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

[phantom_power]

The Bowie scene in Mauvais Sang is one of my favourite things.

Was that the bit that was nicked by Greta Gerwig for Frances Ha?

[greenman]

Yep....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQxdpeUVbAo

If you haven't already check out Beau Travail. Same actor, and another incredible dance scene.

More recently that banned Glazer flake advert.

[Shit Good Nose]

Apocalypse Now Final Cut, 4K blu.

Wow.  An absolutely top-notch job done there.  It looks amazing, but what really got me was the sound - stuff that I've NEVER heard before that had been lost in the mix for so long.

The film itself is still a masterpiece of course.  I still like the French plantation sequence - it breaks up the two distinctive first and last chapters of the film nicely and touches on an aspect of the conflict that is always ignored - and SO good to lose that fucking awful extended Playboy bunny sequence that seemed like it was from another film by another director (probably one of the few things left over from George Lucas and John Milius' original comedy version).  It's a shame that Coppola re-removed Kurtz reading the reports from Time - a scene I really like - but I understand the removal because it demythologises Kurtz somewhat.

9 out of 10 napalms.


For anyone curious, the box set has all three versions of the film in 4K UHD (and it's 4K UHD done properly for each one - the theatrical cut and Redux are not just upscales), standard hi-def blu ray, and also Hearts of Darkness hi-def blu ray.


Also Coppola has lost a LOT of weight and generally looks a bit unwell, but then he is 80 and, in that regard, actually doing okay.

[Famous Mortimer]

A double bill at my local bar of

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie
The one from the mid 90s. Surprisingly, not very good.

Battle Royale
The theme of the evening was "teenagers fighting" and I'd forgotten how much of a cracker Battle Royale was. Still never seen the sequel(s?) yet.

[Shit Good Nose]

Battle Royale
The theme of the evening was "teenagers fighting" and I'd forgotten how much of a cracker Battle Royale was. Still never seen the sequel(s?) yet.

Only the one sequel.  I've never been so bored by a film with so much action and so many explosions.  BUT, full disclosure, I was VERY apathetic about the original as well, despite being a fan of Fukasaku.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

12 Angry Men
One of the classics that I'd never got around to until now. The 'slum people are people' message was rather preachy, but it's riveting stuff nonetheless.

Arrival
I thought the the resolution was a bit clunky, but overall this was good stuff. Nice to see that Denis Villeneuve can make a decent science fiction film (because Blade Runner 2 was a load of nothing).

Apocalypse Now Final Cut

I was lucky enough to see it at the cinema. I'd never seen the Redux version and I'm not sure it really benefits from the addition of the plantation scene, but the film never felt too long. I'm not one to moan about CGI and whatnot, but the sheer spectacle of the helicopter scene really was astounding.

[Shit Good Nose]

12 Angry Men
One of the classics that I'd never got around to until now. The 'slum people are people' message was rather preachy, but it's riveting stuff nonetheless.

Friedkin's made-for-TV adaptation with Jack Lemmon heartily recommended - GENUINELY good.

[Egyptian Feast]

Battle Royale
The theme of the evening was "teenagers fighting" and I'd forgotten how much of a cracker Battle Royale was. Still never seen the sequel(s?) yet.

It's not great, but worth a watch for the opening scene, which seemed a bit 'too soon' when it was first released. I always enjoy Riki Takeuchi (I gave him a lifetime pass for the ending of Dead Or Alive), but he's no substitute for Beat Takeshi.

[Small Man Big Horse]

My knowledge of 60's Godard is very limited so I defer to you lot  on that.

However I do struggle to see how him being inspired by and taking stuff from Godard (who, and I'm just going of what you guys are saying here, is famously pretentious) therefore makes this film not pretentious, unless you're saying it's some sort of parody?

Surely intentionally making a film in the style of a pretentious filmmaker just makes you, well, pretentious. It certainly didn't seem to me Carax was trying to take the piss.

Just to clarify, the bits I found pretentious were less the visual style (which I actually loved, and think is his clear strength as a filmmaker) and more the dialogue, especially the stuff between Lavant and  Binoche. Found a lot of it pretty irritating, and it made me not like or care about the characters (well, Lavant and Binoche), which I don't reckon was intentional. But maybe I'm wrong!

