Movies you've just watched

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BIL
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

NIGHTMARE CITY (1980) Oh no! RADIATION ZOMBIS invade NIGHTMARE CITY. Standard-issue Italo-cheese ala Romero. OR IS IT :o In addition to the always likeable Hugo Stiglitz, it gains some short-lived intrigue from its Smart Zombis™. They've an eerily industrious malevolence, nicking cars, wielding firearms and setting ambushes in search of BRAINZ.

Unfortunately, after a cracking opening scene, the film steadily degrades into bog-standard zombi shite. Sports the peculiarly Italian knacks for snazzy disco-rock, minor characters whose interminable ramblings make their ghoulish slayings Totes Dramatic (oh no, not the police chief's daughter! and her boyfriend!), and a real dry fart of a non-ending.

On the plus side, it's on Youtube in full! Image Not the worst afternoon's distraction if you know what you're in for. Go with balls-out B-terrorizer DEMONI (feat. Tony The Pimp) or the sillier DEMONI 2 for Italo Smart Zombis™ imo.

DEMONI (1985) Oh hey this is on TEH TOOB as well, nice. Image Impeccable B-zombi schlock. Keeps it concise and nasty, occult contagion raging in confined space as 80s Action Hunk, his missus, and Tony The Pimp battle to survive. Artfully undergirds its urban slaughterhouse with a wider scenario of inescapable doom. ROCKIN SOUNDTRACK feat. best possible use of FAST AS A SHARK Image
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drauch
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by drauch »

Two of my favorites. I love the oatmeal zombies in Nightmare City so much. Features one of the bets bodyfalls of all time!

Demons 2 is also super sick. Some people knock it, but it's just the same formula in an apartment complex so I don't see how anyone could dislike it! Despite like a million "Demons" sequels that aren't related, I wish they would have done way more of these in different places! I love nothing more than chaotic fiction and survival and mutants/demons :mrgreen:
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BIL
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

Ah yes, was gonna mention the big drop! RICHARD KIMBLE ain't got shit on this, 10/10 triple axle onto the roof of the pizza joint. :cool:

I went headfirst into DEMONS 3 / La Chiesa not knowing about its production woes, and was very confused! IIRC I liked it for what it was though. Felt like they were trying to staple on a bit of the OG duo's claustrophobic mass hysteria near the end, plus Goatman getting his freak on ofc.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by drauch »

Oh yeah, The Church is rad. Goatman is glorious. I still need to see Soavi's The Sect, which sometimes gets the "Demons 4" moniker and is the only "Demons" I haven't seen. Otherwise I'd recommend all the others to a degree, except The Ogre (Demons 3) and Black Demons (Demons 3). Basically stay away from the other two threes! :lol: Their only offense is they're just a slog (with The Ogre originally a TV movie), despite being directed by groovy dudes.
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BIL
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BIL »

Was recommended the below long ago, while seeking more meta-horrors ala Jan Svankmajer's Faust (a superbly earthy, practical effects-laden nightmare trip). God knows why I watched 'em now, but I did, god dammit.

Image

Anguish (1987) Conceptually clever, functionally dry quasi-slasher. Fictional film "The Mommy" - a Hitchcock meets Argento gorenographic psychodrama, about an eye-snatching surgeon/mama's boy - is menacing a teen girl in the audience! But is that all that is really going on?! zomg!

Competent, forgettable Slasher ala 80s, upgraded to a surly one-trick pony by its under-utilised premise. Fine for approximately one watch, bonus points if you dig lurid Euro-horrors masquerading as set in Burgerville Image

Berberian Sound Studio (2012) A finely oneiric disintegration of onscreen reality, gorgeously stylised to boot. It is the 1970s! Timid English audio engineer and nature enthusiast GILDEROY arrives at the titular Italian studio, his virtuosic Foley skills desired by the producers of THE EQUESTRIAN VORTEX. Unfortunately for our nebbish protagonist, this isn't an amiable horse-riding documentary, but balls-out Bava-rama. Extreme violence against watermelons, courgettes and other juicy foodstuffs ensues - the artfully unseen gothic atrocity exhibition testing Gilderoy's professionalism and balls, as his surroundings grow ever chillier. Why did he get this job anyway? Hmm.

