Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I thought Atonement was really good once it got past the country house cliches."
Click to expand...
Really? I thought it was a real hodge-podge of self-consciously cinematic set-pieces combined with a depressingly middle-brow storyline. Nothing too bad about it but really nothing good about it either. When we left the cinema afterwards we found that we had very little to say about the film because there was so little to it.

Watched this yesterday though and it was great

http://blog.brightlightsfilm.com/2009/02/women-in-wonderland-part-2-alice-or.html

Just what I was hoping it would be like - absolutely captures the feeling of being trapped in a dream, both in the spooky night and the sun-dappled, birdsong filled day despite the fact that these two dream feelings are completely different. This is particularly effective after the utter mundanity of the beginning.
Also, as an aside, Sylvia Kristel must be the most beautiful woman (in fact person) I've ever seen. Not sexy as such but she just fits into the sumptuous mansion and countryside and makes the spectacular backdrops seem ordinary in comparison.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
Really? I thought it was a real hodge-podge of self-consciously cinematic set-pieces combined with a depressingly middle-brow storyline..
Click to expand...

Just goes to show one man's self-consciously cinematic set-piece is another's brilliantly mounted dramatic sequence.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Just goes to show one man's self-consciously cinematic set-piece is another's brilliantly mounted dramatic sequence."
Click to expand...
Well yeah, but I thought that the way the scenes in France looked were so inappropriate to the subject matter that they seemed to bear no relation to the film and left the feeling that they were just gratuitously crammed in in an attempt to get a few oohs and ahs.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
Well yeah, but I thought that the way the scenes in France looked were so inappropriate to the subject matter that they seemed to bear no relation to the film and left the feeling that they were just gratuitously crammed in in an attempt to get a few oohs and ahs.
Click to expand...

I thought it was the other way round, and all the country house stuff at the beginning was just there for the Merchant Ivory yanks. The film didn't really begin for me til they got to France
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
But do you not think that there was something a bit weird about the way the war looked so cgi-beautiful? Maybe you could argue that because they SPOILER actually died and never met up again and thus that bit only happened in the author's imagination it can look like whatever the hell they want it to - but I think that's a cop-out.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
But do you not think that there was something a bit weird about the way the war looked so cgi-beautiful? Maybe you could argue that because they SPOILER actually died and never met up again and thus that bit only happened in the author's imagination it can look like whatever the hell they want it to - but I think that's a cop-out.
Click to expand...

Actually, it reminded me of the video for this

(sorry this is just some live thing - youtube is fucked for these games right now)
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Watched ''Moon'' today at the cinema - thoroughly recommended, thought provoking, funny and only an hour and a half long. Excellente.
 
nochexxx

nochexxx

harco pronting
slow out the traps but i finally got round to doing my fulci homework.

i watched the black cat, the beyond and don't torture a duckling.

i thought don't torture a duckling was excellent. i know it has already been recommended here, so thanks for the heads up!

what did people make of the black cat? i loved it primarily because of the shots featuring the cat in action, especially the scene where it manages to open a door, looked real to my eyes. anyway really funny film.

tbh i didn't really like the beyond, other than some great gore effects it didn't hold my attention. perhaps i need to see a non dubbed version.

i have massacre time and the conquest cued up, where do i go from here?
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I haven't seen much of Fulci but I enjoyed the Beyond while not really liking Black Cat so you might want to take the opposite of my advice. I did like Lizard in a Woman's Skin for what it's worth and my friend rates The New York Ripper so they might be worth checking.

As for films I've seen recently. I watched a film on the weekend called The End of August at The Hotel August Ozone. A Czech post-apocalyptic film from the late sixties. Very simple black and white and very effective in a low-key kind of way. The film avoids sensationalism but still manages to get across something of the horror of being the last people alive. Looks great as well.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
slow out the traps but i finally got round to doing my fulci homework
Click to expand...

You need to see Zombie Flesh Eaters. Even if zombies don't frighten or excite or amuse you (they don't me), it has a really fungular, almost malarial atmosphere, plus a pulsating, seedy 80s synth score and two of Fulci's (and Italian horror's) essential set pieces: the balletic Zombie vs. Shark sequence, and the Bunuel/Dali-esque SPLINTER THROUGH THE EYE.

City of the Living Dead is a slightly more Gothic take on Zombie: quite dark and atmospheric but some of the lurid latex gore effects go a bit far and look a bit shit.

Massacre Time is really good, a straight and handsome if very sadistic and high-octane spaghetti Western. Four of the Apocalypse is a strange, druggy Western with a lurid Manson Family edge that Idelrich and I had a disagreement about some time ago, though I side with him now (it's a little dull).

I think his two best films (that I've seen) are ...Duckling and Lizard.... Both better than all of Argento's gialli bar Deep Red.

Perversion Story aka One on Top of the Other and The Psychic aka Seven Notes in Black are both good, intelligent, if flawed, gialli. The latter kind of marks the end of the pre-Zombie/gore-$$s "serious" Fulci. Perversion Story has an ace Riz Ortolani score, lovely filthy shots of late 60s San Francisco, and a very cold and kinky core. Very cool film, I think.

New York Ripper is a vile and irritating exercise in nihilistic misogyny, but also a visceral and consummate bit of film-making, so certainly worth enduring once.

It goes downhill quickly from about 1982. I found Conquest unwatchable. I've yet to see The Black Cat, as well as The Beyond and (of particular interest, actually) Beatrice Cenci.
 
Last edited:
C

Cinnamon Carter

Wild Horses
The Beyond strikes me as very accomplished stuff, particularly in its recreation of New Orleans - the sense of humidity and decadence is almost palpable.

Whatever people say about the gore effects in this film, I find that they do in some way put across a strong feeling of revulsion at the very substances that make up the human body (a Fulci trademark?) There's also a stunning cut from a nasty eye-gouging to a shot of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge which somehow makes me feel as though an express train has just passed through my skull.

Would love to check out more Fulci but don't want to sit through another incoherent turkey like Cat In The Brain (from the twilight years of his life/output, I realise).

A reproduction of the Guido Reni portrait of Beatrice Cenci appears, probably not insignificantly, in Mulholland Dr. ... wonder if Lynch has ever watched Fulci's film.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Whatever people say about the gore effects in this film, I find that they do in some way put across a strong feeling of revulsion at the very substances that make up the human body (a Fulci trademark?) There's also a stunning cut from a nasty eye-gouging to a shot of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge which somehow makes me feel as though an express train has just passed through my skull.
Click to expand...

Yeah, apparently Fulci was heavily influenced by Antonin Artaud.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Persepolis was good, sort of cutesy, but better than I expected.

Vampyros Lesbos if you like kitschy Eurohorror.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
...or sexy, zippy, Pop-surrealism. Vampyros Lesbos is a fantastic film, much better than it has any right to be. It's no Eugenie de Sade, but then, what is?
 
slim jenkins

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages Of Fear - been meaning to catch this for years and finally have - what a great film. Starts slowly as the main players are introduced and developed but becomes really gripping once the trucks start to roll. Jaw-dropping finale.

Don't Talk To Strange Men - 65min long obscure Brit drama from '62 that portrays a telephone box equivalent of chatroom grooming...unintentionally comic final scenes but I found this very enjoyable, especially since it conveys the menace of a quiet country road as opposed to the usual mean streets in which most crime dramas take place.

Europa - Von Trier's got everything right in this as far as I'm concerned - great look to the whole thing and even Lemmy Caution (;)) has a role. Stunning last gasp scene for the carriage attendant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top