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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2018 Edition)

Started by zomgmouse, January 07, 2018, 12:20:15 PM

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zomgmouse

Quote from: greenman on October 24, 2018, 12:05:01 AM
I'm not much of a viewer of Italia horror besides him but it does actually seem like the film is reasonably aware of its cheesiness, as if its almost accepting you work withing a certain framework.

I wouldn't say its really all that focused on telling a conventional story were your reaction is driven by the stories of the characters so much as it is the general atmosphere and in that respect I do think it manages to be quite creepy at points with its general strangeness as mentioned more like a fevered dream.

Yeah, it's putting on a particular vibe and using a very heightened form of style to do so. I would argue that there's a large difference between watching something through that lens, i.e. acknowledging said heightened style, and "ironic detachment" or "so bad it's good". I love the film for precisely those reasons - it's a grand horror, operatic in a way. Folkloric and fabulist, like a huge fairy tale. And at the end of the day being mangled by barbed wire is fucking horrible.

Sebastian Cobb

Tonight I saw Park Chan-Wook's The Handmaiden. It was quality.

zomgmouse

Stuff I have seen recently:

Dillinger Is Dead. Lashings of ennui and angst. Quite remarkable and not a lot of dialogue, and creates a supremely singular atmosphere.

Private Hell 36. Fairly decent noir, kind of unwieldy in parts but solid overall.

Custard

A couple 70's Mike Leigh TV plays I'd not seen yet. Available on Amazon Video for 1.89 each. Niiice

Grown Ups - A feature length story about a young couple moving into their first house together. Solid cast, and pretty funny at points. Phil Davis steals the show as the dopey husband, who gets sick of his annoying sister in law constantly coming round. "Whaaat's sheeeee doing eeeeere?"

The Kiss Of Death - Not as exciting as the title may suggest. David Thelfall plays a young rash-faced undertaker who meets a cute shoe shop assistant. The film then meanders about for an hour, with them sitting in boring empty pubs, and him standing her up. Found this one a bit disappointing, especially after Grown Ups was so good

Neither are Abigail's Party or Nuts In May, but glad I can finally tick them off

hedgehog90

Recently:

Vampyr
Godzilla (Japanese original)
The Seventh Seal
Double Indemnity
Three Colors: Blue
Kings of the Road
The Apartment
Irreversible
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Tetsuo, the Iron Man
North by Northwest
L'Avventura
Au Hasard Balthazar
The Maltese Falcon
The Phantom Carriage
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner & Handicapped Future (early Herzog docs)
A Trip to the Moon
The French Connection

My top picks in order of appreciation: Irreversible, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Phantom Carriage, Kings of the Road & The French Connection.

But I didn't get on much with Vampyr, Godzilla, The Maltese Falcon or L'Avventura.
I was admittedly pretty tired when I watched the first 3, L'Avventura though was just a bit of a slog. I couldn't have cared less about those characters if I tried.

Sebastian Cobb

Did Barbera Stanwyck do any shit films? I've seen quite a few, including a couple that shouldn't be my cup of tea but still enjoyed them.

amputeeporn

Happiness 1998

God damn, even the bleakness of Welcome to the Dollhouse didn't quite prepare me for this. I guess this might be the definition of black comedy in (what looks like) a major movie. I get a strange feeling from 90s films these days, of how impossibly, awfully the world has shifted since, but it was really heightened in this case by a boyish Philip Seymour Hoffman and a gorgeous, pre-madness/plastic surgery Lara Flynn Boyle.

The child-abuse plot tackled in such an obviously ironic cookie cutter way was both disturbing and funny, though the bleakness of these two films does make me worry somewhat for their creator...

I'd be very interested to hear what people think about his later films, which seem to have terrible IMDB scores/not much buzz. Find it weirdly sad that there's a pseudo sequel to Happiness (and, actually, another to Welcome to the Dollhouse) without any of the original actors involved.

Small Man Big Horse

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) - A spoof of Bond films this French flick is very likeable and has a few decent running gags, and what's probably the best chicken fight in cinema history, but it's a little over long and could have done with tightening up, and a couple more action scenes as well. 6.9/10

Z

Mountains Will Move
Michael Apted documentary on the student protests of 1989, was shot in 1994 so really wasn't far enough removed to have much of interest to add. The focus on the students seems to gloss over whatever in-fighting was occurring and I'd really need to read up on some of it more to know what else was a bit iffy.

