What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Paul Zombie]

in The Eye of The Labrinth.

julie(Rosemary dexter) has a nightmare about her boyfriend luca( Horst Frank, the blond gay chap out of Cat O Nine Tails) being murdered. and afterwards she finds that he has disappeared. which leads her to an island of oddballs including Suspiria's Alida Valli.

This wasn't a bad little giallo, even if it is a bit slow and rather bloodless apart from a couple of stabbings. more of a slow burning mystery with sunny locations.
Actress Rosemary Dexter gives a good performance too and is rather cute. and also look out for a young Sybil danning as well.

A solid if unremarkable giallo, with a nice twist ending. 78 out of 100.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Death by Engagement (2005)

A digitally shot slasher where all the slashing is off camera. A total waste of time.

Youth (2015)

A dream like film where former composer Michael Caine and former film director Harvey Keitel, stay at a luxurious spa resort in the Swiss Alps.

It's all very surreal stuff and feels disconnected from reality as we almost invade the tranquil yet weirdly f*cked up lives of Keitel, Caine, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano as a Depp like film star whose career has gone off the rails, Jane Fonda, Miss Universe and perhaps most disturbingly of all an extremely overweight former Argentine footballer.

Yet among the beauty (a nude Miss Universe in the pool) and gorgeous photography (the Venice sequences are amazing) there's an air of pretentiousness throughout and that it's all very self indulgent. It's a fascinating watch but not one i'm sure i'd ever wish to go back to.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

This week's viewings:

Wait Until Dark (1967)

A chilling, well-scripted tale of deception and cat and mouse. Great performances all around and one I really enjoyed revisiting.



84/100


Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1983)

Slow, low budget silliness for sure with a spot of bad weather and one felled tree preventing all involved to feel 'hopelessly' trapped in the grimy motel, however it does have its scuzzy charms ranging from a psychotic sickle-wielding senior citizen to multiple vermin related attacks and the sinister tunnel network below the motel.



46/100


Shaft (1971)

The one that started it all in terms of Blaxploitation crime capers of the '70s, and despite being the sphere of influence, this one does seem a little tame on a re-watch. I can no doubt blame the glut of exploitative fodder that came in its wake for my apparent desensitization. Still solid overall though, with a great central performance by Richard Roundtree.



68/100


Jamaica Inn (1939)

Despite missing some of Hitchcock's trademark flair (his last British film before heading off to the States and it was established that he was not in full control of the finished product here), it does have some wind-swept suspense among the melodrama and muddle and those ship-wreck scenes are genuinely well shot.



65/100


On Dangerous Ground (1951)

Whilst pendulum-ing between noir and melodrama throughout, there is something distinctive about this one that makes it rather memorable. The film begins in the trademark wind and rain swept streets of the big city, but then the story shifts to a country setting and a man-hunt to the finale. Some great characterisation and dialogue here, and whilst not top-tier Noir (at least to me), I'd be hard pushed not to recommend this one.



68/100


One Dark Night (1983)

I went into this one with knowledge that it is a slow-burn and perhaps even quite boring. However, I actually ended up really enjoying it overall. Sure, it is slow, but a lean running time and a few key scenes throughout the first portion did help to pull me in and keep me engaged. The climax in the mausoleum is superb and there are some nice practical effects work at play (albeit a lot being camera based). Whilst I was expecting a trudge through boredom, I think my initial thoughts going in to this actually helped me enjoy it more than perhaps if I'd heard nothing about it going in.



59/100


The Glass Key (1942)

Apparently an influence on the Coen's Miller's Crossing, this Noir-thriller is a mix of crooked politics, gambling, murder and the press. Alan Ladd steals the show throughout and is a treat to watch on screen. My main criticism with this one is that the finale is a little rushed and there is no real sense that any consequences have been bourne as in most Noir. Still, a good watch overall.



67/100


Klown (2010)

Dark, Danish comedy about a man who tries to prove he is good father material to his pregnant girlfriend by kidnapping his young nephew and taking him on a debauched canoe trip he has planned with his friend. The film is based on a Curb Your Enthusiasm style show in Denmark and comes across in the off-the-cuff style in terms of dialogue at times. Overall, pretty well-paced with some great dialogue exchanges. It's fun and lewd, if not quite as dark as my usual brand of comedy. Difficult to recommend as comedy is a very subjective thing.



69/100


eXistenZ (1999)

A bit cheesier than I remember, however David Cronenberg's tale of bio-ported virtual reality gaming is still a fun watch despite feeling like a Videodrome-lite at times. Still, it imbibes Cronenberg's artistic and visual flair at its core and still remains to be a stand-out film of the late '90s.



