What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Frankie Teardrop]

SAFE - Austere, massively creepy depiction of our commodified society's dead soul (in this case, Julianne Moore as a suburbanite with a bad case of allergy and existential disconnect). Moves and engulfs like a slowly spreading disease. Improves with every visit, I find - and if you haven't seen it, I suggest you do.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Some recent viewings:

Halloween III: Season of the Witch: The best Halloween sequel, but needs an immediate Blu-ray release!

Amsterdamned: A fun little slasher set in Amsterdam (which is pretty obvious from the title!), dealing with a scuba diver going around killing people in the various canals throughout the city. Some shocking dubbing aside (watching the detective's daughter conjured up horrible memories of Bob from House by the Cemetery), this is a lot of fun.

The Lady Vanishes: A great mystery thriller from the master, which has been imitated (but never bettered) in varying forms over the years.

Branded to Kill: A fantastic, moody film from Sazuki with plenty of gun play, which is also one of my favourite Japanese 'Noir' style crime thrillers. The ending in the empty boxing ring is one of my favourite scenes in cinema history.

Despair: Fassbinder's genius tale of a chocolate firm owner who goes slowly mad and ends up trying to fake his own death in order to start a new life. A surreal film, with some great dialogue.

Tokyo Drifter: Suzuki's jazzy crime thriller. Whilst I slightly prefer Branded to Kill over this, there is no doubt that both are fantastic and are essential viewing for fans of Nikkatsu/crime cinema.

Scarlet Street: Lang Noir surrounding a naive painter blinded by his love of con artist Kitty and her lover, Johnny. He begins to get in too deep and as things spiral out of control, nothing but tragedy awaits. A fantastic Noir by Lang: highly recommended. The Kino BD is pretty decent, too.

Hotel: Jessica Hausner's mystery bordering on supernatural drama surrounding a strange hotel, the disappearance of a receptionist, and the dark mysterious woods that surround it. A very minimalistic slow-paced film, which leaves a lot to your imagination. Decent, but I can't see myself wanting to watch this again for a long while.

Kwaidan: Absolute classic series of short Japanese ghost stories. A firm favourite of mine, and another one I'd love to see arrive on Blu-ray sooner rather than later!

The Terror: Classic Corman tale of witchcraft and the supernatural starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson. A beautiful gothic palette and some creepy set-pieces makes this worthwhile viewing, irrespective of the low budget, and at times poor acting.

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion: The best of the series, and a classic of the genre. I never tire of watching this.

Bedevilled: Pretty decent revenge/thriller sprinkled with madness. I found that it started to de-rail itself a bit at the end, but overall a decent story with some decent performances.

The Naked Kiss: Fuller's tale of a reformed prostitute, this deals with some heavy themes (especially for the time when it was made), but is tinged with warmth throughout.

The Nude Vampire: Not my favourite Rollin, but this is essential viewing for erotic vampire film fans. Like most of Rollin's films this is moody and beautiful, often touching on the surreal. Also, like all the Redemption BDs so far, this has a fantastic transfer and is a noticeable upgrade over previous DVD versions.

[nekromantik]

I re watched Terminator 2 on me Japanese blu.
Looks stunning and much better then skynet which I also owned.
Great movie! One of me all time favs.

[damek]

Originally Posted by Demdike

I saw Blooded last night.

In October 2005, five young people were kidnapped in the Highlands of Scotland. Stripped and abandoned in the far corners of the wilderness, they were forced into a deadly game where the hunters became the hunted. Their ordeal was filmed by an extreme animal rights group as a warning to others: if you hunt...you're fair game. Combining dramatic reconstruction and compelling interviews with the survivors, BLOODED finally tells the full story behind one of the most extreme internet virals of modern times.

I really do recommend this film for people who want something a little bit different from a horror film.

During the first ten minutes i was a bit iffy with it, but by fifteen minutes i was hooked. Its superbly filmed on the Isle of Mull and shows just how much quality low budget film making can have.

For myself this is up there with Kill List as a modern horror film that takes a different approach.

gets a 4.2 on imdb so it probably sucks. i'm gonna try it anyway.

[DaveJ.W]

Hustle & Flow (2005)

*** out of ****

[mercury]

The Task
Senna.....Not as good as the hype, the film that is, Senna was an awesome driver. If only he hadn't died; a few seasons with him versus Schumacher would have been great. Schumacher would then have been seen as the true great he is.

[Demoncrat]

Watched Troll Hunter finally with subtitles!!
Interesting to see there is a "dubbed" print on the disc. in these days? hmmm. Still, gives me a chance to play it to moaners who refuse to watch "foreign" films!!

Watched also the end of Twin Peaks, well except the last episode which i'm saving haha.
A severe lack of focus is what i've noticed this time, as the story drifts into atypical soap fare, losing some of the downright weirdness to my mind. ok, you can say this overlayering of "normality" is only another misdirection so that the ending is even more of a kicker, but i feel that he improved on this technique later (see Mullholland Dr.)

Also watched The Muppets movie. Recommended Family Fare tm. that is all.

The Grey. liked this, basically a horror film in all but name, had echoes of various "man-against-nature" tropes, some nice moments only spoilt by unimaginative scripting towards the end, on another day i might have slated this but i enjoyed it for what it was.....

[James Morton]

watched THE STENDAHL SYNDROME wirth my girlfriend
she swore she had see the film before but hadn't
she enjoyed the film as well
got the BU dcd/bd but saw the Arrow disc, shame no Eng subs when there was Italian speaking

[Handyman Joe]

Guilty of Romance. I've bummed up Sion Sono a lot here recently but I found this one a bit disappointing. It just didn't come together for me the way Love Exposure and Cold Fish did. The murder angle never creates enough tension, the love hotel/pornography stuff becomes ever more screechy and unbelievable (especially the guy in the Peter Cook outfit of bowler hat and raincoat who enjoys bursting balloons of pink paint over his conquests). As a result I found myself not caring enough about the characters or the central whodunnit. Still, the film is plenty watchable though, and there's no getting around this, the lead actress has the most incredible breasts I've ever seen - the director obviously agrees as he can't take his camera off them. Maybe herein lies the problem with the movie - side pleasures become the main attraction. Just remembered that piddling scene near the end - now that was weird!

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Watched Troll Hunter finally with subtitles!!
Interesting to see there is a "dubbed" print on the disc. in these days? hmmm. Still, gives me a chance to play it to moaners who refuse to watch "foreign" films!!

Watched also the end of Twin Peaks, well except the last episode which i'm saving haha.
A severe lack of focus is what i've noticed this time, as the story drifts into atypical soap fare, losing some of the downright weirdness to my mind. ok, you can say this overlayering of "normality" is only another misdirection so that the ending is even more of a kicker, but i feel that he improved on this technique later (see Mullholland Dr.)

Also watched The Muppets movie. Recommended Family Fare tm. that is all.

The Grey. liked this, basically a horror film in all but name, had echoes of various "man-against-nature" tropes, some nice moments only spoilt by unimaginative scripting towards the end, on another day i might have slated this but i enjoyed it for what it was.....

just wait for the last episode of twin peaks. Probably one of the greatest episodes of tv ever. Shame about the rest of the 2nd series though