What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[monkeyscreams]

Originally Posted by Buboven

Just finished A Lizard In A Woman's Skin. Despite very strong opening sequences this becomes increasingly disengaging. 5/10.

The trailer made it look a lot better than it actually is!

The opening sequences and the trailer (the music is incredible!) are indeed very strong. But I'd rate the film 8/10. What was it that you didn't like about it? I'd appreciate your opinion.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

THE RAID 2. I really enjoyed this follow up to the original with it's expanded world and gangster film cliches a aplenty. However as much as I like a plot, once again the set pieces are the stand out parts of the film...who couldn't love a one eyed, deaf woman ripping throats out with claw hammers. On the downside with all that silat going on, I was slightly disappointed that Barry Scott didn't have a cameo.

[Buboven]

Originally Posted by monkeyscreams

The opening sequences and the trailer (the music is incredible!) are indeed very strong. But I'd rate the film 8/10. What was it that you didn't like about it? I'd appreciate your opinion.

I don't know it just seemed to turn into a very mundane murder mystery story after the first half n hour with too few striking sequences sprinkled throughout.

[nosferatu42]

Under the skin

skin.jpg

Been wanting to see this since it came out but seeing as local cinemas only show Blockbuster and kid friendly films i had to wait.
Sounded like a film that would be right up my street and didn't disappoint.
As soon as the film started i was enthralled, i'd read some reviews but always try to avoid spoilers. The back of the case synopsis pretty much sums up the story, but as we begin to watch the film is very vague and doesn't really explain anything. This is my mind is a good thing, so many films just spoon feed the viewer these days.
We follow Scarlett Johansson (looking pretty good in this incarnation) as she drives around Scotland picking up men, who she then sacrifices to an alien entity.
Much has been made of the fact that a few of these scenes were filmed with the pick ups not aware of being filmed, this device works well giving the scenes an air of reality that i found really refreshing.
Imagine being picked up by this woman while just going for a stroll down the street...

scarlett.jpg

-You can tell some of these guys are pretty chuffed with themselves and on edge with excitement, i particularly liked when one of the passengers pinches himself to see if he's dreaming.
It's small details like this that made the film work for me, the shots of the everyday people in the street that really seem everyday and the small nuances in Scarletts performance, a lot of the time she just stands there observing humanity, but this shows how she is an alien in these surroundings, and we can see in her small changes in expression and eyes how the world is starting to affect her.
Being vague in it's story telling leaves the film open to interpretation, it seemed as much a study of modern alienation reflecting how people are displaced from their environment often living in foreign cities. Or the way communities have collapsed in modern society leaving people who find real life communication difficult.
It's probably just me but it also seemed as though Scarletts character could be a reflection of depression or addiction as she seems confident while working or feeding an addiction but once something interrupts this she becomes overwhelmed and withdrawn and has to find herself.
As you can see i really got into this film, the ending while i'll try not to give to much away, was unexpected and seemed a reversal of roles, but we feel for her because she has been unaware of the implications and effects of her actions previously.
The imagery when her victims are disposed of are really affecting and creepy, the moments with the disfigured man were touching, the end was startling and shocking, the beach scene haunting, the photography realistic for the most part then beautiful and disturbing when needed.
Oh and Scarlett get's her kit off so it's all good in my book.
I can see why the film has divided people, to many there will be not enough story, people wandering around not doing much and it's pretty bleak, but there seemed to be a lot of substance and food for thought if you give it the time and allow yourself to go with the flow.
Definitely one of my films of the year.
Recommended 9.5/10

[nosferatu42]

Originally Posted by Buboven

I don't know it just seemed to turn into a very mundane murder mystery story after the first half n hour with too few striking sequences sprinkled throughout.

I take it you're not a giallo fan then.
It helps if you like the 60s/70's style, get the horn for this era's style of female and dig the music.
I'm a big yes to all three so it's all good with me.

[SShaw]

I finished watching my Wes Anderson Criterion blu's with The Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenembaums (spelling). Yesterday I revisited a couple of films from last years Fantasia film festival with Troma's Return to nuke em' high which wasn't as much fun without the festival audience and the interesting, if flawed I'll Follow You Down. You can find my thoughts on the two films over in my Diary thread entries from last year.

Scenic Route – two friends, an unemployed and homeless writer pursuing his artistic dream and an unhappily married financier who has given up his dream of being a musician, become stranded at the side of a desert road after their car breaks down. Tensions rise and violence erupts as they try to offer one another advice on how to live their lives.

