What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Gojirosan]

Clownhouse - dreadful, amateurish mess of a film. Badly written, badly acted and with one of the worst music scores I have ever heard in any film. Also, monumentally boring and never seems to end. A waste of time and effort.


The Silent House

This Uruguayan creep-fest is far more interesting in theory than execution. Attempting to recreate a real-time, one take experience the film falls prey to its own gimmick and the story-telling and drama suffer greatly. The one-take experimental approach probably seemed a good idea in advance, but it does nothing good for the film. The camera choreography becomes distracting and many questions are raised about the story from what the camera shows.

The story is interesting enough that it would have made a passable film without the gimmicky approach to filming. A shame.

Even more of a shame is that the Optimum Blu-ray actually omits a whole post-credits scene! This is quite a cock-up for a company like Optimum, I reckon, and must be a disappointment to anyone who buys the disk - I was certainly disappointed and annoyed by it. Incidentally, the optimum disk is also the Kinowelt German disk, so that's at least two countries with flawed releases of this film on Blu-ray. (Yes, I checked the disk as German: still missing.)

[pedromonkey]

Recent viewings....

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK: Well what can i say about EFNY that you don't already know?, still find this film an incredibly fun watch, endlessly watchable with a cracking role for Kurt Russell and a great turn from Lee Van Cleef. Only beef with the film is that Tom Atkins isn't in it enough. Watched the Optimum blu and the thought the PQ was great.

AMERICAN YAKUZA 2: BACK 2 BACK: The sequel to the Viggo Mortensen film in name only about two yakuza hitmen in LA and a burnt out ex-cop played by the awesome Michael Rooker. Had some great action scenes in it and managed to pull of some Tarantino cool even if at times it tried to hard to ape QT. Great soundtrack too. Always thought the first American Yakuza was an unsung hero of DTV action films, love it. This one was pretty good too.

RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II: This is one of the single most explody killy films i have ever seen. Love this film like i do all the John J. Rambo films and this one, written by Stallone and James Cameron, is incredible fun. Rambo is bad ass as usual and Charles Napier appears as the villian, which he plays with relish, Richard Crenna is always a joy to watch on screen and Steven Berkoff plays a great villain too. Wonderful score by Jerry Goldsmith, full action movie direction from George P. Cosmatos and some great cinematography from the legendary Jack Cardiff. Recommended..
Watched the U.S blu ray of this and while it's not the best transfer ever, it's the best i've ever seen it.

[Baseball Fury]

Originally Posted by pedromonkey

Recent viewings....

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK: Well what can i say about EFNY that you don't already know?, still find this film an incredibly fun watch, endlessly watchable with a cracking role for Kurt Russell and a great turn from Lee Van Cleef. Only beef with the film is that Tom Atkins isn't in it enough. Watched the Optimum blu and the thought the PQ was great

Unless they've redone it, then you're crazy! It's the worst BD i've seen. Waxy, muted and flat looking.

Recently watched Touch of Evil (98 reconstruction), The Departed (never gets old) and the first 2 episodes of Boardwalk Empire (which looks stunning on BD)

[keirarts]

A friend of mine stopped by last night, apparently had never seen any takeshi miike movies. Decided to go easy on him and stuck on HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (actually one of my personal favourites as well!)

Went down very well indeed. Perhaps I should kick it up a notch and stick on visitor q next time

[antmumford]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Went down very well indeed. Perhaps I should kick it up a notch and stick on visitor q next time

Now that's a risk and a half, I don't even think you can prepare anyone for that film. In fact don't mention anything about it and surprise your friend completely. Would love to see the look on their face

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by keirarts

A friend of mine stopped by last night, apparently had never seen any takeshi miike movies. Decided to go easy on him and stuck on HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (actually one of my personal favourites as well!)

Went down very well indeed. Perhaps I should kick it up a notch and stick on visitor q next time

An aquaintance was going on about 13 Assassins, and just as i mentioned who the director was, he then says "Can you get me the u/c Ichi?" I have managed to get him to settle for Audition hahahaha. Thatl Miike my night (groans from gallery)

AAAnyway....watched a portmanteau from 2006 called Trapped Ashes, whilst itl not be everyone's cup of sick, twas an entertaining 105 minutes, and of course Ken R's segment is the most deranged (quel shock)

[Gojirosan]

Hercules And The Captive Women

Stupidly titled American edit of of Hercules And The Conquest Of Atlantis, a 1961 Sword and Sandal (or as the director, Vittorio Cottafavi, preferred "neo-mythology") adventure filmed in Technirama and originally released blown up into Super Technirama 70.

This is a great film! The first to feature body building Yorkshireman Reg Park as a muscle rippling mythological hero. It is definitely a cut above most other Pepla in terms of spectacle and story, but fear not, cheesy effects and stock footage are still present!

Magic, monsters, fights, a dwarf and Fay Spain as a nasty bit of work as Queen of Atlantis - this is a stormer! There is also a slightly disturbing plot development involving the creation of blond haired master race with whom Atlantis intend to take over the world!

The US release on Retromedia has good picture quality, but from a bad print - there are missing frames, tears, cracks etc. It may looked cropped at around 2.2:1, but that would have been the 70mm projection ratio. Sound is passable, but not in great condition, and the library music used to rescore the film in this American version is often annoying. I'd love to see the original Italian version, uncut and with the proper music!

Definitely worth a buy and a watch if you like this kind of thing though! Probably the best version we'll ever see!

[gag]

We need to talk about kevin
Just couldnt get into the film about half way through i was bored and lost interest so turned it off couldnt be botherd to watch rest

Human centipede two

Pretty rubbish realy just a exscuse to make similar film but being more controversial ..

[Sam]

We are What we are - a bit underwhelming really - I like the idea of putting the cannibal theme into a domestic setting but it never really grabbed me. Also, the detective character was introduced and given some context, although this was never really explored, which was a bit of an unnecessary distraction. All in all, pretty forgettable. I think the same idea was done a lot better by the cheapy British film, Dead Creatures.

[Nordicdusk]

Never seen Visitor Q is it any good?