Speaking of smart teen movies, I went and saw Perks Of Being A Wallflower last night, absolutely fantastic movie, a bit depressing, but very good.

Yeah that's another one I want to watch. I'm a sucker for those sort of movies.

The Raven - 2012 US d: James McTeigue

As I rush to catch up on films missed this year, I get to The Raven.

It's a fine comic book type fantasy, a Giallo-esque reinvention of Edgar Poe's last days. No masterpiece, but there is a fine story here and it is made extremely well. Stylish without ever becoming flashy or showy, a cast well chosen, and a beautiful pacing that refuses to go hell for leather yet never becomes indolent.

Above all this looks absolutely gorgeous and sounds simply magnificent. The image is that of populist Gothic middle class Victoriana and this is portrayed quite wonderfully.. It gives us a time and place where men dressed properly and even the dank untidiness of the workplace was elegant and soothing. This is Hammer writ large and it works. Add to this a simply excellent sound design and mix. Listening through headphones revealed the perfect balance of sound effects, music and dialogue. Not so much as a hoof clop was too high or too low. It was a pleasure to hear such unassuming mastery of sound in a film.

Though less iconic than McTeigue's previous V For Vendetta, this is the better film, and the alternate history adventure actually reminded em of Alan Moore far more than the direct adaptation from 2006! One can only dream what today's McTeigue might make of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen had that franchise not been strangled in its cradle by an over-eager Hollywood.

Absolutely worth seeing, it never hits the stars but certainly stretches up there admirably, and as an example of unshowy technical proficiency in film-making, it should probably become a text film.

Some of the cg gore in THE RAVEN bothered me. That and the downplaying of E.A Poes alcoholism, check out stuart gordons black cat for a more definitive portrayal of poe. That really stopped me considering The raven a classic.

Hadn't watched a HK film in what feels like ages so decided to pop one in... ;)

Step Into the Dark (1998)

Ok it's a Wong Jing film (directed by Dick Cho) but a decent one! :lol:
This updates the man+female ghost romance films to the late 90's.
It's unpredictable and funny but also thrilling.
Just the way I like it...enjoyed this one. :)

PS there's little blood or gore but lots of ghostly goings on.

STEP INTO THE DARK (1998) Trailer - YouTube

Me too, as missed it when it was showing at the cinema.

I don't get the fuss about computer blood. I am not quite sure what there is to be "bothered" by it.

And I don't think they downplayed Poe's alcoholism at all! It was referred to as much as it needed to be considering this was a fantasy and not a biopic.

But it's not a classic. Just a very efficient and decent flick.

Regarding We Need to Talk About Kevin, I completely agree. I saw it at the flicks and found it somewhat heavy-handed. The main problem being the central nature versus nurture debate (which I understand is far more convincing in the book, although I haven't read it). There seemed to be little debate in the film - he was an evil kid, end of; comically so at times.

Anyway, I recently watched the low budget New Zealand sci-fi, The Quiet Earth, which has been sitting on the shelf for years. It's one of those terrific little films where you could scribble the synopsis on the back on a matchbook, yet write an essay on the theories it raises. Essentially a last man on earth story, with Bruno Lawrence's scientist awakening to find himself completely alone - or is he? Devoid of any melodrama, our lead goes about sensibly trying to work out what happened, and seems to be quiet happy in his predicament! The film perfectly captures the eerie feeling of desolation, has a believable lead character, and concludes in an entirely satisfactory manner with a particularly beautiful final shot.

Sadly the book (by a NZ author too) is long out of print and apparently reaches silly money on ebay, so I'm out of luck there.

Yes, there was definitely an air of 'comic book villain' about Kevin. As you say, very heavy handed, and little debate. There is no real exchange between Kevin's mother and father throughout the whole film. In fact, John C. Reilly was so under-used, he must have been laughing all the way to the bank with that minimal performance.

That's kind of what I liked about it so much. I went in expecting a horror 'demon seed' type film, and that's exactly what I got :lol:

I read the 'comic book villain' nature of Kevin's character more down to unreliable narrator syndrome, his 'evil' greatly exaggerated in the mind of the Tilda Swinton character. We only ever see her side of the story, and I read the whole film through the prism of her damaged psyche :shocked: . . .

Last week's viewing:

http://i1085.photobucket.com/albums/.../December3.jpg

The Imposter - fascinating 'you couldn't make it up!' documentary. A little problematic in the how it's interview subjects were put across, but the sheer lunacy of the story definitely makes it worth a watch. Don't wanna say too much, might be best to go in cold and discover it for yourself :shocked:

Magic Mike - Boring as hell, though the second good Matthew McConaughey performance of the year, who'd ve thunk it :crazy: ! (maybe he has always been good, I've just never seen any of those 'lean against female lead on the poster' rom coms) . . .

As Slippery Jack mentioned, the events are told from the perspective of Kevin's mother, so it's little surprise her husband is barely shown and, when he is, isn't shown in a great light. Once you get to the end of the film and realise why people are acting towards Eva with such hostility, it's no wonder her recollections of Kevin's childhood are far from objective.

