films we just saw

Melvin Junko · Post by **Melvin Junko** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:11 pm

watched Feast last night. Loved it. Sometimes the action was a bit too fast which made it hard to follow what was going on, but overall a great movie.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:34 pm

Bearded Avenger wrote:Paris Lockdown - violent French gangster film. I'd liken it to a flashier Mean Streets, but with no-one you can feel any sympathy with. Runs along nicely until an abrupt ending. Beatrice Dalle looks odd - plastic surgery?

I saw the trailer for this on Dante01 dvd,looks rather nasty,some guy has hill leg kneecap drilled,a must see movie then

Post by **Rue-morgue Jay** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:03 pm

SAW V. Oh my god! the tag line was right. You WON'T believe how it ends!

I died a HELL of alot inside.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:55 am

A double-bill of ancient movies came my way the other day: both from Tigon and both from 1969. Michael Armstrong's The Haunted House Of Horror is a pretty lame teen murder movie which, despite the wonderful period detail, is all a bit dull and talky and not scary at all. And it's got a body count of just two. Frankie Avalon and a bunch of grooving teens trek out to a supposedly haunted house, wander around for a bit, hold a seance and then one of them is mysteriously killed. Worth a look for the decor, cars and frankly depraved shirt designs, but not much else.

I had absolutely no idea what The Body Stealers was. Turns out to be a science-fiction yarn in which RAF parachutists are disappearing in mid-air, and Patrick Allen, George Sanders and Sean Connery's brother Neil are on the case. It's footling about in the Bond/Avengers arena without really working; again, I had more fun looking at the cars and production design. The makers had the uncanny foresight to give the hotel manageress character the name Mrs Thatcher, which provided a few giggles.

Neither of these movies are very good, but they're a lot better than some of the sludge I've been forcefeeding myself recently, despite the low budgets. And they do have a peculiar charm about them: a pre-Google, pre-cellphone, pre-iPod bubble of history, in which girls think nothing of hitch-hiking alone at night, everyone speaks with impeccable Radio 4 diction and no-one wears a seatbelt (plus you could get a Mars bar for threepence ha'penny and all this used to be fields). I'll definitely be peering further into the world of British Z-movies (one of Giles' old blog entries had a rundown on some interesting sources, I think).

Melvin Junko · Post by **Melvin Junko** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 9:06 pm

watched Feast 2 the other day. Nowhere near as good as the 1st one, but the baby scene and the catapult one had me in stitches. You can't go wrong with a midget fight either

just saw The Substitute, a downloaded version that was dubbed in English. Still thought it was great, I expected a bit more monster bits, but it didn't even need it. Will definitly buy the dvd at some point.

ghouldrool · Post by **ghouldrool** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:51 pm

The Abandoned
A seriously boring affair. A criminal waste of Karel Roden and the frankly brilliant looking sets and photography.

Class of 1984
Pretty darned good one this. Straight laced earnest teacher takes on the supreme tosser amongst the student body. Has that early 80s american punk look and builds to a fairly bloodthirsty conclusion.
Still prefer Class of 1999.

Dragon Wars
Bloated FX led movie that at least features a decent looking Eastern Dragon. Fairly easy on the brain (in other words turn it off) and its got occasional appearences from the ace Robert Forster.

Bruiser
An example if anything that Romero is a highly versatile movie maker. An artistic sensibility drives this odd confection about some office drone waking up with a disquieting mask for a face. It does drag something rotten in the middle.

Im a Cyborg, but thats OK
Shes not a cyborg and i dont care.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 11:49 pm

I didn't really want Wanted when it was called Wanted. It's slightly better now it's called Eagle Eye in that it doesn't have quite as much violence and the pointless slaughter of innocent passers-by in it (though the car crashes do get a bit bonkers), and it doesn't have a plot that's driven by tailoring equipment. Dull photocopier operative Shia LaBoeuf and single mother Michelle Monaghan get picked apparently at random by an unseen but all-seeing voice on the phone and ordered on a spectacularly destructive mission across America. It's big, slick, stupid, noisy, highly illogical and punctuated with huge explosions, screechy tyres and multiple car pileups. More or less kept me awake.

I followed it with Saw V, the annual, eagerly anticipated continuation of a franchise whose main antagonist died two films ago but hasn't let that stop him as he's still in it through substantial use of flashbacks and restaged footage from the previous entries. Just when I'd more or less got the timeline of the first four more or less sorted out in my head, this one adds to the confusion to the extent that if you haven't seen the first four, this will be utterly meaningless. It's noticeably less wince-inducing than 3 and 4, and the final scene is a bit on the ridiculous side, but again the mechanicals of the piece and the obsession with inflicting severe pain on people are morbidly fascinating. And I dare say the narrative waters will be muddied again next year in Saw VI.

Back on the DVD pile, there's a nominal remake of Day Of The Dead, which (despite the credit at the start) owes nothing to Romero's third Living Dead entry except for two characters being called Captain Rhodes and Dr Logan. Oddly enough it does owe a little to Romero's The Crazies in its basic setup of a small American town in the grip of the faceless military and a strange contagion - but ultimately it's just another unremarkable, reasonably efficient zombie movie with the occasional nasty bit of gore and some silliness.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:11 am

Hitman arrived on my doorstep on Bluray not that it would make much difference if it was on standard dvd,not half as bad as i expected it to be,the lead actor Timothy Olyphant doesnt have enough menace about him,quite violent for its rating,but i wonder how it would it would have been without Nicolas de toth's involvement,who gets a credit right at the end from the producers,still its nice to see the new Bond girl before Bond.
Layer Cake caught this on 5 this evening mathew vaughn may have been guy ritchies producer on Snatch & Lock Stock but here he excels ritchies efforts,upon second looking post rock n rolla it seems mr ritchies been stealing things from this movie,with the look of the apprentice showing London in a good light,and Daniel Craig looking great,its easy to see why they got him for James Bond after this movie.

