What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[ThePopeofCOSDS]

The Psycho Lover review.

[Wes]

Watched Scanners earlier, a film I had not seen in years. I always considered this a minor Cronenberg work and while I enjoyed revisting the film, for me this must remain a lesser film in the director's cannon. I think Cronenberg was making a strategic move towards the mainstream with Scanners - there's less of the rawness of the earlier films, and it all feels less personal than The Brood and Videodrome. Cronenberg was obviously playing with a bigger budget and the film has some big production set pieces - a van crashing into a record store, and some explosive pyrotechnics, but they feel strangely out of place. Having said all that, the film remains an enjoyable if occasionally ludicrous thriller, it moves at a fair lick with some muscular action and the scanner grudge match at the climax is well done...

[Wes]

Second film of the day: The Public Enemy or the film in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Joan Blondell's face... This is one of the great Warner gangster films, perhaps the archetypal Warner gangster film with Cagney playing one of Cinema's earliest psychopaths, a tough punk who grows up fast on the mean streets of Chicago to become a major racketeer during the Prohibition era. Made in 1931, just slipping out before the studios became ringfenced by the Production Code, The Public Enemy still impresses with its violence, and Cagney puts the booth in with considerable relish. Directed with style and a palpable sense of realism by William Wellman, the finale in which Cagney performs a hit on a rival boss during a driving rainstorm has rarely been bettered. Highly recommended.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Wes

Second film of the day: The Public Enemy or the film in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Joan Blondell face...

Allegedly...this was unscripted, and Blondell had no idea what was going to happen until Cagney slapped her with the fruit!

[Wes]

Originally Posted by suziginajackson

Allegedly...this was unscripted, and Blondell had no idea what was going to happen until Cagney slapped her with the fruit!

There could be some truth to story Suzi, she looks genuinely shocked and the scene remains memorable for being so mean...

[SShaw]

Finally watched my Blu-ray of The Night Porter which I think is a remarkable piece of film making.

This together with Visions of ecstasy arrived in the post together a couple of months ago. Unfortunately due to the value of the package the local customs office decided they wanted to inspect the contents of the package. Cue a couple of minutes of me squirming whilst the German customs officer inspected the sleeves of the Blu-Rays, one featuring naked concentration camp victims being abused by Dirk Bogarde dressed as an SS officer the other nearly naked lesbian nuns. In the end he just gave me a strange look and sent me on my way.

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by Wes

Second film of the day: The Public Enemy or the film in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Joan Blondell's face... This is one of the great Warner gangster films, perhaps the archetypal Warner gangster film with Cagney playing one of Cinema's earliest psychopaths, a tough punk who grows up fast on the mean streets of Chicago to become a major racketeer during the Prohibition era. Made in 1931, just slipping out before the studios became ringfenced by the Production Code, The Public Enemy still impresses with its violence, and Cagney puts the booth in with considerable relish. Directed with style and a palpable sense of realism by William Wellman, the finale in which Cagney performs a hit on a rival boss during a driving rainstorm has rarely been bettered. Highly recommended.

James Cagney is fantastic he can be so intimidating in his gangster rolls an amazing actor.

[keirarts]

DARK KNIGHT RISES.

Not a lot more to add to this, a fine send off for nolans take on the bat. With DC keen to rake in the sort of dough marvel have with the avengers expect to see another bat 'reboot' in the not too distant future. Will it be as iconic as the DARK KNIGHT? who knows, perhaps it will be a little more faithful to the source material but as a stand alone trilogy its hard to beat nolans version. (though curiously I often found myself more interested in the films he was making between batman movies)


OUTRAGE.

I've been yearning to see Takeshi kitano return to the yakuza terretory he covered in classics like sonatine, boiling point and brother and here he certainly dosent dissapoint. A senior Yakuza whose been seen moonlighting with a rival family seeks to avoid any suspicion by orchastrating an incident with the rival family he can be seen to respond to and show his loyalty, unfortunately it spins out of control and things get bloody. The film is full of kitano's trademark mixture of sudden brutal violence mixed with jet black comedy that made me enjoy his other yakuza films so much. Going by the plot, it feels like he has returned to the crime film to make a statement about modern japan, as honour is left by the wayside as greed, ambition and deceit take centre stage as characters manipulate and double cross each other with bloody results all to gain personal advantage and the code of family seems hollow and meaningless.

