What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[MrBarlow]

Clear And Present Danger. 1994.

Harrison Ford returns as John Ryan who is now promoted to acting director of the C.I.A. and caught in the middle of a war between the U.S. and a Columbian drug cartel. Donald Moffat is decent in this playing the president who seems to know when to be truthful and when to lie. Henry Czerny and Harris Yulin are mostly the key players in the war, cover ups and passing the blame.

For the third instalment this wasn't too bad, the start of the film slowly builds up and does hold your attention and then tends to slide down a bit and then does pick up again. Willem Dafoe as a the contractor who doesn't get much screen time but when he is on screen, his acting never disappoints and does make you question on what side of the field he is on.

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[iank]

Went to the cinema today (first time in three years) since it's my birthday and saw Scream VI. It was.... okay. Ish. It wasn't as offensively awful as the last one, since at least the motive made sense and there aren't any middle aged heterosexual male legacy characters left to run down and destroy. I did guess part of the reveal, since there weren't many supporting characters with any presence to make it matter to choose from, and some sequences were very good (the fight between Gale and Ghostface in her apartment was surprisingly really good). The film however suffers again from the new core characters just being nowhere near as memorable or fun as the old ones were, with Jenna Ortega again being the only one to make any real impression (and that again more being down to the actress, and her very pretty smile ) than anything interesting about the character. These new ones just feel very generic slashers to me, with none of the spark of the Craven/Williamson ones. Passable.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by iank

Went to the cinema today (first time in three years) since it's my birthday

Many happy returns to you .

[MrBarlow]

The Football Factory. 2004.

Tommy Johnson, a 30 year old lives for the weekend partying, sex and fighting with other football fans.

A near realistic view on the football fans who don't really want to watch the games but cause mass riots and street brawling before, during and after the games. Danny Dyer plays Tommy who narrates the story on his time working as a florist along with Frank Harper who plays the mass brawler and hard man next to Tony Denham. There is some funny parts, winding each other up, two fathers on opposite sides who get into a fight at their son's game and trading insults, the violence is what you would expect it to be in a gritty British film. Not a film I thought I would enjoy but certainly did.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Red Dragon (2002)

A remake of Michael Mann's seminal Manhunter (1986) which was the first version of Thomas Harris classic serial killer novel also titled Red Dragon. This film by Brett Ratner brings back Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter following the phenomenon that was The Silence of the Lambs.

The plot involves ex-FBI investigator Will Graham (Edward Norton) who several years after taking down Lecter is called back to help out as a series of killings take place by a tattooed Ralph Fiennes as Francis Dolarhyde aka the The Tooth Fairy. Both Graham and the Feds are non-plussed prompting Graham to go back to the now captive Lecter and try and gain his help in creating a profile of the Tooth Fairy and figuring out the case.

Despite Lecter being the draw in the film i find the best scenes involve Dolarhyde and his nerve shredding romance with blind co-worker Emily Watson. There's genuine pathos in Dolarhyde which seem a million miles from his alter ego the Red Dragon but because the Dragon is constantly bubbling under the surface the anxiety and unease in these scenes is palpable.

This prequel is an intelligent film closer in tone and tension to The Silence of the Lambs than sequel, the over wrought Hannibal (2001). Lecter is far more chilling and less camp whilst Fiennes matches Hopkins in the psycho stakes.

The film ends with Lecter's institution head Dr. Chiltern (Anthony Heald) informing him that he has a visitor from the FBI... a young woman.

[Demoncrat]

Scary Movie (1991, Daniel Erickson)

Running a haunted house when there's a nutcase that's just escaped? Should be fine
An odd wee beast. We meet our protagonists, and to a man, they are all dreadful human beings.
Was getting bored in the middle, but never assume anything. Hmmm.

[Demoncrat]

The Doom That Came To Gotham (2023, Sam Liu)

Yes, Batman and Harvey Dent and The Penguin ... just not how you remembers them.
Based on the graphic novel from a few years ago, this tentacled tale held the attention.
Returning home to battle Elder Gods? Sign me up!! The references are cheeky and thankfully not the blunt tool that they can be. Whilst some of it did cause the demon to mutter under his breath, I now await to see if this one becomes canon tee hee.

[MrBarlow]

Route 666. 2001.

After a federal witness is captured and escorted back to California by government agents, they decide to go through a condemned road that is allegedly cursed.

Lou Diamond Phillips and Lori Petty plays the D.E.A. agents tasked with finding mob accountant Rabbit played by Steve Williams (who seems to have got the comedic one liners) back to testify in court and take a detour with Dale Midkiff, Alex McArthur, Mercedes Colon and Rob Fitzgerald.

This film shouldn't be entertaining but it is, most kills are done to the best the budget can be, the make up effects are decent but the ghosts do seem to be a bit more zombified rather than spooks and know how to use different weapons. There is one or two head scratch moments like show can a ghost break a windscreen with his body. No harm in giving this a viewing.

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[MrBarlow]

Kiss Of The Dragon. 2001.

A Chinese intelligence officer is sent to Paris to assist in a drug bust only to be framed and now wanted.

Jet Li plays the decorated officer who is framed by corrupt detective Tcheky Karyo who shows his mad manic side when it comes to try and get the results he wants and making sure his men are expendable. Bridget Fonda plays the helpful aid to Li as the street..lady...who is being held by the corrupt detective. The pace of the film is decent and basically jumps right in and has great choreographed fight scenes.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

HATCHING – Perfectionist daughter hates narcissist mum – there are many ways to capture relationship dysfunction in horror, but not all of them involve the discovery of an egg that incubates a slimy monster bird. ‘Hatching’ wavers between horror and arthouse, wielding metaphor with one talon and goo with the other. It does a pretty good job with both, and you get an air of Nordic frost (the cooly rendered interiors of yet another big modern house without a heart) together with beaky special fx weirdness and a slight fairy tale quality. I liked it.

MOONSTALKER – The broad outlines – slasher, standard set-up (campsite-based variant) – don’t explain this film’s eccentricity. For me, it’s in the clash between the blue-tinged winter wilderness, well photographed and genuinely eerie beneath a veil of grain, and the poorly executed goofball comedy (I guess the film makers thought that having their killer decked out in a Stetson and shades in the middle of an icy waste was the very height of wit). Bizarreness mounts up on the back of this kind of tonal fumbling, and before long woozy memories of the late eighties come whispering and ‘Moonstalker’ slips over you like a bloodstained comfort blanket.

DEAD GIRLS – It’s hard to figure out where the good stuff is in ‘Dead Girls’, but it’s definitely there. Morbid punks ‘The Dead Girls’ are dealing with the aftermath of their lead singer’s sister’s cult-influenced attempted suicide (whew); for some reason, they think that their trip to the wilderness for some r&r won’t involve a savage killer in a skull mask. In fact, it also involves lots and lots of talking and wandering along shorelines, but it’s just so charming, and ‘Dead Girls’, a film that unravels rather than unfolds, is basically such a pile up of bad filmic decision-making that you will spend most of your time asking “what just happened?” A few sly winks made me think it was all intended as a comedy. Maybe, because if you go in hoping for a typical low budget regional slasher, the joke’s on you.