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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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Small Man Big Horse

Superhero Movie (2008) - I know 99% of you will think I'm an idiot (and it probably is the case) but I quite enjoyed this. Sure there's some weak and dodgy jokes, some of which are very childish, but there's a fair few decent ones too, and the supporting cast includes Jeffrey Tambor, Brent Spiner, Keith David, Tracey Morgan, Leslie Nielsen and Ryan Hansen. It's short and tight at 70 minutes, though there's a further 7 minutes of deleted scenes half way through the credits. A very guilty pleasure. 6.2/10

Famous Mortimer

Vampires Suck, from the same stable, kept me amused during a time I was off work, all flu-ey.

zomgmouse

Bad Lieutenant. Nasty piece of work, the nastiest Ferrara I've seen so far. To get a character like that some inkling of redemption and then have him get randomly blown to bits, fuck me. Keitel's performance is magnificent in this. Really unpleasant stuff but so compelling. The bit with him wailing in the church, my god!

Neomod

I've seen the original but last night watched the restored version of Once Upon a Time in America.

A majestic piece of work.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Neomod on June 30, 2018, 11:20:05 AM
I've seen the original but last night watched the restored version of Once Upon a Time in America.

A majestic piece of work.

Stay away from the restored The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  It's very......yellow.  And that dubbed dialogue in the additional scenes - yiesh.

Small Man Big Horse

Force Majeure (2014) - Like the directors follow up, The Square, this is about a seemingly decent man making a poor decision and then suffering the consequences. A study of masculinity, patriarchy and the nature of fear, it's an interesting piece but flabby and ultimately doesn't have a lot to say, and The Square covered such ideas in a far more thought provoking way. 6.4/10

Sebastian Cobb

Body Double - daft film where the protagonist wouldn't have had half as many problems had he not being a dirty fucker.

Still at least I know where Troy Mclure's house is from.


Swoz_MK

Saw The Hateful Eight for the first time last night as it's now on UK Netflix. It was far funnier (and longer) than I expected and everyone in it (ok, there aren't that many) was excellent.


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Into the Night (1985)

This popped up in my Netflix recommendation recently. John Landis directing Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer in a crime caper that also includes David Bowie as a spivvy hitman - yeah that sounds like a laugh. And it was... occasionally.

This has to be one of the most tonally inconsistent films I've ever seen. Long scenes of Goldblum's alienated loser protagonist pottering about in near silence are interrupted by the occasional big laugh or act of horrific violence. It's really quite bizarre and I wonder if it was a result of Landis attempting some sort of self-therapy after the disaster on the set of the Twilight Zone movie.

SteveDave

I saw this the other week and laughed heartily at David Bowie's tache and his channelling of "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" when him and Goldblum are stood in the doorway where they first meet. I also liked Dave's knife fight with Carl Perkins.

The cameo's are worth looking at too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Night_(film)#Cameo_appearances

SteveDave

Beyond The Black Rainbow

It looked and sounded lovely but I couldn't tell you why anything that happened happened.

Poulet au vinaigre by Claude Chabrol

Solid. Lead guy was quite flat, but the supporting cast was full of detail and colour. Inspector Lavardin is a steely-eyed motherfucker.

It Is Gradiva That Is Calling You by Alain Robbe-Grillet

Another compelling masterpiece from MY BOY. Loved it from beginning to end. Always found it weird that Robbe-Grillet, a painter, was always kind of awkward when it came to shot composition. A lot of the cinematography in his films is quite pedestrian. Anyway, really loved getting lost in this, don't ask me for a plot synopsis.

Rendez-vous by André Téchiné

Pretty compelling. Feels like a series fascinating fragments that don't quite gel. The central theatrical motif never really came alive. The young Lambert Wilson was a snack

Parking by Jacques Demy

Absolutely dreadful. What the fuck happened here. Awful lead, awful singer, awful songs. Looks cheap and dried out. Demy is one of those guys who misfires spectacularly when he does

Custard

Rashomon (1950) - Nice to finally tick this off my  'To Watch' list. Great stuff. Nice simple idea, keeps you guessing, and is beautifully shot. ****

The Big Sick (2017) - Found this a bit grating at first, but around halfway through I was won round. Ray Romano and Holly Hunter are great as the girl's parents, and him out of Silicon Valley is very good too. Made me laff a fair few times. ****

greenman

Uzak by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

First thing I'v seen by him, I admit partly for the draw of a fellow photographer being a lead character putting up a country relative in his Istanbul flat. Very much towards subtly and atmosphere, mostly men lounging around a flat watching Tarkovsky(and the odd bit of porn or fashion TV when alone) or wandering around a snowclad Istanbul  looking for work or equally vain attempts to meet women. Very well done indeed though I'd say both in terms of performance and understated but well handled visuals(the shot of the sudden boat in the habour especially is brilliant), indeed does actually feel a bit ahead of its time with a lot of modern arty cinema but at the arse end of the analog era(both infront of and behind the lens) in 2002. No I'm not at all similar to the lead character, I don't smoke.