Doesn't quite stick the landing - decidedly un-climactic, though not anti-climactic. Something's definitely culminated over the discomforting trip, and not just the director's afternoon wank! The intricately detailed, exquisitely slow collapse of its narrative moves me to file Berberian as One Of The Good Ones. At a relatively lean ~90mins, it's recommendable simply for its small cast's stage-worthy performance, and its suave, unmistakably affectionate capture of a 1970s analogue recording environment. A potentially very revisitable unravelling.
xxx1993

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by xxx1993 »

Got around to seeing The New Mutants. Was it really the grand sendoff for the X-Men?
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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xxx1993 wrote:Got around to seeing The New Mutants. Was it really the grand sendoff for the X-Men?
I haven't watched it yet. Not sure if I want to because I am a long-time New Mutants fan. I read them in the 80's and I was very into the whole inter-series cross-over stuff that was going on at the time. (like Power Pack and Cloak and Dagger, etc, etc)

My real hope is that New Mutants get quietly redone by it's new Disney masters to fit into whatever is coming. I guess I could still watch this one, but maybe I'll wait until I hear the future plans for the series with some certainty.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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vol.2 wrote:I haven't watched it yet. Not sure if I want to because I am a long-time New Mutants fan. I read them in the 80's and I was very into the whole inter-series cross-over stuff that was going on at the time. (like Power Pack and Cloak and Dagger, etc, etc)
New Mutants was an incredible book for a while. That first Asgard / X-Men crossover was magical.

Image

With such a good primary work, I'm generally disinterested in adaption. They're obviously not going to be able to put in all the character interaction and development in a single movie. I liked Anya Taylor-Joy's performance in The Witch, though, and I kind of want to see how she handles this team's resident demon sorceress.
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Obiwanshinobi
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

The majority of readers were boys, weren't they?
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vol.2
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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Obiwanshinobi wrote:The majority of readers were boys, weren't they?
most definitely; there is no doubt that gendering had impact on the development of comic narratives in the 80's.

however, my general impression of marvel at the time is that they were attempting to be more open-minded, and new mutants was an especially forward-thinking book in terms of strong female characters and established norms.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by BryanM »

Face the Music, the kyogre virus has really modernized the movie distribution system.

It's not my thing, but I was never a fan of the franchise anyway. I liked the ending.
xxx1993

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by xxx1993 »

Actually, I take that back about New Mutants being a "grand sendoff" for the X-Men. Because it's not really an X-Men movie, even though the X-Men were briefly mentioned at one point. It's a New Mutants movie. It was supposed to be the start of a new franchise until Disney bought Fox.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mortificator »

Us

From the same writer / director as Get Out, and unfortunately much weaker. Part of it is Lupita Nyong'o in the dual role as hero and villain, the latter of which involves her using a raspy voice and dance-fighting (seriously). Part of it's the concept. I could've accepted doppelgangers that were supernatural or literally just unexplained, but this movie eventually reveals them to have a scientific origin.
Spoiler
Scientists working in secret suberrranean labs cloned everyone in the town. The scientists left and abandoned the clones underground, though there's nothing stopping the clones from walking to the surface using such exits as an escalator to a beach. The clones just stay underground, and end up mating with the same people and having the same kids as everyone on the surface so there's still a 1:1 copy of everyone decades later. Then the clones finally attack, armed with scissors. It's like a less plausible version of Star Wars Episode II.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

Osaka Elegy / Naniwa Elegy (1936)

I guess I'm not a total fucking weeb because I'm still thrown for a loop when something is so old it's written backwards, as is the case with this movie title, and many shop signs in the film. Seriously, wtf is that all about? Maybe I'll indulge that Wikipedia rabbit hole another day.

