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What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2021 Edition)

Started by zomgmouse, January 14, 2021, 11:12:22 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

dissolute ocelot

Quote from: Dusty Substance on September 13, 2021, 08:44:50 PM
Not seen Bridge To Terabithia - or Elf, for that matter. Already had the Will Ferrell Christmas film pencilled in for this December but is BTT worth checking out, too?
Bridge To Terabithia is good, earnest kids' drama (not for little kids though). It does feature Zooey Deschanel playing a twee primary school teacher, but in a less annoying way than most of her work. Otherwise, well-acted, well-made, moving, good portrayal of kids' play and fantasy worlds. Not Christmassy.
Spoiler alert
And a heartwrenching twist.
[close]

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: zomgmouse on September 14, 2021, 07:59:22 AM
Happy End. Playful surreal stuff by SMBH favourite Oldřich Lipský - many have done the reverse narrative gimmick but none so  as here where the entire story plays backwards moment by moment, including much of the footage and some of the audio actually going backwards too (or at least the action is moving backwards) - and yet the voiceover narration being as though things are unfolding in sequence. It's all very fast-paced and fun to keep up with. I quite liked it.

I'm glad you liked it as I was very fond of it as well, after Lemonade Joe it's probably my favourite work of his, though Long Live Ghosts comes a close third.

The Town That Was (2007) - Documentary about a town which has been on fire for forty years, thanks to a coal mine underneath it that won't stop slowly burning away. I sought this out as I knew the tale of the town influenced one of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing stories and it's fascinating to see how bureaucracy and idiocy combined led to the fire continuing over four decades, with over sixteen hundred people losing their homes as the government bought them up and then demolished the properties. Eleven questionably odd individuals have refused to leave however, yet we don't get to meet many of them and the film largely follows the youngest of them all, John Lokitis, and the way he lives in denial is quite unusual. It starts off really well but if anything rushes through what happened, and aspects of Loktis's life are really quite dull and repetitive, and structurally it's all a bit over the place as it cuts from his day to day existence to the history of the town. At seventy minutes you could easily lose twenty minutes, and it's a shame there wasn't more archive footage of the fire, but it's a story I mostly found intriguing. 6.1/10

GoblinAhFuckScary

i saw citizen kane for the first time

been putting it off practically since i first developed interest in movies because of its mad reputation. leaving it so long that i no longer cared about its pretence was a good move, since it's quite serviceable in being a large scale piece of classic old hollywood. not at all the best movie, not remotely, but it's interesting as the supposed blue-print for much of later hollywood. it's almost proto oscar-bait. orson welles hasn't really won me over tbh, and i find both his directing and acting obviously overstated.

props to the makeup department who i think do an excellent job at ageing most of the cast seemingly without prosthetics. the miniatures are nice too

Dusty Substance

Quote from: zomgmouse on September 14, 2021, 12:58:10 AM
That's it, that's cinema

Yeah, that is an excellent juxtaposition of films from zongmouse. There are film snobs who would never consider watching Inseminoid, there are film slobs who would never consider watching Sunrise, but it's so much better to exist in the crossover of the two on the snob/slob venn diagram.

Quote from: famethrowa on September 14, 2021, 05:18:10 AM
It's a ludicrous film but fun and entertaining, the zenith of "expensive kitchen fetish" movies. Everyone's rich.

As much as I can appreciate a bit of social realism and kitchen sink drama cinema, I wasn't once bothered how rich everyone is in SGG.

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on September 14, 2021, 10:44:14 AM
Bridge To Terabithia is good, earnest kids' drama (not for little kids though). It does feature Zooey Deschanel playing a twee primary school teacher, but in a less annoying way than most of her work. Otherwise, well-acted, well-made, moving, good portrayal of kids' play and fantasy worlds. Not Christmassy.
Spoiler alert
And a heartwrenching twist.
[close]

Thanks for the warning re: twee Zooey Deschanel! I'll keep an eye out in CEX and the chazzas. Should be able to find it for the price of a Freddo.

Quote from: GoblinAhFuckScary on September 14, 2021, 03:34:08 PM
i saw citizen kane for the first time

Time for you to check out the excellent Mank.

