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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2019 Edition)

Started by zomgmouse, January 02, 2019, 08:20:19 AM

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Mister Six

Dune is probably David Lynch's most unusual film, in that it's neither "a David Lynch film" nor the sci-fi epic it was supposed to be. The producers wanted it to be two hours long. Lynch wanted it to be three. In the end it's two hours of footage but feels like three, so I guess that's a win-win? Still, the production design is lush, the campier performances entertaining, the SFX largely excellent for the time, and despite the plodding narrative it's full of bizarre choices (such as Patrick Stewart inexplicably running into battle with a pug dog under one arm, and some truly baffling business about milking a cat) that perk up the experience. Also, the way we can hear everyone's thoughts in weird little whispery voices that constantly exposit even the really obvious stuff was oddly endearing to me. For Lynch completists only, but not without some merit.

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, eh? When I was a teenager I spent hours wanking off over the adverts for the movie tie-in game in Amiga magazines. Now I'm a mature, grown-up man with a wife, so it seemed appropriate for me to finally wank off over the real thing. Happily, the film has more to recommend it than just Cassandra Peterson's cleavage; it's genuinely, properly funny, with some great one-liners and a joyous sense of campy fun. Elvira inherits a mansion in a sexually repressed town where she charms the local teens and infuriates the old-timers. Meanwhile, her dastardly uncle has plans of his own. The whole cast look like they're having a blast, and it's impossible not to be swept up in it all.

Young Adult: I'm not really a fan of Diablo Cody's films for the most part, but I liked Tully, so I thought I'd give her earlier collaboration with Charlize Theron a crack. Theron plays a high-school queen bee bitch-turned-YA novelist who moves back to her home town to try to seduce her old boyfriend, even though he has a wife and newborn baby. Theron is fantastic, as is Patton Oswalt as her nerdy former classmate, and their dialogue crackles, but the script never sells her reason for thinking she will get away with her hairbrained scheme beyond suggesting she might be "crazy" in some nondescript movie way. Missable.

I loved director Rachel Talalay's Doctor Who work, and adore Lori Petty in just about everything, so I hoped I'd find more to like about Tank Girl than most people. I... didn't. Petty is great (obv), but a 1990s live-action movie isn't the best fit for Tank Girl herself, and the film hamstrings itself by weighing her down with emotional arcs, a backstory, an origin and all that bullshit. As a consequence her irreverent one-liners seem less like cool detachment and more like the irritating products of borderline mental retardation. Jamie Hewlett's art is used occasionally for establishing shots and inspired a couple of lush animated sequences that left me wishing the whole thing was done as a cartoon. Then again, we'd have missed out on some amazing production design and Lori Petty's amazing wardrobe, both of which would have been real losses to humanity.

zomgmouse

Law of Desire - great Almodóvar, was beginning to question what it was I liked about him. Full of pain and passion and tragedy. And cohesive for a change (unlike the past few of his that I watched).

This Is Not a Test. Public domain independent pre-apocalyptic film from 1962 about a cop who's been instructed to stop people at a road block prior to a nuclear attack. Terrific setup and an overall gloomy mood but unfortunately it's just not very good, the tension is all over the place as are the acting and writing.

Blumf

Quote from: Mister Six on July 26, 2019, 03:56:14 AM
Dune is probably David Lynch's most unusual film, in that it's neither "a David Lynch film" nor the sci-fi epic it was supposed to be. The producers wanted it to be two hours long. Lynch wanted it to be three.

Have you seen the Alan Smithee cut?

I would say that it is a Lynch film, there is a lot of his usual touches dotted about. And I think a lot of his films can be classed as sci-fi, if not of the blockbuster kind Dune was meant to be.

Interesting how he got the central message of the novel completely backwards though. Still love it anyway.

