What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Bateman Beyond. More DC animation whipping the arse off it's real life cousin. This is fantastic stuff with an aged Batman guiding a new Bats in the near future as the Joker returns from the grave. There is a wonderful sense of madness to this one, especially Robin's fate at the hands of Joker which is cruel, nasty and faintly disturbing. Recommended.

Speaking of Batman, Tom Hardy dukes it out in the rather earnest WARRIOR. A typical fight film but with MMA action rather than boxing. Not to shabby if you like this sort of thing and I do.

Not going to spoil it but there is connection between Bruce and Terry. It's not mentioned in the show but the last season of justice league. It's a real shame that DC movies can't be half as good as there animation and tv cousins. They could then give marvel a run for their money

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

From 1961: part 2

The Curse of the Werewolf - It takes a while for the set up, hungry tramp - tramp at castle - tramp imprisoned - tramp befriended by young girl - young girl becomes buxom girl - buxom girl abused by her master and imprisoned with tramp - tramp rapes buxom girl, buxom girl let out of prison - buxom girl kills master and escapes - buxom girl found half dead and pregnant by kindly gentleman - buxom girl dies in childbirth leaving son cursed because he shares the same birthday as Jesus - son starts having problems with fangs and hairy palms at a young age (no sniggering in the back!) - son grows to be Oliver Reed and so on. It isn't until the last ten minutes that Reed in his rather good wolf make up appears......and after all this time setting it up Ollie-Wolf is all too quickly despatched by the kindly gentleman.....After an hour and twenty minutes of the set up I felt a little cheated that it took as little as ten minutes to kill him! Did I mention there was a buxom girl also?

As Nature Intended - A travelogue / nudie cutie written and directed by George Harrison Marks who made a lot of these type of films. Starring 'The Five Nature Girls' (?) one of whom was Pamela Green who earlier starred in Michael Powell's 1960 movie 'Peeping Tom'. Typical of its type and time, with the travelogue serving only to lengthen the run time and little more than an excuse to justify the ladies getting em' out!

Viridiana - Luis Buñuel's tale of a pious novice nun who tries to be both caring, understanding and charitable but finds that those qualities are lacking in everyone she helps and fatalistically gives in to the corrupting influences around her. The Vatican considered this movie as blasphemous and even Franco's Spainish censors had a problem with the original ending which they claimed had a sexual implication. Buñuel's answer was to reshoot the ending involving Viridiana, her cousin and the maid all sat round the table playing cards......inadvertanly implying a threesome! It didn't work and Spain banned the picture it was eventually released in Madrid in 1977.

Såsom i en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly) - Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards in 1962. A serious film with non of the Hollywood fluff, it tells the story of a young womans re-descent into mental illness after only just returning to her family. Although it has 8/10 stars on IMDB, (should these ratings really be a good barometer anyway?), it really did bore me.

Judgment at Nuremberg - A Stunning film with some stunning performances, Montgomery Clift in particular just blew me away as did Burt Lancaster. Almost an all-star cast, with Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich (in one of her last films), Maximilian Schell (who won Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Academy Awards for his role as the defense lawyer), Judy Garland (also one of her last films) and William Shatner (pre Kirk). This is a film that needs a prestige release on Bluray (MOC). The concentration camps film (real footage), shown during Richard Widmark's turn on the stand has to be some of the most powerful scenes ever filmed, uncensored they are quite shocking even today let alone in the early 1960's.

West Side Story - For me pretty unengaging, I liked some of the music but not a whole lot more. Won Best Motion Picture at the 34th Academy Awards, the last movie to do so as the catagory was renamed Best Picture from 1962.

A Taste of Honey - A kitchen sinker and a picture that won four BAFTA's including Best British Film. The opening montage of various Mancunian sights was fascinating for me as I see these locations on an almost daily basis, Albert Square where Manchester's Town Hall stands, St. Ann's Square and Queen Victoria's monument in Piccadilly Gardens, (as it was before the City Tower, Primark, the Manchester Eye and our version of the Berlin Wall blighted the landscape). Its also a film my old Pa was to have a small roll in as an extra. He and his mates, living in Salford, were suppose to seen kicking a football against a wall, he always claimed the scene was cut from the finished film but there is a scene set in the distance where a group of lads are kicking a ball around so maybe one of them is my Dad! I'd like to think so! He also said Rita Tushingham was one of the ugliest girls he ever saw......so maybe his scene was cut!!

The Misfits - With a movie career that spanned 38 years The Misfits was Clark Gables last picture, it would also be Marilyn Monroes last completed film and one of the last that Montgomery Clift would star in. Monroe hated the film and her performance whilst Gable was glad it was over when filming was done claiming that Monroe almost gave him a heart attack. Unfortunate words as shortly after he suffered a coronary thrombosis and died of a heart attack soon after. A troubled production with some troubled cast and crew but great performances all round.

King of Kings - Finishing off 1961 with a couple of Samuel Bronston epics. Dubbed 'I was a teenage Jesus' when it was originally released this 2h50m epic aint too bad. With a great score from Miklos Rozsa, the battle scene where the rebels attack the Roman barracks is pretty good if you can ignore the wires along which the giant ballista arrows travel although I thought the crucifixion scenes were a little understated and Brigid Bazlens' American accented Salome was kind of jarring.