Inspector Norse

Monsters Gareth Edwards' low-budget breakthrough following two people (two hot young people, obviously) trying to negotiate a Central America infested by giant alien monsters in order to return home to the USA. I really enjoyed this, and was surprised by how it was more a leisurely travelogue than a tense action effort: as much about man's effect on nature as the more obvious theme of the US's relationship with their southern neighbours. The scariest part, of course, was the weirdly prescient idea of a massive wall on the US-Mexico border.

Good Night and Good Luck George Clooney's directorial debut, telling the story of how PBS reporter Ed Murrow stood up to Senator McCarthy and helped bring about his downfall. Gripping drama powered by a superb performance from David Strathairn. A few too many unconvincing stylistic tics from Clooney but it's good-looking, intelligent and generally an impressive start.

rjd2

Funeral Parade of Roses

Utterly bonkers but engrossing. Set in the 60's Japan and focuses on a few drag queens and the LBGT culture at the time. Its got a lot of attributes, grindhouse, noir, avant garde and also some holy fuck moments. It looks amazing also.
5/5

The Town

Nothing new here when it comes to the crime genre sadly, but its easy viewing. The cast who have all done more worthwhile work have decent chemistry so yeah good Sunday afternoon viewing.

3/5

zomgmouse

Quote from: Dusty Substance on September 14, 2021, 07:17:55 PM
Yeah, that is an excellent juxtaposition of films from zongmouse.

Haha, it was just me noticing a juxtaposition in the ocelot's post.

Quote from: rjd2 on September 14, 2021, 09:29:23 PM
Funeral Parade of Roses

Utterly bonkers but engrossing. Set in the 60's Japan and focuses on a few drag queens and the LBGT culture at the time. Its got a lot of attributes, grindhouse, noir, avant garde and also some holy fuck moments. It looks amazing also.
5/5


Yeah the (relatively) recent restoration really is something huh. Got to see it on the big screen. You sum it up very well.

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on September 14, 2021, 02:38:39 PM
I'm glad you liked it as I was very fond of it as well, after Lemonade Joe it's probably my favourite work of his, though Long Live Ghosts comes a close third.

Yes I think Lemonade Joe is my favourite so far as well. Have quite a few more of his on my list.

phantom_power

Quote from: Inspector Norse on September 14, 2021, 08:59:00 PM


Good Night and Good Luck George Clooney's directorial debut

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind wants a word

zomgmouse

Tough Guys. 80s comedy with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster playing two elderly just-released ex-cons struggling to fit in with modern society. Charles Durning is the cop that busted them 30 years ago, Eli Wallach plays a weirdo hitman and Dana Carvey is their probation officer. It's got a lovely warmth to it even if it's not particularly outstanding.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 Rafelson remake/readaptation with Nicholson & Lange). The original is a grimy classic, although for my money the best adaptation of that story is Visconti's Obsession. This one has more of a slow burn wrenching to it, though I feel like it doesn't ramp it up significantly enough. Shot nicely by Sven Nykvist.

Abel. Feature debut of Alex van Warmerdam, this is an absurd Dutch coming of age (of sorts) comedy about a young (of sorts) man who is agoraphobic and just generally very strange (tries to cut up flies with scissors while they're in the air, perves on people with binoculars, etc) whom his (themselves quite messed up) parents attempt to socialise. Minimalist and excessive at the same time, ends on a rather sweet note that ties the whole thing together.

"Fugue on the Black Keys", short film by Czech director Drahomíra Vihanová, a key figure of the Czechoslovakian New Wave whose career was cut short by censorship. This is a highly impressionistic snapshot of an African immigrant pianist in Prague, full of alienation and melancholy. Really wonderful.

