What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

You're watching some cool shit, Nordy.

A Chuck Norris fest should be #1 for everyone.

(Even Rik)

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

You're watching some cool shit, Nordy.

A Chuck Norris fest should be #1 for everyone.

(Even Rik)

Had more lined up but sadly i have to stop there until tomorrow after work. Ill be after watching more films by the end of the week than i have in the last year

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

n a Lonely Place (1950) ★★★★★

An aspiring actress begins to suspect that her temperamental boyfriend is a murderer.

This is a truly great film, possibly better than They Drive by Night, Nicholas Ray's other collaboration with Humphrey Bogart. It's a surprisingly dark thriller, which is genuinely tense and suspenseful as you are watching and wondering whether Dix (Bogart's ill-tempered screenwriter) is an innocent man about to take the fall for a murder he didn't commit or whether he's a dangerously violent killer.

Gloria Grahame and Bogart make a great couple, with Bogart – as he was in Casablanca, The Lost Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The Big Sleep, a superb anti hero.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Glory (1989) ★★★★

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

The first time I saw this, several years ago, I thought Matthew Broderick was horribly miscast. Watching it again and paying greater attention to the opening text, I realise that the man he's playing is only supposed to be 25 years old and so would look out of place compared to those around him.

The film is beautifully shot by veteran cinematographer Freddie Francis, someone who fully deserved the Oscar he won, and the same credit must go to the sound, score, and all aspects of the art department. It's a film in which a great deal of care and attention has gone to the period detail and a soundstage which really emphasises the visuals and narrative.

It's a great story, one based on facts, and features powerful performances from Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, and Andre Braugher (someone probably now more famous for Brooklyn Nine-Nine!).

This is an important film about a part of the history of the United States which is kept alive through reenactments, place names, statues and the controversy about the extent to which some southern states honour the memory of those who fought in and led the Confederate army.

Edward Zwick does a commendable job with the huge cast making the battle sequences appropriately horrific and other scenes, particularly those which are responsibly power struggles between officers in the Union army, very intimate and engaging. It is a film which thoroughly engages the viewer all the way through to it moving ending. The 4K Ultra HD release has exceptional picture and sound quality – it doesn't look 30 years old!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) ★★★★★

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Orson Welles' follow-up to his acclaimed masterpiece Citizen Kane has a production history almost as interesting as the story on which is based.

This wasn't Orson Welles' first adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel as he had done so three years previously for the Mercury Players to perform on the radio. Unlike that performance, Welles did not play George Minafer (that role went to Tim Holt for the film adaptation), but Welles still features in the film as an uncredited narrator.

Something which I found interesting was the continuity of personnel from Citizen Kane in Agnes Moorhead, Joseph Cotten, Erskine Sandford and Ray Collins who all appeared in Citizen Kane, plus Benard Herrmann again provides the score.

The film is a technical marvel, superbly edited by Robert Wise, the man who went on to direct films such as West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and The Haunting. It has a different look to Citizen Kane, partly because it is a period piece and partly because Stanley Cortez has a very different aesthetic in his cinematography to Gregg Toland. With Welles again using ceiling sets, often with four walls so you could have scenes with 360° camera movement, there is a sense of realism in the interior scenes which doesn't exist in other films made at around the same time.

The strange thing with The Magnificent Ambersons is more to do with accepting the film as it is rather than watching it and wondering what it might have been if Orson Welles hadn't left for Brazil after shooting wrapped but had stayed around to supervise the editing and had rights to final cut, something he conceded to RKO, or was even able to influence the assembling of his preferred version sometime later with a memo, as happened with Touch of Evil. As the footage which was cut during the RKO editing process was probably burned, it's something that will never happen and we'll never see the film that Orson Welles wanted.

The version that exists – at least the version I watched – is still a great film. It's a rich and engrossing family drama, a film which entertains and provides the viewer with some brilliant acting, inspired use of mise-en-scène and entertaining dialogue. It's a great film which is rightly regarded as a masterpiece; I can only speculate that the version which Orson Welles would have produced would surpass Citizen Kane as his greatest cinematic achievement.

[Dave Boy]

Crawling_Eye_film_poster.jpg
THE TROLLENBERG TERROR (1958)

A mysterious mist and cloud formation appears at the Trollenberg Mountain.
Climbers on the mountain are found decapitated and there is something in the cloud..

Enjoyable invasion movie with a good cast and some great special effects model work by Les Bowie.

crawling-eye-1958.jpg

[Demoncrat]

My Favourite Year (1982, Richard Benjamin)

I hadn't seen this in years. Peter O'Toole channels Errol Flynn as a rather dissolute actor with terrible personal habits . An underling is assigned to "watch" him until his performance time on a thinly disguised Sid Caesar Show style effort. Joseph Bologna is terrific as the main lead here, puffing out his chest at every opportunity. A very well crafted and enjoyable film. Recommended!!!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)

The ghosts of a samurai, his wife and her lover terrorise a young couple (Susan George and Eddie Albert) when they move into their Kyoto based haunted house.

When Doug McClure arrive son the scene the three are doomed to their re-enacted fate at the hands of the ancient spirits.

Despite some brutal murders at the beginning and end of the film, some weird crabs that attack and numerous sex scenes in which George displays her wares, The House Where Evil Dwells is pretty boring stuff.

[MrBarlow]

The House That Screamed. 1969.

A strict headmistress runs a all girls boarding school in 19th century France, only for her students to disappear in mysterious circumstances.

This was a odd mixture of thriller whodunit and horror that acually plays out well, the acting may not be the best from the students, Lilli Palmer plays the headmistress pretty well and very creepy as well as dominant. British actor John Moulder-Brown (vampire circus) plays her son Luis, who seems to have a voyeuristic tendencies on the students and have a weird relationship with his mother. This does have a dark atmosphere and interesting twist ending that does pan out decently. Recommended.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Adrenalin: Fear the Rush (1996)

Lively non-stop action film in which cops Natasha Henstridge and Christopher Lambert attempt to track and kill a cannibalistic killer infected with an extremely contagious lethal virus.

Imagine a low budget version of The Raid, but instead of hundreds of assailants there's just the one, and obviously not quite as much carnage but the plot is basically the same all set in one (large) run down building.

Lambert and Henstridge provide a bit of star power but although it's action all the way you don't really come to care about anyone involved, however the 76 minute run time means it doesn't outstay it's welcome.