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

[Artie Fufkin]

The Shining - 1980

Haven't watched this for quite some time. Wowzer! Jack's performance is a tour-de-force. Shelley is superb, but Jack is just something else. Almost hammy, but in a terrifying way.
It's one of those 'based on a Stephen King film' that just works. Even though it's quite different from the book.

Spoiler alert

I love how Hallorann's character is filmed trekking all that way only to be instantly killed on his arrival at Overlook.

[close]

So grim. Danny Lloyd is great, too. A really good performance from him. I wonder how they got him to do some of those scenes.

Spoiler alert

Particularly the scene where he's sitting in bed, head shaking and drooling.

[close]

That got a hefty 4* from me.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Almost hammy, but in a terrifying way.

"Almost"?

[frajer]

Bloody love The Shining.

Had the pleasure of seeing the extended US cut when it was screened at the BFI a few years ago and, while the obsessive fan in me loved seeing the extra footage, I think Kubrick's preferred leaner cut is still the best version. Cutting the extra half-hour strips away even more context and it makes it feel even more dislocated and unsettling. Cracking film in either form though.

[dissolute ocelot]

Michael Almereyda's Cymbelline aka Anarchy: Ride or Die. I can totally understand why this has terrible ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and elsewhere, but I really liked it for reasons I can't quite explain. It feels like a weird dream. There are some great performances: Ethan Hawke is brilliantly sleazy, and Ed Harris isn't at his best but is still Ed Harris, and Dakota Johnson is good when not speaking, Milla Jovovich makes a decent torch-singing villainess despite not being in it much, and the likes of John Leguizamo are always watchable. The plot is bollocks, but that's Shakespeare's fault, and despite plenty scenes of people getting tooled up and walking round with guns it doesn't have anything in the way of action scenes. But looks great, moves at a zip, lots of cool people, cool words, weirdly uplifting ending, just the right amount of improbable modernisation.

Some people mentioned Bunuel and I watched both Viridiana and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie in the last few weeks, both of which were underwhelming. Viridiana is just being mean to nuns (didn't like), and Discreet Charm is fun but would be a zillion times better if it was a Hollywood comedy (EDIT: actually maybe it is a Hollywood comedy? Like it more in retrospect.) I remember enjoying The Exterminating Angel and Belle de Jour, and Los Olvidados is great. But maybe Bunuel can no longer shock.

Finally, watched Trancers, the "classic" 80s time travel cop movie with a young Helen Hunt and low-budget hardman Tim Thomerson, for the first time in about 25 years. It should be awful, and the ending is a bit meh, and it feels even more like a shuffling of cliches than it did when I was young (combining classic Terminatory time travel riffs with very 80s trenchcoat-based neo noir). But damn it's fun (and Christmassy). (I have to say I'm a soft spot for Van Damme in Timecop too.)

(The Shining is great, it definitely can be watched as either scary-as-fuck horror or analyse-the-hell-out-of-it art movie depending on your mood.)

[Mantle Retractor]

Bloody love The Shining.

Had the pleasure of seeing the extended US cut when it was screened at the BFI a few years ago and, while the obsessive fan in me loved seeing the extra footage, I think Kubrick's preferred leaner cut is still the best version. Cutting the extra half-hour strips away even more context and it makes it feel even more dislocated and unsettling. Cracking film in either form though.

I saw this at the cinema last week, first time on the big screen. One of my favourite films of all time. It was the extended cut as well which I have only seen a few times and I much prefer the European one which I grew up with. I first saw the film when I was about 6 - probably too early to become acquainted with it (no idea what my parents were playing at). Still, to this day, I have dreams / nightmares about The Overlook Hotel. And if I'm not there then I'm in the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.

I came away from the screening with a renewed admiration for Danny Lloyd and Shelley Duvall's performances. Alarmingly, I started fancying Shelley Duvall throughout the film (which has never happened to me before in hundreds of viewings - does anyone else see it?). Although she's a hysterical wreck for a great deal of the film and isn't what you would describe as 'classically' beautiful (for want of a better term), there's something...striking about her I suppose.

I found Jack being Jack playing a character called Jack a bit distracting on the big screen.

There was 7 of us in the cinema. Judging by the reactions of the lady further along the row from me, she had never seen the film before: she jumped out of her seat when Danny encounters the Grady girls; she hid her face when the rotten woman in Room 237 started approaching and cackling; she laughed at the daft way Wendy holds the baseball bat. She also gasped when Grady made his racial slur towards Halloran. I would love to be able to see this film again for the first time.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

"Almost"?

Kubrick encouraged Nicholson to sail wildly over the top, didn't he? I'm pretty sure I read that Nicholson was, at first, delivering a relatively subdued performance, but Kubrick kept pushing him to go bigger.

