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

[greenman]

I watched it this very morning. It looks fairly interesting, but it shows the obvious problem with adapting Lovecraft for the screen (other than the racism) in that there aren't any impossible colours on display. Maybe I need to calibrate my screen.

I'd say the issue is those with the ability to recreate a "lovecraftian atmosphere" tend to be less interested in direct adaptations of his work, both due to racism and its pulpy nature.

[phantom_power]

Richard Stanley and Lovecraft is a pretty good match up of director and source material though, I would say

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

A rainy weeked round my friends' house had us searching Netflix for something to occupy the kids that wouldn't also bore us adults to tears. Our search eventually led to...

Monster House (2006)

Dan Harmon, of all people, co-wrote this animated adventure, in which a trio of kids investigate the titular evil residence.

The pacing seemed a little off - I thought the film was gearing up for the finish, only to check the time and see there was still half an hour left. Other than that though, I found it rather enjoyable. Like your classic '80s kids films, or pre-shitness Tim Burton, it pushes the gruesomeness about as far as the PG rating will allow and I expect that any kids watching would remember it with a fond shudder years later. The subject matter and visual style had me convinced it was a Laika Studios effort, but it turned out the animation is actually CGI. I was particularly surprised to read that it was motion captured, as it never leapt into the uncanny valley.

Speaking of the uncanny...

I'd say the issue is those with the ability to recreate a "lovecraftian atmosphere" tend to be less interested in direct adaptations of his work, both due to racism and its pulpy nature.

I can certainly imagine much of Hollywoo's A-list shying away from the inevitable controversy. I'm not so sure about the pulpiness, when the biggest films in the world are all comics adaptations. There was Guillermo Del Toro's attempt to make At the Mountains of Madness, which was abandoned when Prometheus basically ripped off the plot - which is yet another reason to dislike that big pile of plop.

The Call of Cthulhu silent movie is worth a watch if you're after a more direct adaptation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHuY2wXTd0o

[joaquin closet]

Monster House (2006)

Me and my younger sisters still talk about this one, scared the bejeezus out of us in the cinema. I was 9, and also a massive wetter. The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror "Bad Dream House" segment also gave me nightmares. Something about bastard buildings I guess.

[greenman]

Speaking of the uncanny...I can certainly imagine much of Hollywoo's A-list shying away from the inevitable controversy. I'm not so sure about the pulpiness, when the biggest films in the world are all comics adaptations. There was Guillermo Del Toro's attempt to make At the Mountains of Madness, which was abandoned when Prometheus basically ripped off the plot - which is yet another reason to dislike that big pile of plop.

The Call of Cthulhu silent movie is worth a watch if you're after a more direct adaptation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHuY2wXTd0o

There are degrees of pulp you could say I spose, I mean something like The Thing is pulpy but not to the degree I can't have some good personal drama and subtext to it. When I think about the kinds of directors who could have brought the sense of dread needed the likes of Kubrick, Lynch or recently Glazer come to mind and none of them ever seemed interested in going that pulp.

It just seems to me that his main influence isn't really the direct mythos, its more general atmosphere.

[Famous Mortimer]

Dracula vs. Frankenstein

What I actually wanted to watch was "Horror of the Blood Monsters", but I forgot which Al Adamson movie. It was released in 1971 but could have been made at any time in the preceding 20 years (apart from the one exposed boob, I guess). I forget how slow and stagey b-movies were.

[Custard]

Red Joan

Dame Poo-dy Stench is an old lady who used to be a spy, or something.

Watched this as it was Mrs Custard's choice, and it was one of the most boring films I've ever seen, and I've seen at least ten.

I'd never fallen asleep during a film before, so thanks to all involved. Just what I needed, it's been a long week

[touchingcloth]

Legends of the Fall

And what the fuck? Brad Pitt wrestles a bear, does war, scalps some Germans, corals wild horses, farms the land, shuns a woman, and Anthony Hopkins turns from something out of an EM Forster into Doc Emmet Brown. It's like every Flashman novel in one.

