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  #37101  
Old 28th May 2016, 09:47 PM
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Commando. Not one of my favourite Arnie's but it's knockabout fun. I still find it impossible to take the lead villain at all seriously, he looks like he's just stepped out of a YMCA video...
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  #37102  
Old 28th May 2016, 09:52 PM
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Originally Posted by tele1962 View Post
Put it this way Dem, they still look pretty good..........just me being picky.
I was hoping you'd explain what you meant. The tech stuff tends to go over my head at times.
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  #37103  
Old 28th May 2016, 11:09 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
I was hoping you'd explain what you meant. The tech stuff tends to go over my head at times.
He means the picture quality isn't as good as he'd like.
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  #37104  
Old 28th May 2016, 11:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J Harker View Post
He means the picture quality isn't as good as he'd like.
You know, dumb as i am, i kinda' figured that.
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  #37105  
Old 28th May 2016, 11:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
You know, dumb as i am, i kinda' figured that.
Yeah, i know...
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  #37106  
Old 29th May 2016, 05:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
I was hoping you'd explain what you meant. The tech stuff tends to go over my head at times.
Basically the way the picture or data fits into the Blu Ray, the compression. If not done properly it can cause artefacts, such as macro blocking, contrast being off, grain not rendered properly, softness to the picture etc.

All About Why Blu-ray Is Still Better Than Streaming Today
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  #37107  
Old 29th May 2016, 11:05 AM
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Snowtown

So many things i could say about his film i don't know where to start,
But first thing ill say is give me films like this over a good 80/90 of films today.
its based on a true story of people who committed crimes and murders against mainly peodophiles one of those films that prove you dont need violence/action/gore/big bucks/ cgi/actors/and any other malarkey that most films that get made these days think you need especialy the Hollywood Blockbuster films.
The film is made plain and simple with very little going on, its tells the story of a mother and her children get into the wrong crowd of peodophile haters and killers, the film is more based on people feelings, emotions, and how most people feel against scum of society like peodophiles, except they dont talk about it they do it, what you see in the film is very little its more about the imagination of whats going on and what you dont see. But what you do see it kept to a bare minimum,
The film is potraid and made extremely well and made to pull you in and give the film a grim and disturbing feel to it, and doesnt let go.
The music score is also fantastic and help the tonne of the film give it that disturbing feel to it and how music can play a big part in the film if the score right and not just some random song or record playing in the background from a artist who had lots of hits in the charts,
Overall i give the film 9 out of 10 only thing that stops me from giving it a 10 is i would like to have known about how they got round to getting found out and caught, the write up at the end mainly tells you what police discovered and what they got sentenced for their parts in the killings.
If you havent seen the film then dig it out you wont regret it.
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  #37108  
Old 29th May 2016, 06:50 PM
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Penda's Fen (1974)

Centering around the adolescence of a boy named Stephen as he approaches his 18th birthday, Penda's Fen is a wonderful exploration of growing up, English tradition, art, sexuality, and loads of other things all to the magnificence of England's greatest composer, Sir Edward Elgar.

Directed by Alan Clarke and written by David Rudkin, this is a quite enthralling television film full of weirdness, quite a bit of which i didn't fully understand on first viewing. It's subject matter is controversial and i can appreciate why it is largely unknown but loved by those who have seen it.

Penda's Fen appears at first glance to be a host of unrelated vignettes as a boy turns into an adult and as such could almost be dipped in and out of, but it's the merging of pagan tradition and old England which grabbed me with it's stunning imagery such as the angel and King Penda on the hill, however none are as visually stimulating as the winged gargoyle perched on Stephen's bed one night. Admittedly, it's a sequence poached directly from Fuseli's The Nightmare painting but it's memorable and so highly effective as to be the highlight of this drama.

Penda's Fen isn't all po-faced metaphysical ambiguity. Some scenes are laugh out loud funny. Witness Stephen discovering a man erecting a road closure sign with a miss spelling of Pinvin. (Penda's Fen was the place name originally but the name morphed over the centuries into Pinvin).

Odd, obscure, occasionally unfathomable, yet riveting throughout. Penda's Fen is one i'll be coming back to make no mistake.
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  #37109  
Old 29th May 2016, 07:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
Penda's Fen (1974)

Centering around the adolescence of a boy named Stephen as he approaches his 18th birthday, Penda's Fen is a wonderful exploration of growing up, English tradition, art, sexuality, and loads of other things all to the magnificence of England's greatest composer, Sir Edward Elgar.

Directed by Alan Clarke and written by David Rudkin, this is a quite enthralling television film full of weirdness, quite a bit of which i didn't fully understand on first viewing. It's subject matter is controversial and i can appreciate why it is largely unknown but loved by those who have seen it.

Penda's Fen appears at first glance to be a host of unrelated vignettes as a boy turns into an adult and as such could almost be dipped in and out of, but it's the merging of pagan tradition and old England which grabbed me with it's stunning imagery such as the angel and King Penda on the hill, however none are as visually stimulating as the winged gargoyle perched on Stephen's bed one night. Admittedly, it's a sequence poached directly from Fuseli's The Nightmare painting but it's memorable and so highly effective as to be the highlight of this drama.

