What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[antmumford]

Originally Posted by DeadAlive

And wasn't it great to have Christopher Lee voicing The Jabberwocky? He only speaks about a dozen words but he is unmissable.

Oh yeah and of course Alan Rickman as the caterpillar and Stephen Fry as Cheshire Cat. Perfectly cast voices! All Tim needed was Patrick Stewart to complete the set!

[mazon2709]

The Stepfather, the original and best, a very hokey sounding synth score. I was amazed that it is still so effective at what it does. It is certainly better than the remake.....

[DeadAlive]

Samurai Princess - From the writer who gave us "Tokyo Gore Police" comes another crazy gore fest with lashings of typically Japanese madcap humour. Outside of a few action moments by far the best thing about this is the mercifully short 82 minute running time.

Walled In - So so horror that gets half a point for never going in the direction you would expect. There are a few moments with atmosphere but on the whole it's just not frightening nor even remotely interesting for that matter.

[Gojirosan]

Originally Posted by mazon2709

The Stepfather, the original and best, a very hokey sounding synth score. I was amazed that it is still so effective at what it does. It is certainly better than the remake.....

There's a remake of The Stepfather?

Nooooooooooo!!!!

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

There's a remake of The Stepfather?

Nooooooooooo!!!!

Yup lol

I not seen original but seen the remake.
Its ok I spose, but I know original was much more violent and this seemed quite tame.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

A few recent viewings:

Turkey Shoot: A fun little Ozsploitation movie with the gorgeous Olivia Hussey - recommended!

Avere Vent'anni (To Be Twenty): Erotic drama with dollops of hippy love courtesy of the stunning Lilli Carati and Gloria Guida. - (cheers reaps! )

5 Dead on the Crimson Canvas: Joseph F. Parda's homage to the giallo. A terrible quality DVD from Cinema Image Productions, but a fairly interesting story, an odd ensemble of characters, and some pretty good (even if low-budget) set pieces make up for it. Nothing mind-blowing, but still enjoyable nonetheless.

Aenigma: Considered one of Fulci's lesser films, I actually really enjoy this. I re-watched the Italian Raro DVD which has a superb transfer - definitely the one to have.

Door to Silence: Another underrated Fulci flick, but again one I really enjoy. None of his classic, trademark gore, but instead this is a very chilling almost noir-like film. Worth seeking out imo.

[vincenzo]

Human Experiments

Former nasty that has yet to receive a UK home release. Wouldn't matter much if it didn't really.

[42ndStreetFreak]

OOOOOOOOOOOOH! Sorry mate, I have to say I dislike both those Fulci films.
"Door" could not even keep a cinema full of Fulci fans interested when it played at the Euro fest...even with Fulci there too!


"Street Trash"

http://www.beardyfreak.com/rvtrash.php


Lets get some things out of the way first dear readers…Yes ”Street Trash” is lots of fun and has some genuine 'wow' moments, but it's also sadly not the film it could have been.

Running at least 10 minutes too long it suffers from a pretty tiring first 40 minutes as the screenplay tries to keep track of so many characters and subplots while the dialogue tries to keep track of your ears due to the lousy sound recording.

Proceedings are not helped by the sad conclusion we have to face that despite what he may think…Roy Frumkes is not John Waters.
Where Frumkes' actual dialogue is used (sometimes the actors would improvise heavily) the film is obviously trying to redo much of that superlative work done by Waters in the likes of “Desperate Living“ but he lacks that astute ear for the grotesque, the absurd and even the sublime that Waters has (or at least had, today even John Waters can’t do John Waters) and he most certainly does not have the sheer joyous, wondrous, scale of unique thespian talent to work with (for the most part) that Waters had to make many of these scenes welcome and fascinating even if the plot stands still while they play out.

Thankfully though things magically improve just before the half way mark as the sound recording improves, the sleaze gets upped, the action and grue get upped and with endless introductions now out of the way the plot can settle down to incident after incident that sees much of the promise of the film’s set-up finally come to fruition.

The melting effects improve a great deal too later on and there are some real classic gore and splat moments here that still hold up today and are just as much sickening fun as they ever were.

Comedy and drama sometimes mix badly here though and the ‘serious social issue’ part of the plot does not hang well at all with out and out carnivale grotesque scenes like that of a bum (otherwise with no ill-effects) trying to catch his (rather impressive in size) severed penis as it gets tossed around the junkyard by the other homeless guys like a frisbee.

Another controversial moment of that sudden shift away from cartoon goofiness and grossness to out and out serious nastiness is during a murder/gang rape (actual assault off-screen) where suddenly those silly, silly, oh so silly bums become (and are filmed as) slavering night creatures who drag off a woman screaming into the darkness to her fate.
That she is then later violated even in death is the putrid cherry on the top of the turd cake.
It’s a genuinely unsettling and uncomfortable sequence (though superbly crafted and shot, as indeed is much of the night time cinematography) that works very well as full-on exploitation, but again sits a bit strangely with the penis frisbee shenanigans and the otherwise goofy 'n' gormless portrait of the bums.

As the nutty ‘Nam man Bronson, Vic Noto is bags of fun. His out of control rants are a marvel and his facial contortions mix perfectly with his line delivery.
This is one scary guy!

As his long suffering squeeze, Minette, Nicole Potter is a revelation. Caring not one bit about how she looks she gives a genuinely barnstorming, and unflattering as hell, performance as her character (dressed in the world’s least sexy, utterly filthy, underwear and caked in dust and grime) screeches her defiance at Bronson and cackles at other’s misfortunes.
She essays one of trash cinema's most memorable characters ever in fact

Also of note is ex-Cop (now a born again Christian no freakin’ less) Bill Chepil as the Detective.
With the angriest face in movies he thuds his way through the plot and the bums with great vigour.
His coup de grace after he beats a would-be hitman to a pulp is unlike anything you’ve seen a Cop do in a film either (or in real life one hopes) and we can only give praise he found Jesus after he shot this scene.

But the real highlight, among these highlights, are two sub-plot characters and actors that really have no baring on the main plot at all.
They are Tony Darrow’s Mr Duran and the vastly underrated James Lorinz’ restaurant doorman who butt heads throughout the film.
Improvising much of their dialogue and exchanges they make what could be two annoying guys (because they take us out of the main plot and away from the main characters) instead turn out to be the greatest bits of non-melting entertainment in the movie.

“Street Trash” failed to really find its audience when first released and I think it’s because of the constant shift in style and attitude and the flabby, often dull as hell, first half that needed some major fixing.
But today it has a strong cult reputation and yes it does ultimately deserve that reputation thanks to the vastly superior last 50 minutes and for all the far-out, blood and gunk drenched, improvised dialogue, wonderment, the sometimes very strong performances and way out ideas that more often than not succeed.

So what the hell…go slumming with that “Street Trash”.

[vincenzo]

Originally Posted by 42ndStreetFreak

Comedy and drama sometimes mix badly here though and the ‘serious social issue’ part of the plot does not hang well at all with out and out carnivale grotesque scenes like that of a bum (otherwise with no ill-effects) trying to catch his (rather impressive in size) severed penis as it gets tossed around the junkyard by the other homeless guys like a frisbee.

It seems to grow in size for some reason. Starts off like a courgette and ends up a cucumber.

(well that's my salad sandwich ruined)

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

Side effects of Viagra,sorry Viper.....