[Small Man Big Horse]

South Pacific (1958) - Bizarre fifties musical set on a couple of islands in an ocean somewhere, where a bunch of sexually frustrated soldiers moan about how desperate they are for relief. A french guy seduces one of the women but then fucks it up by telling her he's a murderer, and after she accepts that, that he has two kids but the mother's dead. Meanwhile a lieutenant has a dodgy relationship with a woman who's mother claims he'll never have to work as she'll earn money for both of them, and then sings "Happy Talk" while he stares at the daughter in a creepy manner. It's overlong and a little bit too quirky, and though it looks beautiful, is mostly likeable and the songs are pretty damn good, it's definitely lacking in substance and the action scenes towards the end drag, making for a slightly annoying ending. 7.2/10

[joaquin closet]

Phoenix (2014)

Simultaneously overly restrained and ridiculously implausible... Sort of felt like one note played over and over again. I had heard the end scene was very powerful, and it was, but I wanted more afterwards.

[Blumf]

Hell in the Pacific (1968)
Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune are dicks to each other on a remote Pacific island, then friendly, then back to being dicks, because war is hell... in the Pacific.

Hopefully you've all seen it already, because it's great. Two brilliant actors getting to do their thing. Weirdly shown in the morning by Talking Pictures TV, not exactly the best time for it, but I had nothing doing so it all worked out.

[peanutbutter]

Relaxer

By the guy who made Buzzard, starring the guy from Buzzard, about a guy who has committed to staying on his couch until he gets past level 256 of Pac Man.
Had the weird effect of both making me appreciate his work more, whist also hugely questioning the hype I've given to Buzzard over the last few years. Disgusting film, this one.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Legends of the Fall

And what the fuck? Brad Pitt wrestles a bear, does war, scalps some Germans, corals wild horses, farms the land, shuns a woman, and Anthony Hopkins turns from something out of an EM Forster into Doc Emmet Brown. It's like every Flashman novel in one.

I once saw this film twice at the cinema by mistake.

It really is bizarre. The final freeze-frame of Pitt wrestling the bear is hilarious, and why on earth did the director not tell Hopkins that his portrayal of a man who's had a stroke was more akin to an angry maniac who's wanked himself mute?

Sir Ant is a good actor, so I can only assume that he was deliberately taking the piss a la Brando.

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Alright did a marathon of these, don't judge:

Emmanuelle by Just Jaeckin

Beautifully photographed and lit in an empty, glossy magazine manner and indifferently acted. Contradictory sexual politics. Badly paced.

Theme song: Slaps. Wispy, yearning european guitar pop.

'The fuck are they doing in this?' award: Alain Cuny, who is creepy as hell.

Emmanuelle: L'antivierge by Francis Giacobetti

Same as the first one but even glossier. Suffers from the same pacing issues. The only film in the series to feature a man who is as beautiful as the many women in the film (Frédéric Lagache).

Theme song: Dull piano ballad also intergrated into the score.

'The fuck are they doing in this?' award: Umberto Orsini, who went from Visconti to this.

Goodbye Emmanuelle by François Leterrier

Much more a story in this one and Emmanuelle finally emerges as a character with half-decent psychological shading. The acting of the director she falls in love with is unbelievably shit. To be honest the character drama is only half-competent, with lots of too-on-the-nose dialogue and dilemmas tied up too quickly. But it's probably the best of the initial series, and a decent enough ending to what little story there was. Apparently it was the first film that Miramax distributed.

Theme song: It's Gainsbourg, so it's great, slinky stuff.

'The fuck are they doing in this?' award: Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, who hangs around in the background in a couple of scenes. His previous acting appearance in a film had been 'Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles'. Will always love him for being perfect in Robbe-Grillet's 'L'Immortelle'.

