What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I think I've only seen the first three PotC films and didn't like any of them. The Lone Ranger is similar in that it is bombastic, overlong, and overreliant on slapstick and action, with Johnny Depp overacting horribly.

I didn't think he overacted at all. A lot of the humour came from his expressions or dialogue. He certainly wasn't in Jack Sparrow mode for this one.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I didn't think he overacted at all. A lot of the humour came from his expressions or dialogue. He certainly wasn't in Jack Sparrow mode for this one.

I was thinking more of the framing device in the museum rather than the more nuanced performance as the 'young' Tonto. However, it has been quite some time since I've seen it, and have no desire to rewatch it!

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

DON JON.

The ultimate Cult Labs metaphor...a bloke wanks his life away in front of a computer screen unable to gain fulfilment within human relationships. However, he gets to f#ck Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore, you won't.

WILD CARD.

Jason Statham spoons several men to death in oddly unhomoerotic actioner.

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE CANAL – Quite a find for me last year was Ivan Kavanagh's 'Tin Can Man', a claustrophobic nightmare whose monochrome reality always seemed to be slipping a few agonizing inches further out of reach – see that one if you can. 'The Canal' is the director's latest genre offering, which I noticed had garnered quite a lot of praise after doing the festival circuit a couple of years ago. It's basically about a film historian who finds an old piece of archival footage featuring his own house and a murder from back in the twenties or thereabouts. This dark stuff intertwines with his own life after he suspects his wife of having an affair... she disappears, and some crazy haunting type shit starts to happen. 'The Canal' lays claim to some neat influences. There's definitely an Italian thing going on, with super saturated colours and Bavaesque lighting, not to mention the creaky disjointedness of its spirit manifestation, which kinda felt quite Fulci in some ways. The 'urban ghost story' aspect put me in mind of the fiction of Ramsay Campbell, with its bleak but hallucinatory snapshots of industrial and psychic rot, but in essence it's all a descent into madness, so can't fail to evoke Roman Polanski and his closed in epics of disintegration. This tonal richness is occasionally undermined by a couple of things. One of these is the kind of hyperkinetic editing which seemed to characterise horror films in the late nineties and early 2000s and always cropped up when the filmmakers wanted spell out “intense, half glimpsed nightmare imagery”. It's present here in brief bursts, isn't needed and feels out of place and intrusive. The other, more basic and problematic thing is... it all feels a bit loose and confusing, Normally I go with that sort of thing, but here I couldn't, for some reason. It's just that I've seen it three times, and have come away on each occasion thinking “I didn't really get my head around that, did I?”. Admittedly, on two of said occasions I did also have to ask myself what that pile of cans and bottles at my feet was all about, too. It's maybe not such a big deal, as 'The Canal' is pretty much about atmosphere and imagery at base, and delivers well on that front. In fact, like 'Tin Can Man', it excels in conjuring a downward spiral into psychosis, and it feels as suffocating as a dead man's duvet, slowly descending from above and full of malign intent. If that's your bag, you should give it a go.

2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK – Back when I was a kid, I discovered exploitation flicks with this guy who was obsessed with the idea of an impending nuclear holocaust. Post-apocalyptic trash was his only idea of cinema, and we used to watch '2019' (VHS, cut to shreds, natch) all the time. Of course, we weren't very evolved in thems days. '2019' was a pre-drugs, pre-shagging, pre-booze even time filler... without those other distractions and the internet, we allowed our sad devotion to fill afternoons, evenings, and pretty much all of the time we spent together. It consolidated a bond and provided us with a microuniverse of tiresome in-jokes, all derived from its plot, aesthetics and, above all, its lines. We seemed convinced that it was the most quotable movie of all time - “I once knew a cyborg. I didn't know what one was until I had made love with him”. “Let's just hope Big Ape's seed is as as fertile as he said it was” “Bastards, bastards, stupid bastards – arrrgghhhh!”. I think this was mostly at my insistence, because personally, at that time, I had witnessed nothing like it. Dubbed films were foreign territory for me, and I found every clunky turn of dialogue hilarious. It just seemed to be the shittest thing I could imagine, true slime from the bottom of the filmic barrel. Twenty five years on and I know now that the 'filmic barrel' is bottomless. I've seen so much abysmal shit through those intervening years that, on checking out '2019' again the other day, it seemed robbed of much of its invigorating rubbishness from back in the day, and rather stood proud as a fairly well made rip off of obvious sources – 'Escape from New York', 'Mad Max 2' et al. Bit disappointing this, as I'm used to films seeming much less transgressive and horrifying in the cold light of early middle age, but I didn't really expect to see stuff lose its burnished patina of badness. Anyway. It was a decently satisfying trip down memory lane with Parsifal and Big Ape and the boys, and revealed quite a lot of what I'd missed when I saw it the first time around – its visual sensibility is shoestring but great, and there are so many weird little ideas and touches, from that sad looking cornet player through to the weird robo-lottery clown. That it's from Sergio Martino doesn't surprise me, as, looking at some of his other stuff, he strikes me as a director who often dignifies his material with quite a lot of imaginative investment. It's as fast paced and entertaining as any post-apocalypse fan could wish for, nails its points home in a blaze of badly recorded gunfire, then makes a hasty exit through the sewer system. And it is still pretty quotable. I don't know what I'll think of it if I sit down with it again in another 25 years, but I hope I don't wait that long.

[Demoncrat]

Cheers again Frankie, keep em coming!!

Watched Island Of The Fishmen (1979, Sergio Martino)

As part of my quest to see every film made in 1979, I've had to wade through a few stinkers. This isn't one, though it came close. The bloke from The Haunting and a Bond girl (haha) run this island right? So take care not to be shipwrecked on it. Sadly for our protagonists this is what transpires. basically a Moreau ripoff, this runs out of steam way before the conclusion. Shame. least of his films that I've seen so far.

Nekromantik 2 dispatched btw. Thursday apparently.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

As part of my quest to see every film made in 1979, I've had to wade through a few stinkers.

An interesting project!

How far have you got?

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

As part of my quest to see every film made in 1979

Is this your birth year? What made you pick 1979?

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

An interesting project!

How far have you got?

Lawdy, I've no idea, as I haven't been keeping a proper list, though I do write down every film I watch. So far I think i've perused...

The Visitor
The Dark
The Day Time Ended (TVM)
Up from The Depths
The Humanoid
Stalker
Alien
The Black Hole
Malabimba the Malicious Whore
Love At First Bite
Wise Blood
A Sense Of Freedom (TVM)
Moonraker
The Warriors
Apocalypse Now


Inspired by The Visitor, I just kept coming up against rather odd films from this year. Am looking forward to tracking down Bollywood, Turkish stuff etc

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I think I've only seen the first three PotC films and didn't like any of them. The Lone Ranger is similar in that it is bombastic, overlong, and overreliant on slapstick and action, with Johnny Depp overacting horribly.

I look forward to seeing Black Mass, which is apparently a return to form for a man who, with films like Edward Scissorhands, Donnie Brasco and Ed Wood (his finest performance), became one of the finest character actors around. Though The Rum Diary and Transcendence were very good without being vintage quality, I can't think of a standout performance since Public Enemies in 2009.

I agree Ed Wood is his best performance...

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Justin101

Is this your birth year? What made you pick 1979?

No, I was 11 in 1979. And apart from the fact that they would have been filming The Empire Strikes Back then, I really don't know why I've chosen this year ahem.