I saw that at the cinema. It certainly is a case of 'you couldn't make it up' as you say, but I found it off putting namely as the people involved are so astoundingly stupid. A case of wanting to believe something so much you can't see what's in front of your eyes. And for heaven's sake, even the FBI come across as completely inept.

And the central concept of this is the unreliable narrator. In this case a smug, nasty piece of work without a single drop of empathy for his victims. I was oddly compelled, but on the other hand slightly irritated by it all.

Watched Paranoiac on bluray last night. Good movie with great PQ.
Followed that up with The House that dripped blood. This much better than
Asylum i thought. Loved Jon Pertwee in the last segment. And i also got
to watch the rest of the ZFE extra's on disc two. The Gino de Rossi feature was excellent as was the hour long doc FRTR,just brilliant. The feature with the composer,Fabio Frizzi,was kinda hard to follow,even with a translator present,i found the SQ wasn't up to much.Overall though i was very happy with Arrow's release of ZFE.Also very happy with the BU release too.

Indeed. Plus I found the filmmakers indulgance of him highly problematic. All those filmed flashbacks where the actors are dubbed with his voice. And those frequent reaction shots (probably out of context?) edited in to twist the viewers emotions. Eg. you'd have a scene with the victims getting upset, then they'd cut to a shot of Bourdin doing a smug grin to camera, as if he is reacting directly to their distress, something he couldn't possibly have been reacting to in actuality. In many ways I was more irritated by the filmmakers than their subjects.

Agree about the stupidity of that FBI agent! Perhaps it says something about the 'PROTECT THE CHILDREN!' climate of fear, especially pertinent at the moment . . .

McConaughey was great and stole the show in dazed and confused, one of my all time greats. He can act, it's just his film choices leave a lot to be desired.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Good point - highly manipulative filmmaking!

I'm not sure if it is 'highly manipulative', just a way of enhancing the narrative through clever editing. If it was told documentary style and completely objective, you wouldn't feel the same way about Kevin and Eva, nor have the same reaction at the end.

Thinking back at it with that in mind, the right decision was made.

Well I think telling it more objectively would've been more honest. As it was, I was frequently taken out of the film by the filmmakers clear infatuation with Bourdin. I'd be interested to know how the Barclay familiy felt of the finished film . . .

Hang on Nos - you were referring to We Need to Talk About Kevin, right? We were on about The Imposter being manipulative. I was just thinking ' who are Kevin and Eva' ??? :lol: . . .

Yeah, I was talking about We Need Talk About Kevin – I haven't seen The Imposter!

fridaythe13thathon
 

Well I made it to no.8 but ive had enough of Mr Vorhee's shenanigans,if id of known it was gonna be this arduous id of got sponsorship from Pro Plus and Nescafe.After this i have no favs I hate them all,only kidding,no really i do hate them.

I think this is where the slasher genre lets itself down. You get a classic such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm street etc and the cash cow is led down the street by irritating teenagers, followed by an inept plot and then closely behind is the many different ways to kill (again!) the evil protagonist of the film. This infuriates the fans, de-values the franchise and costs us more money because like Vic.....WE JUST CANT STOP BLOODY WATCHING THEM!

Just watched Keoma, crazy soundtrack, typical spaghetti western, in other words...brill! Franco Nero just has that look thats as good as an extra gun!
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/ima...3a/Keoma11.jpg

Just watched "Santa Claus The Movie" and I am stuffing my face with sweets. Oh I love Christmas:)

I'm watching that today too, I watch it every single year :o

I have been watching stuff I just haven't listed anything recently.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) was the last film watched.
I can hardly remember anything with my messed up sleeping patterns.
I watched Groupie Girl (1970) last week, great film is you like that sort of thing. Basically it's just about a groupie going from band to band, with a bit of drama in between.
I don't think I've watched much else in the last couple of days and I can't remember last week.
I've also been working my way through the Ghost Stories for Christmas set.

Next I have the urge for a That'll Be the Day/Stardust (1973/4) double bill so they will be watched at some point this week along with a load of Carry on films. Two more Christmas ones today though, Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) and later Christmas Evil (1980).

Latest... ;)

http://elephant.cf1.letterboxd.com/a...0-222-crop.jpg http://psycho.cf1.letterboxd.com/ass...0-222-crop.jpg http://predator.cf1.letterboxd.com/a...0-222-crop.jpg