Emmanuelle IV by Francis Leroi

This film has the most bonkers opening 20 minutes in the entire series, with an opener of Sylvia Kristel appearing at a very sparsely attended party in Beverly Hills which appears to be 1930s dress even though a title card tells us it's 1983. Kristel is revealed to basically be playing herself (?!) as people refer to her as 'Sylvia', not 'Emmanuelle'. She runs into the man whose passionate love drives her wild enough to have to avoid and flee him, and he is not the man she ended up with in the previous film, so that clearly didn't last. The need to flee this tempestuous affair leads her to seek full body plastic surgery in which Kristel is transformed into a younger and less talented actress, now referred to as 'Emmanuelle'. This young woman is revealed by being peeled out of a full body rubber cast while lying on her front for some inexplicable reason, as if she's been an embryo for a year or so. Upon the revelation of the newly emerged beautiful body, the surgeon is asked by his assistant, with all sincerity, "The question is: are you a greater surgeon, or a greater poet?" Then cut to Kristel in a soft focus sequence, standing a white-walled room, showing a woman (not her younger self) a series of men encased in glass pods so the woman can pick a man and Kristel can direct her in the ways of love. Every time there's a cut the woman has transformed into a different woman. There is no suggestion that this is a fantasy sequence, it's just in there, shunted into the film. When the younger Emmanuelle emerges from cryo-sleep, she's also inexplicably a virgin. I cannot emphasise how baffled I was by this seeing as how the previous three films are basically just languid screensaver films featuring people lounging around and lazily fucking in exotic locales, and now we've been thrown into sci-fi and soft surrealism, all with a Tommy Wiseau-esque 'uncanny' feeling to the sets, costumes, and dialogue. The film settles down a bit after that and just becomes straightforward soft porn but the first 20 minutes is unbelievable nonsense. I can't believe how much I've written about it, but it really is unbelievably shabby and weird.

Theme song: Generic 80s Al Jarreau type shit

'The fuck are they doing in this?' award: None other than Fabrice Luchini turns up, for a 2 minute cameo in which he hypnotises Emmanuelle and then makes her levitate. Literally. No joke.

Emmanuelle 5 by Walerian Borowczyk

The one I was most interested in seeing, because of Borowcyk, and believe it or not he actually delivers the auteur shit. His montage is dense, rhythmic, allusive, elliptical, with lots of shots of objects, trinkets and ornaments and much dialogue occuring only in voiceover as not to interrupt a visual montage that often achieves true surrealist frenzy. It's like an extremely bizarre European art film of Godard-level ellipticism with bits of a conventional softcore film bursting through like shafts of light. It's obviously mangled to shit, and nowhere near Borowczyk's best work because you get the feeling that he's not in full control of the pacing and atmosphere. But he still delivers a really charactistically strange film. It shares nothing with the other Emmanuelle films except the name of the central character, who is clearly a different person. The only version I could get hold of was a shonky VHS rip but hopefully they'll Blu-ray this at some point

Theme song: Nice, gently affecting 80s pop ballad. Works well enough.

'The fuck are they doing in this?' award: Borowcyk himself, who was clearly adrift and in need of funding for cinematic projects that allowed him to explore his usual preoccupations. Looks like this was his penultimate film project.

[A Hat Like That]

Hell in the Pacific (1968)
Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune are dicks to each other on a remote Pacific island, then friendly, then back to being dicks, because war is hell... in the Pacific.

Hopefully you've all seen it already, because it's great. Two brilliant actors getting to do their thing. Weirdly shown in the morning by Talking Pictures TV, not exactly the best time for it, but I had nothing doing so it all worked out.

Yeah, saw that over the weekend. The ending is a bit abrupt.

[Blumf]

Alright did a marathon of these, don't judge:

Emmanuelle ...

You didn't top it off with Carry on Emmanuelle?

