What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

The Beguiled

One screening at one in the afternoon for our cinema. Decided to reward them for showing something other than the major blockbusters so decided to go see it. The Don Siegel directed Clint Eastwood starring earlier adaptation of the Thomas Cullinan novel is still one of Clint's best films and a great slice of southern Gothic.

So, is there any need to see this Sophia Coppola version?

I'd argue yes. Controversially Coppola removes most references to slavery and any black characters including Hallie. This led to accusations of white washing and in fairness the politics of the story given its setting in the south would mean slavery is something that should be addressed. However Coppola's focus here is more on the relationship between the female characters and the tensions that arise when Colin Farrell's wounded union soldier enters their world. The acting is solid. Kidman is great as the schools matriarch, Kirsten Dunst gives one of her best performances as the repressed spinster. Colin Farrell is one of those actors who is best when working with a director who can reign in his worst habits and here he's totally on form.
Wisely Coppola avoids going down the Marie Antoinette route of adding a contemporary soundtrack, instead we get a minimalistic score that feels absent for almost 90 per cent of the film. Instead there's just the background tweets of birds and the hum of cicadias. Its Beautifully shot and the cinematography is great. Overall I'd say check it out if you get the chance.

[keirarts]

Contamination

It was Luigi Cozzi's birthday yesterday so I decided to revisit this. Cozzi has made much better films but I've always had a bit of a soft spot for this nasty-era slice of B-grade schlock. As a lot of Italian Exploitation was want to do, Cozzi pinches from bigger, more successful films like a magpie and tries to glue it all together into a coherent film. Here the most obvious steal is from Alien. The fact that the main threat for a large portion of the film are alien-esque eggs, which the film tries to make clear are not eggs before repeated referring to them as eggs, is beyond obvious. However, in spite of an element of body snatching alien mind control in the plot the eggs only purpose is to explode, causing gory human explosions when people come into contact with them.
We also get Ian Muculloch from Zombie flesh-eaters as an astronaut. The films opening lifts from Flesh-eaters liberally with an abandoned vessel drifting into new york.
Overall it doesn't really gel together but who really cares? Fans dont really come to these films for that. They come for sleaze, trash and unintentional humour and for fans of trash its a lot of fun.

[keirarts]

It was also Dario Argento's birthday so....

Inferno

My personal favourite of all of Argento's films. Inferno follows up the wildly experimental Suspiria with this Gothic occult mystery. Here he retains some of the wild, colour soaked, filter heavy set ups and bizarre set design of that film. However he then takes this aesthetic and goes wild with the plot structure to create something quite unique. There is no central character, instead we have two main characters and several secondary characters and the film is not afraid to Digress and follow them instead. It starts with a Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle) reading a book on occult lore. Realising what she's reading relates to the building she lives in she follows the clues and discovers a secret flooded apartment under the building. We then go from New York to Rome where her brother Mark gets her letter telling him what she's found. However he forgets the letter and his friend Sara reads it and goes to a library to find a copy of the book. Stumbling onto an alchemists lair she flees without the book, heads home and is murdered. Mark finds the letter and heads to New York to find out what has happened to his sister.
Inferno is a deeply strange, mysterious and at times abstract work. Mundane things and places become insidious and strange. From the Alchemists lair in the library to the hotdog vendor in central park who is also an agent of the evil three mothers its a film that's impossible to predict and endlessly rewatchable. Chock full of strange, dark and beautiful imagery and a wonderful score.

Phenomena

Not Argento's best but still one of his moat entertaining pictures. Its not as strange and beautiful as Inferno but its deranged in its own special way with liberal use of 80's metal. Psychic powers, razor blade weilding chimps and mutant children all thrown together and somehow works better than a lot of Argento's work of this era. It's certainly more consistant than the overblown Opera and after recently revisiting a lot of Argento's later films it makes me appreciate it more.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

I quite enjoyed the first John Wick. But most violent film of 2014?? Really? Didn't seem any more violent than your average Bond flick to me.

I did say "probably the most violent film of 2014", allowing for competition from films such as The Raid 2. Most of the violence was gun violence rather than hand-to-hand combat (though there was also plenty of that), but it's violence nonetheless. As for Bond films, there weren't any released in 2014!

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I did say "probably the most violent film of 2014", allowing for competition from films such as The Raid 2. Most of the violence was gun violence rather than hand-to-hand combat (though there was also plenty of that), but it's violence nonetheless. As for Bond films, there weren't any released in 2014!

I didn't suggest there were. I wasn't comparing it to films specifically from 2014. I just said it didn't seem particularly violent. On a par with something like Skyfall.

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by keirarts

The Beguiled

One screening at one in the afternoon for our cinema. Decided to reward them for showing something other than the major blockbusters so decided to go see it. The Don Siegel directed Clint Eastwood starring earlier adaptation of the Thomas Cullinan novel is still one of Clint's best films and a great slice of southern Gothic.

So, is there any need to see this Sophia Coppola version?

I'd argue yes. Controversially Coppola removes most references to slavery and any black characters including Hallie. This led to accusations of white washing and in fairness the politics of the story given its setting in the south would mean slavery is something that should be addressed. However Coppola's focus here is more on the relationship between the female characters and the tensions that arise when Colin Farrell's wounded union soldier enters their world. The acting is solid. Kidman is great as the schools matriarch, Kirsten Dunst gives one of her best performances as the repressed spinster. Colin Farrell is one of those actors who is best when working with a director who can reign in his worst habits and here he's totally on form.
Wisely Coppola avoids going down the Marie Antoinette route of adding a contemporary soundtrack, instead we get a minimalistic score that feels absent for almost 90 per cent of the film. Instead there's just the background tweets of birds and the hum of cicadias. Its Beautifully shot and the cinematography is great. Overall I'd say check it out if you get the chance.

I only realised that this was new Coppola film when it was too late see it at the cinema, I'm definitely intrigued to watch it going from the trailer which I saw recently. I'm more interested now!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

I didn't suggest there were. I wasn't comparing it to films specifically from 2014. I just said it didn't seem particularly violent. On a par with something like Skyfall.

I felt that, overall, it was a film in which the majority of the content was violent in nature, whether that was overt and to do with one person physically assaulting another, or implicitly due to the threat of violence.

[SymbioticFunction]

Doesn't John Wick 1 have rather bloody gunshot injuries? Quite a lot of them if I recall correctly. There's nothing like that in any Daniel Craig Bond film.

[SymbioticFunction]

Originally Posted by SymbioticFunction

Doesn't John Wick 1 have rather bloody gunshot injuries? Quite a lot of them if I recall correctly. There's nothing like that in any Daniel Craig Bond film.

Just watched the following video which shows all the John Wick 1 kills:



I was surprised to see that the majority are bloodless. But some do have blood splatter.

btw 76 kills in one movie is just plain nuts!

[gag]

Never seen the John wick film but with all the talk about I want to watch it now .