Anywho, this was quite a charming little number about a phone operator at a local company whose life goes a bit awry when she begrudgingly agrees to become her bosses side ho to help her family. Despite the pearl clutching subject matter, all sleaze is obviously conducted off screen. Characters range from ball busting wives, bufoony men, somewhat relatable men, and a resilient protagonist (played by Isuzu Yamada who has 179 acting credits on IMDB). Whether the story does it for you or not, it's still worth a gander as this is a glimpse into life many worlds ago. For reference, the Great Kantou Earthquake had come and gone, Japan was currently annexing Manchuria and Korea, yet in Osaka, life was normal by standards of the time. There's even a handful of night shots and one cannot help but question the attempt after seeing the abysmal results. I can't say with 100% certainty but I do not think even the equivalent of ISO 400 film existed at this time. Maybe not even 100. And well, a couple of scenes look like some cloud moving over the abyss as the result. The Osaka dialect mixed w/ the aged soundtrack made the subtitles indispensable. Currently on HBO Max, along with another Kenji Mizoguchi favorite Ugetsu, which I'll tend to shortly.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by lilmanjs »

Drunken Master
Jackie does well in this and the secret fighting style provides a good bit of laughs. Really enjoyed the comedy and humbleness that Jackie's character goes through along the way. Up after this is Police Story III: Supercop from the recent updated release from Hong Kong Rescue. He used several different sources to get the color grading of the 4K master back to original colors for his release.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

Bill & Ted 3 doesn't suck!

IMO: 1 > 3 > 2 > TV show
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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Mischief Maker wrote:Bill & Ted 3 doesn't suck!

IMO: 1 > 3 > 2 > TV show
Thank god. Looking forward to it.

I actually saw the double feature 2 years ago here in baltimore at the Parkway theater. Alex Winter was there and did an hour long Q&A with the audience and he talked about B&T3 some. It was actually pretty great. He's a smart dude.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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Mischief Maker wrote:Bill & Ted 3 doesn't suck!

IMO: 1 > 3 > 2 > TV show
Great to hear. Probably watch it this weekend.

In the late 80's if you had to pick an actor who would still be relevant in 2020, no one would have picked Keanu Reeves, but here he is.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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I've been reading a lot of reviews that are lukewarm on Bill & Ted 3, and the one common denominator is they all thought Bogus Journey was the best of the trilogy.

Since they're asking for $20 to stream-rent Bill & Ted 3, I should contextualize my recommendation of the movie by saying it's almost more of a fictional sequel to Anvil: The Story of Anvil than Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

If you didn't like the Anvil documentary, maybe it won't be for you.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by vol.2 »

Mischief Maker wrote:I've been reading a lot of reviews that are lukewarm on Bill & Ted 3, and the one common denominator is they all thought Bogus Journey was the best of the trilogy.

I don't want to get too deep into it, because I'd like to just watch the movie without too much thought on it, but I have to disagree here. Bogus Journey is a technically better movie; it's smarter, better supporting actors, better written (the bulk of it), but it's not the better movie. I can accept "different," but I completely reject "better."

I was super happy when Bogus Journey came out, and I enjoyed it, but it failed to make the same impression on me that Excellent Adventure did. Sure, both movies had some goofy humor, and there were some dumb plot lines that only sort-of fleshed out, but the real weakness of Bogus Journey is the character of De Nomolos. Through no fault of Joss Ackland's fantastic character acting, the whole role is dumb and really drags down the whole film. The first movie was an adventure, and Bill and Ted's enemy was always themselves. There were obstacle character like Ted's Dad, and the royal dudes, but never enemies. Bogus Journey tried to introduce a central big baddie and utterly, completely failed and sank the movie with it. I'll go as far as to say that the movie would have been at least 2 stars better if they had just dropped the character of De Nomolos altogether and made up some "cosmic excuse" for the main tension in the movie, like a fracture in the space time continuum or whatever.
xxx1993

Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by xxx1993 »

Got around to seeing Tenet. I gotta say... It was a really confusing movie. But I still liked it.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

Checked out the cool sci-fi film that goes by the title of "Archive" that hails from Hungary on Redbox. It has some cool vibes of both Blade Runner & Ghost in The Shell aesthetics throughout the movie.

