What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

R P McMurphy

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Soaked in Bleach - Tom Grant, a private investigator once hired by Courtney Love, reveals his take on the death of Kurt Cobain.

Just goes to prove what a conniving cúnt Love is.

I wouldn't have an awful lot of love for her but the documentary was terrible. Agenda ridden, poorly edited and produced. They were stretching all over the place to try and make links that didn't really look to be there at all. The PI was looking at junkies and surprised that they were behaving a little erratically. 2/10

Sugarlumps

R P McMurphy wrote: »

I wouldn't have an awful lot of love for her but the documentary was terrible. Agenda ridden, poorly edited and produced. They were stretching all over the place to try and make links that didn't really look to be there at all. The PI was looking at junkies and surprised that they were behaving a little erratically. 2/10

He was no Magnum.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

It Follows definitely enjoyed this, and I was half-expecting to be badly let down because of all the hype.

I did have one or two niggles, either in how things were visualised (seriously dude, the less

There's-Something-About-Mary hair styles and invisible people throwing toasters at swimmer

you can manage, the lower the potential for unintended comedy), or relating to character motivations: there's more than a dollop of the horror cliché of characters behaving with unbelievable stupidity to the point where you're just going "oh yeah, great, run UP the fcuking stairs. I don't even care, you DESERVE to die". But, in a film that's so openly mining the slasher cycle, that's definitely forgiveable.

Very well cast, great score, and fantastic camera-work. I've read reviews from a couple of people who were annoyed at the camera doing 360 so frequently but I thought it was great. Both because that's what you'd feel like doing in the characters' situation and because as a viewer you were always waiting to see what or who was going to be visible when it returned to a certain point in the circle.

I really liked that, apart from knowing that the threat was actually real

and seeing the results of it very briefly in the opening

, the audience doesn't have any privileged information that the characters don't have. So many horror films are just waiting for people to figure out what's happening, whereas here we were all similarly in the dark. We don't know precisely what would happen if "it" gets hold of J, any more than she does, we don't know the origin of "it", any possible way of killing it. We don't need that information to be afraid, and to be invested. That is skillful fecking horror film-making, especially considering an almost complete lack of gore and how simple and innocuous the threat we can see is

someone slowly walking towards the protagonist

.

I can, unfortunately, very easily picture It Follows VI:It Begins in circa 2022, where the real creepiness and skill of this great wee film is ruined by over-explanatory, over gory sequels, much like pretty much every slasher film of the early 80s is now. Glad to have been around in time to catch this one before it got ruined

ButtersSuki

Jackpot Jo Nesbo penned story about 4 guys (3 ex-cons and one "goodie") who win the pools and naturally, everything goes wrong from that point on. I like Nesbo's books by and large and I really liked the "Headhunters" movie but this is very poor by comparison. Parts of it really reminded me of "Shallow Grave" for some reason (maybe because it's largely set in an apartment?) but it's not as tense, funny or clever as either of the aforementioned films. I recorded this from either BBC3 or 4 recently but I wouldn't go out of your way to find it. A very disappointing 4/10.

fin12

Jurassic World, really enjoyed watching it, good film, chris Pratt is gorgeous

Tony EH

Mila Clumsy Termite wrote: »

It Follows definitely enjoyed this, and I was half-expecting to be badly let down because of all the hype.

I did have one or two niggles, either in how things were visualised (seriously dude, the less

There's-Something-About-Mary hair styles and invisible people throwing toasters at swimmer

you can manage, the lower the potential for unintended comedy), or relating to character motivations: there's more than a dollop of the horror cliché of characters behaving with unbelievable stupidity to the point where you're just going "oh yeah, great, run UP the fcuking stairs. I don't even care, you DESERVE to die". But, in a film that's so openly mining the slasher cycle, that's definitely forgiveable.

