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

[Small Man Big Horse]

I didn't care for O Brother, Where Art Thou? personally.  I especially hate that sepia toned cinematography.  Having said that I've only ever watched it the one time, when it first came out, so I really should give it another shot.

It's quite possible I'm wrong about it, I saw it at the cinema when I was reasonably stoned and so easy to please, I do plan to rewatch it at some point but there's other Coen Brothers films I plan to catch again first.

In terms of the films which followed; I thought that The Man Who Wasn't There was very good, though it's not a film that I feel much need to revisit too often.  The Ladykillers is awful and easily the worst Coen Brothers film that I've seen.  I'll stick with the original, thanks.  No Country for Old Men had its moments (namely Javier Bardem) but on the whole it left me a little cold.  I found True Grit to be a snooze fest, though not objectively bad in any way.  Inside Llewyn Davis was interesting but kind of forgettable, I thought.  Hail, Caesar! tends to get a bad rap but I really enjoyed it.  It's a lot of fun and I enjoyed the tie-in with Barton Fink (Capitol Pictures).  I'm always down for a film about the film industry, as it's a fascination of mine.

I'm pretty much in complete agreement with you there, Hail Caesar! is my favourite of their's of the last decade or so, I don't think they've made anything bad (bar The Ladykillers) but I've found a good few to be flawed, I really like the second half of Burn After Reading, for instance, but thought the first half was a tad dull.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was very good and probably my favourite Coen Brothers film post-The Big Lebowski.  I'm a sucker for anthology films.  I'd certainly agree that their most recent work isn't in the same league as their past works though.  I think that we may have past the point of peak Coen Borthers material.  Having said that, their films are always worth checking out.  They remain two of my favourite filmmakers.

I've yet to see Buster Scruggs but will do soon, as most people seem to rate it, bar one sequence which I'm told is weak.

Witchfinder General's so goshdarned good, in't it?  I first saw it while living in Manningtree, Matthew Hopkins' old haunts.  Inspired me to track down that wee witch-hunting manual he wrote, which is the most odious, ropey shite I've ever cast my eyes on.  Fun read.

Did anyone ever see Michael Reeves' other two films?  Vaguely remember seeing some clips of bubbly, colourful viscera on a Reeves featurette, but have no idea if they're actually any cop.

I really liked The Sorcerers, and for some reason wrote a review of it for imdb 12 years ago. Warning: Mild spoilers below:

I was intrigued by the premise of this, as it's a fairly odd film, in which a professor and his wife have perfected a machine which allows them to hypnotise and then control someone. They lure Ian Ogilvy in to being their first test subject, and it allows them to control him even when he's not near them, and feel and see everything he experiences.

At first it's quite an interesting exploration of sixties life, with the elderly couple enjoying the thrill of living life through Ogilvy's eyes, but soon they become more and more obsessed with controlling him. At this point there's a nice bit of social commentary going on too (especially concerning the disenchantment of 'the youth' of the sixties, and how long such a golden age could possibly continue), but the second half becomes a disturbing horror flick as the wife suddenly becomes excited and obsessed by the ability to force Ogilvy to commit acts of violence. Her mind's stronger than her husband's it seems, and so he's unable to stop her - especially when she physically stops him from trying too.

The first half is a really quite enjoyable if slightly flimsy piece of cinema, but the second half is what makes it pretty unique, as it becomes much much more darker as the wife forces Ogilvy to kill time and time again. The interplay between Karloff and his wife is great, and the ending's fittingly neat too. Perhaps it's not quite the insight in to voyeurism / obsession that Michael Powell's Peeping Tom is, but it's certainly got a lot going for it with a sharp script, great acting (especially from Karloff) and some interesting imagery and choices of camera angles too.

So The Sorcerer's perhaps by no means a classic, but it's definitely an intriguing film, and it gets 7/10 from me.

[Sin Agog]

Cheers for that, SMBH (got a link to your other IMDB reviews by any chance, that is if you don't think they're outdated or whatnot?).  On one hand two very original films under your belt in your 20s is more of a legacy than I'll ever lay claim to, but dying of some grizzly disease so young is such a waste.  I think I'll just pretend he changed his name to Pete Walker, making several more sleazy Brit-horror classics in the '70s, before living a full, happy life.

