PeterPan wrote: Have you seen Chanbara Beauty? Would you recommend it.
Depends on what you're after, if you're after Pretty Japanese girl in skimpy outfits fighting zombies with way too much cgi then it's pretty good. Because of the cgi it kinda has a videogame feel to it, which suits it quite well since it's based on a videogame.
If you don't want too much cgi in your pretty Japanese girls vs zombies then just check out Zombie self defence force Riku - zombie hunter or Girls rebel force of competetive swimmers. All low budget flicks that do use cgi but get away with it. Cus they're stupid fun . And I like happen to like stupid fun
You can't do nothing right, Cooper! You stupid sonofabitch! You should have been destroyed at birth! That's what I get for teaming up with a hippie!
Automaton Transfusion this one really disappointed after all the hype i had heard, there are some pretty grizzly and realistic effects, but a bit of acting in the gaps between would have been nice.
Wasting Away this unlikely zombie comedy really surprised me and i thoroughly enjoyed it, seeing things from the zombie's point of view didn't really appeal to me, until it was executed so well and made so funny, remember: "Zombies are people too"
Doghouse I have a vested interest in this film and will always be biased, but i did really enjoy watching it for the first time with a smoke and there's an excellent blooper reel. Did you know that this film should have an intro sequence (in Moodley the night before) that was cut off to make the film shorter. It's an awfull shame as i feel the film does need it. I will be kicking up a fuss and writing some stiff letters, anybody else want to see a director's cut of Doghouse? let's start up a posse, where's my green ink?
Dead Snow watched it again with a friend, still love it- it's difficult to be funny and look good at the same time. I've seen the future of horror comedies, and it's Scandinavian.
I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum
Mr Bill wrote:
Doghouse I have a vested interest in this film and will always be biased, but i did really enjoy watching it for the first time with a smoke and there's an excellent blooper reel. Did you know that this film should have an intro sequence (in Moodley the night before) that was cut off to make the film shorter. It's an awfull shame as i feel the film does need it. I will be kicking up a fuss and writing some stiff letters, anybody else want to see a director's cut of Doghouse? let's start up a posse, where's my green ink?
Mr Bill wrote:
Doghouse I have a vested interest in this film and will always be biased, but i did really enjoy watching it for the first time with a smoke and there's an excellent blooper reel. Did you know that this film should have an intro sequence (in Moodley the night before) that was cut off to make the film shorter. It's an awfull shame as i feel the film does need it. I will be kicking up a fuss and writing some stiff letters, anybody else want to see a director's cut of Doghouse? let's start up a posse, where's my green ink?
Thanks to my good (and generous) friend Grindhouse, a copy of the Doghouse blu-ray appeared on my coffe table the other day. I've been a bit skint this month and Grindy knew it's my fave film of the year & was just dying to see it again - thanks matey, that puts you top of my Christmas card list!
I do agree with most of her comments regarding some of the extras posted on the Blu-ray thread (I was surprised that the scene with Billy Murray being chased into the woods and the Snipper giving the naked man a little operation wansn't included as it's still showing over on the Gorezone website) - but it's stil a very nice disc with great picture and sound & the extras that are there are pretty darn good!!
Grindy's partner and myself cornered Jake at the Empire back in August and asked him what we could look forward to & whether we'd have to resort to importing German steelbooks for a commentary (as with Evil Aliens). He did say that he was hoping to produce a Special Edition down the road and that Emily had filmed her own behind the scenes piece as well.
So, I guess we'll just have to be patient and see what happens - shame Nucleus can't release a Collector's Edition, Jake and Marc always deliver the goods in regards to extras on all their releases so far... ah well, fingers crossed...
I bet you think you know all about vampires ... believe me, you know f@*& all.
a retro screening of Dirty Dancing this evening in memory of Patrick Swayze,and a 20 yr old print to boot,made it all the more special,as i never saw this on the big screen in 87,and it was so much fun with a packed house enjoying the film,great film,great music,if its on a big screen near you with all the pops n scratches go enjoy it in stereo sound.
Joon-ho Bong's follow up to The Host is a slowburning Hitchcockian thriller in which the mother of a mentally challanged young man tries to clear his name after his arrest for the murder of a school girl. As the mother Hye-ja Kim delivers one of the best performances I've seen on screen this year.
The film is essentially a very deliberatly paced procedural mystery, as the mother with the assistance of various characters (and none from the police, the S.Korean PD yet again portrayed as bumbling idiots) uncovers clues by piecing together the often contradictory accounts of events. The slow pacing pays off in a series of fantastic narrative twists in the second half of the film.
This is easily one of the best films of the year.
Valhalla Rising
VR is as Alan Jones says in his Stiges roundup, a hardcore art film mixing moments of extreme brutality, with striking and often symbolic visuals, and the sparsest of narratives told very, very, slowly. It's closer to Aguirre that The Vikings.
Mad Mikkleson plays mute barbarian One-Eye who starts the film as a slave before falling in with a group of Christian vikings on their way to the Holy land. Needless to say things don't go to plan.
This is not going to be everyone's cup of entrails by a long shot, some will find it insufferably slow and obtuse.
