What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[The 4th Fella]

Seeing as it's been sitting in my collection for a few weeks, and i'm a fan of it's lead, I thought why not...?


Road Games (1981)



Very Hitchcockian, in particular, Rear Window. I wasn't surprised to read in the IMDB trivia that the screenwriter was given the screenplay for Rear Window by the director before starting Road Games. Just shift the story to Austrailia 1981, and set the film on the road. Stacy Keach is Quid, the truck driver who may or may not have witnessed a killer getting rid of the remains of his latest victim, Jaime Lee Curtis is Hitch, the hitchhiker who joins Quid in tailing the mysterious green truck. The two leads work really good together, quickly stricking up a likeable chemistry while the film displays a good sense of black humour. One for Horror/Thriller fans and fans of Hitchcock.


Stacy Keach
1. The Squeeze (1977)
**2. Road Games (1981) NE**
3. Doc (1971)
4. Gray Lady Down (1978)
5. Antigone (1972)
6. Battle Force (1978)
7. Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All (1989)
8. Mission Of The Shark (1991)
9. Class Of 1999 (1990)
10. The Return Of Mickey Spillanes Mike Hammer (1986)
11. Intimate Strangers (1986)
12. Unshackled (2000)
13. Meteor (2009)
14. Weather Wars (2011)

[pedromonkey]

watched a few films recently..

ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction: really good low budget political zombie film with some brilliant gore scene's and the best paranoid neighbour since Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window.

Some Kind Of Wonderful: OK John Hughes film, basically Pretty In pink with the roles reversed. Cracking Soundtrack too.

Contagion: Interesting film about how the CDC deals with a super virus that spreads across the world. Not the best of it's kind and does seem like a glossy high budget TV movie at times, but it has some good performances from Larry Fishburn and Matt Damon although Jude Law does one of the worst Aussie accents ever.

Death Warrant: fun if a little familiar prison action film starring Van Damme. Much Like Seagal his earlier studio films are much better than the crap he churns out these days.

The Ugly Truth: Mildly amusing comedy with Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigle, like most romantic comedies this one is very predictable. Very crude too. Was much funnier the first time i saw it.

Rolling Thunder: finally got around to checking out the BD of this film, and while it does look good, it's certainly not the best transfer i've ever seen. It's a brilliant slow burn revenge drama with a stand out performance from William Devane and good support from Linda Haynes and Tommy Lee Jones who only smiles when he's killing people. If you haven't seen this yet. Get it..

DEVIL: From the mind of M. Night Shyamalamadingdong, actually a pretty good supernatural thriller, quite enjoyed this.

APOLLO 18: utter balls.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

The Mist is one of my favourite Stephen King adaptations, right up there with The Shawshank Redemption, just behind The Shining. I much prefer the black and white version to the colour one - which did you watch?

The colour version. I must be missing something - will return to my disc to check out whether it permits a B&W option.
I agree with you, as a King adaption it's way up there. I think I probably prefer 'Carrie', which of course features another nihilstic blow-out ending... but it's very good, especially considering how difficult it is to do monsters these days and make big statements at the same time.

[pedromonkey]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

The colour version. I must be missing something - will return to my disc to check out whether it permits a B&W option.
I agree with you, as a King adaption it's way up there. I think I probably prefer 'Carrie', which of course features another nihilstic blow-out ending... but it's very good, especially considering how difficult it is to do monsters these days and make big statements at the same time.

it's on the 2 disc edition of the dvd and on the Blu-ray disc

[nekromantik]

I watched Mist first time in color and then months later in b&w and its like watching a different movie. I love it in both color and b&w. I need to get the blu as its only £6.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Vlad The Impaler

Nightmare Concert [A Cat in the Brain] (1990)

* out of ****

Shame you didn't enjoy - it's one of my favourite Fulci movies (along with 'Conquest'!) I know a lot of hardened Fulci fans seem to dislike it, but it occupies a special place for me because it's just so utterly bonkers! What kind of film is so cheap and so shameless, yet so weirdly avant-garde? Admittedly it has none of the atmosphere or style of its better loved brethren. It's just Fulci taking the piss, ultimately - maybe there's some bitterness running through it all, but at the same time it seems gleeful and deranged.