Epic Bisto

Emanuelle In America.  I've heard a lot about it and my curiosity got the better of me.  It's one of those Joe D'Amato 'Black Emanuelle' films, but this one really went off the deep end with oodles of hardcore scenes, snuff footage and some lass tugging off a horse.  What's more bizarre is that the film casually veers back and forth from syrupy frothiness to FOR FUCK'S SAKE MATE that I got whiplash a few times.  It's really tough to figure out who this film was aimed at because I guarantee that the film got censored to fuck in almost any country it got shipped to.  I still don't know what to make of it but the soundtrack's cool and the blu-ray features an archival interview with Mr D'Amato who comes across as a genuinely lovely and likeable person who never took his work seriously.

Epic Bisto

Quote from: Mister Six on July 26, 2019, 03:56:14 AM
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, eh? When I was a teenager I spent hours wanking off over the adverts for the movie tie-in game in Amiga magazines. Now I'm a mature, grown-up man with a wife, so it seemed appropriate for me to finally wank off over the real thing.

I'm guessing that you've seen those pre-Elvira pics of a redheaded Cassandra Peterson without any clothes on...

Mister Six

I have now! Crikey. Mrs Six is out of town so that's me set up for tonight.

Blumf

Dude, Where's My Car? (2000)
Stoner comedy, with Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott. Aliens, insensitive portrayal of trans folk, Andy Dick, blue skies, and tits. Pretty much sums up the 90's and acts as a fitting cap to the decade.

bgmnts

I'm going through Alien to Alien Resurrection and I forgot how many unintentionally hilarious moments there are in Alien. From Veronica Cartwright's "Ohh gawwwd" exclamation during the chestburster scene to Ash's amazing dummy face, Dallas' death scene and the very funny sound effect the self destruct screw things make. Still a perfect slasher film though and the Xenomorph is the scariest thing in existence.

zomgmouse

Few more apocalyptic things:

Panic in Year Zero!. Ray Milland directs and stars in this noirish drama about a family who goes on a fishing trip just as LA is hit by a nuclear bomb. Solid.

Final Flesh. Vernon Chatman sent some scripts to several for-hire porn companies who filmed them. It's as surreal and otherworldly as you'd expect.

Bunker Palace Hotel. Existential sci-fi headed by Trintignant - a bunch of high-ups hide out in a lavish crumbling hotel while a spy tries to infiltrate it - but the plot really seems secondary to the mood. Also some fantastic robot humans in this.

Sebastian Cobb

I just rewatched Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. Great stuff, are there any other weird paranoid tv/media films I should check out aside from Network, Videodrome and the Paluka's Paranoia trilogy?

bgmnts

Giving Alien Cubed a rewatch today. Hoping its better than my memories, general consensus and most critics say.

bgmnts

Can anyonw who pays more attention to films than me tell me why Ripley doesn't just tell Charles Dance about the Xenomorph?

Mister Six

Quote from: Blumf on July 26, 2019, 04:30:29 PM
Have you seen the Alan Smithee cut?

I would say that it is a Lynch film, there is a lot of his usual touches dotted about. And I think a lot of his films can be classed as sci-fi, if not of the blockbuster kind Dune was meant to be.

Interesting how he got the central message of the novel completely backwards though. Still love it anyway.

Not seen the Smithee cut - this was my first time watching Dune at all, even though I'm a bit of a Lynch fan. I gather the Smithee cut is longer, but given that Lynch took his name off it, I doubt I'll get a better idea of what he intended. Apparently Universal approached him about doing his own cut a few years back but he turned them down. I can't blame him, but I do wish he'd taken a crack at it.

I don't think any of Lynch's films can be called sci-fi other than this one. Fantasy, sure, but not sci-fi. And I wouldn't say - despite the odd incongruous image and appearances by Jack Nance and a couple of other other Lynch regulars (and Lynch himself!) - it has enough of his fingerprints to really constitute a Lynch film in any meaningful sense. Especially as he was denied the final cut.

