What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Susan Foreman]

[keirarts]

Not posted some reviews here in a while. Getting through the Leprechaun Box set (reviews coming soon.) It's astonishingly exhaustive in terms of extras so taking a while to get through. Add to that a friend of mine has broken his arm so been up paying visits and watching daredevil. Hence, very few films watched that don't involve leprechauns. Have watched one or two things recently however.

Avengers 2.

No way in hell I WASN'T going to watch this. If your not a fan of the other marvel stuff then don't bother, its more of the same. If like me you do like Marvels output then its well worth watching.
Its the difficult second film for whedon and suffers with a little too much going on. As a result I suspect half of the film may go WAYY over peoples heads. For example how many people will really twig that Andy Serkis is playing Black Panthers main villain Ulysses Klaw. Thomas Kretchmann plays one of the big marvel villains Baron strucker and barely gets screentime.
However, its still a damned entertaining film and great popcorn fodder. Perfect? NO. Better than a lot of the multiplex stuff? Yes.

Things.

Second time of watching this unmitigated turd of a movie, crapped out by Canadian video store clerks. Its terrible but oddly hypnotic. This time screened for someones Birthday party! I was popular!

Wrong.

Third time for this one. Weird as f$£" surrealist tale of a man looking for his lost dog. Kidnapped and lost by a weird cult pet guru played by William Fichtner. The opening scene of a fireman reading the paper and taking a dump in the middle of the road essentially sets the tone for the whole film.

Wrong Cops.

First time viewing. sort of follow up to WRONG featuring one of the peripheral characters from that film. It's a tale of LAPD corruption thats frankly bizarre and totally f^&^% hilarious. Rather than the seedy angst you would expect its more surreally odd and randomly cruel. One cop is dealing pot using dead rats to disguise his stash. Another is ferrying around a corpse for disposal when he finds a bag of cash buried in the yard. Another is using his authority to see boobs at gunpoint and so on and so on. Its not as randomly odd as WRONG which makes it more accessible and its very funny indeed!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Wrong Cops.

First time viewing. sort of follow up to WRONG featuring one of the peripheral characters from that film. It's a tale of LAPD corruption thats frankly bizarre and totally f^&^% hilarious. Rather than the seedy angst you would expect its more surreally odd and randomly cruel. One cop is dealing pot using dead rats to disguise his stash. Another is ferrying around a corpse for disposal when he finds a bag of cash buried in the yard. Another is using his authority to see boobs at gunpoint and so on and so on. Its not as randomly odd as WRONG which makes it more accessible and its very funny indeed!

I really want to see this one after watching 'Wrong' this past week. From your write-up it sounds great and I'm looking forward to checking it out even more. I'll no doubt be pulling the trigger on the German BD very soon.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

I really want to see this one after watching 'Wrong' this past week. From your write-up it sounds great and I'm looking forward to checking it out even more. I'll no doubt be pulling the trigger on the German BD very soon.

Yeah. I'm picking that version up soon as well.

[Dave Boy]

HOLD THAT GHOST (1941)

Abbott and Costello inherit a tavern from the will of a gangster. Dropped off there in a thunderstorm, Bud, Lou and some other passengers soon find the house to be full of ghostly goings on.....

Very enjoyable and funny film from Universal. Also of note are cult favorites Evelyn Ankers and Richard Carlson. Amongst the ghosts and moving candles are some very funny routines. Lou's dance with a very game Joan Davis had me laugh out loud, and it takes a lot to do that. Universal horror production values make this a great companion to A/C meet Frankenstein.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

100th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli so decided to watch:

Gallipoli (1981) Not seen this in a while, more to do with the August campaign rather than the initial April one. I found the Jean Michel Jarre soundtrack a little out of place.

The Lighthorsemen (1987) Another WWI picture featuring the Australian Lighthorse. This one set in Palestine and featuring the battle of Beersheeba. I first saw this on VHS back in the 80's and although it isn't bad the trailer makes for a more exciting experiance.

Might stick with the WWI theme for a week.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Play Dirty (1969)

Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport lead a rag tag group of soldiers on a mission behind enemy lines in North Africa to blow up German fuel dumps.

Disappointing WW2 actioner let down by a lack of action, a dull script forsaking any of the men on a mission cliches that might have livened it up, and non-existent characterization. This element was so disjointed that come the end of a two hour film i had no idea what anyone was called. The soldiers, Davenport and Caine aside, were so poorly served by Melvyn Bragg's script they barely had twenty lines between them the whole film.

If you look closely at the poster below you'll notice an adults only banner. This is purely due to a near rape sequence where one of the soldiers gets a bullet to the buttock.

[fuzzymctiger]

Originally Posted by JoshuaKaitlyn

100th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli so decided to watch:

Gallipoli (1981) Not seen this in a while, more to do with the August campaign rather than the initial April one. I found the Jean Michel Jarre soundtrack a little out of place.

The Lighthorsemen (1987) Another WWI picture featuring the Australian Lighthorse. This one set in Palestine and featuring the battle of Beersheeba. I first saw this on VHS back in the 80's and although it isn't bad the trailer makes for a more exciting experiance.

Might stick with the WWI theme for a week.

Nice to hear someone else celebrating ANZAC Day in true spirit

[Handyman Joe]

Odds Against Tomorrow - it's been a while since a movie troubled my top ten noirs, was beginning to think I'd seen all the greats - then this one came along. What we have here is one of those confluences of talent that happen very rarely. Visually it's pure poetry, use of decaying urban landscapes and brooding skies is beautiful. Theses a powerhouse performance by Robert Ryan as a racist ex-con in the throes of a mid life crisis. Belafonte and Begley are first rate as his partners in crime and there's memorable cameos from Shelley Winters and Gloria Grahame as the unfortunate women in his hellish orbit. Music is excellent with a couple of great jazzy performance numbers courtesy of Mr Belafonte. The heist at the films core is as exciting as it needs to be, the politics are punishing (script by Abraham Polonsky who didn't mess around with subtext). The ending is apocalyptic and has to be seen to be believed. Only problem? This classic is damn hard to get your hands on - Arrow or Eureka, it's a must.

The Reckless Moment - My first Max Ophuls movie and I found it a classy, enjoyable piece of work full of impressive tracking shots and visual compositions. Joan Bennett and James Mason (almost a reprisal of his Odd Man Out character) as blackmail victim and perp are suitably, powerfully angst ridden. Must admit given its great rep I wasn't as blown away as I expected - it all seemed a little perfunctory, we never really got enough background on Mason's character for the climax to really count - it's well worth seeing though and probably worth seeing again to see what I undoubtedly missed.

[Zann]

Firstly apologies, wrong place to ask something that has been asked before...can someone remind me how to find CL on Tapatalk please?