What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Tipsy McSwagger

Bad Grandpa - Boring, staged, not that funny, 2/5.

poundapunnet

Nosferatu Finally got around to this, it's been sitting on the shelf resenting me since Christmas.

I've never seen a BluRay of a film of this age (1922). I found the strangeness of seeing a silent film in this resolution quite distracting at first, not helped by the fact that most of the actors' make-up looks unintentionally terrifying (or by the fact that my drunk brother strolled by half-way through and commented "looks like instagram, hashtag just woke up!").

But, once you get accustomed to the BluRay it's actually an amazing visual experience, watch it on the biggest TV you can. Little directorial flairs like the progression of the sun through a series of holes in a ship's sail that would otherwise be easy to miss are done justice, the landscape shots at the start are beautiful by any film's standards, and a lot of the interior sets are actually gorgeous. Personally I think that silent films are some of the most beautiful films anyway, it's just a period of cinema I find very visually rich and, I don't know, enchanting. But if you don't like silent films this could be a good place to start.

It's not like it's going to lose you any sleep, the acting and story are of their time and melodramatic, the inter-titles similarly OTT, and I'm sure the special effects seemed great but even with the most generous of attitudes towards the film it's hard not to laugh at them (but

then again, they made Count Orlok's coach look like it was moving really fast just by running the frames more quickly or whatever, and 85 fcuking years later Twilight fcuking said "sure that'll be grand, just hit fast forward. Grand")

. But damn is it creepy, the get-up of Max Shreck is still genuinely a bit frightening and the unintended effect the BluRay has on the other actors' make-up obviously works to the film's benefit here. The

very effective ship of death and town under siege from the "plague"

are elements normally left out of "Dracula" films, even if the idea of slowly being picked off by unseen forces has been taken and expanded upon by other horrors. And of course there's the money-shots that we've all seen, Orlok framed in the window, looming on the ship, the shadows slowly advancing. All in all a film well deserving of its status as a masterpiece, excellent choice for a reissue on bluray. 10/10

Sad Professor

poundapunnet wrote: »

Stella Dallas Had seen it before but needed to re-watch for a college assignment. Starring the frankly fantastic Barbara Stanwyck (I have her entire filmography downloaded and ready to go for whenever I get some free time), it's a stone cold weepie classic. For a melodrama the score is actually very unintrusive and used to brilliant effect in a few scenes-the mournful reworkings of Happy Birthday, Silent Night and The wedding March at pivotal points really contribute to getting the hankies out. Stanwyck and Anne Shirley are brilliant in it, it's ably acted all round and there's a surprising amount of laughs given the age of the film (from 1937) and the subject matter. But that last scene will get you. A really touching film, highly recommended. 8/10

I don’t know what the topic of your essay is, but it might be worth noting the film’s influence on the later part of Ozu’s filmography, especially Late Spring. The whole parent-child dynamic is pretty much identical. Ozu was a basically melodramatist but is rarely called one. Probably because the word melodrama has developed negative connotations in the West. Which is a shame because many of those old Hollywood melodramas are fantastic.

poundapunnet

Sad Professor wrote: »

I don’t know what the topic of your essay is, but it might be worth noting the film’s influence on the later part of Ozu’s filmography, especially Late Spring. The whole parent-child dynamic is pretty much identical. Ozu was a basically melodramatist but is rarely called one. Probably because the word melodrama has developed negative connotations in the West. Which is a shame because many of those old Hollywood melodramas are fantastic.

Limited to Hollywood for this assignment unfortunately, but melodrama's definitely an area I'm interested in writing more about so thanks for the tip! They are fantastic films, can still see influences and references in films today, tis just a pity the term has become such an insult.

grohlisagod

Ended up watching Jennifer's Body on RTE the other day.

Poor stuff. My usual reluctance to leave a film midstream and the inevitable lesbian scene all that kept me watching.

Zero Dark Thirty

A good watch overall with strong performances throughout. Felt a little too long though and the whole siege of Bin Laden's camp sequence dragged.