What's the central message of the novel? Never read it, although having seen the film, I'm mildly intrigued.

bgmnts

Nah plot is shit, characters are shit and the CGI alien is SHIT.

I can't believe people think this is better than Aliens.

St_Eddie

Quote from: bgmnts on July 29, 2019, 12:01:43 AM
...the CGI alien is SHIT.

It's not CGI.  It's a rod puppet.  The issue with the effect is the compositing of said puppet onto the set.

Quote from: bgmnts on July 29, 2019, 12:01:43 AM
I can't believe people think this is better than Aliens.

I prefer Alien 3 (the assembly cut) to Aliens.  It's the true successor to the original film, in terms of tone and atmosphere.

bgmnts

Well it looks WORSE than prototype cgi, that's an achievement.

I like most of David Fincher's films but this is a right turd. Aliens is superior, regardless of tone.

chveik

it seems like Alien3 is the most discussed film here

DukeDeMondo

I haven't watched Alien 3 recently, but I have watched some other stuff.

The Dark Half (1993)

First time seeing this since I was wee. I'm old enough to remember reading about it in Fangoria and Shivers and what not else in the run up to release, and I remember thinking that it was going to be the best film ever made. There's no need for any other films now, I told the films, for the best film ever made is being made and that's it, this show stops here.

It wasn't the best film ever made, in the end. It was boring as bolts and onions. It still is.

What it is, is George A Romero's plodding sort of a take on one of the wittier and more entertaining of all of the novels that Stephen King has ever put out of himself. Thunderously literal and joyless in the extreme. It's elevated some by a couple pretty unpleasant gore effects right at the end, but the two hours leading up to that are no sorts of friends to nobody. I had to watch it over two nights for it was boring my last shit simple.

The Miracle Of Our Lady Of Fatima (1952)

My partner took me to Fatima for my birthday, and we watched this 1952 Warner Brothers number a few nights before by way of preparation. Rabidly anti-communist Catholic propaganda picture, essentially, all to do with the Marian apparitions of 1917. I prefer The Song Of Bernadette, as these things go, but I'm obsessed with Our Lady and this had just enough of her in it to keep me enthralled for the duration. I only wish they hadn't given her a human voice. I wish it had just been an abrasive, shrill sort of a whistling kind of a sound that came out of her. Sound you couldn't stand to hear.

Miracle Of The Sun is spectacular, as you would expect.


Native Land (1942)

Another one I hadn't seen in years. 16 years old or thereabouts, last time I watched it. A million years ago. Another propaganda picture, really, but it's some righteous fists that this one's swinging. Exposes the campaigns of violence and brutality mounted against organised labour movements throughout the 1930s by various fascist - sometimes KKK affiliated - corporation-led union busters. Based on the findings of a 1938 La Follette Committee investigation. Showers of thugs and crooks and liars cancelling and murdering every which way. Spying the bit out. Creeping.

It's a brilliant film. Sort of film that the screen seems to sweat blood under the weight of. Simmering with a rage that threatens to explode in your fucking face at any moment. Fists clenched and teeth grinding.

Paul Robeson narrates and sings.

Next.

Blumf

Quote from: Mister Six on July 28, 2019, 11:56:32 PM
Not seen the Smithee cut - this was my first time watching Dune at all, even though I'm a bit of a Lynch fan. I gather the Smithee cut is longer, but given that Lynch took his name off it, I doubt I'll get a better idea of what he intended. Apparently Universal approached him about doing his own cut a few years back but he turned them down. I can't blame him, but I do wish he'd taken a crack at it.

Yeah, I'd have loved to have seen more like this, but get entirely how fucked over and fucked off he was with the whole process.

QuoteI don't think any of Lynch's films can be called sci-fi other than this one. Fantasy, sure, but not sci-fi.