Inspector Norse

Quote from: phantom_power on September 15, 2021, 07:29:25 AM
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind wants a word

Ah! my mistake. Remember that one being decent but a little unsatisfying.

sevendaughters

the only thing that gets my goat in Citizen Kane is Joseph Cotten's character (Leland?) massively telegraphing his split with Kane by keeping the newspaper manifesto that was obviously going to be broken. Apart from that it is, to me, one of those great films rightfully banged on about. The energy and effort in the first ten minutes still charges me up. It's just so funny and clever. Just for the shot at the beginning where we see outside a window and then it dissolves perfectly to see inside looking out of the same window. Probably days of work for 4 seconds of film. Incredible work.

chveik

Quote from: zomgmouse on September 15, 2021, 07:54:59 AM
Abel. Feature debut of Alex van Warmerdam, this is an absurd Dutch coming of age (of sorts) comedy about a young (of sorts) man who is agoraphobic and just generally very strange (tries to cut up flies with scissors while they're in the air, perves on people with binoculars, etc) whom his (themselves quite messed up) parents attempt to socialise. Minimalist and excessive at the same time, ends on a rather sweet note that ties the whole thing together.

that's a funny one. have you watched The Northerners?

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: rjd2 on September 14, 2021, 09:29:23 PM
Funeral Parade of Roses

Utterly bonkers but engrossing. Set in the 60's Japan and focuses on a few drag queens and the LBGT culture at the time. Its got a lot of attributes, grindhouse, noir, avant garde and also some holy fuck moments. It looks amazing also.
5/5

That sounds fantastic, I've obtained it now and will definitely watch it soon.

Fun And Fancy Free (1947) - Disney anthology where Jiminy Cricket links two stories together, the first involving Bongo, a bear who escapes from the circus and who learns that the way bears display true love is by slapping each other, which yes, is an odd suggestion, but it's also the only highlight of a largely bland segment. The second tale is Disney's take on Jack and the Beanstalk but with Mickey, Donald Duck and Goofy as the lead characters, and this is more fun as it's narrated by Edgar Bergen and his two ventriloquist dolls keep on heckling him, though they stop for the second half of the story and so it's less interesting. The whole thing's not bad I suppose, but it's easily one of the poorer Disney films and I wouldn't recommend anyone seek it out unless they're a completist. 5.6/10

zomgmouse

Quote from: chveik on September 15, 2021, 02:10:52 PM
that's a funny one. have you watched The Northerners?

Not yet but it'll be the next one of his I watch!

Dusty Substance

Just watched Tony Scott's final film. It's about an Unstoppable train, everyone's unable to stop the train, the train is completely Unstoppable. I think it was called "The Train That Couldn't Slow Down".

It's a simple set up, the camera never stops, Denzel Washington and Chris Pine work well together. Solid, slick, fun and a tight 94 minutes, it was the perfect swansong for Tony Scott.

The original Taking Of Pelham 1,2,3 is one of my all time favourite films so I was totally against the idea of Scott's remake and have never had any desire to see it. Having enjoyed this Scott/Washington/train movie so much, I may well have to go back and check it out.

zomgmouse

Great Balls of Fire!, the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic with Dennis Quaid playing the titular musician. Pretty sure this was only ever on my list because Peter Cook is in it for a split second. Would absolutely not have watched this otherwise. It's looks rather good (camera, sets, costumes) but the vibe is wild, it doesn't shy away from showing him as an extremely horny narcissist who stole music from black people and married his 13-year-old cousin (played by Winona Ryder) - but it's hard to say whether or not it's just played up and glorified as simply being quirks of character that justify a maligned talent, or whether it's framing it with an ironic critical eye. Guessing it's the former judging by the final title text: "JERRY LEE LEWIS IS PLAYING HIS HEART OUT SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA TONIGHT".

A Colt Is My Passport. European-influenced (stylistically very French New Wave, soundtrack feels like a Spaghetti Western) Japanese noir about a hitman on the run. Very moody. Amazing finale. With this, Le Samouraï and Point Blank being released in the same year, something was definitely in the water.

Black Dynamite. Pitch perfect homage/lampoon of blaxploitation films. Splendid attention to detail, brilliant tone and humour. Heaps of fun.