Also it's pretty clear he doesn't give a monkeys about the plot, his execution of which  comes across as pretty half-arsed. Maybe that's why Holy Motors works so much better for me - less plot, less time spent with individual characters, more space for him to experiment and be mental.

p.s I get what is 'pretentious' is subjective and can be  an annoying blanket criticism. I hope I've explained what I mean by it well enough.

I watched it today and am largely in agreement with you, visually it's captivating but some of the dialogue is dodgy, that long scene between Lavant and Binoche especially goes on way too long and is filled with melodramatic nonsense. It's a shame as certain parts were engaging, but the middle of the film was something of a drag at times.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Cinderella (1977) - A soft porn version of the fairy tale which is actually a pretty decent musical. The only problem is there aren't enough songs (8 at a guess) and too much dull 70's titilation, which is a shame as the songs are pretty funny and well produced. Ah well, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes I guess. 5.9/10

[Famous Mortimer]

Cinderella (1977) - A soft porn version of the fairy tale which is actually a pretty decent musical. The only problem is there aren't enough songs (8 at a guess) and too much dull 70's titilation, which is a shame as the songs are pretty funny and well produced. Ah well, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes I guess. 5.9/10

69 out of 100, surely?

This might be your first DVD pull quote. "Not enough music in this porno" - Small Man Big Horse

[amputeeporn]

Apocalypse Now Final Cut, 4K blu.

Happened to have a day off when this was showing at the massive BFI Imax in London. Probably my favourite film as a result - just an astonishing, overwhelming experience - and it looks/sounds out of this world. A true masterpiece.

[lazarou]

Battle Royale
The theme of the evening was "teenagers fighting" and I'd forgotten how much of a cracker Battle Royale was. Still never seen the sequel(s?) yet.

As a huge fan of the original (full disclosure, it's comfortably one of my favourite films) I thought the sequel was irredeemable. It starts out alright with some incredible hammery from Riki Takeuchi and some engaging action (albeit action that's been heavily cribbed from Saving Private Ryan), but it burns itself out into utter nonsense surprisingly quickly. It's vastly more cartoonish and over-the-top but not nearly as fun as that sounds, everything is LIFE OR DEATH but it's impossible to care about any of it. The last half in particular feels like a bad anime, it's been a long time since I've seen it but I just remember endless doomed speeches from characters who hadn't really earned them coupled to sudden nonsensical plot twists. I've watched a fair amount of z-grade J-exploitation fare and I would gladly go another round with Tokyo Living Dead Idol or Karate Girl than have to sit through that again, and that's a low bar to clear.

[grassbath]

Apocalypse Now Final Cut, 4K blu.

Wow.  An absolutely top-notch job done there.  It looks amazing, but what really got me was the sound - stuff that I've NEVER heard before that had been lost in the mix for so long.

The film itself is still a masterpiece of course.  I still like the French plantation sequence - it breaks up the two distinctive first and last chapters of the film nicely and touches on an aspect of the conflict that is always ignored - and SO good to lose that fucking awful extended Playboy bunny sequence that seemed like it was from another film by another director (probably one of the few things left over from George Lucas and John Milius' original comedy version).  It's a shame that Coppola re-removed Kurtz reading the reports from Time - a scene I really like - but I understand the removal because it demythologises Kurtz somewhat.

9 out of 10 napalms.

Weirdly, when I saw this cut in the cinema as discussed a couple of weeks ago, the Playboy bunny sequence was still in. What gives?

[Small Man Big Horse]

69 out of 100, surely?

This might be your first DVD pull quote. "Not enough music in this porno" - Small Man Big Horse

Heh, I did indeed miss a trick there. But there were a couple of other porn musicals in the seventies, like Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy, and that has the pretty decent porn to music ratio so it can be done well!

[Famous Mortimer]

I knew as soon as I posted that I'd be presented with multiple musical pornos. Saying that, there was a Channel 4 documentary about the jizz biz ages back that had a new musical hardcore porno with...Evan Stone?...but I'm not looking through his 1300+ IMDB credits to find it.

EDIT: I started looking, and he was the Punisher in the Deadpool XXX Parody. And from looking for the trailer for that, I notice that someone has edited all the sex out of the Justice League XXX parody and uploaded it to Youtube. It's nice they get a chance to do something other than sex, I guess.