I'd say that Eraserhead, Lost Highway, and Twin Peaks S03 all have a definite sci-fi bent to them. Not straight hard-sci-fi, but they do portray sci-fi concepts (post-apocalypse (maybe?), time travel, trans-dimensional beings, respectively). Compare with Tarkovsky, who also dabbled in sci-fi, and ultimately rejected it's usual conventions. Dune would by Lynch's Solaris, whilst above mentioned would be his Stalker

Quote
What's the central message of the novel? Never read it, although having seen the film, I'm mildly intrigued.

Well (very roughly), the Dune novels, amongst many other things, show how a central messianic figure can not really work. Paul/Muad'Dib is trapped within his foresight and his religious followers and ends up failing to do what he needs to. His son takes on the task and manages better, mainly by becoming a full on tyrant and forcing humanity to ultimately reject it's god and escape from his oppression

greenman

You can see why he took his name off the Smithee cut as its really cheaply done, aweful "in a world..." spoken word intro with cheap paintings and it loops the soundtrack over the new footage in an often inappropriate fashion, still I think worth watching for the extra footage.

Maybe because it was the first Lynch I ever saw but it always seemed very much a "lynch film" to me in style(which I think does bring out the atmosphere of Heberts work quite well) although ironically shifting the story of the book towards much more simplistic heroism.

sevendaughters

CULLODEN 1964 docudrama for telly about the 1746 battle that crushed the Jacobite resistance. Done in a 60s World in Action meets Pudovkin style, with sympathy for the Highlanders roped in to serve the cause of an effete European with divine pretensions against a cruel English government. Watkins would make The War Game the year after but I prefer this.

TIMBUKTU Going through that Indiewire films of the 2010s list led me to this. ISIL roll into Mali and bring their brutal philistinism in all of its pettiness and hypocrisy. Meanwhile a herdsman accidentally kills a fisherman and the stories collide in a poetic and circular ending. It is good (not mindblowing) and reminds me of Sembene and no not just because they're African, but Sembene and Sissako both went to the VGIK in Moscow and brought that intellectual style to local stories.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 28, 2019, 09:06:08 PM
I just rewatched Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. Great stuff, are there any other weird paranoid tv/media films I should check out aside from Network, Videodrome and the Paluka's Paranoia trilogy?

A bit adjacent but eXistenZ, Decoder, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, The Player, Barton Fink and Hail, Caesar could all fit the bill.

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 29, 2019, 12:39:37 PM
CULLODEN 1964 docudrama for telly about the 1746 battle that crushed the Jacobite resistance. Done in a 60s World in Action meets Pudovkin style, with sympathy for the Highlanders roped in to serve the cause of an effete European with divine pretensions against a cruel English government. Watkins would make The War Game the year after but I prefer this.

Yeah that's a smashing film, watched it earlier this year. I like The War Game more, it's got a simmering dry potency about it, but this was terribly good as well. Really need to get through some more Watkins, his stuff's been on my list for absolutely ages.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Blumf on July 29, 2019, 11:52:42 AM
Well (very roughly), the Dune novels, amongst many other things, show how a central messianic figure can not really work. Paul/Muad'Dib is trapped within his foresight and his religious followers and ends up failing to do what he needs to. His son takes on the task and manages better, mainly by becoming a full on tyrant and forcing humanity to ultimately reject it's god and escape from his oppression

That, plus 1500 pages covering what the word "the" means.

Sin Agog

Quote from: zomgmouse on July 29, 2019, 02:23:07 PM
Yeah that's a smashing film, watched it earlier this year. I like The War Game more, it's got a simmering dry potency about it, but this was terribly good as well. Really need to get through some more Watkins, his stuff's been on my list for absolutely ages.

Start with Edvard Munch when you do.  Best film about an artist ever made.

Blumf

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 28, 2019, 09:06:08 PM
I just rewatched Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. Great stuff, are there any other weird paranoid tv/media films I should check out aside from Network, Videodrome and the Paluka's Paranoia trilogy?

