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  #29031  
Old 3rd August 2014, 01:55 PM
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Quick request - anyone seen/got an opinion on any Atom Egoyan movies? They're all 6 quid in Fopp for the blu rays but I've no idea if they're worth a punt. The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica look up my street from the descriptions. Cheers.
Exotica is superb. Your post has reminded me that I still need to pick it up at some point.
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  #29032  
Old 3rd August 2014, 03:53 PM
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In a Lonely Place - What a performance by Humphrey Bogart in this study of an embittered screenwriter with serious anger management issues and a shady past. Is he a killer though? It's hinted throughout that WW2 has screwed Bogie up but it's never addressed directly - if remade today this motivational stuff would be spoon fed to the audience but here it's left to the actor and remains ambiguous. Compulsive stuff and pretty tense for what is, essentially a character study.

The Killers (1946) - the first 15 minutes of this movie is truly incredible - Tarantino and Cronenberg amongst many plagiarists. The rest is brilliant too, Ava Gardner is hot, the Russian Doll plot is still innovative. Can't wait to see the 64 version and indeed the Tarkovsky (got the old 2 disc Criterion DVD for a tenner - well worth a pick up, picture is perfect and extras plentiful). I'm finally getting over my blu ray or nothing phase, pleased to say.

The Graduate - can't believe I'd never seen this, a real classic - music a bit overused for me - got a bit sick of Scarborough Fair in particular, but it's a minor quibble. How influential was this movie? Answer - extremely. Love the Mrs Robinson character and her twisted motives - thought initially she was protecting her daughter from suffering her own fate, when in reality she was just a selfish narcissist happy for (her) history to repeat itself. Except it's not quite that simple, of course....

Quick request - anyone seen/got an opinion on any Atom Egoyan movies? They're all 6 quid in Fopp for the blu rays but I've no idea if they're worth a punt. The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica look up my street from the descriptions. Cheers.
Atom Egoyan is well worth a punt. I would definately start out with Exotica and sweet hearafter and then work through the rest of his stuff.
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  #29033  
Old 3rd August 2014, 03:59 PM
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Blind Date (1984)

Another of Greek director Nico Mastorakis's films for Omega Pictures. Joseph Bottoms (The Black Hole) stars as a man who goes blind following an accident. Doctors find nothing wrong with his eyes and so offer him an experimental method of sight using brain electrodes and a computer like walkman device which enables him to see electronic outlines of objects in his brain. Meanwhile a taxi driver is abducting and murdering young women by performing amateur surgery on them. Naturally the two strands of the story converge into one come the last third of the film.

Mastorakis was on a fine streak of film making in his days with Omega Pictures. Blind Date was his first for the company and he never looked back, directing sterling efforts such as Nightmare at Noon and Edge of Terror along the way. Blind Date is a stylish horror thriller with added sci-fi elements. Quite disturbing in places, the kills, although blood is never seen, are protracted scenes and quite methodical and sleazy in their approach.

Mastorakis in only his second film after Island of Death brings together a good cast in the aforementioned Bottoms, Keir Dullea, Kirstie Alley and Marina Sirtis of soon to be Star Trek fame. As a nice exploitation trick he also manages to get each of his many actresses, including Alley, to go topless at some stage or another, mainly in their death scenes. As for the sci-fi experimental sight device, it's quite primitive in it's use and definitely dates the film yet also comes across as a decent tension grabber when Mastorakis uses it in that respect.

Blind Date is a fast moving film and has a giallo style aproach to it, where we never see the killer until the final reel although there are clues throughout.

Another cheap as chips release from Hollywood Dvd. Blind Date has a fine looking 1:88:1 print and is certainly worth the time for most giallo / slasher fans.
Just watched the trailer and that looks fun! Cheers for the heads up.
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  #29034  
Old 3rd August 2014, 04:24 PM
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FILTH. I couldn't really warm to this tale of a policeman spiralling out of control via guilt, sex, drugs and alcohol. Not sure why, though I suspect that as the first half is played as a very broad and bawdy comedy before switching to darker hues in the second half might have something to do with it. Overall I enjoyed it but found it lacking something...

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2. Not as clunky as the first one and with excellent gooey effects, I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Hugely enjoyable slasher film from the 80s that features Cult Labs very own shoegazer B_E going apeshit on a thrill kill rampage in what looked like to me, the opening third of "The Deer Hunter" populated by overgrown rejects from a teen sex comedy.
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  #29035  
Old 3rd August 2014, 05:01 PM
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Goal of the Dead (2014)

Olympique Des Paris turn up in a small town to play a cup tie against a lowly fourth tier team. However as the game gets underway a genetically engineered zombie style virus leaks out and a football match turns into a fight for survival.