Lovesong
Breezy sundance indie film sort of thing. I've already forgotten the ending but Riley Keough and Jena Malone were a good on screen duo and it was a pleasant half watch.

The Wise Kids
Realised 5 minutes in it was by the guy that made Princess Cyd and turned it off

Quote from: amputeeporn on October 28, 2018, 02:28:52 AM
I'd be very interested to hear what people think about his later films, which seem to have terrible IMDB scores/not much buzz. Find it weirdly sad that there's a pseudo sequel to Happiness (and, actually, another to Welcome to the Dollhouse) without any of the original actors involved.
I wouldn't pay any heed to imdb ratings for him, to be fair. Can you imagine what Happiness would have on there if it came out today, like.

That being said, his later stuff is mostly pretty bad imo. I know Life During Wartime was well received by a lot of people but I couldn't engage in it at all. The anthology style ones are just colossal wastes of time with a kind of vacuous unpleasantness too.

The one exception for me, and it still doesn't totally work, is Dark Horse. Falls off the rails a bit as it goes on but it presents a remarkably unlikeable character and manages to garner some sympathy for him. Strongly benefits from having a pretty perfect core ensemble for his kind of thing.

gib

Quote from: alan nagsworth on October 04, 2018, 06:38:13 PM
Rear Window

Incredible. Couldn't find fault with the entire thing. Brilliant set design (reading the trivia has just heightened my opinion of it) and utterly gripping throughout. Much like the "what you don't see" of Rosemary's Baby, I was completely in the dark right until the end and didn't know what to expect. I also loved the quirky sense of humour.

What's interesting is that, being so familiar with the Simpsons episode "Bart of Darkness", I kept wondering how mirrored the parody was, but it didn't detract from the suspense at all. It's such a fitting tribute to Hitchcock's work.

Thanks for the suggestion, absolutely loved this. Was surprised how strong the women characters were for the time, especially when compared to Stewart who couldn't do much action, what with the leg.

sevendaughters

I have to watch Rear Window this week for class. Such a great film. Maybe my favourite Hitch, if pressed. Two non-new this week:

Crocodile Dundee - for the first time in 20 years. Some nice Aussie tourist board shots and a couple of decent moments but really this is just Paul Hogan's fantasy of a weatherbeaten Realbloke charming the pants off the sexy, being friends with the outsiders, and seeing through our so-called society. A couple of scenes have aged badly. 4/10

Capricorn One - a good and reasonably pacy paranoia thriller with a top cast. Peter Hyam is one of those auteurs turned hack like William Friedkin, though both would do superior fare in and amongst the dross. Seems like the critics aren't super into this film either but it felt interesting and novel throughout, even when it turned into a chase film. 8/10

hedgehog90

Saw Cool Hand Luke last night.
Loved it so much, an almost flawless film.
Paul Newman is just unreal good as the withdrawn, enigmatic, cool-as-fuck lead, and the supporting cast are great too.
I loved the comradery among the prisoners, so much more interesting than your average prison flick.
And what a treat to have Harry Dean Stanton singing and playing his guitar throughout.

One of those films you want to watch again immediately because it was so enjoyable.

greenman

Yi Yi from Edward Yang, first Taiwanese drama film I'v seen and certainly lived up to the hype  provided a "so that's what Sophia Coppola was watching before Lost in Translation" realisation.

I was actually expecting something more akin to recent European "neo neo realism" like Blue is the Warmest Colour with a lot of closeups but it actually ended up feeling more similar Tarkovsky in terms of long takes  focused more on body language and atmosphere, quite similar to Uzak from a couple of years latter. Maybe risks staying into "they all look the same" racism but I spose you could argue its well suited to a culture were people are a bit more emotionally closed off giving away less in facial expression.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: hedgehog90 on October 30, 2018, 09:57:30 AM
Saw Cool Hand Luke last night.
Loved it so much, an almost flawless film.
Paul Newman is just unreal good as the withdrawn, enigmatic, cool-as-fuck lead, and the supporting cast are great too.
I loved the comradery among the prisoners, so much more interesting than your average prison flick.
And what a treat to have Harry Dean Stanton singing and playing his guitar throughout.