63/100


Bird Box (2018)

If you turn your brain down a bit and overlook some of its flaws and to an extent some of the cookie-cutter characters, it's quite an enjoyable and at times tense tale of post-apocalyptic despair with some grisly deaths peppered throughout. Quite good in as much as it keeps it open to interpretation as to what the 'creatures' / 'force' actually is too in many ways - nice to see that there is still an opinion at work that not all mainstream horror audiences need to be spoon-fed every minute detail.



62/100

[iank]

The French Connection. Gene Hackman is a tough New York cop who uncovers an international drug smuggling ring in this gritty early 70s cop thriller co-starring Roy Scheider. This was very similar to the rather less famous The Seven-Ups, lots of 70s grit, well made and acted, with one standout action/chase scene midway through, but I didn't think it was anything particularly amazing to tell you the truth.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Hell's Angels (1930)

Howard Hughes 1930 Great War epic comes across as more an aviation vanity project than a cohesive film. Taking years to complete as it was originally a silent film and in it's use of real aerial action sequences (Hughes directed these himself from a plane and ended up fracturing his skull in a crash - filming also claimed the lives of three pilots), Hughes brought in James Whale to direct talking scenes and changed his lead actress to an 18 year old Jean Harlow as she had a more suitable voice for cinema goers.

The lengthy scenes of aerial action are magnificent, especially a bombing of a German supply depot which clearly was done for real and bi-plane combat with a Zeppelin over London.

However the acting sequences are less impressive, for the most part it feels like a silent film and expression and movement from the actors are unsubtle to say the least. The two leading men James Hall and especially Ben Lyon come across as stilted in the extreme. Whilst Harlow gets by on slutty sexiness alone (We are talking pre Hays code here). It should be noted that this film features the only colour footage of Jean Harlow in cinema history.

Hell's Angels is a film that should be seen by film lovers and it should also be admired, whether you love it is all down to personal opinion.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by iank

The French Connection. Gene Hackman is a tough New York cop who uncovers an international drug smuggling ring in this gritty early 70s cop thriller co-starring Roy Scheider. This was very similar to the rather less famous The Seven-Ups, lots of 70s grit, well made and acted, with one standout action/chase scene midway through, but I didn't think it was anything particularly amazing to tell you the truth.

The French Connection took me a few times. I fell asleep the first two or three viewings. But when it finally clicked it really did, I loved it.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

[gag]

Originally Posted by J Harker

The French Connection took me a few times. I fell asleep the first two or three viewings. But when it finally clicked it really did, I loved it.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

I enjoyed both French connection films , slow burners but good .

[gag]

Very strange how few min after mentioning French connection films i find this article on a film released 5 yr ago called the connection , the real story behind the French connection films.

https://www.shortlist.com/entertainm...ue-story/94769

First few paragraphs




The Incredible True Story Behind The Real French Connection


As the true, bloody tale of gangland Marseille hits cinemas, ShortList’s Alex Christian visits the French Riviera to meet the real-life players behind mob drama The Connection

"Before, it was a story of men like my father, who would keep Marseille safe and uphold the law. Now there’s none of that and the crime has gone up.” Céline Zampa’s father wasn’t a lawman. Gaëtan ‘Tany’ Zampa was the Godfather of Marseille, a key figure in La French – the criminal enterprise known by its English name: the French Connection. I’m speaking to the daughter of one of France’s most notorious gangsters in Marseille’s Le Panier district, a neighbourhood of narrow cobblestone footpaths and terraced housing, which is bristling with energy. Céline, 39, was barely a schoolgirl when her father was arrested in the fallout of the murder of Judge Pierre Michel, who spearheaded President Nixon’s war on drugs on its Mediterranean frontline.

Marseille was the world’s heroin capital in the Sixties. A postwar influx of Neapolitans and Corsicans led to a rise in organised crime and links to the Italian Mafia. From there, a conspiracy to smuggle billions of dollars of heroin into the United States developed, with Marseille providing a natural shipping point. Opium farmers in Turkey would sell their wares to the mob, extracting the heroin in labs dotted around the city, and the drug would be smuggled out of the port to the thriving US

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Atticus Institute (2015)

The story of a 1970's psychology lab in Pennsylvania where a case of demonic possession took place.

Fake movie in the style of a documentary complete with actors talking heads and observation footage.

This really wasn't for me, i found it an utterly pointless exercise.

This is the first film i've actually not given a star to on Letterboxd.

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Atticus Institute (2015)

This is the first film i've actually not given a star to on Letterboxd.

I was curious about this one but I might just leave it after all!