What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[nicholasrope]

White Fire

After their parents are murdered, a brother and sister (Robert Ginty and Belinda Mayne) are taken in by a couple and become jewel thieves. However after Mayne is murdered by rival jewel thieves, they have a plan to have a lookalike take the place of Mayne and steal a rare and valuable Diamond called White Fire. Oh Fred Williamson shows up as someone looking for the girl.

1st time watching this since buying it upon release (During Lockdown) and it's still the bonkers, WTF kind of film I remembered. There are some really good death scenes and is worth a recommendation if you like trashy, badly dubbed (I originally thought it was American) and you can get passed the opening scene, where you can get used to the dubbing and somewhat awful gun shooting scene.

Toy Story

Don't think I need to go into the plot on this one but it's still as witty as ever with great voice work fro Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. The Blu-Ray makes the 1996 state of the art animation look even more amazing

Beverly Hills Cop II

Eddie Murphy is back and after the Beverly Hills Police Chief is shot by Bridget Neilson, he goes back to Beverly Hills to get revenge. This is quite maligned but it's very enjoyable with Murphy on top form especially when he pretends to be Johnny Wishbone, a Psychic.

After a shift at work, it was a good no brainer Film.



And the soundtrack has 2 rather repetitive songs

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Survival of the Dead (2009)

The sixth and final entry in George A. Romero's Living Dead series of films. This sees a small band of AWOL National Guard soldiers led by Alan van Sprang's Sarg who end up on an island where two warring families are attempting to adapt the zombies into eating other living things such as pigs instead of humans.

Taking inspiration from The Hatfield?McCoy feud from the 1860's this is an interesting attempt to take the series in a different direction. It's low key in comparison to earlier entries like Dawn of the Dead and especially Land of the Dead and feels much more like a modern day western...with zombies.

Parts of the film seem under developed and also there are some missed opportunities too - How good could this have been had it featured Riley and his group along with Dead Reckoning who set off for Canada at the end of Land of the Dead rather than some unknown National Guards who don't stick around long enough for much character development? - but Romero in the end wins through with some clever ways for the undead to die all over again.

Nowhere near a classic but one i'm pleased to now own in my Blu-ray collection.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Stiff Upper Lips (1997)

Prunella Scales is brilliant here as a aristocratic matriarch who takes her soppy Edwardian family on a grand tour of Italy (Little Dorrit maybe?) and then onto India in which many awful (for the time) things occur.

Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory and Austen productions of the eighties and nineties such as Chariots of Fire, Pride and Prejudice and Brideshead Revisited. It even manages to precurse adaptations yet to happen as well as the likes of Downton Abbey some 13 years down the line.

However in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits expressly sexual repression, xenophobia, and class snobbery.

Rather than anything slapstick the humour is often subtle and dialogue related thanks to a genuinely witty script although there are some real laugh out loud moments of madness as well. It's one of those films with definite rewatch value thanks to this.

The film also boasts a cast worthy of the productions it mocks including Peter Ustinov, Sean Pertwee, Georgina Cates, Frank Finlay, Brian Glover and Samuel West.

Last night was my first viewing of this wonderful pastiche and it won't be the last as i thought it was brilliant.

Network's Blu-ray looks stunning.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Sex Thief (1973)

David Warbeck plays a thriller novelist who masquerades as a masked jewel thief at night. More often than not he ends up getting caught by his victim who is always female and pretty with it and he escapes by seducing them. Once the police are on the case as well as Diane keen's insurance investigator the plot thickens as the female victims all describe someone other than Warbeck as they long for his return making the capture of the randy cat burglar seem almost impossible.

The first film directed by Martin Campbell who would later go on to make Bond classics Goldeneye and Casino Royale, The Sex Thief is one of the better slap and tickle films from the seventies, probably because it has an actual plot and doesn't solely rely on softcore sex scenes for it's entertainment value. In fact you could remove them and still have a half decent movie.

88 Film's Blu-ray is awful in the sound department. At times too loud,at others too quiet, voices coming out of left and right speakers and echoing all over the place. A proper mess. Thankfully i could tweak my amplifier to make it listenable.

[MrBarlow]

Dead Poets Society. 1989.

Robin Williams takes the lead as a English teacher in his former school using poetry as a means to get his students to express themselves.

