What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Dave Boy]

BLUEBEARD PRC (1944)

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Have you seen the Burton version, Daveboy?

I really rate that.

Not seen that version. I see that it has Raquel Welch in it so it is my duty to check it out.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Dave Boy

BLUEBEARD PRC (1944)



Not seen that version. I see that it has Raquel Welch in it so it is my duty to check it out.

It has a bevy of hot Euro totty in it. Raquel's the only one that doesn't strip for dastardly Richard Burton.

He probably thought to himself 'While the cats away...'

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

It has a bevy of hot Euro totty in it. Raquel's the only one that doesn't strip for dastardly Richard Burton.

He probably thought to himself 'While the cats away...'

Not seen it myself but Google images tells me i need to get on that right away

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

Not seen it myself but Google images tells me i need to get on that right away

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

My Marvel superheroes revolution is well under way.

In chronological order.

Captain America The First Avenger (2011)

I've reviewed this previously and gave it a real hammering. It's safe to say my views have changed somewhat. Whilst nowhere near perfect, it didn't grate on me like that first viewing and featured some good character actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Neal McDonough, Stanley Tucci, Dominic Cooper and Toby Jones who made up for the wooden style of lead Chris Evans.

Story wise this is part WW2 action adventure and partly borrowed from Clint Eastwood's 2006 film Flags of Our Fathers in the need to create an American hero to inspire the war effort back home.

Agent Carter (2015)

Set four years after the events of The First Avenger, it's 1946 and Peggy Carter has left the military and is now a secretary for The Strategic Scientific Reserve. Dominic Cooper, reprising his role as Howard Stark, contacts Carter for help when he is declared wanted for treason.

Following a slowish start this first series comprising a mere 8 episodes picks up greatly. Hayley Atwell is again very good as Carter and one or two characters from Captain America reappear (i won't say who) and Stark's butler, Jarvis, wonderfully portrayed by James D'Arcy, appears on the scene. The second half of the series is terrific stuff and as good as any recent television i can think of.

Iron Man (2008)

After being held captive in an Afghan cave, a billionaire engineer creates a unique fully loaded suit of armor to fight evil.

Robert Downey Jr is excellent as billionaire industrialist playboy Tony Stark. Thankfully this opening film in The Avengers series stays close to home with the threat from Jeff Bridges and inside Stark Industries rather than some planet destroying super villain. Final fight aside this is more realistic than what is to come from the Marvel universe and with the introductions of SHIELD's Agent Coulson who pops up throughout, and Nick Fury in a post credits sequence sets the scene for what's to come.

I wasn't totally sure where to post this but as it's two films and a tv series i decided the films thread wins.

[Dave Boy]

THE DAM BUSTERS (1955)

Well, what can you say ?
Absolute classic film.
Guy Gibson's 617 Squadron are sent to destroy three Dams in Germany with the help of the new invention, the 'bouncing bomb'.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Fractured (2013)

For the most, set in the dark underbelly of New Orleans, the film is a story of a man (well played by Callum Blue) who wakes following a three year coma. However his attempts at a normal life are thwarted by disturbingly horrific visions which force him to go back to his deep south roots and confront his past.

Fractured is a dark noir-like thriller as if penned by Clive Barker. Although the pace is quite languid, the director, Adam Gierasch, who also did 2009's Night of the Demons remake, creates a beautiful atmosphere helped by a moody camera technique which lingers on the characters probably longer than it should and a gorgeous soulful blues jazz score befitting the New Orleans setting. The film's overall impact is of a haunting and hallucinatory world. A place where you'd like to grab a bourbon but perhaps not linger too long.

Don't be put off by the fact Vinnie Jones is used in the publicity materials to the point of over exposure. He's in it, and playing the usual Jones villain, but he's used sparingly and although slightly cliched he's a superior villain with a deliciously nasty streak.

Although not a straight down the line horror, the film has enough grotesque imagery, including a dark sub plot involving sex trafficking, and gruesome originality to satisfy most gore hounds.

