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

[Crenners]

I loved that too, it was recommended to me by someone on here a couple of years back and I'm in their debt as it's such an amazing film.

OK, I'll defo add that to the list. Sounds great. Cheers, zomgmouse.

[sevendaughters]

We've a couple of threads active on Romanian cinema and quite by chance I watched one today (that doesn't fit either thread) in Cristian Mungiu's Graduation (he of Ceaucescu abortion drama 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days). The daughter of a doctor is sexually assaulted outside of school in the run up to the exams that will decide whether she gets a prestigious scholarship. Afraid that this will affect her performance, the doctor starts trying to game the system, pulling strings with the police, teachers, and other people who can help him.

The plot here is pretty good but this is so flat and worthy and just that dreary thing that people think Eurocinema is ie. less good than Hollywood and with much uglier people who smoke and wear bad clothes. It's open-ended and allegorical and I have no real problem with the politics it is trying to explore, but I just found it profoundly unstylish and annoying. Can't say much more than that, really. Shows that a film needs more than a good script and loads of subtext, really.

[zomgmouse]

Double feature of two John Landis films made in 1985: Spies Like Us and Into the Night. The latter was quite a lot better than the former, but still both enjoyable enough, though neither was particularly amazing. Notable for a panoply of director cameos.

Also watched another 1985 comedy: Better Off Dead..., which was a hoot. Very very silly and always keeps you on your toes. Some great gags in there.

I loved that too, it was recommended to me by someone on here a couple of years back and I'm in their debt as it's such an amazing film.

OK, I'll defo add that to the list. Sounds great. Cheers, zomgmouse.

Yes! Was absolutely bowled over.

[famethrowa]

Also watched another 1985 comedy: Better Off Dead..., which was a hoot. Very very silly and always keeps you on your toes. Some great gags in there.

Oh a great one. The teenaged Cusack was handed the role of a lifetime there. Plus the dad from MASH is great fun, you kids love that disco thing!

[Small Man Big Horse]

Double feature of two John Landis films made in 1985: Spies Like Us and Into the Night. The latter was quite a lot better than the former, but still both enjoyable enough, though neither was particularly amazing. Notable for a panoply of director cameos.

Also watched another 1985 comedy: Better Off Dead..., which was a hoot. Very very silly and always keeps you on your toes. Some great gags in there.

Yes! Was absolutely bowled over.

I love Better Off Dead to pieces, it was one of those films I'd rent over and over again as a young teenager, and I was fairly obsessed with it for a long old while. "Savage" Steve Holland's How I Got In To College and One Crazy Summer are worth checking out too, I rewatched those in the summer and though neither are as good they both have their moments.

That's interesting to hear about Spies Like Us as well, I also saw it when young and it's been sitting on my hard drive for about a year now as I've thought about revisiting it, but I'm not sure I'll rush to do so now.

[Dr Rock]

Deep End (1970)

I deliberately downloaded this, though I can't remember why. Must've heard it was good. And it is pretty good. Bit arty, some Germans were involved.

Little fella gets a job at some public baths, but turns out there's all sexy goings on for 'tips' there. He starts to get obsessed with Jane Asher who also works there, who looks lovely, and she has a fantastic yellow mac, and is also mucking him about to be fair. Kid ends up disrupting her and her fella's dates, trying to follow them into a nightclub that's playing Can, then wanders the streets to the sound of Mother Sky before buying lots of hot dogs off a smiling Bert Kwouk. But I'm giving away the plot!

David Lynch is a fan of the art direction of this, and there are some arresting shots, Jane Asher with some snow on her, stuff like that.

Enjoyed it a lot.

Anyone else seen it?

[SteveDave]

The Rock

I'm a huge fan of "Armageddon" but for some reason had never seen this 90s Michael Bay whoosh bang fire film.

It started off promisingly enough with Sean Connery looking hench and moody with long hair, but then almost wasn't stupid enough for me.

1.5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Angry Red Planet (1959) - A very daft sci-fi b-movie where after a rocket returns from a trip to Mars only two of the four astronauts are alive, and one's seriously ill. It's packed with a lot of silly dialogue (Patton Oswalt lookalike Sam calls a monster

Spoiler alert

"A rat bat spider nightmare", while dumb old Colonel Tom trots out nonsense like "I'm convinced that all fashion designers are woman haters" and "Those buildings didn't just grow - they were made!"