A short review of the HK horror film A Step into the Dark can be found here:

http://www.cult-labs.com/forums/305351-post123.html

I indulged my guiltiest of filmic pleasures on Sat night, one so ridiculous, I'm almost ashamed to mention it. I'm speaking of 70s Brit smut extravaganza Come Play With Me - wait!, come back!, let me explain... This film was reputedly one of the biggest UK grossers of the decade, it ran for years in certain porno cinemas (remember them!), it made millionaires of sleazebags like producer David Sullivan - 40 odd years ago this was forbidden fruit of the most exotic type, labelled 'strong' and 'uncut'. Old bag Mary Whitehouse feared it would end civilisation as she knew it. Needless to say what we're actually looking at here is the biggest movie con job this side of Snuff. It's basically a no-joke carry-on style movie populated by male gargoyles like Tefryn Thomas and Harrison Marks and a gaggle of page 3 slappers who can barely read their lines. There's painful 'joke skits', including a neverending one involving a parrot and a fortune teller; detumescently (is that a word?) unerotic sex is interperesed with shots of leering old geezers in long johns, actors visibly corpse in front of camera (God knows why, it's not the hilarity of the script), song and dance numbers break out like herpes sores, the plot is so vague and obtuse as to border on avant grade. In short the whole affair is so ghastly, so awful I find it hopelessly addictive - to think people actually wanked to this in the 70s! In cinemas! A time capsule of the weirdest kind - I'II cherish my News of the Screws freebie disc always! Merry Xmas to one and all!

This is now at the top of my new year to buy list. Great review HJ. :happy:

Saw the Hobbit this afternoon. Rather dull.

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter - 1984 USA d:Joseph Zito

Seriously, guys? Seriously?

The Friday The 13th films are not high on quality, being merely acts of cynical money-raking, but this one takes the biscuit. This is an awful film. Incompetent on many levels, patience testing, just plain awful. As bad a slasher as was made in the 80s and the worst film I have yet seen from the franchise (yes, it may even be worse than Marcus Nispel's farrago of a remake from 2009).

Utterly dreadful and not even fun in it's awfulness. A bad film.

Have me sky box set up to record Silent night deadly night tonight.
Can't decide which one of my Hammer films to watch tonight. The
Devil rides out, The Mummy's shroud, Rasputin the mad monk
or The Reptile. Could end up watching Killer Klowns from outer
space yet. Anyway Happy Christmas to all on Cult Labs.

December 20th

Santa's Slay (2005)

Terrifically good fun, a reimagining of the Santa Claus legend. In this he is a demon who loses a bet with an angel and has to be good to people and give toys to children. When the bet comes to an end he goes back to his evil ways using the Santa Claus legend as a way to strike terror.

The film begins with a typical family get together on Christmas Eve, everyone sat round the dinner table, getting a bit tetchy as you do. Then Santa appears and all hell breaks loose. The head of the table has his hands pinned to the table with garden shears and the other revellers come to equally unfortunate ends. This opening scene of carnage is made more fun by the fact the table consists of known actors like Rebecca Gayheart and James Caan.

Wrestler Bill Goldberg plays Santa, and he does an impressive job, murdering everyone he comes across, including the punters of a strip club. That is until friendly old Robert Culp decides to put a stop to Santa's antics. The violence is a lot of fun, if on the cartoony side, but this doesn't detract from what is a fine piece of entertainment which i am sure will become a regular Christmas treat for me.

December 21st.

Waves of Lust (1975)

A young couple becomes embroiled with the personal problems of another couple on a yacht moored off Sicily during a turbulent weekend of fun, sex , betrayal, domestic abuse and ultimately murder.

I really enjoyed this Ruggero Deodato effort which was a long way from his more notorious films and has next to no blood in it. What it does have in spades is sleaze, as the couples swap partners and get up to various sexy antics. Some of it, towards the end, not so playful. John Steiner is excellent as the increasingly deranged Giorgio and Al Cliver somewhat subdued as Irem, the only other male in the film. The film lives or dies on how convincing the cast are when there are only four of them on a yacht, creating an increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere. The two women played by the equally gorgeous Silvia Dionisio and Elizabeth Turner are just as capable as their male counterparts when it comes to the sexual games. As the film continues suddenly it seems everyone is no longer playing and seem to all have varying agendas. The way the script allows the characters to develop and brings out near psychopathic tendancies in some, proves somewhat of a triumph for the tautness of Deodato's direction. This may well be my favourite Deodato film of all. Time will tell.

Recommended

This sounds like a lot of fun, I think I'll add it to my never ending wishlist

I really enjoyed Santas slay!

Watched GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, fincher is clearly a talented director and only a fool could call it a bad movie.
unfortunately I have to call it a pointless one, made far too soon after the swedish versions it feels slick but ultimately pointless. Shame really. That said I do like stellan skaarsgard in it!

Then CLASS OF NUKE EM HIGH. Excellent slice of troma with plenty of brains behind the sleazy mutant exterior. Sends up eighties america and atomic energy brilliantly and adds a fresh spin on the high school movie. Arrows presentation here is faultless.

We agree on one :lol:

It really is Christmas. :dance:

"The Good The Bad And The Ugly"
"Inglourious Basterds"

and tomorrow im going to see
"Django Unchained"

A slight case for the defence here, it does have Crispin Glover and a great Savini death scene at the end; some of Corey Feldman's memorabilia is pretty cool. Agreed this entire franchise reeks, but this is actually my favourite after Part 2.