Movies you've just watched

[Never_Scurred]

I dunno about all the rest of this, but I just got Riki-Oh on BluRay and life is good again.

Oscar has shown his tatoos...now he must kill!!!!

[Obiwanshinobi]

Pic-spam ahoy.
Re-watched The Divine Nymph. One of, you know, THOSE flicks remembered from telly. Especially cocaine and heroine intake. Way to go.
Lots or re-watching all around. So shmupsforum could take rest.





Shot in Romania of all places. Written by Jimmy McGovern (the Cracker guy).



The director said it was quite a love letter to nineteen-seventies cinema, hence the colours (see the old pal Sam Peckinpah). Think Blues Brothers.
Ate some pre-cooked dinner sets as well (if you care to know). VERY tasty.




Yes, it is Rutger Hauer. The Divine Nymph has made me wanna watch more Terence Stamp flicks. I just feel like staring at good looking people.



Farewell to Autumn is, against all odds, pretty good. Not as beefy as Kornblumenblau (shot just two years before it), but I so happen to have a soft spot for that particular period of Polish cinema. I mean, at least the women are beautiful. That's Poland for ya. Sam prelest.

[Skykid]

The Divine Nymph has made me wanna watch more Terence Stamp flicks.

Ha ha, why would anyone want to watch a Terence Stamp flick?

To be fair to the guy, he might be the most hopeless British actor to ever make it into film.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The Divine Nymph is all the look. A visually pleasing film. Terence Stamp happens to look there is all.
Kind of like Alphonse Mucha and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec are better known for their commercial artworks than their "serious" art, there's one hell of a reason for that.

[Eno]

Watched O Homem da Capa Preta, right after Zé do Caixão's hilariously bad interview show on the TV.

It's a boringly long(full 120 min, feels like the double) more-or-less-biography of Tenório Cavalcanti, a curious brazilian political figure famous for always carrying around "Lurdinha", his mp-40, and it wasn't just for show.
Being largely ignorant of his life it was strangely boring and interesting at the same time. You'd see him suffering murder attempts, political plots to make him lose his posts, having his house sieged by the army whatnot and think "so that is it, he dies or goes to jail or whatever and it's a movie" and yet he'd always defuse the situation, expand his political influence and sometimes even kill one of his political opponents. At first it's exciting, but as the movie drags on it becomes depressing to think it's not going to end until perhaps the next plot. And it just seems unbelievable that someone would survive that long while going against brazilian elites .
It also fast-forwards huge parts of his life, like how he got into politics in the first place, and although his family takes quite a bit of screen time it feels as if they are there just to fill time between the more action-packed bits.
Overall I think it was good, but takes a really good dose of patience to watch.

[Moniker]

Finally watched Dances with Wolves (Netflix) all the way through.

Had seen bits and pieces here and there growing up. Surprisingly solid film, given the strikes you just know it had against it going in. E.g., Costner is a poor actor, and, being it's a 1990 film, it was bound to over-romanticize American Indian culture. And yeah, those reservations (NPI) were validated. But it was well-directed, had a solid story and pacing, and demonized white incursion fairly reasonably, although it erred a bit on the excessive side. I especially liked the way the relationships were handled at the end. Certainly worth a see if you haven't yet.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I don't think the Costner flick told anything new after the likes of The Outlaw Josey Wales, but I liked Tin Cup rather a lot. There, I said it. Dunno, maybe I have some connection with golf.

[GaijinPunch]

Meikyuu Monogatari (Labyrinth Tales / Neo Tokyo): Part of the Otomo festival. This was quite loud, but not as loud as Akira. Much less action in the movie, and the print was pretty old as one could imagine. When it was quiet, there was some humming & popping, but not overly. The visuals were pretty clean. I always liked this, but never really loved it. I'm glad I went and saw it, but it wasn't great value. Running time is a mere 50 minutes, which is about the entire time it takes me to get to this particular theater from my home. Also, even though the movie was initially released as a limited feature film (then OVA soon after, then as a wide release film a year and a half after that) I believe it was initially marketed as an OVA. Thus, the ratio is 4:3 which I found particularly annoying.

Next up is Memories.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Re-watching Kiss Me Deadly. As she said, "remember me". Can't believe how blatantly exploitative those Hollywood flicks are. I mean, I should be used to it by now, shouldn't I? But it doesn't happen to me.



Can't believe how bad the music is, either. Screams, on the other hand, are some of the most chilling I've heard in a movie. It's a war flick. Cold war, namely.

[heisenbergman]

Korean movies are pretty difficult marathon material!

I'll probably end up watching them one-at-a-time after all as I can't really see myself being able to find the time to pull off such a marathon.

[Skykid]

Korean movies are pretty difficult marathon material!

I'll probably end up watching them one-at-a-time after all as I can't really see myself being able to find the time to pull off such a marathon.

Then do watch Samaria, it's quite excellent.

Next up is Memories.

