What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Gojirosan]

Originally Posted by wonderlust

7/10


Attachment 93706

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT!!! Love this!

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

My Tutor - 1983 d:George Bowers

One of those "let's lose our virginity" teen flicks from the 80s. Here less rambunctious then others with a surprising dollop of sensitive characterisation. Very heavy on T&A and sex scenes, this could well prove surprising to those who didn't remember such things from the time.

Most amazing of all is an early Crispin Glover performance as the hero's best friend. He is as odd as ever and seeing this oddness in a "leer at the arses" type rôle rather than a dour indie flick is quite hilarious. Also, Kitten Natividad turns up as a hooker and Kevin McCarthy is the stern father.

I admit I am biased, but I thought this was a decent 80s effort,. It's not as well done as Porky's, say, but it hits more often than it misses and is a brilliant time capsule.

The print quality on Mill Creek's "Too Cool For School" collection is perfect.

Now I know it stars Kitten Nativadid this is at the top of my To Watch pile!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

December 12th

Fausto 5.0 (2001)

On his way to a medical convention, Dr Fausto runs into a man who claims the Doctor removed his stomach eight years ago in a surgical operation. Fausto claims not to know him but time and again the man turns up during Fausto's trip, claiming he can make all the doctor's wishes a reality. As Fausto starts to beleive him fantasy turns into reality and reality into fantasy as the doctor begins to loose control.

A modern retelling of Goethe's legend of Faust, this Spanish speaking film is a well filmed piece utilising its Madrid setting. Fausto 5.0 has some visual shocks such as the carving up of a corpse, as explicit as anything you will see in Aftermath and a dog eating a mans entrails whilst still alive, the majority of the film is quite restrained and despite the storyline Fausto 5.0 is remarkably easy to follow, (it must be if i could keep up) its visuals don't really get in the way of its storytelling and Doctor Fausto and Vella made for an intriguing pairing.

Recommended.


December 13th.

F (2010)

A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.

I loved this British film, grim and gritty, yet not as bloody as it could have been. The school is brilliantly lit in soft greens allowing shadows to dance and the schools corridors become a thing of almost gothic beauty. The film plays out in what seems like real time and suspense is built brilliantly, helped by the realistic decisions and acting of the excellent cast. I'm sure director Johannes Roberts has been influenced by classic Euro horror films. He uses Bava's bouncing ball effect from Kill Baby Kill to great effect, this time using a basketball, and the assailants are never seen except with their hoodies up so you never see a face at all and in some scenes as they slowly edged towards the terrified staff members they looked unerringly like the Knights Templer from The Blind Dead series of films. The music at times is also very reminiscent of seventies Argento films.

The films only drawback to me was its very abrupt ending leaving everything up in the air with the fate of characters left hanging, but all in all this was excellent.

A mixture of Eden Lake and Assault on Precinct 13, i found F to be a gripping and scary ride.

[Frankie Teardrop]

TRAUMA - No, it's not one of Dario's finest moments, but had this been released without fanfare direct to video in the early 90s with a once-only director credit, it'd be hailed these days as a triumph of also-ran surrealism. "A bit like a shit David Lynne movie", as one of my dubious acquaintances once said of it. He meant David Lynch, but he might as well have been talking about Dario Argento, I suppose. Anyway, the road's too worn... tonight, I found enough of DA's random weirdness in this to keep me going... in fact, there are almost too many reasons - Piper L, some great set pieces (though not enough for most), deliriously bad-taste crim reason, Brad Dourif... and I find it hilarious that the arch-misogynist chose to play with a plot-device based around a serious eating disorder before jettisoning all meaning once again in favour of that pointless f*cking decap machine. A load of bollocks, but marginally less enjoyable than some of the 'canon'. But I'm no judge of Argento, my fave of his is 'Phenomena'.

[SShaw]

Universal Soldier. Remarkably this has stood the test of time quite well. Indeed I think I enjoyed it more than when i saw it on its home video (VHS) debut. Next up is the more recent Universal soldier Regeneration. More later ...

[Hawkmonger]

Originally Posted by SShaw

Universal Soldier. Remarkably this has stood the test of time quite well. Indeed I think I enjoyed it more than when i saw it on its home video (VHS) debut. Next up is the more recent Universal soldier Regeneration. More later ...

It's emptaiii!!!

[WinterMillennium]

this evening, I shall be mostly seeing Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut

[Wes]

The Hired Hand (DVD, Tartan)... Peter Fonda's directorial debut from 1971 is along with McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid one of the great revisionist westerns of the decade. The story itself is simple, almost banal - a bearded Peter Fonda plays a drifter who returns to his estranged wife and takes a job as a hired hand as a sort of probation for his wanderings - but Fonda's film is a perfectly realised mood piece punctuated with some surreal, hallucinatory visuals and transitions (worth noting the film's editor was Frank Mazzola who also cut Performance). Also featuring another fine turn from Warren Oates and in particular Bruce Langhorne's memorable sad-eyed score. An essential slice of New American Cinema and well worth seeking out...

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE COMPANY OF WOLVES - Feverish 80s teen imagines her induction into 'dulthood coutesy of a fable spinning Angela Lansbury. I've seen this before, but have disregarded it until now - too drunk, too dismissive of anything that wasn't really vicious etc. Now, I like it. I like the whole storybook scene, the constant dropping of not-so-cryptic cyphers (frogs, snakes, rotted out big toys and overgrown mushrooms populate from shot to shot) and of course the overspilling of men into wolves via eighties special fx. Above all, I think it works cinematically because of the suffocating fairytale atmosphere... mist enshrouded woodland scene is vivid and predominant. The idea sold - ie. that we're all "hairy inside", that the wolf isn't so much a figure of male terror to be feared by young girls as something society positions to make us contain and suppress of the agency and flux of power within us all is true but dealt with heavy-handedly (at the end). 'The Company of Wolves' was co-authored by the brilliant Angela Carter, an exceptional writer whose fictions I recommend way beyond this film.

HENRY - PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER - A re-watch of this classic of eighties dark cinema. It really is as relentless as I remember it, a cool, disengaged rendering of the wanderings of a stone cold killer. Despite the sub-zero atmosphere, it somehow humanises, enough to dash the hopes it raises towards the end. The camcorder rendering of the house invasion is truly disturbing. A triumph of indie-horror.

[Wes]

I Stand Alone (TV screening)... I must admit there was some trepidation on my part going into Gaspar Noe's debut feature from 1998 - Irreversible was one of the most horrific films I've ever seen, and I Stand Alone has cultivated quite a considerable reputaion for its decent into the abyss - namely a French butcher who rages against the world around him and has incestuous fantasies about his autistic daughter. Noe's film is a rough ride but it's not quite the powerhouse of Irreversible. The film is perhaps most ferocious in the original French given the huge amounts of obscenities heard on the butcher's voice-over, but Noe knows how to alienate his audience, (at one point a title card advises the audience they have 30 seconds to leave the theatre) and the film looks utterly grimey, the largley locked down camerawork banal (by design of course) and featuring the loud crack of gunshots when things get particularly intense...