What movie did you watch today?

[Spartan]

Vampire Circus (1972)


One of the more controversial and underrated releases from Hammer imo. Fifteen years after dispatching their local vampire nonce, a quarantined town suffering the ravages of plague are greeted by a travelling circus bringing revenge to the mix. Practically no big stars in this movie other than Hammer veteran, Thorley Walters as the burgermeister and Peter Sellers' widow, Lynne Frederick who looks about fourteen in this film. The film feels uneven and it's plot mildly incoherent but not enough to spoil the overall tone of this film. This gave me nightmares as a kid and even today, with all the over the top shit and taboo breakers out there, some scenes still give me a sense of an unease, particularly it's prologue. Great film.

Watched this on dvd as my blu-ray disc was region locked.

[Spartan]

Twins of Evil (1971)


Written about this classic movie already in this very thread. Watched the Synapse release along with the feature length doc and they were money well spent.

[Spartan]

La Comtesse Perverse (1973)


Jess Franco's soft core adaptation of Richard Connell's 'THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME'. A decadent count and countess living on a remote island, invite attractive women where they hunt them and feed on their flesh. Considering Franco directed eleven other movies in the same year, I expected the worst and was actually surprised with how good it was. There's a lot of hairy bush crotch shots as usual with Franco's work, but the film's real strength is making use of it's low budget with awesome locations. The odd looking house and Lego style red stairs are another example of Franco's fascination with modern architecture and how they add a lot to the film's creepy atmosphere. Lina Romay looked really stunning in this film, moreso than usual and it's hard to believe she looked like a crazy cat lady before passing away earlier this year. For someone with little acting experience prior to this film, Romay's performance was really good - she nailed with the fragility. Liked this film a lot, not something I would recommend to Franco novices but it's definitely one of his more serious and accomplished bodies of work for sure.

Hats off to Mondo Macabro for releasing this, for a DVD print, the picture quality is really gorgeous.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

The Tall Man (2012) - Martyrs was, if not the best, then the most hardhitting film of the 00's for me. Laugier follows his controversial masterpiece up with something else entirely. It's a personal project for him, which he has wanted to do for many years, he has said. Looking at it, it appears to be a glossy thriller with sultry Biel in peril. Given that Laugier walked away from a huge paycheque when he left the Hellraiser-reboot, I'd expect him to follow through on his own vision and I have the distinct feeling he did. It's actually not what the trailer promises however, it's a gloomy suspensefilm one would think but the tone and theme changes rapidly as you approach the hour-mark and the movie ends in morally comtemplative drama-territory. This is a really intelligent film about a much larger ethical issue, to say more would be to spoil it. It has no doubt been difficult to market this which is a shame because I think this will arouse interest for the wrong reasons. This is a sombre fairytale which transforms as you peel back a few layers. Suspense is sacrificed to clarify the narrative which was necessary to tell the story. The setting reminds me of Winter's Bone a whole lot and this might appeal to the same audience to a certain extent, though it's a much different film.

[Spartan]

The Boogens (1981)


Much like The Deadly Spawn, The Boogens is essentially a 1950s horror flick with some 1980s splatter and it's a winning combination. The plot is pretty basic but there's a good amount of background detail with a sweet prologue in the opening titles and a Crazy Ralph old timer featured within that builds upon the mysterious mine. The film focuses on two couples and an overly annoying dog shacked up at a house connected to the mine via an underground tunnel. In contrast to a lot of today's horror flicks, the characters are a lot more likeable which keep the film moving along well even during the slower scenes. All in all, a fun creature flick that holds out on what the boogens actually look like until the final minutes.

The Olive DVD looks very nice.

[Employee]

Third time I've watched this now. I suppose a love of politics helps with repeated viewings, but I'm completely sold on Gosling's performance every time.

[Spartan]

Werewolf in a Women's Prison (2007)


Complete and utter shit.

[Ramen]

I'm all for tearing shit up with anything on wheels but these motherfuckers are on a whole nother level. Some of the dumbest and most amazing shit ever. The fact that no one died is kind of unbelievable.

[Dan]

The Intouchables (2011) - True story about a wealthy quadriplegic who hires a street thug to be his daily caretaker. With nothing in common, the 2 bond and become great friends. I was a little confused at the end when they showed the actual people this film was based and had some text updating their current situations. In the film, the caretaker was a black man named Driss, but when they showed the real guy, it was an Algerian named Abdel. So far, this is my favorite film of the year.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) - Film about a young girl and her wild imagination as she and her father try to survive heavy rainstorms in their bayou community. I don't think there are any known actors in this, pretty sure these are people that were locals and asked to participate in the film. All were great, especially the young lead.

