What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Licorice Pizza (2021)

I really don't know what attracted me to this oddball comedy drama other than it's set in California's San Fernando Valley in 1973 that sort of hinted at Dazed and Confused (1994) or American Graffiti (1973)

Other than the setting and some cool tunes - The Doors, Bowie, Chuck Berry and so on - there's really no similarities between Licorice Pizza and the two mentioned, well other than it focuses on youth and some clever very witty dialogue...basically it's not high school kids going mad when school finishes for the summer.

What it is is a year, i think, in the lives of 15-year-old actor Gary Valentine and 25-year-old (although it's hinted at later that she's actually 28) Alana Kane, a photographer's assistant and their flirty relationship across the course of the year. It's difficult to say exactly how long the time period is because California looks the same come summer or winter.

It's Gary whose path we follow during the film as he's a proper entrepreneur setting up a waterbed business when he finds out they'll be the next big thing and later a pinball arcade when he discovers pinball will soon be legalized in the Valley. Meanwhile Alana is there for the ride. However although Gary as played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman's son Cooper is very good it's Alana that's really the star of the film.

Alana is played by Alana Haim, singer with the country pop rock band Haim, and she to put it simply is a f*cking revelation. Licorice Pizza was her first role and she shows right there on screen that she's a ready made movie star.

Licorice Pizza isn't perfect by any means. The fractured way we navigate the first hour took me a while to get used to. It didn't seem to flow and came across as a load of disparate scenes but in time it began to work in it's favour and in the long term will definitely make the film worth repeated viewings. There's also an excellent array of cameo / guest stars including Sean Penn, Tom Waits and Bradley Cooper who plays Hollywood stylist Jon Peters as a proper twat.

Paul Thomas Anderson's best work since Boogie Nights (1997) in my eyes. I found Licorice Pizza both refreshing and hugely enjoyable.

As a blind buy i'm delighted with this disc. There's not much in the way of extras although one scene is expanded upon which at the time i felt was needed but when you see what was cut i appreciate why and it's better for it. The disc comes in a good looking O-Card, with five lovely glossy artcards and a really cool reversible sleeve.

[MrBarlow]

Beyond The Door III. 1989.

A class travel to Europe to witness a pagan ritual unaware one of their classmates may be the key to help unleash Satan.

Originally titled Amok Train but the studio or distributors re-titled it to cash in on the name, why not, everyone else seems to cash in on a title. All i'm going to say is this is really bad, the acting isn't really impressive, the gore effects are decent especially with maggots in the mouth, but the kills look like they are mannequins. This is definitely in the so bad it's good/funny films.

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Have a good Monday, keep smiling

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Monk (2011)

A deadly dull adaptation of Matthew Lewis's 1796 Gothic novel. Talky in the extreme. For a horror story there's no horror. I would like to say it's atmospheric but simply filming in a gloomy Spanish monastery does not equate to atmosphere, although the beautiful Spanish sunshine provided a nice juxtaposition to the darkness.

Star Vincent Cassel maintains a sense of watchability but that's about it.

[MrBarlow]

Skin Deep. 1989.

Alcoholic writer Zach's life is falling apart and finds himself in trouble with ex-girlfriends, jealous boyfriends and the law.

Writer-director Blake Edwards teams up with John Ritter who plays Zach and is a total womanizer, Denise Crosby plays one of the women in his life that catches him in bed with another woman, then all of a sudden another woman enters, a girl for every day just about. This was a film that I saw when it first came out and really didn't get much of the laughter but after seeing it today this caused me to have tears in my eyes. From start to finish this was a comedy classic.

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[MrBarlow]

Crimes Of Passion. 1984.

A woman who is a fashion designer during the day also works as a prostitute by night is hounded by two men, one who has marital problems and paid to follow her and a sexually repressed street preacher.

This one I have never seen before but only Ken Russell can make a movie like this and get away with it when it comes to his creative directive skills. Kathleen Turner plays the fashion designer/prostitute China Blue who know how to get men hot under the collar in more ways than once. John Laughlin plays the video tech who follows China and becomes infatuated with her while cheating on his wife Annie Potts. Anthony Perkins plays the street preacher who goes to the red light district to explore and ends up praying for his soul.

This was a decent stylish thriller with great acting from Kathleen and Anthony and able to show their brilliant acting skills that one scene never seems boring just more interesting as you never know if the preacher will or won't he give in. This wasn't really a edge of your seat thriller but certainly worth a watch.

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[MrBarlow]

Rollerball. 2002.

You got Chris Klein as the main guy Jonathan, LL Cool J, Jean Reno and Rebecca Romjin in this what is there to hate...basically everything, corruption that gives things away at the start, not so great acting that almost becomes laughable. The first game, guy gets hit in the face with a ball, we see him going down slowly holding his face but no blood, think that was a bad goof to show the audience, decent thing about this film was the music.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Been enjoying the Death Race films on Blu-ray this week thanks to the three film box set that encompasses Death Race (2008), Death Race 2 (2010) and Death Race: Inferno (2012).

Fast paced and violent with the second and third films acting as prequels to the first which is in itself a prequel to Roger Corman's 1975 film Death Race 2000.

Whether it be Jason Statham or Luke Goss headlining the films it doesn't matter, both are equally as good and the ensemble cast that makes their racing team (Danny Trejo, Tanit Phoenix and Frederick Koehler as well as returning racers such as Robin Shou's '14K' and Ving Rhames as head of the Weyland Corporation (A nice in joke tying in with the Alien franchise from producer of both series Paul WS Anderson) who hold the all action to the death races held in a maximum security prison.

I think they are all a hell of a lot of fun and a superior direct to video franchise with basically mega budgets and quite surprisingly stories that aren't all completely the same especially the third film Inferno.

If anyone's interested the Blu-rays look superb and sound thunderous.

PS - Any fans of The Walking Dead's Lauren Cohan will get quite an eyeful in Death Race 2.

[MrBarlow]

Crawl. 2019.

Haley who lost out on a swimming race, travels back to Florida in amidst of a level 5 hurricane to check on her estranged father. There the hurricane hits, flooding the houses and the streets and bringing with it Alligators.

Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper plays the estranged father and daughter who re-unite in a mother's nature catastrophe and try to save each other while avoiding the uninvited house guests. I have been avoiding this one for ages but this was decent and had some good tense moments and some daft other characters which gave out a laugh or two. Worth a watch.


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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Crawl. 2019.

Haley who lost out on a swimming race, travels back to Florida in amidst of a level 5 hurricane to check on her estranged father. There the hurricane hits, flooding the houses and the streets and bringing with it Alligators.

Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper plays the estranged father and daughter who re-unite in a mother's nature catastrophe and try to save each other while avoiding the uninvited house guests. I have been avoiding this one for ages but this was decent and had some good tense moments and some daft other characters which gave out a laugh or two. Worth a watch.

I really enjoyed this. Seen it a couple of times now.

[MrBarlow]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I really enjoyed this. Seen it a couple of times now.

It was really good, and feel bad for avoiding it for so long