Jealous.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I remembered the Box (you know, the monster) in Kiss Me Deadly as rather scary and it holds up. I think mostly the sound does it for me. Just like the screams - doesn't get old.

[GaijinPunch]

Next up is Memories.

Jealous.

Yep, it's a dandy. Would actually like to have seen Roujin Z. Guess since he only wrote it it doesn't count. Robot Carnival would be another goodie.

[heisenbergman]

Korean movies are pretty difficult marathon material!

I'll probably end up watching them one-at-a-time after all as I can't really see myself being able to find the time to pull off such a marathon.

Then do watch Samaria, it's quite excellent.

I'll try to get to that in the near future. I just saw (another of Kim Ki-duk's films) 3-Iron last night and it was fascinating how he's able to tell a compelling story almost without any dialogue.

I don't even know if I want to say that he did it in spite of the lack of dialogue or the effect of the film was enabled by the lack of dialogue. Either way, it was pretty engaging.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Checked out the indie flick by the name of "Violet & Daisy" with the tagline "Too much Sugar can Kill" -- is one of those stylized guns blazing/shoot 'em up flicks except with a pair of assassin gals that do the dirty work. Not to mention it's James Gandofini's last film that he starred in before he died. Some of the goons sent out to kill the guy/main target...you'll just have to see what happens next. There are some surreal scenes to partake in as well.

One gunman keeps on ticking despite getting bullet-ridded numerous times...will he keep on charging or drop dead finally? If you do a frame-by-frame analysis of that particular scene, guess how times he gets shot? In retrospect, that scene is more of an insider joke/tribute to the violent shoot 'em genre if taken at face value.

All this action goes down in New York of all places but anywhere could substitute for it any ol' day of the week.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Acid King]

Re-watching Kiss Me Deadly. As she said, "remember me". Can't believe how blatantly exploitative those Hollywood flicks are.

They were pretty much the era's equivalent to the low budget sploitation flicks of the 60's and 70's, though they were never really as dark or as raw as the pulp stories that spawned them. The original Kiss Me, Deadly novel was about the mob, not the cold war, and one of the eras other Mike Hammer adaptations, My Gun is Quick, took a story about a prostitution ring and turned it into a story about stolen Nazi jewelry.

[drauch]

Yup yup, early Hollywood exploitation is incredible stuff. So fun and pulpy and imaginative. Aldrich was the man.

[Acid King]

Vice Raid


A not all that notable B-grade noir that's nevertheless worth watching because holy shit Mamie van Doren was a babe.

[Ixmucane2]

The Hobbit: The Dumbing Down of Smaug

The screenplay covers the whole spectrum of filler: coherent and respectful developments of implicit or sketchy aspects (e.g. Lake-town politics), gratuitous action scenes (the whole point of the orcs), out of place subplots with extra characters (who cares about elf love triangles?), disconcerting inventions (the Necromancer subplot, starting from the previous film), brutal abuses of disbelief and expectations (90% of what the dwarves do once they are under the mountain).

Slow paced parts of the book (most notably, crossing Mirkwood and searching for the secret entrance of Erebor) are drastically shortened, with the obvious intent of turning an epic quest into a frantic action plot. It goes without saying that most of the atmosphere and the awesomeness are thrown out of the window; for example, the Ring has a lot of screen time as a practical burglar tool, and the Arkenstone is basically a toy that Smaug uses to make Bilbo run around.

Uneven scenery and special effects: most are well made, some are particularly creative (e.g. the path through Mirkwood), some look like random stuff out of a videogame (e.g. Dol Guldur architecture). Smaug looks like a guest from Dungeons & Dragons illustrations, a mundane big guy rather than a legendary monster.

[drauch]

Seeing it in a week or so. I expect another very mediocre film, exactly as you described.

[null1024]

Super Mario Bros.

Christ, this movie is terrible and amazing in equal part. Hideous acting [Luigi is the absolute worst], but super-cool set design. Like, I really wish that kind of schizo-tech style was in a better movie. Hideous writing, but delightfully New York. It's bad, but has so much to enjoy. There's a billion really interesting things about it that deserved a better script and actors. Oh, and it has fuck-all to do with the Mario games, but we all know that.

I enjoyed it more than the Street Fighter II movie at least.

also, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario makes too much damn sense to ignore ;3

[SuperGrafx]

It just wouldn't be the holidays without watching Christmas Vacation at least once.
Great movie...brings me back to those great carefree years where the only concern on my mind was hoping that I'd get a Gameboy for Christmas.

[EmperorIng]

Touch of Evil with Orson Welles.
Charlton Heston playing a Mexican aside, this film was really good. Especially the opening shot (all three-and-a-half minutes of it). I love a good noir and Welles' tale of murder and moral vacuity is oozing with slime, corruption, and tension. Bonus points for moral ambiguity throughout, as we can't completely finger out Welles' fat, disgusting cop as totally evil, or Heston's clueless chicano as completely good (leaving a wife in an abandoned motel owned by a drug lord - great idea).

