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The Backwoods. A Spanish/British horror thriller set in (extremely) rural Spain in the late 70's. Gary Oldman and Paddy Considine play friends and apparently former business associates on holiday with their wives to Oldman's recently purchased holiday retreat in the arse end of Spanish nowhere. While out hunting they come across an abandoned farmhouse and find a feral young girl chained up in a padlocked storeroom. They take the girl back to Oldman's gaff and pretty soon (as you'd expect) the local Deliverance boys turn up looking for her. I actually quite enjoyed this terribly flawed film. It's atmospheric and moody. Unfortunately the characters are all made over the shop. Considine's missus is absurdly moody and miserable for no reason that the film can be arsed to explain while Oldman's wife is just plain pointless. There's a lot of heavily implied back story with the characters that again is not expanded upon in the slightest. I'm not sure what it is I enjoyed now thinking about it but I did find it quite watchable. |
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Wolf of Wall street. Leo Dicaprio plays Jordan Belfort in a biopic of his life that comes across as a mixture of Oliver stones wall street and Caligula! Belfort is a cocky, greedy narcissistic little s**t out to make as much money as he can, any way he can. As a result he cottons on to the idea of selling junk bonds (penny shares ect) to wealthy clients at a huge commission and quickly becomes insanely rich. He ropes in a few of his scumbag friends who while terminally brain dead in most respects all seem to have the gift of the gab. Literally in this gig all you really need is to be able to sell stuff and have the moral compass of a hyena. As the wealth pours in the office begins to resemble the excesses of ancient rome with parades of hookers being brought in for gang bangs, excessive drug consumption, naked marching bands and dwarf tossing. The film got some stick for its portrayal of excess and its seeming lack of moral center. I would argue that in fact its a very moral picture. The excess is so excessive as to become almost ridiculous and it's hard to imagine anyone but a psychopath actually finding any of these people likable. Scorsese seems to want the viewers outrage to be based on the fact that Belfort pretty much got away with all of that. Personally I think it was a great film that felt shorter than its 3hr running time. It was nice to see Rob Reiner as Belforts dad and the audience I was sat with all seemed to be into the film. A word of caution. If the idea of seeing Leo Dicaprio snorting coke out a hookers bum hole with a straw is something that you really don't want to see. Steer well clear! |
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I saw The Wolf of Wall Street on Sunday and really enjoyed it due to the terrific performances, brilliant direction, cinematography, editing etc and a screenplay which shows that Jordan Belfort and his colleagues aren't the only greedy people in the process at the people they target with 'get rich quick' offers are equally greedy otherwise they would say no and hang up. The excesses are truly outrageous with the sheer quantities of drugs, prostitutes and alcohol almost defying belief. At the beginning of the film, he says: "On a daily basis I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens for a month. I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, pot to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome." That gives you an idea of the humour and there were numerous times to outshine when many people in the cinema were laughing out loud. Although it sounds like one film with a three hour running time, the time flew by and that's generally a sign of a good film – bad films frequently feel longer than they really are. I think you will struggle to win Oscars because American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave and Gravity will dominate the field, but this is still well worth seeing. It also, typically for a Martin Scorsese film, has an awesome soundtrack.
__________________ Last edited by Nosferatu@Cult Labs; 21st January 2014 at 10:36 AM. |
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Two very informative reviews for Wolf of Wall Street there. Nice one Keirarts and Nosferatu. I definitely want to see this film now. @Keirarts - As for snorting coke out of a hookers bum? We do it every day round these parts. |
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Over the past few days I have watched: Return of the Living Dead: For me it is by far one of the funniest zombie movies I have ever seen. Deadly Outlaw Rekka: Takashi Miike's yakuza film was fantastic, nice soundtrack and a great performance by Riki Takeuchi. Slither: James Gunn's film was a surprise for me; I assumed it was going to be crap, but it was actually a really good film. Mind you I have a massive love for Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker as actors.
__________________ "No Sympathy for the Devil, Buy The Ticket Take The Ride" - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas |
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