[Artie Fufkin]

Alright did a marathon of these, don't judge:

Emmanuelle by Just Jaeckin

How many wanks out of ten?

[SteveDave]

Emmanuelle by Just Jaeckin

...off

[Small Man Big Horse]

don't judge:

Oh I think I will be judging. Judging all night long.

[Artie Fufkin]

...off

Nice....

[greenman]

Grand Central by the director of Portmans derided Planetarium, drama about low end French nuclear decontamination workers. Never seen the Portman film but I thought this worked very well, does maybe feel like its scraping around for the drama a little but the atmosphere is very effective, actually reminds me a little of Under the Skin with the unsettling soundtrack and the urban/natural mix.

[Artie Fufkin]

Grand Central by the director of Portmans derided Planetarium, drama about low end French nuclear decontamination workers. Never seen the Portman film but I thought this worked very well, does maybe feel like its scraping around for the drama a little but the atmosphere is very effective, actually reminds me a little of Under the Skin with the unsettling soundtrack and the urban/natural mix.

Loved Under The Skin so much. And now I can tell my weird Under The Skin tale.....bought it cheap off Amazon. Watched it that weekend. Talked to a colleague about it on Monday said I'd lend it to them. Went home that evening and it's nowhere to be seen. It's only a lil flat we live in. Not many places for it to be. This was probably 2 years ago? Still not turned up. It's poltergeists, right?

[greenman]

Looking at dates Grand Central came out a few months before so you couldn't accuse it of copycatting, I can kind of see how the director might make a flop and this kind feel like it was teetering on irrelevance at points but I think the atmosphere plus the guy from A Prophet and Seydoux were good enough to see it though. Not at the level of Glazers film but something a bit different to the typical French drama with the same kind of nature/man made and sex/death playoffs.

[SteveDave]

The Swimmer (1968) Unsurprisingly, it's not as good as the short story it's adapted from

https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Cheever_Swimmer.pdf

[Artie Fufkin]

The Swimmer (1968) Unsurprisingly, it's not as good as the short story it's adapted from

https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Cheever_Swimmer.pdf

Love this story so much. Thanks for sharing. I watched the film a while back. It's fine, but, as you say, not a patch on the story.

[SteveDave]

Love this story so much. Thanks for sharing. I watched the film a while back. It's fine, but, as you say, not a patch on the story.

I read it for the first time last week and it really creeped me out. It's like a dream. A bad one.

[phantom_power]

Wings of Desire (1987) - I am not sure I completely got this film, and it is one that I enjoy more on reflection than while actually watching. I think it suffers a being parodied and copied so much that it has become a bit cliche. Some great performances and imagery though, and I was quite exhilarated when the angel finally became mortal. It was also pretty ballsy to not only have Peter Falk play himself, but also to reveal that he is a fallen angel as well. All in all it was not what I was expecting. For one thing I thought the "angel overlooking the world" part would be about a quarter of the film and the "angel living as a mortal" bit would be about three quarters. In reality it is the other way round.  All in all though I liked it but suspect I am not clever enough to fully appreciate it

[greenman]

Faulk's role on paper does sound like something a bit too precious I'd agree but I think it ends up working very well, he's just about as "worldy" as its possible to be onscreen which I think along with Ganz charm saves it from feeling too self important.

[grassbath]

Loved Under The Skin so much. And now I can tell my weird Under The Skin tale.....bought it cheap off Amazon. Watched it that weekend. Talked to a colleague about it on Monday said I'd lend it to them. Went home that evening and it's nowhere to be seen. It's only a lil flat we live in. Not many places for it to be. This was probably 2 years ago? Still not turned up. It's poltergeists, right?

It has fallen into a void like the one in the film Under the Skin.

[Dex Sawash]

Ski Patrol (1990) peak 80s nylon neon pastel shite. Completely unwatchable, Martin Mull as the baddie and an embryonic George Lopez. Just letting it roll while I read CaB. 2/10