What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[mr 420]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Aye, I'm sure I did mention this. But to reiterate, tis like a new film that I watched, so much clarity and detail in previously grubby looking scenes. A revelation and the epitome of this that there remastering imho!!

Indeed. God knows how many times I've watched the restored version. Its the benchmark as far as I'm concerned.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Child's Play 2 (1990)

***1/2 out of *****

The Prowler (1981)

*** out of *****

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA -Not seen this since early dvd days.
I found it quite a chore to sit through.
On rewatching it,being older and wiser now, I found it an entertaining piece of filmmaking,and another great performance from Petersen,from Manhunter; who deserved to go on to bigger and better things in his career.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by The Reaper Man@Cult Labs

TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA -Not seen this since early dvd days.
I found it quite a chore to sit through.
On rewatching it,being older and wiser now, I found it an entertaining piece of filmmaking,and another great performance from Petersen,from Manhunter; who deserved to go on to bigger and better things in his career.

And he certainly did that.

[trebor8273]

Watching this in preparation for tomorrow when the game comes out.

[Deadite]

Pacific Rim. On my first viewing of this a year or so ago, i wondered how someone making a film about giant robots fighting godzilla-alikes could ever make a boring film out of it - and it did lag for me on first watching. So i decided to watch it again to see if my initial feelings were correct. Well, i'm glad to report that i found the second viewing to be more fun than the first. The film still has an awful script though, and the characters have ridiculous names, and Idris Elba heroically spouts nonsense with a straight face - "Today we is cancellin' the apocalypse innit!" (Well, i'm paraphrasing ).

There are so many holes in this film that even for a detach the brain film, i feel it kinda fails. When we are introduced to the last lot of jaegers (the robots), the Chinese one is introduced as the "best we have", the Russian one as "a tank" and the Aussie one as the "fastest". Then within ten minutes all of that is proved false and the rubbish one that is obsolete is the best of the lot that uses a weapon as a last resort that proves to be the best weapon we see in the film...(Why haven't you used it as a first resort you numpties!)

Anyhoo, i can never say that it's a good film (sorry fans), but it was markedly better second time around than on first viewing.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by The Reaper Man@Cult Labs

TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA -Not seen this since early dvd days.
I found it quite a chore to sit through.
On rewatching it,being older and wiser now, I found it an entertaining piece of filmmaking,and another great performance from Petersen,from Manhunter; who deserved to go on to bigger and better things in his career.

Interesting, I found it to be over stylized pap limply suckling on the Simpson/Bruckheimer teat. And it's made me reevaluate The bleedin' Guardian ahem.

Watched 3 Veronica Lake films....proper review to follow.....

[Inspector Abberline]

A Long Ride from Hell (Vivo per la tua Morte)


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More famous for playing the muscle bound Greek hero Hercules, Steve Reeves final film before he retired was A Long Ride From Hell, Apparently according to the world wide web of lies and half un-truths Reeves was originally offered the man with no name role before Clint, but scoffed at the idea that the Italians could make a western.DOHHH. Also rumour has it ,he was offered James Bond role for Dr No,but turned it down due to not being offered enough money, whether it was true or not, both franchises would of been extremely different to say the least.((do not blame me if these facts are not true ,society is to blame). A Long Ride from Hell which for its German DVD release has been given the Django moniker, no doubt done to jump on the Django Unchained band wagon a few years ago, where it seemed every spaghetti western pot boiler was re-released and given the name Django. The plot is as light weight as a paper house, some guff about Reeves cattle being stolen,so him and his younger brother Ivan Scratuglia as Roy Sturges,go looking for the thieves, then get accused of being mixed up with a train robbery,and get sentenced and sent to Yuma State Penitentiary. Yeah you guessed it Reeves escapes prison and sets out to get revenge on those who have wronged him. For me i am so use to a seeing a certain style of film making, whether it be Leone or Sergio Corbucci,that anything else pales into comparison, and while its work man like direction from Camillo Bazzoni is pretty good, he has none of the style or flare of any of the previous spaghetti westerns, in fact it is so generic looking it could of been filmed any where.Steve Reeves who obviously looks ripped when he takes his shirt off,as he does in the rock breaking scene, is no Eastwood or Franco Nero,but he can do the quiet squinting into the middle distance while looking mean and moody as good as anyone else. Its a shame Reeves retired from film making after this,as he does have some noticeable screen presence but I don't think he was suited to the western genre,maybe a spy perhaps??