The Raid (2011) - Saw this in the theater 4 months ago, but this time I watched it on Blu-ray with the original music. I thought it was a nice touch that when you watch it with original music you also get the original title card, so this was The Raid and not The Raid: Redemption. It was also unrated, but this movie is so violent, I didn't notice any scenes that weren't shown when I saw the theatrical version. The original music was great, but I don't know which I prefer. Still, this is just a fun watch. I really enjoy this one.

Killer Instinct / Public Enemy Number 1 (2008) - French films told in 2 parts about real life criminal, Jaques Mesrine. When I started watching it, I had no idea this was based on a true story, but as it played I started realizing that this was an actual person. Both films were great, though the second was more violent and played like an action film, with some scenes seeming to be more fictional than factual.

[Roy Johnson]

Warlock (1988)


I get a huge kick out of watching esteemed, British thespians hamming it up in trashy b-movies and Warlock delivered the goods and then some. Richard E Grant travels hundreds of years in the future to hunt down a sadistic warlock played by Julian Sands who has escaped his execution. I'd forgotten how good this movie and how hot that chick from Footloose was in this, even in a stupid wig. Director, Steve Miner had some pretty good movies under his belt before he fell the fuck off and Warlock is definitely one of the good ones. The film is a fun and entertaining spin on many familiar time travel plot-lines you get in movies. Warlock, despite one or two scenes of gore, was more of a fantasy adventure type movie with some pretty welcome levels of humour in the mix. Actually thought it was a much better now than how I remembered it being back in the day.

Wow, I haven't seen this movie since it was in theaters. I remember when we were talking about it in my 5th grade class, and this eavesdropping penguin cunt told us that we were gonna go to hell.

[Roy Johnson]

Maximum Overdrive (1986)


Fuck the critics! I've always loved this retarded movie and it still holds up well today. Thank you coked-up Stephen King and Russian "weather" satellite.

One of the all-time great 2 AM movies.

[perlman]

Anyone seen a movie called The Friend's of Eddie Coyle? I checked it out because I saw it was on Wes Anderson's top ten favorites of the Criterion collection. It ruled. It was one of Robert Mitchum's last roles. A perfect grimy 70's crime flick. My only complaint was the soundtrack didn't seem to fit, despite it being mad wavy. Apparently it was based on a novel written by the same author, that wrote the book Killing Them Softy is based on.

[Tommy Bunz]

Lots of Eddie Coyle fans round these parts.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Doomsday Book (2012) - 3 little films in this piece.
First up there's a fairly unremarkable zombiestory with some romance. Meh.
Next up is Kim's genius film about a robot who becomes buddha, at least that's what the monastery thinks. The company which produced the robot wants to shut it down because it developed consciousness. Simply amazing. Wish it was a feature-length film.
It ends with a weird story about a girl ordering an 8ball on an alien website. For some reason that 8ball sets course towards earth and crashes everything. I'm not sure what the point was.
Watch this for Kim's segment.



Tokyo! (2008) - 3 little films in this piece. The concept is to have foreigners interpret Tokyo. First up is two frenchmen and then a Korean.
It starts with a drama about a couple who moves in with a friend of the woman. The woman starts to feel useless and turns in to a chair. Fin.
Second story is about a weird man rising from the sewers and going nuts. Really bonkers and lots of fun.
It ends with a story about a hirromiko, which is a shut-in who never leaves his house or makes eyecontacts. He falls in love with a pizzadelivery girl during an earthquake. Nice one.



Blue Spring (2001) - Manga-adaption about highschool gangs. If you thought Japanese students were obedient and respectful then guess again. I loved the slow-motion shots and terrible Japanese punkrock, which seemed to ironically poke fun at the characters, who are indeed badasses in the schoolyard, but ultimately just little assholes. I didn't like this as much as I had hoped.



Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973) - Brutal yakuza-flick labelled as the Japanese Godfather which isn't that far off. It's about post-war Hiroshima and rival gangs. Need to watch this again before I can properly comment, it's really convoluted.

[aleph]

Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973) - Brutal yakuza-flick labelled as the Japanese Godfather which isn't that far off. It's about post-war Hiroshima and rival gangs. Need to watch this again before I can properly comment, it's really convoluted.

