What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Nothing to do with Fuest. Its a Vincent Price film that i tend to think as having a similar style to the Phibes films. So not entirely random. In fact not really random at all, I've even heard of Theatre being described as a spiritual sequel to the Phibes films. Although I'm buggered if i can remember where.

Theatre's a bit of a weird one. Yes it is a little like the Phibes films but it also has a really nasty streak to it that the Phibes ones don't. Thus setting it apart in my opinion.

[J Harker]

Mm furry muff. Did you get The Hallow after?

[trebor8273]

A mad scientist sends for some help in a new discovery he has made, once the help arrives and he gets what he needs the scientist turns his back on them and becomes very secretive, so they decide to find out what he's upto, which they do first hand as we find out he has found a way to shrink things including people, so the group have to battle local wildlife etc and the mad scientist who is determined to kill them all. A superior mad scientist movie. The best way to describe it is if Rick Moranis character from honey I shrink the kids was a crazy psychotic mad man. 7.9/10

Next up

[Frankie Teardrop]

AMONG THE LIVING – Ever since 'Inside', Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo have been flying in the face of their fans' unrealistic expectations – good for them. I liked 'Livide' even though everyone else said it was a muddled mess, and I have to say that I enjoyed 'Among The Living', which quite a few reviewers have written off as half baked. For some, the attempt here to marry pre-adolescent drama with horror has come off badly. I might be wrong, but just because a film references 'The Goonies' a couple of times doesn't mean that it has to justify itself by ripping a foetus out of someone's stomach every five minutes. Ironically and somewhat teasingly there IS a bit of foetus ripping in the first five minutes of 'Among The Living' when a haggard Beatrice Dalle flips out and tries to kill her young ones, but again, those looking for an 'Inside' style gore bonanza will be disappointed to learn that the film is more about the struggles of a gang of three alienated kids. That's not to say there isn't plenty of creepiness on offer. It just needs time to build. After the brutal opening, the tone is subdued, for a while at least – we get to know the kids and their messed up lives a bit. We follow them as they bum about setting fire to barns and trespassing in abandoned film studios (which appear to be a staple on the outskirts of every small French town). The kids antagonise a fugitive father-son duo (basically, Dalle's ex-family) who've been using the studios as their murder grotto, and from then the film gathers momentum as the disturbing looking son, a bald guy who walks around naked, tracks each of the kids down in turn. The last half hour is pretty fraught and tense, and manages to pack in a bit of the ultraviolence the filmmakers have been accused of forsaking. But, in a film which is nodding more to the otherly and the macabre, what sticks in the mind are images such as bald creep forcing his foot into the mouth of a prone, dying father, or treading 'meaningfully' on a squeaky toy. It may play on standard genre themes like 'the family as the source of horror' and does the whole thing of showing a brutal family as the mirror / equivalent of a 'realistic' one but it does so with a more evolved sense of what that might mean, and to their credit Maury and Bustillo inject pathos into the ostensible bad guys in a way which avoids cheese and seems to evoke real fragility. I think it's a good film, and I recommend it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Mm furry muff. Did you get The Hallow after?

No i decided not to bother. I seemed to pick up quite a haul last week so thought i'd wait.

Plus i've ordered a couple of new releases today from HMV .

Didn't bother with the Jim Beam either as i doubt it will taste much different to ordinary Beam.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

AMONG THE LIVING –

That's another off the list i posted a few weeks ago that i need to pick up.

You seem to be hitting the same list...or perhaps we just have similar ideas of what sounds good in today's dtv market.

Oh yeah, i thought Livide was excellent by the way.

[keirarts]

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Lex Luthor gets Batman and Superman to fight.




Yep.



In all honesty I've seen superheroes fight for some really, really dumb reasons so its not that which bothered me. Nope, it was that it took two and a half hours to get there with some really shitty dialogue and a mid section as bloated as mine (office work takes its toil )
I do think some of the critics have been unduly harsh. Ben Affleck is probably the best Batman so far and the character straddles the comic book bats and the deathly serious nolan bats quite well. Jeremy Irons is also fantastic as Alfred. Gal Godot is great as wonder woman (at least with what she's given) and I'm really glad were getting a WW film directed by Patty Jenkins. Caville gets some stick but I really rate him as superman. He actually does a great job here, especially since the view of him here is from the human perspective making him seem more alien and distant.
The real issue is David S Goyer who cannot write for shit, and Snyder who really needed to reign in Jesse Eisenberg whose potrayal of Luthor veers from seething psychopath to jittery nut-job without any clear explanation. His entire distaste for superman is underwritten. If your a comic fan you should get it, but then the film-makers really should at least consider the people who aren't. Apparently Gotham and Metropolis are right next door to each other, at least I hope so as the whole final act loses track of where it is in a raging light-show. This is the main problem, it spends so much time and effort trying to make a basic premise seem grand, sinister and Machiavellian it essentially bogs the film down to an unhealthy degree.
Overall not terrible and nothing a change of writer and director couldn't fix. I really hope the cast don't land any of the blame.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

No i decided not to bother. I seemed to pick up quite a haul last week so thought i'd wait.

Plus i've ordered a couple of new releases today from HMV .

Didn't bother with the Jim Beam either as i doubt it will taste much different to ordinary Beam.

The Beam is worth a whirl while its on offer. In fact i can see me getting another bottle tomorrow. Does have a deeper somewhat woodier taste than regular Jim which is quite light i think. That said i don't think its worth full price which i think is about £23.

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Lex Luthor gets Batman and Superman to fight.




Yep.



In all honesty I've seen superheroes fight for some really, really dumb reasons so its not that which bothered me. Nope, it was that it took two and a half hours to get there with some really shitty dialogue and a mid section as bloated as mine (office work takes its toil )
I do think some of the critics have been unduly harsh. Ben Affleck is probably the best Batman so far and the character straddles the comic book bats and the deathly serious nolan bats quite well. Jeremy Irons is also fantastic as Alfred. Gal Godot is great as wonder woman (at least with what she's given) and I'm really glad were getting a WW film directed by Patty Jenkins. Caville gets some stick but I really rate him as superman. He actually does a great job here, especially since the view of him here is from the human perspective making him seem more alien and distant.
The real issue is David S Goyer who cannot write for shit, and Snyder who really needed to reign in Jesse Eisenberg whose potrayal of Luthor veers from seething psychopath to jittery nut-job without any clear explanation. His entire distaste for superman is underwritten. If your a comic fan you should get it, but then the film-makers really should at least consider the people who aren't. Apparently Gotham and Metropolis are right next door to each other, at least I hope so as the whole final act loses track of where it is in a raging light-show. This is the main problem, it spends so much time and effort trying to make a basic premise seem grand, sinister and Machiavellian it essentially bogs the film down to an unhealthy degree.
Overall not terrible and nothing a change of writer and director couldn't fix. I really hope the cast don't land any of the blame.

Agree none of the actors are at fault here all give good performances(with what they are given) and it's a good point about superman. The fault as you say lies both with Goyer and Snyder neither who I rate very highly at what they do. I have a feeling wonder woman is going to fantastic and a lot more action packed and better directed and written than this

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by trebor8273

Agree none of the actors are at fault here all give good performances(with what they are given) and it's a good point about superman. The fault as you say lies both with Goyer and Snyder neither who I rate very highly at what they do. I have a feeling wonder woman is going to fantastic and a lot more action packed and better directed and written than this

I don't mind Snyder. I really liked 300 and Watchmen, and thought Dawn of the Dead was a very good remake of an average film.

I also enjoyed Sucker Punch but i know i'm alone in that.