What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by trebor8273

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Fantastic film, that's tense, claustrophobic and well acted. This is the third film with lead actor Nick Damici that I have really enjoyed the other two being stakeland and late phases. The only downside is the godawful UK artwork and title, as the film has nothing whatsoever to do with zombies, but is people that have mutated into rat/man hybrids after being bitten by mutated rats. 9/10

That's not the only downside, the picture quality on the UK dvd is incredibly bad. Great film though.
Been meaning to order the US release which had the proper title and so I'm told a decent transfer.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

From 1967 part 1:

The Way West - Kirk Douglas leads a wagon train west to Oregon during the pioneer days in this somewhat unengaging western. It’s more a series of extended vignettes. Also stars Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark and Sally Field in her big screen debut.

The Night of the Generals - One of the last pictures to be censored before the production code was abolished. The code was replaced by the MPAA voluntary rating system. This is a murder mystery set during WWII and although it becomes clear who the murderer is quite early in the movie it doesn’t spoil the rest of the picture.

Magical Mystery Tour - This is actually a TV movie. Similar in style to the Beatles two earlier outings this is another anarchic collection of scenes interspersed with some classic Beatle tunes....Which tbh is the only reason to see it.

King Kong Escapes - Kong goes up against Robo-Kong who is being controlled by the fiendish Dr. Who! Yep you read that right, although it isn't the real Timelord. More Toho monster mashups.

The Dirty Dozen - An all-star cast and a classic war time actioner that spawned an 80's franchise.

Easy Come Easy Go - Standard Presley vehicle the first of three he did that year....I'm not doing the other two!

To Sir With Love - The First of three pictures starring Sidney Poitier that year. Poitier plays a black American teacher in a north London school and has to contend with both racism and teenage rebellion. The picture isn't perfect but I actually enjoyed this.

In The Heat of the Night - From North London to Sparta Mississippi. Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs in what is arguably his most iconic role. Once again he has to face racism and prejudice whilst investigating the murder of a local business man. The Picture went on to win five Academy awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Rod Steiger. Steigar also won a BAFTA for the role. Poitier would return to the role of Tibbs three years later in 'They Call Me Mister Tibbs!'

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner - Poitiers last picture this year and also Spencer Tracy's last film. You would think a film that dealt with both racism and interracial marriage would be full of histrionics but the tone of the movie couldn't be further from that. It has a comedy element to it, just watch Poitiers reaction when the black housemaid practically throws his cup and saucer across the table at him. Spencer Tracy, ill at the time of filming, died just short of three weeks after the film was released. He was given an Oscar nomination posthumously for Best Actor but lost out to Rod Steigar for the film above.

Son of Godzilla - When 'Godzilla' was released in 1954 the tone of the picture was of a monster wreaking havoc, death and destruction, but over the years this tone has become more comical and aimed at a younger audience. Godzilla is now almost the hero fighting other monsters who threaten to destroy various cities. In this one he tries to protect his newly hatched son from three gigantic praying mantises as well as a giant arachnid. All in all somewhat silly really....And the throwing rocks back and forth that seems to be the staple comedic moments in most of this pictures is getting old fast!

Casino Royale - James Bond returns....sort of! A 007 spoof where every spy is James Bond 007. Just what the hell was I thinking by adding this to my cinematic history list I don't know, bloody awful! It would be another 39 years before Bonds first literary debut would be filmed again for the big screen...and for the better!

Billion Dollar Brain - Harry Palmers third and final big screen adventure is very 'Bondian' in nature. The Ipcress File was espionage that wasn't glamorous, quirky camera angles and no gadgets! Now we get an opening credit sequence that you could replace Palmer for Bond,(deliberate spoof?) a villain with piles of money who wants to cause a war, a supercomputer and a leggy blonde. This is in no way as good as the first movie although it does pass the time.

You Only Live Twice - Connery's penultimate Bond, (if you don't count 'Never Say Never Again), and the first time we get to see Blofeld's face. Spectre makes an appearance in this the fifth Bond picture.

