What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Just watched Tucker And Dale Vs Evil. I loved it!

here we agree!

[Prince_Vajda]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Just watched Tucker And Dale Vs Evil. I loved it!

Thanks to you, I just watched the trailer of Tucker And Dale Vs Evil. I loved it, too!

Greetings!

[BioZombie]

I have just this second finished watching Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion . it's a film I've been wanting to watch for some time as I'm a big fan of Japanese revenge films. It's the story of a wrongly imprisoned woman who wants to get her revenge on the policeman who set her up.

It's such a fantastically stylish film, I'm not sure how anyone could not enjoy it (well I guess you may not if you don't like plenty of violence and sleaze too). The camera work and lighting and set design are phenomenal.

I really cant wait to watch the other in the series now. Anyone know if there are as good as the first?

[Slippery Jack]

Originally Posted by BioZombie

I really cant wait to watch the other in the series now. Anyone know if there are as good as the first?

The second one definitely is - even more bonkers than the first! The third one is a bit more conventional, though it features the best opening creditis sequence, with Matsu running through the city handcuffed to a severed arm I'm yet to see the fourth . . .

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by bdc

Finally managed to watch Night Caller (1985).
I'd been hearing a lot about this so-called HK giallo and succeeded in getting the old UK vhs for a viewing (this has only had a vhs and vcd release).
While the film starts off really well,all giallo-like,it quickly changes it's approach and ends up being more of a HK thriller.
Not bad though and I found this rather enjoyable to watch.

I've been trying to remember the name of this film since you started your mammoth watching of HK films. I had this on VHS back in the day. Apart from the image on the cover and the reference to Argento, I can't remember a thing about it. Cheers for mentioning the title, it's been driving me mad trying to recall it.

[Frankie Teardrop]

I enjoyed KILL LIST, with its elliptical-realist approach to a three-headed genre hydra of kitchen sink drama, hit-man thriller and cultic horror. Some really eerie moments, good use of vaguelly arty dislocation and a climax which surprised me by evoking a sense of near-dread. Doesn't happen all that often. More than makes good on the promise of Down Terrace, which exuded a similar atmosphere of claustrophobic implosion.
Said 'hello' to a wonderful 2012 with Norman J Warren's BLOODY NEW YEAR. Has the same mid-eighties feeling of Brit-decrepitude as "Don't Open till Christmas" ie everyone looks like Lovejoy, which can never be a good enough excuse for a movie. A bunch of anglo-teens flee some bad men in a fairground and end up on an island where they're subjected to an ever-more abstract array of horrors including attack by canned laughter. After the halfway mark becomes a calvalcade of disjointed surrealism which somehow validates the vast stretches of inevitable tedium. Maybe it's all connected with an experimental aircraft which sent everyone back in time, or something (the only back story on offer). I have a warm and tender soft spot for strange Warren films like the formidable 'Prey', but this is proof positive that nothing good ever came of Thatcher's Britain.
Luigi Cozzi's THE BLACK CAT enchanted me with its dementedness - really wish someone ie Arrow / Shameless would dignify this one beyond VHS status. It's Cozzi's fanboyish-seeming take on The Three Mothers, replete with lighting overkill and saturated primary colours to signify 'visual flair' etc. It makes up for a shortfall in genuine cinematographic inventiveness by just being weird - one minute something a bit cosmic's happening, next there's a foetus in a womb, maggots on a demoness's face, random gore, 80's video effects. Come to think of it, reminds me more of a curdled Fulci re-fry with semi digested Cronenbergian afterthought. Which, in my book, is pretty damn good.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I saw The Perfume of the Lady in Black last night.

An absolutely stunning film starring Mimsy Farmer as a scientist on a descent into madness.

Not a conventional giallo by any means, the film is light on both sex and death, but what a hauntingly beautiful film it is. Director Francesco Barelli has come up with a real masterpiece here. The cast are all outstanding and it was lovely to see the lovely Nike Arrighi again after her role as Tanith in The Devil Rides Out.

The films ending was truly shocking, of which i shall say no more.

The quality of the picture on Raro USA's dvd is excellent, with an informative well written booklet.

Highly recommended.

