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27th August 2013, 10:30 AM
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nosferatu42 likes this.
__________________ "Sometimes my soul just moves so slow Like a dream of diesel heart that just won't go" Monster Magnet  |
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27th August 2013, 11:42 AM
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| Crazy in Alabama (1999) The directorial debut of Antonio Banderas, stars his wife Melanie Griffith in a sixties set tale of a young Southern boys fight against racism in his local community and from the law in particular headed by Sheriff Doggett, a rather nasty Meat Loaf. Meanwhile his aunt abandons her seven children and heads to Hollywood taking with her a prized hat box. But where is her husband? Crazy in Alabama could easily have come from the pen of Stephen King, it has that Stand by Me feel to it particularly as the children are so well written. Having said that, Crazy in Alabama is a bit of an oddity. On one hand you get a serious look at bigotry and the sixties struggles against segregation of black Americans as seen through a thirteen year old white boy's eyes. On the other hand you get the comical journey of a naive forty something woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her dream of being a Hollywood star. The two strands to the tale are occasionally jarring and also make the scenes of casual racist violence even more disturbing as you go from laughing one minute to open mouth the next. As the two strands of the story merge towards the conclusion, the final courtroom scenes almost had me in tears. Crazy in Alabama is a highly recommended curiosity, although it may not be to everyone's taste. |
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27th August 2013, 11:54 AM
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Not had much time to watch films the last few weeks but still managed to get a few in when I can: Basket Case - shamefully my first viewing of this. Love anything that shows the seedier side to the New York of old and this delivers the grime in spadefuls. Wonderful plastic visual effects AND stop-motion. Has a really odd pace to it with an overly-long expository flashback sequence which ruins the films flow when I just wanted to see more of Belial storming around the hotel f--king shit up but overall a really enjoyable piece of 80's video rental horror. [Rec] 3: Genesis - had to drop my found footage embargo for the sake of carrying on with this franchise which I love and glad that I did. In a brilliant moment of genre-commentary/realism it drops the found footage conceit early on and goes for standard cinematography and is a much better film for it. I'm sure some [Rec] purists might not like that or find the almost-comic approach it takes at times jarring but I thought the change in direction was a good move to avoid staleness setting in. Surprisingly moving ending too. Pet Sematary - revisitation of a film I hadn't seen since my mid-teens. I'd forgotten how chilling and effective it is and what an excellent 'killer kid' movie is there under the misleading title. I should really read some Stephen King, or at least catch up on more adaptations of his work. Kick Ass - watched again before going to see the sequel. Still a violent, foul-mouthed charm of a film. Chloe Grace-Moretz will never top this while Nicholas Cage channeling Adam West should be enough evidence to shut up his detractors once and for all. I love how the film starts off at street level comic book 'realism' and then ascends to the batshit-crazy heights of bazookas and jetpacks in the third act. Kick Ass 2 - hmmm. A perfect example of how changing the creative team behind a movie works against it. It's not a bad film per se, just full of missteps which really spoil the experience (what amounts to an advert for an X Factor boyband's music video, a tedious Mean Girls subplot which removes Hit Girl from the majority of the film, an attempted rape scene which shows that the director can't do tasteless as adeptly as Matthew Vaughn and swearing and insults which lack the creativity of the original and just seem forced). The overall plot is fine and it is enjoyable but don't go in expecting anything like the first one. Jim Carrey was excellent and sadly under-used. Double Exposure - giallo-lite thriller, itself a remake of The Photographer starring the lead actor playing a character with the same name. A photographer dreams he is murdering various women while the murders do actually take place. Is it actually him committing the crimes or could it be...blah blah blah. You get the idea. It's kinda fun, really loosely plotted and incredibly predictable but diverting enough. Likely to hold the dubious honour as the only film featuring a man with one leg and one arm mud wrestling with a sexy woman. Attack of the Killer Refrigerator - saw this mentioned on Letterboxd and watched it on YouTube. It's just a 90's camcorder-filmed no budget short horror which does as the title suggests. Hell of the Living Dead - Excellent slice of Italian exploitation. Pretty much a Dawn of the Dead rip-off with a bit of cannibal movies thrown in for good measure. Excellent soundtrack which was also even more excellent when used in Dawn of the Dead and Contamination and appallingly-poor and liberal use of stock footage. Bruno Mattei, I salute thee! Home Sweet Home - I'm a sucker for home invasion movies as they really tap into a fear I have of personal space being invaded so thought I'd give this a go