Very well cast, great score, and fantastic camera-work. I've read reviews from a couple of people who were annoyed at the camera doing 360 so frequently but I thought it was great. Both because that's what you'd feel like doing in the characters' situation and because as a viewer you were always waiting to see what or who was going to be visible when it returned to a certain point in the circle.

I really liked that, apart from knowing that the threat was actually real

and seeing the results of it very briefly in the opening

, the audience doesn't have any privileged information that the characters don't have. So many horror films are just waiting for people to figure out what's happening, whereas here we were all similarly in the dark. We don't know precisely what would happen if "it" gets hold of J, any more than she does, we don't know the origin of "it", any possible way of killing it. We don't need that information to be afraid, and to be invested. That is skillful fecking horror film-making, especially considering an almost complete lack of gore and how simple and innocuous the threat we can see is

someone slowly walking towards the protagonist

.

I can, unfortunately, very easily picture It Follows VI:It Begins in circa 2022, where the real creepiness and skill of this great wee film is ruined by over-explanatory, over gory sequels, much like pretty much every slasher film of the early 80s is now. Glad to have been around in time to catch this one before it got ruined

Yeh, I've read a lot of backlash crap on the web about 'It Follows' and I think that a lot of it can simply be put down to backlash posturing. 'It Follows' is a very fine film and one that I'd easily count among the best genre films for a long, long time. The soundtrack alone is worth seeing the picture for.

Sure, there are people doing "stupid things", as there is in most films (and life in general), but I usually put that down to a character's lack of experience and in the case of the film in question, the unique nature of the film's antagonist, which is a great central idea and satisfactorily left vague enough to remain intriguing. Besides, I don't think the characters in 'It Follows' do anything too dumb.

The greatest achievement of 'It Follows', though, is the sense of utter, empty, dread that persists throughout the whole film, even before the entity shows up and the way the filmmakers subtly encourage the viewer look at the entire frame to see if the "follower" is lurking in the background.

However, like you EB, I can see the inevitable diminishing sequels coming down the line that will lamentably dilute the original film, which is, as you say, unfortunate.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan

Tony EH wrote: »

Yeh, I've read a lot of backlash crap on the web about 'It Follows' and I think that a lot of it can simply be put down to backlash posturing. 'It Follows' is a very fine film and one that I'd easily count among the best genre films for a long, long time. The soundtrack alone is worth seeing the picture for.

Sure, there are people doing "stupid things", as there is in most films (and life in general), but I usually put that down to a character's lack of experience and in the case of the film in question, the unique nature of the film's antagonist, which is a great central idea and satisfactorily left vague enough to remain intriguing. Besides, I don't think the characters in 'It Follows' do anything too dumb.

The greatest achievement of 'It Follows', though, is the sense of utter, empty, dread that persists throughout the whole film, even before the entity shows up and the way the filmmakers subtly encourage the viewer look at the entire frame to see if the "follower" is lurking in the background.

However, like you EB, I can see the inevitable diminishing sequels coming down the line that will lamentably dilute the original film, which is, as you say, unfortunate.

I watched it a second time to check if i missed anyone else in the background.

The sense of dread was great and i genuinely jumped when

the tall follower came into the bedroom, behind the leads friend.

Tony EH

Yeh, that was a great scene.

Del.Monte

"Prince"(2014) on Netflix.



Didn't expect much and wasn't disappointed. Bruce Willis is a baddie, and Jason Patric a retired assassin that accidentally killed the former's wife and daughter in a botched car bombing. Willis who, mercifully, hardly appears during the movie has Patric's daughter kidnapped to get the retired assassin out in the open. Endless bullets fly but this is one turkey of a movie with nothing to recommend it. 1/10

and only because Willis get blown away in the end

.

Back to "Ultimate Force" last night which is surprisingly good despite the presence of Ross Kemp.

RE*AC*TOR

der siebente kontinent

Creepy, tense, nihilistic. Uncomfortable to watch at times.