Mikkleson is great in a really tricky part. One-Eye is a symbol, not a character, he doesn't have a single line of dialogue, and maintains an almost completely blank expression at all times whilst half his face is caked in Fulci-esque makeup. And yet, he is completely mesmerising. He also gets to disembowel someone with his bare hands at one point... which is cool.
Refyn tapped Tarkosky's Stalker, Snake Plisken and ace spaghetti western The Big Silence as influences. I also felt strong echoes of Herzog and Jodorowski.
I loved it, although I don't know what that says about me.
Excellent movie. Great performances throughout, especially the 'mother' herself.
I loved the cinematography in this and absolutely (and this is not giving any spoilers away which would ruin the plot) love the title sequence and end sequence on the bus before the credits roll. Just nuts...
Go see this when, and if it gets a general release, especially before someone blurbs out the ending..
Also finally got round to seeing Antichrist. The beginning scene was shot well, and then the got dull and then just randomly nasty in the last act.
Oh you evil twisted bastards! After the SAW V I thought i was done with you. But no, you had to twist the knife once more!
Favorites in order:
SAW 3
SAW 1/SAW 6
SAW2/SAW4
SAW 5
Yes i like SAW 3 the best. why? one word... AMANDA
For me the character was the best thing about the saw films. The flashbacks, the eventual turn to john kramer(jigsaw) made me route for her all the way. And when she flipped out on him, i was stunned. So when she died, i was crushed. Now, thanks to SAW 6 i know why she turned on him. I won't give it away, but all the way through this one, i knew what was going to happen. And as the flashbacks and the film unfolded, i knew the end was going to be special. The end didn't go exactly as i expected, but now SAW 7 may turn into a free for all!
True there were some bad parts to this
* two characters, one surprise that were pointless and wasted.
*The game itself. you knew how it would turn out.
*The eventual survivors? what wil happen to them? And as for survivors?
where's eric mathews son? where's geoff's daughter?
Did riggs survive?
And how many abandoned buildings are there in that bloody city?!
Ka-Fai Wai's last film was Mad Detective, in which a detective solves a crime by having himself put in a suitcase and chucked down some stairs!
Now he's directed Written By... a film about a car crash which devestates a family... the father dies, the daughter is left blind, and 10 years on, the mother is still not over it. So, in an effort to keep his memory alive, the blind daughter begins writing a novel where, post-accident, the opposite has happened - the father lives (but is blind) and everyone else died (including the son)
So now we start following his fictional life (set a year after the accident) where he - and his house - are in a mess, but he gets an idea - he will write a novel (on a brail typewriter) set after the accident, where his family are now ghosts who move his entire house to a cemetary, and his daughter (not blind) runs some sort of Harry Potter tram outside the house at night - but he doesn't realise, because he's still blind!
...all this in the first 20 minutes or so.
Very Charlie Kaufman, very interesting, but I found the tone to be all over place. Worth a watch though.
And another thumbs -up for Mother - shows how you can shift in tone... funny, tragic... but not in the jarring way Written By did.
HALLOWEEN II Nearly missed catching this on the big screen but forced myself out for it's final 11:30 screening in Nottingham last night. Really glad I did, too!!
This really is Rob Zombie's Halloween II, with some brave choices that, for the most part, really pay off - setting this far aside from the likes of the Friday 13th remake, Bloody Valentine 3D etc.
Great idea to shoot it on 16 mm - the dark, grainy image looks amazing, making the most of the hazy Autumn colours and giving a look that takes you right back to the days of the original TCM.
A lot of people don't like the Sheri Moon dream sequences but I really thought they brought something different to the table and served up some great images.
The kills were incredibly brutal and Tyler Mane really showed the fury inside Michael during these scenes.
I have to admit, I didn't really care much for Scout Taylor-Compton in the first movie but I felt she really sold the traumatised, disturbed Laurie in this one. Similarly, Brad Douriff and Danielle Harris give great performances and create real characters that you actually care about. Malcolm MacDowall's Loomis character turning into a complete media-slut won't please a lot of people, but it's a nice twist and Sheriff Brackett kind of fills the Loomis role here anyway. And, as ever, Zombie throws in some great cameos with the likes of Margot Kidder and Howard Hesseman turning up.
Zombie seems to have finished his story of Michael Myers and I'm glad he's walking away before they ruin things with Halloween 3D. His two films will never replace Carpenter's classic, but Zombie's made two strong, brave, visceral slashers in their own right and he deserves credit for this.
So, all in al, it's not a traditional Halloween II - but would everyone really have preferred that?
Now, please Mr Zombie, put that Blob remake (that's only going to get more people's backs up) on the back-burner and get cracking on another original project like Tyranosaurus Rex!!
I bet you think you know all about vampires ... believe me, you know f@*& all.
Saw IV. Dear oh dear. Flashbacks which made this a bit confusing. At times I was chuckling how ridiculous it was getting. Some good deaths but very much a dumb fun film. Wonder next be Saw in 3D or Saw in space.
UP in 3D
seeing this in 3D isnt necessary to enjoy or get the most from the film as the 3d does feel to sparse to make it a full 3d feature.
the films first 10 mins does feel a very adult film and at times later on there are some touching moments,but its a great movie and worth watching.