on Netflix. At times it's well shot (although the director gets more than his fair share of mileage from focus-pulls) but that's pretty much the only positive thing about it. There's no characterisation between the husband and wife, there's no motivation for the killer and there's very little dialogue in the whole thing. It's just a tedious cat-and-mouse film which repeats the same lazy plot points over and over again. Messages Deleted - written by Larry Cohen this sees Matthew Lillard (remember him?) as a scriptwriter/lecturer who finds himself in the middle of a serial killer using his past work to commit his crimes. There's a load of meta-wankery with Lillard's character commenting on film structure and explaining how the events aren't like a script which would probably be fine if the film didn't resort to using cliches itself most of the time. That said, it's an enjoyable run-of-the-mill thriller with an ending that's really predictable and then a second ending which is just utterly baffling and too ambiguous to really care about deciphering. The Wolf Man - classic Universal horror. Loved the effects. That is all Derailed - Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston start an affair which is quickly stopped when they are robbed and Aniston's character is raped in their hotel room by Vincent Cassel, in fine villainous form. Not wanting to go to the police for fear of their affair coming out Owen gets further and further involved in being blackmailed by Cassel, with life-changing results. This was on at about half 11 on a Friday night on BBC which is the perfect time for such things and is a film I'd seen before, nearer it's release date. It's not going to change anyone's life but it's a well enough written story to be engaging and even though it's directed with absolutely zero flair it holds the attention. Aniston's pretty good in it, playing largely against type and even though there's perhaps one twist too many it's highly recommended to fans of such thrillers. Screamtime - anthology film where thieves steal VHS tapes then sit around watching them with the tapes they watch forming the 3 films of the anthology. Sound familiar? Unlike VHS this is actually really watchable with a ridiculous first and last story (a killer Punch from Punch and Judy, sinister garden gnomes and fairies) redeemed by the second one (a woman constantly having visions in her house which has an excellent and pretty chilling ending). For some reason the films are British (Adrian from Bread pops up) but the wraparound story is American. Good fun. Diabolique - excellent film. Just excellent. The end might possibly seem predictable to modern eyes but this must have made a huge impact back in 1955. Chilling, eerie and with one of the creepiest scenes I've ever seen it's a must-watch. The Arrow Academy edition is lovely. Love the "no spoilers!" text at the end too! The Creature from the Black Lagoon - more classic Universal monsters. Superb transfer on the bluray too |
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27th August 2013, 01:04 PM
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I remember seeing 'Screamtime' when it first came out on VHS years ago and watched it again on you tube a while back, low budget but like you say pretty creepy in places, i'd like a proper copy of this but its unlikely as no ones hardly heard of it.  |
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27th August 2013, 03:14 PM
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nosferatu42 likes this. |
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27th August 2013, 03:18 PM
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PaulD likes this.
__________________ Plutonium Shores - a journal cataloging interests, obsessions and random musings... so I don't forget. |
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27th August 2013, 03:23 PM
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27th August 2013, 03:26 PM
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I'm due a revisit of Basket Case, it's been years since I popped in the Something Weird DVD. For what it's worth I thought Brain Damage was really terrific, one of the best Horror films of the 80's...
__________________ Plutonium Shores - a journal cataloging interests, obsessions and random musings... so I don't forget. |
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27th August 2013, 04:25 PM
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DPP double bill..... Delirium aka Psycho Puppet (1979, Paul Maris aka Renato Polselli) Tawdry "vietnam vet-goes-ape" story with some slight recommends, ST interesting in places, some decent kills (for the time), and an odd attitude to feminism....overall proof that the VRA was just an form of Control.... Eaten Alive (Umberto Lenzi) Cough, first time with this. Very Boys Own in structure, I found. Very familiar some of it is as well ST wise cough. not enough chomping, and not as outright nasty as CH, CF et al. Will turn heads the next time someone says "recommend a xmas film then..." though  oh, and just to prove my point, I received some genuine Holocaust footage today....because "I'm into horror"  ....this chap thought a Fred Vogel film was real as well btw.....ah, civillians.......
__________________ [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] [B] "... the days ahead will be filled with struggle ... and coated in marzipan ... "[/B] |
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27th August 2013, 04:29 PM
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