[Gregory Torso]

The Hudsucker Proxy is a very underrated Coen Brothers film. I haven't seen it for years but I remember watching it stoned with some friends and absolutely loving its goofiness. Going round for ages afterwards saying to each other "Cigareet?" and "you know, for kids" like the sad arseholes we were, and indeed still are. I should rewatch it, I think.

[greenman]

Honestly I felt Hanks was good enough in the Ladykillers to save it from being actively bad even if it was probably there worst although if anything you could argue that made it more disappointing as it wasn't totally without potential.

[gilbertharding]

I think that we may have past the point of peak Coen Brothers material.  Having said that, their films are always worth checking out.  They remain two of my favourite filmmakers.

I agree with you. Call me a sucker, but I think I'd rather watch them on an off-day than a lot of other people's absolute best work. And perhaps it's nostalgia - but the people who made Barton Fink, Fargo and Burn After Reading can be forgiven a lot.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Cheers for that, SMBH (got a link to your other IMDB reviews by any chance, that is if you don't think they're outdated or whatnot?).  On one hand two very original films under your belt in your 20s is more of a legacy than I'll ever lay claim to, but dying of some grizzly disease so young is such a waste.  I think I'll just pretend he changed his name to Pete Walker, making several more sleazy Brit-horror classics in the '70s, before living a full, happy life.

I only ever wrote four, no idea why I did for those particular films either, just guess I was in the mood to do so at the time, and I can't find a way to link to them so I'll just repost them here:

Afternoon Delight - 2/10

I've previously been a big fan of the director's work, The United States of Tara and Six Feet Under especially, but this is a tiresome piece which doesn't really go anywhere. Or anywhere interesting, at least.

Bored housewife Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) seems to be trudging through every day life without taking much pleasure in it until she meets a stripper with a heart of gold (or so it seems at first) and invites her in to her home. After discovering that said stripper is also a sex worker she becomes more obsessed with her, until, inevitably, events take a darker turn.

The first half hour of the movie is fairly amusing and well written, albeit with thinly sketched characters that it's hard to care about. But after that the film is painfully self-indulgent, predictable, and transforms in to a tedious mumblecore flick where we're supposed to care for the central leads despite them having no depth at all. An incredibly over long and agonisingly dull party scene seems to go on forever and from that point on everything is hit home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, until the film eventually ends and you'll wonder why it couldn't all have been summed up within 45 minutes.

Centering around the idea that "You don't appreciate what you've got until you've lost it", it could be of interest if it wasn't for the badly drawn characters and frustratingly predictable plot developments, that ultimately lead to an ending you'll have seen coming a mile off. It's a real shame as the first thirty minutes show promise, but it truly fails to deliver on it.

The Revenant - 8/10

Despite winning a lot of awards at various festivals (check out the wiki page for the impressive full list), The Revenant was frustratingly not given a proper release for far too long.

It deserves to become a cult classic (in the best sense of the phrase) though as it's a very intelligently written new take on the zombie genre, something with a lot of genuinely fascinating ideas which are explored beautifully. Ultimately a horror film with a comedic edge, it has a lot of fun with it's concept, whilst still managing to pull off some truly horrible scenes. Yet it's also got a very strong emotional core, and certain moments are surprisingly tender and touching.

I won't say much more as part of the fun is seeing how the film develops, but ultimately I loved this and would really recommend it to any film fan - and not just those in to horror films.

Crimewave - 8/10

I'm a huge fan of the Coen Brothers, well, up until Intolerable Cruelty, and Raimi as well, and think this is one of the best films all three have been involved in. Admittedly Crimewave won't be to everyone's tastes, but it is a great, unpredictable slapstick comedy with some fantastically funny dialogue, and truly bizarre moments in it.

Bruce Campbell's superb in a cameo role, showing how adept he was at diverse roles long before his recent 'comeback' in Bubba Ho-Tep, Paul L Smith is a truly frightening villain, and even Reed Birney's great, though sadly his career seemed to falter after this. If you like your films to be unusual, entertaining, and ones that you'll want to watch again, then Crimewave's definitely for you.

I've written quite a few reviews for my site though, which can be found here: https://comedytowatch.wordpress.com/category/film-reviews/

The Hudsucker Proxy is a very underrated Coen Brothers film. I haven't seen it for years but I remember watching it stoned with some friends and absolutely loving its goofiness. Going round for ages afterwards saying to each other "Cigareet?" and "you know, for kids" like the sad arseholes we were, and indeed still are. I should rewatch it, I think.

