What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

e_e

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Norte, The End of History - At 250 minutes long, Norte is something of a commitment. But despite it certainly seeming like four hours, I would have happily stayed watching (albeit with the possible assistance of an interval) given how engrossing this strange and beautiful film is.

Saw it and was left quite disappointed and frustrated tbh. Found the final hour in particular to be hectoring, didactic and bordering on the sadistic. At odds with the beauty and sense of discovery that the first 3 hours offered, going from being a truly unique experience to becoming a kind of typical arthouse miserablism 101. Pretty infuriating to me because I found SO much to recommend in the film otherwise.

Liam McPoyle

Tony EH wrote: »

Is this available to buy now?

I've had a crappy avi of it for years.

Ebay

Tony EH

Cheers Cat.

Didn't know it went under that name.

Mike Litoris

Tony EH wrote: »

Cheers Cat.

Didn't know it went under that name.

Lol...Experiment des Todes Anthony doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I saw Begin Again today. I really liked it. I liked it better than Once, I have to say.

It's lightweight but in a good way, charming, funny, likable and the songs are really good. Without sounding cheesy or anything it was pretty much the perfect film to see after 2-3 weeks of watching people killing each other around the world.

Joya

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I saw Begin Again today. I really liked it. I liked it better than Once, I have to say.

Is it an Irish movie?
Askin' cause I really liked Once.

edit: sorry i just googled it so i see it is not, pardon me : )..

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Joya wrote: »

Is it an Irish movie?
Askin' cause I really liked Once.

edit: sorry i just googled it so i see it is not, pardon me : )..

Depends on your definition of an Irish film. The writer/director is John Carney who wrote/directed Once and is indeed Irish.

Joya

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Depends on your definition of an Irish film. The writer/director is John Carney who wrote/directed Once and is indeed Irish.

aw thank you, well it could not be defined as an Irish movie I'd say, but I am not to sure about it.
Anyway since the director is of Once and is Irish I would like to see that movie now : )

Btw I loved Once being filmed in Dublin, I think Dublin looks really good in a movie : ).

e_e

Has some Irish bands in it too and yer man Simon Delaney has a cameo.

Liam McPoyle

The Bunny Game

This started doing the indie festival circuit around the same time as A Serbian Film and it has garnered much fawning from alot of the underground horror community and much (not unwarranted it has to be said )notoriety, it is banned outright in the UK and a number of other countries.

The plot (such as it is) centres around a drug addicted prostitute that gets abducted by a trucker (original or what! :pac: ) and then spends the duration of the movie getting tortured and abused by said trucker, and thats it.

Now this isnt a "torture porn" flick in the vein of Hostel or Saw, there is no blood or gore whatsoever but where this differs is that everything that happens throughout actually happens as in nothing is simulated. It includes asphyxiation, sado masochism and hot iron branding among other scenes of humiliation and degradation.

Stuff like that does'nt really phase me as in the context of this movie, it is all planned and controlled some what.

Shot entirely in black and white, with a jarring death metal soundtrack, this movie fancies itself as something of an art house film where in actuality, at least in my estimation, its an S & M porno dressed up as a horror movie.

While the acting, nay endurance, shown by Rodleen Getsic is commendable, this is an utterly worthless piece of crap devoid of anything I could recommend people to watch it for.

Ive heard it compared to Slaughtered Vomit Dolls which is ludicrous as the only similarities is that both movies centre around a prostitute. SVD is a piece of crap too by the way, but at least it had some decent SFX work.

The amount of sycophantic praise Ive seen heaped on this is actually mind boggling to me and I would say to all and sundry, avoid this like the plague.

For those of you that want to see an actual underground masterpiece thats shot in black and white I highly recommend E Elias Merhige's visually stunning Begotten.

As for this, its 75 minutes of my life I will never get back and Im rather browned off about that.

Birneybau

e_e wrote: »

Has some Irish bands in it too and yer man Simon Delaney has a cameo.