Penda's Fen isn't all po-faced metaphysical ambiguity. Some scenes are laugh out loud funny. Witness Stephen discovering a man erecting a road closure sign with a miss spelling of Pinvin. (Penda's Fen was the place name originally but the name morphed over the centuries into Pinvin).

Odd, obscure, occasionally unfathomable, yet riveting throughout. Penda's Fen is one i'll be coming back to make no mistake.
While I'm definitely intrigued this one does sound like it could go either way for me.
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  #37110  
Old 30th May 2016, 11:18 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop View Post
Not much film / review action lately due to laptop malfunction. Still, I offer these meagre scrapings -

PARTS – THE CLONUS HORROR – Some all American teens haven't clocked that they're actually clones sequestered away on a sports-oriented body parts farm. Will one of them go 'Logan's Run' and bring home the truth? 'Parts' feels creakily late seventies, but actually does a good job of being rather bleak and claustrophobic for at least half its run time. This all changes when the hero guy breaks out and hits the wider world, whereupon 'Parts' just becomes another seventies sci-fi chase thriller, with some pretty preposterous characterisations and turns of event at that. It really does run out of steam, and that's disappointing given its initial promise, but 'Parts' is still definitely worth catching for that US conspiracy age downer vibe.

TEETH – High schooler has problem – not only is she an ideological virgin, but she suffers from the first confirmed case of Vagina Dentata in living memory. We follow her as she blossoms into an uneasy adulthood, punishing various sleazeballs along the way with gnashers that spit out dicks. I hadn't seen 'Teeth' in ages – it still stands up as a great idea, and is executed well, although the tone is more in tune with adolescence-focussed indie satire of a certain era (around the time of Ghostworld and Virgin Suicides et al) than it is with the body horror of Cronenberg et al. Despite this, it is surprisingly graphic in places, and doesn't skimp on cock chewing and its immediate aftermath. Maybe a little bit too arch for my liking, but plaudits for not just being another B-horror trading on an interesting theme. Dug that gyny surgeon, rummaging on the floor for his severed fingers - “It's true! Vagina Dentata! Vagina Dentata!”

THE TENANT – Anyone cast adrift and alone in the big city might identify with the protagonist of Roland Topor's novel, a study in alienation and absurdity wonderfully realised on celluloid by Roland Polanski here. Polanski himself plays Trelkovsky, a diffident young man who takes on an apartment which belonged to a woman who killed herself. He becomes convinced that those around him, especially the creepy residents of his tenement building, are trying to erode his identity and replace it with that of the previous tenant. His life becomes the kind of paranoid self fulfilling prophecy we're all too familiar with on the outer fringes of Leeds city centre. 'The Tenant' really captures the dumb belligerence / narcissism of urban life, and you can see here a heightened, skewed version of what goes on in every suburb and on every high street – a cold, malevolent public encroaching on you, the noble, sensitive victim. It's all an illusion, but it's the way everybody thinks, the moment they get pissed off with a shop assistant or a slightly surly bus driver. Chill guys, watch 'The Tenant' or take a load of e or something, it'll all work out in the end – look at what happened to Jesus.

RED LIGHTS – Excellent French thriller which sees a disenchanted middle aged married dude go on a voyage over to the darkside when he's separated from his wife on a cross-country drive. He drinks a bit too much booze and ends up tangling with a mysterious criminal, and, needless to say, it doesn't go well. I really liked 'Red Lights', a film which, despite some neo-noirish shadings, must lie a thousand miles away from the fifties American novel it's based on. A cool atmosphere of detached foreboding dominates 'Red lights', and makes long sequences of little apparent incident seem captivating. An ostensibly 'happy' ending doesn't do much to dispel the shadowy doubts that surround the main character, and what he might or might not have done.

TULPA – A latter day Giallo homage which is pretty successful in that it manages to combine stylishness, sexiness, weirdness and violence together with a heavy dose of tedium. Yep, boredom, the mainstay of the seventies Giallo (sorry, I'm not a massive fan of those movies by and large), is quite in evidence here, although it doesn't entirely ruin things as a few choice scenes such as a really dumb looking carousel murder weigh against the trudge factor and make sticking around for the silly and underwhelming finale kind of worth it. The plot is something I can't quite be bothered to explain, but it's basically about a kinky high powered business executive and her subterranean exploits in a sex club, which all ties in with a trenchcoat-wearing killer and aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. Which sounds like the makings of something really great now I think about it, but I guess the magic just wasn't there this time. However, have earmarked it for a rewatch when in a more forgiving mood.
Haven't seen this is ages. May have a dig later!!

Welcome To New York (2104, Abel Ferrara)
AB does it again. Whilst not as outright nasty as some of his other work, this had me gripped nonetheless. Sort of based on a real life event, I'm saying nothing else.

Back in Time
Very gushy (except for Dan Harmon haha) documentary about Back To The Future. Didn't make me want to see it again either.

Sponge Out Of Water (2015, Tibbit/Mitchell)
More of the same silliness, if you liked the first film etc. Banderas seems to be enjoying himself. And did I spot a gag about the Italian post apocalyptic genre? Rewatch!!


Was also going to watch the Taiwanese oddity The Wayward Cloud as well, but decided to finish off my latest Ligotti book instead. Tonight!!
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