What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Good call Treb. I haven't seen any of the Police Academy films in yonks, the first is easily the best but i used to love them all even the supremely silly Miami and Moscow instalments. I will have to pick the boxset up sometime.

The quality dropped dramatically when Steve Guttenberg left but the others are still fun.

[Demoncrat]

The Black Cat (1981, Lucio Fulci)

Hello. I may have never really been 'me' here tbh. You'll get a whiff tonight as I received some stimulus tonight ... outside miner and all that
David Warbeck & Patrick Magee stumble around in an miasma of Poe and Lovecraft and FULCI. Artist. Van Gogh was a cnut ahem.













Bit pissed btw

[trebor8273]

Not hard to see why it was compared to alien and gravity. On the international space station a group of scientist and astronauts study a life form brought back from mars by a probe. Its not long before we find the lifeform is unlike any other knowing life form and is intelligent and its not long before it escapes and the crew are fighting to stay alive and stop the creature which is evolving at an alarming rate from getting to earth. With the setting of the space station its very tense and claustrophobic film. 7.7/10


Now watching Wayne's World.

[J Harker]

Martin. George A.Romero. 1978.

Given Romero's recent passing i thought it was time i reappraised this one. Its been about 12 years since i last watched it and i found it rather dull then.
Most will be familiar but the basic plot goes like this Martin has the appearance of a young man, yet he believes himself to an 84 year old vampire. He arrives in a small rundown Pittsburgh town to live with his highly superstitious, possibly equally mad Uncle Tata Cuda. Oddly Cuda clearly believes Martin is indeed a vampire, he refers to him as Nosferatu and warns him that he will save his soul and then destroy him.
He also tells him that he is free to come and go but that if he kills anyone in the town he will destroy him without question or any chance of salvation.
Thats pretty much it. Although it is worth mentioning, and i don't consider this a spoiler, that Martin isn't your conventional bloodsucker. He sedates his victims via syringes and draws blood with razor blades rather than fangs.
I still think Martin is a somewhat slow clunky film. Though i did find more to appreciate this time round. The score for one is in places eerily gothic in contrast to the industrial wasteland the film seems to take place in. I hadn't really considered before the implications of Cuda's belief in Martins claim, not to mention the faith he has in the whole mythology of fighting vamps with crucifixes and garlic. Add to that the b&w sequences and i suppose to begs the obvious question, is there any truth to it all. The film at least to my interpretation remains ambiguous but i certainly left more to the viewers discernment this time round. Also of merit are the performances. Typical of Romeros films (for me at least) none of the characters are particularly likeable or endearing but that doesn't mean they aren't played very well, particularly John Amplas as Martin who really does look as if he could be an aging vampire in a young body. Lincoln Maazel too plays Cuda very straight, balancing the character between madness and devout integrity.
Romero himself turns up as a local priest and actually comes across as a decent actor.
The problems with Martin are that its a little too inconsistent for my liking. Why has Martin not been caught? He's a bit sloppy. Doesn't seem to have ever heard of fingerprints. Also why do his victims take so long to go to sleep? Should he not be upping the dose? The other characters he has to bounce off such as Cuda's daughter Christina and local housewife Mrs.Santini a lonely lady whom Martin does oddjobs for, are well played but lack any real charisma making Martins interactions feel a little lacking in depth.
I only have the older original Arrow dvd containing a single cut of the movie presented in 4:3. I'd be interested to know what the later 2 disc edition contains.
Anyway I'm rambling a bit. Martin, not a bad film. Nowhere near as good as Romeros debut or the rest of the original dead trilogy but far far better than The Crazies.

[Demoncrat]

Liked Life and made me less angry in hindsight than Alien Covenant

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Martin. George A.Romero. 1978.