BopNiblets

Bunraku
A mix of genres, mainly a martial arts & western revenge flick.
But the style is comic book and very theatrical (think Sin City mixed with Scott Pilgrim play), like the set design and lighting, there's even some cool animation in parts and some of the most fun fades and cuts I've seen.
Josh Hartnett and Gackt play the cowboy and samurai characters, teamed up with bartender Woody Harrelson, and try to take down warlord Ron Perelman, his right hand Kevin McKidd (who is great) and a gang of assassins!
Fun stuff, B+

Judgement Day

Another couple from YouTube. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1939) with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as the bumbling Dr.Watson.



Still my favourite pair when it comes to Sherlock Holmes movies. Very atmospheric telling of the story and black and white is perfect for the misty Dartmoor scenes. I think at last it has converted my 11 year-old to liking black 'n' white movies. 9/10

“Night Train to Munich” (1940) Starring Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison and directed by Carol Reed. I had this on my watch list after viewing “Odd Man Out” (1947) also directed by Reed but it doesn’t stand comparison. A spy film set at the outbreak of WW.II. (the actual day the Germany invaded Poland) which concerns the spiriting out of an important scientist from Prague to England and his subsequent kidnapping and return to Germany. This movie, while it has its moments, is more in the mould of the aforementioned Hound of the Baskervilles than a genuine spy film and contains the same type of humour. Overall I enjoyed it but it wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea. 8/10

johnny_ultimate

In Another Country / The Day He Arrives - After being seriously impressed by Nobody's Daughter Haewon last year, I've finally started delving into Hong Sangsoo's back catalogue. It's a shame none of his films before Haewon have received proper releases here, but thankfully we live in a world where we no longer need to be restricted by region issues It's worth the hassle to track them down.

Both films are purposefully tricky and unusual, sharing many commonalities. Sangsoo is one of the great contemporary directors of conversations: using very long takes and a capable band of actors, on one hand his films are very Rohmer or Cassavettes esque. He's constantly self-depreciating, revisiting and remixing archetypes - most notably the unhappy film director - in his films. But he's also a bit of a formal prankster, playing around with structure in ambiguous and ultimately rewarding ways. On one hand you have this beautiful, poignant naturalism, on the other you have this strange cinematic loop of repetition and uncertainty. And there's those trademark camera zooms, drawing explicit attention to themselves in the midst of carefully, believably staged conversations. Sangsoo collides stylistic obtrusiveness and subtlety to create this provocative dialogue about cinematic form - never providing straight answers, but engaging the audience with fascinating questions about the way films are shaped, their potential for capturing reality and ways of exploring character-based narratives.

In Another Country is probably the funnier of the two. Isabelle Huppert plays three different French women visiting a Korean seaside town for very different reasons. All three stories have very similar setups with several recurring characters (most prominently an eccentric lifeguard who lives in a tent in a carpark). But they play out in very different ways: what happens, for example, when one of the women turns left instead of right? The middle section even has several alternate versions within itself, playfully riffing on various possibilities. Huppert does a great job making three believably different characters, and the strangeness of the whole thing is one of its most endearing aspects.

The Day He Arrives, on the other hand, is a little more difficult but ultimately more poignant and rewarding. It's like some sort of psychological, unexplained Groundhog Day, although that's a touch simplistic an explanation. We follow a filmmaker returning to Seoul for a few days from his new teaching job in the country. He meets up with friends, goes drinking, pines for his ex-girlfriend, finds himself attracted to a bar owner (played, intriguingly, by the same actress who portrays the girlfriend). Again broken up into several looping, recurring days with no concrete sense of temporality, the situations and encounters again go off in increasingly curious directions each time - some similarities, some differences. It proves to be a strong character study, as well as a thoughtful reflection on coincidence, opportunity, mistakes, self-consciousness, chance etc... Shot in sombre black & white, it's a beautifully odd piece of work.

poundapunnet wrote: »

Nosferatu Finally got around to this, it's been sitting on the shelf resenting me since Christmas.