I'd recommend doing so, I really wasn't sure if it would live up to my memories of it but if anything it exceeded them. And yeah, I've been going around saying "You know, for kids" since rewatching it too.

[Egyptian Feast]

Honestly I felt Hanks was good enough in the Ladykillers to save it from being actively bad even if it was probably there worst although if anything you could argue that made it more disappointing as it wasn't totally without potential.

It's not great, but I liked it a lot more than their previous film, Intolerable Cruelty (which I notice nobody's mentioned yet). The Ladykillers had a few elements I can dimly remember enjoying, whereas there was nothing I liked about Cruelty. Those two films are undoubtedly the pits of their back catalogue. 

[Small Man Big Horse]

It's not great, but I liked it a lot more than their previous film, Intolerable Cruelty (which I notice nobody's mentioned yet). The Ladykillers had a few elements I can dimly remember enjoying, whereas there was nothing I liked about Cruelty. Those two films are undoubtedly the pits of their back catalogue.

You're not wrong about Intolerable Cruelty, on paper it should have been a lot of fun but it's one of the blandest things I've ever seen.

[Sin Agog]

Joel's take on the Garfield legend was disappointing.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I'll ask this here since it applies to non-new films...

On the movie channels on Freeview, does anyone know why some of the movie channels show the film in two halves with a 5-minute short programme (listed in the programme guide) halfway through.  Despite being scheduled as 5 minutes it usually lasts about 1 minute so the time you have to wait until the film resumes is barely longer than a standard commercial break.  It's sometimes some sort of showbiz news, but occasionally it's something totally irrelevant like a 1-minute fragment of a newsreel about Pele or a short film about aircraft.

Is the channel forced to schedule these utterly pointless things perhaps because the channels raison d'être (ooh hark at me!) has changed but they're having to fulfil their Promise Of Performance?

[Sebastian Cobb]

I watched Babylon (1980) last night. It was excellent, a day in the life of some young lads from Lambeth trying to make ends meet and build a soundsystem. In some ways it's similar to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, although made a decade earlier and starring someone from Aswad.

[Dex Sawash]

I've gone on for up to four poorly constructed sentences about my love for Hudsucker Proxy before. I like that film a lot. I think it may be an easier watch than the average Coen. Oh shit, am I a normie?

[samadriel]

I think it may be an easier watch than the average Coen.

I could believe that, it's both simple and beautiful.  And hilarious.  Incidentally, I'm surprised O Brother Where Art Thou hasn't been mentioned, I adore that one, it has the same virtues as Hudsucker Proxy, plus lots of great music.  They might have overcranked the then-new colour grading technology slightly, but it's still great to look at.

[greenman]

It's not great, but I liked it a lot more than their previous film, Intolerable Cruelty (which I notice nobody's mentioned yet). The Ladykillers had a few elements I can dimly remember enjoying, whereas there was nothing I liked about Cruelty. Those two films are undoubtedly the pits of their back catalogue.

Really I think post millennium there seemed to be two levels to their work, stuff like No Country, True Grit and Llewyn Davis having a lot more effort put into them than Intolerable Cruelty or Burn After Reading.

[St_Eddie]

Incidentally, I'm surprised O Brother Where Art Thou hasn't been mentioned...

Except for the fact that it has.  First by Small Man Big Horse and then again by myself.

I used to adore them but haven't completely enjoyed one of their movies since O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I didn't care for O Brother, Where Art Thou? personally.  I especially hate that sepia toned cinematography.  Having said that I've only ever watched it the one time, when it first came out, so I really should give it another shot.

[sevendaughters]

Le Fils - first time watching a Dardenne Brothers film and I'm hooked. A guy who runs a joinery workshop for rehabbing teen offenders is confronted with the kid who killed his son when he was an 11 year old tearaway. The kid hasn't a clue and thinks the guy is getting close to him paternally. Super stuff, bits of Alan Clarke here, sad and anonymous Belgian locations, the final half is pure tension.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Except for the fact that it has.  First by Small Man Big Horse and then again by myself.

The bastard's clearly using the hide user script on us St Eddie!