I hate that Billy Barry [EMAIL="B@stard"]B@stard[/EMAIL].

conorhal

McGrath5 wrote: »

There Will Be Blood

I probably cannot count the amount of times I have watched this film, but it just simply gets that little bit better than the previous time.
From the opening scene to the very end, Day Lewis puts in an astonishing performance, it is simply of my favourite films from the past decade.

I have to admit that I just don't get that film, DDL gives a powerhouse performance and the cinematography is amazing, but as Oscar Wilde once said that 'Drama is life with all the dull bits cut out', There Will Be Blood seems to have been composed almost entirely of those off cuts, with damn near every interesting event in the film happening off screen.

conorhal

Business Cat wrote: »

80's monster movie classic.

Some cool transformation effects, some ropy monster effects, decent enough story centering on dodgy experiments and whacky doctors.

Enjoyable for what it is.

6/10

Hmmmm I must add this to the 'ol download list, I binge nostalgia watched some absolutely awful 80's horror video nasties a couple of months ago. Christ they were God awful, but you had to admire the gleefu enthusiasm that they were made with:

C.H.U.D.
Re-Animator
Return of the living Dead
Basket Case
Fright Night
Critters

Somehow that one managed to slip by me!

Joya

conorhal wrote: »

I have to admit that I just don't get that film, DDL gives a powerhouse performance and the cinematography is amazing, but as Oscar Wilde once said that 'Drama is life with all the dull bits cut out', There Will Be Blood seems to have been composed almost entirely of those off cuts, with damn near every interesting event in the film happening off screen.

i'd agree, i find that movie good but very very dark too, i would not watch it again..... i don't think so at least..

e_e

conorhal wrote: »

I have to admit that I just don't get that film, DDL gives a powerhouse performance and the cinematography is amazing, but as Oscar Wilde once said that 'Drama is life with all the dull bits cut out', There Will Be Blood seems to have been composed almost entirely of those off cuts, with damn near every interesting event in the film happening off screen.

To me there's enough tension and dread in it for 10 films, let alone one. It's also hilarious at points in a very very dark way. Even compared to the absolutely brilliant No Country For Old Men TWBB stands apart as the really groundbreaking (no pun intended work), it is a true original.

Tony EH

conorhal wrote: »

Hmmmm I must add this to the 'ol download list, I binge nostalgia watched some absolutely awful 80's horror video nasties a couple of months ago. Christ they were God awful, but you had to admire the gleefu enthusiasm that they were made with:

C.H.U.D.
Re-Animator
Return of the living Dead
Basket Case
Fright Night
Critters

Somehow that one managed to slip by me!

'CHUD', 'Re-animator' and 'Return of the Living Dead' are hardly awful.

WHIP IT!

Finally got round to watching A Prophet... I was a bit disappointed with it. Heard it was great but, in the end, I thought it was just 'fairly good'.

Could've done with 20 minutes or so chopped off it...

johnny_ultimate

Lady in Shanghai - safe to say it isn't exactly Orson Welles' magnum opus, and the hatchet job the studio did with it is all too obvious (especially during the opening minutes). The plot is nonsense at times, if rather effective once it gets going. Welles also offers a spectacularly dodgy Irish accent. Nonetheless - it is a thoroughly enjoyable and idiosyncratic effort despite the fact it's clearly rough around the edges. Welles' singular visual style remains, if not as pronounced as some of his others works - all deep focus and deeper shadows. And there's the ending - a tour de force sequence, capturing a confrontation in a fairground, that has enough visual energy to fuel an entire film on its own.

Pluto - anyone following Asian cinema recently might have noticed the emergence of the 'bullying' film - darker and more cynical high school dramas that harshly critique the dog-eat-dog exam culture and social cliques that have become prevalent. Most explicitly you can see it in films like Bleak Night and King of Pigs. Pluto can be added to the list, and I have to say I thought it was well worth a watch - a taut and efficient thriller that's accessible and engaging without sacrificing its core darkness. The two main characters are brought to life by the script and the performances, although the peripheral ones can be a bit on the cartoonish side. Directed by an ex-teacher Su-won Shin, she ultimately articulates her concerns about the South Korean school system in a clear and passionate way. It has proved divisive among both Korean viewers and Western critics, but for me this is a film made by someone who feels very strongly about the subject matter, and has managed to transform that passion into a very well crafted genre piece. Most of all, like the other films in this 'subgenre' there's an urgency about it, recommending a change to a deep-rooted culture that's putting too much pressure - social and academic - on students.