Given Romero's recent passing i thought it was time i reappraised this one. Its been about 12 years since i last watched it and i found it rather dull then.
Most will be familiar but the basic plot goes like this Martin has the appearance of a young man, yet he believes himself to an 84 year old vampire. He arrives in a small rundown Pittsburgh town to live with his highly superstitious, possibly equally mad Uncle Tata Cuda. Oddly Cuda clearly believes Martin is indeed a vampire, he refers to him as Nosferatu and warns him that he will save his soul and then destroy him.
He also tells him that he is free to come and go but that if he kills anyone in the town he will destroy him without question or any chance of salvation.
Thats pretty much it. Although it is worth mentioning, and i don't consider this a spoiler, that Martin isn't your conventional bloodsucker. He sedates his victims via syringes and draws blood with razor blades rather than fangs.
I still think Martin is a somewhat slow clunky film. Though i did find more to appreciate this time round. The score for one is in places eerily gothic in contrast to the industrial wasteland the film seems to take place in. I hadn't really considered before the implications of Cuda's belief in Martins claim, not to mention the faith he has in the whole mythology of fighting vamps with crucifixes and garlic. Add to that the b&w sequences and i suppose to begs the obvious question, is there any truth to it all. The film at least to my interpretation remains ambiguous but i certainly left more to the viewers discernment this time round. Also of merit are the performances. Typical of Romeros films (for me at least) none of the characters are particularly likeable or endearing but that doesn't mean they aren't played very well, particularly John Amplas as Martin who really does look as if he could be an aging vampire in a young body. Lincoln Maazel too plays Cuda very straight, balancing the character between madness and devout integrity.
Romero himself turns up as a local priest and actually comes across as a decent actor.
The problems with Martin are that its a little too inconsistent for my liking. Why has Martin not been caught? He's a bit sloppy. Doesn't seem to have ever heard of fingerprints. Also why do his victims take so long to go to sleep? Should he not be upping the dose? The other characters he has to bounce off such as Cuda's daughter Christina and local housewife Mrs.Santini a lonely lady whom Martin does oddjobs for, are well played but lack any real charisma making Martins interactions feel a little lacking in depth.
I only have the older original Arrow dvd containing a single cut of the movie presented in 4:3. I'd be interested to know what the later 2 disc edition contains.
Anyway I'm rambling a bit. Martin, not a bad film. Nowhere near as good as Romeros debut or the rest of the original dead trilogy but far far better than The Crazies.

Oi!!!

I find that the uneasiness of tone is what makes (emphasis) both TC & Martin imhsto. In context with concurrent Waters productions, they paint a vulgar picture of a broken America indeed (YES ... The Slayer as well )

I digress ....

Kudos

Great reappraisal ...

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Oi!!!

I find that the uneasiness of tone is what makes (emphasis) both TC & Martin imhsto. In context with concurrent Waters productions, they paint a vulgar picture of a broken America indeed (YES ... The Slayer as well )

I digress ....

Kudos

Great reappraisal ...

You're an odd fella Demoncrat. But thankyou.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

AĹL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK

A white face Michael Jackson lookalike played by Edwige Fenech whimpers around London in the early 70s...

This starts out in blinding fashion with cheap looking pop art surrealism a go go before turning into a turgid and dull thriller with embarrassing Black Masses, and enough stairs and lifts to keep psychoanalytic film critics going for years.

Giallo truly is the hipster's beard of genre. I can't for the life of me figure out how I used to rate it so highly.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

AĹL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK

A white face Michael Jackson lookalike played by Edwige Fenech whimpers around London in the early 70s...

This starts out in blinding fashion with cheap looking pop art surrealism a go go before turning into a turgid and dull thriller with embarrassing Black Masses, and enough stairs and lifts to keep psychoanalytic film critics going for years.

Giallo truly is the hipster's beard of genre. I can't for the life of me figure out how I used to rate it so highly.

No no no
The impact of the opening sends you reeling ... jigsaw feeeling ....so you spend the rest of it resusitating your own sense of reality ....
That's what happened the last time I scrutinised this. Look forward to getting my greasless mitts on this blu

[nosferatu42]

I saw it a couple of months back for the first time and really enjoyed 'Colours', i was pretty drunk at the time and it didn't make a lot of sense storywise but really enjoyed the atmosphere and images on display.