't seen before. The leads Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara are brilliant as is the very under rated Ben Foster. 6.5/10

Tony EH

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'm torn on the whole final act. It's certainly demanding, affecting cinema: one of the most vivid portrayals of human brutality and suffering I've seen. But I also thought it was somewhat cartoonish. I feel a little off saying that because actions that extreme, unpleasant and unforgivable did take place during the war: a fact the film reminds us of on a couple of occasions. But I don't know, it almost felt like a lecture where the audience is being told exactly what to think and feel. The scene under the bridge goes some way to course correcting and portraying at least some of the perpetrators as human beings with complex 'motivations' (hardly the right word!) for their deplorable actions.

Even as I'm trying to respond to this I'm finding my brain in conflict: one side is saying the themes could have been articulated in a more interesting, 'subtle' way, another is saying that the unrelenting brute force is exactly what Klimov intended and he undoubtedly managed to present a terrifying vision of the misery of war, especially the civilians caught up in it. Overall, it's a powerful film, but it's also pretty much the complete opposite of La Grande Illusion, which I'd consider something of a pinnacle of fictional cinematic representations of wartime. Ultimately, it's probably a good thing we have such radically varied approaches to themes and 'genres'!

Well, considering that Kilmov was the head of Communist film production in the Soviet Union, it's pretty clear what 'Come and See' is designed to say.

I too consider the main section of the film to be cartoonish and bordering on the ridiculous to be honest. It certainly doesn't reflect any historical point. It's far too absurd for that. The Einsatzgruppen look nothing like their real life representation and they'd be more at home in a Mad Max film. The hot "nazi" girl eating lobster, while people burned in the barn looks like something from a fetish site. It's at once childish and stupid. It also destroys the manipulation that the film exercises.

As said, the film would have been better served if Kilmov has simple played it straight.

As a horror film, the last 1/3rd works, because the visuals are so blunt. But as a film overall, it's a disaster. As an historical record it fails too, like nearly every other war film, it has to be said. Certainly nowhere near Renoir's masterpiece, that's for sure.

And you're correct, it's a lecture...a Soviet lecture that's been officially sanctioned and in that regard, one has to be very careful what one takes away from it.

Tony EH

upstairs for coffee wrote: »

Moonrise Kingdom

Brilliant. My first Wes Anderson film. Hypnotic, mesmerizing, funny, sad, beautiful, perfect. Great film, one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Highly recommended.

If you liked that, you're going to love 'The Royal Tenenbaums'.

Barna77

Lovelace, on Linda Lovelace's rise to stardom after Deep Throat and her marriage from hell.

crazygeryy

Barna77 wrote: »

Lovelace, on Linda Lovelace's rise to stardom after Deep Throat and her marriage from hell.

Ehhhh was it good?

Barna77

It was alright. Some uneasy moments but yeah.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1426329/?ref_=nv_sr_1

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Shame

Unsure about this one really. Had to think about it for a while.

Is it just about a guy with a sex addiction who struggles to keep control once his sister shows up? Or is there a reason for it?

Either way it's really a very sad film. Brandon (Fassbender) isn't exactly unlikable but you're not really rooting for him either. You're just sort of.... watching him.

Brandon's clearly afraid of, or incapable of, real emotional contact with other people. He keeps everyone at arms length, everything is tightly controlled, and then Cissy shows up. Perhaps the one person he is capable of emotionally caring about, which then throws his carefully controlled world into chaos. I found the scene where he throws out all his porn, so much porn! and maybe attempts something of a real relationship with the girl from work but ends up with a prostitute instead really very sad. Not even in a "this guy is pathetic!" kind of way, it was just sad.

Towards the end as he really spirals out of control and we hear Cissy's voice mail about how they're not bad people, they just come from a bad place.... that made me wonder if there's a reason Brandon is the way he is? Obviously there's a reason, but it's never made clear what it is, which I suppose works well because it's left open. We're just watching this guy, we don't get to know everything about him.

ButtersSuki

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Shame

Unsure about this one really. Had to think about it for a while.

Is it just about a guy with a sex addiction who struggles to keep control once his sister shows up? Or is there a reason for it?

Either way it's really a very sad film. Brandon (Fassbender) isn't exactly unlikable but you're not really rooting for him either. You're just sort of.... watching him.

Brandon's clearly afraid of, or incapable of, real emotional contact with other people. He keeps everyone at arms length, everything is tightly controlled, and then Cissy shows up. Perhaps the one person he is capable of emotionally caring about, which then throws his carefully controlled world into chaos. I found the scene where he throws out all his porn, so much porn! and maybe attempts something of a real relationship with the girl from work but ends up with a prostitute instead really very sad. Not even in a "this guy is pathetic!" kind of way, it was just sad.

