Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

Feature length documentary on the great man. Features Ray talking about all his films intercut with filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson talking about the effect that Ray's work had on them. Test footage and behind the scenes film make this a great view and is a nice tribute to Ray and to an art of film making that will never be seen again.

This was on at lunchtime on BBC2. Very enjoyable it was too. :pop2:

If the channel dropped all their normal antiques, cookery and house hunting stuff and just showed quality like this things would be much better.

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A couple and their male friend go to a party but after a lovers tiff Alex decides she has had enough and leave the party leaving Marcus and Pierre behind. Unable to flag down a cab Alex goes to the subway to make her way home. Alex stumbles upon what seems like a domestic between a coulpe in the subway station when the a routine arguement turns nasty the female flees and the attention is is put upon Alex. What follows is very violent very grim and very drawn out rape that most people will find very hard to watch.

After the party Marcus and Pierre discover the faith of Alex and at that point Marcuss pain turns to blind rage and a thirst for revenge. From this point on we are hammered with strange music and spinning camera angles she-male prostitues some graphic sexual scenes in a gay club and a fire extinguisher.

The film is shown from end to start starting with the end credits and working its way from the end to the start. I felt it worked really well to shoot the film in this way because when it starts so graphic i was thinking that it cant get much worse but after the notorious rape scene the film builds up to something
more tramatic to put what we have witnessed in an even more disturbing light.

A really well done film i love how its shot and acted so raw and brutal. Vincent Cassell is fantastic as always and your heart will be broken by the trauma of what Monica Bellucci has to go through im sure it was emotionally and physically draining for her to even act such a brutal scene so the lady gets a lot of my respect for suffering for her art. Be warned that is film is very graphic so if you have not seen this just be prepared.

I put this film in my catagory of not one for the ladies. I dont mean that in a sexist way but certain films i would not feel comfortable sitting through with a female.

Great review Nordy, though I am not a believer in the whole actor/actress being brave/suffering for their art, it's not like it is a real job...I'd like to see them deal with real trauma day in day out like nurses, the police, child social workers and the fire service.

Good point :doh:

Ive tried several times to watch the film but for first half hour the way the camera angle keeps moving around gives me a bit of a headache .

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The Legend Of Wisely (1987)

So-so action-adventure-scifi! film which could have been much better.
Giving the lead to Sam Hui was not a great idea, though I did enjoy Ti Lung and Joey Wong's performances.
Some good action and stunts but too few and far between imho. The beautiful locations can't save this one either.
Not bad but also not really good I'm afraid...

I watched this on a cheap second hand region A locked (Panny trick!) HK blu btw, which probably makes this look the best it's ever looked.
The subs are ok but transform from time to time into typical old school wrecked HK subs. :)

Swamp Water (1941)

Lovely Gothic noir tale set deep in the Georgia swamps about an escaped convict hiding out, and how it affects the local inhabitants, especially his daughter and the man who discovers him.

Director Jean Renoir really goes to town with highly atmospheric cinematography, beautifully capturing the sweltering swamps with a neo-Gothic majesty.

Quite brutal in places, the film boasts a good cast with Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Anne Baxter, John Carradine and Walter Brennan who i thought may have been miscast as the convict Tom Keefer but was actually the star of the show with a delightfully convincing performance.

What Films Have You Seen Recently?
 

Bloodsucking Freaks: Only my second time watching this, first time was after a few beers late one night on the Horror Channel and a few beers is what I should've had last night before watching what can only be described as 90 minutes of trashy exploitation rubbish!
For those unfamiliar with the film, it's basically about a Wizard of Gore type "magician" and his miniature Brian Blessed dwarf sidekick who abuse and torture women as part of a Grand Guignol style show. It features such delights as brain sucking through a straw, dismemberment, a human dartboard and plenty of female nudity. You can tell that the filmmakers are fans of H.G Lewis, as certain aspects are similar, the low budget, crappy effects, bad acting etc wouldn't be out of place in one of his films. I can honestly say I wouldn't recommend this for a date night film, but fans of this type of low budget shite will love it. I'm in no rush to watch it again, but I did thoroughly enjoy it for what it is, pure exploitation shite and 88 Films' Blu Ray is great, the PQ isn't fantastic, but a film like this needs to look crappy for maximum effect. There's plenty of extras on offer too, so I highly recommend it for fans of shite cinema (you probably wouldn't be on here if you weren't)

Next up was 101 Films' BD of The Phantom of the Opera(1989). One of my favourite adaptions of Gaston Lerouxs gothic novel and by far the goriest.
Robert Englund stars as Erik, a musician disfigured due to a Faustian pact with the Devil,so that his music will be remembered forever, who coaches the young Christine as the lead in an opera performed in London instead of Paris as depicted in the novel.
What I like so much about this adaption is the way Erik wears his mask, instead of just a traditional mask a la Michael Crawford, he wears the skin of his murder victims, painfully sewn together with his own skin, a nice touch used to accentuate the horror aspect of the tale.
The PQ on the Blu is an improvement over the MGM R1 DVD, but the lack of extras (not even a trailer!) means I would only recommend picking this up if it's cheap :nod:

Banshee Chapter (2013)

Hunter S Thompson meets HP Lovecraft, Banshee Chapter is as good and different as anything i've seen in recent times.

Ted Levine plays a burnt out counterculture novelist mixed up in his past with secret government experimental drugs harvested from human brains. The film boasts minimal gore but at times it borders on unsettling due to it's unique shadowy ink black atmosphere and some marvelous edge of your seat jump scares.

Based on true events which the US govt has since apologized for, the film has a straightforward story line that's never cliched or obvious in it's storytelling. The film is beautifully acted by Katia Winter as an investigative journalist, and the outstanding Ted Levine, who both give compelling performances under the direction of first timer Blair Erickson who surely will go far in the genre.

Highly recommended.