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

[Blumf]

You guys don't half watch a lot of films. I can barely manage one a week.

Now, you see, if you watched a lot of Carry On films, you'd have phrased that better.

EDIT: New page, with me on top

[rjd2]

You guys don't half watch a lot of films. I can barely manage one a week.

Maybe you have a better social life than the rest of the forum?

[JaDanketies]

We watched Parasite last night, after looking through the IMDB top 50 and noticing it was the newest film on there. We watched it at no extra cost as part of our Amazon Prime subscription.

Top film. Gf didn't think Koreans were like that - she lived in South Korea for a while. Good amalgamation of a load of genres, and the continual twists made me think of Knives Out. First ever example of Korean cinema I've ever seen. Lots of laughs and dramatic moments and plenty to talk about afterwards. Highly recommended.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I still have to get around to watching that again. Glad you enjoyed it.

Cheers, it really is a film I'm very fond of, if only for the unpredictable nature and the oddly warm and sweet central characters

I couldn't get on with Buckaroo Banzai either, especially that fucking finger-clicking dance at the end. It might have been a laugh if recent attempts to get a spin-off TV series made (with Kevin Smith directing) had succeeded, but I doubt the original film has enough of a cult following to make it worth the effort.

The problem is Banzai himself is so nothing-y a character, it's one of those films where we're kept on being told how amazing he is but whenever he talks it's bland and then some.

You guys don't half watch a lot of films. I can barely manage one a week.

Well I live on my own, can't do anything during lockdown socially, and so easily have the time to watch one a night if I wanted, maybe even two. For some weird reason I feel like I've achieved something with my day if I watch a film, and don't have that when it comes to just watching tv, no idea why, but them's the breaks.

Oh yeah, I like watching films. It's fun|

[El Unicornio, mang]

For some weird reason I feel like I've achieved something with my day if I watch a film

This is me. Midnight, lights out, stick a film on, even if it's something I've seen before.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

For some weird reason I feel like I've achieved something with my day if I watch a film, and don't have that when it comes to just watching tv

This sounds familiar. I've got a load of films bookmarked on Netflix, but I never get around to them because it feels strangely daunting to commit to watching something for +/-2 hours. Then I sit and watch telly for 4 hours in a row instead.

[Small Man Big Horse]

A New Leaf (1971) - When Henry (Walther Matthau) finds out he's flat broke he does the only thing a sensible man about town can do - find a rich wife, and once married he'll kill her. It's not quite the black comedy it initially seems, more of a mild grey one, but it is enjoyable and a fair bit of the dialogue is strong, as are the performances. 7.1/10

[Blumf]

A New Leaf (1971) - When Henry (Walther Matthau) finds out he's flat broke he does the only thing a sensible man about town can do - find a rich wife, and once married he'll kill her. It's not quite the black comedy it initially seems, more of a mild grey one, but it is enjoyable and a fair bit of the dialogue is strong, as are the performances. 7.1/10

A review by somebody who absolutely loves it:
http://exiledonline.com/great-obscure-films-1-a-new-leaf/

[Famous Mortimer]

Marjoe

The documentary about Marjoe Gortner, who became a preacher when he was four years old, and was thoroughly exploited helped by his parents until the age of 13 or 14, when he quit and lived a hippy lifestyle. This documentary is about him doing the rounds of the tent-based "revival" events because he was broke - he's seen talking to the film crew about his lack of faith, and his skill in whipping up a crowd. It's pretty wild, and Gortner is super-interesting (you may remember him from his time as an actor through most of the 70s and 80s; I saw him in "American Ninja 3", but he was in "Starcrash" and "Food Of The Gods".

[itsfredtitmus]

when i watched A New Leaf a first years ago it just really made me want to watch Bill Forsyth i think

[zomgmouse]

Naked Lunch. Quite poetically evocative and an inspired way to relay a biopic. The typewriter bug was a particularly excellent piece of imagery.