Tarzan and the Great River - Mike Henry's second outing as Tarzan saw him being bitten by the chimp causing him to receive twenty stitches as well as a serious infection and the chimp was destroyed as a result. By this time Sy Weintraub already had his Tarzan TV series in production with Ron Ely as the jungle lord. Henry, (who still had one more outing in 'Tarzan and the Jungle Boy' (1968), was meant to star in the series but pulled out due to the gruelling shoot that this and 'Jungle Boy' had.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Venom (2005)

A tale of voodoo and the undead in the Louisiana swamps.

Produced and directed by the makers of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Venom is a slickly made, atmospheric, modern slasher film which utilizes the swamp locations well.

As with the aforementioned IKWYDLS, Venom isn't particularly gory for a slasher but the viewers interest is maintained by good characterization and an interesting story line which zips along at a steady pace. The voodoo adds something extra to the typical slasher plots and is used far more effectively than say Adam Green's Hatchet.

Whilst i'd never claim Venom is anything other than decent, i did enjoy it and will definitely revisit it at some time.

[tele1962]

Watched the first episode of Cosmos A Spacetime Odyssey last night.........wow just wow, superb.

[Justin101]

Cruel Story of Youth (1960)



So first off, I've never seen an Oshima film before, I was intrigued by the front cover of the disc box and the fact that it was on the MoC label gave it some seal of approval. This is one great film, I'm kinda obsessed by Japanese society so anything that's a study of that is right up my street. Funny though that this is the second film within a week I've watched that is set during the 1960 student demonstrations. The difference being that this is filmed at the time of them rather than being a period film. I'm not going to go into a synopsis or the themes of themes of this movie, but if you have an interest in Japan you'll enjoy this slice of 1960.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2013)



Studio Ghibli is a powerhouse of animation to rival only Disney. Their films might not be as many as Disney but they are all revered by fans and critics alike. This 2hr long documentary films follows Miyazaki and Takahata as they make what is reported to be their final films, The Wind Rises and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya. It's an intriguing fly on the wall where nothing really happens but you remain entertained for the duration!

Natural Born Killers (Directors Cut) (1994)



Ah Natural Born Killers, there isn't much to say, the film which shocked the entire world in 1994. I saw this at the Odeon one afternoon when I didn't have lessons at college, I'm not exaggerating when I say almost all of the audience walked out of the screening before it even got to the real violence of the riot scene. I though, loved it and was keen to go on my American family holiday the following summer so I could buy the VHS unrated. Flash forward 20 years and at least 15 since I've seen the film. It's lost all of it's shock power - TV is worse these days! However it's still a brilliant send up of media frenzy, I thoroughly enjoyed myself for 2hrs on a Sunday afternoon!

Alice (Neco z Alenky) (1988)



This is the best Alice in Wonderland I have ever seen, bold statement I guess but in my mind accurate. In fact the best film I've seen in a LONG time. I pre-ordered this BFI bluray and have had it on my watch pile since, just waiting for the right time. Had I'd known it was so good I would have watched it 3 years ago hah... It's a surreal experience but so is the book it's based on. I was surprised how scary and creepy it was, I expected it to be before watching it, but the first 30 mins or so are funny and Alice is so naughty that the change in tone kind of crept up on me until it was full Lynchian terror for a few minutes culminating in the scene on the screenshot above. If you've not seen this version of Alice in Wonderland, give it a try you might be surprised, I was!