Ace in the Hole - Belatedly getting around to the MoC BluRay release of this, and indeed the film itself. One of Billy Wilder's darker efforts, it surely was an uncommonly uncompromising film for its time, and remains surprisingly so today. The heart of the film is Kirk Douglas, who plays 'newspaper man' Chuck Tatum, who will stop at nothing to get his story. In this case, 'nothing' means prolonging the ordeal of a man who has gotten stuck down in a mine to stretch those headlines as far as he can. A raw and abrasive performance if ever there was one - from the cocksure asshole of the opening chapters to the near-insane man, finally comprehending the effect of his selfish decisions, who occupies the last starling close-up (that last scene is a powerful reversal of an earlier one). It's also a great cinematic portrayal of a media circus - there's some tremendous aerial and panning shots capturing the chaos of the scene as more and more flock to see this 'human interest' story firsthand. Contrasted to the isolation of the surrounding wasteland, there's some real sights to behold here.

briany

Gadjo Dilo (1997)

A young French man is in Romania, with a set of cassette tapes, and the intention to track down the gypsy singer he heard on them. There, he winds up in a gypsy village, quickly becoming involved in the lives of the residents.

Just a really nice film. Many of the supporting actors were just gypsy people brought in, who never acted before or since. Again, it's a slice of life film, perhaps my favourite kind. If it's yours too, it's definitely worth consideration.

conorhal

e_e wrote: »

To me there's enough tension and dread in it for 10 films, let alone one. It's also hilarious at points in a very very dark way. Even compared to the absolutely brilliant No Country For Old Men TWBB stands apart as the really groundbreaking (no pun intended work), it is a true original.

I can watch the first 15 minutes of the film rapt, after that it all falls apart for me into turgid anti-drama and all that tension you speak of exist almost solely beneath DDL's magnificent mustache in his clenched jaw, that spends two hours plus grinding with menace and supressed rage while a largely disinterested film ambles along around him and only sporadically stutters into life.

I though No Country For Old Men was head and shoulders better, and I'm not even averse to ambling character studies, Andrew Dominicks The Assination of Jessie James is one of the most criminally ignored films around, but P.T. Anderson has never really done it for me, I tend to find his work as a whole almost deliberately unengaging with the exception of Boogie Nights.

conorhal

Tony EH wrote: »

'CHUD', 'Re-animator' and 'Return of the Living Dead' are hardly awful.

Ah they are by any reasonably standard, the acting is dreadful, the direction pedestrian and the scripts.... yeah.. well...
Still they have a certian charm, everything is dialed up to 11, the effects are goofy and on the whole they're so utterly bonkers that you couldn't dislike them, they are the DNA that the Sy-Fy channel just can't replicate, no matter how many Sharknado's they try turning out.
Lots of beer and nostalgia gets them a pass from me, but I can't see anybody sober and new to them thinking that the goofy grin I had on my face while binge watching them wasn't surely indicitive of some mild mental illness.

Bipolar Joe

Also, Fright Night is fucking AWESOME.

mikemac1

Hartigan

Set in Newcastle in 1974. The country is near bankrupt, police stations are being shut down and violent scum rule the streets. It's extremely bleak and depressing and the good people in the community are terrified of the criminals

The actor who was the priest in Ballykissangel is Sergeant Hartigan who is back on duty after a spell away. He reopens a small police staion and takes on a criminal family.

This film got terrible reviews. I really liked it.

4/5, it's on Netflix

Aidric

'A Single Man'. In terms of feature film directorial debuts it almost scales the heights of Von Donnersmarck's 'The Lives Of Others'. The fact that that 'The Lives of Others' is my favorite film of all time says a lot about the regard in which I hold this film.