World's Greatest Dad. Heart-wrenching dark comedy with Robin Williams at his tragicomic hero best, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Starts off strong but after
Spoiler alert
the kid dies
[close]
this really goes to another level, it's all so ridiculous, macabre and emotional. Fucking hell. This got me good. Just incredible, the script in particular. I loved it.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: zomgmouse on September 16, 2021, 07:57:49 AM
World's Greatest Dad. Heart-wrenching dark comedy with Robin Williams at his tragicomic hero best, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Starts off strong but after
Spoiler alert
the kid dies
[close]
this really goes to another level, it's all so ridiculous, macabre and emotional. Fucking hell. This got me good. Just incredible, the script in particular. I loved it.

I loved that too, and am a big fan of Bobcat's in general, though I've yet to see Willow Creek as the reviews suggest it's a rare misfire from the man and I'm not a fan of found footage movies at the best of times.

Dusty Substance

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on September 16, 2021, 10:47:11 AM
I loved that too, and am a big fan of Bobcat's in general, though I've yet to see Willow Creek as the reviews suggest it's a rare misfire from the man and I'm not a fan of found footage movies at the best of times.

Willow Creek is great. It scared the shit out of me. There's one scene in particular - One very long, uninterrupted scene - which is incredibly creepy. Found footage isn't for everyone but Willow Creek is one of the best in the subgenre.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Dusty Substance on September 16, 2021, 02:08:24 PM
Willow Creek is great. It scared the shit out of me. There's one scene in particular - One very long, uninterrupted scene - which is incredibly creepy. Found footage isn't for everyone but Willow Creek is one of the best in the subgenre.

For an alternative opinion - it's utter dogshit.  Easily his worst film as director, by far.  It IS better than Hot To Trot though.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on September 16, 2021, 04:43:47 PM
For an alternative opinion - it's utter dogshit.  Easily his worst film as director, by far.  It IS better than Hot To Trot though.

Outrageous stuff, Hot To Trot is enormous fun and I will fight you to the death over this point!

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on September 16, 2021, 05:22:52 PM
Outrageous stuff, Hot To Trot is enormous fun and I will fight you to the death over this point!

(cue Star Trek lizard man fight music and lots of sweaty, slappy hot man-on-man action)

Dusty Substance

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on September 16, 2021, 04:43:47 PM
For an alternative opinion - it's utter dogshit.  Easily his worst film as director, by far.  It IS better than Hot To Trot though.

Easily* the best Bobcat directed film I've seen.

* aka - Only :)

Small Man Big Horse

Oliver & Company (1988) - Disney's take on Oliver Twist where Fagin has a bunch of dogs committing crimes for him, Oliver's a kitten, and Bill Sykes is a cigar smoking businessman. At seventy minutes it cuts a fair chunk of the story out and doesn't bother including Oliver's time in the orphanage or at the funeral parlour, or Nancy being violently beaten to death, so yes, naturally I was enormously disappointed. It's sometimes a little ugly looking and the animation is quite rough around the edges, at least if you compare it to the films which followed it, and there's only one good song, but it has a certain quaint charm, makes Oliver a bit more spiky and likeable than he is in the live action musical, and
Spoiler alert
the ludicrous subway set finale is amusing, especially as it suggests that Sykes and his two Dobermans met violent deaths.
[close]
6.0/10