[close]

while there's some nicely rubbish monsters and a fair amount of dodgy acting, all of which made it a ridiculous film that I had a lot of fun watching. 7.4/10

[sevendaughters]

Deep End (1970)

I deliberately downloaded this, though I can't remember why. Must've heard it was good. And it is pretty good. Bit arty, some Germans were involved.

Little fella gets a job at some public baths, but turns out there's all sexy goings on for 'tips' there. He starts to get obsessed with Jane Asher who also works there, who looks lovely, and she has a fantastic yellow mac, and is also mucking him about to be fair. Kid ends up disrupting her and her fella's dates, trying to follow them into a nightclub that's playing Can, then wanders the streets to the sound of Mother Sky before buying lots of hot dogs off a smiling Bert Kwouk. But I'm giving away the plot!

David Lynch is a fan of the art direction of this, and there are some arresting shots, Jane Asher with some snow on her, stuff like that.

Enjoyed it a lot.

Anyone else seen it?

Yeah. I couldn't quite get into it. I'd seen Skoliomowski's 1978 film The Shout and loved it - John Hurt and Alan Bate in Devon being weird and English and supernatural - so when I heard his real masterwork was Deep End I looked it up.

It's obviously very stylish and Jane Asher is very good in it. There are some great curio scenes in it, like where the guy paints the wall as Asher sits there looking inscrutable, and the ending in the pool is memorable.

But idk for some reason it wasn't the bona fide buy the lunchbox and get the tattoo classic I was hoping for.

[zomgmouse]

Deep End (1970)



Enjoyed it a lot.

Anyone else seen it?

Loved this heaps!!!

I love Better Off Dead to pieces, it was one of those films I'd rent over and over again as a young teenager, and I was fairly obsessed with it for a long old while. "Savage" Steve Holland's How I Got In To College and One Crazy Summer are worth checking out too, I rewatched those in the summer and though neither are as good they both have their moments.

That's interesting to hear about Spies Like Us as well, I also saw it when young and it's been sitting on my hard drive for about a year now as I've thought about revisiting it, but I'm not sure I'll rush to do so now.

Ah right yeah I was wondering about his other films but I guess maybe not a huge priority.

Spies Like Us is fine but it's very much fluff. Meant to be an homage to the Road to... films . Weirdly feels parallel to Ishtar but that is heads above this.

[Dr Rock]

Deep End (1970)

I found this making of feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8VbizMpztk

Interestingly, it was the director who asked Can to make the middle bit of Mother Sky longer for the scenes it covers

[Small Man Big Horse]

Loved this heaps!!!

Ah right yeah I was wondering about his other films but I guess maybe not a huge priority.

Out of the two I'd recommend How I Got In To College the most, it has the feel of Better Off Dead with lots of daft sight gags, whereas One Crazy Summer is more of a traditional teen romcom, albeit one with Bobcat Goldthwait fucking about in a Godzilla costume at one point.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Fantasia 2000 (1999) - This sequel to the much loved 1940's anthology film starts poorly with some dull colourful shapes nonsense but picks up with a weird bit of flying whales, before hitting a high with Rhapsody in Blue and some New York based shenanigans. Following this is a likeable enough tale featuring an evil Jack in a box trying to annoy a tin soldier and a ballerina, but then it disappoints with some rubbish flamingos, and it repeats The Sorcerer's Apprentice for some unknown reason. A surprisingly likeable version of Noah's Ark features Donald Duck probably should have been fleshed out as the finale, as the ending we get is a nicely animated but ultimately unexciting slice of nature as a sprite and an elk muck about, and the musical choice wasn't a great one. Overall this is certainly more than watchable, it fails to match the original's best sequences but there's nothing here that Disney should be embarrassed about. 7.2/10

And that's that, I've now watched every single Disney animated cinema release and...wait, Encanto? What's tha-? Ah, jesus fucking christ. I'm not going to see it at the cinema with all those young disease spreading shits about too, so I guess I'll have to wait for it to leak online.

[Famous Mortimer]

I respect your completism, having been afflicted by the bug myself I've seen many many bad films just because they were by a certain director or in a series or whatever.

What's next, though?

[Small Man Big Horse]

I respect your completism, having been afflicted by the bug myself I've seen many many bad films just because they were by a certain director or in a series or whatever.