El Cid - The other Bronston epic features the king of the epic, Chuck Heston. I have to admit I'm a bit of a Heston fan and although this movie is a little slow in parts it never seems to drag. The jousting scene alone is worth the price of the movie, none of the limp wristed sword fights of other lesser Hollywood historical pictures (George Sanders in Solomon & Sheba for instance).

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

I haven't even added the Nightmare USA stuff either. It's often daunting stuff watching your watch list increase faster than you can physically have the time to watch films in.

How do you think Trebor feels?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by JoshuaKaitlyn

The Misfits - With a movie career that spanned 38 years The Misfits was Clark Gables last picture, it would also be Marilyn Monroes last completed film and one of the last that Montgomery Clift would star in. Monroe hated the film and her performance whilst Gable was glad it was over when filming was done claiming that Monroe almost gave him a heart attack. Unfortunate words as shortly after he suffered a coronary thrombosis and died of a heart attack soon after. A troubled production with some troubled cast and crew but great performances all round.

A terrific film in my opinion. Given what followed, it really does have a sense of dangerous dread throughout. It seems to blend fun with edginess.

[Buboven]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Sunday night is Supposed to be anime night but had some technical issues so ended up watching a couple of films. (Really need to get the to watch pile down.)


The cell.

Chirst, I remember going to see this back on the cinema when I was still at uni. Has it been so long!? It got some crappy reviews, the script is fairly poor and most of the characters are fairly one dimensional. Yet I keep returning?
Well, in fairness I just picked up the (region locked) blu-ray (bare bones as well, poor show alliance entertainment) and the film really needs to be seen in the best quality it can be. Mainly this is a film to watch for the visuals.
Chubby Vince Vaughn goes after Vincent D'Onofrio's serial killer, who has a fairly eleborate set up where he slowly drowns his victims in a tank then bleaches the corpse to look like a doll, all so he can suspend himself over the corpse and jack off to the video. A lot of effort to get off if you ask me, but then this was 2000 and internet porn was only just becoming a thing. By the time they catch vinne he's deep in a coma and somewhere out there a woman is slowly drowning. Fortunately there's a device that lets you enter other peoples heads so its down to J-Lo to navigate the sick f**** head. This is where the film actually takes off. director Tarsem Singh can't make a decent narrative film to save his life but the dude can craft his visuals. The scenes in the killers head are well crafted and memorable, and what started as a bad hangover from the 90's obsession with profiling (silence of the lambs I blame YOU!) actually morphs into something more trippy and interesting.
In fairness one could simply buy el-topo and holy mountain and get trippy visuals in much better movies but I like the cell for all its many flaws. I'm not alone it seems as the film got a sequel.

Planet of the vampires.

Reviewing this here feels somewhat like telling a Brony convention that my little pony rules ( it doesn't but if I WAS at a Brony convention I would say that, all the while edging slowly to the exit.)
Nontheless planet of the vampires is great. And region locked. Worth mentioning that.
Basically the crew of the nostomo...

Sorry, a bunch of Euro trash astronauts hear a distress beacon coming from the planet ominous (not it's name though it should be!) They land and a bunch of them get killed. The dead astronauts start reviving and coming after the survivors. In fairness Alien substituted zombies for eggs, so there's that.

Mario bava takes cheesy 60's sci-fi and basically injects surprisingly effective gothic horror into the proceedings and it all works very well thanks to Bavas unique visual style and the fact that is son and alfredo leone didn't cut bits out, throw them away and add stupid stuff in its place (i'm still mad about Rabid dogs)

Kino/Scorpion have really done a service to the picture and it looks magnificent. Heres hoping odeon or Arrow pick it up over here!

I am really in a cunundrum as to whether to take a chance and buy the kino before it gets VERY expensive or wait to see if Odeon or Arrow pick it up over here as U say.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

A terrific film in my opinion. Given what followed, it really does have a sense of dangerous dread throughout. It seems to blend fun with edginess.

I thought Monroe was absolutely gorgeous in this!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by JoshuaKaitlyn

I thought Monroe was absolutely gorgeous in this!

Me too. The older she got the better looking she was getting.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Buboven

I am really in a cunundrum as to whether to take a chance and buy the kino before it gets VERY expensive or wait to see if Odeon or Arrow pick it up over here as U say.

My moneys on someone picking it up. Given the amount of Bava stuff getting HD releases in the Uk it would be madness not to release it.

[troggi]

I thought that, as I was a submariner, MEM(L) to be precise (also known as a "greenie" or Marine Engineering Mechanic E(L)ectrical), I was going to watch a Naval type film. I was looking forward to some realistic, gritty and grimy engineering based action on a warship or similar...

Was I mistaken???

Well the film was okay despite my disapointment so "Stoker" gets a 13/10 even though I saw not a single diesel engine, spanner or, indeed an oily rag!

[VeZius]

Went to see Dumb and Dumber To yesterday with my fiancée (she's a big fan of Jim Carrey).

If you liked the first movie, then you're gonna like this one too. It felt like a genuine 90's movie, from it's plot to it's jokes. There were no annoying references to social media or other today's trends, which seem to be a must for any other comedy that comes out today.

This movie was a pleasant surprise, it was a heroic deed from the creators!

There were only 6 people in the theater including us. Great for us, but bad for the movie. So if you liked the first movie, then go see it people so that it won't completely flop.

4.5/5