Inspector Norse

Doom Needed to unwind after a particularly heavy week and chose the Polish auteur Andrzej Bartkowiak's much-misunderstood 2005 adaptation of the hit shooter game, as a team of marines led by Dwayne Johnson (it's unclear whether or not he was calling himself The Rock at this point in his cinema career) travel to an archaeological site on Mars that has been investigating an ancient civilisation, but which appears to have been attacked by something.
Right from the opening moments with their clever subversion of Citizen Kane, the camera zooming through a window to reveal not a dying old man but screaming scientists, it's clear that this film is the work of a true master. Bartkowiak's influences are not just the tired likes of Welles, he also quickly shows his knowledge of Hong Kong action by intercutting slo-mo into the chase scenes, while the way that the religious character is the one who dies first is spiritual symbolism worthy of Bresson or Dreyer.
This is far from mere homage, though: there is much of contemporary relevance here too. Richard Brake's character offers to stripsearch some female scientists in an early, prescient comment on toxic masculinity, while the peculiar transatlantic accents of Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike and Dexter Fletcher offer a cutting criticism of globalisation and Americanisation.
The design of Fletcher's character, as a sort of human mobility scooter, and the revelation that the monsters attacking the facility are actually genetically mutated humans, cut through to our fears and worries about science and there is comment, too, on corporate excess as Johnson/Rock's sergeant insists on protecting the company's property whatever the human cost.
That the film is such a success is not just down to Bartkowiak's efforts, though: the cast do stellar work as well. You can literally see on screen the effort Urban and Pike put in to invest their characters with personality, while the way Fletcher clearly does not give a shit at all is perfect for his role as an office drone. Johnson is the star here, though: for evidence just watch the scene where he shuts down Brake's panicky insubordination by looking at him and then doing a weird little squinty thing with his eyes: a small gesture saying a thousand words, the mark of a real master craftsman.
The production design is also excellent, again reflecting cinema history while offering an unsettling dose of familiarity, by taking the creaking, steam-filled mechanics and corridors of the Alien films and outfitting them with the budget and style of a small-town Laser Quest.

Small Man Big Horse

Haha, excellent stuff there, and I'm fully in agreement with everything you say.

Santa Sangre (1989) - Horror lunacy from Alejandro Jodorowsky where after Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky) witnesses his father Orgo (Guy Stockwell) attempt to murder his mother Concha (Blanca Guerra) before committing suicide he perhaps unsurprisingly ends up in a psychiatric hospital, at least until years later
Spoiler alert
when he is reunited with his mother who is armless but far from harmless ((c) every review that's ever been written about this film), and the two have a creepy incestuous and violent relationship
[close]
. The first circus based act is the film at its best, but while the rest has a fair amount of memorable imagery when compared to El Topo or The Holy Mountain it feels a little flimsy, and even occasionally a bit silly, and can be filed under films that I'm glad I've seen and often liked, but will never return to. 7.1/10

Small Man Big Horse

The Twelve Chairs (1970) - Mel Brooks followed up The Producers in a quite unlikely manner with this Russian set farce, as Ron Moody's ex-aristocrat  Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov is searching for a chair his now dead mother hid her jewels in a decade previously, and Frank Langella (looking oddly like a young Richard O'Sullivan) and Dom DeLuise and are on hand to either aid or annoy. It's a strange work and feels very different to Brooks' other films, there are laughs had to be had but they're of the mild variety and the frequency isn't as high as you'd expect. 6.2/10

Egyptian Feast

I think that's one of the few Brooks films I haven't seen, but I once saw a film that had the same plot late night on ITV called Twelve Plus One. It was made only the year before and was sadly Sharon Tate's final movie. I don't remember too much about it, but I seem to recall enjoying a scene where Tate got in a swimming pool in a white dress.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on September 18, 2021, 11:15:01 PM
I think that's one of the few Brooks films I haven't seen, but I once saw a film that had the same plot late night on ITV called Twelve Plus One. It was made only the year before and was sadly Sharon Tate's final movie. I don't remember too much about it, but I seem to recall enjoying a scene where Tate got in a swimming pool in a white dress.

According to Wikipedia there's been 20 adaptations of the novel, including 14 films, an opera and a tv series, which seems crazy to me, it's a fun enough story but not that special or unique.

Chedney Honks

I watched Cape Fear last night, the Scorsese version. Pretty entertaining mainstream fayre, although the Hitchcockian stylings didn't do much for me. I can appreciate it as something different for Scorsese but it felt like a directorial exercise. Ah, yes, this bit's like Hitchcock, I thought. Fortunately, it was carried admirably by the strength of the performances. De Niro was immense, at least until the ending, and while Lange and Nolte were both unlikeable, I found their underlying unhappiness and dissatisfaction, uhh, satisfying. Juliette Lewis was remarkable in it. Takes a hell of a performance not to be blown off screen by De Niro. Can see the origins of a few other characters she played over the next few years. B+

Gulftastic

I remember being massively underwhelmed by Cape Feare. My main memory of it is laughing when the maid turns around and it's De Niro in drag.