EDIT EDIT: Did you know there are Cape Fear and Leaving Las Vegas porn parodies? There are some serious cinephiles working in that industry.

[Shit Good Nose]

Weirdly, when I saw this cut in the cinema as discussed a couple of weeks ago, the Playboy bunny sequence was still in. What gives?

Well, the sequence as presented in the original theatrical cut at the show (with a few extra bits) is still there, it's the post-party sequence in the barracks tents where it all gets silly and slapstickery (and the acting is ABYSMAL) that has been dropped from Redux.

NOW, I sadly missed Final Cut at the cinema (only one near me was showing it, for one day only, and I wasn't around), so I don't know how it played out at the cinema, but I have read that Coppola tinkered with it again after its cinema run and removed some more stuff, which could be why the 4K/blu release was delayed by three weeks.

As I said in another thread, my preferred version of the film is Redux with that extra Playboy sequence removed.

[amputeeporn]

Well, the sequence as presented in the original theatrical cut at the show (with a few extra bits) is still there, it's the post-party sequence in the barracks tents where it all gets silly and slapstickery (and the acting is ABYSMAL) that has been dropped from Redux.

NOW, I sadly missed Final Cut at the cinema (only one near me was showing it, for one day only, and I wasn't around), so I don't know how it played out at the cinema, but I have read that Coppola tinkered with it again after its cinema run and removed some more stuff, which could be why the 4K/blu release was delayed by three weeks.

As I said in another thread, my preferred version of the film is Redux with that extra Playboy sequence removed.

Yeah, I caught it at the cinema and that wasn't there, though I can't really remember it from the Redux either as it's been so long. Can't quite recall how that scene does end, but I think pretty much with the girls being choppered out from the show...

Edit to add: that's absolutely hilarious if Coppola really did fiddle with his FINAL FINAL CUT after the cinema release.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I knew as soon as I posted that I'd be presented with multiple musical pornos. Saying that, there was a Channel 4 documentary about the jizz biz ages back that had a new musical hardcore porno with...Evan Stone?...but I'm not looking through his 1300+ IMDB credits to find it.

EDIT: I started looking, and he was the Punisher in the Deadpool XXX Parody. And from looking for the trailer for that, I notice that someone has edited all the sex out of the Justice League XXX parody and uploaded it to Youtube. It's nice they get a chance to do something other than sex, I guess.

EDIT EDIT: Did you know there are Cape Fear and Leaving Las Vegas porn parodies? There are some serious cinephiles working in that industry.

I wasn't aware of any of those, will have to give the non-sex version of Justice League XXX a go, and try and track down that musical too. And as for the Cape Fear and Leaving Las Vegas porn parodies, I can't work out a way how they wouldn't be in extremely poor taste (Cape Fear especially given the age of Juliette Lewis's character) but maybe one day I'll watch them to find out.

Zero Patience (1993) - Canadian musical all about the first person who supposedly spread AIDS around North America which sees should be dead Victorian sexologist Sir Richard Francis Burton investigate the matter, initially exploiting the story of Patient Zero until he meets and then falls in love with his ghost. I first saw this in the nineties and wasn't sure if it would have aged well and it is occasionally a bit preachy, but it's still a lot of fun, the songs are great, the moral message important, it's a sweet and affecting film and it has singing anus's in it so it's impossible to dislike. 7.6/10

[Blue Jam]

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) - I hadn't seen this in about twenty five years and wasn't sure how I'd get on with it as I'm not that fond of the Coens anymore but I loved it a great deal, it's a sweet, affecting and very funny comedy about the hubris of success and how not to act when everyone around you is proclaiming you to be the next big thing. Tim Robbins has never been more likeable (and that's saying something), Paul Newman is superb playing against type as the bastard of the piece and Jennifer Jason-Leigh is sublime as the fast talking journalist who feels like she's just walked off the set of a fifties screwball comedy. Playful, inventive and incredibly fun, it might just be my favourite film of theirs. 8.1/10

I finally watched all of Better Call Saul this year and while I have read some discussion of the Big Lebowski shout-outs in it, there are also a few nods to The Hudsucker Proxy, no? Am I very wrong for thinking that or can anyone else see it?