[keirarts]

Paths of glory

Kirk Douglas plays Col. Dax, an idealist criminal lawyer caught in the power games and corruption of high command and the bloody trench warfare of world war 1. The film goes from the poorly thought through and possibly political decision to attack a German position named the anthill. As this fails Gen. Paul Mireau orders artillery fire on his own men. In order to save face he orders the arrest and trial of three men for cowardice which ultimately ends in the men's execution. Based on a classic novel, Paths of Glory is a brutal dissection of the men who lead war. From the pompous general marching the trenches and engaging in casual small talk with a man clearly suffering from shell shock ( a condition many men were executed for in real life) to the politicking and one-upmanship that ultimately leads to the execution of three innocent men, it's clear that the war is being waged by men more concerned by their own positions and careers than by the welfare of their own troops.
Douglas as Dax plays the one sane, moral voice and is ultimately beaten by men more ruthless and politically savvy than he is. The general bleak view of the upper echelons led to the film being banned in France for 20 years.
Apparently the book that the film is based on is even more bleak and pessimistic, Dax is more a peripheral character elevated to more prominence to give the audience somebody to root for, several plot threads are also resolved in order to give the audience some sense of justice being served. These changes were made by Kubrick himself who at this point needed a hit and saw the film as more commercially appealing with these changes.
Its a testament to Kubrick's skill that the film can still be regarded as a masterpiece, the film is technically beyond its 1959 date, with impressive tracking shots of the trenches, excellent production design and lots of impressive editing and well composed shots. The film itself is still affecting today and still packs a potent punch that can stir up righteous anger in its audience. The Criterion blu-ray looks stunning and is a genuine revalation.

Lolita

James Mason plays stuffy academic Humbert Humbert who heads to America for work. He takes lodgings with Charlotte Haze played by Shelly winters, Haze is a widower who seems interested in Humbert as a prospective husband and is played to perfection by winters with an almost pathetic sense of desperation and pretensions to sophistication and culture that actually manages to make her sympathetic and ultimately tragic. Humbert is not planning to take the room until he sees his landlady's 14 year old daughter Lolita and before you can say 'nonce' he's smitten. Humbert ingratiates himself into the house and ultimately marries Charlotte in order to gain access to Lolita. Things seem to be going smoothly, and when his new bride discovers his dirty little secret and runs out the house, to be hit by a car and killed, it seems that Humbert has Lolita all to himself. Unfortunately for Humbert Lolita is still a teenager and wants to do teenage things like school and boys so he takes her on the run, the bigger threat however is Clare Quilty who also has designs on Lolita and is intent on stealing her away.
Given its subject matter its easy to imagine the film being uncomfortable viewing, and to a certain extent it is. Humbert, played perfectly by James Mason is a destructive man child who destroys lives through his passion and comes across at points more juvenile than Lolita. Sellers as Clare Quilty is both hilarious as one would expect and also deeply sinister. Real credit goes to Sue Lyon as Lolita who really delivers in the role and plays a convincing mix of allure and teenage innocence. Kubrick delivers a film that is both hysterically funny and deeply tragic and still ranks as the best adaptation of Nabakovs book.

Dr. Strangelove

Kubrick resumes his collaboration with Peter Sellers here playing multiple roles in an absurdist apocalyptic comedy about the madness of nuclear conflict. Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper goes a little 'funny in the head' and sends his flight squadrons into Russia to 'catch the Russkies with their pants down'. As the planes make their way into Russian airspace, high command is sent into a panic, especially when they discover that the Russians have constructed a doomsday device that when activated will destroy all life on earth.
Peter Sellers plays three roles in the film, Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake who must try and talk Ripper down, President Merkin Muffley who seems to play the one sane person in the film with quiet grace and delivers some of the funniest lines in the film, especially in his phone conversations with the Russian premiere. Finally he also plays Dr. Strangelove German Rocket scientist and ex-nazi whose spasms provide some genuinely great comic moments, including the infamous attempt to restrain a Nazi salute "yah meine Fuhr...Mr President". Strangelove is still one of my favourite comedies, its endlessly quotable and as relevant today as it was when it was made.

[keirarts]

2001 a space odyssey

Kubrick's collaboration with Arthur C Clarke delivers a Sci-Fi epic that follows human evolution from Ape to space faring species and beyond, guided by a mysterious black monolith that appears to be acting on behalf of a mysterious alien intelligence. Traditional narrative is discarded to create a visual epic that combines with a classical soundtrack to deliver ideas on humanity. 2001 is a well crafted visually stunning piece of cinema, its a film that manages to tell the story of the discovery of tools to space travel in a single graceful edit.
Apparently the film found its audience among the counter culture of the 60's as a lot of audiences were mystified by the film. However its much more than a drugs film, watched today its still terrific and looks magnificent on blu-ray. Its influence on modern sci-fi is abundantly clear in every frame.

