Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

slowtrain

slowtrain

Well-known member
I actually thought the PA films were pretty shit.

The fact that you got it on a DVD out from the store means that there is NO WAY that you can fall into believing it is real.

No matter what, I just can't manage to get over the fake medium barrier for all those 'found tapes' films.

If I had downloaded PA off a dodgy website linked to me on 4chan though, maybe I would be more freaked.

I would like to see some more genuinely unsettling horror films but I think that horror films need to be aware that when people are watching they know that they are watching a film, and take that into consideration.

This will be contentious, but I think that is what makes Lynch films so unsettling. Very arguable though.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Hmm, for me it is the management of tension, rather than the gimmick (although this does aid the ratcheting up of tension in some ways) that is the overwhelming success of the PA films. And that the nasty moments are genuinely nasty/unsettling - it taps into a lot of primal fears.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I've never seen any of them. Don't even know the premise. Think I should check them out although I'm not too good with horror films.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
slowtrain said:
The fact that you got it on a DVD out from the store means that there is NO WAY that you can fall into believing it is real.

No matter what, I just can't manage to get over the fake medium barrier for all those 'found tapes' films.

If I had downloaded PA off a dodgy website linked to me on 4chan though, maybe I would be more freaked.
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With respect, I think that's a bit of a silly argument. How many mentally competent adults really thought The Blair Witch Project was an actual 'found document'? It was still (I thought) a pretty effective horror film.

Does it detract from Jaws that you know that, in most of the shots, he's made of foam rubber?
 
nochexxx

nochexxx

harco pronting
slim jenkins said:
Hausu - finally saw this bonkers Japanese horror fantasy last night - lots of artistry & imagination at work amid all the lunacy, daft humour and cartoon horror. Cut-up editing along with cut-up victims....at times I thought 'Godard on LSD'. If John Zorn made a film, it might look like this. Very enjoyable. Eaten by a piano...a novel way to go...
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found this puff piece on Obayashi this morning.

hk60s_chris turned me on to his Mandom commercials


 
slowtrain

slowtrain

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
With respect, I think that's a bit of a silly argument. How many mentally competent adults really thought The Blair Witch Project was an actual 'found document'? It was still (I thought) a pretty effective horror film.

Does it detract from Jaws that you know that, in most of the shots, he's made of foam rubber?
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Yeah, I agree, it should be a silly argument. But I dunno, I just find it hard to get over or something.

That said, haven't watched any horror films in a good while.

Will be open to recommendations and I'll let you guys know what makes me sleep with all the lights on in my flatmates room.
 
slim jenkins

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
nochexxx said:
found this puff piece on Obayashi this morning.

hk60s_chris turned me on to his Mandom commercials

Love the hair commercial, and the Bronson one is a hoot. Thanks for that. I know little about him and only saw Hausu because a friend featured it at his film club. I knew of the film before that and must say it contains many amazing images. More ideas in it than 90% of Hollywood's output over the last 30 years. Too many to mention, but the backdrop scenery as the girls arrive in the country was so striking.
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nochexxx

nochexxx

harco pronting
slim jenkins said:
nochexxx said:
Love the hair commercial, and the Bronson one is a hoot. Thanks for that. I know little about him and only saw Hausu because a friend featured it at his film club. I knew of the film before that and must say it contains many amazing images. More ideas in it than 90% of Hollywood's output over the last 30 years. Too many to mention, but the backdrop scenery as the girls arrive in the country was so striking.
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other than finding out Obayashi came from an advertising background i know very little also. i have Futari (Chizuko's Younger Sister) to watch later on, so hopefully that will drag me back to this thread.

Hausu is amazing for many reasons but primarily cos the lines between film & theatre backdrops have been blurred neatly into one flygaric universeimo. proper childsview psychotropic stuff.
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craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Has anyone seen Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Maddalena? It's a film I'd really like to watch, but it seems to be impossible to find. (Yes, it has that Morricone score.)
 
G

Gregor XIII

Well-known member
I've seen some great oldies recently. Two Prestun Sturgess: Sullivan's Travels and The Miracle at Morgan Creek. I'd especially recommend the latter one, if mainly to see how fun a film can play around with censorship. How they ever got away with that plot... And I also saw The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which I also really liked. Really pessimistic.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Have any of you been watching the Mark Cousins series on More4? I've endured a couple. Once you've stopped wanting to kill him, it's very absorbing. It's very like reading this thread, you learn about loads of amazing-looking films that you then don't see for about two years, and when you do you think you've discovered them. The one that went from Shaw Brothers to Bollywood to Spielberg was exhilarating.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member

not as extreme as his past films, dunst and gainsbourg are very good, first 10 minutes is really visually impressive. hardcore fans might think lars kind of sold out but this is far from a mainstream film. i still find him to be a little pretentious but this was worth seeing.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
is it as funny as Antichrist?