Could a renowned fashion designer cross over to the medium of film and do the novel of the same name justice? I was skeptical that this film may look the part but ultimately fall flat in its telling of the story. There was no need because Firth delivers the performance of his career as the single man struggling with grief. He manages to capture the inner anguish in a way I've only seen one other actor do to the same affect. That was Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.

That it looks the part comes as no surprise. Ford trusted his actors to stay true to the source material of Isherwood and Firth, Moore & Hoult pay him back in spades. Special mention also to Abel Korzeniowski's score which is enduring and a class apart.

This was my third watch and served to confirm in my head that this is indeed an unexpected masterpiece.

Tony EH

conorhal wrote: »

Ah they are by any reasonably standard, the acting is dreadful, the direction pedestrian and the scripts.... yeah.. well...
Still they have a certian charm, everything is dialed up to 11, the effects are goofy and on the whole they're so utterly bonkers that you couldn't dislike them, they are the DNA that the Sy-Fy channel just can't replicate, no matter how many Sharknado's they try turning out.
Lots of beer and nostalgia gets them a pass from me, but I can't see anybody sober and new to them thinking that the goofy grin I had on my face while binge watching them wasn't surely indicitive of some mild mental illness.

Nah, you're kind of thinking of the wrong films there lad.

The "so bad they good" vibe that shite like the truly awful and unfunny "Sharknado" is trying to achieve come from different films. The likes of 'Silent Night/Deadly Night', 'Zombie Creeping Flesh', 'Piranha II' or 'Zombie Lake' are the template for those stupid SYFY rip-off's. The Likes of 'CHUD', 'Re-Animator' or 'Return of the Living Dead' are a different beast altogether. First of all 'CHUD' is actually a decent genre film, that has perfectly fine acting (early appearance of Daniel Stern) and 'Return of the Living Dead' is a punky comedy designed to play out exactly the way out did. Both are very competently made. The same too goes for 'Re-Animator', another comedy and shot as such.

Personally I HATE those SYFY things. They miss the point completely. The people who set out to make those "so bad they're good" films didn't do so with that intention. They, in most cases, genuinely tried to make good films that, through a combination of natural "talentlessness", zero budget and a load of other factors, ended up making a load of old bollocks that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons.

The **** that make that SYFY nonsense are trying to emulate that vibe, but with a budget that's probably many times that of a Bruno Mattei film and that takes the whole point away.

johnny_ultimate

The Man Who Stole the Sun - I suspect there are many hundreds if not many thousands of weird and wonderful films out there that have fallen into obscurity. Most of us are only likely to stumble across them by accident and watch them with no small amount of effort. The Man Who Stole the Sun is one such film.

Directed by Kazuhiko Hasegawa (one of only two or three features, I believe), this 1979 effort is unlike any other. It defies simple classification - the film is constantly switching moods and even genres with a giddy enthusiasm. It's about a science teacher (Kenji Suwada) who opts to build himself an atomic bomb. Not knowing what to do with it, he starts making impulsive demands of the Government - from allowing full baseball games to be broadcast on TV to forcing the organisation of a Rolling Stones concert in Tokyo. Bunta Sugawara plays the police officer determined to stop him.

It sounds crazy, and it is. But Hasegawa takes the premise and goes in all manner of directions with it. It captures the social (and atomic) anxieties of late twentieth century Japan, but is also happy to offer an hilarious scene where an atomic bomb is casually kicked around like a football or visual gags about radiation poisoning. An entire half hour or more of the film is dedicated to the painstaking, almost documentary like construction of the bomb with barely a word of dialogue spoken, while later chapters transform into a cat and mouse chase including a full-on car chase. It's an offbeat character study, black comedy, 70s paranoia thriller and more.

Stylistically it's brilliantly bonkers - an early heist consists of a stop motion-esque photo montage, while the music is fantastically, dissonantly jaunty (a casual enquiry about a piece of music in Evangelion 2.0 is what brought the film to my attention - the song is actually used wholesale in the later film). It's a film that keeps the viewer on their toes throughout, all building to a pitch-perfect conclusion.

