What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

His Girl Friday (1940)

I think it's a great film. I love the dialogue, the characters, and the slapstick humour.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I think it's a great film. I love the dialogue, the characters, and the slapstick humour.

There is no slapstick humour. Slapstick is physical comedy mainly centred around pratfalls and comic violence

This film is just people shouting over the top of one another.

[nosferatu42]

Midsommar

91zbUkNy+ZL._AC_SX342_.jpg

Watched Midsommar the directors cut last night and i can see why it's a divisive film, it's long and for a lot of the time not a lot happens in terms of bloodletting or overt horror.

But for me it worked, it focuses on loss and relationship breakdown and the way cults use this to bring vulnerable people into their groups.

I find pagan rituals, the worship of nature and the use of natural psychedelic substances in ancient religion fascinating, so the entire idea of the film is right up my street.

It's a film that takes its time to build up an atmosphere of dread, the cinematography is beautiful and it's underlined by a subtle effective score, the use of psychedelics in the cults rituals add an element which results in plants and objects seeming to breathe at times, but often the effect is subtle and i felt this showed how the reverence of nature could be reinforced within the group using mushrooms etc.

The young outsiders are pretty well acted on the whole with the main girl standing out as she puts a lot of emotion into the part.

I really liked the film but it was too long and after reading about the differences between the cuts it probably wouldn't make too much difference if you were only to see the theatrical version, and it would probably work better for the general film watcher, and even in that form it could probably have benefitted from losing 20 minutes.

I really liked it and i'm already thinking about giving it a rewatch soon, the shorter version though.

8/10

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

There is no slapstick humour. Slapstick is physical comedy mainly centred around pratfalls and comic violence

This film is just people shouting over the top of one another.

I was thinking about the sequence with people hiding in the desk. Maybe it's more physical humour than slapstick.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I was thinking about the sequence with people hiding in the desk. Maybe it's more physical humour than slapstick.

I was sick of the film by that point.

When you compare it to Hawks' own Bringing Up Baby.. well it simply doesn't compare as that's a film that pitches quick fire dialogue, physical and slapstick to perfection.

Perhaps that's what His Girl Friday needed. A leopard on the loose.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Maggie (2015) ★★★

Maggie is almost everything it shouldn't be: a zombie movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger which is a slow, bleak character study and not an all-out action extravaganza.

If you take the zombie aspect of the film away, this is really of a story about a man coming to terms with his daughter having an incurable terminal illness, and maybe being in the position where he will have to do something no parent should in order to save her from horrible suffering. Befitting the title, it also focuses on this from the perspective of the infected girl, a child facing a premature death which could place her loved ones in danger.

In that respect, there is a similarity with David Cronenberg's The Fly, a film which could be about someone dying of AIDS, only this doesn't have the body horror aspect and is certainly more grim and downbeat, with the aesthetics of The Road (2009).

I think Schwarzenegger was an interesting choice for the lead role, but perhaps not the best as he doesn't have the emotional range for what is required here. He isn't woeful – this is undoubtedly one of his most understated, nuanced and impressive performances – but an actor with more range who is more at ease in such character-driven films. I really liked Abigail Breslin's performance in the title role and believed in the relationship between her and her father (Schwarzenegger).

This is a film which could have become mawkish or strayed into unnecessary action set pieces so it is a huge credit to Henry Hobson that he elicits such good performances from the cast and, with his directorial debut, has made something so involving.

[gag]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

Midsommar

Attachment 222322

Watched Midsommar the directors cut last night and i can see why it's a divisive film, it's long and for a lot of the time not a lot happens in terms of bloodletting or overt horror.

But for me it worked, it focuses on loss and relationship breakdown and the way cults use this to bring vulnerable people into their groups.

I find pagan rituals, the worship of nature and the use of natural psychedelic substances in ancient religion fascinating, so the entire idea of the film is right up my street.

