What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Justin101]

The Hidden (1987)



How on earth have I never seen this 80's sci-fi actioner? Kyle Maclachlan looking dashing as a young FBI agent searching for a guy with no previous criminal record but has just been on a 2 week long killing spree, something must be wrong, right? The cop assigned to work with him certainly thinks so.

I honestly had loads of fun with this, right from the start with the shoot-out in the bank and a high speed chase through LA in a Ferrari, right up the end with a crazy gun fight in the Police Station. I laughed out loud when Danny Trejo pops up on screen for roughly 3 seconds to spit some words and get shot in the chest - he gets a screen credit for it though!

It's been a good week for me discovering some 80's gems that everyone else already knows about with this and 10 to Midnight!

[MrBarlow]

Lost Boys: The Thirst. 2010.

At the threat of loosing his trailer, Edgar frog is offered a job by a novelist to rescue her brother from a vampire DJ X, promoter of raves who wants a army of the undead.

I have heard bad reviews about this installment and it has taken me to now to watch it and i thoroughly enjoyed it, Corey Feldman stars again as Edgar Frog to battle the undead of the night and having a small crew to help him. It does have the usual tongue in cheek comedy and horror that comes with the splattered gore and a new way way to kill vampires. At times it is like everyone is trying to over act everyone else but they do blend the characters well and nice return for Alan Frog.

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[Reverend Goat Boy]

Two British made (US financed) television espionage films. Both highly underrated IMO!

The Spy Killer (1969) and Foreign Exchange (1970).

Both feature Robert Horton, Sebastian Cabot, and Jill St. John.

The Spy Killer (1969) - An ex-British secret agent becomes involved in an apparently simple divorce case, he uncovers a murder and is promptly arrested for the crime. His former boss then offers him his freedom in return for finding a list of agents working in China.

Foreign Exchange (1970) - A former British Secret Service agent is persuaded to negotiate a spy exchange with Russia, only to find himself drawn into political intrigues.

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[Dave Boy]

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FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964)

Adaptation of HG Wells novel.
A tale of two halves really. The film starts as a comedy of sorts with the inventor Lionel Jefferies really quite irritating as he bumbles around explaining and shouting about his invention to go to the moon.
Once we enter the moon things change and become more serious.
Ray's model work is excellent as usual in the visual effects but this time only two creatures to animate, the Moon Calf and the Selenites.

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KING KONG (1976)

A box office smash on release. Only later has the movie been subjected to ridicule.
The movie has it's good and bad moments but for the most part it is a good film. The man in a suit Kong is well played and the animatronic Kong heads look awesome. The scene at the waterfall when Kong blows Dwan dry with John Barry's music playing is fantastic. Also the scene in the cargo ship on the way back to New York is also very sad. A full size Kong was made for the movie with limited movement but did not look good so it is only seen in quick shots nearing the end of the movie.
There were a lot of good ideas in this film involving Kong and the girl that Peter Jackson expanded on in his later version.

[MrBarlow]

Demon Seed. 1977.

A scientist creates a organic super computer Proteus, which turns on humans and holds the scientist's wife prisoner with hopes of impregnating her.

Based on the Dean Kontz novel which was full of suspense, Donald Cammel adds it in with more suspense and tension on how Artificial Intelligence may turn on it's creators and mankind. Julie Christie plays Susan Harris who becomes trapped in the house and tormented by Proteus. Fritz Weaver plays Alex, the scientist believes the programe is working until it's too late. The acting is strong in this as Julie Christie plays the lead role with Robert Vaughn as the voice of the computer who wants life outside of a chip. The film may be outdated but still very much enjoyable.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Inland Empire (2006)

David Lynch's final film to date seems a more personal experience for him than it is to the viewer. Shot entirely digitally it never feels cinematic and the sound quality is often variable ranging from inaudible to ear shattering at times.

The film stars Laura Dern as an actress who wins a lead role in a movie which she soon finds out is a remake of a cursed Polish project that was never completed from then on things degenerate into what can only be described as a Lynchian nightmare. However unlike other Lynchian nightmare movies such as Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) and Blue Velvet (1986), the lack of budget and the digital filming makes it seem a bit cheap to these eyes.

At three hours it's also far too long. The first hour is quite engrossing but then my attention began to waver and during the final hour i was becoming, if not bored, then rather disconnected by events.