Super Mario Bros.

Christ, this movie is terrible and amazing in equal part. Hideous acting [Luigi is the absolute worst], but super-cool set design. Like, I really wish that kind of schizo-tech style was in a better movie. Hideous writing, but delightfully New York. It's bad, but has so much to enjoy. There's a billion really interesting things about it that deserved a better script and actors. Oh, and it has fuck-all to do with the Mario games, but we all know that.

I enjoyed it more than the Street Fighter II movie at least.

also, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario makes too much damn sense to ignore ;3

It's a guilty pleasure. I liked it as a kid and there's no real reason to like it, but I do all the same. I too just loved the bizarre cyberpunkish technology-run-rampant the Mushroom Kingdom had going on. It made no sense but who cares?

[Ed Oscuro]

Man I need to see that sometime! (Both of them!)

[conversation started out of thin air]
<mib_0knxgt>: super mario bros needs to be made into a game
<mib_0knxgt>: don't you agree
<redrum>: it'd never work
<jimmymnemonic>: two plumbers who beat up lizards is dumb
<mib_0knxgt>: but fireballs man
<mib_0knxgt>: those seem pretty video game-y to me
<jimmymnemonic>: needs guns and explosions and army guys

[Skykid]

Django 1966


Took me forever and a day to get the blu-ray version in Italiano and subs. Was a gritty spaghetti western with a complete nothing for a plot, but it did have a man dragging a fully-loaded coffin around the place and shooting lots of people. Some decent cinematography on a shoestring, although some of the other aspects were rough around the edges, especially in terms of editing and continuity. But Nero was a good lead, the theme song is legendary, and I enjoyed it well enough. Ain't Leone standard, but then not much is.

[drauch]

Not many westerns match Corbucci's grittiness that Django achieved. While I feel Corbucci's early rough directing kind of accentuates the nastiness of the entire film (much like most 60-70s grindhousey stuff is so sloppy, but it just adds to the sleaze!), his later stuff like Companeros, The Professional Gun, and especially The Great Silence, really show his ability to make a damn fine, well directed western. There's definitely a reason the Spaghetti community usually talks about the three Sergios (Leone, Corbucci, Sollima), and then everyone else.

[replayme]

Saw The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug over the weekend. Pretty good. Looking forward to the last chapter...

[MX7]

Saw some good stuff over the weekend.

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls - Absolutely joyous film making. Pretty big budget softcore/psychedelia with amazing cinematography and music. I don't rate Roger Ebert terribly highly as a critic, but as a screenwriter, he's right up my street. I could watch and rewatch this over and over, and I can't wait to show it to more people.

Weekend - Seen it a ridiculous number of times, but everything about this is sublime. From the effortless critique of the bourgeoisie, to the gorgeous Brechtian inter-titles to the mind destroying nihilistic tracking shots and the shrieking, gore-soaked setting. Godard flew up his own arse, but this is the perfect sweet spot between abjection and coherence. The bit where the protagonists murder Emily Bronte after lamenting what a boring film they're stuck in is one of the most perfect dichotomies of comedy and pure skin-crawling horror in film history.

Repulsion - My first viewing. It only struck me an hour later that it's a horror film. Everything is so insidious, so assured. (I need to watch more Polanski. I have Chinatown on VHS.) I guess like Haneke it would ruin the oppression to talk about the film too much. But Bridgette Bardot has such lovely hair.

Problem Child 2 - There's a food fight with the guy who plays the parrot from Aladdin. I've watched so many gut wrenching horrors by this time I'm expecting someone to be dissected on screen but the kid just occasionally says "shit" and winks at the camera a few time. Missed opportunity.

Edit: Super Mario Bros. Would make a great double bill with Blue Velvet.

Bowser: "I'LL FUCK ANYTHING THAT MOVES".

[Never_Scurred]

Django 1966


Took me forever and a day to get the blu-ray version in Italiano and subs. Was a gritty spaghetti western with a complete nothing for a plot, but it did have a man dragging a fully-loaded coffin around the place and shooting lots of people. Some decent cinematography on a shoestring, although some of the other aspects were rough around the edges, especially in terms of editing and continuity. But Nero was a good lead, the theme song is legendary, and I enjoyed it well enough. Ain't Leone standard, but then not much is.

I loved it, though I wish the (SPOILERZ!) coffin surprise didn't come so early in the film. Would've been perfect for the third act. Have you seen any of the sequels?

[lilmanjs]

Just Heroes
Stephen Chow does excellent in this movie and shows that he can do serious roles. Also Wu Ma is in this movie as well and I've only ever seen him in Comedy roles and Jackie Chan movies. Still this was directed by John Woo and Wu Ma and seems to fall under the Heroic Bloodshed style of movies, even if really there's only a few action scenes save for the final one which doesn't actually have as much bloodshed as many others in the genre. Still a good story to go along with the action scenes, and one that actually makes sense. I enjoyed this even if I didn't expect mainly comedic actors to pull off serious roles.