What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bdc]

Curious about your thoughts on Ex Drummer...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Just given another watch to Twister.

I really like this film despite it having minimal plot and some cringeworthy dialogue. I just love the effects and the madness of it all.

Its nice to see a popcorn blockbuster thats not about robots hitting each other or based on comics.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bdc

Curious about your thoughts on Ex Drummer...

I've seen it before, but loved it more the second time around. It's a strange little film, and very random in places. Definitely one that requires a repeat viewing to completely appreciate though, imo!

[fuzzymctiger]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

I couldn't call any of his films "excellent", but he has done some decent, if flawed, watchable flicks.

Now I think about it, probably only Panic Room and Fight Club* are truly crap. The Game was extremely boring too, but quite well made. Even his dreary remake of ...Dragon Tattoo had some moments.

I must catch up with The Social Network and ...Benjamin Button though.






* Once again, sorry! I think it's rubbish!

I'm going to go cry now, Fight Club is one of my favourite movie!!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Baseball Fury

The only Fincher I don't think is excellent is Panic Room

There are only a few of his films I think are excellent: Zodiac, Se7en and The Social Network. I also hold Fight Club in very high esteem.

His other six (it's strange to think he's only made nine feature films) are all really good films, with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button easily the worst and the only one I don't own on DVD or BD (or both).

[buggenhagen]

I saw Prometheus in IMAX 3D at a midnight screening last night. Was pretty excited for it but it was a big let down - amazing looking film but that's about all. I'll probably go and see it again as I was pretty wiped out (after a 5.30am start yesterday) but I don't expect my opinion to change much.

[Demoncrat]

Fertile Ground, as this has been reviewed recently, i'l only add that twas a reasonable premise with echoes of various things, felt the end was a bit rushed, probably wouldn't watch again (and that's saying a lot for me...)

[Gojirosan]

Encounters In The Deep/Encuentro en el abismo - 1979, Italy, d: Anthony Richmond (Tonino Ricci)

If you're young you have to remember that Fortean matters were big business for a time in the 70s. Charles Berlitz and Erich von Daniken sold millions of books, there were all kinds of TV shows about "unsolved mysteries", UFOs and the like, whilst Patrick Duffy flashed his webbed fingers as "The Man From Atlantis". Films were inevitable. The biggest of these was, of course, Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but there were such things as Legend Of Boggy Creek (a surprise hit in the US that cost bugger all but took loads!), The Bermuda Triangle (actually two films called this came out around the same time in the 70s, one by exploitation legend René Cardona Jr), huge budget all-star Hollywood disaster film Airport '77 dabbled in adding The Bermuda Triangle to the story, and so on and so on. Fortean weirdness was big business.

As with any other trend, the Italian film industry could not ignore it. And so it was that - with very little money - Italian cult journeyman director Tonino Ricci made two films related to weirdness in the seas near Bermuda. The first of these films almost managed to cram shark threat into the story (also big business in the 70s, of course!). This mish mash of mind-controlled sharks, underwater people and The Bermuda Triangle was variously called Bermude: la fosse maladetta, Cave Of The Sharks or variations thereon, and it must have done enough business for someone to allow Ricci to return to Bermuda to combine the Triangle myth with another of Spielberg's hits, this time Close Encounters instead of Jaws.

And so it was that the world came to receive Encounters In The Deep. Even by the standards of low budget Italian rip-off cinema this is something quite remarkable. It is one of the clumsiest, most disjointed, desperate, narratively thin and just plain bizarre excuses for a film Italy ever came out with. And it is marvellous for it.

The story is all over the place! Threads are started, ignored for ages, then suddenly remembered. Weirdly, it all actually comes together at the end! Astonishing! Technically everything is perfunctory, nothing excels, yet nothing is truly awful - kind of average 70s TV film quality. And then there's the acting and dubbing...the performances of the main cast are fine really, as you would expect for an Italian cult cast of the time, but the smaller parts...dear Lord! There are several people playing sailors who seem terrified to be delivering lines and look like they've been grabbed off the street and slapped into a white uniform! It is hard to believe that these were the best takes! And the dubbing doesn't help either. This is just awful! The dubbing actors are as bad as the actors on screen (or are trying to compensate!), with terrible delivery, weak voices and awkward mid-sentence pauses. But chief amongst the issues rendering this hilarious is the dreadful, dreadful dialogue written for this. Clearly poorly translated from Italian, the dialogue is joyously bad. I found myself rewinding to hear lines again. This redefines clumsy dialogue writing for me. There is a German Shepherd key to the plot who delivers one of the better performances in the film.

And then there is Gianni Garko. One of my very favourite actors from the Spaghetti Western era, this man was a charismatic and cool performer, handsome and brooding, but capable of lightness and humour - the perfect midway point between Franco Nero and George Hilton. Here he looks tired, his hair is receding and he suffers the indignity of a truly embarrassing pair of Speedos for far too much screen time! He gives his best - you can tell, but then all his efforts are crushed by the single most inappropriate dubbed English voice I have ever heard in any film. He is given the voice of a dim-witted American sidekick that makes him hilarious. You have never seen a voice less suited to the person it's coming from.

So, the film stumbles along, treating us to some of the laziest special effects ever seen, as the characters investigate disappearances, until the end. Now I was not going to spoil the end, but I have to. This is not an easy films to see and it is so special. So spoilers follow...

