What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

The Kid with the Golden Arm.

Martial arts. I thought Frank had been selling drugs.

[SShaw]

Originally Posted by SShaw

I was in Hamburg this evening to catch the opening film of fantasy film fest Hamburg, Kill Your Friends. It is an outrageous black comedy. It's being compared to American Psyco and Filth, personally the tone reminds me much more of Chris Malrys Double Entry. Quite brilliant. Go and see it. go and see it now, or in November when it hits UK cinemas.

I was back in Hamburg this weekend to catch a few of the films I missed in Berlin.

Saturday began with the excellent french gangster film The Connection which takes us back in time to 1970's Marseilles to explore the French Connection from the French side. This is a superlative thriller which cranks up the tension with each minute until the inevitable conclusion. Recommended.

Next up was Howl. I had seen some preliminary footage at Fright Fest Glasgow and was interested to see how SFX wizard Paul Hyatt would follow up his debut The Seasoning House, a film that I really liked. The Howl, while a very competent effort, was a little disappointing. I found the direction a little flat. But I am sure it will be a favourite among the splatter hounds at next weeks Fright Fest.

By far the biggest disappointment was Tale of Tales which manages to squander budget, visual talent and a great cast in a film that is just dull.

Saturday night concluded with a grimy revenge horror in which a young woman who was kidnapped and held as a sex slave turns the tables on her captor and sets out to rescue a number of woman also being held captive. This was a perfect 80 minutes to take us through the midnight hour.

Sunday got off to a great start with The Invitation a masterclass in how to build an atmosphere of unease as a dinner party reuniting a group of friends after 2 years apart goes to hell in a hand basket. The tension is ratcheted up unbearably until the explosive and brutal climax.

Talking of climaxes, British rom-com Nina Forever, explores loss, grief and how to get over the ex from hell with its dark, humorous study of the menage a trios between Robert, his new girlfriend and his dead ex in a film described as "disturbingly erotic" in the Q&A following the film.

My final film of the weekend was another clunker sci-fi action-horror Infini which is neatly summed up by an early line of dialogue "Black Hole, singularity bullshit[/b]. Poorly written and directed substituting science gobbeldy-gook and visual references to sci-fi classics like Aliens and Bladerunner for story, characterisation and dialogue. A shame as the film looked visually much greater than the relatively modest budget one assumes was spent on the film.

Anyway three great films, The Invitation, The Connection and Nina Forever, two good films in Howl and Bound to Vengeance more than make up for Tale of Tales and Infini.

I will return to Hamburg to see Hallow on Tuesday before making my way yo London for Fright Fest next weekend.

[Nordicdusk]

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Once a year for 12 hours all crime is made legal. Even after typing that much i am bored. I really did not like this one bit im surprised i even made it to the end but i hate to leave a film unwatched and i always try to give it a fair chance to redeem its self right to the end but this failed to do that it only made me want to have a little mini purge of my own. Every character is this is just annoying not one person has anything to offer making it impossible for me to care about the family that are being held hostage in their own home. I have heard the purge 2 is a much better film i might give it a shot and see surely it cant be as bad as this one. The time i wasted watching this could of been spent watching the Man With The Severed Head

Hard to give a score its just a bad film that i would never watch again.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

Attachment 169156

Once a year for 12 hours all crime is made legal. Even after typing that much i am bored. I really did not like this one bit im surprised i even made it to the end but i hate to leave a film unwatched and i always try to give it a fair chance to redeem its self right to the end but this failed to do that it only made me want to have a little mini purge of my own. Every character is this is just annoying not one person has anything to offer making it impossible for me to care about the family that are being held hostage in their own home. I have heard the purge 2 is a much better film i might give it a shot and see surely it cant be as bad as this one. The time i wasted watching this could of been spent watching the Man With The Severed Head

Hard to give a score its just a bad film that i would never watch again.

You should give The Purge: Anarchy a watch. A completely different type of film. A lot like Escape From New York, and the main character, Sarge, played by Frank Grillo, is essentially The Punisher in disguise.