What's next, though?

I've a couple of things on the go, including watching all of Mel Brooks, Céline Sciamma and Czech director's Oldrich Lipsky's films, and all films that feature an Invisible main character, but nothing on the scale of the Disney project (or the one I did in late 2020 / early 2021 where I watched everything Preston Sturges had written or directed) and am looking for a new one.

[Blumf]

American Dad had this one:


"I'm watching every movie ever made, alphabetically by actor's last name. I'm on Martin Mull. Underrated actor. Could anyone else have played Col. Mustard in 'Clue'? Answer: Yes. Christopher Lloyd. But the point is, Mull gets work. Consistently."

Does Small Man Big Horse  accept the challenge?

[Small Man Big Horse]

American Dad had this one:


"I'm watching every movie ever made, alphabetically by actor's last name. I'm on Martin Mull. Underrated actor. Could anyone else have played Col. Mustard in 'Clue'? Answer: Yes. Christopher Lloyd. But the point is, Mull gets work. Consistently."

Does Small Man Big Horse  accept the challenge?

With the right actor that would be great (and I've been doing that with Judy Holliday, though she only made 12 proper films so it's not been difficult) but with the wrong one it could be horrendous, so I'm not sure to be honest!

[Dr Rock]

Watch every Hitchcock?

[Blumf]

Watch every Carry On... then rank them

[sevendaughters]

I'm currently going through the Cahiers du Cinema lists from the 1960s and seeing what tickles my fancy.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Watch every Hitchcock?

That's a good idea, I've seen about two thirds but really should watch the others.

Watch every Carry On... then rank them

Not my cup of tea alas, I used to like them but I tried watching Carry On Screaming earlier this year but got bored after about twenty minutes.

[Famous Mortimer]

The Arrival

The extremely bonkers Unarius cult decided to make a load of movies in the 1980s, and this was the first one (I think). It starts off with the graphic "the year is 160,000 BC" then below it, "based on a true story", so I was on board from the very beginning.

There's a caveman, just relaxing, when a spaceship comes down. After running towards the ship, the movie then immediately grinds to a halt as the alien lectures the caveman about the universe, and past lives, and infinite love, which takes about 10 minutes. Then they decide to show the caveman his past lives, which mostly consists of him destroying an entire planet full of people due to wanting power. Eventually, he decides to leave with them and learn all about love and peace, being entranced by Uriel, the leader of the Unarius cult (one Ruth Norman).

It's amazing, and I highly recommend it. And I've got more to come!

[sevendaughters]

I'm currently going through the Cahiers du Cinema lists from the 1960s and seeing what tickles my fancy.

The top tens for these are on Wikipedia but I am a bit bored at the minute so here are the full lists from 1960-1968 and have bolded the ones I plan on getting to in the next few weeks. Some of them came out before the year of the list, various restrictions, esp. eastern bloc/Asian stuff. I've translated some but not others because reasons.

1960
01. Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
02. L'Avventura (Antonioni)
03. Breathless (Godard)
04. Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut)
05. Poem of the Sea (Dovzhenko/Solnsteva)
06. Les Bonnes Femmes (Chabrol)
= Nazarin (Bunuel)
08. Moonfleet (Lang)
09. Psycho (Hitchcock)
10. The Hole (Becker)
11. Zazie dans le metro (Malle)
12. Party Girl (N. Ray)
13. Testament of Orpheus (Cocteau)
14. Pather Pachali (S. Ray)
15. Time Without Pity (Losey)
= Eyes Without a Face (Franju)
17. La Dolce Vita (Fellini)
18. Heller in Pink Tights (Cukor)
= The Bells are Ringing (Minnelli)
= Suddenly Last Summer (Mankiewicz)