The Hudsucker Proxy is a lovely film to watch on New Year's Eve. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, like The Fisher King.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I finally watched all of Better Call Saul this year and while I have read some discussion of the Big Lebowski shout-outs in it, there are also a few nods to The Hudsucker Proxy, no? Am I very wrong for thinking that or can anyone else see it?

The Hudsucker Proxy is a lovely film to watch on New Year's Eve. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, like The Fisher King.

I've only seen the first season of Better Call Saul and can't remember, one day I'll get round to watching the rest though.

And it is definitely a lovely and warm and extremely heartwarming film, and easily my favourite Coen Brothers movie.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I liked it when Saul launched into the Ned Beatty speech in Network when he was in the plush lawyer's office.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Redline (2009) - Japanese anime about a fuck off mental race, after the action packed opening 15 minutes it takes a bit too long to introduce all of the characters, and it's portrayal of female characters is dubious at times, but from 65 minutes in it kicks off again and doesn't let up until the end credits roll. 7.7/10

[Blue Jam]

Really I think Howard Hamlin in BCS just reminds me a bit of Paul Newman's character in The Hudsucker Proxy, and then there's all those boardroom shots. Perhaps the letter from beyind the grave thing too, and the stuff about people working their way up from the mailroom, but mainly it's just the style. I know Gilligan and Gould are very influenced by the Coens in that department.

[phantom_power]

Modern Romance (1981) - Interesting, of-its-time film from Albert Brooks, the Woody Allen it is still OK to like. Reading up I never knew his real name is Einstein (Albert Einstein? Imagine calling your son that) and Bob Einstein was his brother, and he is no relation to James L Brooks, who I had always thought WAS his brother. In the film his character is a bit too creepy stalker to root for but this is pretty much acknowledged in the film. Interestingly non-judgemental use of drugs (Quaaludes and coke) as well that wouldn't wash nowadays. It has made me want to check out his other films

Duck You Sucker (1971) - Christ, that was a long film. I was expecting a relatively short (for Leone) film with that schlocky title but it was as much of a sprawling epic as his other films. Starring an Irish James Coburn and an unrecognisable (to me at least) Rod Steiger (as a Mexican). The main story was enjoyable but I couldn't get on with the interminable, vaseline-lensed flashbacks to Coburn in Ireland recreating the bike scene from Butch Cassidy but in a car and stretched out over about 8 flashbacks and 20 minutes.

The Dead Don't Die (2019) - sort of agree with what most people have said about it being disappointing but I did enjoy it for the most part. Swinton was great but it all felt a bit meh. The ending was a wet fart as well, with the meta stuff seemingly only being there as an excuse to get the heroes over-run by zombies when they could have just fucked off. The three juvenile runaways just disappear into nowhere as well

Starship Trooper (1997) - Fucking masterpiece

[Small Man Big Horse]

Modern Romance (1981) - Interesting, of-its-time film from Albert Brooks, the Woody Allen it is still OK to like. Reading up I never knew his real name is Einstein (Albert Einstein? Imagine calling your son that) and Bob Einstein was his brother, and he is no relation to James L Brooks, who I had always thought WAS his brother. In the film his character is a bit too creepy stalker to root for but this is pretty much acknowledged in the film. Interestingly non-judgemental use of drugs (Quaaludes and coke) as well that wouldn't wash nowadays. It has made me want to check out his other films

I watched Real Life a couple of years ago and remember liking it, it's a bit pleased with itself in places and could have done a bit more with the concept, but overall it was enjoyable stuff.

[phantom_power]

Modern Romance is a bit of an odd beast. There are long scenes that are just him working out how to fix a scene in a film (he is an editor) that has no real bearing on the film other than a bit of character flavouring. The whole thing is very slight but rattles along quite nicely

[Shit Good Nose]

Always found Modern Romance to be massively overrated (Real Life and Lost In America are where it's at), but that date scene is fucking brilliant, as is doing the foley track for George Kennedy.

[phantom_power]

Which date scene? The one where he drives her round the block and then goes off to buy gifts for his ex?

[Enrico Palazzo]

Hotel Coolgardie (2016) on Prime. Compelling documentary about two Finnish girls who go to work in an Australian outback pub for three months. Having lived in Australia the attitude of the blokes wasn't that surprising but it's still an uncomfortable, bleak watch. Recommended.