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  #27051  
Old 22nd January 2014, 11:09 PM
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Originally Posted by trebor8273 View Post
It is. Excellent job been done with the transfer
Seconded on that. Street trash on blu is region free and looks genuinely stunning.
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  #27052  
Old 23rd January 2014, 12:38 AM
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Watching Tootsie which is a Bit of chance of pace of what I've been watching.
A personal favourite of mine

I know 'it's just a movie', but I've often wondered if a man COULD pass himself off as a woman on a television show and remain undetected, even from the people who work at the studio

By this, I mean a transvestite/female impersonator and not a trans-sexual
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  #27053  
Old 23rd January 2014, 11:11 AM
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BABYSITTER WANTED - I found myself wincing through the first half hour or so as the clichés mounted up to what looked like the point of no return - I hate, in particular, obvious music / sound cues - but I gave it a chance and stuck it out. I'm glad I did because, after the frustrating opener, 'Babysitter Wanted' swerves into more unpredictable territory telegraphed by a sinister kid and a 'House of the Devil' type feel. It's nowhere near as perplexing and atmospheric as the latter, but does deliver some OK gore and supernatural oddness. Not quite the sleeper I was hoping for, but worth a shot anyway.

SEASON OF THE WITCH - My fave Romero film after 'Martin'. It tones the horror down but somehow this just amps up the atmosphere in what's essentially a (maybe) quasi-feminist take on midlife angst in the early seventies. Perhaps it's that sense of the seventies that gets me. 'Season of the Witch' certainly has that free-flowing, naturalistic but abstract feel of seventies cinema and Romero of this period and, although the film is talky, it simmers with claustrophobia and a sense of imminent doom. Everything in it seems washed out, a little bit tawdry and broken.

THE LOVE BUTCHER - Staying in the seventies with 'The Love Butcher', a movie I have a real soft spot for. It's not flawless, but it's pretty snappy for its era and it works as a mean black comedy with sickly atmosphere. It feels more sleazy and violent than it actually is on an explicit level. Focuses on a disabled gardener who doubles as a misogynistic playboy serial killer (not a spoiler - revealed in the first ten minutes) and carries on the 'Psycho' derived themes of the director's 'Schoolgirls in Chains'. Code Red's new DVD is a real revelation for those used to the rubbish old version. If you like seventies trash you'll probably dig this (but then again, I'm a fan of 'The Forest' by the same director, which I've never heard anyone say a good thing about).

THE NIGHT OF THE DEVILS - Yet more seventies, this time Italian Euro-goth. Is it a lost classic? I'm no authority, but I wasn't all that into it. After an arresting opening sequence it kind of plateaus off into a 'house in a forest with some undead witches out there somewhere, better be careful' type scenario. This goes on for an hour, and could've been good if the atmosphere had been there. For me this was lacking. Different people pick up on different things particularly when it comes to the tone of a work - maybe the reviewers elsewhere who have lavished praise on 'Night of the Devils' were keyed into a whole different feeling than I was, but I wasn't sold. That said, the gratuitous last half hour is definitely worth sticking around for hour. Again, if you're into this era of genre cinema, you'll probably want to see it (and probably already have).

UPSTREAM COLOR - On with the good stuff. Wow, this was amazing. And just really baffling. Or maybe not, because it makes sense on some distant level. Reviewers have tended to put a kind of 'T Malick meets D Conenberg' type framework around it, which probably works. Basically, it's about a woman who is kidnapped by a man who inserts some kind of consciousness altering maggot into her, subjects her to some heavy psychological abuse, then uses her in a financial scam. He then passes on the psych-maggot to an avant-garde musician / swineherd who likes to infiltrate his livestock with said maggots which I guess imbue the pigs with some form of telepathic consciousness... the film follows the woman as she meets a man who has been through to the same process - both try to come to terms / understand what has happened. Yep, it's a bit of a mind-blower, although, as you sink into it, you adapt to its otherness quickly. It has narrative, obviously, but, cinematically we're in indie-experiental territory - it's not linear, and pushes forward by way of connections, parallels, intersections. Judging by the DVD box it's been marketed in the UK as a standard horror sci-fi thriller - it isn't at all, and such a move will only alienate those who can't put up with something so fiercely enigmatic. An odd move also, as the film has been extensively covered by the vessels of middlebrow culture - The Guardian, Sight and Sound etc. Anyway, if you like it strange then hopefully you'll love this elliptical piece of arch-weirdness.

TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE - Thought I'd got my hit of bizarreness for the month with the above, but it turns out I hadn't even started. 'Tales From the Quadead Zone' was made by the man who gave the world vid-cam epic 'Black Devil Doll from Hell". It features a similar aesthetic - bad, consumer grade tech. Affectless bontemi soundtrack. Living room interiors. Strange edits. Muffled voices. Things don't make sense. A mother reads horror stories to her son who is a ghost. The ghost son manifests as a breeze accompanied by sibilant chanting. The horror tales form a portmanteau sequence. The first involves a family who don't have enough to eat. They sit around their dinner table repeating the same meal time ritual three times over. In the course of this, some of the family are shot. The end. The next story features a dude who steals the corpse of his brother, dresses corpse as a clown, then dies at the hands of clown-corpse when latter comes to life with a bizarre sound-effect voice. The third instalment sees mother subjected to some horrible domestic violence (soundtracked by that keyboard music) which culminates in her committing suicide and joining ghost-son in afterlife. Utterly beguiling, from the hand-painted credit sequence on. Better than Warhol for off-hand, detached minimalism. Without doubt a total recommendation.
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  #27054  
Old 23rd January 2014, 11:28 AM
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Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop View Post

SEASON OF THE WITCH - My fave Romero film after 'Martin'. It tones the horror down but somehow this just amps up the atmosphere in what's essentially a (maybe) quasi-feminist take on midlife angst in the early seventies. Perhaps it's that sense of the seventies that gets me. 'Season of the Witch' certainly has that free-flowing, naturalistic but abstract feel of seventies cinema and Romero of this period and, although the film is talky, it simmers with claustrophobia and a sense of imminent doom. Everything in it seems washed out, a little bit tawdry and broken.


THE NIGHT OF THE DEVILS - Yet more seventies, this time Italian Euro-goth. Is it a lost classic? I'm no authority, but I wasn't all that into it. After an arresting opening sequence it kind of plateaus off into a 'house in a forest with some undead witches out there somewhere, better be careful' type scenario. This goes on for an hour, and could've been good if the atmosphere had been there. For me this was lacking. Different people pick up on different things particularly when it comes to the tone of a work - maybe the reviewers elsewhere who have lavished praise on 'Night of the Devils' were keyed into a whole different feeling than I was, but I wasn't sold. That said, the gratuitous last half hour is definitely worth sticking around for hour. Again, if you're into this era of genre cinema, you'll probably want to see it (and probably already have).

UPSTREAM COLOR
The first time i saw Season of the Witch (a couple of years ago) i was seriously underwhelmed by it all. It must be the films witchcraft that has drawn me back a further four times since and it gets better each time. At this rate it will soon be my fave Romero film, i'm not kidding either.

I watched The Night of the Devils on New Years Day (night), i'd been saving it for a special occasion as so many had recommended it as a Gothic gem. Seriously grimy opening aside i felt it was so, so dull. Based on The Family of the Vourdalak by Tolstoy it had been filmed previously by Mario Bava as part of the excellent Black Sabbath. Bava's film is an utter delight from start to finish, the entire story takes place in a third of Night of the Devils running time and it shows. Devils felt so long winded and much of it lacked atmosphere.

I noticed Upstream Color got a 4 star review in Empire and had already put it in my Amazon wishlist. Your excellent take on the film only reinforces my need to see it.
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  #27055  
Old 23rd January 2014, 11:42 AM
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Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
The first time i saw Season of the Witch (a couple of years ago) i was seriously underwhelmed by it all. It must be the films witchcraft that has drawn me back a further four times since and it gets better each time. At this rate it will soon be my fave Romero film, i'm not kidding either.

I watched The Night of the Devils on New Years Day (night), i'd been saving it for a special occasion as so many had recommended it as a Gothic gem. Seriously grimy opening aside i felt it was so, so dull. Based on The Family of the Vourdalak by Tolstoy it had been filmed previously by Mario Bava as part of the excellent Black Sabbath. Bava's film is an utter delight from start to finish, the entire story takes place in a third of Night of the Devils running time and it shows. Devils felt so long winded and much of it lacked atmosphere.

