What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

Evil Ed (1995)





66/100

A film that has only gotten betterer with age.

[bleakshaun]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

You give it 5 more marks than i would.

There were some good ideas, especially in the first half

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[trebor8273]

Started the ultra 4k version of close encounters and all I can say is Wow it looks amazing, the colours and detail is stunning!

[iank]

Lethal Weapon 3. Riggs and Murtaugh are back, this time up against a corrupt former cop who's stealing deadly weapons and putting them back on the streets in this entertaining sequel. The 3rd film in the iconic buddy cop action series isn't quite on the same level as the first two, lacking a certain intensity and the villain just doesn't live up to the bad guys in the first two either, but it's full of great action and laughs, and Rene Russo is a welcome addition as a badass Internal Affairs officer who quickly strikes up some romantic sparks with Riggs. Still good fun.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Misfits (1961)

Not so much a film with a story as a look into the lives of a disparate group of people who kind of meet up accidentally and find they are all as screwed up as each other in a film that looks at loneliness, longing and in the end simple friendship between damaged souls.

Starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter this is a bit of an acting tour-de-force ensemble piece. Of course sadly for Gable and Monroe it would be their last film before their untimely deaths and Clift would also be dead a mere four years later aged just 45.

With this information watching The Misfits is a whole new experience. There's an air of sadness that runs throughout. Monroe's marriage to script writer Arthur Miller was in meltdown and she was in a drug and alcohol abuse hell throughout filming and production had to be shut down whilst director John Huston sent her to detox whilst Gable was seemingly self destructive insisting he did his own stunts such as being dragged across the Nevada desert by a wild horse. Huston himself lead by (bad) example and was often drunk on set. Despite this, Clark Gable gives the performance of his career as does Monroe and arguably Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach as well.

Yet as you watch the air of melancholy subsides for the finale as Gable leads the group into the Nevada desert in order to capture wild mustangs (The actual misfits of the title - not the cast) to sell for dog meat Some of these sequences are astonishingly powerful as if all involved were following Clift ,who was, along with Brando and Dean one of the original Hollywood method actors. In fact throughout, the film seems a long way from the typical Hollywood studio productions the likes of Gable and Monroe were familiar with.

The Misfits isn't an easy watch but it's a rewarding one. Simply stunning!

[MrBarlow]

Dreamcatcher 2003

Four friends travel to a cabin for a holiday unaware the area is going under quarantine from the army who are battling a invasion of parasite alien species.

Based on the novel by Stephen King, the film is fast paced and to those who have never read the book, the film may be confusing. This is not the best adaptation of a King novel even with a good star cast. It has drama, horror and science fiction. Its a film you either love it or hate it. 6 out of 10.

[keirarts]

Grimmfest 2017

Bare with me on this as it might take a couple of days to cover everything. The usual four days of Horror at one of the great northern film festivals is always a lot of fun.

Thursday

Habit

Director Simeon Halligan also run's the festival. He's a nice bloke and interesting to talk to so I'd be potentially biased given I (sort of) know him. However, his films really speak for themselves. His previous two features Splintered and white settlers are both great fun so I'm happy to recommend this one to anyone fond of his previous films.
Habit represents something of a Progression for his work. It certainly has a more mature style to it and a more ambitious story adapted from a novella by a local author with assistance from Steve Balshaw who also works for the festival. The film is centred around Manchester's Northern Quarter after dark. A young man who takes in a street girl gets drawn into working at a massage parlour located in one of the dank side alleys that can be found in the quater. He discovers the denizens of this night world are some kind of cannibalistic cult that offer all sorts of fun for Manchester's night life in exchange for the occasional murder and feed.
It's a very stylised, bloody affair with some great lighting and a nice score that feels very fresh & original. It's nice to see a horror film really use Manchester given that in spite of some heavy gentrification still feels like a very Gothic city. This one is worth catching when you get the chance.

Ruin me

A couple go on a 'slasher sleepout' weekend which promises to be one of those interactive weekends where people in costumes jump out at you and there are puzzles to be solved. However things appear to spiral out of control and people seem to be dying for real.
It's a decent movie but a lot of people seemed to get put off by the final act. I didn't mind it and mostly this was a fine film that narrowly missed out on being great. Worth a look certainly as up to a point the film is genuinely entertaining. Flawed but interesting.

Run Runner Run

Grimm always seems to dig up interesting short films to play with the main features. This was a good start with a runner finding herself hunted by a hillbilly family. Nothing massively original but it does its thing well.

Still/Born

After a difficult birth, where one of her kids is stillborn. A woman begins to suspect her other child is being hunted by an evil spirit. The big question here is, is the woman genuinely encountering supernatural evil or is she suffering post natal psychosis? It feels like a Canadian attempt to do insidious but honestly it feels like a much better film than that. The demonic force feels well realised and not just Darth maul, their are some jump scares but the film does not rely on them, instead it generates a real sense of dread that kept me on the edge of my seat. Well worth seeking out.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Habit sounds really interesting, K.

I can imagine the Northern Quarter being a great horror film location. Hell they film everything from Captain America to Cutting It there so why not an Indie horror?

I've had White Settlers in my wish list for ages now. Probably since whenever you first reviewed it.

[Almar@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by iank

Lethal Weapon 3. Riggs and Murtaugh are back, this time up against a corrupt former cop who's stealing deadly weapons and putting them back on the streets in this entertaining sequel. The 3rd film in the iconic buddy cop action series isn't quite on the same level as the first two, lacking a certain intensity and the villain just doesn't live up to the bad guys in the first two either, but it's full of great action and laughs, and Rene Russo is a welcome addition as a badass Internal Affairs officer who quickly strikes up some romantic sparks with Riggs. Still good fun.

This was absolutely the let's get together and have fun sequel - and the audience are invited too. None of the intensity of 1 and to an extent 2 but nicely done. I think it's the last film I saw in the Edinburgh Cannon - Screen 1 - good (if sticky) memories.

[SymbioticFunction]

Wonder Woman (2017)

Quite underwhelmed by this if I'm being honest. Considering all of the highly positive reviews. Lead actress gives a good performance but the writing and the praised female direction is pretty darn average. I'd probably still award a grudging 7/10 - will sell off at Cex today. It's not a popular opinion but I personally thought that the full-length cut of Batman v Superman (which of course, also featured Wonder Woman) was a substantially better film.