Suffice to say, I enjoyed the hell out of this film. It's the sort of totally idiosyncratic and madly ambitious film that is rife for both critical and audience reappraisal - actually rediscovery might be the right word, given its obscurity outside of its homeland. And it's not just a zany curio, but a bold and accomplished film in its own right. If you can track it down, it's absolutely worth it. It's a cliche, but there's nothing like The Man Who Stole the Sun.

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

Decuc500

Joe.

Very atmospheric backwoods Americana. Nicholas Cage is excellent as the flawed 'hero' who tries to do the right thing and help out a local kid who is beaten regularly by his father.
It's set in a rural America where poverty and violence are the norm and most of the characters in the film are nasty people.

It was similar to recent films like Winter's Bone or Mud. This type of gritty Southern gothic drama has been done well recently.
Nice soundtrack too.

marko93

The Purge: Anarchy

Went to see this in the cinema last night. Thought it was miles away from the first one, but in a good way. There was definitely flaws with the movie but I enjoyed it from start to end.

7/10

adox

Ah Re-Animator is a real classic. Both funny and ott at the same time.

Frankenstein brought into the 80s "video nasty" mould and the cast look like they had a brilliant time making it.

ButtersSuki

Have been confined to the house for the last week with the Ebola Virus (not really, but it felt like it at times) so caught up on a few things I've been meaning to watch:

Started off with The Bridge (Danish/Swedish Version) recorded from BBC4 late last year. Above average Police drama/thriller with a nice handle on the small details. The highlight was Kim Bodnia as Martin Rhode. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. If you like your nordic noir, you should see this. Those of you new to subtitles :roll eyes: please note this is very slow in comparison to your average US/UK police drama! 8/10.

Then onto The Bridge II. More of the same though not as good as Series 1 as some of the plot parts are just a little too far fetched. Bodnia however, excels again. 6/10.

Then went a little less serious with Paranormal Activity 4 on DVD. Thankfully this was a gift and not something I bought myself as it'd by far the weakest of the PA series so far. A very disappointing 4/10.

Finally, and the one I was most looking forward to The Man With The Iron Fists: Unrated and Extended Edition on Blu Ray. This I did buy (unfortunately) and of course I went all out and bought a US import with the above extended feature on it. I missed it in the cinema (I think it was here for just a week, I'm not surprised now in hindsight) but loved the trailer at the time and have been waiting for the right moment to watch this since. The first thing I noticed is how "bass heavy" the background music was - I had to adjust the settings on my amp and speakers a few times before I could sit down to watch it properly. I was attracted too this as it was written, produced and directed by RZA, as well as him having a starring role. Throw in Quentin Tarantino in a production role and I thought happy days. I was wrong. RZA has taken on too much and the end result is just one giant mess really. I think it's really struggling to know what it wants to be and tries to overcomplicate what should have been a basic revenge movie by throwing in as many "homage to random kung fu classic pic" scenes as possible. RZA is ok in it from an acting perspective I guess (a few cheesy lines apart) but Russell Crowe is awful (and awfully fat) in it and at times it seems like he is trying to outdo Don Cheadle's accent in "Ocean's Eleven" and claim the title of "Worst English Accent in a Movie" from him. Lucy Liu is dialing it in, but I'll forgive her - as she's Lucy Liu and on "my list" . And now added to my list Jamie Chung is very nice to look at, but doesn't do much else. The rest of the cast are underutilized but again, some of the accents are just baffling. The CGI is overused, the fight scenes done in split scene are a bit "fighting by numbers" and the wire work scenes are too frequent and thus overused. The only positives I can really say about it are that some scenes are visually pleasing to the eye and colorful, and at times, it does remind one of Kill Bill. But that's really searching for positives! An incredibly disappointing 3.5/10. And there's a sequel apparently! Or else it was a fake trailer at the end credit. I don't know, but that stage I was doing well not to have turned it off…….