The Forty-Year-Old Version. Came out this year so I suppose it's not non-new but I thought this was really good, again a wonderful (auto)biographical transposition, beautiful imperfection and struggle.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The Netflix film iBoy - a teenage boy who lives in a rough gangy area of London goes round the girl he fancies to find the gang had turned over the flat and raped the girl. In tying to escape and phone the police he gets shot and parts of his phone end up in his brain. This gives him powers to listen in on phones/messages and control electronics with his mind, allowing him to get revenge.

Was a bit like a film-length misfits episode or something.

[Fr.Bigley]

The Netflix film iBoy - a teenage boy who lives in a rough gangy area of London goes round the girl he fancies to find the gang had turned over the flat and raped the girl. In tying to escape and phone the police he gets shot and parts of his phone end up in his brain. This gives him powers to listen in on phones/messages and control electronics with his mind, allowing him to get revenge.

Was a bit like a film-length misfits episode or something.

That Just might be the worst premise to a film I've ever heard. Then again, Robocop.

[Sebastian Cobb]

It was OK. The article calling it a 'must see' and 'the most underrated scifi on Netflix' was pushing it a bit.

[Sebastian Cobb]

That Just might be the worst premise to a film I've ever heard. Then again, Robocop.

The 1993 film Ghost in the Machine is way worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2HPq-WDnFQ

[Fr.Bigley]

Bump on that one, Totally agree!

[Small Man Big Horse]

A review by somebody who absolutely loves it:
http://exiledonline.com/great-obscure-films-1-a-new-leaf/

Wow, I mean, it's a good film and one I liked a fair bit, but that review quotes almost every line and seems to adore it an incredibly amount, which I'm surprised by as it's not that unique.

My Best Fiend (1999) - Which I'm sure was recommended to me by someone on here, but I can't find the thread now. Anyhow, it's Werner Herzog's documentary about his relationship with weird fuckhead Klaus Kinski, partially exploring how they worked together and how sometimes they were close and at other times all most violently angry towards each other. There's some enormously interesting stories concerning the making of the films, but it's also a little repetitive, and it didn't need to have such long clips from the films either. 6.4/10

[Famous Mortimer]

The Killing Edge

British shot-on-video post-apocalypse effort, made by the same bloke who directed "Permissive" and "The Million Eyes Of Su-Muru" in the 60s. This is bad and cheap even by the standards of zero-budget SOV things. The only name you're likely to remember, and that's a stretch, is the kid who played Adric in "Doctor Who", showing up as an unnamed kid who kills someone then runs away.

The Girl Chewing Gum
Piece of art, weird ten-minute joke, oddball short film. Really interesting idea, too, apparently inspired by Truffaut's "Day For Night".

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/smith-the-girl-chewing-gum-t13237

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r56V9N74xoo

[Ignatius_S]

A New Leaf (1971) - When Henry (Walther Matthau) finds out he's flat broke he does the only thing a sensible man about town can do - find a rich wife, and once married he'll kill her. It's not quite the black comedy it initially seems, more of a mild grey one, but it is enjoyable and a fair bit of the dialogue is strong, as are the performances. 7.1/10

If May had her way, it would have been darker. The film was heavily edited by the studio - over than an hour was cut out, as was Henry committing murder (twice).

The studio was concerned about the length running time, Henry becoming a murderer and a shift in tone part-way through the film. With the latter, that doesn’t usually go down well with American audiences. With Henry murdering, the studio was concerned about him ‘getting away with it’, but would say with the film’s ending, he hasn't.

Finding out the edit made a lot of sense to me - a friend a similar reaction - there was something missing from the film that I couldn’t put my finger on. However, I still think it’s a great film that I think I’ve got more from each time, and Matthau and May are fabulous.

I’m not sure if the film would have been better if May’s version was the one released but in any case, it’s fair to say that a lot of people think it’s an outstanding film as it is.