A Clockwork orange

Based on Anthony Burgess science fiction tale of teenage violence, Kubrick marries great visuals and music to create a genuine classic. Here the film deals with morality and mainly the question that if someone is forced to be good are they truley moral. The Film follows the adventures of Alex de Large an intelligent psychopath who along with his droogies goes out at night for a bit of the old 'ultra-violence' robbing and raping at will. This first act is one of total forward momentum as the film delivers scene after scene of mayhem leading up to a brutal home invasion on an Author. Deciding to rid themselves of Alex, his droogs set him up for arrest by the police, and when he 'accidentally' kills an elderly lady it seems Alex is done. However, alex discovers a new proceedure developed by the state that functions similarly to operant condtioning where subjects are conditioned to react with physical pain to violence. It seems the state is preparing to fill the prisons with dissidents so they need common crooks out of the way.
Out of prison, unable to do violence Alex becomes a victim, and one by one his past victims come back to haunt him. The final act from the book is missing as Kubrick was given the america edition where it was missing. Ultimately in the book Alex decides to be good on his own volition, which is the ultimate moral act. However I always thought this stretched plausibility as Alex is the kind of psycopath that its difficult to imagine changing. Ultimately Alex is a man of contradictions, hes a complete monster in some respects but he's also intelligent and cultured. The film came at an especially fertile point in Malcom Macdowells career, through his collaborations with Lyndsey Andserson. O'lucky man came out around the same time and Macdowell resented the film for eclipsing that however he gives on of his best performances in Orange and manages to make Alex somewhat sympathetic which helps the film work. Once again it's visually stunning and the pop art design and editing influenced a whole slew of future film-makers. The films legend was in part cemented by Kubricks supression of the film in the UK (it was never actually banned) as it seems the main unhealthy influence the film had was on the anti-violence campaigners who sent death threats to Kubricks Family. Seems they lack any sense of irony.

Barry Lyndon

Ryan O'neill plays Barry, an Irish farmer who as a teenager falls for his cousin. As she's getting married to an english colnel, Barry gets the hump and ends up in a duel that he wins. Thinking he's killed his opponent (a second collaboration with Leonard Rossiter) our hero goes on the run, joins the army and ends up through various adventures, mainly involving lying, cowardice and rakishness, ends up climbing to the top of social ladder. Like Icarus he flies to close to the sun and ends up getting burned.
Various things still astonish me about Barry Lyndon, the painstaking attention to period detail, the excellent use of Handel, the various battle scenes and the fact that almost every frame looks like an oil painting from the period. This is very apparant in the blu-ray which looks gorgeous and really brings the colour and detail to life. Lyndon might be off-putting to people who dislike bawdy epics but its a lot of fun. its very humerous and tragic and lingers in the memory long after its over.

[keirarts]

The Shining

The Stephen King adaptation that splits its audience down the middle, The Shining adapts the story of Jack Torrance who takes his family to stay in an isolated hotel in the Rockies over the winter as he works as a caretaker and attempts to write his novel. His son Danny is psychically gifted, a gift the hotel caretaker Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers) calls The shining. Danny's gift allows him to connect to the evil spirits that haunt the hotel and he begins seeing visions of creepy looking twins who want Danny to play with them. His father Jack seems to have the gift as well and soon makes contact with Lloyd the bartender and Delbert Grady who begin to influence Jack into killing his family.
The main criticisms of the shining are its deviations from the source material, certain sub-plots are removed and altered. The other criticism is the casting of Jack Nicholson as Torrance, Jack is supposed to be a relatively stable recovering alcoholic. Nicholson's performance gives the impression that he may be nuts already. In fairness Kubrick's film is still excellent and taken as a separate and individual entity it works well. King did his own adaptation in 1997 its nowhere near as good. The long, lingering tracking shots of the Hotel corridors, the strange and bloody images cut into the film and Nicholson's OTT performance, especially in the final act as well as the rumbling, moody score add to a growing sense of unease and dread and the film remains regarded as one of the all time great horror films. It says something that an entire documentary, room 237, was made detailing the numerous readings of the film.

