What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2020 Edition)

[shagatha crustie]

Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012).

Not to be contrarian but I honestly can't see why this gets so much praise. Having admittedly never seen any of his stuff before, it struck me as incredibly Internet-Deep, a sort of mix of 'lolrandom' and 'grimdark'. Rubbed me right up the wrong way. Some of the Brakhage-like animation was pretty cool but the crude stick figure style and the everyman 'Bill' character felt like such a cheap shorthand for trying to get at something essential about the human condition which the film just wasn't able to articulate. I'm so baffled by the gulf between what I saw and the gushing emotional responses I've read, I'm tempted to watch it again to see if I missed something.

[zomgmouse]

Princess Mononoke. Beautifully made with gorgeous detail. At times it felt like there was too much of thing after thing after thing but it was all really wonderful.

The underground society is marvelously realised. Stuck with me for years when I saw this on Moviedrome.

Best part of the A Boy and His Dog by far, the ghostly makeup and hellish nostalgiana and robots. Fantastic.

[SteveDave]

Slaughterhouse 5

I read the book 700 years ago and remembered he flashed forwards and backwards in time but it was very nicely done in this. The start took a bit of getting used to.

Then I read this on the wikipedia:

In 2013, Guillermo del Toro announced his intention to remake the 1972 film and work with a script by Charlie Kaufman, originally hoping to release it in early 2011. Due to his involvement with The Hobbit, the project was pushed back and remains uncertain.

Christ no.

[zomgmouse]

French Cancan, latterish period Jean Renoir set around the formation of the Moulin Rouge and some of the dramatised personae surrounding it. Felt quite Powell & Pressburgery in tone and colour. Joyful but also mournful, an ode to creative dreamers.

[Puce Moment]

Slaughterhouse 5

I read the book 700 years ago and remembered he flashed forwards and backwards in time but it was very nicely done in this. The start took a bit of getting used to.

Then I read this on the wikipedia:

Christ no.

I hope he adapts the book, and doesn't remake the film.

[zomgmouse]

The Velvet Vampire, oddly lackluster but somehow hypnotic film from Stephanie Rothman, whose only other film I've seen is the outdoor prison exploitation film Terminal Island, which was better. The Velvet Vampire had loads of promise but nosedived quicksmart and never quite recovered, despite a few choice shots and moments.

[SteveDave]

I hope he adapts the book, and doesn't remake the film.

I can't take another "I'm Thinking Of Ending Things" but now with WAR!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Fay Grim - Hal Hartley's sequel to Henry Fool, daft as fuck, amazing. Parker Posey smashes it.

[Famous Mortimer]

Doctor Detroit

I've now seen this three times, which is three too many times.

Dan Aykroyd is a nebbishy professor who, with not that much persuasion, becomes the pimp for four extremely attractive hookers (including a young Fran Drescher). Made before Ghostbusters, which surprised me - I assumed the first time I saw it that it was the arse end of his Ghostbusters fame, where he could get any stupid comedy idea made.

It does have its moments, though.

[Shit Good Nose]

I have a genuine soft spot for a lot of those 80s and 90s also-ran Aykroyd films, and like them a lot better than is probably allowed these days - The Couch Trip, Loose Cannons, Coneheads, Neighbors, My Stepmother Is An Alien and all that, Doctor Detroit as well.  But all of those pre-Ghostbusters ones were on the coat-tails of SNL and The Blues Brothers.

[Famous Mortimer]

I don't dislike it as much as I made out - it's a favourite among my group of friends, and Aykroyd is an interesting character. You'd expect him to be some ultra-uptight guy with a prim-and-proper fiancee, but he's just a single guy, fine around women, enjoys a joint and some dancing, and does coke before having sex with Howard Hesseman's four fine ladies. Well, there's definitely a cocaine scene left on the cutting room floor (Hesseman's coke nail is front and centre in one scene, but no-one's ever seen "using" it). Perhaps the ease with which he takes on this new life is to its detriment, but it's a fun movie (I have seen it too many times though).

[Small Man Big Horse]

Fay Grim - Hal Hartley's sequel to Henry Fool, daft as fuck, amazing. Parker Posey smashes it.

I love Fay Grim, it's my favourite of the trilogy, though Ned Rifle comes a close second.

[Shit Good Nose]

Aside from The Book of Life (which I absolutely hated) I've not seen any of Hartley's films post-Henry Fool.  I didn't even realise Fay Grim and Ned Rifle were follow-ons until these relating posts, so I should probs get hold of those.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Aside from The Book of Life (which I absolutely hated) I've not seen any of Hartley's films post-Henry Fool.  I didn't even realise Fay Grim and Ned Rifle were follow-ons until these relating posts, so I should probs get hold of those.

I found his work post Henry Fool to be very patchy, The Book Of Life and No Such Thing just didn't work for me and The Girl From Monday is really quite poor, but Fay Grim and Ned Rifle are a return to form and capture the feel and spirit of his nineties work.

[Egyptian Feast]

I used to really fancy a bar manager who always raved  about Hal Hartley (she had generally excellent taste and looked like a secretary from a 1940s movie, albeit one who could drink Oliver Reed under the table), but the only film I got around to seeing was Henry Fool, which I really enjoyed but remember very little about other than the ending. Are his early films finally out on DVD?

[Shit Good Nose]

Are his early films finally out on DVD?

Most of his "big" (as in well known) early ones have been available on DVD for years (although Flirt and Trust appear to be out of print) and, as far as I know, most of those have had UK blu ray releases as well.

[Custard]

Ocean's Eight (2018)

Bit mediocre and by the numbers, and for a heist film there's not much excitement or tension, but I quite enjoyed it overall. And cor blimey, Anne Hathaway is ridiculously gorgeous

[zomgmouse]

De Palma's Body Double. Great setup, great look, terrific scenes, unfortunately anticlimactic ending.