One of those films you want to watch again immediately because it was so enjoyable.

Now watch Hud.

Sebastian Cobb

Tonight I watched In the House, it were good.

Sin Agog

Realised I'd done nothing at all Halloweeny all day, so threw on Viy (1967), as I remembered it was fairly short (70 mins or so).  I must have completely blanked on the first forty minutes, as they all felt fairly new to me- a Russian Ryan Gosling novice priest being ridden about by an old witch, before getting embroiled in all manner of drunken buffoonery with various cool matte paintings. misty sound stages, in-camera practical effects, and boozy singalongs.  Then it gets down to the section I definitely do remember, where he has to stay for three nights reading passages of the bible to a beautiful witch's corpse.  Each night gets more intense than the last, with the only thing protecting him being a hastily scrawled chalk circle, until for about a five minute stretch we get one of the coolest scenes in '60s Soviet cinema when the witch goes ballistic on poor old Russian Ryan Gosling, summoning more demons and undead than you'd find in one of those Diablo games.  More goofy and folkloric than scary, but that's OK, as its uniqueness more than makes up for it.  And those Russian faces...so characterful.  I love the way old Russians would handle baldness by shaving most of their head while growing a little ponytail thing near the back which they'd flop about hither and thither with stylish elan.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on October 31, 2018, 11:45:01 PM
Tonight I watched In the House, it were good.

I liked that a lot too, and have a real soft spot for Ozon in general.

The Last Vampire On Earth - Shockingly appalling this has to be one of the worst films ever made, it's ineptly filmed, the acting is ridiculously bad and the script terrible, hardly anything happens in it at all and this is a film where the highlight is a vampire playing table tennis with himself. I knew going in that it was rubbish but had no idea just how awful it'd turn out to be, but I did enjoy it as it's filled with unintentional laughs and great fun to mock. Technically 1/10, but it gets 7/10 as I found it so stupidly funny.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on October 28, 2018, 08:01:40 PM
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) - A spoof of Bond films this French flick is very likeable and has a few decent running gags, and what's probably the best chicken fight in cinema history, but it's a little over long and could have done with tightening up, and a couple more action scenes as well. 6.9/10

I loved OSS 117,  the second one in Brazil or whatever is less good but still ok.

Sebastian Cobb

I saw that Beverly Luff Linn. I think I liked it but I can see why it's getting shit reviews ,some of the Napoleon Dynamite purposely bad acting was cringeworthy and Craig was under utilised.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Dex Sawash on November 01, 2018, 11:49:43 PM
I loved OSS 117,  the second one in Brazil or whatever is less good but still ok.

I read about that after finishing the film but the mixed reviews put me off a bit. I'll watch it at some point, but I'm not rushing to do so.

Perfect Blue (1997) - From the director of Paprika (which is one of my favourite films) this is a Japanese anime where Mima, a minor pop singer, changes career and becomes an actress, but a deranged fan is deeply unhappy about this and turns all stalker-ish. Mima starts to hallucinate and after filming a rape scene it gets much worse, with everything becoming all rather disturbing. It carries off the thriller element impressively, Mima's gradual mental breakdown is well portrayed too and it blurs the line between fantasy and reality in an effective way. 7.6/10

greenman

If you haven't seen it I'd recommend Millennium Actress which is more along the lines of Paprika.

zomgmouse

Grand Hotel. Thought this was okay, didn't quite convey the dizzying tragedy and humanity as it could have. Some great cinematography though.

Pigs and Battleships. Just amazing. Chaotic and funny and gives a prime snapshot of an overlooked time in Japan's history. Some very absurd but also very real goings on and the clash of the Japanese squalor and sub-yakuza hijinks and American military presence really combined to give a tremendous punch. Best film I've seen in ages.

Also got to rewatch Wings of Desire. This is among my favourite films of all time so I relished the opportunity to confirm and cement that. To me it's a hugely moving piece of cinematic poetry and I described it like getting tongued in the soul. A very beautiful film.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: greenman on November 02, 2018, 04:46:18 AM
If you haven't seen it I'd recommend Millennium Actress which is more along the lines of Paprika.