I haven’t seen this in years and was initially on the fence about it too. Recently I decided to see the rest of the Yakuza Papers and now I’m up to part 4 and really enjoying it. I agree that the whole thing is a confusing affair but now I realize that’s it’s part of its charm. I find if you don’t even attempt to keep up with the plot intricacies (the specifics on names, places and dates are really red herrings thrown in) and characters you get it enough to be able to know what’s generally going on. Fukasaku goes further than the Godfather in equating the mob with corporations with all the backroom politicking and shifting loyalties, etc. He’s also a master at widescreen chaos. Even with the hoods just sitting in a room having a powwow, the frame is so cluttered it overflows. The net effect of watching it (the series) is disorientation.

After I'm done, I'd love to get a hold of New Battles. Anyone seen those?

[Random Sample]

I watched Avengers last night again. Been waiting for it to hit the net, so I could watch it again. Probably going to watch it again this weekend.

[drizzle]

iI you guys are watching the boxset version of yakuza papers, every dvd has a map insert that puts the chronology of the story and the allegiances of various characters into a flow chart. Still, it's really best to watch them one after another in as close of a succession as possible, otherwise it's almost impossible to keep track. But as aleph pointed out a lot of the details are not actually that essential, Fukusaku populates a complicated world but the focus is always on only 2 or 3 main players (usually Bunta's character). All the others are there mainly to provide plot machinations - this guy conveniently gets out of jail to create a conflict that drives the story, that guy randomly shows up from exile he was sent into 2 movies ago to lend a hand, etc...

the new battles are good too, you can get them from bootlegger sites rather easily

[drizzle]

sherlock holmes 2 - aight but not that great, a passable action jawnt but it could've been a lot better. the first had the element of surprise in its favor, everyone expected something awful so when it turned out to be kind of good it seemed like an achievement. so now they have to live up to the last one and they try to go bigger, which is reasonable for a sequel, but they overdo it. it's too action-y, too quipp-y, too long and overwrought in plotting. even the banter between holmes and watson, which was the best part of the first one, comes of forced and a little too homoerotic. irene addler has like 2 seconds of screen time, and the new female lead (dragon tattoo girl) brings nothing to the table. maybe i shouldn't have watched so soon after finishing the sherlock tv show, the bar was set too high.

[Roy Johnson]

Horrible

[Spartan]

Livid (2011) - Martyrs almost killed the French horror-genre by raising the bar unfairly high, finally there's a new film to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of European cinema: enter Livid. Maury and Bustillo previously made A L'interieur, an extremely violent and ultimately shallow movie which mostly provides thrills, though never cheap, it didn't have much else to offer. Their new films is like a poetic and gothic fairytale with a classic but fresh story. The gore of A L'interieur is replaced with wonderful atmosphere and terrifying shocks. Aside from that it is as gorgeous film in dark colors with painteresque camera placement and an obsessive eye for detail. The best horror of 2011 without much contest and a powerful statement of intent from the two directors. I liked Black Swan a lot but this is the true Suspiria of the modern age.

I just finished watching it and you're correct, Maury & Bustillo have definitely improved since their previous effort Inside. I have some issues with the ending, so I'll probably give it another viewing soon but this was still excellent. The overall tone of the film was top notch. Kind of a dark fantasy film you'd get from Del Toro with classic Argento, speaking of which, I loved the horror movie references, especially the Suspiria one.

[perfectprism]

I just started reading about futurism, transhumanism, the singularity, etc. and it's setting my mind on fire. This movie seems like a touchstone for anyone looking to understand what it's all about. Mind blown all over the place.



to for putting me onto this. this movie has more badasses in it than the expendables

[Spartan]

Combat Shock (1984)


A compellingly bleak look at the world through a war vet's harrowing ordeal of the jungle horrors of Vietnam to the urban hellhole of Staten Island. I was completely gripped by this nihilistic film, it had elements of Taxi Driver and Eraserhead (the mutant baby) for sure, but above all it had that oppressively scuzzy feel of early Ferrera or Lustig's Maniac, with some Deadbeat At Dawn thrown in for good measure. What really struck me the most about this film was just how much it nailed the horrors of both post-war trauma and poverty for the film's protagonist played brilliantly by George Samaras lookalike Rick Giovinazzo. For a very low budget 16mm film and some admittedly ropey support actors, it all seemed to work for me incredibly well and painted an unrelenting canvas of suffering in a serious manner. Not a film for everyone, but I thought it was excellent. Interestingly, some of the promo material for this film including posters and Troma's trailer for it are thoroughly misleading. It's a very serious film and it should be treated as one.