[St_Eddie]

The bastard's clearly using the hide user script on us St Eddie!

Actually, the thought had occurred to me, I must confess.

[samadriel]

I would never skip your posts SMBH!  Eddie... *waggles hand*

[phantom_power]

I would never skip your posts SMBH!  Eddie... *waggles hand*

https://youtu.be/5hgUYVGJMdM?t=232

[zomgmouse]

Class of Nuke 'Em High. I think this is only the second Troma film I've seen (after Poultrygeist) but it's the only one I actually enjoyed (sorry Poultrygeist). Real camp Americana. Great fun. Despite having some pretty shitty moments as well.

Les bonnes femmes. Early Chabrol. Enigmatic and funny but a truly horrific dark ending. It's grown on me since watching.

Inspecteur Lavardin. The sequel to Cop au vin - it's better than the first one but still can't quite shake the slightly slight tv episode aesthetic.

[phantom_power]

I started watching Quintet last night. Does it carry on with that vaseline-filtered nothingness for the whole film or does something actually happen? I love Altman and am trying to go through his filmography in random order but I struggled with the first 15 minutes of this and wondered if it was worth persevering?

[Shit Good Nose]

I struggled with the first 15 minutes of this and wondered if it was worth persevering?

No - it's a terrible film by anyone's standards.  The fact that it's Altman makes it that much worse.

[phantom_power]

Shame, as the overall concept and marrying of Newman and Altman seemed like a great mixture

[Sebastian Cobb]

Class of Nuke 'Em High. I think this is only the second Troma film I've seen (after Poultrygeist) but it's the only one I actually enjoyed (sorry Poultrygeist). Real camp Americana. Great fun. Despite having some pretty shitty moments as well.

Les bonnes femmes. Early Chabrol. Enigmatic and funny but a truly horrific dark ending. It's grown on me since watching.

Inspecteur Lavardin. The sequel to Cop au vin - it's better than the first one but still can't quite shake the slightly slight tv episode aesthetic.

Toxic Avenger is the real classic. And Tromeo and Juliet, although trashy is a great adaptation.

[SteveDave]

I want to see this more than anything at the moment

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7886442/

I think it's a Death Wish knock off with a Charles Bronson lookalike?

[Egyptian Feast]

Toxic Avenger is the real classic. And Tromeo and Juliet, although trashy is a great adaptation.

I have a soft spot for Terror Firmer, where Lloyd Kaufman plays a fictionalised blind version of himself trying to get his latest movie in the can while a Steven Spielberg obsessed serial killer targets the crew. It packs a hell of a lot into its runtime and contains one of the most ridiculous setpieces I've ever witnessed (slightly diminished by censorship and the poor quality of this - extremely NSFW -clip, but you get the idea):

https://youtu.be/CFTmKV330e8

[Shit Good Nose]

I have a soft spot for Terror Firmer, where Lloyd Kaufman plays a fictionalised blind version of himself trying to get his latest movie in the can while a Steven Spielberg obsessed serial killer targets the crew. It packs a hell of a lot into its runtime and contains one of the most ridiculous setpieces I've ever witnessed (slightly diminished by censorship and the poor quality of this - extremely NSFW -clip, but you get the idea):

https://youtu.be/CFTmKV330e8

Most famous at the time for cameos from Lemmy, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (at the peak of South Park's popularity) as hermaphrodites in this little PIF in the film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ0vSCuoXoE

The most complete running time is about two and a quarter hours which, from memory, is little more than obvious out-takes and sensibly deleted scenes put back in.

That clip is actually from the original R rated version, which Kaufman intentionally made ridiculous (that's his own censoring there) and, in many ways, it's the funniest version of the film for that reason

[Dex Sawash]

I have a soft spot for Terror Firmer, where Lloyd Kaufman plays a fictionalised blind version of himself trying to get his latest movie in the can while a Steven Spielberg obsessed serial killer targets the crew. It packs a hell of a lot into its runtime and contains one of the most ridiculous setpieces I've ever witnessed (slightly diminished by censorship and the poor quality of this - extremely NSFW -clip, but you get the idea):

https://youtu.be/CFTmKV330e8

Thanks for this

[St_Eddie]

No - it's a terrible film by anyone's standards.  The fact that it's Altman makes it that much worse.

Altman, I'm not angry.  I'm disappointed.