If you haven't seen them, pick up Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans and Tabu on Blu-Ray as well, both on Masters of Cinema. They're not as obviously iconic as Nosferatu, but for me they're even richer and more accomplished films than Murnau's earlier film!

hadepsx

the wolverine

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good effects, poor story though.

gravity

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amazing effects, plot and dialogue a bit off imo, boring in parts/amazing in others.

delivery man

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i was expecting a comedy, what i got was increments of comedy/ court room stuff/ serious issues/ depressing issues./ make u cry moments. didnt seem to know what kind of film it wanted to be, odd enough film.

Baked.noodle

Inequality for All (2013)

A documentary that follows former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich as he looks to raise awareness of the country's widening economic gap.

Whilst I was not surprised by much of the factual phenomenon and issues raised by Mr Reich I was impressed with how comprehensive and well constructed this documentary presentation is. The man comes across with genuine understanding of the complex issues, and maintains reason balanced with genuine optimism for the future. I would encourage anybody who is interested in what the past and present can offer people bewildered by the socio-economic developing reality of today's western and the wider world to take a look. He doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but encouraging people to positively explore possibilities is a good place to start.

run_Forrest_run

Blackfish - well that's me done when it comes to trips to SeaWorld etc.
Excellent documentary, and at 80mins it made its points clearly without drawing it out.

The Black Oil

Jack Reacher

First hour moves along pretty well, strong opening scene. You've got Cruise as a determined, confident, perhaps slightly cocky Reacher working with the straight up Helen (Pike). Beyond that, there's not much here in terms of character, but at least there's a little dose or two of humour. The conspiracy thing...let's not bothering saying too much. The second half, well, I found it became a little difficult to care, really, post single punch anyway. Still, nice little superhero inspired scene near the end. Herzog's presence is odd. Up the scripting game next time, please.

kryogen

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

Blackfish - well that's me done when it comes to trips to SeaWorld etc.
Excellent documentary, and at 80mins it made its points clearly without drawing it out.

Great watch

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

Blackfish - well that's me done when it comes to trips to SeaWorld etc.
Excellent documentary, and at 80mins it made its points clearly without drawing it out.

kryogen wrote: »

Great watch

Lolita: Slave to Entertainment is a similar documentary which does a much better job at showing the wider issue of captivity rather than just focusing on Seaworld.

mewe

Watching House Of Flying Daggers on Channel 4 and remembering just how beautiful it is to watch.

kearneybobs

Made the gf watch The Godfather last night. She was dreading the 3 hour runtime and usually falls asleep about halfway through a film, but she was engrossed the whole way through. She really liked it.

One of my favourite films of all time, I haven't watched it in about 8/9 years. Was great feeling watching all these years later. Currently trying to convince her to watch the second one at some point today, which I think might happen!

Watched Chronicle on Netflix. It really is better than the sum of it's parts.

MagicMarker

Escape Plan - Atrocious.

A V A

i thought this was a great film,although the film focuses on a man in love with his OS, the film itself resonates with some very real aspects of relationship development.

crazygeryy

MagicMarker wrote: »

Escape Plan - Atrocious.

Yea saw this last night. If the movie was half good you'd forgive stallone and arnies acting. Good god they are awful.

MilanPan!c

MagicMarker wrote: »

Escape Plan - Atrocious.

Hmmmm...

I personally wouldn't call it atrocious. It's not as bad as a SYFY original or a Tom Berenger movie... But it is mindless.

The hilarious thing was how Stallone makes Ahnold look like such a crap actor.

kryogen

Ah lads, A Letter to Zachary, heartbreaking stuff and rage inducing, but mainly heartbreaking

Goldstein

Let Me In. An unnecessary immitation at best. A pale comparison.

poundapunnet

kryogen wrote: »

Ah lads, A Letter to Zachary, heartbreaking stuff and rage inducing, but mainly heartbreaking

The story and the testimonies in that were heartbreaking, but the way the film is put together wrecks my head. So much gimmickry and needless flashiness. The story speaks for itself like, totally unnecessary.

kryogen

poundapunnet wrote: »

The story and the testimonies in that were heartbreaking, but the way the film is put together wrecks my head. So much gimmickry and needless flashiness. The story speaks for itself like, totally unnecessary.