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

You should give The Purge: Anarchy a watch. A completely different type of film. A lot like Escape From New York, and the main character, Sarge, played by Frank Grillo, is essentially The Punisher in disguise.

Cheers Stephen lucky enough the steelbook i bought had both films ill watch Anarchy tomorrow.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

Attachment 169156

Once a year for 12 hours all crime is made legal. Even after typing that much i am bored. I really did not like this one bit im surprised i even made it to the end but i hate to leave a film unwatched and i always try to give it a fair chance to redeem its self right to the end but this failed to do that it only made me want to have a little mini purge of my own. Every character is this is just annoying not one person has anything to offer making it impossible for me to care about the family that are being held hostage in their own home. I have heard the purge 2 is a much better film i might give it a shot and see surely it cant be as bad as this one. The time i wasted watching this could of been spent watching the Man With The Severed Head

Hard to give a score its just a bad film that i would never watch again.

I watched this recently as well, whilst being both bland and annoying there was one scene that I really liked due to how unexpected it played out. It's the scene when the mum is grabbed by a male and female couple and pinned to the ground in what looks like the start of a sexual assault however they tickle her instead!

[keirarts]

Valerie and her week of wonders

An old favourite from the Redemption VHS days brought back to life by the Criterion collection. It's a strange, surreal coming of age drama that plays like a weird mixture of fairy tale & gothic horror. The film has one of the creepiest vampires (or is it the devil himself?) outside of nosferatu, religious hysteria that would not seem out of place in a Ken Russell picture and plenty of strange sensual imagery. Valerie is a film that really lingers in the mind after viewing and really needs several viewings to get everything in it.

Criterion's restoration looks absolutely stunning, its a real shame that its region locked, that said It's sure to be a ripe candidate for a UK release from someone like secondrun, Mr Bongo or Arrow academy.

[iank]

Terminator 2 - Judgment Day. One of the greatest films ever made, baby!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

You should give The Purge: Anarchy a watch. A completely different type of film. A lot like Escape From New York, and the main character, Sarge, played by Frank Grillo, is essentially The Punisher in disguise.

I was distinctly underwhelmed by the first film, so didn't expect much from the sequel – with a few exceptions, sequels are generally inferior – but found Anarchy to be everything the first film should have been: thought-provoking, gripping and brutal.

[Justin101]

This weekend I watched a few documentary films rather than feature films.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye



A very touching profile of Televangelist couple Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker who prove that the truth is stranger than fiction. I honestly thought as watching it, 'you couldn't write this...'. It starts off simply enough with the back stories of how they met and how they help start christian TV and then get ousted from their own shows only to start a network of their own to be ousted again! Third time lucky they created what turned out to be the largest Christian TV satellite network in the world, however then things start to crumble in a very spectacular way!
Now I'm not a christian, I have no interest in religion at all but I was hooked to this story as it began to unfold and I came out of it a fan of Tammy Faye and felt quite saddened by the outcome.
This comes highly recommended by me but I found it a little difficult to locate as it's OOP on DVD but it's worth a go!

Atari: Game Over



Watching this the morning after Tammy Faye was detrimental to my enjoyment. It was still a highly interesting and engaging documentary about the meteoric rise of Atari and it's spectacular demise after release the infamous ET game cartridge which has been voted the worst game ever by many critics and polls. It follows a guy who is intrigued by the urban myth that 'millions of cartridges' are buried in the Californian desert. Determined to discover the bounty he goes on a quest to uncover the landfill site and find the cartridges.
It includes talking heads with people from Atari, town council members from the place where the landfill is, authors, game designers, and probably most interesting is the man who designed the ET game and it credited with destroying Atari!
This one is on Netflix so it's easy to see if you have 80 mins to spare.

Aside from these 2 I watched 3 of the special feature docs on the Videodrome disc;
David Cronenberg and the Cinema of the Extreme
Forging the New Flesh
Fear on Film

All very good but since they total near 90 mins in total, I could have just watched the film itself!