1961
01. Lola (Demy)
02. A Woman is a Woman (Godard)
03. Paris Belongs to Us (Rivette)
04. Rocco and his Brothers (Visconti)
05. Tales of the Taira Clan (Mizoguchi)
06. At Great Cost / The Horse that Cried (Donskoi)
07. La Notte (Antonioni)
08. Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
09. Elmer Gantry (Brooks)
10. Two Rode Together (Ford)
11. The Doctor's Horrible Experiment (Renoir)
12. Exodus (Preminger)
13. Concrete Jungle (Losey)
14. The Human Pyramid (Rouch)
15. Shadows (Cassavetes)
16. The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Lang)
17. The Young One/Island of Shame (Bunuel)
18. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Reisz)
19. The Long Absence (Colpi)
20. The Lady with the Little Dog (Heifitz)
21. The Island (Shindo)
22. Wise Guys (Chabrol)
23. The Bellboy (Lewis)
24. Leon Morin, priest (Bresson)
25. Blind Date / Chance Meeting (Losey)
26. Pickup on South Street (Fuller)
27. Description d'un combat (Marker)
28. Mother Joan of the Angels (Kawalerowicz)
29. Black Sunday (Bava)
30. Era Notta a Roma (Rossellini)
31. Where is Freedom? (Rossellini)
32. Underworld USA (Fuller)
33. Judgment at Nuremberg (Kramer)
34. L'Enclos (Gatti)
35. Chronique d'un ete (Rouch/Morin)

1962
01. Vivre sa vie (Godard)
02. Jules et Jim (Truffaut)
03. Hatari! (Hawks)
04. Viridiana (Bunuel)
05. The Sign of Leo (Rohmer)
06. Wild River (Kazan)
07. The Trial (Welles)
08. Through a Glass Darkly (Bergman)
09. The Elusive Corporal (Renoir)
10. Vanina Vanini (Rossellini)
11. Advise and Consent (Preminger)
12. Cleo de 5 a 7 (Varda)
13. Ride the High Country / Guns in the Afternoon (Peckinpah)
14. A Sentimental Education (Astruc)
15. The Ladies' Man (Lewis)
= The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford)
17. West Side Story (Wise/Robbins)
18. L'Eclisse (Antonioni)
19. Splendour in the Grass (Kazan)
20. The Flaming Years (Solntseva)
21. Merrill's Marauders (Fuller)
22. Boccaccio 70 - The Job (Visconti)
23. The Miracle Worker (Penn)
24. Adorable Liar (Deville)
25. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Minnelli)
26. Une couer gros comme ca (Reichenbach)
27. The Midnight Meeting (Leenhardt)
28. Primary (Leacock/Pennbaker)
29. Honours of War (Dewever)
30. Too Late Blues (Cassavetes)

1963
01. Le Mepris (Godard)
02. The Birds (Hitchcock)
03. The Exterminating Angel (Buneal)
04. Adieu Phillippine (Rozier)
05. The Trial of Joan of Arc (Bresson)
06. Muriel (Resnais)
07. The Nutty Professor (Lewis)
08. The Carabineers (Godard)
09. Salvatore Guiliano (Rosi)
10. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
11. Bandits of Orgosolo (de Seta)
12. The Leopard (Visconti)
13. Donovan's Reef (Ford)
14. The Chapman Report (Cukor)
15. Harakiri (Kobayashi)
16. The World of Apu (Ray)
17. Family Diary (Zerlini)
18. Hands Over The City (Rosi)
19. Cleopatra (Mankiewicz)
20. The Cardinal (Preminger)
21. Two Weeks in Another Town (Minnelli)
= The Little Soldier (Godard)
23. The Fire Within (Malle)
= Nine Days of One Year (Romm)
25. Les Abysses (Papatakis)
= Il Posto (Olmi)
27. This Sporting Life (Anderson)
28. The Bay of Angels (Demy)
= Tom Jones (Richardson)
30. Irma la Douce (Wilder)
31. Knife in the Water (Polanski)
32. The Overtaking (Risi)
33. The Errand Boy (Lewis)
34. Le Joli Mai (Marker/Lhomme)
35. Portuguese Vacation (Kast)

1964
01. Band of Outsiders (Godard)
02. Gertrud (Dreyer)
03. Marnie (Hitchcock)
04. A Married Woman (Godard)
05. Man's Favourite Sport (Hawks)
06. The Red Desert (Antonioni)
07. America, America (Kazan)
08. The Silence (Bergman)
09. Now About These Women (Bergman)
10. The Servant (Losey)
11. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy)
12. The Soft Skin (Truffaut)
13. Wagonmaster (Ford)
14. Passenger (Munk)
15. The Patsy (Lewis)
16. A Distant Trumpet (Walsh)
17. The Fiancés (Olmi)
18. Thomas Gordyev (Donskoi)
19. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
20. The Damned (Losey)
21. Pour la suite du monde (Brault, Carriere, and Perault)
22. La jetee (Marker)
23. My Fair Lady (Cukor)
24. The Terrorist (de Bosio)
25. David and Lisa (Perry)
26. The Punishment (Rouch)
27. Diary of a Chambermaid (Bunuel)
28. Time Stood Still (Olmi)
29. The Cool World (Clarke)
30. La bataille de France (Aurel)
31. Woman of the Dunes (Teshigahara)
32. Cheyenne Autumn (Ford)
33. Cyrano and D'Artagnan (Gance)
34. A Hard Day's Night (Lester)
35. The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa)