I haven't yet but it's on my hard drive and will be watched soon.

greenman

Perfect Blue does still feel like its got half a foot in "anime exploitation" to me even if its a lot classier than is typical where as Millenium Actress really feels like he's coming into his own. Tokyo Godfathers is maybe a bit less individual although still pretty unique for anime and definitely worth watching as well.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: greenman on November 02, 2018, 03:24:09 PM
Perfect Blue does still feel like its got half a foot in "anime exploitation" to me even if its a lot classier than is typical where as Millenium Actress really feels like he's coming into his own. Tokyo Godfathers is maybe a bit less individual although still pretty unique for anime and definitely worth watching as well.

I was a little uncomfortable with the full frontal nudity in Perfect Blue (though plotwise it does make sense as it causes her stalker to become really unhinged) but they could have left it to the imagination a little more rather than showing everything. Glad to hear that about Millennium Actress though, and I shall obtain Tokyo Godfathers asap too. I've watched a lot of Studio Ghibli but not much other anime, so really need to explore the genre more.

greenman

#1495
Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on November 02, 2018, 04:08:44 PM
I was a little uncomfortable with the full frontal nudity in Perfect Blue (though plotwise it does make sense as it causes her stalker to become really unhinged) but they could have left it to the imagination a little more rather than showing everything. Glad to hear that about Millennium Actress though, and I shall obtain Tokyo Godfathers asap too. I've watched a lot of Studio Ghibli but not much other anime, so really need to explore the genre more.

Again I do kind of suspect Perfect Blue was more him working within what could be made at that time with anime being sold to the teenage boy market, basically given them an exploitation sex thriller but actually give it some heart/weight. Millennium Actress is more 8 1/2 reworked as a weepy romantic fantasy and Toyko Godfathers whilst it has a bit of nudity its more a socially realist nativity, both pretty much free of any Vidz style edgelording.

Finally got around to Watchign Buckroo Banzai in the week, enjoyable but I think it does highlight Carpenters importance to Big Trouble In Little China giving Richter script a bit more focus and visuals to match up to the ideas. Hollywood did certainly lift a lot from Banzai though didn't it? Back to the Future especially is quite brazen.

hedgehog90

#1496
Forbidden Zone

Fucking fantastic!!
It's like a school play made by some extrovert children without any supervision, in the middle of the 70s San Fransisco gay/drag scene... or something like that.
I couldn't understand what was going on half the time, but that didn't matter much as the plot was secondary to the spectacle of fun and madness on display.
It reminded me of Eurotrash mixed with Devo's early music videos. I may have spotted one of the members of Devo in the rape cage near the end wearing stockings and sunglasses, or maybe it was just an homage to their amazing Jocko Homo video.

I really need to look more into Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman's tunes in this are excellent.
All I know him for are this amazing song & music video, countless film/TV scores and dating Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth.

Quite tempted to recommend this to a friend of mine who's into Ru Paul and weird, spectacular gay stuff. Not sure, it might be like recommending Muse to a Radiohead fan.

zomgmouse

A Brighter Summer Day. 4hr Taiwanese masterpiece. Exuberant and tragic elegy. Takes place one summer in the 60s in Taiwan and chronicles teenage street gangs and family upheavals and it's all really great. Highly recommend this. Saw a 35mm print in a cinema during a three-week Edward Yang retrospective. This was my first of his films.

Z

Quote from: zomgmouse on November 08, 2018, 12:48:24 PM
A Brighter Summer Day. 4hr Taiwanese masterpiece. Exuberant and tragic elegy. Takes place one summer in the 60s in Taiwan and chronicles teenage street gangs and family upheavals and it's all really great. Highly recommend this. Saw a 35mm print in a cinema during a three-week Edward Yang retrospective. This was my first of his films.
Saw this again a few months ago (having previously watched a horrible condition version about a decade ago) and, while amazing, I was left with a niggling suspicion that I'd prefer Yi Yi now. How do the two compare?

zomgmouse

Quote from: Z on November 09, 2018, 01:49:56 PM
Saw this again a few months ago (having previously watched a horrible condition version about a decade ago) and, while amazing, I was left with a niggling suspicion that I'd prefer Yi Yi now. How do the two compare?

They're playing that in two weeks so I'll let you know then!