[Frankie Teardrop]

QUEEN OF BLOOD – The follow up to 'Blood for Irina' by ex-Fangoria guy, Chris Alexander. Like that film, 'Queen of Blood' seems to be going for a Euro-ambience as it unfolds its tale of... some kind of vampire, I guess, who wanders around in a forest and kills a few people. Note my flagrant misuse of the word 'tale' in that last sentence, because 'Queen of Blood' has no real narrative at all (and no dialogue, for that matter). Oh well, I'm not going to change it now. 'Queen of Blood' will probably not be for everyone, and maybe especially not for those who like a bit of story to go with their visuals. The film does manage to build up a hypnotic quality through repetition, and the central image that gets thrown at the viewer time and time again is that of Irina the vampire (Shauna Henry, who has a really haunting face) ripping out the throats of her victims to a backdrop of droney electronic music. She's either doing that or mooching about really slooowly. Oh, and that guy from Skinny Puppy's in it too, as some kind of unpleasant preacher type figure. If none of this sounds very inviting, it quite possibly isn't, but lovers of freaky weirdness should give it a go because after a while it does feel quite 'narcotic'. It's aesthetics are a bit knackered though, with a cheap digital harshness in place of the lovely seventies saturated graininess that maybe went on in the filmmakers' heads. Or maybe that just makes it even more 'interesting'. Again, a film that I probably can't recommend to all comers, but the curious might get their reward (or might feasibly never want to watch anything that isn't by Michael Bay ever again).

DR JEKYLL ET LES FEMMES – I'd waited ages to see a 'proper' version of this Walerian Borowczyk film, so of course I rushed down to the video emporium like everyone else when I heard Arrow were putting it out. Then I forgot I had it, then I found it again the other day and so I watched it. For the unfamiliar, 'Dr Jekyll...' is a sexed up and darkly psychedelic variant of the fabled RLS story and would fit in quite well sandwiched between Herzog's 'Nosferatu' and Zulawski's 'Possession' as part of a trio of early eighties horror flicks made by non genre Euro arthouse directors. Like those other two movies, the emphasis is on dreamy unreality. Visuals seem to matter more than plot, and making an impact with images more important than having anything sensible to say. But why would you expect 'Dr Jekyll...' to say anything sensible? It's by Walerian Borowczyk, and he's directed a horror movie! Although 'Dr Jekyll...' feels quite threadbare, it knows what to do with its meagre resources. It squeezes the original into one claustrophobic location, which is shot in a kind of shimmering soft focus. These kind of stylistics get us through the talky bit at the beginning, which is still pretty weird however, featuring as it does a glowering Patrick Magee, not to mention the archdeacon of bad Euro vibes, Udo Kier. Kier is Jekyll, and, after he slips himself some of that potion (and, it seems, takes a chemical bath), he's Hyde too – his version looks strangely like a weasely Ian Curtis impersonator with a huge knob. There are some truly hysterical scenes, like the one where Magee's daughter appears to ravish a sewing machine whilst taking it up the arse from an enthusiastic Mr Hyde. The music really stood out for me as well, an ominous drone that sounded as if it'd come straight from an early record by Cluster or some other German experimentalists. See it! Definitely!

[Inspector Abberline]

The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.(1962)

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By 1962 the boys were starting to look a little like the cast Of Last Of The Summer Wine, and while age should not really make much difference to a comedy performance, the all to frenetic slapstick violence of the The Stooges was looking a bit dated and ever so geriatric. The Three Stooges comedy has never been particularly sophisticated at the best of times, and a lot of its success was mainly down to whether you liked the guys in which incarnation they were in at the time. Personally they were never better than when Curly Howard was in the team, he had a bit of that Stan Laurel innocence mixed with a bit of snarling mad dog lunacy, and his face just fitted the part and completed the crazy trios look and comedy. In The Three Stooges Meet Hercules his replacement is Curly Joe real name Joe DeRita, who replaced Shemp Howard back in 1958 (replacing the replacement). Stooges are working in a drugs store, and there next door neighbour happens to be a scientist working on some sort of time machine, of course the boys can not help themselves and have to interfere with the making of the machine and obviously screw things up and get themselves with Schuyler Davis (Quinn Redeker) and Vicki Trickett as Diane Quigley sent back in time to Greece where they meet Hercules. Suffice to say everything about this film is as daft as a brush,and if you thought the Frankie Howerd history comedies were ludicrous then you ain't seen nothing yet . And while it does have a silly charm all of its own, it fails really to get any genuine laughs,the jokes are few and far between and the trademark slapstick violence is pretty much non existent in the film. By this time in there career, they were living on past glories mainly due to having there early short films being repeated on television at the time .A curio to say the least. And should only be watched by people who are trained in Stoogism.