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  #37001  
Old 14th May 2016, 05:42 PM
J Harker's Avatar
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Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs View Post
Striptease (1996)

Coming just a year after the much vilified Showgirls, Striptease didn't stand much of a chance as it's essentially seen as several strip club sequences with a story thrown round them much like
1987's dreary Stripped to Kill was.

In reality it's actually far better than that description and is only really let down by some drastic shifts in tone throughout. It seems director Andrew Bergman has tonal problems, as his most appreciated film, Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), also suffers from the same thing in my opinion.

The story of a single unemployed mum who gets a job in a strip club to make ends meet as she tries to gain custody of her child from it's alcoholic father is a typical Hollywood drama that could play out on Channel 5 on a Monday afternoon were it not for the frequent nudity. However when you add in the political subplot of murder and corruption which begins when Burt Reynolds US senator accidently kills a punter in the club then things get a bit sticky. Reynold's senator is practically a comedy relief character as is Ving Rhames night club bouncer and there are plenty of laughs to be had. It's just when Armande Assante's cop arrives to investigate and CSI's Paul Guilfoyle starts offing people without the senator's knowledge that the tone shifts from scene to scene. Long strip sequences followed by beatings and tear jerk melodrama don't really go hand in hand.

It's all nicely acted though. Burt Reynolds is clearly having a blast as is Rhames, but the film is most famous for star Demi Moore's nudity. It seems she'd just had a new boob job and wanted to show them off. Many people don't rate silicon implants but i think she looks really good in this film. Super toned body wise, she makes for a decent dancer and in my eyes comes across more convincing than Elizabeth Berkely did in Showgirls (Although that might not be hard). Interestingly, one of the dancers, Rena Riffel, is in both this and Showgirls, typecast? Probably. Big breast lovers will want to keep an eye out for Pandora Peaks as she does her routine, although it's unlikely you'll miss em'.

Striptease is difficult to recommend as it's sort of good and a bit rubbish at the same time. I suppose the best way to describe it is as a guilty pleasure.
Showgirls is shit. I really enjoy Striptease.
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  #37002  
Old 14th May 2016, 06:20 PM
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A Lizard In A Woman's Skin. (Mondo Macabro Blu Ray)

Hell yeah, watched this last night...........blown away with this. The film was fantastic and the transfer superb.
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  #37003  
Old 14th May 2016, 09:01 PM
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The Long Goodbye - I'm a massive Altman fan and for me The Long Goodbye is his masterpiece, probably one of my favourite films. Arrow's Bluray is fantastic.
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  #37004  
Old 14th May 2016, 09:43 PM
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Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs View Post
I saw The Hateful Eight a couple of days ago and intended on writing something sooner, but have been cracking on with university work. There is probably little point in talking about the plot, so I'll just limit this to my opinion.

This is clearly a vanity piece for Tarantino who wanted to make a permanent impact on American cinema by making the first 70 mm 'Roadshow' film since the mid-1960s (I believe the 1966 film Khartoum directed by Basil Dearden was the last) and, to be absolutely fair, the film is beautifully shot and I wish I had a screen bigger than 42 inches to see the few landscape scenes again – Cineworld boycott meant I couldn't see it at the cinema – and it is incredibly well designed, blocked, and staged. It has also been designed within an inch of its life, from just about every strand of facial hair to the costumes and the interiors of the stagecoach and Minnie's Haberdashery (including props) are wonderful to watch. The choice of actors and, in Ennio Morricone, composer, also smacks of a director in full control of everything except the script leak which threatened to derail the entire project.

As with Tarantino's previous films done this way, the chapter format makes for an episodic viewing which contains both good and bad. I can't remember the numbers or names at the moment, but a couple of them were overly wordy and a bit dull, whereas the second half of the one in which Samuel L Jackson takes centre stage is crackling with tension and has great dynamics between the characters. However, I could have done without the unnecessary (and uncredited) narration by Tarantino with an indistinguishable accent.

Even with the nearly three-hour running time, you are left not knowing much about many of the characters, with only Chris Mannix and Marquis Warren given decent, though spurious and potentially fictional, backgrounds, so the characters aren't even as well-developed as in Reservoir Dogs, which has a running time of just over half the length!