I missed this at Fantasy Film Fest last year, so took the opportunity to watch it on blu-ray following its release in Germany last week. I found it to be an interesting, and sometimes humorous, exploration of the tension between following the dream or living the reality, which ultimately will bring happiness and whether, ultimately, it’s possible to change.

I will take a trip into the wind and rain later to go and see Hector and the search for happiness.

…and a few hours later I am back. Unfortunately my own search for happiness was fruitless. But for a few moments Hector is a bit flat with very few genuinely funny moments. Pegg is his usual self, but the supporting cast do their best to lift the film. Disappointing.

[Nordicdusk]

Expendables 3

Two hours of action explosions humour and some of the greatest action stars ever to grace the screen. I love these films it brings out the kid in me so many of the action Heros I love on screen at once almost too much to deal with. Mel Gibson is great as the bad guy and Wesley Snipes is built like a tank these days and able to poke fun at his recent run in with the law. The new additions to the series are pretty good much better than I expected. This is a great addition to the series and left me wanting a part 4 already. Just a fun good time film.

[Buboven]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

I take it you're not a giallo fan then.
It helps if you like the 60s/70's style, get the horn for this era's style of female and dig the music.
I'm a big yes to all three so it's all good with me.

Its not I don't like giallo, I just don't think this is a particularly good example of it, despite a very cool opening dream sequence (in fact that has to be one of my very fav giallo sequences now). Maybe it was just the emphasis on 1960's drug/psychedelic culture that threw me.

One of my fav films, and my fav giallo, is The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh. That seemed a lot more stylish and striking consistently throughout (both in terms of visuals and sound) I was more interested in the plot of it, plus it was supported by the beautiful Edwige Fenech.

Don't Torture A Duckling is a lot better example of a giallo from Fulci, though i am not sure it can be considered a giallo or not.

Saying that if i watched all the three films I mentioned again, I have only ever watched them once, I might like Lizard a lot more and think the other two are inferior.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Blood Freak (1972)

Blood Freak is one of those films that could only be made during the '70s.

Steve Hawkes stars as Herschell, a Vietnam veteran turned biker on his own righteous path to God, who one day pulls over to help a girl with a flat tyre. He takes her back home which in turn happens to be hosting a drug party at the time, and is introduced to the girl's sister, Ann, who is a free spirit and the opposite of her straight-laced religious sister Angel. After declining to use any of their drugs and alienating a few of the party-dwellers, Herschell is led away to meet Angel and Ann's father who happens to own a turkey farm and in turn offers Herschell a job.

Admittedly, this all sounds pretty straight-forward so far, but it is when we reach the turkey farm that things begin to turn towards the bizarre and the absurd. The farm has an experimental lab on site run by the girls' father, who along with a team of dim-witted scientists are experimenting with genetically altering turkeys through various experimental drugs. Meanwhile, Herschell is pressured into smoking some dope by Ann, has sex with her, and then later having worked up an appetite, tucks into a turkey dinner laid on by the dope addicted mad scientists, itself laced with a super-addictive experimental drug. This causes some changes in Herschell, who grows a massive turkey head and decides to go on a killing spree stringing up drug users and dealers alike and draining their blood - each kill preceded by maniacal gobbling.

Obviously, all this wasn't bizarre enough for the film-makers, as in addition to all this there is inter-cut narration throughout from a sleazy seated elderly man preaching pseudo-religious/philosophical statements to the audience, which literally stops the film dead in its tracks.

Terms like 'low budget', 'amateur', and 'shoddy' are thrown about quite freely when talking about films of this type, and although Blood Freak adheres to these tropes in spades, they actually act to enhance the weird, trippy, and flat out bonkers vibe that the film emanates to the point where you feel as if you have passed the boundaries of cinematic trash, and are in fact experiencing a whole new plain of reality where little makes sense - and nor does it have to.

Blood Freak is certainly an oddity (even by 1970s independent cinema standards), and has to be seen to be believed.

Originally posted here: Nightmare USA Films Discussion Thread.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Blood Mania (1970)

Light on the blood, heavy on the mania, Blood Mania tells the story of nymphomaniac Victoria who hatches a plan to kill her bed-ridden father to gain her inheritance in order to help his adulterous doctor pay a debt he owes to a blackmailer. However, not all goes to plan.

Dirty double-dealings, sexual shenanigans and psychosis help to enhance an otherwise tired and bland storyline full of melodrama and tepid performances. The final scenes are quite fun where the mania reaches its peak and we actually finally get to see some blood as the title promised.

Originally posted here: Nightmare USA Films Discussion Thread