That was the right decision, as Nicholson's manic intensity is a key part of the film's appeal. It's just so strange and unsettling.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Kubrick encouraged Nicholson to sail wildly over the top, didn't he? I'm pretty sure I read that Nicholson was, at first, delivering a relatively subdued performance, but Kubrick kept pushing him to go bigger.

That was the right decision, as Nicholson's manic intensity is a key part of the film's appeal. It's just so strange and unsettling.

Some behind the scenes footage of Nicholson hopping around and almost hitting a PA in the head with an axe while getting into character: https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1322244378069504001

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I suspect that was filmed after months of Kubrick encouraging Nicholson to, y'know, really let loose.

That documentary is fascinating. Kubrick comes across as a right cunt, a massive parka-clad bully, when he's directing a clearly tired and emotional Shelley Duvall.

[zomgmouse]

The Demon, a melodrama (and not a horror as I first thought when I put it on) about a man who is confronted by his mistress who leaves him with their children; the man's wife is less than pleased and pressures him to get rid of the children in any way possible. Not sure what it is about it but it builds up to a hell of a final half-hour or so, some absolutely heart-wrenching displays which bring it up a notch.

Samurai Spy, another Japanese film, moody samurai period piece with some cool stylistic flourishes and dazzling imagery that make up for a lot of the narrative which tends to get a bit bogged down in detail. Overall quite impressive.

[Artie Fufkin]

Some behind the scenes footage of Nicholson hopping around and almost hitting a PA in the head with an axe while getting into character: https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1322244378069504001

Oh my life! I remember watching this at the time. I wondered where it came from. Thanks PDD!

[greenman]

I found Jack being Jack playing a character called Jack a bit distracting on the big screen.

I think the film does actually benefit from knowledge of Jacks career though, it plays on what we expect of his performances to sneak in a pretty nasty character from the start, the Jack persona but drained of all likeability.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Kubrick encouraged Nicholson to sail wildly over the top, didn't he?

Very much so. His roles in Witches of Eastwick and Batman combined would still be subdued in comparison.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Reign Of Fire (2002) - Very daft post apocalyptic action flick set in the far off future of 2020, where dragons have all but wiped out humanity and barely anyone's left alive. It's silly in the extreme and both Matthew McConaughey (bald but with a terrible goatee) and Christian Bale (looking like a 70's tv weatherman) ham it up a ridiculous amount, there's only about three times the dragons are on screen and so there's not nearly enough big set pieces, but when the dragons are flying about it's mostly fun, while Bale and Gerard Butler

Spoiler alert

re-enacting the end of the Empire Strikes Back to entertain some kids

[close]

has to be seen to be believed. 5.8/10

[dissolute ocelot]

Reign Of Fire (2002)

This seems to be one of those films that's on obscure cable channels a lot, and with Butler not exactly a hallmark of quality, I've wondered if it's worth seeing, and from the above the answer seems to be ... if I'm bored.

Animals (2018) - entertaining but fairly slight comedy-drama about 30-ish women in Dublin pondering whether partying all night is all there is. Great performance from Holliday Granger (who does the accent very well) and Alia Shawkat (not pretending to be Irish), and the characters manage to be suprising non-annoying whether failed writer, poetry impresario, new parent, or drunk. Nice soundtrack with Peaches etc, and lots of foxes (literally). File alongside This Life, Appropriate Behavior, etc. (Amazon Prime.)

[zomgmouse]

The Spirit of the Beehive. Beautiful, entrancing. Full of imagination and mystery and sadness. Apparently the censors wanted to ban it but they didn't think anybody would go see it so they let it through.

The White Disease. Adaptation of a Karel Čapek play, directed by and starring Hugo Haas. A plague spreads through a country and a doctor has discovered a cure and has decided to only use it to cure poor people until there is world peace. The source material is brilliant and wonderfully astute and moving and satirical, the film doesn't completely succeed on a cinematic level but the source is so powerful it almost doesn't matter. Having said that it's still rather effective and captures a lot of its energy.

[greenman]

Abel Ferrara's New Rose Hotel from 98 for free on prime at the moment.

Very messy compared to say king of Newyork but arguebly the "most ferrera" you can get with his typical focuses shifting into rambling low fi ennui, Walken dancing/over pronouncing words, Defoe looking moody and leering at Asia Argentino.

[Small Man Big Horse]

This seems to be one of those films that's on obscure cable channels a lot, and with Butler not exactly a hallmark of quality, I've wondered if it's worth seeing, and from the above the answer seems to be ... if I'm bored.

That's about it really, I'd heard it was better than reviews suggested but that person lied, it's borderline fun but for a film all about murderous dragons there's just not enough of them in it.

[NoSleep]

Everything looks so drab and dreary in Reign Of Fire, too (which is a plot point, of course), which makes the film a bit of a slog. I only knew of the film because I picked up a cheap secondhand copy of a tie-in game for the PS2, which was also quite drab.