Like I said, there is some really good stuff there, and Morricone's score is worthy of all the praise and awards which went his way, and some of the acting is excellent, but I'm certainly not in a rush to watch it a second time.
One down...
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  #37005  
Old 15th May 2016, 08:37 AM
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Every Which Way But Loose. Clint Eastwood is a bare-knuckle fighter with an orangutan for a best friend. In between romancing a singer (Sondra Locke) who may not be everything she appears, he manages to antagonise both an obnoxious local cop and perhaps the most hopeless bikie gang ever committed to film... Although (along with its sequel Any Which Way You Can) something of a childhood favourite I haven't seen this late 70s knockabout action comedy for decades, so I was rather pleased to find it holds up as a very entertaining and funny film. Clyde the Orangutan probably steals the film, of course, though he gets strong competition from Ruth Gordon as Clint's cantankerous, foul-mouthed old Ma, who knows how to deal with bikers! Great fun.
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  #37006  
Old 15th May 2016, 10:39 AM
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Originally Posted by Frankenhooker View Post
The Long Goodbye - I'm a massive Altman fan and for me The Long Goodbye is his masterpiece, probably one of my favourite films. Arrow's Bluray is fantastic.
It's been on my 'to get' list for ages. Saw it many moons ago and enjoyed it.
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  #37007  
Old 15th May 2016, 11:02 AM
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Ghoulies II from 101 Films, watched it last night. No classic; but miles better than the first movie. I really enjoyed the score to this one, particularly the music over the opening credits. Spotted Donnie Jeffcoat from Night of the Demons, William Butler from Friday the 13th part VII and Sasha Jensen from Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers. Overall, the transfer was pretty nice.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
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  #37008  
Old 15th May 2016, 12:45 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frankenhooker View Post
The Long Goodbye - I'm a massive Altman fan and for me The Long Goodbye is his masterpiece, probably one of my favourite films. Arrow's Bluray is fantastic.
One of my favourite neo-Noir films. Definitely one of Altman's best, when considering the man's body ofvwork is high praise indeed.
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  #37009  
Old 15th May 2016, 03:11 PM
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Tulpa (2012)

Heralded by cover reviewers as a homage to Hitchcock, it isn't. Tulpa is a modern stab at the classic giallo thriller. This wholly Italian production brings the old 70's giallo staples of sex and violence kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Director Federico Zampaglione takes many classic giallo traits and influences and mixes them into his film. The killer decked out all in black, even hat and gloves, several nicely staged graphic murders, one straight out of Dario Argento's Opera, and an attractive heroine in Claudia Gerini who reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer with her looks.

Tulpa is a moody piece. It's definitely not fast paced but it is intriguing. Gerini plays a successful business woman by day who visits a private club by night and partakes in various sexual activities until she soon realizes those she rendezvous with turn up dead soon after.

Not as stylish as say, Amer (2009), but nor is it as pretentious either with it's linear plotting. The mood is set with an evocative score and dark red lighting throughout especially the club scenes. There's a certain neo-noir ambiance to it all which i enjoyed, more so than the rather basic story. What the film lacks is the classic police investigation, in Tulpa i'm afraid it just doesn't exist, the film concentrating solely on Gerini, although that's no bad thing. It's worth noting that as with all the classic gialli heroines, Gerini has no inhibitions about taking her clothes off, ha,ha.

Finally thrown into the mix is a feel of the occult. The Tulpa of the title being something conjured through the mind during the club's rituals. In this respect the whole production reminded me of Polselli's Delirio Caldo (1972). Not everything works, (the plot is a little too simplistic at times for example), in fact it's rare in giallo cinema if it does, but the overall feel of Tulpa is that it's a film that should be of definite interest to long time lovers of Italian murder mysteries.
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  #37010  
Old 15th May 2016, 05:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs View Post
One of my favourite neo-Noir films. Definitely one of Altman's best, when considering the man's body ofvwork is high praise indeed.
I blown away with it when I watched Arrow's release recently, one of my best ever blind buys without a doubt, the ending is SO good.
keirarts and Frankenhooker like this.
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