Page 89 of 173 FirstFirst ... 397985868788899091929399139 ... LastLast
Results 1,321 to 1,335 of 2589

Thread: Rate the last movie you've seen

  1. #1321
    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
    Zombie Flesh Eater

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    6,302
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    3) I've just watched that one a week ago, myself. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't seen "The Night Evelyn..." yet, but I will get around to it sometime soon. I'll post a proper review of it tomorrow.
    I preferred Evelyn, I think. It was way crazier.

    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    4) Yeah, I never really got on with Phenomena, either. It was alright, but I can't really remember much about it. The one thing I most remember is from a making of documentary about Argento in general and how the 'swarm of flies on the building' was done (coffee grounds in water superimposed over the shot). IIRC this was before he did Terror At The Opera (aka Opera), which I really enjoyed, so he wasn't quite out of juice at this point, but the cracks began to show.
    Opera isn't out on an (English speaking) BluRay yet. I believe Koch Media has a german BluRay out but it's bound to get an english treatment eventually. Looking forward to rewatching that one.

    Anyway... This week:

    Danger: Diabolik
    Very camp, very fun and very good music. Mario Bava delivers what I have to say is my favorite film of his (so far). Loved pretty much everything about it, including the fact that the villain unironically uses a trap door on one of his goons.

    Zombi Holocaust
    A classic jungle adventure with zombies and cannibals thrown in. Works pretty good! The zombies introduction is pretty creepy and probably the highlight of the film. The ending is pretty low key however and there could easily have been a more drawn out climax. As it stands now it all just burns to the ground in around 1 minute time.

    Deliria Calda / Delerium
    A boring ass giallo where nothing happens except the main female character freaking out in the last 30 minutes and constantly shrieking at the top of her lungs while the rest of the cast watches.

  2. #1322
    Rising
    Member

    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    1,458
    United States
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilNed View Post
    Zombi Holocaust
    A classic jungle adventure with zombies and cannibals thrown in. Works pretty good! The zombies introduction is pretty creepy and probably the highlight of the film. The ending is pretty low key however and there could easily have been a more drawn out climax. As it stands now it all just burns to the ground in around 1 minute time.
    Features one of the coolest zombie slayings ever: outboard motor propeller to the face!

  3. #1323
    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
    Zombie Flesh Eater

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    6,302
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by JDP View Post
    Features one of the coolest zombie slayings ever: outboard motor propeller to the face!
    Quite right. And the music is pretty good too, though I heard it was ripped from another film.




    Anyway...

    The Fifth Cord, a giallo with Franco Nero. One of the absolute best gialli I've ever seen. Not so much for it's plot, which is a bit confusing and doesn't really tie up as neatly as some others do, but because of it's style. Every scene is an utter masterpiece of cinematography, courtsey of Vittorio Storaro. Add to that Morricone delivers a score that's up there with the one's he composed for Argento's Animal trilogy. This gem isn't on bluray, which is criminal. If there's one film that deserves a HD remaster, it's this one. I saw this on Youtube.

    Death Occured Last Night, people keep saying this is a giallo but I don't buy it. While there is a mystery, it revolves mainly around a kidnapping. The main characters are two police officers who try to figure out who kidnapped the mentally handicapped daughter of a local businessman and the film follows their investigation rather than that of some private eye or journalist. Simply put, it's much more of a polizioteschi than a giallo, but I guess technically, all the giallo elements are there... Duccio Tessari helms, who later directed both Bloodstained Butterfly and Puzzle. Both are very good examples of the giallo genre. This one was okay.

    So Sweet, So Dead, another giallo. While it's a solid giallo, it is by far, by far, the most formulaic giallo I've ever seen. There's nothing in this film that's not borrowed from another film. In addition, it's simply not executed that well. It hasn't got the flamboyant cheese of some of the sleazier examples (Like Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion) and it hasn't got the poetic charm of let's say Your Vice is a Locked Room and only I have the Key. Instead it's a rather flat affair where a group of high society aristocrats in a small town find their unfaithful wives being knocked off one by one in what's, truth be told, some really dull and uncreative scenes.

    Jane Austen's Book Club, yet another giallo.
    Just kidding. A group of women, of whom none die, read Jane Austen's books and have the themes of the books themselves stand in for several trials their personal relationships go through. It's alright.

  4. #1324
    Just been bitten LivingDeadGuy's Avatar
    Member

    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Location
    Cemetery
    Posts
    139
    United States
    The Craft. Really good movie from the 90's about four troubled teenage girls practicing witchcraft to get what they want but the spells start to backfire once they start abusing their powers. The most realistic movie about witchcraft I've ever seen and one of my favorite movies of all time. I give it a 9/10.
    Just a zombie girl on a Saturday night. <3

  5. #1325
    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
    Zombie Flesh Eater

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    6,302
    Undisclosed
    All the Colours of the Dark
    Sergio Martino, Ernesto Gastaldi, Edwige Fenech and George Hilton team up for the second time. I bought the Shameless Bluray which was recently released. As a fan of all things gialli, and this combination in particular, I enjoyed most of it. But when the protagonist is a passive figure, preferring to let things around her happen rather than taking a proactive role in events, I get bored. This is one of those films. Edwige Fenech is utterly helpless in this mystery of satanic rituals. Pretty visuals, cool music, nasty giallo scenery and great cast. But in the end it's not one of the greater ones.

