Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

[craner]

It's certainly more disturbing than any Italo exploiter I've seen other than Hitch-hike (which is an amazing film by the way).

Why's it more disturbing? Becauase it's quite realistically grotesque: I mean, if you were in a situation like that, it would probably look and feel and smell as horrible as that night train scene. When Laura D'angelo goes to throw up, you feel like throwing up too. And the night's sordid madness bleeds into daylight, and the reality and consequence of it becomes awfully explicit.

You want to scratch your skin off.

Also the terrible ambiguity of Meril's character. It's base and dumb, but sexy and ghastly at the same time. It's something quite different to, say, Sergio Martino's slick gialli, where sex is death and death is sex and it looks and sounds fantastic.

 

[craner]

And, yes, the Peckinpah season has been amazing. I'm up for Cross of Iron on Friday. If you're free Rich, fancy seeing it wide-screen style? Could deliver your dvds back to you, if so.

 

[don_quixote]

good but ultimate feel bad film of all time?

haha yeah. i left it lying around in my parents house and they watched it. dear god they were upset with me when i last went home.

 

[crackerjack]

Er...the Hitchcock one?

Anyway, it was a treat.

Ingrid Bergman stole the show. She made a very alluring alcoholic.

Nazis got screwed by Americans. All good.

Oh, that one. probably my favourite Hitchcock film aongside Lady Vanishes. Claude Rains is supercreep.

 

[IdleRich]

"Also the terrible ambiguity of Meril's character. It's base and dumb, but sexy and ghastly at the same time. It's something quite different to, say, Sergio Martino's slick gialli, where sex is death and death is sex and it looks and sounds fantastic."

She's the one who gets raped in the toilet and then kind of joins in the bad guys' sadistic games and then abandons them at the end right?

"And, yes, the Peckinpah season has been amazing. I'm up for Cross of Iron on Friday. If you're free Rich, fancy seeing it wide-screen style? Could deliver your dvds back to you, if so."

Yeah, could be up for that actually (never seen it). Send us a pm.

"It's certainly more disturbing than any Italo exploiter I've seen other than Hitch-hike (which is an amazing film by the way)."

Hitch-hike with Franco Nero? That's great alright. The ending is fantastically amoral. Well, the whole film is of course but the ending particularly.

 

[nochexxx]

dark star
an obvious choice perhaps as i'm sure many of you have already watched this low budget second film by john carpenter. i like to think of it the worlds first outergalactic surfer film with furry freak brothers in space.


jj cale: to tulsa and back
i absolutely loved this documentary, which followed an aged cale and band around parts of tulsa and thus revisiting the old neighbourhood. as well as containing awesome live footage (some of which showing a nervous looking mr clapton performing live with cale), it also contains many candid moments where by cale (who styles himself throughout in an independent trucks hat!) openly talks about his past and current life in the biz.

a mighty wind
i was pleasantly surprised to find this mockumentary about a folk music reunion concert was fuckin funny! not so much out loud belly laughter like spinal tap but enough to warrant a repeated sequence of insane cackles.

 

[boombox]

Patlabor the Movie 2.

One of the very few films about political machinations to actually be dramatically interesting

Quantum of Solace

Exciting and pretty subtle

Days and Nights in the Forest

Flight of the Red Balloon

 

[littlebird]

i just saw Ikiru a short time ago. this should be required viewing for humans.

i could not agree more.

 

[whatever]

Un conte de Noël !

tho i wouldn't say "unreservedly" cos u allz seem to be english and this movie is very, very french

(dude bonks his cousin's wife and cousin nkows and just sorta looks at em and smiles next morning and WOW PEOPLE AKSHULLY LIVE THIS WAY or is it just a frenchman's fantasy about being cool even when yr wife loves someone else and sleeps with him ? )

anyway, it was pretty good, amalric hit every note of what his ornery/misbehaved/alcholic character was supposed to be

 

[craner]

My little take on Notorious. Entirely personal and inaccurate, as usual.

 

[littlebird]

My little take on Notorious. Entirely personal and inaccurate, as usual.

i am always most fond of takes on art and the like that veers into the "personal", i'll admit. though as for "inaccurate", well this is a film i've seen multiple times and i was nodding along to what you wrote. perhaps i saw it through a similar lens of perception.

i didn't know Bergman was not a cook.

anyhow. i enjoyed reading it.

 

[craner]

Thank you, I could have take more time polishing it, but I thought I'd go with instinct.

 

[drilla]

Don't mean to spam, but I happen to keep a blog that answers the topic to a T... well, except for the 'unreservedly recommend' part-- though for 90% of them this is true, and it will usually be obvious where it isn't.

http://cinematrices.wordpress.com/category/watchers/þ/

that page is just what i've seen personally but the rest of the crew also has good taste...

tasty screenshots and links abound, hope you find something to watch in all that mess!

 

[zhao]

apolcalypto. saw it for first time last night. wow. if you havent, do it soon...

 

[craner]

Last night, Inglorious Bastards chez Shapiro. That was a lot of fun.

 

[droid]

I actually thought 'The Reader' was very good. 'Doubt' was better than expected, and 'JCVD' was fantastic.

Slumdog millionaire has to be the most overrated film ever. Possibly even worse than Titanic.

 

[craner]

Oh dear, I was looking forward to seeing Slumdog. It won all those Baftas!

 

[crackerjack]

Oh dear, I was looking forward to seeing Slumdog. It won all those Baftas!

Ha ha, sarky bastard.

I've heard mostly nice things about it, but then it sounds like a very nice movie.

I think Mamma Mia! should've won, meself.

 

[IdleRich]

"I think Mamma Mia! should've won, meself."

Did you hear some story about how at the Dalston Rio nobody went to see Mamma Mia so they took it off and put some french arthouse thing on instead? Only problem was, the distributors for MM didn't take too kindly to that and threatened to prevent them showing their films in the future?
Here it is

"And if you are wondering why it is that the mainstream films always get the gongs, consider the experience of the Rio cinema in Dalston, east London, a much-loved establishment with a discerning customer base. So discerning, in fact, that when Mamma Mia! did the rounds, the clientele didn't want it. To fill the seats, managers had to stop screening it - the replacement being Summer Hours, a French dinner-party movie with subtitles. But was there cause and effect? A week after the decision to take off Mamma Mia!, key officials encountered great difficulty in talking to the powers that be about future "product". Worse, they found it difficult to view new releases on offer at preview screenings in London. To save the cinema from any possibility of resulting harm, the unpaid chairman of the board of directors was quickly drafted in to handle negotiations while others observed something akin to a period of penance. This is how things work, many fear, and funnily enough, things seemed much the same in The Godfather. Now that was a good film"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/10/hugh-muir-diary

Just shows how far the odds are stacked against the little guy.

 

[Lichen]

apolcalypto. saw it for first time last night. wow. if you havent, do it soon...

before it's too late.....

very odd film indeed.

Those scenes of sacrifice in the Mayan city. Wow!