next four lists to follow later

[sevendaughters]

1965
01. Pierrot le fou (Godard)
02. Of A Thousand Delights (Visconti)
03. The Communicants (Bergman)
04. Paris vu par (Gare du Nord) (Rouch)
05. Alphaville (Godard)
06. Lilth (Rossen)
07. Shock Corridor (Fuller)
08. The Family Jewels (Lewis)
09. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pasolini)
10. Le Bonheur (Varda)
11. L'amour a la chain (de Givray)
12. Black Peter (Forman)
13. The Enchanted Desna (Julia Solntseva)
14. The Shameless Old Lady (Allio)
15. Kiss Me, Stupid (Wilder)
16. Paris vu par (Place de l'Etoile) (Rohmer)
17. A High Wind in Jamaica (Mackendrick)
18. La 317e Section (Schoendorffer)
19. Young Cassidy (Ford/Cardiff)
20. The Disorderly Orderly (Tashlin)
21. Paris vu par (La Muette) (Chabrol)
22. In Harm's Way (Preminger)
23. Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini)
24. The Blizzard (Bassov)
25. Vidas Secas (dos Santos)
26. The Sandpiper (Minnelli)
27. King and Country (Losey)
28. Paris vu par (Montparnasse-Levallois) (Godard)
29. A Woman in White (Autant-Lara)
30. A Shot in the Dark (Edwards)

1966
01. Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson)
02. Walkover (Skolimowski)
03. Not Reconciled (Straub)
04. Masculine Feminine (Godard)
05. The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (Delvaux)
06. Seven Women (Ford)
07. The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (Rossellini)
08. Torn Curtain (Hitchcock)
09. Red Line 7000 (Hawks)
10. Fists in the Pocket (Bellochio)
11. Chimes at Midnight (Welles)
12. The War is Over (Resnais)
13. The Naked Kiss (Fuller)
14. Farenheit 451 (Truffaut)
15. Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus (Eustache)
16. Marie Soleil (Bourseiller)
17. Something Different (Chytilova)
18. Loves of a Blonde (Forman)
19. Le chat dans le sac (Groulx)
20. Brigette and Brigette (Moullet)

1967
01. Persona (Bergman)
02. Belle de jour (Bunuel)
03. Weekend (Godard)
04. Lion Hunting with Bow and Arrow (Rouch)
05. Playtime (Tati)
06. The Big Mouth (Lewis)
07. Daisies (Chytilova)
= La Religieuse (Rivette)
09. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Godard)
10. La Chinoise (Godard)
11. Made in USA (Godard)
12. Shakespeare Wallah (Ivory)
13. The Guns (Guerra)
14. Mediterranean (Pollet)
15. The Countess from Hong Kong (Chaplin)
16. The First Teacher (Mikhailov-Konchalovsky)
17. Le Depart (Skolimowski)
18. La Collectionneuse (Rohmer)
19. Blow-Up (Antonioni)
= The Young Girls of Rochefort (Demy)

1968
01. Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Straub)
02. Before the Revolution (Bertolucci)
03. The Edge (Kramer)
04. Spirits of the Dead (Toby Dammit) (Fellini)
05. Don't Let it Kill You (Lefebvre)
06. The Times that are (Perrault)
07. Barrier (Skolimowski)
08. Stolen Kisses (Truffaut)
09. Ride in the Whirlwind (Hellman)
10. The Bride Wore Black (Truffaut)
= Les Contrabandieres (Moullet)
12. Oedipus Rex (Pasolini)
13. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
14. Hour of the Wolf (Bergman)
15. Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
16. Point Blank (Boorman)
= Les Idoles (Marc O)
18. Un soir un train (Delvaux)
19. Reflections in a Golden Eye (Huston)
20. Bonnie and Clyde (Penn)

thoughts
- Godard was a frickin machine
- was Jerry Lewis that good?

