What Films Have You Seen Recently? - Page 1838

PaulD · #**18371** 9th December 2012, 05:55 PM

The Dark Knight Rises: Third time seeing it. I still think it's a fitting conclusion to an incredible trilogy. The few issues I had with it on my initial viewing have faded with time (even the John Blake 'reveal' at the end) and it's a really interesting idea to take the character of Batman in the context of a trilogy of films with a definite ending rather than a never-ending stream of comic books with contradictory and reset continuity. The absence of the Joker is felt at times, especially after the previous films promise of the hero and villain being locked in this battle forever (and the kangaroo court scene would have worked so much better had the Joker been the judge with the "Death or exile? Death? Ok. Death by exile" a perfect Joker line) but I don't see how they could have made The Dark Knight Rises any better under the circumstances

Silent Night: Day#1 of Christmas Horror Fortnight. A loose remake of the Santa slasher which has little in common with the original save for the maniacal St Nick, the regurgitation of Billy's grandfather's speech and a similar death-by-antler scene. It starts off really slow but finally gets into the swing of things a third of the way in with some decent gore and kill scenes before shortly losing it and ending up being all over the place. It feels about two and a half hours long even though it clocks in at just over 90 minutes but is almost worth watching for Malcolm McDowell's phoned-in scenery-chewing performance of a small-town sheriff battling some of the most baffling dialogue I've seen in a film in recent years (dismissing the rookie's theory with the line "don't put avacado on the burger" being one of many)

Frankie Teardrop · #**18372** 9th December 2012, 06:22 PM

EXCISION - Enjoyably grim coming of age exercise with added glam horror fetish photo-shoot. It doesn't top 'May' as a portait of early adult alienation, but it comes close. Maybe it struggles to integrate its indiefied depiction of the adolescent quest for identity with the gory dream sequences it abandons plot for, but I kind of liked the jarring contrast anyway. The performances are uniformly excellent, esp. Tracy Lords as the narcissist-reptile mother (and of course J Waters who resumes creepy lech priest role seen elsewhere). I'd like to know where the young director will take things from here... hopefully he'll continue to pitch horror beyond genre into excess.

THE BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA - I'm not massively up on Gialli, but I really liked this because it sort of delivers the pop-bizarreness most of its ilk claim but don't really show. It's quite sleazy and sadistic in places, and features a wonderful soundtrack, with Birkinesque heavy breathing giving way to avant-discord. I liked the emphasis on cold but creepy forensic work - there's a priceless bit with a photographic analysis of a victim's wounds in relation to her sexualised proximity to a tailor's mannequin which just begs for an 'Atrocity Exhibition'-era Ballard text accompaniment. It loses pace at points, but overall I mostly fell for its dubious charms.

DEEP RISING - I can see why many find this an entertaining enough trash monster flick, but I didn't really feel it. Last bottle of the night, maybe. I didn't mind the CGI monster, nor the stereotyped manner in which the semi-known cast stumbled about their medium budget set, but... I just wasn't in the mood. I'll give it another go one of these days, perhaps.

MATANGO - Great mushroom melancholy from post-war Japan, maybe with a twinge of William Hope Hodgson. It's slow moving but steeped in a fog of bleak foreboding as a boatload of storm survivors find an island which harbours a deadly fungal secret. Maybe it's too easy to say that it seems to tap into deep cultural anxieties about consumer - capitalism in the wake of WW2, but if these affected Japan then, they infect all of us now. I loved watching the giggling mushroom men jostle with the broken down and petty humans.

Rik · #**18373** 9th December 2012, 06:23 PM

Elf-it is officially Xmas now I have watched this with my children, one of the very few Will Ferrell films I can tolerate

pedromonkey · #**18374** 9th December 2012, 06:29 PM

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
A tad overlong but as everyone seems to say, a fitting end to one of the most exciting trilogies in film history. Christopher Nolan could have gone the Transformers route and CGI'd the shit out of the film but instead opted for character developement and a message that says you can be anything you want to be. Tom Hardy as Bane is great and Anne Hathaway is terrific as Selena Kyle/ Catwoman. I do think however that Christian Bale has been the weakest of the actors in both this and The Dark Knight but i love how Crane keeps popping up. Excellent film.

ROCK OF AGES
Catchy 80s rock anthems soundtrack this incredibly bad film version of the popular stage show. Tom Cruise is great though as the washed up rock god but the film doesn't work.

THE EXPENDABLES 2
AWESOME!!!!

JOHNNY HANDSOME
Walter Hill crime thriller about a criminal with severe facial disfigurements who is given a chance at a new life with a new face which is reconstructed by plastic surgeon Forest Whitaker. Forgoing his new life, Johnny decides to track down and kill the people who killed his best friend and left him to get arrested by Morgan Freeman. As usual Walter Hill's direction is gritty, the violence hard and the dialogue realistic. Mickey Rourke is fantastic in the central role of Johnny Handsome giving a deeply troubled but child like performance as the disfigured Johnny but changes with his new face to a caniving, suave and pretty damn cool individual. A fantastic gem of a crime thriller.

MAN ON FIRE (1987)
Having only discovered this film's existence about a year ago and finding it hard to track down i finally managed to score a copy and wow, what a film. Now i can't talk about this without referring to Tony Scott's version with Denzel. Scott Glenn plays Creasy, a troubled ex-CIA operative who gets 'Nam flashbacks. He is hired by a family to take care of their daughter, to become her bodyguard. At first Creasy and Sam have an uneasy relationship, he is there to work not become friends but their relationship developes to a point that creasy finds him self as a surrogate father, after being invited to a wedding by his best friend Dave, played brilliantly Joe Pesci, Creasy and Sam are returning home when Sam is kidnapped and Creasy is left for dead, Once out of hospital, he decided to track down the kidnappers and save sam. Unlike Tony Scott's film, this 1987 version feels more realistic, the bond between Creasy and Sam is much more genuine and has a sort of 'Leon' feel to it which makes his mission of revenge much more tragic unlike the Scott film where he just seems like her older friend. The actual revenge mission is less calculated and sadistic as Denzel's, it's much more accidental. The direction is top notch and the script is great. Scott Glenn give a fantastic performance as Creasy and Jade Malle give a great performance as Sam. Highly worth getting if you can find it.

ThePopeofCOSDS · #**18375** 9th December 2012, 06:34 PM

Twilight Samurai -melodramatic film about a poor Samurai who smells. Seriously. Well there's more to it than that but one would hope for a bit more swordplay and less building insect cages out of sticks. I should have known better when I saw the glowing review on the DVD cover from Roger Ebert.

- Razor88

iluvdvds@Cult Labs · #**18376** 9th December 2012, 06:51 PM

I haven't done this in AGES! In fact, I haven't checked this thread in far too long (nice to see people doing last film seen picture collages

)

So, here's the last films I've seen from around Halloween time! Urgh - my viewing habbits have slacked so much. I think I need a new genre to explore and get excited about - Post-Apocalyptic action sounds gooood!

Nordicdusk · #**18377** 9th December 2012, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iluvdvds@Cult Labs

I haven't done this in AGES! In fact, I haven't checked this thread in far too long (nice to see people doing last film seen picture collages

)

So, here's the last films I've seen from around Halloween time! Urgh - my viewing habbits have slacked so much. I think I need a new genre to explore and get excited about - Post-Apocalyptic action sounds gooood!

How is American Mary im mad to see it.