What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That's okay then. So did you actually like it? Your review is quite negative.

I actually did like it. I won't lie, its a bad film in many ways but its a lot of fun if you like silly, violent films that require you to shut off your brain

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by keirarts

I actually did like it. I won't lie, its a bad film in many ways but its a lot of fun if you like silly, violent films that require you to shut off your brain

I enjoyed the first one, especially the opening forty minutes. I also liked that Pierce Brosnan one, Survivor, set in London. So i'm sure this will be a good laugh too.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Boo Radley

Finally got round to watching two films that I'd been meaning to get around to for ages.
Mad Max Fury Road.
What a disappointment! Shite of the highest order. Big chase out into the back of beyond, acting of the lowest common denominator - especially the four girl breeders who give "wooden" a bad name, followed by a big chase back - amazingly missing the swamp that stopped them on the way out. No story, no background, except for the briefest of flashbacks and all the style of a Warner Bros cartoon. The only thing going for it is that it ended quite quickly.

The Green Inferno
Slightly better than the above but as I watched it straight after Max, even an Ed Wood film would have appeared a masterpiece. Cannibal films had their time and place and unless you're going to go balls to the wall, then why bother at all? You don't even get to know what the fate of the leader of the eco-hug a tree-wankers is. Did he live? Did he die? Does anyone including Roth even care? Nods here and there to other (better) cannibal films and the ending of Ferox tagged on for no discernible rhyme or reason whatever. Ever so slightly better than Cannibal Terror.

Watching these reinforced why I collect films from the 70's and 80's more than the modern mediocre crap that we're bombarded with nowadays.

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I totally agree. Fury Road was terrible, i was bored half an hour into it.

I didn't bother reviewing it here as i thought i was on my own thinking it poor.

I'm speechless! MM Fury Road was fuffin brilliant!

[iank]

The Naked Face. A widowed psychiatrist (Roger Moore) finds himself in a nightmarish situation when a patient and then his secretary are both murdered, and attempts are made on his own life - and the policeman on the case seems more intent on making him into a suspect than trying to find out who's really behind it all. This is a moderately entertaining mid-80s thriller that is rather marred by its rather perfunctory ending. Let's just say the mystery is more interesting than the resolution. Uncle Rog is on good form, Eliot Gould is likable as ever, and Rod Steiger is hilariously over-the-top as the spectacularly obnoxious detective with a grudge and I was really enjoying this... but the last act really rather lets it down.

[Nordicdusk]

Is Tusk worth a watch?

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

Is Tusk worth a watch?

Yes. Ever since Kevin smith went through his mid-life crises his films became interesting again

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

Is Tusk worth a watch?

Certainly is. Here's what Cult Labs' hippest jive artist said about it back in November -

"TUSK – When I've sat down with Kevin Smith films in the past, it's been like staying a bit too long in the company of a brilliant but exasperating young person who annoys by being 1) much cleverer and hipper than me, but ultimately also by being 2) actually, objectively annoying anyway. I think stuff like 'Clerk's is great on a cinema level or whatever, but I can't get through that kind of thing without wincing deep down. That said, I really liked 'Red State', which was quite a departure for Smith but still felt like one of his. The same goes for 'Tusk'. It's basically about a hip young podcaster who might be brilliant in some way but is certainly exasperating. He travels to Canada to do an interview, but ends up waylaid by some ancient guy who regales him with tales of meeting Earnest Hemmingway etc etc. This ancient guy then imprisons annoying hipster podcaster and basically turns him into a walrus. Why? I don't know, maybe he has issues or something. Podcaster's girlfriend and his podcaster buddy team up with a comedy French Canadian ex detective and track his sorry fate. It's interesting to see Smith combine his off-hand wordy indieness with such surrealism, but also with much more standard B movie territory. There's something austere and freaky about the build up, but when I was watching the transformation scenes I thought less of Cronenberg or 'Human Centipede' and more of something like a Charles Band film. Horror stylistics may or may not be Smith's thing, but there's no doubting the eerie power of much of the content here, or rather, the impact it has by sometimes managing to be both hilarious and affecting... I think this is summed up by the end scene, where podcaster's now ex gf visits him in his new home, a really bleak, dilapidated animal sanctuary. The just-deserts angle is mocking, self referential and tongue in cheek, but it's also weirdly troubling. Anyway, 'Tusk' is great, I know his latter stuff is miles away from 'Chasing Amy' et al, but frankly I wish he just made films like this all the time."

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Certainly is. Here's what Cult Labs' hippest jive artist said about it back in November -

I take it that's a euphemism for something.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I take it that's a euphemism for something.

Cue strangely hollow laughter gradually fading out into stifled sobs...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Charlie's Farm (2014)

Four young friends, including forty year old Tara Reid, set off into the Australian outback to seek out the urban legend that is Charlie's Farm. A place where the former occupiers allegedly butchered everyone they came into contact with until they themselves were brutally killed by an angry mob leaving only their young son his own in the wild to survive.

Most Australian horror films i've seen are classy affairs, a couple of steps up from the usual American schlock. Unfortunately Charlie's Farm is just run of the mill slasher fodder that you've seen before...many times.

In fact the film is so cliched and derivative the first hour is practically a parody of backwoods horror. From the urban legend back story, to the inhospitable bar, not forgetting the usual warning from the old timer who witnessed the original events at the farm. Hell the producers even dragged Bill Moseley and Kane Hodder in to add further to the cliches.

The film is only saved due to the final half hour when little Charlie appears, or should i say 7ft, built like a brick shithouse, Charlie, appears. From here on in the film steps up a couple of gears and became a different beast altogether.

The atmosphere becomes weird, the film gets seriously nasty and Charlie gets ****ing sadistic. The kills on offer are excellent. Jaws are torn off, cocks sliced off and heads crushed. Damn! i even jumped at one point. This last act is as grimy and twisted as anything i can recall from recent memory and makes The Green Inferno look like an Attenborough documentary.

Not sure i can recommend Charlie's Farm due to the gobsmackingly cliched, backwoods by numbers first hour, but my overall feeling come the end was satisfied enjoyment.