watched The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall last night, brilliant film acting and production wise but the story is so convoluted it's crazy. The interplay between Bogey and Bacall is fantastic and the sharp fast paced dialogue mixed with Bogey's brilliant performance as Philip Marlow steals the film.

Also watched Halloween III: Seasons of The Witch, now i don't understand why this film gets so much love, it's not a very good film. Tom Atkins is the best thing in it and the silly stone henge story doesn't work. Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace re-wrote much of Nigel Kneal's script and it's clearly obvious.

I adore Season of the Witch. I love the soundtrack, which is incredibly creepy and unsettling, I think it features a great cast, I think it is wonderfully shot and I love the entire premise. For me it is one of the great horror films of that era.

Mary of Scotland: made in 1936 and starring Katherine Hepburn in the lead role, this John Ford directed historical tale may be a little over talky for modern audiences, but I just love old films and the far less hurried pace at which many of them run.

Dodge City: one of the great westerns, made in 1939, and starring Errol Flynn at his charismatic best. It is a wonderfully shot, beautifully coloured, exciting and amusing film that is a fine example of the films that the studio system produced in old Hollywood.

Was going to open with 'An American Crime', but IMDB lied to me about it being on Lovefilm, so...
THE AMAZING TRANSPLANT - Well, where to start... some will see a labyrinth of endless weirdness, others a pile of boring, hateful bollocks. I'm siding with the former camp. Doris Wishman, I can't work out whether she's an idiot with a camera or a gifted surrealist. She could be either, neither, or half way between the two. Films like 'A Night To Dismember' certainly don't clarify matters. If you must know, a virginal milquetoast turns rapist after he insists on a penis graft courtesy of his dead lothario buddy... the sight of gold earrings are all it takes to spur him on to the evil that men do... this ludicrousness doesn't really capture the madness at the heart of this film, which is really about close ups of telephones, ornamental horses, mounted big game trophies and, lest we forget, Wishman's staple, the human foot in action. Any or all of these could be crass symbols to do with cock, or vital clues to the architecture of a terrifying fever dream. Regardless of how things pan out for a given viewer, I defy anyone to walk away from it thinking 'well, that was normal'.
AFTER.LIFE - Saw mention of this one a few posts ago and decided to watch it as it was new to me. I'm glad I did, becasue I was left impressed and quite weirded out. What started as a stylish excercise in apparent cliche rapidly became an existential headf*ck, quite surprisingly so for a movie with at least one foot planted firmly in the mainstream. Against expectation we get to see a starkers Chrstina Ricci surrounded by a necrophilious atmosphere as she begins a descent into utter morbidity. No happy ending either, although contrary to my usual proceedure I was kind of hoping to get one! Unexpectedly powerful, unless it was pushing my particular buttons, in which case I really need to get my life sorted out before Liam Neeson does something sinister to me.

Taken- Why would you kidnap Liam Neeson's daughter?
He's trained Obi-Wan Kanobi, Darth Vader, and Batman.
He is Kwi-Gon Jin, Rhas Al Ghul, Aslan, and Zeus at the same time.
He punched a freaking bear! You do not piss this man off!

I saw this for the first time last night. I thought it was really well made and was impressed by it keeping my attention with it's very long run time. At nearly 2.5 hours, I was expecting a lot of glances at the the clock, but didn't.

I found it to be darkly comic, and laughed out loud a couple of times. But then, maybe I'm warped. I took it as pure exploitation, but was impressed by how cinematic it was (which is to be expected considering its country of origin).

Leave Her To Heaven - 1945 USA d: John M Stahl

A superb film from back when Hollywood was something special. A wonderful story of a woman's madness and how it affects everyone around her and the lengths to which she will stretch to get what she wants. The film is one of the masterpieces of Technicolor, looking sumptuous and magnificent (stunning Leon Shamroy cinematography. Gene Tierney is stunning as one of cinema's ultimate femmes fatales, but the whole cast is perfect - Cornel Wilde does his man adrift thing as well as ever, Jeanne Crain as the hapless angel, Vincent Price as the man scorned and so on. It's a brilliant film.

Clearly the best of the colour Noirs, it is odd that so far neither Fox nor Criterion have issued a Blu-Ray of this. If ever a film was crying out for a lovely bright HD remaster, this is it!

Seconded! :nod:

Robocop 1 and 2 last night with my pals! Great flicks!!!

Come And See - 1985 USSR d: Elem Klimov

Considering that I generally "don't like war films" it's curious that at least three of the films I consider amongst the few very best ever made are indeed war films.

This is one of those films. A stark and distressing magnum opus so powerful that its director never made another film as he didn't think he could do anything else.

It is expertly made - a symphony of Steadicam - and looks quite spectacular if not always pleasant. The lead performance from Aleksei Kravchenko as Flyora is amongst the best ever to feature in cinema. So riveting is it that you do not feel its length, it takes you to another emotional plane, one where running time means nothing. It is a truly transcendent piece.

Desperately needs a Blu-ray release.