[Dr Rock]

Seen all of them

[Small Man Big Horse]

thoughts
- Godard was a frickin machine
- was Jerry Lewis that good?

Thanks for writing those out, I've copied and saved them as a word .doc and will have to take a look at some of them, on average I've probably only seen three or four per year so have a lot to catch up on.

I rarely click with Godard though, and find I need to be in the right mood for Jerry Lewis, as in some of his films he can be too manic and exhausting.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Blue My Mind (2017) - Mia starts at a new school half way through the term and because she's an unsympathetic character she makes friends with the shitty popular kids, but then after she has her first period her body starts to change, initially with her toes becoming webbed and her legs are oddly bruised, and she doesn't cope well. The majority of the film is Mia just hanging out with her friends, getting drunk, occasionally having sex, going to parties and being rude to her parents and it's incredibly boring, these aren't interesting individuals in the slightest, and when the film

Spoiler alert

takes a fantastical turn in the final ten minutes and Mia becomes a mermaid it

[close]

doesn't have anything interesting to say at all. It's beautifully shot, but that's about the only good thing about it, and the whole thing seems utterly pointless to me. 3.4/10

[Egyptian Feast]

Phantom Of The Paradise (1974) Brian De Palma and Paul Williams' flop rock horror mash up of Faust and the Phantom of the Opera is still as much fun as I remember from late night 90s TV. Williams plays the infernal Swan, an ageless pop impresario with Spectorish qualities, who makes a deal with/utterly fucks over hapless songwriter William Finley and mutilates/improves his music by giving it to shrieking rock monstrosity Beef (Gerrit Graham) rather than his preferred choice of Phoenix (Jessica Harper). Chaos ensues, sometimes in split screen.

It's a shit business. Swan's A&R practices are atrocious, his taste dubious and many of his business decisions shortsighted and perhaps unnecessarily evil. He doesn't recognise the talent of women, but keeps a harem doped up and on CCTV. The satirical jabs at music industry exploitation and abuse are  sharp and pertinent.

Speaking of record industry abusers, the film was delayed at great expense and hassle after a legal intervention by Led Zeppelin, who objected to Swan's business being named Swan Song. When the film was screened for Peter Grant to gain his approval, he broke down during a scene of onstage electrocution, reminding him of the recent death of Stone The Crows singer Les Harvey, so they just had to alter the movie. The Swan Song logo appeared frequently and prominently as a motif, but had to be cropped from shots, blacked out or covered with a new logo, sometimes very noticeably.

The music is decent, not quite up to the standard of Williams' work on The Muppet Movie, but pretty tuneful. The highlight of the movie is every second Gerrit Graham is onscreen. I wanted a spin-off movie just about Beef - the early years. It may have been a terrible artistic decision to sideline Phoenix and put Beef in the spotlight, but it was still the correct decision. He's a legend.

Spoiler alert

They were still chanting his name as his body bag was being loaded into the ambulance.

[close]

[Small Man Big Horse]

That's a great review of the film, I was extremely fond of it as well and you sum up why it's so fantastic perfectly.

Speaking of record industry abusers, the film was delayed at great expense and hassle after a legal intervention by Led Zeppelin, who objected to Swan's business being named Swan Song. When the film was screened for Peter Grant to gain his approval, he broke down during a scene of onstage electrocution, reminding him of the recent death of Stone The Crows singer Les Harvey, so they just had to alter the movie. The Swan Song logo appeared frequently and prominently as a motif, but had to be cropped from shots, blacked out or covered with a new logo, sometimes very noticeably.

I didn't know that though, and it's really interesting, I'm amazed Led Zeppelin were able to take legal action given that the phrase dates back to Greek mythology and it's not like they invented the phrase or anything.

[Egyptian Feast]

It says in the imdb trivia that the producers were certain they would win a legal battle since the phrase was so common, but decided to get the film out quickly rather than go through a prolonged court case. Since they'd already met and upset the imposing Grant, they might've also concluded it wasn't worth pissing him off any further.

The Arrow blu-ray has a mini-doc comparing the unaltered footage with the released version and it is a shame De Palma had to chop up many specifically framed shots, but at least the damage to the overall film was fairly minor.