The movie plays in and centers around a private academy somewhere in New England. The curriculum is extremely difficult and the teachers have no humour and are very strict. The new English teacher though, Mr John Keating is the type of teacher everyone probably wanting, telling pupils to stand on their desks and see everything from a different perspective.

This is something different for Robin Williams as he was usually a comedic actor, for a drama piece set in 1959 he does tend to bring some laughter to the screen and has the audience thinking if he improvised anything. The characters are well written for the young boys especially Neil played by Robert Sean Leonard who is under the strict thumb of his father Kirkwood Smith and wants to follow a different path that his old man wants and tragedy strikes, but you got admire the ending with the boys of the society making a stand.

p11671_p_v8_ad.jpg

[MrBarlow]

Mr Vampire II. 1986.

A archeologist and his two assistants stumble upon a crypt containing two adult and a child vampire.

Set in modern day China rather than it's predecessor and does seem a bit family friendly film, with the two adult vampires hoping about looking for a meal while the child vampire seems a bit friendlier. Lam Ching Ying returns to the sequel along with Yuen Biao as the master and his new apprentice on demons and vampires that seems a bit of the fearless vampire killers scenario. This had a good start and just went a bit downhill and the slow motion sequence went on a bit too long that it became non hilarious then managed to become a bit more watchable.

Mr_Vampire_2.jpg

[Dave Boy]

Another cliffhanger serial.

Zorrosblackwhip.jpg
Zorro's Black Whip (1944)

Another big favourite of mine, featuring my favourite serial girl Linda Sterling.
Newspaper owner Barbara Meredith takes on the role of 'The Black Whip' after her brother, the original Black Whip is killed.
Riding out from a secret cave behind a waterfall, The Black Whip helps an undercover Government agent fight corruption from a gang and their unknown leader. When the fights are done, The Black Whip gives a wave, and rides off in the distance..
Cracking serial with plenty of fist fights and some explosive cliffhangers.

zorrosblackwhipmontage.jpg

[Rob4]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I'm interested in what other members think of the 1999 Haunting?

'Crap' is just not an answer.

Belated response.

Frankly, I thought it was terrible, but I'm probably biased as I love Jackson's book and hold the 60s version in high esteem.

It's really a complete misfire tonally. How is just throwing loud cgi shit at the screen supposed to scare anyone?

Very much a missed opportunity. And there is opportunity there, as although the 60s version is a very good movie and sticks close to the novel plotwise, it doesn't quite capture it's dreamy ambience that is portrayed between the scary parts. There is, perhaps, a definitive 'The Haunting of Hill House' still to be made?

Anyway the real reason I wanted to respond was for excuse to post the opening paragraph from the book which is always worth a reread imho:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality;even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

[Rob4]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE BLACK ROOM - If there's one seemingly lost early eighties horror flick I've always wanted to see make the jump to HD, it's 'The Black Room'. And here it is, on lovely blu ray at last. I've reviewed it before, maybe a couple of times actually, but it remains one of my fave examples of the kind of dour, vaguely trippy nihilism that flavoured the post-grindhouse era, before the genre started chasing cash after 'Evil Dead' by going for laughs. A man who feels trapped in his marriage rents a secret room where he can live out his adulterous fantasies; it's hosted by a pair of twisted sibs who need a steady supply of blood to quell the brother's anaemia. The film plays with a few semi-profound ideas - what happens when we partition ourselves off in relationships, what role does fantasy play in maintaining power and control - and floats these enticingly before botching them with throwaway developments and a lack of direction and patience. But the whole draw for me is atmospheric. Its ambience is striking - the candlelit room, the disembodied, droney soundtrack, passages that feel stark and enigmatic and full of looming unease, but then there's the California thing, windchimes in the hills. A scattered second half and clunky ending don't detract from a style that cloaks everything in shadow. There is a dark seam of mystery about this period of horror that, in the best stuff, seeps through and spreads like a stain. Threadbare, slipshod, but deeply mesmerising - a film I could watch endlessly.

I'm sold, I need to get this...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rob4

Anyway the real reason I wanted to respond was for excuse to post the opening paragraph from the book which is always worth a reread imho:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality;even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Haha. I'm not sure i'm seeing that with Harlaxton Manor.