Hyped Here in the UK as Shaun of the Dead at a football match, this is a lazy depiction of the film. If i was to describe it i would say it was a horror film produced in the style of the excellent Taxi movies from the Luc Besson stable. Serious subjects broached with a certain type of laugh out loud humour which has a French twist rather than the lads down the pub approach to the English Simon Pegg film.

The success of the film lies solely with the writing as it certainly isn't a conventional zombie film - there is no flesh eating for a start. The script is so well written that even very minor characters appear to be well rounded and therefore memorable during the brief scenes in which they pop up. Billed as a film of two halves which is a play on the old football cliche of a game of two halves, the film makers don't disappoint. The first fifty or so minutes is all getting to know you chat among the team, fans and a couple of really funny tv pundits, this half boasts some blackly comical humour and is a pleasure to watch. Once the match is over the film stops and the second half begins. It's totally unnecessary, but wholly original and a fun idea.

The second half of the film is a little run of the mill as various characters we already met in the first half, hole up in a bar and the fight for survival against the infected begins. Whilst still fun and darkly funny the horror aspect is upped and in a way it really isn't anything new to seasoned horror fans, the odd moment of laugh out loud humour aside.

On the whole Goal of the Dead is a wickedly, funny and most importantly original horror comedy. Highly recommended, to football fans especially.
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  #29036  
Old 3rd August 2014, 07:39 PM
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Sabotage (U.S. Bluray which is region free) Given the run of form he has had since returning to his film career I found this entry in the Arnie Cannon a little disappointing, there are three great action scenes but otherwise it is lacking on the action front.
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  #29037  
Old 3rd August 2014, 08:27 PM
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Guardians of the Galaxy.
Absolutely frickin brilliant!!!
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  #29038  
Old 3rd August 2014, 09:31 PM
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Originally Posted by J Harker View Post
Guardians of the Galaxy.
Absolutely frickin brilliant!!!
That it is, went and saw it Saturday night, for me one of the best marvel films to date, the time flew over it felt like had just sat down and the movie was finished. None stop action and comedy, but the real stars are Rocket and Groot, without them the film would not of been half as good. 10/10
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  #29039  
Old 3rd August 2014, 09:45 PM
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I have to agree treb. The best Marvel film yet for me. Fantastic stuff.
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  #29040  
Old 3rd August 2014, 09:57 PM
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Haven't really been watching much recently, though I hope to rectify this soon. Anyway, I had a lot of fun with JULIA X, which is kind of about a battle of wits between two serial killers (or even three). It doesn't waste much time messing about with set up and back story, just cuts to the chase with a certain amount of zest and verve. It's bloody without being full on, and satisfyingly twisted (lite) in places. My attention span is dwindling these days, so I appreciate films which try to be smart and snappy and succeed. Cult Labbers who read my posts will be aware of how massively 1) pretentious 2) miserable I am, so naturally I have a big-style aversion to dreadful 'horror comedy', but that's exactly what 'Julia X' is... thankfully it's not too broad or laugh out loud. Pretty good and well worth seeing.

I definitely wouldn't describe UNDER THE SKIN as any kind of comedy, but you probably all know that already. I was a bit apprehensive about seeing it, thinking it couldn't possibly live up to the internal hype I'd surrounded it with... maybe it didn't, but it came pretty close. It's a film of two halves, the first being about performance, seduction and annihilation (and, as MTDS pointed out, an alien sex killer). The second part is more about a being who suddenly finds itself vulnerable and without an identity, stranded in a landscape she can only begin to fathom. I liked the second bit more. It has a really bleak, claustrophobic but somehow almost touching feel, as horny alien siren with black hole for a heart begins to emote and question its place in the world but alas just can't relate and ends up dead in some godforsaken wilderness. I wanted to watch it again as soon as I'd finished it, and I can't say that about many I've seen in the last couple of years.

Speaking of bleak and claustrophobic, how about Mike Leigh's brilliant MEANTIME? I think I prefer it even to 'Naked' in the tortured underclass uber-angst stakes - possibly because it has that early eighties, 'Play for Today' type feel which always seemed a bit disturbing to me when I was a kid, kind of loose, downbeat, elliptical, almost documentary. Anyway, it's great, a truly grimy slice of life which bears witness to the day to day struggles of switched on but cynical Phil Daniels, his learning dis brother Tim Roth, and strangely balletic skinhead Gary Oldman, who all pick their way through the Hogarthian landscape of recession-bitten London, simultaneously flattened by and lashing out at their down at heel locales. All three are excellent and just shine in their respective roles - the dynamics between the two brothers are particularly well worked out. The film as a whole leaves you angry at the state of things, but with enough of a glimmer that there might be something beyond the carnage.
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