Reanimator · Post by **Reanimator** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:13 am

Last nights surprise film at the london film festival was 'The Wrestler'. Darren Aronofsky is back on form and Mickey Rourke is superb as the title character. This is excellent - a must see movie!

Bearded Avenger · Post by **Bearded Avenger** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:05 pm

Laymonite wrote:
PappaFreakdog wrote:THE SERPENT - a french blackmail . psychological thriller - some particularly tense moments in the climatic scenes -- real nail biter.
And Olga Kurylenko in the nuddy :P

I loved The Serpent. Can't beat a good intelligent thriller - pity that there are so few of them around. I didn't realise that it was Kurylenko, I thought it wa some Finnish actress (atthe time I got sadly excited at a Finnish person being in a film that wasn't Finnish or Swedish).

Bearded Avenger · Post by **Bearded Avenger** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:10 pm

Dark Floors - prior to watching this I read an article which stated how the film had been aimed at Loordi's PG13 fans, so did not have high expectations. Whilst the film looks really good the plot is predicatable and to quote one of the actors, "there weren't many lines to learn." Some gore, but very few thrills and the usual horror cliches and no characterisation. At least as far as a $5m B-movie goes it didn't look cheap - apart from Loordi's constumes that is! 2/5 for Finland first proper horror film. Stone's War, Sauna and the one that Brian Yuzna's supposed to be producing better not let me down.

The Dark - turned the TV on 20 minutes in to the film. Atmospheric little ghost story - even if it did lack real scares.

Notts Pete · Post by **Notts Pete** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:36 pm

Bearded Avenger wrote:Dark Floors - prior to watching this I read an article which stated how the film had been aimed at Loordi's PG13 fans, so did not have high expectations. Whilst the film looks really good the plot is predicatable and to quote one of the actors, "there weren't many lines to learn." Some gore, but very few thrills and the usual horror cliches and no characterisation. At least as far as a $5m B-movie goes it didn't look cheap - apart from Loordi's constumes that is! 2/5 for Finland first proper horror film. Stone's War, Sauna and the one that Brian Yuzna's supposed to be producing better not let me down.

The Dark - turned the TV on 20 minutes in to the film. Atmospheric little ghost story - even if it did lack real scares.

Aww, I was gonna pick up a copy of Dark Floors this week, me local Cinema Store just got the rest of the Ghosthouse Underground titles in. Now I might have to go for that really dodgy-looking vampire one with Sid Haig & Ken Foree sporting the worst looking fangs I've ever seen

Speaking of Stone's War, has anyone got any info on a release date for it yet? Read an article ages ago (in Gorezone, no less) that really whetted my appetite for it. I just can't get enough of those undead Nazis !!!

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:53 pm

so if your in the mood for french head f**king,no thats not a sexual position,but my last 2 film choices,kicking off with Eden Log,so i have sat through this film twice,to try and understand what the hell its about,and its still foggy as hell in there,a mixed up muddled movie,thats really mis sold as something its not,the only thing i can equate it to is a french style version of The Fountain,not that there needed to be a french version as darren aronofskys movie leaves a pretty wide wake in its path,god knows what the FF glasgow folks made of that?
next up Dante01 another film that has no idea what its doing or why its made,another mixed up messed up movie from france,with some religious tones,set in a off planet prison,makes no sense even though its stylishly done,but give me substance over style anyday,if out of this batch of religious toned movies from France,Martyrs works well & delivers on all fronts.
Eden Log, Dante01 films only for the insomnia sufferers!

Bearded Avenger · Post by **Bearded Avenger** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:58 pm

Notts Pete wrote: Aww, I was gonna pick up a copy of Dark Floors this week, me local Cinema Store just got the rest of the Ghosthouse Underground titles in. Now I might have to go for that really dodgy-looking vampire one with Sid Haig & Ken Foree sporting the worst looking fangs I've ever seen

Speaking of Stone's War, has anyone got any info on a release date for it yet? Read an article ages ago (in Gorezone, no less) that really whetted my appetite for it. I just can't get enough of those undead Nazis !!!

Stone's War is coming out in Finland in December. As it's a US co-production it may well come out at the same time or earlier there (orginally it was pencilled in for an August release in the US and September in Finland IIRC).

And seriously - do not buy DVD's in a shop ever again unless it's a sale in which case the £5 your paying is what they should cost!! Ie Forbidden Planet where every DVD is £2 - £4 more expensive than anywhere else. "A Vipco DVD for £7, is he having a laugh - he's having a laugh."

- Bearded Skinflint.

Notts Pete · Post by **Notts Pete** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:07 pm

Nice one Avenger. Really looking forward to Stone's War. Hope it gets a bit of a theatrical release over here.

I know what you mean about buying doovdies in stores, just can't help myself sometimes. I like to go in Cinema Store for a good chat & catch-up with my mates in there - it's just that I usually come away with an empty wallet most times. All those pretty boxes with shiny new discs ... it's like brains to a newly-turned zombie!!