Cinemexperience: part deux., Some more filums you saw. Options

[Llama]

Cool, glad to hear it has a seal of approval, it's been on my secondary 'must watch' list for a while. Thanks for the reminder.

Get to it, sir! And make sure you come back once you've watched it to read this spoiler so I have someone to mention it to: How jarring was the car crash?!

[jem]

Let Me In - Was alright, but I'd take the original over it.

[James Fresco]

Evil Dead 1 and 2 never seen them but watched them by recommendation from Mr. Pegg and Wright. have to say the lo-fi really works and at some points is genuinely scary!

Stil reallllly want to see Let Me In and Burke And Hare

This post has been edited by James Fresco: Oct 20 2010, 09:08 PM

[Rebus]

Let Me In

Stil reallllly want to see Let Me In

Yeah, avoid Let Me In and catch Let the Right One In instead. the former is pointless and seems to be simply made for people who don't like subtitles. I can figure out no other reason it was made.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

A rather kinky tale of survival.

Based on a story by the quite brilliant Harlan Ellison, this film sees Vic (Don Johnson) travelling around a post-apocalyptic Arizona wasteland looking to get laid. To help him in this quest he has Blood, his companion dog that he can speak with telepathically (just go with it). Blood helps him seek out women by using some kind of psychosocial sonar, while Vic hunts down food for the both of them. Unfortunately Vic is successful in his search for sex and when they run into Quilla June Holmes (Susanne Benton), their partnership begins to show cracks.

The first two thirds of this are simply great. The writing is brilliant (as I expected it to be) and the play between man and dog works very well, with Blood constantly correcting Vic's grammar and tutting at his hot-headed stupidity as they travel through the wasteland. There was so much potential for this to be one of the best apocalyptic scifi movies ever, as all the elements of a brilliantly realised environment, and a vast array of vile and ruthless characters were there. However when Vic goes into the Down under (no, not Australia/NZ) that is located underground of the wasteland, things started to get weird. The plot went off on such a strange Kubrickian tangent that for a little while it takes you right out of the whole thing. When it gets back on track again then it's much too late. Plus I'd love to have seen exactly what the Screamers looked like, they sounded horrific.

Still, if you like your tales of post-apocalyptia then give it a go.

[Sostie]

Yeah, avoid Let Me In and catch Let the Right One In instead. the former is pointless and seems to be simply made for people who don't like subtitles. I can figure out no other reason it was made.

Despite adoring the original I really want to see Let Me In, mainly because from what I've seen so far it seems to have taken more from the novel than the first film did. Plus, it's good to see the return of Hammer Films.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

A bona fide classic.


MUTANTS
A couple escape to the French wilderness and hole up in an abandoned hospital after a Rage-like virus wipes most of the population. A pretty good, gritty addition to the ever growing library of interesting/impressive Euro Horror. Ignoring certain characteristics of the virus, this would make a passable companion piece/unofficial spin-off to 28 Weeks Later.

[James Fresco]

I've seen Let The Right One In, I just want to see what Matt Reeves had done with it.

[NiteFall]

Knight And Day

Bad in almost every conceivable way.

[logger]

The Social Network

Sloppy. The dialogue was terrible, the characters ridiculous, the script was laboured with every plot point and metaphor sign posted and the narrative was so unsuited to the subject matter that it bordered on parody. I'm looking forward to the Community version with Abed talking faster and faster and faster.

[maian]

We Are What We Are (2010)

In Mexico, an old man falls down in the street, black liquid falling from his mouth, and dies. His family are understandably devastated by the news, not because he was their father, but because he was the key to their monthly ritual; he was the one who went out and kidnapped people so that his family could kill them and eat their flesh. Life's tough for cannibals with no one to lead them.

I saw this as the opening film to a horror festival that myw work is hosting and the curator described it as "Let The Right One In, but with someone getting lifted up with a meat hook by their face," and that's a pretty fair assessment of the film. Jorge Michel Grau's film treats its sensationalist material very (sometimes too) seriously, in doing so creating a really uneasy atmosphere as the family try to find victims whilst also trying to come to terms with the simmering resentments and feelings that have been bubbling under all their lives.

It takes a while to get to the "horror" aspect of the story, for most part building tension and dynamics, but laying the groundwork like that means that when the film's gran guignol final third kicks in, you feel as invested in the family and the people trying to catch them, setting up a moral question at the end of the movie for the children ("what kind of life do you want to live?") and for the audience ("who do you want to see make it to the end of the film?")

It has some problems, most of which are from a narrative point of view. The two cops investigating the family often feel like a device included solely so that someone can enter the family's house at the end and set up some easy jump-scares, and the film doesn't really explain why the family do what they do, it just takes as read that they do it. Personally, I can overlook those flaws because the film as a whole is so enjoyable and interesting, but the film never resolves them.

It's not the best film about cannibals (which is Ravenous, of course) but it's a really good horror film that also works on an emotional and character level.

[Ade]

Watching the rather sweet The Darjeeling Limited yesterday, I realised that I need to invest in some of The Kinks' back catalogue.

[Julie]

Watching the rather sweet The Darjeeling Limited yesterday, I realised that I need to invest in some of The Kinks' back catalogue.

I adore this movie, and it made me do the same.

[Ade]

I adore this movie, and it made me do the same.

I've also been humming 'Les Champs- Elysees' all day so far.

So glad I finally watched the film, it was considerably more affecting than I was expecting it to be.

[PrincessKate]

It was Robert Downey Jr night at my place last night:

Tuff Turf
It's the 80's, James Spader is the WASP bad boy new kid in town being picked on by the rough LA native gang leader and lusting after his girlfriend from Escape to Witch Mountain with ultra-crimped waist length hair. RDJ drums topless at one point. These are the facts, it is also inexplicably an 18 certificate. There are a gazillion fights and not once does anyone end it with a judicious knee to the balls.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Val Kilmer is the Gay Detective you never knew you wanted til you saw this film. There are boobs, and deaths and fights, one of which does end with a knee to the balls

Sherlock Holmes
Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels only with steam and no dildoes. Awesome.

[Ade]

The Social Network

Very good indeed and thoroughly absorbing, but I wouldn't say it's Fincher's absolute best. Probably #3 though.

[Sostie]

I adore this movie, and it made me do the same.

It gets better with each viewing.


A Serious Man
It's entertaining for the most part, well acted and written, but the lack of any satisfying conclusion left me feeling a bit cold. For me, the least of all the Coen Brothers films

Face/Off
Infanticide, Catholicism, violence, slo-mo, revenge, doves, infidelity, Greek mythology, terrorism, identity crisis, dumb science..this is either the biggest pile of tosh ever or one of the greatest action movies ever...or both. Two leads and a director at the top of their game, it was good to watch again after a gap of a few years. File under: "Bonkers"
I just read who were (allegedly) lined up for the leads before Cage & Travolta: Schwarzenegger and Stallone (in a plot set in the future!) , Jean Claude van damme and Steven Seagal, Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas and Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. I think they went with the right choice

Wrong Turn 3
A prison transport crashes in the wilderness and the guards/escapees are hunted down by a cannibal hill-billy. A bit like the Saw films but without the god-awful philosophising - you're just waiting for the next trap to appear. An American sequel to an American film populated almost entirely by a British cast. Odd. Overall, all a bit "meh".