What Films Have You Seen Recently? - Page 5999

J Harker · #**59981** 21st January 2023, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I really like Cold Skin. Way better than The Lighthouse if you ask me.

Totally agree, Cold Skin was a decent if not extraordinary watch. The Lighthouse was just lobbucks

MrBarlow · #**59982** 21st January 2023, 10:16 PM

Pound Of Flesh. 2015.

Van Damme shows he can still be a lead actor in this solid B direct to video movie. Here he travels to Beijing to donate a kidney to his niece, only to wake up and someone has stolen it. Naturally anyone would be upset but our hero is a ex soldier and teamed with a old friend and his brother to track down those who stole it.

The fight scenes are decent in this even though I do wonder if there was a double in some of them, Darren Shahlvavei who plays the main bad guy manages to keep the pace going with the finale and unfortunately passed away just after making this film. This is worth a watch.

PoundofFleshMovie.jpg

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**59983** 21st January 2023, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Pound Of Flesh. 2015.

Van Damme shows he can still be a lead actor in this solid B direct to video movie. Here he travels to Beijing to donate a kidney to his niece, only to wake up and someone has stolen it. Naturally anyone would be upset but our hero is a ex soldier and teamed with a old friend and his brother to track down those who stole it.

The fight scenes are decent in this even though I do wonder if there was a double in some of them, Darren Shahlvavei who plays the main bad guy manages to keep the pace going with the finale and unfortunately passed away just after making this film. This is worth a watch.

Attachment 244417

Love this.

Especially the fact that minutes after Van Damme wakes up with a wound in his side realising he's missing a kidney that he's running down the street leaping over cars.

MrBarlow · #**59984** 22nd January 2023, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Love this.

Especially the fact that minutes after Van Damme wakes up with a wound in his side realising he's missing a kidney that he's running down the street leaping over cars.

He does move well after having a major organ removed

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**59985** 22nd January 2023, 04:24 PM

The African Queen (1951)

Based on the novel by C.S. Forester, this adventure classic is all the more remarkable given that director John Huston's mind and more often than not his body as well were not particularly invested in making the film. See Clint Eastwood's excellent 1990 film White Hunter, Black Heart for the story behind the filming.

Somehow though Huston and stars Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn came up with an adventure yarn that is superb to this day. It's a fairly straightforward story of an English teacher forced to flee an African settlement when German colonial troops ransack it and kill her brother Robert Morley. She does this by hooking up with Charlie Allnut (Bogart) and they escape on his small steamboat The African Queen. It's not long before the two concoct a plan to turn the boat into a torpedo in a crazy bid to destroy a German gunboat preventing the British attacking at a lake at the mouth of the river.

The two stars are both excellent even though neither weren't particularly well. Hepburn from illness she picked up filming and Bogart with his health generally deteriorating (He died six years later aged just 57) although he proudly boasted that he and Huston were the only ones of the cast and crew to escape dysentery because they drank whisky rather than the local water. And yet their undeniable chemistry holds the whole film together. Hepburn gives off an air of sexiness that's not really present in too many of her other films whilst Bogart seemingly doesn't give a damn and gets on with it in a role many younger actors would have struggled with. Their bickering which turns into romance is believable and a huge part of why this is such a well loved film.

Filmed on location in Uganda and the Congo, it was clearly a grueling shoot and it's noticeable that the filming under the water was done in England but it all adds to the brilliant escapism, as does the thrilling plot to destroy the German war ship which for all intents and purposes would have turned the two stars into suicide bombers given that the plan was to ram the warship with the African Queen laden with home made torpedoes. It's not a spoiler to say this isn't how the film ends with their deaths.

Seventy years on, The African Queen remains a beautifully acted, scripted and shot film enhanced by the Eureka Blu-ray i saw last night which made the film seem like a first time viewing all over again.

MrBarlow · #**59986** 22nd January 2023, 07:18 PM

Mark Of The Witch. 1970.

A witch that was hanged at the gallows returns 300 years later for revenge on the decendants

Why do we love these old low budget films? This one does shows why you shouldn't read from a strange old book as you never know who or what you may summon. This does have its flaws and one or two noticeable goofs but to be honest aside from some wooden acting I found this enjoyable.

mark-of-the-witch-tom-moore.jpg

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**59987** 22nd January 2023, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Mark Of The Witch. 1970.

A witch that was hanged at the gallows returns 300 years later for revenge on the decendants

Why do we love these old low budget films? This one does shows why you shouldn't read from a strangle old book as you never know who or what you may summon. This does have its flaws and one or two noticeable goofs but to be honest aside from some wooden acting I found this enjoyable.

Attachment 244421

Well? Was she?