[drizzle]

^^ yea that movie is waaaaay more seriously minded than it's made out to be. not a fun exploitation romp by any stretch. not sure how it got that reputation. really dark and depressing shit despite the home video production values

have you ever seen his newer one, life is hot in cracktown? it has RZA in it, among others. it's allegedly just as bleak

[Spartan]

Nope, not seen any other movies by Buddy G. Combat Shock really impressed me so I'll try and check some of his other flicks in the future.

[Spartan]

Exit Humanity (2012)


Perhaps one of the more stand-out and unique zombie films since Pontypool. Set immediately after the American Civil War, the Tennessee countryside is plagued by a zombie outbreak and the film's lead, played superbly by Mark Gibson, follows his journey and his collective journal of how the saga unfolds. Honestly, this could have been a three and half hour epic and I would have been happy. Surprisingly avoids many of the familair tropes you would expect when it comes to the zombie sub-genre, for one, it's relatively splatter-free and more importantly, zombies are not treated like a gimmick. The film is dead serious and there's none of that self-aware bullshit to annoy me. For the most part, it feels like a western just with zombies. I do have some issues with the film, particularly my mixed feelings with some of the animations scenes, they seem to pop-up during intense action scenes but work well when providing some welcome background info. Brian Cox's narration really gave the film some heavy gravitas. Bill Molsely was a little under-utilized, of all the films where he's gone over the top crazy, this is the one where his skills would have been the most suited. Despite some minor gripes, I felt that this was a really good film and a refreshing alternative in the sub-genre.

M (1931)


Don't really give a flying fuck about film history and I'd rather judge a film on it's own merits rather than having any external force dictate my critique or opinions but M, was pretty much timeless. A manhunt movie in it's purest form. Just seeing Lorre with some little girl made me feel uneasy, but his speech during the kangaroo court scene was down right chilling. Some serious smoking in this film too.

[Roy Johnson]

Exit Humanity (2012)


Perhaps one of the more stand-out and unique zombie films since Pontypool. Set immediately after the American Civil War, the Tennessee countryside is plagued by a zombie outbreak and the film's lead, played superbly by Mark Gibson, follows his journey and his collective journal of how the saga unfolds. Honestly, this could have been a three and half hour epic and I would have been happy. Surprisingly avoids many of the familair tropes you would expect when it comes to the zombie sub-genre, for one, it's relatively splatter-free and more importantly, zombies are not treated like a gimmick. The film is dead serious and there's none of that self-aware bullshit to annoy me. For the most part, it feels like a western just with zombies. I do have some issues with the film, particularly my mixed feelings with some of the animations scenes, they seem to pop-up during intense action scenes but work well when providing some welcome background info. Brian Cox's narration really gave the film some heavy gravitas. Bill Molsely was a little under-utilized, of all the films where he's gone over the top crazy, this is the one where his skills would have been the most suited. Despite some minor gripes, I felt that this was a really good film and a refreshing alternative in the sub-genre.

Exit Humanity and Pontypool. What other dope zombie movies do you recommend?

[Spartan]

Pontypool might not be to your liking as it's mostly set in one location and on a radio show host (Stephen McHattie) along with the concept that people become zombies via the English language. Unique spin on the genre and very good:



The Dead is probably the most recent film that goes real old school with "slow walking zombies" and conjures up classic Romero and Fulci in terms of atmosphere. Setting it Africa gives it a really awesome post-apocalyptic downbeat vibe:



La Horde (The Horde) is a pretty OTT French action zombie movie. Very high octane and ridiculous but great fun:



There's also Dead Snow (nazi zombies), Zombieland, Siege of the Dead (aka Rammbok) and my fave of the bunch, the {REC] movies. You might also want to check out Dance of the Dead as it's a little reminiscent of Return of the Living Dead.

[Roy Johnson]

I appreciate it.

The first two that I'm gonna check out are Exit Humanity and The Dead.

[drizzle]

cosign la horde, dope little action movie, very fast paced and tons of fun. would probably make for a dope 'urban supernatural survival' double feature with Attack The Block

[odium-LSC]

to for putting me onto this. this movie has more badasses in it than the expendables

fucking LOVE this movie. one of my all time favorites.