Frankie Teardrop first reviewed and recommended this film way back in November 2014. Listen to Frankie, even if you don't listen to me! Fractured comes recommended.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Striptease (1996)

Coming just a year after the much vilified Showgirls, Striptease didn't stand much of a chance as it's essentially seen as several strip club sequences with a story thrown round them much like
1987's dreary Stripped to Kill was.

In reality it's actually far better than that description and is only really let down by some drastic shifts in tone throughout. It seems director Andrew Bergman has tonal problems, as his most appreciated film, Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), also suffers from the same thing in my opinion.

The story of a single unemployed mum who gets a job in a strip club to make ends meet as she tries to gain custody of her child from it's alcoholic father is a typical Hollywood drama that could play out on Channel 5 on a Monday afternoon were it not for the frequent nudity. However when you add in the political subplot of murder and corruption which begins when Burt Reynolds US senator accidently kills a punter in the club then things get a bit sticky. Reynold's senator is practically a comedy relief character as is Ving Rhames night club bouncer and there are plenty of laughs to be had. It's just when Armande Assante's cop arrives to investigate and CSI's Paul Guilfoyle starts offing people without the senator's knowledge that the tone shifts from scene to scene. Long strip sequences followed by beatings and tear jerk melodrama don't really go hand in hand.

It's all nicely acted though. Burt Reynolds is clearly having a blast as is Rhames, but the film is most famous for star Demi Moore's nudity. It seems she'd just had a new boob job and wanted to show them off. Many people don't rate silicon implants but i think she looks really good in this film. Super toned body wise, she makes for a decent dancer and in my eyes comes across more convincing than Elizabeth Berkely did in Showgirls (Although that might not be hard). Interestingly, one of the dancers, Rena Riffel, is in both this and Showgirls, typecast? Probably. Big breast lovers will want to keep an eye out for Pandora Peaks as she does her routine, although it's unlikely you'll miss em'.

Striptease is difficult to recommend as it's sort of good and a bit rubbish at the same time. I suppose the best way to describe it is as a guilty pleasure.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Fractured (2013)

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Striptease (1996)

As I haven't seen Fractured, and the last time I saw Striptease was probably at least a decade ago, they are both now on my Lovefilm rental queue.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I saw The Hateful Eight a couple of days ago and intended on writing something sooner, but have been cracking on with university work. There is probably little point in talking about the plot, so I'll just limit this to my opinion.

This is clearly a vanity piece for Tarantino who wanted to make a permanent impact on American cinema by making the first 70 mm 'Roadshow' film since the mid-1960s (I believe the 1966 film Khartoum directed by Basil Dearden was the last) and, to be absolutely fair, the film is beautifully shot and I wish I had a screen bigger than 42 inches to see the few landscape scenes again – Cineworld boycott meant I couldn't see it at the cinema – and it is incredibly well designed, blocked, and staged. It has also been designed within an inch of its life, from just about every strand of facial hair to the costumes and the interiors of the stagecoach and Minnie's Haberdashery (including props) are wonderful to watch. The choice of actors and, in Ennio Morricone, composer, also smacks of a director in full control of everything except the script leak which threatened to derail the entire project.

As with Tarantino's previous films done this way, the chapter format makes for an episodic viewing which contains both good and bad. I can't remember the numbers or names at the moment, but a couple of them were overly wordy and a bit dull, whereas the second half of the one in which Samuel L Jackson takes centre stage is crackling with tension and has great dynamics between the characters. However, I could have done without the unnecessary (and uncredited) narration by Tarantino with an indistinguishable accent.

Even with the nearly three-hour running time, you are left not knowing much about many of the characters, with only Chris Mannix and Marquis Warren given decent, though spurious and potentially fictional, backgrounds, so the characters aren't even as well-developed as in Reservoir Dogs, which has a running time of just over half the length!

Like I said, there is some really good stuff there, and Morricone's score is worthy of all the praise and awards which went his way, and some of the acting is excellent, but I'm certainly not in a rush to watch it a second time.