Nirvana (1997) may fit the bill. Video game designer gets chased around a future multicultural megalopolis with an accidentally sentient AI stuck in his new game. Very 90s. Stars the Highlander.

greenman

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 29, 2019, 12:39:37 PMTIMBUKTU Going through that Indiewire films of the 2010s list led me to this. ISIL roll into Mali and bring their brutal philistinism in all of its pettiness and hypocrisy. Meanwhile a herdsman accidentally kills a fisherman and the stories collide in a poetic and circular ending. It is good (not mindblowing) and reminds me of Sembene and no not just because they're African, but Sembene and Sissako both went to the VGIK in Moscow and brought that intellectual style to local stories.

I'd say most worth seeing for the visuals, I'm supprised El Fani hasn't been in demand for more high profile films since.

sevendaughters

Quote from: greenman on July 29, 2019, 03:57:54 PM
I'd say most worth seeing for the visuals, I'm supprised El Fani hasn't been in demand for more high profile films since.

yeah it looks great, no doubt about it.

Shit Good Nose

Speaking of Dune, shooting has just finished on the first part of Denis Villeneuve's stab at it.

I'm one of those that thinks Blade Runner 2049 is a minor-to-middling masterpiece AND he hasn't yet put a foot wrong (yes, I quite liked Arrival as well), so, in the absence of both Jodorowsky's and Ridley Scott's versions, I'm quite looking forward to it.

Mister Six

I thought BR 2049 was magnificent, and may be almost as highly regarded as it's predecessor in another 25 years or so. So yeah, very hopeful. Although I worry about how he can turn such a vast story into a comprehensible film, even if he gets the three hours Lynch wanted.

Quote from: Blumf on July 29, 2019, 11:52:42 AM
I'd say that Eraserhead, Lost Highway, and Twin Peaks S03 all have a definite sci-fi bent to them. Not straight hard-sci-fi, but they do portray sci-fi concepts (post-apocalypse (maybe?), time travel, trans-dimensional beings, respectively).

I'll give you Twin Peaks, but the other two are a stretch for me. What's the time travel in Lost Highway? The eyebrowless fella being in two places at once? Been years since I watched it.

QuoteWell (very roughly), the Dune novels, amongst many other things, show how a central messianic figure can not really work. Paul/Muad'Dib is trapped within his foresight and his religious followers and ends up failing to do what he needs to. His son takes on the task and manages better, mainly by becoming a full on tyrant and forcing humanity to ultimately reject it's god and escape from his oppression

Coo, that sounds interesting! I thought Dune was some daft, slightly weird space opera thing set on a desert planet. I didn't realise it was making a whole philosophical/metaphysical argument.

greenman

Lynch's film you could argue is almost something that Paul's religious followers would have made glorifying their messiah rather than a direct adaptation of the book were theres no supernatural elements at work(just fantasy science like genetic memory) and as mentioned its actually a story decrying the impact of such a figure. I'm guessing the simplification was studio mandated though, Lynch would probably have preffered something closer to the original albeit more phantasmagorical.

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on July 29, 2019, 06:56:03 PM
Speaking of Dune, shooting has just finished on the first part of Denis Villeneuve's stab at it.

I'm one of those that thinks Blade Runner 2049 is a minor-to-middling masterpiece AND he hasn't yet put a foot wrong (yes, I quite liked Arrival as well), so, in the absence of both Jodorowsky's and Ridley Scott's versions, I'm quite looking forward to it.

I do think 2049 suffers a bit from the plots focus shifting 2/3rds of the way though but generally he does seem like the best bet of any major director for Dune. I spose the main issue I'd have is will he made the setting interesting enough? with 2049 he could piggyback on Scott's film to some degree but I think Dune needs a bit more than the tasteful minimalism he typically offers.

I notice its not Deakins behind the camera but rather the guy who did Rogue One, maybe after the same look as the desert scenes in that?