[Handyman Joe]

Seen 2 films lately which will be familiar to the good folk of this forum.

1. Hotel. I saw this a year or two ago (see my review on Amazon under my ridiculous moniker of Now Zoltan) and quite enjoyed it. Watched it again late on Saturday night, on my own, lightly baked and it worked its magic on me. This is a damn creepy movie if you give it a chance, it messes with weird perspectives, arbitary myths (or are they?), movie in-references, discomfiting muzak and is aggressively slow but it's well anchored by the gangly, likeable leading lady and has a couple of memorable shocks amidst the doomy atmospherics. The disorientating feeling of starting a new job in unwelcoming surroundings is also brilliantly captured. A grower and future cult item methinks, I'm going to check out Lourdes by the same director.

2. Memories of Murder - Shit, how good is this? I loved the thematically similar Zodiac but it's a stuffed museum piece next to this gem. As usual in Korean cinema it's a balls out, fearless piece of work with no concession to political correctness or conventional narrative structure. I found the lack of blood and guts pretty refreshing (although violence is never far away), I loved the blacker than black humour and the wonderfully expressive cast and as for that last shot - well, genius is the only word for it.

[gag]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I don't rate THX 1138 at all. American Graffiti is the best film Lucas has ever made but, then again, I don't rate the Star Wars films either.

Anyway, in terms of the films I've seen recently, these are the ones I watched in February:

WOW thats a lot of films to watch in one month ...i barely get chance to watch many probly be at least half a years watch to me ...

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

bit of a cheat this, but have started watching Twin Peaks again, dug out the UK pilot (had it on dvdr for a while), and this started me off, watched all 7 episodes of 1st series over las ttwo days, will probably watch 2nd over weekend.

It's still such an odd programme! Forget other "event" tv things like Lost, or the shrill misfire Wild Palms, this is the real deal!

This will be the 5th time i've watched TP since its original transmission over here, ever time i see something new and disturbing in it.....

Well, didnt quite manage it (5 eps left etc), but would have to say that there is a definite "drop off" in quality during the second series, veering into self parody in places imo.

But there is still a lot to admire in TP. the stately pace, which is a real culture shock in today's hurried marketplace, unfolding the story as in a novel really...
I can really make a case for Lynch as magician, using misdirection skillfully to eke out the initial storyline to 17 episodes, but i still feel that the 1st series as a piece of art works better than the second, which is more like the documentary dvd you sometimes get with reissued "classic" albums, explaining away any sense of mystique with mere words and gestures.

"....here comes Bob
eager for fun...
he wears a smile
everybody run"

Still the greatest ending as well, looking forward to it soon!!

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Handyman Joe

Seen 2 films lately which will be familiar to the good folk of this forum.

1. Hotel. I saw this a year or two ago (see my review on Amazon under my ridiculous moniker of Now Zoltan) and quite enjoyed it. Watched it again late on Saturday night, on my own, lightly baked and it worked its magic on me. This is a damn creepy movie if you give it a chance, it messes with weird perspectives, arbitary myths (or are they?), movie in-references, discomfiting muzak and is aggressively slow but it's well anchored by the gangly, likeable leading lady and has a couple of memorable shocks amidst the doomy atmospherics. The disorientating feeling of starting a new job in unwelcoming surroundings is also brilliantly captured. A grower and future cult item methinks, I'm going to check out Lourdes by the same director.

2. Memories of Murder - Shit, how good is this? I loved the thematically similar Zodiac but it's a stuffed museum piece next to this gem. As usual in Korean cinema it's a balls out, fearless piece of work with no concession to political correctness or conventional narrative structure. I found the lack of blood and guts pretty refreshing (although violence is never far away), I loved the blacker than black humour and the wonderfully expressive cast and as for that last shot - well, genius is the only word for it.

Hotel is brilliant. Very Lynch-heavy, reference wise, which could easily have backfired. Yet it actually tanscends Lynch in terms of weird ambience.