The other cool sci-fi film on Redbox is "Coma" that hails from Russia is worth checking out as well. It does feature an impressive 2,700+ CG shots throughout the movie.

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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Ixmucane2 »

Tenet

An original take on time travel, with a fairly unusual type of time machine and a level of of detail and consistency one or two more orders of magnitude greater than in a normal Hollywood script. It's the sort of complicated thriller in which the traditional puzzling action-filled prologue that introduces the protagonist becomes more puzzling as information is revealed.

Many scenes show off time travel with special effects, and they are cool and expressive even if one thinks "wait a minute, this is physically impossible!"; a style that goes hand in hand with diving head first into time travel paradoxes of causality and free will (also discussed explicitly by characters) instead of minimizing them.

I'm tempted to watch it again, maybe backwards.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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Ixmucane2 wrote:
I'm tempted to watch it again, maybe backwards.
Are you already a Christopher Nolan fan in general? Asking because I've read a lot of conflicting reviews of the movie, mostly boiling down to "it's only for the converted."
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Ixmucane2 »

vol.2 wrote:I've read a lot of conflicting reviews of the movie, mostly boiling down to "it's only for the converted."
Nolan is an outlier because he tries to combine traditional spectacular action and complex storytelling. In Memento he pursued a relatively simple original idea; in the Batman trilogy and in Dunkirk he was constrained by having a specific story to tell and he focused on style and details; in his most original creations like The Prestige and Inception he ran wild with novel creations, and Tenet is even more extreme.
If appreciating this kind of cinema requires a "conversion" we've fallen very low.

I have a particular aversion for arbitrary time travel plots and Tenet isn't good enough for my tastes, but it comes close and it's a mostly successful attempt to tell a special kind of story. Traditional Nolan weak points like mediocre music (less bad than in Dunkirk) and excessive firefights (less out of place than in Inception) remain.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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Ixmucane2 wrote: If appreciating this kind of cinema requires a "conversion" we've fallen very low.
That's not a fair statement at all. Appreciation of a director's personality and style is separate and different from an understanding and appreciation of cinematic convention and art.

I'm into plenty of artistic "outliers" in many fields, including film, but I wouldn't expect them all to have universally resonating content.

Just like all auteurs, Nolan has a stamp that he aesthetically applies to his work. If I'm going to sit down and analyze the film, I can get past that and enjoy the analysis, but I have never liked his aesthetic.
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

Just watched Ninja Assassin.

Ugh! CGI blood, choppy fight editing, unclear rules as to exactly how indestructible ninjas are supposed to be and how their shadow teleporting powers work.

And whose stupid idea was it to give throwing stars those cartoon "swoosh" effects?
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by chempop »

Midsommar

Loved it 10/10
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Re: Movies you've just watched

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Mischief Maker wrote: And whose stupid idea was it to give throwing stars those cartoon "swoosh" effects?
Someone who liked the "laser" sound effects for web shooting in the 80s Spider-Man cartoon a bit too much?
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Re: Movies you've just watched

Post by Obiwanshinobi »

Ixmucane2 wrote: Nolan is an outlier because he tries to combine traditional spectacular action and complex storytelling.
Complex by what standards? I wouldn't know as, having once failed to endure watching all of Inception, I've yet to give him second chance. I happen to consider story The Sting (1973) tells pretty complex for Hollywood. Another example of popular fiction - I would have a tricky time summarising a single story by Raymond Chandler (whose book I like to read every now and then).
What I remember from Inception was like a prothesis of any good scenario. Looked like a feature film-long TV ad of something I couldn't put my hands on, to me.

What was the latest Hollywood film anyone thought had a good scenario anyway? Looking at filmography of David S. Ward, I see he did some writing for Flyboys (2006). That was an O.K. movie, decently written, I thought. I don't think Hit & Run (2012) was "Hollywood", it was funnily written instead.
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