i dont' think he sold out - the more i think again about his films, the more i doubt he was ever that good. next to haneke, for example (both enfants teribles of Euro cinema, or whatever) he looks like a bit of a vapid try-hard. hidden or the white ribbon wipe the floor with anything von trier has ever done. breaking the waves - good, but not as good as i thought it was at the time...

i like kirsten dunst, but i can't imagine charlotte gainsbourg being good in anything.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
i didn't see "anti-christ" (i know one person who swears it's his favorite film ever!), this one isn't very funny but has a few chuckle-worthy moments. i mean, hey, it's about the apocalypse! and yeah, i'm not much of a lars fan either but enjoyed this.

edit: this is the opening, all these scenes happen later on:

 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I wanted to see Melancholia last week but we were too late so I saw In Time instead. Was ok I guess, an interesting idea not really explained but you just had to go with it. Too many Hollywood style chases and getting their time back (the concept is that your lifespan is currency and the poor are always hours from death) at the very last second for my liking though.
Watched a strange Czech film called Cassandra Cat, also known as When The Cat Comes, about a cat that turns people different colours when it looks at them according to whether they are honest or not which scares a lot of people and leads to the town's adults trying to kill it. It's sort of a children's film and sort of not - there are really long kinda psychedelic musical sequences which I can't imagine would be ideal for many children but it has an innocence about it that makes it suitable for children. Quite an interesting film anyway.
 
G

Gregor XIII

Well-known member
I thought most of the first part of Melancholia was hilarious. That whole etiquette vs chaos is something von Trier has made fun of in the past (especially in The Kingdom) and I think he is really good at it. He might have a very Danish kind of humor though. I can't really explain it. Also, as you can see from my signature, I've just written down a kind of skewed interpretation of it on my blog. Just scroll down past the other stuff...

I've seen Vardas Cleo from 5 to 7, which I'll really recommend, even though it only really goes to 6:30, and I can't really say I understood it. But I like her style, though I think I prefer Le Bonheur. I've heard that Vagabond should be even better, looking forward to that one.

And I'm currently watching Satantango. But I'm cheating. I got to the first intermission, and so far I've taken a two day intermission. I can't watch all 7½ hours of it in a row, even though it is of course amazingly beautiful.
 
lanugo

lanugo

von Verfall erzittern
Just watched Cyril Tuschi's documentary Khodorkovsky which follows the fallen oligarch's biography from his post-soviet heyday to his time as the richest man in the world under 40 and his eventual imprisonment. I was impressed, to say the least. You get an in-depth look at the mechanics of 90's Russian anarcho-capitalism, the intricacies of the relationship between state and oligarchic elite and the mindset of those men who knew how to take advantage of a situation where the national economy of the largest country in the world was up for grabs. Although the director's endorsement of Khodorkovsky as a political victim is clear, the narrative is very unbiased and doesn't conceal the profound ambiguities of his character nor the possibility that, far from being a personal vendetta on the part of Putin, his imprisonment might have prevented a sell-out of vital Russian oil interests to foreign investors. I highly recommend this documentary - that Arvo Pärt actually composed a symphony for the soundtrack only tops things off.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
far from being a personal vendetta on the part of Putin, his imprisonment might have prevented a sell-out of vital Russian oil interests to foreign investors.
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Hmm, could this be what you think, by any chance?
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Sounds interesting though - whatever the politics there is something fascinating about someone who went from having gold encrusted toilet paper to needing to apply in writing three weeks in advance if he wanted an apple with his lunch.
 
lanugo

lanugo

von Verfall erzittern
craner said:
Hmm, could this be what you think, by any chance?
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Well, the documentary mentions that Khodorkovsky, just prior to his arrest, was liaisoning with the Bush clan and preparing, or rather finalising, contracts to sell substantial YUKOS assets to Exxon and Chevron. This is an undisputed fact. Debatable, however, is the extent of Khodorkovsky's own political ambitions. Did he plan to become president? According to F.W. Engdahl, he did. Personally, I think it's within the realms of possibility to assume that Khodorkovsky's aspirations actually went as far as wanting to become president. His intelligent and ascetic, but also arrogant and hubristic nature, as it is portrayed in the documentary, might have led him to believe that with enough money and Western backing he would be able to prevail over Putin. Considering Khodorkovsky's protean character - morphing from devout socialist to hardcore neoliberalist just to be reincarnated at a politically opportune time as civil society activist - I'm doubtful of the sincerity of his aspiration for presidency and whether it would have been to the benefit of the Russian people. If anything, his willingness to start a joint venture with American Big Oil indicates that he had other priorities than Russian sovereignty. Nobody, especially a man as smart as Khodorkovsky, would be so naive as to overlook the immense political leverage the US would have gained from penetrating into the Russian oil industry. You don't want the country that is cordoning your borders with rocket launching sites to also be in control of your most precious ressource, do you?
 
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