However, when considered purely as artistic expression, I think it is very successful, lots of merit.

It's possibly the exact opposite of a rom-com.

Fysh

I caught Uncanny last night,as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. It was pretty good, dealing with similar subject matter to Ex Machina and thus working quite well as a sort of companion to that film. I found out 2 interesting nuggets at the Q&A afterwards:
1) the final scene, which to me seemed like a blatant nod to

Demon Seed

, was written before the writer had seen the film, though it was quickly mentioned by someone else in the production team when they read the script,
2) the budget was around $200K.

Harry Palmr

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Dir Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

A English WW2 pilot and an American member of air control staff fall in love over the radio as one is about to fall to his presumed death.

What is this film about? Its about two distant peoples hopelessly intertwined by history and circumstance and a celebration of love and life over death made in the wake of a six year slaughter.

Some of the optical work and paintings still look fabulous.

OldRio

Harry Palmr wrote: »

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Dir Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

A English WW2 pilot and an American member of air control staff fall in love over the radio as one is about to fall to his presumed death.

What is this film about? Its about two distant peoples hopelessly intertwined by history and circumstance and a celebration of love and life over death made in the wake of a six year slaughter.

Some of the optical work and paintings still look fabulous.

Thanks for that, and for obvious reasons I'm going to dig out 'The moons a balloon' A great read.

Chain Smoker

All This Mayhem
I love the X Games and all the sports involved, know f*ck all about them and I've never even considered trying any but I love 'em, absolutely no reason behind it beyond the sheer splurge of nostalgia it arises in me but f*ck it, lap up most documentaries about extreme sports. This one sounded like it could be great; good topic, very solid critical reception, think I saw a few people here singing its praises too so I was pretty excited. Didn't enjoy it at all though, and that entirely comes down to unlikeable and untrustworthy narration.
I can handle a narrator being unreliable when it's so obvious that they're going to be (you're narrating your life story, try and be unbiased about that!) but this dude was so extremely embittered and some of his targets didn't seem altogether justifiable (stop and think for a second how much of the **** they throw at Tony Hawk seems at all verifiable or reasonable) and the filmmakers seemingly tow the line throughout, making no attempts whatsoever to challenge him on anything, editing everything to back up his claims. The whole "we didn't care about competitions and winning or anything like that, we just wanted to have fun" claim usually stinks of a retrospective changing-of-the-goalposts mentality and here was no different. By the time it got to the redemption chunk I was left wholly unconvinced he was being at all sincere; I'm extremely cynical of dudes who become born again Christians* in prison, it often seems like they're just jumping at the easiest way to avoid addressing their issues and this guy's attempts to explain how he's reformed rang very hollow.


* This wasn't mentioned at all in the film from what I can recall, no clue whose decision that was but it's definitely to the benefit of the film. Finding out afterwards didn't change my opinion of the film at all, it did however help me make a lot more sense of the guy as he is now.

vidor

I had to laugh at the whole 'poor Ben' spiel we got after he

murdered Lynette Phillips

.

Charlie19

Entourage This was actually alright, it started off a bit slow but gradually gained pace. That said just like the series it be lost with out Johny Drama and Ari Gold. Favorite quotes..(NSFW)

"E ya dwarf ****" by Ari and was overheard by his son. "Fun is when you forget a girls’ name while you’re ****in’ her" by Drama.

(NSFW)

Lakeview Terrace This was on TV last night and is very good. Samuel L Jackson plays a L.A cop who is disgruntled by the arrival of his new neighbors and makes things as awkward as possible for them. Jackson is great in this, as he always works well when he's a proper bad-ass.

NachoBusiness

IFI Open Day..

Manglehorn.

Strange film but yet still quite enjoyable.

Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Superb. Hadn't seen it since I was a kid.

RE*AC*TOR

Dark film which takes a dim view of humanity. The characters within are either repugnant (rapists, degenerates, sadists) or pitiable victims.