Mauvais Sang by Leos Carax

Slowly working my way though his career, I can definitely understand the recent comment about it being rather up itself in terms of kooky newavisms which perhaps stand out more here than Boy Meets Girl as you have them mixed with both a nominal plot and more in the way of contemporary look. Certainly has some outstanding visuals to it not least of which Binoche is insanely pretty in it(most obvious showbiz relationship in history between her and Carax) although its probably going to come down to whether you like Denis Lavant in full flow running/flipping down the street to Bowie punching himself in the stomach and so forth or not. Generally I am a fan but call me a pervy philistine, I still think I preffer Betty Blue for Cinema De Look, a bit more heart to it.

greenman

Quote from: Swoz_MK on July 02, 2018, 11:54:09 AM
Saw The Hateful Eight for the first time last night as it's now on UK Netflix. It was far funnier (and longer) than I expected and everyone in it (ok, there aren't that many) was excellent.

Honestly having watched it a couple more times at home I'm coming around to the idea it might be his best films since Pulp Fiction, the only real negative being that largely pointless flashback.

Sebastian Cobb

Just seen Jaws for the first time in a fairly packed cinema. What an experience that film is. Faultless.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 08, 2018, 11:06:58 PM
Just seen Jaws for the first time in a fairly packed cinema. What an experience that film is. Faultless.

People say that the shark looks fake but it looks real enough to me.  That sequence where it chomps on Robert Shaw?  Pure nightmare fuel.

BlodwynPig

I have become impatient. I can't watch anything new. Turning off with boredom after 10 minutes or maybe slightly longer. My landlady has Netflix and I cannot find anything engaging, so have returned for the 3rd time to Mothman Prophecies...Richard Gere's best film, the last vestiges of X-Files stylisation in cinema, some old-school 90s Hollywood camerawork mixed with pretty decent curve balls on the score and editing. A reliable film when everything else seems so mundane.

Small Man Big Horse

Please Stand By (2017) - An autistic Star Trek fan goes on a road trip so that she can enter a script in to a competition run by Paramount in LA. Starts off well but the journey is a dull one, there's the odd cute moment and the performances are all strong but the script is lacking. 5.7/10

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 09, 2018, 12:35:29 AM
People say that the shark looks fake but it looks real enough to me.  That sequence where it chomps on Robert Shaw?  Pure nightmare fuel.

I've always said old Bruce looks pretty fucking good even now - also that bit where Brody's up on the crow's nest stabbing him, it looks like a real great white to me.  Compare that to any CGI shark in any of the numerous subsequent shark films, even the proper mainstream ones like Deep Blue Sea.


Quote from: BlodwynPig on July 09, 2018, 01:21:20 AM
I have become impatient. I can't watch anything new. Turning off with boredom after 10 minutes or maybe slightly longer. My landlady has Netflix and I cannot find anything engaging, so have returned for the 3rd time to Mothman Prophecies...Richard Gere's best film, the last vestiges of X-Files stylisation in cinema, some old-school 90s Hollywood camerawork mixed with pretty decent curve balls on the score and editing. A reliable film when everything else seems so mundane.

Not his best film for me (Days of Heaven gets that title, although his best performance for me is probably Internal Affairs, even though the film itself suffers from a few iffy things), but I've always loved Mothman Prophecies.  Nice low key and measured eeriness throughout with everyone playing it totally straight.  Give me that over yer Blair Witch or Babadook bollocks any day of the week.



Bit of a Netflix fest yesterday:
Dragon Blade - John Cusack as a Roman general ("in the 63rd corps" - spoken like a true American) and Jackie Chan as a Chinese silk road guard going up against Adrien Brody as another Roman general cos of a blind kid.  Total dogshit.

The Finest Hours - fairly dull for what should be an inspiring true story, but watchable.

USS Indianapolis Men of Courage - REALLY cheap looking dross that just makes you pine for Mission of the Shark.  Also makes you wonder if Mario Van Peebles was trying to apologise for another shark-water crime in his past...

