What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I didn't read that review as i've only just bought the film, well just the last line i read.

A candidate for Decemberdike I take it?

Hopefully you'll enjoy the madness that is Symptoms too.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I didn't read that review as i've only just bought the film, well just the last line i read.

Don't wanna build it up, but personally it's one of the best I've seen in quite a while.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Don't wanna build it up, but personally it's one of the best I've seen in quite a while.

Yeah, for me too.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Don't wanna build it up, but personally it's one of the best I've seen in quite a while.

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

Yeah, for me too.

No pressure then.

[Mojo]

Count me in as another fan of SYMPTOMS. Loved it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Bugsy (1991)

The story of how Ben (Bugsy) Siegel visited an area in the empty Nevada desert and built the Flamingo hotel in a place soon to be known as Las Vegas.

Whilst not really Film Noir as such, Barry Levinson's Bugsy has a similar feel to it as L.A. Confidential (1997). Crime, mainly of the gangster variety with a hot streak of Hollywood showbiz of the forties and fifties thrown in. In fact Joe Mantegna plays the actor George Raft in the film and has quite a big role as Siegel's studio buddy in the city of angels.

I didn't think i'd like Bugsy if i'm honest. The casting of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening kind of put me off however both prove to be really rather good. Beatty stars as the villainous crime boss and surprised me at how well he portrays him. Charming and charismatic one minute and brutally vicious the next. A couple of beatings he gives out are really quite strong. The film's cast is one of it's selling points. Annette Bening is excellent as Bugsy's muse, the actress / whore Virginia Hill (It was on this film Beatty and Bening married) i should have known how good she can be in this type of role from the excellent Noir The Grifters from the year previous.as is Harvey Keitel as racketeer Mickey Cohen. Ben Kingsley's mob boss from New York is also a reassuringly menacing presence.

Despite being well over two hours the film has quite a pace to it. It's historically accurate and paints an uncompromising and brutal portrait of life in the 'mob' even for someone has high up as Siegel as the Flamingo's grand openings fail and the crowds hardly flock to the place, Siegel's debts spiraling and the mob ready to take control. It was interesting to note that the Flamingo cost $6 million to build, $6m of mob money for which Siegel received no mercy from his superiors when it came to paying it back, however by 1991 the hotel had made over $100 billion.

Come the final credits my apprehension regarding the film had completely dissipated and i really enjoyed it.

[platostotal]

V/H/S. (anthology time again)

The first thing that struck me was they were referencing the craze a few years back in the U.S. where rich white kids were getting hold of HD camcorders and committing crimes while filming themselves, such as breaking & entering, trashing houses and stupidly pretending to shoot at people while driving by in their own cars (you drive at 15 in the U.S.) so I got the idea of the plot and thought they did it quite well. But two things must be highlighted first of all, the shaky-stuttering camera work will piss you off within minutes and the second story (couple in hotel room) goes on far to long, I mean for-bloody-ever, I would imagine that's where most would give up on it, but the other tales...
A vampire babe, a woodland slasher and a very weird webcam themed story are really so much better than that second episode that they're worth putting up with or fast forwarding thru that dud 2nd tale, and that finale will be no surprise to horror fans but again it's done quite well. I must confess that me and my mate (he's a big fan of the film) plied ourselves with J.D. and tortilla chips on Halloween night and I have to say even with those faults above I thought it pretty good, we didn't get round to the sequel as neither of us are as young as we were and had to call it a night at 2am.

I would give it a solid 7/10, without the faults I'd be looking at an 8.

[Dave Boy]

Really enjoyed that. Far better than I thought it would be.
With lots of images lifted straight out of the comic book, I give this a thumbs up.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Evelyn Prentice (1934)

Another film only loosely classed as Noir. Whilst it may not be formulaic Film Noir Evelyn Prentice could be one of those films that set the standards with it's storyline of extortion and murder that the genre would grab with open arms in later years. Proto-noir if you will.

The story is complex and riveting especially it's final twenty minutes in the courtroom. Evelyn Prentice (Myrna Loy) is a wealthy socialite married to famed criminal prosecutor John Prentice (William Powell). Evelyn gets mixed up with an attractive charmer who turns out to be a predator who preys on women as targets for blackmail. When he's found dead in his apartment apparently killed by Evelyn, another woman who he assaulted on a previous occasion is charged with the murder.

The film's key points of extortion, murder, neglect and womanizing are tropes that were used throughout cinema and certainly crop up in Film Noir of the forties and fifties and perhaps even more so in Italian giallo cinema of the late sixties and seventies. The two stars Powell and Loy made 14 films together and are mostly associated with The Thin Man series of crime films, the first of which came in the very year this was made. Whilst not in the same league as The Thin Man, Evelyn Prentice is still a taut, gripping affair that is well worth seeing.

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Green Room.



Punkers versus Boneheads to the death. Tense and brutal thriller that demands your attention. Highly recommended.

Watched this last night, brilliant film!