What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That was it - Split...not Glass.

I haven't seen Glass yet – it's one I want to watch because I thought Split was engaging, suspenseful, and entertaining.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I haven't seen Glass yet – it's one I want to watch because I thought Split was engaging, suspenseful, and entertaining.

Ah so there is a film called Glass. I was right in the first place then. It was Glass i turned off after twenty minutes.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I haven't seen Glass yet – it's one I want to watch because I thought Split was engaging, suspenseful, and entertaining.

Do not watch Glass then.
It is none of those things.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Colt 38 Special Squad (1976)

An awesome poliziottesco movie. Massimo Dallamano's film is action all the way as a police captain whose wife has just been murdered by crime lord Ivan Rassimov sets up a secret squad of four rogue cops, each armed with an unlicensed .38 Colt Diamondback revolver and a fast motorbike.

With more than a few nods to Clint Eastwood's Magnum Force from three years previous this is fast paced, violent mayhem, replete with thunderous road chases and shoot outs a plenty.

Totally different to the other three films in the Years of Lead box set i've seen (Still got Highway Racer to go) as it's not as much of a social commentary and more a classic breathless action packed crime film with several brutal terrorist style bombings thrown in.

I really enjoyed this. Highly recommended.

[J Harker]

Interesting discussion on M.Night Shayamamlyamamlalala or whatever his name is. I like all his films in one way or another except The Crhappening. Good lord that was bad. I've not seen Glass or his latest Old(?) yet.
Split was ok if a bit messy.

Sent from my SM-G780G using Tapatalk

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Going in Style (2017)

Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin play three old guys whose bank has basically shit on them and their pensions so decide to rob it. Besides they have nothing to lose.

A charming, amiable, light hearted film that has fun with the age of the characters involved.

I picked up the Blu-ray today for the sum of a single English pound and for the third time of asking had a lot of fun watching it.

Although perhaps not a film anyone would call an all time favourite it's one that certainly has it's moments (often senior ones) as well as a few laughs and a whole lot of smiles. An easy watch - you know what? I've seen this more times than i've seen The Godfather.

[Frankie Teardrop]

SAINT – ‘Amsterdamned’ director Dick Maas hits back with this splattery seasonal horror comedy, which is kind of a culturally specific take on the ‘evil Santa’ trope. St Nicholas, patron saint of children, is celebrated on the 6th of December in Holland, so it’s a surprise to see him trashing Amsterdam on his white steed and setting fire to paediatric wards; apparently, it’s all connected with lunar cycles and cover-ups involving the Vatican (and probably The Hague). ‘Sint’, which somehow also plays a bit like a raucous riff on John Carpenter’s ‘The Fog’, is quite good fun overall, but it didn’t hook me. I don’t have a massive aversion to what I would call ‘mid-period CGI’, but sometimes it has a cheap smoothness about it that grates if it’s in the wrong place, and maybe ‘Sint’ seemed to slide a little out of focus in the bits between the mayhem. Nevertheless, it was amusing to observe Holland’s laid-back attitude to dildo-based humour in the classroom.

ALISON’S BIRTHDAY – Thanks to the Demoncrat and their recent review for reminding me that this one is doing the rounds. It’s an early eighties Australian offering that opens with a Ouija board séance, then delves into occult birth rights and covens. Alison is asked to ‘come back home’ for her birthday by her sinister aunt... guess what? On the one hand AB is pulled down by stock characters and a conventional storyline, but it rises above all that with passages of quiet eeriness and a skewed, dreamy late-seventies atmosphere; the scene where Alison discovers a mini-Stonehenge reminded me of the sequence in ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ when the camera pans across the stones and crags, making them loom with a creepy watchfulness as the electronic soundtrack throbs away. Other nice moments include the appearance of a shimmering entity at a torch-lit ceremony, and a graveyard chase made wonky by bursts of electro-punk. Torpid in places and stiff in others, but definitely worth catching for the weird vibes, right up until that total downer of an ending.

NOBODY SLEEPS IN THE WOODS TONIGHT – Some internet and social media-addicted young people have been sent to a behavioural modification camp in the middle of a massive Polish forest. Too much fresh air and a lack of Facebook are the least of their worries when a duo of pustulant ogres decide to ravage everything in sight. It took me a while to warm to it, but after a slow start NSITWT lays on a good dose of splattery mayhem; if that doesn’t float your boat, there’s something interesting going on in the way it melds straight-ahead slasher tropes with nods to less obvious sources such as fairy tales and weird fiction (‘The Colour Out Of Space’, at a pinch.) It looks good in that slightly hyperreal, modern way and the off-beam soundtrack simultaneously intrigues and irritates. In the end it didn’t take me anywhere new, but it was enjoyable enough.

[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Colt 38 Special Squad (1976)

An awesome poliziottesco movie. Massimo Dallamano's film is action all the way as a police captain whose wife has just been murdered by crime lord Ivan Rassimov sets up a secret squad of four rogue cops, each armed with an unlicensed .38 Colt Diamondback revolver and a fast motorbike.

With more than a few nods to Clint Eastwood's Magnum Force from three years previous this is fast paced, violent mayhem, replete with thunderous road chases and shoot outs a plenty.

Totally different to the other three films in the Years of Lead box set i've seen (Still got Highway Racer to go) as it's not as much of a social commentary and more a classic breathless action packed crime film with several brutal terrorist style bombings thrown in.

I really enjoyed this. Highly recommended.

Might have to pick this Box Set when it comes in a sale.

[nicholasrope]

The Batman

Robert Pattinson is The Batman in this version and he's up against Paul Dano's version of The Riddler. I didn't have the highest expectations for this one and I was pleasantly surprised by this one but at around 3 hours, it was too long.

Cube 2: Hypercube

So you have had a surprise cult hit and you do the inevitable Sequel but instead of doing the violent traps which were the highlights of the original, you instead introduce parallel realities and make things confusing.

I knew that there was a reason, I didn't like it originally.

Batman Forever

Val Kilmer is Batman and he's up against Harvey Two Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and The Riddler (Jim Carrey who in 1995 was really the only choice for the role) Chris O'Donnell is introduced as Robin. I really liked this, it had a corny script but it was fun and (Controversially I know) I prefer the not so serious Batman Films.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Highway Racer (1977)

Maurizio Merli, minus tache and looking more like a cross between Will Ferrell and the newly botoxed Tim Allen in Christmas with the Kranks, plays a police driving ace with a reputation for risk taking - seriously you don't want to be his partner in this one - who goes undercover driving for mobster Il Nizzardo.

My final watch from the Years of Lead box set and possibly i unknowingly saved the best till last as i thought this was terrific. More a popcorn action fest than ever before, this has stunts and car chase sequences that are insane thanks to the brilliance of stunt driver Rémy Julienne, especially when two cars descend at speed Rome's famed Spanish Steps, flipping over half way and crashing down the rest of the steps. How they got away with that i'll never know. Outrageous and wonderfully thrilling as is the finale which was jaw dropping.

Anyone who wants to watch a real car chase film needs to see this, done for real no CGI of course. Makes The Fast and the Furious look like the cartoon it is.

The Years of Lead box set of Italian poliziottesco films is an outstanding release. All five films are excellent. Highly recommended.