Towards the end as he really spirals out of control and we hear Cissy's voice mail about how they're not bad people, they just come from a bad place.... that made me wonder if there's a reason Brandon is the way he is? Obviously there's a reason, but it's never made clear what it is, which I suppose works well because it's left open. We're just watching this guy, we don't get to know everything about him.

Was very underwhelmed and disappointed in it. Went back to find what I posted on it and this line jumped out at me re. Fassbender - His accent is all over the place in it to the point that I wonder if the line where he says he grew up in Ireland in it was put in midway through shooting when they realised he sounds completely different from scene to scene. I gave it a 4/10 at the time and haven't thought about it since.

Watched Carnage last night having recorded it from RTE last week. Directed by Roman Polanski and starring Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and John C. Reilly, it is the tale of how a simple supposedly adult conversation about a fight between the two couples children escalates as each party examines the other through their own set of values. Based on the play God Of Carnage, Polanski effectively shoots it as such with almost all of the action taking place in one room. Waltz dominates as you'd pretty much expect, and while at first I thought Reilly wuld be way out of his depth in this, but he's surprisingly good. Indeed all the performances are top notch. I can imagine a lot of people would find this very boring, but I quite enjoyed it. 7.5/10.

Tony EH

+1 for a "meh" on 'Shame'.

But, I thought 'Carnage' was great too. Jodie Foster steals the show completely. She looks like shes about to boil over all the time.

I'll have to give that another spin.

Mizu_Ger

Elysium
Quite good overall. Effects were very good and seamless all the way through. The message of oppression was a bit heavy at times

Matt Damon gets beaten up by a robot cop and then we find that he works in the factory that makes the robots! Echoes of Colin Farrell in the Total Recall remake

. Jodie Foster's accent was a bit weird and I see the reason for it, but it was still a bit distracting.

I think it fell short due to the characters. I didn't find anyone to like in there. Maybe the grungy role for Damon was a stretch?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Was very underwhelmed and disappointed in it. Went back to find what I posted on it and this line jumped out at me re. Fassbender - His accent is all over the place in it to the point that I wonder if the line where he says he grew up in Ireland in it was put in midway through shooting when they realised he sounds completely different from scene to scene. I gave it a 4/10 at the time and haven't thought about it since.

I laughed so much when he said that. I had to pause it and go back because I missed some dialogue. I had the exact same thought and it reminded me of that clip from X Men where Magneto suddenly goes all Oirish

Apparently it was supposed to be set in London but McQueen couldn't get the funding to shoot there and ended up moving the whole production to NY. So that could explain the Irish/English combo of Fassbender/Mulligan. Although I'm not sure he'd have been any better at an English accent.

Considering all the hype it got when originally released I'd probably have to agree that I was underwhelmed by it. I had to think about it for a while afterwards to see if I liked it or not but after posting about it on here I didn't give it a second though, so yeah, I guess it's a Meh from me too.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Stuck In Love

Greg Kinnear plays successful semi famous writer, William Borgens, who still sets a place at the table for ex wife, Jennifer Connelly, despite the fact she left him 2 years ago. Their two children are aspiring writers, the daughter, Sam (Lily Collins), is at college studying and is just about to have her first book published. She's a serious cynic when it comes to love and prefers numerous one night stands to any real connections. Son, Rusty, is experiencing his first love, unfortunately it's with a girl with some serious issues.

I actually enjoyed this. It's not a very heavy film and the characters aren't hugely fleshed out and you can kind of see where everything is going straight away. You could probably take the same basic idea and make an emotionally hard hitting drama from it, but I liked that it was kind of light. Okay, it all wraps up maybe a little too nicely at the end but I liked the characters enough to care about what was happening to them. Well, the younger characters anyway, I wasn't too sure about the parents, but I didn't hate them or anything.

I've always been interested in the idea that two kids can be raised in exactly the same way and yet have completely different outlooks on life. Here it's love. Sam is cynical and keeps herself at arms length from relationships. Rusty is a romantic and puts himself out there to the wrong people at the wrong time. All coming off the back of the same experience, their parent's divorce. As I said, they only touch on these themes and issues and never go into any real depth on anything and I'm sure there are films out there dealing with the same things that are much more developed and intense but yeah... I quite liked this one. Worse ways to spend an evening.

Judgement Day

"The Last Remake of Beau Geste" (1977) - YouTube - Comedy based very loosely on the Beau Geste novel about the French Foreign Legion. Amusing with a strong cast including Marty Feldman, Peter Ustinov, Michael York and Spike Milligan. Partially filmed in Ireland (Adare Manor) and Ardmore. A bit dated now 5/10.

"Night Train to Murder" (1983) - YouTube - Comedy starring Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. Not great and I fell asleep several times. I'll give it another try soon.