The cinematography portrays grimy urban decaying environments. Most of the characters have a faintly sickly look to them.

The only relief is the occasional dry wit of the protagonist, Johnny (the brilliant David Thewlis). However, don't expect this to lift the audience out of the overall hopelessness.

Worth a watch.

Tony EH

Mike Leigh's greatest film.

the_monkey

2001 A Space Odyssey

Saw it finally on the big screen (70MM)
Absolutely stunning, the sound was so intense and was almost like being on drugs in parts .

Was presented by Jan Harlan (producer) who also did a master class beforehand ...

http://www.phenomena-experience.com/eventos.php?id=165#.VYdDQPmqpBc

Sugarlumps

Tusk: When podcaster Wallace Bryton goes missing in the backwoods of Manitoba while interviewing a mysterious seafarer named Howard Howe, his best friend Teddy and girlfriend Allison team with an ex-cop to look for him.

I liked it.

Fysh

More EIFF viewings for me:
Brand New-U
Really good paranoid science-fiction. In terms of plot mechanics it's a thriller, but the focus is very much on the characters at the core and how they are affected by the film's events. Very much a film with stylistic and thematic resonance to some paranoid 60s sci-fi (shades of The Prisoner amongst others), and a wonderful soundtrack and visual style.

Index Zero
A promising, but ultimately unfulfilling, dystopian future story.Treading similar terrain to Children of Men we follow a young couple trapped in the wasteland outside the United States of Europe as they try to sneak over the border. They're evaluated for immigration and the man is told that he may be able to reach Index Zero status (which recognises him as being a sustainable individual), but his pregnant girlfriend is not. Unfortunately the best parts of this film are the opening act; there's no substance or depth to the protagonists but the scene-setting is nicely done. Once they have been assessed for immigration the story loses steam, as we casually meet several potentially more interesting characters (but find out very little about them) and the story's simplistic politics are laid uncomfortably bare.

Visually interesting and with an effective score, the film ultimately fails to be anywhere near as interesting as Children of Men because its characters are too shallow (the female protagonist is given little to do except serve as a mobile womb) and there's no exploration of the ambiguities of the near-future world on display.

fin12

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's Chest, pretty good film, I think its the best one of all of them, 1st and Second films are good goes downhill then after Dead man's chest, the fourth one was terrible.

BMMachine

Jurassic World - awful. what a mess

Charlie19

BMMachine wrote: »

Jurassic World - awful. what a mess

Ah no..

Looks really fun from the clips, I was going to go see it in 3D.

I must have a read of the thread on here.

BMMachine

Im sure that "as a spectacle" its okay but as a piece of film making, ugh. So many basic errors and just nonsense. Very Michael Bay, but not as annoying. Michael is in a league of his own when it comes to creating cinematic diabetes

fin12

Charlie19 wrote: »

Ah no..

Looks really fun from the clips, I was going to go see it in 3D.

I must have a read of the thread on here.

it is fun, you should go see it, i enjoyed it anyway

MadDog76

Charlie19 wrote: »

Ah no..

Looks really fun from the clips, I was going to go see it in 3D.

I must have a read of the thread on here.

Go see it for yourself ....... well worth a watch, highly enjoyable and hugely entertaining ........ I'd recommend it.

MagicMarker

Someone told me yesterday that Jurassic World is better than Jurassic Park.

BMMachine

MagicMarker wrote: »

Someone told me yesterday that Jurassic World is better than Jurassic Park.

I literally have no idea how anyone can come to that conclusion. Its like saying the Earth is flat or something, scientifically impossible.

Its a hot mess of a film where the characters act in completely unbelievable ways and a script that is obviously 10 years in the making as none of it makes sense. If you have problems paying attention for more than 10 minutes at a time you will love it or if you are one of those "oh I turn my brain off when I watch things so I can easily digest the steaming crap I'm being fed" then yeah, its for you. If you have standards though, stay away