What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[iank]

They can get stuffed with that. Aside from water, milk is the only thing I drink. It's a damn sight better than fricking soft drinks!
What a load of balls.

Ruthless People. A financially desperate and hapless young couple (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater) decide to kidnap the wife (Bette Midler) of the ruthless businessman (Danny DeVito) that ripped them off and hold her for ransom. Midler turns out to be a truly nightmarish hostage, but there's another tiny flaw in their plan... DeVito doesn't want her back! I haven't seen this very funny mid-80s comedy for something like 25 years but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it again! Great fun.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Justin101

I've just been to the cinema to watch a rarely seen 1968 documentary about a New York Drag Queen Pageant filmed in 1967 and featuring personalities you just don't get to see these days. It was funny and it was touching and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's not available for home video anymore, I think it was last seen in VHS so I'm glad I went out and watched something that I wouldn't normally get to see!

‎The Queen (1968) directed by Frank Simon • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Have you seen Jack Smith's underground, drag madness from 1963, FLAMING CREATURES?

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Have you seen Jack Smith's underground, drag madness from 1963, FLAMING CREATURES?

No, but I already know from title that I want to!

I just watched another doc on Netflix called Advanced Style, it follows a handful of 60+ ladies who are stylish and have good fashion sense. It's my life goal to be as carefree and have such a great attitude when I'm older. It was very inspirational!

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Justin101

No, but I already know from title that I want to!

I just watched another doc on Netflix called Advanced Style, it follows a handful of 60+ ladies who are stylish and have good fashion sense. It's my life goal to be as carefree and have such a great attitude when I'm older. It was very inspirational!

Me too! I did start a style fashion thread somewhere. I will see if I can find it and bump it up. Though to be honest it was just a sneaky way of posting loads of photos of skinhead girls if I remember correctly.

Just checked and it looks like it went in the last clean up of the forum. Bugger!

[keirarts]

I have a friend who is a cattle farmer, producing both meat and dairy. Here's the problem. Meat is too cheap. Blame the supermarkets who in a bid to be cheap as possible buy meat sourced from intensive farming which is both cruel and harmful to the environment. The real difficulty is the debate on how to deal with this seems to get hijacked on one side by the 'jeremy clarksons's' who seem intent on depicting everyone else as tree hugging weirdos. On the the other side we get the militant vegans/fruitarians who seem intent on proving them right. If its not outright angry hostility its smug condescending posts on facebook that gets everyone else's back up. In truth, if you want to be a vegetarian that's fine, it doesn't make you morally superior, some truly terrible human beings were vegetarians but kudos for sticking to your principles. If you want to eat meat then PAY FOR IT, otherwise eat bugs another great source of protein.

Anyhoo... I've been watching...

The tale of Zatoichi

Blind masseur and Yakuza Zatoichi heads into town to meet up with a local gang. Two rival gangs are at war and the other side has a mean as hell Yojimbo with a nasty cough. Zatoichi ends up making friends with the rival Samurai and tries to broker a peace deal. It all goes tits up however and he ends up having to duel his mate on a bridge. One slaughter later Z's gang is left standing and sick of the gloating he renounces his sword, having it buried by his friend.
With lovely black & white photography, terrific framing of shots and a dusty lawless town the films influence by (and on) westerns is fairly evident from the get go. Certainly its influence on subsequent spaghetti westerns alongside Kurosawa's films is evident. The film is a cracking, fast paced and humane look at the futility of violence with a central character who is blind yet can see more than any other character in the film.

The Tale of Zatoichi continues.

Picking up a year after the first film, (but made pretty quickly after the first was a huge success.) Z returns to prey at the grave of his friend. Things are complicated firstly by a Yakuza gang after his head, secondly by his elder brother with whom he has a long standing grudge. Big bro it seems nicked his girlfriend and in a fit of anger Z took his arm. His brother is still a pretty mean swordsman however. Things come to a head at a graveyard in a scene that i'm certain had at least some influence on the original Django finale. in spite of its status as a quickie its still a cracking film in its own right with some terrific black and white photography.

The new tale of Zatoichi.

Z heads back to see his Sensei and realises something is amiss. It seems he's discovered politics and is intent on raising funds to support an anti-shogunate movement. Things are further complicated by the brother of the yakuza he killed in the previous film out for revenge and a growing love for his sensei's sister. Things come to a bloody and tragic end and as per usual there's a few corpses left behind when Z leaves town.
This one is the first colour film and looks genuinely beautiful. The sets are terrific and the film has that almost surreal colour scheme that was present in a lot of 60's Japanese cinema.

Zatoichi the fugitive

On a hot and dusty summers day, Z ends up killing a Yakuza. The Yakuza asks him as he lays dying to take a message to his mother. Z obliges and ends up with a price on his head and various gangs uniting to take him out and seize the land of a weak willed Yakuza who wants to make peace with him. Throw in a master swordsman with a grudge and once again it seems the poor sods life is becoming a headache once more.
Once again the move to colour pays off with some beautiful scenes and great framing showing lots of detail. One of the key traits of all the films so far is the use of 2:35:1 which is used here to terrific effect.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Me too! I did start a style fashion thread somewhere. I will see if I can find it and bump it up. Though to be honest it was just a sneaky way of posting loads of photos of skinhead girls if I remember correctly.

Just checked and it looks like it went in the last clean up of the forum. Bugger!

It can return if it's going to be used.

What was it called?

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

It can return if it's going to be used.

What was it called?

Tribes of Britain I think? Yes please if you could. I'll get collecting subcultures.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Shameless:
#23 Satan's Baby Doll (1982) All I can say about this is nice cover art. The film itself....hmmm! If you take the masturbating/voyerism/lesbianism out of it the film would last only five minutes! (not that I'm really complaining).

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by JoshuaKaitlyn

Shameless:
#23 Satan's Baby Doll (1982) All I can say about this is nice cover art. The film itself....hmmm! If you take the masturbating/voyerism/lesbianism out of it the film would last only five minutes! (not that I'm really complaining).

Try this instead, it's pretty much the same as SBD but much more fun and ruder!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

West 11 (1963)

A nicely gritty early crime thriller from Michael Winner. Set in a seedy corner of London populated by smoky jazz clubs and down and dirty bedsits, this tale of low morals and murder is really quite good.

Although it was only early Winner, the film features several of his directorial flourishes that would become more prominent in his later more famous works. In this case namely the music - The film has an excellent jazz score from Acker Bilk which transforms into a jarring cacophony during moments of drama and tension.

An excellent cast including Alfred Lynch, Eric Portman, Diana Dors, Finlay Currie and Patrick Wymark gives the story and characters some real emotional weight and believability in this grimy example of sixties urban noir.