" The Magnificent Two" (1967) - YouTube - Comedy starring Morecambe & Wise as two hapless toy salesmen who get caught up in a Latin American revolution. This is a far superior production to "Night Train.." and I would watch again but not for a decade or so. 8/10



"Mr.Bean's Holiday" (2007) - €1 DVD - Classic Rowan Atkinson. Saw it in the cinema when it came out but it was well worth another viewing with my kids. 10/10.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

solaris

3 hours of sweet **** all

--edit

maybe it was the bad subtitles on the version I have, reading the wiki entry now and I recognise the bare bones of the movie it describes but that's about it.

Padjooshea

johnny english was great

cursai

Gravity

Overhyped popcorn movie posing as existential mind snackbox . Silly plot and too much cgi. And whats she doing going around in shorts...money shot. Although it did look good for views of space and earth from orbit there are better docs and moives. Reminded me of Open Water in space

with no boyfriend to talk to

. Some wierd umbilical cord birthing nonsence in it as well. Spacewalking is so simple when you

have a fire extinguisher.

A much better film is the Right Stuff or more recently Sunshine.
5.5/10

Blackphoenix626

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

Elysium
Quite good overall. Effects were very good and seamless all the way through. The message of oppression was a bit heavy at times

Matt Damon gets beaten up by a robot cop and then we find that he works in the factory that makes the robots! Echoes of Colin Farrell in the Total Recall remake

. Jodie Foster's accent was a bit weird and I see the reason for it, but it was still a bit distracting.

I think it fell short due to the characters. I didn't find anyone to like in there. Maybe the grungy role for Damon was a stretch?

Only watched yesterday and was pretty disappointed in it. Would rate it a 6/10 story wise.

Birneybau

Judgement Day wrote: »

"The Last Remake of Beau Geste" (1977) - YouTube - Comedy based very loosely on the Beau Geste novel about the French Foreign Legion. Amusing with a strong cast including Marty Feldman, Peter Ustinov, Michael York and Spike Milligan. Partially filmed in Ireland (Adare Manor) and Ardmore. A bit dated now 5/10.

"Night Train to Murder" (1983) - YouTube - Comedy starring Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. Not great and I fell asleep several times. I'll give it another try soon.

" The Magnificent Two" (1967) - YouTube - Comedy starring Morecambe & Wise as two hapless toy salesmen who get caught up in a Latin American revolution. This is a far superior production to "Night Train.." and I would watch again but not for a decade or so. 8/10



"Mr.Bean's Holiday" (2007) - €1 DVD - Classic Rowan Atkinson. Saw it in the cinema when it came out but it was well worth another viewing with my kids. 10/10.

Why do you constantly do that to yourself?

Are you a masochist?

johnny_ultimate

Frozen - familiar story, wafer-thin Caucasian princesses, musical numbers, wacky talking sidekicks. It's a Disney film for sure, but you know what? It's actually a lot of fun. Imaginatively crafted, and with just enough twists to the bog-standard formula to make the stories and characters engaging. Even the music is mostly effective! Could have done without the talking snowman, and it's impossible to fully kick that cynicism with all the nonsense about 'true love's kiss', but it's a finely tuned slice of family entertainment that does a reasonably good job in at least getting close to the standards of the Disney films you cherished before you became a joy-hating pessimist

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Frozen - familiar story, wafer-thin Caucasian princesses, musical numbers, wacky talking sidekicks. It's a Disney film for sure, but you know what? It's actually a lot of fun. Imaginatively crafted, and with just enough twists to the bog-standard formula to make the stories and characters engaging. Even the music is mostly effective! Could have done without the talking snowman, and it's impossible to fully kick that cynicism with all the nonsense about 'true love's kiss', but it's a finely tuned slice of family entertainment that does a reasonably good job in at least getting close to the standards of the Disney films you cherished before you became a joy-hating pessimist

I never cherished the Disney films... was I born a joy hating pessimist? :eek:

johnny_ultimate

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I never cherished the Disney films... was I born a joy hating pessimist? :eek:

Oh, absolutely. Make sure to watch My Neighbour Totoro on repeat until you learn to love

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Oh, absolutely. Make sure to watch My Neighbour Totoro on repeat until you learn to love

I didn't even get a tiny bit emotional at Toy Story 3. I'm cold and dead inside!

No, I watched The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven on a loop when I was a kid. Bawled my eyes out at them both. Don Bluth got me. Disney just never did it for me.

upstairs for coffee

Mud

What a great film. The movie is all about the intentions, rules, consequences and teachings that love emits. Some may find it hammy or cheesy but I thought it struck a great balance between drama and melodrama. The two boy actors are fantastic, especially Ellis.

Really enjoyable and McConaughey, apart from his opening dialogue, is decent. Finally, Reese Witherspoon has a very oddly shaped head. They reminded me of Tom Hanks nipples in Captain Phillips.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00BJ0RG5C/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1386675348&sr=8-1&keywords=mud&condition=new