[Phurious]

I watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer on NYE with my wife who hadn't seen it before.
I've yet to see a full episode of the series, but I've always had a soft spot for this film, I guess I'm a sucker for early 90s LA teen movies (California Man, Clueless and Bill and Ted spring immediately to mind).
It's a really dumb movie with Donald Sutherland and Rutger Hauer barely lifting an acting muscle, but they do manage to bring some gravitas to the film and Paul Reubens aka. Pee Wee Herman steals the show as an uppity impatient vampire who is de-armed by Luke Perry.
It's never gonna be hailed as a classic within the genre, but it's hugely entertaining and genuinely funny and that's not even mentioning the fashion on display!

NEDS - Peter Mullan's latest slice of gritty drama pulls no punches and doesn't really attempt to shine a moralistic torch in the dark shadows of gangs and social disorder in 70s Glasgow.
Moments of unrestrained violence and surreal beauty highlight Mullan's idiosyncrasies and these are further strengthened by an absolute powerhouse performance from new comer Conor McCarron.
The use of Glamrock favourites to counterpoint the onscreen violence is a brilliant and mature decision that seems to underline the loss of innocence within the youth's poverty-stricken and forgotten environments.
Far from being light hearted affair, there are some magical heart lifting moments and the film finishes with one of the most beautiful and ambiguous endings that I've seen in a very long time.

Requiem For A Village is another fantastic release in what must be one of the greatest series ever fulfilled by a film distributor: the BFI's Flipside series.
Lindsay Anderson's editor of choice, David Gladwell directs this haunting and beautiful little film that contrasts the bucolic and almost parochial lives of yore to the modern and expansive lives of the 60s, as an elderly grounds keeper recalls his childhood in a village that has been transformed.
Gladwell lets the camera recount the tales as dialogue is perfunctory and kept to a minimum. The audience is treated to a visual tale of transformation that mixes absolute fantasy (almost horror in some aspects) with cinema verite and documentary style. Forgotten moments and lives are once more conjured up almost miraculously as bodies rise from graves and the narrative flicks back and forth between old times where a 'community' was just that; working, playing and living together as opposed to now where even the ice cream van can't lure people form their show box homes.
A big and fascinating recommendation.

Also got round to watching Lars Von Trier's debut The Element Of Crime.
Christ on the cross! Why haven't I got round to seeing this earlier? It's absolutely and utterly everything I could want in a film.
Visually it has to be one of the most audacious debuts that I've ever seen, and I'm told that Europa is even more so!
Recalling Tarkovsky, Greenaway, Welles, Huston, but somehow managing to be fresh and unique too. The monochrome and sodium lighting works magnificently and if I had to describe it, it would be something between Jeunet and Caro's Delicatessen and John Huston's Reflections In A Golden Eye.
The framing, camera movement and editing is utterly mind boggling and left me with my jaw on the ground. The use of superimpositions is absolutely spectacular at some points and I can't recall another film where it has been used with such skill and acuity - layers upon layers sometimes creating a majestic trompe l'oeil that really made me scratch my head.
The seemingly simple, yet infuriatingly complex plot is akin to a Greenaway film, nothing makes complete sense and the oneiric visual quality and delivery of dialogue only help to compound this detachment of the story and how the viewer should interpret it.
Michael Elphick is absolutely solid in the lead and his character recalls the hapless pro/antagonists of countless gialli (in fact this film is so yellow it could be considered a Danish giallo).
The editor, DoP and Von Trier commentary is an absolute hoot and whilst they hilariously wind each other up about the film, I can't help but feel that there is an undercurrent of pride as they watch their feature film debut.

Oh yeh, almost forgot that there's an odd cameo from writer Stig 'Dragon Tattoo' Larsson in the film, and on the commentary Von Trier refers to him as being 'provocative'! Pot kettle black

[Scyther]

Watched Di Leo's To Be Twenty last night. Unfortunately, my first press Raro DVD had that glitch at the end where it took me back to the main menu, but it didn't really take much away from that brutal, BRUTAL ending!

Gloria Guida, BTW...

[Slippery Jack]

Originally Posted by Phurious

Also got round to watching Lars Von Trier's debut The Element Of Crime.
Christ on the cross! Why haven't I got round to seeing this earlier? It's absolutely and utterly everything I could want in a film.

Aw man, wish I'd got that boxset, annoying how pricey it is now Went through a bit of a Von Trier / Dogme 95 phase when I was at uni (after being blown away by Dogville on the big screen), but never got around to his early stuff.

Wonder if that Five Obstructions with Scorsese is still on . . . ?