I have to agree actually, didnt like the editing at all.

johnny_ultimate

Yeah I'm the same, there's no denying the emotional impact of the story, but as a piece of documentary filmmaking Dear Zachary is maddening. It above all lacks a 'removed' or objective perspective: the fact that the filmmaker is so personally involved in the story is IMO problematic, and he emphasises points of view and opinions that most viewers will understand for themselves. That he uses every emotional manipulative trick in the book doesn't help, it has all the grace of a home movie slapped together in iMovie (not to disparage Tarnation). Which is a shame, because I've seen documentary films about a director's own experiences - most recently The Missing Picture - that still manage to be really formally subtle and engaging. That the story in Dear Zachary resonates is, I think, testament to the remarkable, heartbreaking tale itself rather than any of Kurt Kuenne's work.

TheMollusc

Paths of Glory

Finally got around to watching this film again after my Criterion blu-ray arriving recently.

Paths of Glory is one of Kubrick's earliest films but still has his distinctive style and visuals that lasted well up until his death in 1999. It is a war film that transitions into a courtroom drama and then changes into a different film yet again but with every change it maintains its momentum throughout and the overall piece is a great and tragic movie by a master of the medium. One of the greatest anti-war films ever made.

ButtersSuki

Was "out foreign" over the weekend and had a few hours to kill before my flight home so decided to go to the cinema. Nothing on of note that I hadn't seen but then Dallas Buyers Club caught my eye as it starred Matthew McConaughey - normally that would be enough to make me turn and walk away but given his recent good turns in Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and the excellent cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street I decided to give it a go, despite knowing absolutely nothing about this movie. Was I in for a treat. The story of a southern redneck n'er do well who catches the HIV virus in the 1980s, McConaughey gives the performance of his life, ably supported by a barely recognisable Jared Leto. The physical transformations of both actors is astonishing, bordering on Christian Bale in The Machinist if you need a reference point, but both performances are way, way deeper than just the physical changes. As McConaughey's character begins a fight against "the system" we see him change from self-centred homophobe to a more caring and crusading person and see the challenges and prejudices he and other early AIDS patients faced. 8.5-9/10.

Pure fluke I saw it yesterday, but just seen McConaughey and Leto both got Golden Globes for their performances last night. Hard to argue with either to be honest, and I say that having thought Bale was a shoe-in after seeing American Hustle.

It's only January 13th and I've already seen 3 excellent movies this year (American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street and this (this being the best - genuinely!))......and I've yet to see 12 Years A Slave!

ButtersSuki

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Lolita: Slave to Entertainment is a similar documentary which does a much better job at showing the wider issue of captivity rather than just focusing on Seaworld.

And The Cove! I want everyone to see The Cove!

Tony EH

TheMollusc wrote: »

Paths of Glory

Finally got around to watching this film again after my Criterion blu-ray arriving recently.

Paths of Glory is one of Kubrick's earliest films but still has his distinctive style and visuals that lasted well up until his death in 1999. It is a war film that transitions into a courtroom drama and then changes into a different film yet again but with every change it maintains its momentum throughout and the overall piece is a great and tragic movie by a master of the medium. One of the greatest anti-war films ever made.

If I had to choose a "best Kubrick film", 'Paths of Glory' would be it.

Mizu_Ger

Lifeforce:
I'd never heard of this film until recently. Finally got around to watching it (on Netflix) over the weekend and it wasn't what I was expecting! Starts off as a Sci-fi epic, then turns into exploitation, on to some British sci-fi before taking in Quatermass and the Pit for the finale. All the time infused with silly dialogue, b-movie characters, fantastic (state-of-the-art) special fx and a complete lack of tension. It's worth a look for being so ridiculous, but I can see why it's not talked about much anymore. I'm surprised it didn't turn up on Moviedrome years ago.