A review by somebody who absolutely loves it:
http://exiledonline.com/great-obscure-films-1-a-new-leaf/

The scene mentioned, where the lawyer is trying to explain that Henry is absolutely lovely. I once read it was semi-improvised and Redfield had no idea that Matthau was so doggedly unwilling to understand why the check could not be signed and the lawyer’s exasperation was not entirely acting.

[Small Man Big Horse]

If May had her way, it would have been darker. The film was heavily edited by the studio - over than an hour was cut out, as was Henry committing murder (twice).

The studio was concerned about the length running time, Henry becoming a murderer and a shift in tone part-way through the film. With the latter, that doesn’t usually go down well with American audiences. With Henry murdering, the studio was concerned about him ‘getting away with it’, but would say with the film’s ending, he hasn't.

Finding out the edit made a lot of sense to me - a friend a similar reaction - there was something missing from the film that I couldn’t put my finger on. However, I still think it’s a great film that I think I’ve got more from each time, and Matthau and May are fabulous.

I’m not sure if the film would have been better if May’s version was the one released but in any case, it’s fair to say that a lot of people think it’s an outstanding film as it is.

The scene mentioned, where the lawyer is trying to explain that Henry is absolutely lovely. I once read it was semi-improvised and Redfield had no idea that Matthau was so doggedly unwilling to understand why the check could not be signed and the lawyer’s exasperation was not entirely acting.

That's really interesting to hear, thanks for that, like you say it's difficult to know if it would have been a better film with Matthau as a murderer, but it's a shame we'll never get to find out as a director's cut seems pretty unlikely.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013) - I wasn't quite prepared for this being 3 hours and having many graphic sex scenes which seemed to go on forever, although I actually found the spaghetti slurping and gyro munching to be far more gratuitous. Amazing performances, a lot of genuine emotions coming through. Probably the most real film about falling in love I've seen, and an electrifying breakup scene. I get the criticism of the sex scenes. The rest of the film is shot in close-ups and you really feel the intimacy and emotion. The sex scenes are shot like a porn film, more a feeling of voyeurism than actually getting inside (!) the characters. Definitely need the foreign exoticism to enjoy this kind of film, French setting hits the spot. Don't think I could get into it if it was set in London.

[Blumf]

Under Suspicion (1991)
Turned up on TV, left it on. Liam Neeson has been in a lot of old toot, hasn't he?

Noir style film set in 50s Britain, nice idea I suppose, just it's rather dull. Can we do period scene setting? Sorry, not really, few old cars and that. How about interesting characters? Eeh, they're hard to write. Okay, what about surprising plot twists? Nope, route one all the way!

If you find yourself stuck on the sofa, it'll pass the time. But you'd be better served dusting off your to-watch DVD pile, you won't miss anything.

[Famous Mortimer]

Rock And The Alien

Imagine if YK Kim (from "Miami Connection") was a Greek guy who looked like a low-level Mafioso, and he saw "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure" at the height of a particularly bad fever. This is the movie he would make.

Dionysius Zervos is the tuneless lead singer of a band, and one day a hot alien says she's been searching for him for 212 years, and that only he can save the world with his songs. She gives him some magical singing power via sex, and in no time at all he's charming rowdy clubs and back-street muggers with his song of peace. I want to emphasise that Zervos (who's also the writer, director and producer) cannot sing, even a little bit.

A parasite monster from the sexy alien's planet also pursues her across the galaxy, and as it feeds on negative emotions, you know there's going to be a wild finale. But I won't spoil it for you. This bonkers vanity project needs watching.

Dare you watch?

[Menu]

Now, you see, if you watched a lot of Carry On films, you'd have phrased that better.

EDIT: New page, with me on top

Ha ha!

[Menu]

Maybe you have a better social life than the rest of the forum?

I fucking doubt it.

[Menu]

Well I live on my own, can't do anything during lockdown socially, and so easily have the time to watch one a night if I wanted, maybe even two. For some weird reason I feel like I've achieved something with my day if I watch a film, and don't have that when it comes to just watching tv, no idea why, but them's the breaks.