It's a film that takes its time to build up an atmosphere of dread, the cinematography is beautiful and it's underlined by a subtle effective score, the use of psychedelics in the cults rituals add an element which results in plants and objects seeming to breathe at times, but often the effect is subtle and i felt this showed how the reverence of nature could be reinforced within the group using mushrooms etc.

The young outsiders are pretty well acted on the whole with the main girl standing out as she puts a lot of emotion into the part.

I really liked the film but it was too long and after reading about the differences between the cuts it probably wouldn't make to much difference if you were only to see the theatrical version, and it would probably work better for the general film watcher, and even in that form it could probably have benefitted from losing 20 minutes.

I really liked it and i'm already thinking about giving it a rewatch soon, the shorter version though.

8/10

As much as I enjoyed the film and agree and its a very good and well made movie, I feel the rewatch issue is something I'd struggle to do anytime soon and would have to be at least 6month apart because of how long and slow it is .

[nosferatu42]

Originally Posted by gag

As much as I enjoyed the film and agree and its a very good and well made movie, I feel the rewatch issue is something I'd struggle to do anytime soon and would have to be at least 6month apart because of how long and slow it is .

I'm not great with long films these days.

I watched half then went for a bath, by the time i'd done that i'd processed the first half and was ready to see the rest.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ★★½

I'm not someone who can be classified as a Harry Potter fan – I haven't read the books and have, with the exception of The Prisoner of Azkaban which I have seen twice, seen the films once each. This also applies to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a film I thoroughly enjoyed the cinema but have yet to buy and rewatch.

My urge to rewatch the first Fantastic Beasts film does not apply to this, which I found oddly flat and without any of the excitement, humour, or danger of its predecessor. Eddie Redmayne is, once again, memorable as Newt Scamander, but everyone else – Johnny Depp included – felt underused. Even the younger Dumbledore, played here by Jude Law, wasn't on-screen enough to properly develop his character and give emotional resonance and weight to previous relationships (apparently Rowling has hinted he is gay, but that's not clear from this film). Considering the title, Gellert Grindelwald didn't feature very much, nor did his titular crimes have much of an impact or lead to much in the way of escapism or enjoyment.

David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films as well as the first in this fledgling Fantastic Beasts series, was perhaps burdened by a script which was adding a lot of information to the point where there were moments I felt this was a placeholder for the third instalment. Even something so simple as moving the action between London and Paris seemed badly handled because they looked exactly the same to the point where there were moments where I wasn't sure where scenes were taking place; visuals should not be a weak point in a fantasy film.

I will probably watch this again and I hope it improves with a second viewing, maybe watching the two Fantastic Beasts films back-to-back will help with any confusions I have about characters and locations. That said, I should be approaching the second viewing with eager anticipation, but I am in a weird position where I don't have any strong feelings about this one way or the other so maybe they feelings about the film and a rewatch can be expressed a little more concisely: meh.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Unfriended ★★

This was an interesting experience. The film is fascinating and frustrating, innovative and irritating.

Unfriended isn't a typical film, certainly not one which is like anything I've ever seen before. It takes place entirely on someone's computer screen, with the events unfolding through video chat, Facebook messaging, Google searches, YouTube and other such Internet activity. With each character having something to do with the suicide of one of their friends a year ago following the posting of a highly embarrassing video on YouTube.

The characters could be taken from a slasher film, making this a version of I Know What You Did Last Summer, yet instead of telling them not to run upstairs would they should be going out the front door, I was repeatedly wondering why none of them turned the computer off and went to check friends in the real world. Maybe that's a commentary on modern social interactions and the impersonal nature of modern day communication or maybe it's just way to make a film. It could be a bit of both.

I genuinely can't think of a single character I actually liked, so that didn't help with engaging me on an emotional level – I carried on watching because it was a little like watching a murder mystery and try to figure out 'whodunnit'. When it finished, I didn't feel any sense of catharsis or happiness, if anything it was probably a relief that it was all over!