If you like kitano's work like I do (and I even think merry christmas mr lawrence is underrated) both as an actor and director then this is highly reccomended. If your not so keen on his style of filmmaking I doubt it will change your mind very much.

[evbear]

Room 237:

'Room 237' tries to unravel the myriad of mysteries, embedded by genius filmmaker Stanley Kubrick within his masterful horror classic 'The Shinning'.

Made using various clips from Kubrick’s cinematic endeavors and an assortment of other filmic sources, as diverse as lamberto bava's flesh munching 'Demons', and mainstream Hollywood fare like 'Schindler's List'. Hobbling these clips together director Rodney Ascher assembles a patchwork of images to plead his speculative case that is dived into 9 parts. In these sections a whole host of wild and woolly concepts smash, mixing fact and fiction in an explosion of speculations, rants and sheer paranoia, in this wondrous deluge of rambling debate.

In his unorthodox approach Ascher allows a number of individuals to theorise their ideas, from 'The Shinning’ being a thinly veiled damnation about the holocaust horrors of World War 2, to the mass genocide of Native Americans. In the most thought provoking argument, one narrator suggests 'The Shinning' is in fact just one long cathartic confessional by Kubrick, about his involvement with the US government in faking the 1969 Apollo moon landing. Laid out nice and thick, this head spinning tale is accompanied by a number of spine tingling facts.

If you look at the scene where Danny is playing with his toys around the oddly patterned carpet you can see a hexagonal shape. The same shape as the launch pad area of Apollo 11. The scene continues with Danny rising from his game, to reveal emblazoned across his jumper a rocket with the lettering Apollo 11. Next Danny makes his way to room 237, which according to text books of that period was thought to be the exact distance from the Earth to the Moon, 237,000 miles. Is this a hidden visual confession by Kubrick? or is it merely a series of strange coincidences?

Like few other directors Kubrick and his films attracts fevered amounts of speculation from fans. While you may have others who draw similar wild theories, like the mind bending cinema of David lynch, there’s just something about Kubrick's method. His sense of pre-planned sneakiness, of adding layers and meaning into frames and sequences that appear to have none. While Lynch floods your brain with backwards speaking dwarfs and cryptic blue boxes, Kubrick just gives you an image, sometime static, like there’s no mystery, no intent. It's only when you stare at it long enough does the true meaning shine forth. The equivalent of a cinematic magic eye.

While I was taken aback by the unconventional narrative storytelling presented in this doc, its ideas are so rich, so wonderfully expansive that whatever short comings it may have are easily forgiven. It now stands as an essential partner both for furthering the very movie it exams and cinematic analysis as a whole. For once you delve into the delicious delights of 'Room 237', you will never watch be able to watch 'The Shinning' as you have before. Instead your head will now swim with objects transforming into phallic appendages, Nazi type writers, Minotaur’s and moon landings. 'Room 237' gloriously twists your perceptions, making it a must see for movie and Kubrick fans alike.

[Gojirosan]

Cradle Of Fear - 2001 UK d: Alex Chandon

Piss-poor amateur home movie anthology flick that tries far beyond its capabilities; notable only for the presence of Emily Booth in the first story and the genuinely inspired fourth tale (which is nonetheless utterly predictable even whilst weaving a effectively sickly skin-crawling atmosphere).

The lighting and production design is half-arsed throughout and the dialogue perfunctory. The acting is almost uniformly atrocious but special slaps on the wrist must go to the laughably inept Dani Filth, David McEwen (who makes Brian Blessed look subtle and restrained) and Edmund Dehn who delivers all his lines in such a stilted and stumbling way that you can tell how angry he is with himself for appearing in such rubbish. The film runs for two whole hours for no good reason: sequences go on and on which could have been reduced quite happily (people walking streets or driving etc). A good 20 or 30 minutes could and should have been removed from this glacial running time.

The fourth story would have made a superb short film separate from the linking story and Dani Filth's stupid character. If anything this part alone makes the film worth enduring.

A special word about the sound design. There is not a nano second of silence in this film. There is constant music, sound effects, whispered voices, often at the same time and often when there is dialogue. I cannot remember a worse audio track to a film. The mid frequencies are a muddy mess of sound information, and it becomes wearying on the ears very soon into the film. Oh, and the music is rubbish throughout, not just Cradle Of Filth's dire juvenile contributions, but all the cod drum & bass incidental music and swirly cheap-sounding Casioesque synth sweeps.