The idea that Dern's character is completely consumed by the film and script means it is difficult to know if we are watching the actress and her experiences or her character performing the actual film, it creates an an interesting idea and Dern is quite brilliant, in fact it's a crime that she wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award for her performance here. but somehow it doesn't really work as a whole for me.

Inland Empire is surreal and challenging but it also feels a bit cobbled together and the overall feel is of getting lost in a maze or perhaps in this case a rabbit warren would be a better analogy.

[Inspector Abberline]

A Double dose of Fruet.
Spasms.(1981)
You would of thought that good old Ollie Reed would of had enough of snakes after the film Venom,I mean between that black mamba and Kinski sneering his way through the film,it would be enough to give anyone the arse ache... Anyway in Spasms,Reed is a rich philanthropists who was once bitten by a bloody great gigantic snake, while on some sort of expedition and ever since he has had some telepathic connection with the beast...He seeks the help of ESP researcher Peter Fonda,to help him fight his demons,or more to the point a big snake...Spasms is quite an entertaining pot boiler, although it does feel like a waisted opportunity,but it has some nice bladder effect bites courtesy of the great Dick Smith...
Blue Monkey (1987).or Insekt...
Giant insects rampage through a hospital, after infecting an old man via a strange looking plant...After the man is sent to a hospital, there soon pulling lava out of his mouth,and before you can say, let's quarantine the hospital, there's a bacteria on the loose and a nasty beast crawling through the basement and chomping on the patient's...But do not worry as there is a bored looking Steve Railsback as a cop...All in all its a fun monster flick,but obvious suffers from a cripplingly low budget,as the monsters tend to look like over sized stick insects who could be despatched with a swift kick to their watsits... Still as low budget monster flick double bills go,it was an entertaining evenings viewing from an underrated director...If insects are your thing then check out The Nest (1988)...

[gag]

Really enjoyed this action packed film, if was to compare it to any other film it’s the raid in a shanty town.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Wild (2014) ★★★★

The premise of this film is extraordinarily simple: Cheryl Strayed, a recently divorced woman, decides to walk the length of the Pacific Crest Trail with minimal preparation and almost no idea of the hardships she will endure on the way.

The film begins about halfway through the journey, with Cheryl looking at her grotesquely blistered feet and having to remove the nail, which has rubbed loose inside her ill-fitting boots, from the big toe on her right foot. After one boot falls down the rocky outcrop on which she is sitting, she curses and throws the other one after it, now left without any footwear. Nick Hornby's script has a flashback structure and the film continuously switches between Cheryl's journey up the West Coast of the US and her upbringing, marriage, university studies, fraught relationship with her mother and self-destructive behaviour.

As she does, Cheryl becomes somewhat of a minor celebrity amongst other hikers who recognise her from the literary references she leaves in the books along the way and becomes more knowledgeable about what she's doing – early on, she is reduced to eating cold mashed potato because she took the wrong type of gas for her camping stove – and combats her inner demons.

Both Reese Witherspoon, who plays Cheryl, and Laura Dern, who plays Cheryl's mother, were Oscar-nominated for their praiseworthy performances; nominations richly deserved, and Jean-Marc Vallée (The Young Victoria; Dallas Buyers Club) directs with style and control, using the smart, moving screenplay, tremendous scenery and music to tell Cheryl's story with palpable emotion.

Some aspects of the film reminded me of John Curran's 2013 film Tracks, in which Mia Wasikowska played Robyn Davidson, who walked the 1700 miles from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean in 1977, with both Strayed and Davidson forced to live with their own isolation, battle the elements and people doubting them, partly because of their gender. Both films benefit from the honesty, power and terrific performances by the female lead. Another similarity is American Sniper, in which the lead actor bought the rights to the memoir, helped develop the project and is a credited producer.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

The History Boys (2006) ★★★★

I've heard a lot of positive stuff about this film and stage performance on which it is based. I understand why there is. I understand why there is so much love for the film because it is brilliantly written by Alan Bennett: the characters are wonderfully rich and the material is funny, engaging, and surprisingly gripping towards the end.

The performances are uniformly excellent and I was unsurprised to discover it was the same ensemble as the theatrical performance because the chemistry between the cast is tangible.

It's not the most cinematic of films, that's not a criticism – it's film with a few locations and what is important are the performances and dialogue. It is edited and directed with pace and a real sense of fun and verve – I'm very glad I recorded it when it was BBC Four and will probably buy the DVD or Blu-ray in the not too distant future.