Ocean's Eight (2018)

Bit mediocre and by the numbers, and for a heist film there's not much excitement or tension, but I quite enjoyed it overall.

The original British Widows TV show was pretty good!

[Egyptian Feast]

De Palma's Body Double. Great setup, great look, terrific scenes, unfortunately anticlimactic ending.

I really wasn't expecting it to suddenly turn into a Frankie Goes To Hollywood video when I first saw it and my jaw hit the floor. That sequence is hysterical (and a tad elaborate for what's supposed to be a mid-80s porno movie).

The only one of his more blatant Hitchcock homages that totally worked for me was Sisters. I know Dressed To Kill is considered a classic in some quarters, but the only positive thing I can say is that

Spoiler alert

the dramatic reveal of the letter stating 'You have contracted a veneral disease' provoked such a fit of laughter my face hurt.

[close]

[phantom_power]

Lake Michigan Monster (2018) - Ultra-low budget spoof of 50s B-movies. I was about to switch off after about 5 minutes because it was so amateurish but persevered and it was actually a decent film. The limits of the budget are painfully obvious but it makes up for that in charm, good humour, inventive special effects and an interesting general look. It is idiosyncratic and I can imagine some people hating it but I was pleasantly surprised. I am getting good value out of my month's subscription to Arrow Video on Amazon

[Famous Mortimer]

976-Evil

Way too little happens in the first half.

Dragon Fire

My plan to watch every movie featuring an underground fighting league continues. This one is set in the future! Although apart from a space-ship in one shot and references to going off-world, it might as well have been set in the present day, in any big city. Three-quarters of the actors had their martial arts credentials listed under their names during the opening credits, which is always a good sign. More fighting than most movies of this sort, as if they knew the plot wasn't much to write home about.

[Egyptian Feast]

976-Evil

Way too little happens in the first half.

I saw it so long ago I remember nothing about it, but someone shared an intriguing clip from the sequel on Twitter recently where a character is drawn into an evil version of It's A Wonderful Life. Even if the rest of the film is shit, at least 5 minutes of it is worth watching.

[Dex Sawash]

Dora and the Lost City of Gold- live action Dora the Explorer film. Watched a few minutes for a laugh, ended up finishing to it. Seemed like a straightforward live conversion but they had a time jump and Dora is a teenager.
Danny Trejo is Boots (the monkey). Someone thought this should be PG rated and chucked in some violence and peril. Was kind of fun and served to distract my wife from her Ginsburg depression.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Krush Groove - a somewhat fictional telling of the early days of Def Jam, but with Run Dmc, The Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow and Sheila E plus cameos from The Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, it's still great fun. The Fat Boys provided most of the entertainment to be fair.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Nocturna (2007) - Spanish animation about a kid who is afraid of the dark, and then one night sees that the stars are slowly going out one by one. It's packed with some impressive imagery and ideas, and it's a really fun watch, spoilt only by the fact that I found the dubbing to be a bit poor, perhaps the original Spanish original suffers from the same problem (frustratingly I couldn't track down a copy) but one of the main characters is voiced in a particularly annoying manner. Still, it's a minor complaint and I was quite enamoured by this charming, cute little film. 7.6/10

Edit: I've just noticed it's up on youtube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHfrf-9B1mI - though it's only 360p so the quality is quite poor. The voice work is definitely better than the English dub though, but at the same time the picture is so poor that the youtube version isn't worth watching, so if it sounds like your cup of tree somehow tracking down a decent blu-rip of the Spanish dub is the way forward, I hear you can even buy movies these days, but that might just be some scurrilous rumour.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'll Believe You

I felt like a nice gentle comedy. This is about a late-night Art Bell-style talk radio host, who gets what he believes to be a real alien calling into his show. Hijinks kind of ensue.

Thomas Gibson, Patrick Warburton, Chris Elliot, Fred Willard, Siobhan Hogan (SNL, early 90s) and Ed Helms show up, which leads me to believe they were in the small town it was filmed in for something else, and had a spare afternoon. The star, David Alan Basche, looks like they took young Fred Savage's face and put it on adult Fred Savage's body.

Eh. I'll forget it by tomorrow, but it was alright.

[Puce Moment]

Tears of the Black Tiger

Rewatched this tonight - what can one say? It's a beautiful, sumptious period Thai love story with painted backdrops that evoke Kobayoshi's Kwaidan.

It's also about Thai cowboys with massive weapons like rocket launchers who fuck the shit out of people. It was made in 2000. It's truly very pleasingly batshit to fuckery.

The Soundtrack is also stunning.

Try not to watch all of this if you can help it ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU9SyIOJAPI&t=68s&ab_channel=FiveStarMovies

[Custard]

The Gentleman (2019)

Guy Ritchie's latest, and easily one of his best I'd say. It's like a higher stakes, more middle-class Lock Stock or Snatch

Matthew MCoughCough is good, as is Michelle Dockery. Hugh Grant chews the scenery in probably his best role, well, ever

It's maybe a bit TOO twisty and convoluted, but it was enjoyable and quite satisfying by the end

Not as good as Swept Away though, obviously

It's on Amazon Prime at the moment

[Gulftastic]

Captain Marvel (2019)

Expected more. For a film with a large chunk set in outer space during a war, it felt like a small film. Brie Larson was good value, and Nick Fury was fun but otherwise, just a bit blah.

They should have had the bottle to make good on the queerbating.

[SavageHedgehog]

It felt to me like an average episode of Deep Space Nine  or Voyager which, to be fair, is accurate to my memories of the 90s.