St_Eddie

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on July 09, 2018, 08:27:25 AM
USS Indianapolis Men of Courage - REALLY cheap looking dross that just makes you pine for Mission of the Shark.  Also makes you wonder if Mario Van Peebles was trying to apologise for another shark-water crime in his past...

When it was first announced that this film had been greenlit, I was stoked.  Then a while later, it was announced that Nicolas Cage had been cast in the lead role.  My enthusiasm deflated very quickly after that.  That's not to say that Cage hasn't turned in a good performance over the years (Raising Arizona springs to mind) but by and large, he's in an awful lot of dross and more often than not, turn in a ridiculously hammy performance.

Going by your assessment, it seems that I was right to be wary.

SteveDave

Event Horizon as the wife hadn't seen it. Still incredible. Also features Teresa May (not that one) on the pin up that Sam Neill uses to explain how the drive thing works. My wife was impressed by my knowledge of 90s wank fodder.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 09, 2018, 12:22:09 PM
When it was first announced that this film had been greenlit, I was stoked.  Then a while later, it was announced that Nicolas Cage had been cast in the lead role.  My enthusiasm deflated very quickly after that.  That's not to say that Cage hasn't turned in a good performance over the years (Raising Arizona springs to mind) but by and large, he's in an awful lot of dross and more often than not, turn in a ridiculously hammy performance.

Going by your assessment, it seems that I was right to be wary.

Whilst it was being made there was quite a lot of positive buzz surrounding it, at least for a medium-low budget film - they did a lot of research and made sure things were as accurate as they could be whilst still allowing for dramatic licence (so the only "goofs" in the film are minor anachronisms like using vehicles that wouldn't come into existence until a few years later, or combining two or three characters into one - that kind of stuff [mind you, the sharks are all great whites, which is a fairly major error]), plus Van Peebles was coming off the back of almost uniformally excellent TV work.  But, as we all know, being a decent TV director does not automatically translate to being a decent film director (just ask Danny Cannon), and the script was written by two producers.

RE Cage's performance...I would say "earnest" over ridiculously hammy.  We're not talking The Wicker Man remake, for example.  The ridiculously hammy award instead goes to Tom Sizemore, who can't cark it quick enough. 

By far the worst things about it are the dreadful effects and abysmal script. 

It remains - if you want to watch a decent film about the Indianapolis, watch Jaws and Mission of the Shark.


Quote from: SteveDave on July 09, 2018, 12:56:36 PM
Event Horizon as the wife hadn't seen it. Still incredible. Also features Teresa May (not that one) on the pin up that Sam Neill uses to explain how the drive thing works. My wife was impressed by my knowledge of 90s wank fodder.

D'you know, the number of times I've seen Event Horizon I've NEVER clocked that... One of my TVX favourites - up there with Lynda Leigh and Kerry Matthews.

Be nice if someone found the deleted footage one day.  It must be out there somewhere.

phantom_power

True Stories. I enjoyed it but am not sure how much I would have liked it without the Talking Heads connection. I loved some of the versions of the songs by the cast members and it is an interesting look into small-town America. It is pretty insubstantial and I am not sure what the whole thing was really all about but it passed the time.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on July 09, 2018, 01:36:10 PM
...It remains - if you want to watch a decent film about the Indianapolis, watch Jaws and Mission of the Shark.

Thanks for the recommendations.  I've downloaded a copy of Mission of the Shark and will watch it soon.  I don't know about this "Jaws" film though... bit obscure and hard to find.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: phantom_power on July 09, 2018, 02:46:47 PM
True Stories. I enjoyed it but am not sure how much I would have liked it without the Talking Heads connection. I loved some of the versions of the songs by the cast members and it is an interesting look into small-town America. It is pretty insubstantial and I am not sure what the whole thing was really all about but it passed the time.
The popular thought at the time was that Byrne had picked rather low-hanging fruit - "is there anything easier to parody than Lone Star crazies?" was a line from a review I'm no doubt remembering badly - but good on him for giving it a bash, I guess.

Junglist

Capricorn One - Enjoyable but damn it appears to have aged badly

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 09, 2018, 04:33:02 PM
Thanks for the recommendations.  I've downloaded a copy of Mission of the Shark and will watch it soon.

Just bear in mind when you're watching it that it IS a 90s made for TV film, so it does have those tropes and will seem a bit cheap compared to a "proper" film.  But it's not bad at all, despite having David Caruso in it.


QuoteI don't know about this "Jaws" film though... bit obscure and hard to find.

I think this is it: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0081677/