What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Susan Foreman]

Over the last week or so, I have been watching 'The Baker Street Dozen' box set - the complete Universal Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson films:

House Of Fear (1945): The Scarlet Claw (1944 Face Of Death (1943) Pursuit To Algiers (1945) The Pearl Of Death (1944) Spider Woman (1943) In Washington (1942) Voice Of Terror (Dir. John Rawlins, 1942) Terror By Night (Dir. John Rawlins, 1942) Woman In Green (1944) Secret Weapon (1942) Dressed To Kill (1946)

Most enjoyable for the most part, but I can't help thinking, 'other that for filmic value, why would a genius like Holmes (Rathbone) choose to be saddled with a buffoon like Watson (Bruce)'!

[Hawkmonger]

At least me and PaulD aren't bickering as such, just interpritations. I still think the Robin revelation sucked as Nolan said he wouldn't pull that card out but, hey ho.

[pedromonkey]

Watched a load of films recently....

DEATH RIDES A HORSE (1967)
Pretty cool, if a little overlong Spaghetti western, Lee Van Cleef is incredibly bad ass and John Phillip Law is incredibly wooden. Great action scenes and a pretty awesome Score too. Recommended

PLANET OF THE APES (1968)
Never get bored of this awesome film, Chuck Heston is cool as Taylor and Linda Harrison is tasty as Nova. Even though i've seen this film countless times it still never fails to engross me.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X (1958)
Pretty crap british sci-fi film from the late 50s. Not really worth going into too much detail. Badly written, acted and edited.

PIRANHA (1978)
Great fun monster film from Joe Dante and Roger Corman. Played straight as apposed to the recent remake which works in it's favor. Watched the new Second Sight blu-ray for review purposes and can say that it looks great and there's some good extra's too.

THE OMEGA MAN (1971)
This second version of Richard Matheson's fantastic book, dispenses with the Vampires and opts more mutants and a strange class struggle between mutie and the only surviving normal, that is until he meets afro lady and her band of survivors. Good location work and some pretty well staged action scenes but a definite product of the 70s that hasn't aged well. Still a lot of fun to be had.

A FISTFUL OF DOLLAR (1964)
What can I say that hasn't already been said about this film, A wonderful movie with the iconic Clint as the man with no name even though here he's called Joe. Violent, funny and superbly made.

JOE KIDD (1972)
A Minor Clint western and one of John Sturges' weakest films, a good cast that includes Robert Duval can't help a film that is too short and missing something. Clint is his awesome self as usual but it's just not the best film of it's kind.

WILD BILL (1995)
Possibly Walter Hill's worst film (i liked Supernova), the plot is a bit of a shambles and the constant cutting to badly shot black and white flash backs started to grate on me after a while. Jeff Bridges is great as Wild Bill and the rest of the cast are pretty good too but the film just felt episodic and flat. It was fun spotting the different actors from different Hill films though.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960)
Possibly my all time favorite western. Just a fantastic film with a stand out cast, a funny thought provoking script and one of the most iconic musical scores of all time. Love it.

BIG JAKE (1971)
The Duke as an old school badass in a changing world, great fun with mr Wayne and his sons and beautifully filmed too. Exceedingly violent for a non spaghetti western.

LES MISERABLES (2013)
Now i have seen the stage version and the 25th anniversary concert so was expecting something spectacular with this, however it bored the living shit out of me, i seriously considered getting up an leaving and buying a ticket for the new Arnie film, but as it was a present for my mother and i didn't pay for the tickets, i stayed. It's far too long for a musical, it is very well made and acted but my god did i find it boring. Not my cup of tea i guess.

[Nordicdusk]

Fantastic list Pedro.

I have not seen LES MISERABLES.

[Hawkmonger]

I can honestly say Les Miserables is the single most boring experience of my life. It cured my (joke in questionable taste alert) Insomnia thats for sure.

[keirarts]

Say it isnt so.

Not seen this one until now. I'm fairly certain it was one that was on the shelves back when I started at blocky way back in 2002. Well, its not great but it has its moments, especially all the stuff with richard jenkins. Dont really regret mising it all these years though.

Shake hands with the devil.