Full Metal Jacket

Coming on the heels of a slew of vietnam films, beginning with Apocalypse Now through to the same years Platoon, Full Metal Jacket holds up as a film that really does something new with the subject. The film spends almost half its running time, and delivers most of its most memorable scenes taking the characters through basic training. Here they are bullied, dehumanised and trained to be killers, leading to Pvt. Leonard 'Gomer Pyle' Lawrence, a husky man-child to go off the deep end leading to murder-suicide.
Its these scenes, with an astonishing central performance from Vincent D'Onofrio as Lawrence and R Lee Ermy as the Drill instructor who destroys him that really stand out. Ermy was a real-life drill instructor and consultant on the film who ended up stealing the role as the drill instructor and launching a career in film, he brings an astonishing level of authenticity to the role and delivers some truly memorable lines with insults I freely admit to nicking from time to time. D'Onofrio's portrayal of his characters descent into madness is genuinely chilling and authentic and its hard to believe this was his first screen role (he was friends with Matthew Modine and working as a bouncer). The second half is a lot better than people give it credit for, it shows the impracticality of training when applied to the reality of combat in vietnam. I think people must have been so stunned by the first half that it feels a little like an anti-climax however its battle scenes (filmed in London!) are brilliantly directed and really hold up.

Eyes wide shut.

After a night on the weed, a couples sexual jelousy comes to the surface culminating in admission from the wife that she had considered abandoning her marriage and child to run off with a total stranger. With a head full of weed the husband, a doctor heads out on a call. His patients daughter, engaged to be married confesses her love to him, in spite of knowing him for a few weeks that confirms that his wife might be telling the truth. He then wanders the streets getting into encounters with various people before ending up at a ritualistic orgy somewhere out in the country. After getting thrown out our protagonist is a little disturbed by what he has witnessed and begins retracing his steps, discovering that in the harsh light of day everything he experienced is different.
Kubricks final film was something of a media sensation, partly because he hadn't made a film for 12 years. Also because of the casting of Tom Cruise and Nicole kidman as the couple. Because at that time they were an actual married couple it was thought that this might add some plausibility to them as a couple though a celebrity couple might present a totally accurate representation of their marriage and it still seem odd. I'm a little surprised they didn't have cruise cartwheeling about screaming about scientology. However, in all fairness they are both pretty good in the film and Cruise does deliver in his own scenes. Re-watching it, it comes across as a terrific midnight movie, a weird trawl through the darker recesses of sexual jealousy.

[Demoncrat]

Great reviews Keir, Room 237 is a hoot.

Watched IT (Tommy Lee Wallace, 1990).
After rewatching The Dead Zone on THC (u/c!), I felt a slight King binge coming on, so dug this out. Never mind about it being a "flipper" that gives no warning as to the break.....

Some kids band together to fight off an ancient evil that has plagued their town for..........ever. Featuring the usual raggle taggle bunch of Kingites (both as kids and as adults), this is still my favourite SK novel, so did wonder how they were going to put across this epic tale....in a TVM.

Oh, well. Whilst it still has the ridiculous "monster" ending, this hadn't aged as badly as I had feared, mainly due the kids performance (as the adults seem to be playing some scenes for laughs!! John Ritter!!).


Insidious Chapter 3
Another part 3 that negates the first film. Another attempt to milk the J horror cow ONE last time. Another film where I can't really see anything because it so ficking dark. Watched IT after this, and was more that mildly scared by that. This, however failed in that respect.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Excellent reviews, keirarts. I should really rewatch all of Kubrick's films in chronological order because, as you pointed out, there are so many masterpieces amongst them.