Oh yeah, I like watching films. It's fun|

I probably watch too much sport. Maybe I need to recalibrate my films/sport ratio. A few years ago I realised I was watching far too much news, so I knocked that on the head. Made very little difference to my knowledge of current affairs - a lot of news programming is useless or waffle. The problem is, whatever I watch I'm always thinking I should be watching something else. If I'm watching a film I feel I should be watching a Storyville documentary. If I'm watching a Storyville documentary I feel I should be rewatching Peep Show. If I'm rewatching Peep Show I feel I should be watching a film. It's a mental illness. I'm mentally ill.

[greenman]

Watched Carpenters Christine for the first time, not sure why it took this long but for some reason I always had the assumption it was a minor work and didn't make the effort to track it down and get past the lack of UK TV showings. As with The Fog though I did really enjoy him handling a ghost story with a lot of scene setting and very little gore, that he did it without Cundy as well I think makes me more inclined to give him more credit for the atmosphere of his other films in this era.

Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013) - I wasn't quite prepared for this being 3 hours and having many graphic sex scenes which seemed to go on forever, although I actually found the spaghetti slurping and gyro munching to be far more gratuitous. Amazing performances, a lot of genuine emotions coming through. Probably the most real film about falling in love I've seen, and an electrifying breakup scene. I get the criticism of the sex scenes. The rest of the film is shot in close-ups and you really feel the intimacy and emotion. The sex scenes are shot like a porn film, more a feeling of voyeurism than actually getting inside (!) the characters. Definitely need the foreign exoticism to enjoy this kind of film, French setting hits the spot. Don't think I could get into it if it was set in London.

I'm not sure I really see the divide between the closeups and the sex though, I think the former in the first half especially are shot to be strongly physical rather than purely emotional. Not sure it would work without the sex either as the point to me seemed to be people who don't really connect on a cultural/interlectual level but do on a physical/empathic one.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Maybe, I just feel there was an element of "male gaze" with the sex scenes. But overall I think it worked magnificently.

Anyway, I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) last night which I had no idea was also going to be a French lesbian film. Aside from that it's pretty much the complete opposite though. Very quiet, subdued, observes from a distance. And zero sex scenes, just some kissing and post-coital lying in bed. And some weird armpit drug thing. Absolutely beautiful film though, incredible cinematography and the beach scenes look pretty similar to my local bay which resonated with me. The last scene will have to go into my top 10 last scenes of all time, and I'll never listen to Vivaldi's Summer in quite the same way again.

[greenman]

Maybe, I just feel there was an element of "male gaze" with the sex scenes. But overall I think it worked magnificently.

Anyway, I watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) last night which I had no idea was also going to be a French lesbian film. Aside from that it's pretty much the complete opposite though. Very quiet, subdued, observes from a distance. And zero sex scenes, just some kissing and post-coital lying in bed. And some weird armpit drug thing. Absolutely beautiful film though, incredible cinematography and the beach scenes look pretty similar to my local bay which resonated with me. The last scene will have to go into my top 10 last scenes of all time, and I'll never listen to Vivaldi's Summer in quite the same way again.

I think theres obviously an attempt to turn on the audience but it seems like a justified thing to do to me when the film is putting so much importance on the characters feeling that way, what I did think make it different to a lot of cinema is that it wasn't really "glamorous sex". I think you could maybe argue the whole thing was a bit of a male perspective in the way the lead character was if not perfect very idealised as feminine although I think avoiding more obvious clichés.

I'm guessing part of the reason so much fuss broke out around it though relative to say The Handmaiden was exactly the difference relative to Lady on Fire, that it wasn't really a LGBTQ film and didn't push the ideal of the enlightened inteligensia character rasing up a working class character, ended up being an early shot of the class/liberalism divide that's become so bound up in politics since.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Yeah, I think the much publicised stuff about Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos hating the experience and never wanting to work for the director again didn't help either. (Again, in contrast to Lady on Fire being made by a lesbian in pretty short time in what seems to be a very calm, controlled atmosphere.) Although he probably got the performances of their lives out of them.