A mysterious grotto is found and it turns out to be an uncharted island populated by aliens. Ah, the aliens! They only actually appear very briefly onscreen and they are magnificent. The alien design here consists of an attempt at Close Encountersesque "grey" type extraterrestrials. However here, they are rendered through the genius idea of getting several slightly boyish figured women to wear skintight silver spandex catsuits and a head-encasing silver-grey crash helmet and then move in a slightly mysterious manner. Wonderful. Then in a stone cold rip-off of Spielberg, all the disappeared people are on the island surrounded by white light looking beatific and urging the heroes to join them. Then the island blows up and a spaceship flies out of the island into the stars.

I know I have rambled on about this film, but I feel like I have made a magnificent discovery. This is excellently bad. Ed Wood bad. Thoroughly enjoyable and often jaw-dropping to behold. I shall treasure my dodgy 23rd Century DVD of this film. I shall introduce it to the chosen. I feel like something very special has come into my life. I feel strangely honoured.

[Susan Foreman]

I've just watched 'Super 8'

Typical Spielberg film - don't trust the government (in this case, the Air Force), dysfunctional families, children riding bikes, told from a child's point-of-view, no kids get killed

but...it was highly enjoyable, and highly recommended

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Encounters In The Deep/Encuentro en el abismo - 1979, Italy, d: Anthony Richmond (Tonino Ricci)

If you're young you have to remember that Fortean matters were big business for a time in the 70s. Charles Berlitz and Erich von Daniken sold millions of books, there were all kinds of TV shows about "unsolved mysteries", UFOs and the like, whilst Patrick Duffy flashed his webbed fingers as "The Man From Atlantis". Films were inevitable. The biggest of these was, of course, Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but there were such things as Legend Of Boggy Creek (a surprise hit in the US that cost bugger all but took loads!), The Bermuda Triangle (actually two films called this came out around the same time in the 70s, one by exploitation legend René Cardona Jr), huge budget all-star Hollywood disaster film Airport '77 dabbled in adding The Bermuda Triangle to the story, and so on and so on. Fortean weirdness was big business.

As with any other trend, the Italian film industry could not ignore it. And so it was that - with very little money - Italian cult journeyman director Tonino Ricci made two films related to weirdness in the seas near Bermuda. The first of these films almost managed to cram shark threat into the story (also big business in the 70s, of course!). This mish mash of mind-controlled sharks, underwater people and The Bermuda Triangle was variously called Bermude: la fosse maladetta, Cave Of The Sharks or variations thereon, and it must have done enough business for someone to allow Ricci to return to Bermuda to combine the Triangle myth with another of Spielberg's hits, this time Close Encounters instead of Jaws.

And so it was that the world came to receive Encounters In The Deep. Even by the standards of low budget Italian rip-off cinema this is something quite remarkable. It is one of the clumsiest, most disjointed, desperate, narratively thin and just plain bizarre excuses for a film Italy ever came out with. And it is marvellous for it.

The story is all over the place! Threads are started, ignored for ages, then suddenly remembered. Weirdly, it all actually comes together at the end! Astonishing! Technically everything is perfunctory, nothing excels, yet nothing is truly awful - kind of average 70s TV film quality. And then there's the acting and dubbing...the performances of the main cast are fine really, as you would expect for an Italian cult cast of the time, but the smaller parts...dear Lord! There are several people playing sailors who seem terrified to be delivering lines and look like they've been grabbed off the street and slapped into a white uniform! It is hard to believe that these were the best takes! And the dubbing doesn't help either. This is just awful! The dubbing actors are as bad as the actors on screen (or are trying to compensate!), with terrible delivery, weak voices and awkward mid-sentence pauses. But chief amongst the issues rendering this hilarious is the dreadful, dreadful dialogue written for this. Clearly poorly translated from Italian, the dialogue is joyously bad. I found myself rewinding to hear lines again. This redefines clumsy dialogue writing for me. There is a German Shepherd key to the plot who delivers one of the better performances in the film.

And then there is Gianni Garko. One of my very favourite actors from the Spaghetti Western era, this man was a charismatic and cool performer, handsome and brooding, but capable of lightness and humour - the perfect midway point between Franco Nero and George Hilton. Here he looks tired, his hair is receding and he suffers the indignity of a truly embarrassing pair of Speedos for far too much screen time! He gives his best - you can tell, but then all his efforts are crushed by the single most inappropriate dubbed English voice I have ever heard in any film. He is given the voice of a dim-witted American sidekick that makes him hilarious. You have never seen a voice less suited to the person it's coming from.

So, the film stumbles along, treating us to some of the laziest special effects ever seen, as the characters investigate disappearances, until the end. Now I was not going to spoil the end, but I have to. This is not an easy films to see and it is so special. So spoilers follow...

A mysterious grotto is found and it turns out to be an uncharted island populated by aliens. Ah, the aliens! They only actually appear very briefly onscreen and they are magnificent. The alien design here consists of an attempt at Close Encountersesque "grey" type extraterrestrials. However here, they are rendered through the genius idea of getting several slightly boyish figured women to wear skintight silver spandex catsuits and a head-encasing silver-grey crash helmet and then move in a slightly mysterious manner. Wonderful. Then in a stone cold rip-off of Spielberg, all the disappeared people are on the island surrounded by white light looking beatific and urging the heroes to join them. Then the island blows up and a spaceship flies out of the island into the stars.

I know I have rambled on about this film, but I feel like I have made a magnificent discovery. This is excellently bad. Ed Wood bad. Thoroughly enjoyable and often jaw-dropping to behold. I shall treasure my dodgy 23rd Century DVD of this film. I shall introduce it to the chosen. I feel like something very special has come into my life. I feel strangely honoured.

Argh! turned this down, bought The Last Hunter instead, such is life.....

forgot to mention that i fell asleep through Franco's Draculas Daughter btw, will try again at weekend......was enjoying our Jess' performance etc