Harrowing doucmentary following canadian un leader Romeo Dallaire returning to rwanda where he led the un forces and was forced to sit back and watch the country descend into genocide. Its a stark warning about what can happen if western powers remain complaicent to horrors in the third world.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Haven't really been watching / writing all that much lately. Here are a few thoughts from over the last couple of weeks:

PHENOMENA: Maybe not Dario's finest moment, but certainly one of his wackiest. For this reason alone, probably my favourite Argento. I'm sure I don't need to remind people about the the insect ESP, mutant kid, chimp with razors and Iron Maiden soundtrack. Stylistically cooler after the excesses of the seventies, but still has a dreamy eighties pop video vibe.

BORDELLO DEATH TALES: Brit Indie horror triptypche. I didn't like it that much, but the first two tales had enough eccentricity about them to hold my attention. The second one in particular is an interesting cod expressionistic remix of 'Bride of Frankenstein' and features an actress with a stunning face.

BRAINSCAN: Wasn't expecting much, but I really enjoyed this neat little B-movie with E Furlong as a kid mixed up in virtual reality. Has that late eighties /early ninties smoothness, but isn't as bland as I thought it might be, and boasts some nice stylistic flourishes like a giallo style killing. Apparently has quite a sizeable cult following, but I'd never heard of it before picking it up the other day. Good.

PAN'S LABYRINTH: Finally relented and watched this after being pestered by colleagues. Have to admit, it really worked for me on pretty much every level. Visually great, some excellent fantasy sequences, surprisingly grotesque bits. The narrative is sculpted and poised, never seeming disjointed despite its various threads. It's moving, but also pretty harsh.

VIDEODROME: Thirty years old and as relevant today as ever - the technology has changed, but the 'Videodrome's' concerns haven't dated. Interesting to compare it to the recent 'Berberian Sound Studio', an ostensibly very different film which does share some common ground. 'Videodrome' is not about a man losing his grip on reality, however - it suggests that there's no such thing as 'a grip' on 'reality' in the first place. Brilliant, but almost everyone here knows that anyway.

TOXIC AVENGER: I usually dislike broad comedy horror, but 'Toxic Avenger' is so deliriously twisted it will always have a special place in my heart. Some bits of it make me cringe, but the ridiculously hate-fuelled first half, set in the living nightmare of an eighties gym, always draws me right in. Totally synthetic and eighties, but somehow raw and crude.

I STAND ALONE: A trip through the headspace of a nihilistic French butcher, this is a primal scream of a film. Either that, or it's the work of a clever controversialist. It doesn't matter which is 'true', 'I Stand Alone' is about as vivid, traumatic and bleak as cinema gets. This is like Celine on celluloid, except there was probably more compassion and human warmth in his world than in the one shown here. There's no requirement for any graphic depiction in this case, and it's interesting that several recent well known 'transgressive' flicks don't come close to conjuring the level of sadness, sordidness and desperation which haunt 'I Stand Alone's every frame. The final twenty minutes or so, when the butcher takes his autistic daughter to a hotel room, are truly painful to bear, with Gaspar Noe playing with our heads at every turn. Brilliant but difficult.

[Dave Boy]

Tales Of Terror (1962)
I,Monster (1971)
The Crazies (1973)

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987)

I'm not sure what to say about this. It was one of those films a teenage me used to love and was desperate to see in the hope of seeing some t & a without renting an Electric Blue tape. If truth be told there's not an awful lot of t & a involved in Slave Girls anyway.

Now slap bang in January 2013, here i am watching Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity again and unfortunately there isn't a lot to it really. Sub standard acting, risible dialogue, shocking effects and worst of all a vhs transfer.

A take on the classic story The Most Dangerous Game, this is easily the worst version i've seen. The plot is simple, two slave girls crash land on a planet, are taken in and fed then let loose and hunted down by the dastardly Zed, a Christian Bale lookalike without the acting talent. The film never creates any tension and the action scenes are well, amateurish to say the least. Finally to top it all, the girls aren't that great looking either

I suppose if, like me, you remember films from this era on the racks of your local video rental shop then by all means relive those days, just don't go in, as a new viewer, with high expectations.

Film stills are here. http://www.cult-labs.com/forums/gene...tml#post317220

[Pete]

Stuff I've watched recently: