What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[mr 420]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Did you watch it, MTDS? What did you think?

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by mr 420

Did you watch it, MTDS? What did you think?

Any film with a man firing chickens from his fingers has to be good!

[bdc]

Kicks off strong with a cool setting and delightful intrigues but unfortunately slowly looses it's way,only to end in a very predictable finale.
A shame as this could have been so much better,the action sequences and fights are certainly very well choreographed and brutal.

Anthony Wong is unfortunately wasted here but the few moments he's on screen are a delight.

[J Harker]

Just finished watching Gone Girl. Ben Affleck stars as Nick Dunne a man suspected of murder when his wife suddenly disappears.
David Fincher directs this muddled pile of arse and frankly it's his worst film by a long way. The story was ok, quite twisty turny and difficult to go into without spoiling but it was so slow and meandering. Could have been done in half the time and been a better film for it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Wild Card (2015)

If ever a film should be subtitled a day in the life of the Stath then this is it. There's no straightforward bad guys piss off the Stath plot in this Simon West thriller. Instead he plays a body guard in Vegas who goes from job to job to fuel his gambling addiction.

Frequently amusing thanks to William Goldman's script, the film is more dialogue heavy than most but the three violent set pieces courtesy of legendary Hong Kong stunt arranger Cory Yuen are hard hitting and extremely brutal.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Videodrome.

Too much has been written about this film over the years for me to add anything new to the debate however having not seen it in a very long time, I was surprised at how little sexualized violence is actually on display. I pondered on this as I quietly refolded my tissues back into the box.

My other thought was, so this what it is like to view the world through Frankie Teardrop's eyes.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Just finished watching Gone Girl. Ben Affleck stars as Nick Dunne a man suspected of murder when his wife suddenly disappears.
David Fincher directs this muddled pile of arse and frankly it's his worst film by a long way. The story was ok, quite twisty turny and difficult to go into without spoiling but it was so slow and meandering. Could have been done in half the time and been a better film for it.

I thought it was brilliant when I saw it at the cinema, and that opinion was reaffirmed when I watched it at home a month or so ago.

Have you read the book? I read it about a week before going to the cinema and I didn't think it would translate very well, so was extremely surprised at how good the screenplay is and, with David Fincher's exquisite visuals, I didn't think the film felt anywhere near as long as the running time suggested.

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE – I recently wrote on this very forum about the impossibility of adapting Lovecraft for the silver screen. And if no-one can adapt H P Lovecraft, I'm pretty sure no-one can remake 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Or can they? This relatively recent (2003, I think) effort didn't leave too bad a taste in the mouth, and again when watching I had to abide by my self imposed dictum of “it's a movie in its own right, not an imitation beholden to its parent's expectations”. If only groovy sixties and seventies child rearing practices could be applied to genre fan's viewing habits more widely. Anyway, TCM refurb does quite a few things right. I wasn't particularly convinced by the attempt to evoke period seventies, but the film does have a sweaty, flea bitten atmosphere. As if to 'make up' for the original's lack of explicit physical violence, there's a lot more gore. Not mountains of entrails, but, well, a bit. Little throwaways like Leatherface removing his mask – for some reason I found that strangely haunting. And once we're inside that slaughterhouse, the oppressive, suffocating stench of the mangled dead is with us. If I'm going to make comparisons, what this competent, entertaining film just doesn't have is the feverish hysteria of the original TCM, the quality that makes the latter film so unique to this day.

FRIDAY THE 13TH – On to F13, another sacred cow dissected, repackaged and resold. I say 'sacred cow', but is the original F13 really all that good? I guess that's the stuff of long running forum debates, but if you want my two penneth, I've never really rated it – I've always seen it as a mildly diverting exemplar of a standard formula, not a trailblazer or a groundbreaker or an interesting mutation, for that matter. Accepting that version of things, F13: The Remake is in pretty good company with its forebear. Apart from, it's not really a remake, more a remix-and-updating of various franchise elements – since when did Jason wear his infamous hockey mask in part 1? Since when was he really ever IN part 1 (apart from during THAT BIT). Whatever, this new F13 whisks by in a comfortable haze of nubile shagging and occasional blood letting as the latest gang of annoying post late-teen campers find out the hard way that sex and violence are the driving forces of commercial American cinema. I don't really have much bad to say of it, as my expectations were basement level in the first place. The only twinge of disappointment that registered was when, out of the blue, a scene occurred where some guy's vintage porno mag spread was juxtaposed with a stuffed bear whose face had rotted away to a bony stump and a whole other movie seemed to come gatecrashing in for a few weird seconds. If only it had been directed by MTDS!

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET - Finishing off this trio of rejigs is 'A Nightmare On Elm Street'. Whilst I do like the original, I'm not overly smitten, and when I set out to see this one during its UK cinema release, my expectations were safely tempered by slight indifference and a sense of resignation. I was also pissed out of my head, and promptly fell asleep. I woke in the dark of the auditorium, the usher already at my side, brushing my cheek with fingers cold and sharp as... OHMYGOD! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN! Then I woke up for real and narrowly avoided pissing myself. Anyway, watched it again last night on Amazon Whatever It's Called, hoping I could give it a second chance. No booze this time, just an open mind and a desire for a glimmer of entertainment. Wow, it WAS rubbish after all. I'm not surprised that this one really brings out the hate in fans. Every horror element seemed plastic and half baked, best exemplified by an early scene where beads of water run backwards up a glass (“folks, I need you to imagine that we're in a dream here”), followed by an absolutely garbage Kruger effect bursting out of a wall going “Boo!” 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' plays like a horror-lite CGI version of 'Dawson's Creek' and is pure bollocks. I wouldn't piss on this one's grave (now, THAT was a remake which kind of made sense. 'I Spit On Your Grave', that is.).

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I thought it was brilliant when I saw it at the cinema, and that opinion was reaffirmed when I watched it at home a month or so ago.

Have you read the book? I read it about a week before going to the cinema and I didn't think it would translate very well, so was extremely surprised at how good the screenplay is and, with David Fincher's exquisite visuals, I didn't think the film felt anywhere near as long as the running time suggested.

No Nos i haven't read the book. Can't say i didn't enjoy the film completely either. Just that it felt a mess. And quite the opposite to you it felt every bit its running time and then some. And then didn't even have a proper ending. The tone was quite uneven too with some bits seeming quite silly and corny (anything with Doogie Howser in).

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

FRIDAY THE 13TH

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

I'm not sure if I've even seen the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street reboots/remake/reimaginings and, if I have, I can't remember a single thing about them.

I think watching them and trying to take them on their own merits (or lack thereof) without a passing thought to be original is a momentous, and worthy, task, and something I'll try and do either before I resume university or at some point in the winter when the evenings are dark.

Originally Posted by J Harker

No Nos i haven't read the book. Can't say i didn't enjoy the film completely either. Just that it felt a mess. And quite the opposite to you it felt every bit its running time and then some. And then didn't even have a proper ending. The tone was quite uneven too with some bits seeming quite silly and corny (anything with Doogie Howser in).

I think I understand what you mean. However, because the film is told from the perspective of two different people, switching from one to the other halfway through, the tone is bound to be uneven, emphasising the point that you really don't know who you can trust – are either of them really telling the truth about what happened? – and I felt the ending was appropriate to the actions (and inactions) of the two principles.