I noticed Upstream Color got a 4 star review in Empire and had already put it in my Amazon wishlist. Your excellent take on the film only reinforces my need to see it.
Yeah, totally agree on all three counts - just wish 'Season of the Witch' had a better presentation, 'cos that one from Anchor Bay looks a bit shite really. But I don't think the elements are available, which is real shame as a full blown restoration / revival could put Romero in a slightly different context.
'Night of the Devils' was a real disappointment for sure. Like you, I'd kind of been hanging on to it 'till the right moment and was certain I'd love it... only to leave feeling short changed and empty handed.
As for 'Upstream Color', I have a feeling it'll be as divisive as 'Only God Forgives', with which it shares only a certain marmite factor... but it is unique, and it's heartening that risks are still being taken and things like this are being put out. The director did another film about ten or fifteen years ago which again was critically well received and was a sort of hard-to-follow minimalist sci-fi by all accounts, but I haven't seen it. Might try it this aft as I think it's on Lovefilm streaming.
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  #27056  
Old 23rd January 2014, 11:47 AM
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Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop View Post
Yeah, totally agree on all three counts - just wish 'Season of the Witch' had a better presentation, 'cos that one from Anchor Bay looks a bit shite really. But I don't think the elements are available, which is real shame as a full blown restoration / revival could put Romero in a slightly different context.
I do seriously feel that Season would lose a fair bit of its draw if it was released in a more polished presentation. Some films are meant to look ropey and uncompromising, this is one of them.
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  #27057  
Old 23rd January 2014, 11:53 AM
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Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
I do seriously feel that Season would lose a fair bit of its draw if it was released in a more polished presentation. Some films are meant to look ropey and uncompromising, this is one of them.
Yes it is one of those films, but for me it needs to be the right kind of ropey - a rough, grainy 16mm look would IMO suit more than the VHS type transfer on my version, which also looked a bit blocky in places - but I did watch it on my laptop, so maybe that's why.
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  #27058  
Old 23rd January 2014, 11:57 AM
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Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop View Post
Yes it is one of those films, but for me it needs to be the right kind of ropey - a rough, grainy 16mm look would IMO suit more than the VHS type transfer on my version, which also looked a bit blocky in places - but I did watch it on my laptop, so maybe that's why.
I just feel it would turn into an episode of Desperate Housewives with a beautiful restoration.
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  #27059  
Old 23rd January 2014, 12:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop View Post
UPSTREAM COLOR - On with the good stuff. Wow, this was amazing. And just really baffling. Or maybe not, because it makes sense on some distant level. Reviewers have tended to put a kind of 'T Malick meets D Conenberg' type framework around it, which probably works. Basically, it's about a woman who is kidnapped by a man who inserts some kind of consciousness altering maggot into her, subjects her to some heavy psychological abuse, then uses her in a financial scam. He then passes on the psych-maggot to an avant-garde musician / swineherd who likes to infiltrate his livestock with said maggots which I guess imbue the pigs with some form of telepathic consciousness... the film follows the woman as she meets a man who has been through to the same process - both try to come to terms / understand what has happened. Yep, it's a bit of a mind-blower, although, as you sink into it, you adapt to its otherness quickly. It has narrative, obviously, but, cinematically we're in indie-experiental territory - it's not linear, and pushes forward by way of connections, parallels, intersections. Judging by the DVD box it's been marketed in the UK as a standard horror sci-fi thriller - it isn't at all, and such a move will only alienate those who can't put up with something so fiercely enigmatic. An odd move also, as the film has been extensively covered by the vessels of middlebrow culture - The Guardian, Sight and Sound etc. Anyway, if you like it strange then hopefully you'll love this elliptical piece of arch-weirdness.
I loved Upstream Color. Loved it. And although I couldn't even pretend to understand the majority of it, I found it really easy to like and go along with, which can't be said of all films which are as atypical or fall under the avant-garde - a credit to Carruth, really. I accepted it as a stream of conciousness, but there is some sort of twisted sense to its extra-sensory threads, as well as a good old fashioned love story to hang on to. I gained more from readers of the film than what Carruth himself has actually said about it - he's (I assume deliberately) vague on what it's all about. Either way, I fell for its hypnotic quality and found it a far more substantial film than (the still rather excellent) Primer. I think the comparisons to Malick on a visual front are certainly accurate as are the Cronenberg nods, and that's how I somewhat flippantly described the film to my girlfriend after watching it (while waxing lyrical over its utter strangeness).
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  #27060  
Old 23rd January 2014, 12:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Delirium View Post
I loved Upstream Color. Loved it. And although I couldn't even pretend to understand the majority of it, I found it really easy to like and go along with, which can't be said of all films which are as atypical or fall under the avant-garde - a credit to Carruth, really. I accepted it as a stream of conciousness, but there is some sort of twisted sense to its extra-sensory threads, as well as a good old fashioned love story to hang on to. I gained more from readers of the film than what Carruth himself has actually said about it - he's (I assume deliberately) vague on what it's all about. Either way, I fell for its hypnotic quality and found it a far more substantial film than (the still rather excellent) Primer. I think the comparisons to Malick on a visual front are certainly accurate as are the Cronenberg nods, and that's how I somewhat flippantly described the film to my girlfriend after watching it (while waxing lyrical over its utter strangeness).
It's obviously a difficult film to take a position on as far as 'meanings' go, but I guess it's kind of about the fragmentation of individual consciousness in the face of a nebulous (and slightly dark) universality - but there so many themes alluded to, which kind of connect and diverge in shimmery, opaque sort of ways. I liked the way it seems blank and austere on so many levels, but it evokes a lot of feeling towards the end - I found it really moving (and maybe just a little bit cheesy) when they reconnect with all these pigs. Wish I had the time and patience for multiple re-watches.
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