What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Pete

I can live with the alterations he made back in 1997 since they were versions that got me into the series. However, on BD the added 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo' when Vader kills the emperor almost put off the series completely. What were they thinking? It completely ruined what was once a great scene.

Now you know how the people who grew up on the originals, feel about the '97 versions.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Now you know how the people who grew up on the originals, feel about the '97 versions.

That's a good point. It's odd to think that in 20 years time there'll be people who grew up on the recent bluray versions and will see any version that comes before or after it as a betrayal of what they grew up with

[Delirium]

Originally Posted by g053584398

It is little wonder that the crazy bastard is one of my heroes! I just love characters!

Amen, brother. Me too.

Originally Posted by wonderlust

Lunacy, 2005. Just amazing. <3

Yeah, big fan of Svankmajer! It's a good one, eh? I also have his short films boxset.

[Frankie Teardrop]

HARSH LIGHT OF DAY - Combines revenge and vampire subgenres. I quite liked it without being particularly gripped. An author is left paralysed in the aftermath of a house invasion which sees his wife murdered by a trio of snuff movie making thugs (!). A contact from the 'occult underground' introduces him to a vampire who turns him for obvious revenge related narrative reasons. Despite the potential for ridiculousness the tone is sombre and melancholy, and works well.
I, ZOMBIE - Another film dealing with a transition from humanity to creaturedom, Andrew Parkinson's debut takes us on a journey to a lonely place, the place people go when something about them changes and removes them from life, their former selves and the people around them. In this case, zombie is just a metaphor for the slow burn shut down of physical or mental illness, and I was reminded of Cronenberg's 'The Fly' more than the usual flesh rippers. 'I, Zombie' manages to evoke an emotion quite alien to most horror - sadness, building to grief. This is in spite of the initial woodeness of the acting and set up, which quickly give way to a quite suffocating sense of existential malaise. Basically a movie which is ironically enough (given the living dead premise) about someone dying slowly, 'I, Zombie' deserves plenty of credit for its austere originality and depressing vision, although maybe the genre trappings end up being a bit confusing and almost arbitrary... in another life it would've been an arthouse drama about the isolation and misery of illness. Actually though, maybe that arbitrariness is what's good about it. Whatever, Andrew Parkinson is one of the great undersung talents of contemporary UK horror cinema and I really wish someone would release his 'Venus Drowning' on DVD just so I could see it.

[g053584398]

Originally Posted by bdc

They even replaced the Ewok celebration song at the end of Return of the Jedi...

I wouldn't touch the bastardised versions of the films with a ten-foot pole.

[Slippery Jack]

Cobbled together a nifty double bill of Berberian Sound Studio (thanks to Curzon on demand), followed by Death Laid an Egg. Berberian was everything I hoped it would be. Despite moments of nutty brilliance, I found DLAE pretty dull on the whole . . .

[Nordicdusk]

Visitor Q

After watching this im amazed at how many people have said this is sick and disturbing. Unless you have a phobia of breast milk that is. I enjoyed it anyway and there are some moments that are very funny. The first scene is a bit twisted when you realise whats going on. But after that its not as bad as is made out.

[Wes]

Last film of the w/end, Kenji Mizoguchi's 1941 masterpiece The Loyal 47 Ronin, all four hours on it in one setting - it's that good. All of it courtesy of the R4 Madman 2-DVD, which is a not a perfect presentation but decent enough. A film well deserving of the Criterion or MOC treatment...

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

HARSH LIGHT OF DAY - Combines revenge and vampire subgenres. I quite liked it without being particularly gripped. An author is left paralysed in the aftermath of a house invasion which sees his wife murdered by a trio of snuff movie making thugs (!). A contact from the 'occult underground' introduces him to a vampire who turns him for obvious revenge related narrative reasons. Despite the potential for ridiculousness the tone is sombre and melancholy, and works well.
I, ZOMBIE - Another film dealing with a transition from humanity to creaturedom, Andrew Parkinson's debut takes us on a journey to a lonely place, the place people go when something about them changes and removes them from life, their former selves and the people around them. In this case, zombie is just a metaphor for the slow burn shut down of physical or mental illness, and I was reminded of Cronenberg's 'The Fly' more than the usual flesh rippers. 'I, Zombie' manages to evoke an emotion quite alien to most horror - sadness, building to grief. This is in spite of the initial woodeness of the acting and set up, which quickly give way to a quite suffocating sense of existential malaise. Basically a movie which is ironically enough (given the living dead premise) about someone dying slowly, 'I, Zombie' deserves plenty of credit for its austere originality and depressing vision, although maybe the genre trappings end up being a bit confusing and almost arbitrary... in another life it would've been an arthouse drama about the isolation and misery of illness. Actually though, maybe that arbitrariness is what's good about it. Whatever, Andrew Parkinson is one of the great undersung talents of contemporary UK horror cinema and I really wish someone would release his 'Venus Drowning' on DVD just so I could see it.

I've wanted to see I ZOMBIE for ages after seeing Parkinson's DEAD CREATURES which I enjoyed in all it's bleakness. It gets compared to Mike Leigh's films and that's not a bad way of describing it, though the twitches and body jerks in this are more due to decay and cravings rather than the annoying improvised twitches that often pass as characterisation in Leigh's films.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

I've wanted to see I ZOMBIE for ages after seeing Parkinson's DEAD CREATURES which I enjoyed in all it's bleakness. It gets compared to Mike Leigh's films and that's not a bad way of describing it, though the twitches and body jerks in this are more due to decay and cravings rather than the annoying improvised twitches that often pass as characterisation in Leigh's films.

I found Dead Creatures to be abysmal.