[Famous Mortimer]

Prisoners Of The Lost Universe

It's the Italian-80s-post-apocalypse "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court".

[Inspector Norse]

The Aura Modern Argentine noir in which a sadsack taxidermist, an epileptic who daydreams about the perfect heist, finds himself caught up in such a scheme after an accident on a hunting trip. Ricardo Darin is excellent as a man scaring himself with his own actions, pushing himself in every scene not to just give up and run away, and the director Fabián Belinsky - who sadly died not long after the film's release - imbues everything with an atmosphere of creeping anxiety. The forest setting, so often a hallmark of the low-budget genre piece, really adds to the mood here. Nice bleached out colours.

Atlantics Acclaimed Senegalese film which starts out as a predictable "issue" film with a young girl forced to ditch her labourer boyfriend for the flashy emigrant she's set to marry, but then the ex-boyfriend buggers off to sea and things take a spooky turn. The film struggles to string its plot out over 100 minutes, but there are lots of compelling ideas about the clash of modernity and tradition, freedom and religion, and whatnot, and some strong imagery and music.
As often with widely-released films from less-celebrated cinematic nations, there's an element of National Geographic porn to proceedings, as we get a few shots of your typical dusty market streets - women with jugs on their heads, barefoot kids in knock-off football kit - but also a number of scenes that are interesting to witness in their ordinariness: I quite enjoyed just seeing what I assume is an authentic-looking Senegalese detective's office, a beachfront bar, a teenager's bedroom, etc.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Q: The Winged Serpent. Exactly the sort of dreck I needed tbh.

[NoSleep]

Amazing film. Love Michael Moriarty's OTT hustler/pianist.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Amazing film. Love Michael Moriarty's OTT hustler/pianist.

Yeah, what the fuck do you know?

Nah, it was great.

[SteveDave]

The Burnt Orange Heresy

It's from this year but I'm not starting a thread to watch it die for this. It was OK. Weirdly Mick Jagger was very good as an oily art dealer. Donald Sutherland appeared to have filmed all of his bits in a day (without changing his clothes once) and Claus Bang has got weirdly thin legs for a big fellow.

[Small Man Big Horse]

A Shot In The Dark (1964) - The second film to feature Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) but the first where he's the lead, this is a spoof of an Agatha Christie whodunnit essentially. And it's not a perfect film by any means,

Spoiler alert

the opening twenty minutes could have been funnier, a visit to a nudist camp is oddly laugh free, and the assassination attempts on Clouseau while he's on a date with Maria

[close]

are fairly humdrum, but the majority of the time it's a film I found myself consistently entertained by, I wouldn't say it's the classic that many regard it to be but it certainly hasn't aged badly, and is a very strong, very enjoyable work with an extremely memorable performance at the centre of it. 7.4/10

[A Hat Like That]

A Taxi Driver

South Korean film. I really enjoyed - enough time setting up the main characters for when they make it to Gwangju and see the uprising there. Some more fantastical bits, especially towards the end, but a solid 2 hour watch.

And then I went down the rabbit hole of 1980s South Korean history on wikipedia. Right.

[SteveDave]

Witness

I did that Leonard DiCaprio meme from "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" when Viggo Mortensen turned up in this.

They could've strung the boss is the real bad guy but the hero doesn't know it thing out a bit longer I reckoned but overall very good. Nice there was no happy ending/boning just some forceful kissing by a big bird table.

[Pink Gregory]

Ringu
More of a thriller than a spooky film, which I was surprised by; but as expected, very, very good.  I enjoy the simplicity of 'she looks at you and you DIE'.  In many ways it's quite bare bones but remains effective.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Ringu
More of a thriller than a spooky film, which I was surprised by; but as expected, very, very good.  I enjoy the simplicity of 'she looks at you and you DIE'.  In many ways it's quite bare bones but remains effective.

I should really rewatch that, probably haven't seen it since I was a teenager.

Similarly I started watching Pulse at the weekend, which is a bit like Ringu but it's a cd to go on the internet that's cursed instead, I wasn't in the mood and sacked it off though. Seemed to have potential.

[Small Man Big Horse]

School For Scoundrels (1960) - Henry (Ian Carmichael) is something of a wet, rubbish type who is constantly taken advantage of, so he heads off to Alastair Sim's school to learn how to trick all and sundry. The first third is a bland flashback to life before Sim and not that great, but when Henry starts the school and then puts what he's learnt in to practice it becomes much more amusing.

Spoiler alert

There's two tennis matches against Terry-Thomas which go on an age and feel like padding, but otherwise this is very strong, and some fourth wall breaking from Sim

[close]

right at the end is extremely funny. 7.3/10