    The Killer is one of Thirteen
    A spanish giallo, of which I've seen only a few. This being the very first all-spanish Giallo I believe. Simon Adreu (famous from Lucano Ercoli's giallos with Susan Scott) is one of thirteen dinner guests invited to the vacation manor of a widow. On the very first night she explains to the assembled group that she believes one of them murdered her husband. I don't think I have to tell you what happens next...
    Fairly talky but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It builds up a large cadre of characters fairly succesfully before the killer is let loose.

    What the Health?
    A crappy documentary cherrypicking an enormous amount of results from an even further cherrypicked number of studies. I was annoyed at how simple of a solution they presented at the end and had to google it. Turns out my bullshit radar was correct and the filmmakers were really just full of shit.

    The Tenderness of the Wolves
    Ulli Lommel directs a retelling of the case of "The Vampire of Hanover". A pedophile and cannibal lures boys back to his attic apartment where he rapes and butchers them. He then sells off the meat. Gruesome tale of depression era germany based on a true story. The film itself isn't very exciting. I'm not really sure what the director (Ulli Lommel) is trying to convey either.

  6. #1326
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
    Super Moderator

    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    The Mandatorium
    Posts
    24,165
    UK
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilNed View Post
    All the Colours of the Dark
    Sergio Martino, Ernesto Gastaldi, Edwige Fenech and George Hilton team up for the second time. I bought the Shameless Bluray which was recently released. As a fan of all things gialli, and this combination in particular, I enjoyed most of it. But when the protagonist is a passive figure, preferring to let things around her happen rather than taking a proactive role in events, I get bored. This is one of those films. Edwige Fenech is utterly helpless in this mystery of satanic rituals. Pretty visuals, cool music, nasty giallo scenery and great cast. But in the end it's not one of the greater ones.

    The Killer is one of Thirteen
    A spanish giallo, of which I've seen only a few. This being the very first all-spanish Giallo I believe. Simon Adreu (famous from Lucano Ercoli's giallos with Susan Scott) is one of thirteen dinner guests invited to the vacation manor of a widow. On the very first night she explains to the assembled group that she believes one of them murdered her husband. I don't think I have to tell you what happens next...
    Fairly talky but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It builds up a large cadre of characters fairly succesfully before the killer is let loose.

    What the Health?
    A crappy documentary cherrypicking an enormous amount of results from an even further cherrypicked number of studies. I was annoyed at how simple of a solution they presented at the end and had to google it. Turns out my bullshit radar was correct and the filmmakers were really just full of shit.
    1) I quite enjoyed that one. Perhaps not one of their respective best outings, but there was something about it that really stood out. It is fair to say Edwige isn't allowed off the hook to get stuck in, which is a shame ... generally it's a shame she didn't get to do more out-there characters like she had in "Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key", but then again, that does make such performances all the more special and stand-out.

    2) Sounds interesting! I'll keep it in mind.

    3) What's it about in general (healthcare systems around the world, is it?), and what bullshit does it proffer, out of interest?
    Last edited by MinionZombie; 03-Jul-2017 at 04:05 PM.

  7. #1327
    Feeding shootemindehead's Avatar
    Member

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Dublin
    Posts
    4,062
    Ireland
    Quote Originally Posted by EvilNed View Post
    The Tenderness of the Wolves
    Ulli Lommel directs a retelling of the case of "The Vampire of Hanover". A pedophile and cannibal lures boys back to his attic apartment where he rapes and butchers them. He then sells off the meat. Gruesome tale of depression era germany based on a true story. The film itself isn't very exciting. I'm not really sure what the director (Ulli Lommel) is trying to convey either.
    Been on my list for years. Don't know why I haven't got around to it yet.
    I'm runnin' this monkey farm now Frankenstein.....

  8. #1328
    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
    Zombie Flesh Eater

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    6,302
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    2) Sounds interesting! I'll keep it in mind.
    I may have given it too much credit. It's not that fun.

    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    3) What's it about in general (healthcare systems around the world, is it?), and what bullshit does it proffer, out of interest?
    Diet. Specifically a vegetarian diet. It goes to great lengths to present some kind of conspiracy against it but it's not very well crafted. The interviewer is turned down by an innumerable number of interviewees and he proclaims it's because of some "conspiracy", when in fact it's quite obvious it's because he's an annoying asshole who nobody takes seriously.

    Quote Originally Posted by shootemindehead View Post
    Been on my list for years. Don't know why I haven't got around to it yet.
    Not worth it, really...

  9. #1329
    Feeding shootemindehead's Avatar
    Member

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Dublin
    Posts
    4,062
    Ireland
    That's a shame.

    Always thought it looked very atmospheric.
    I'm runnin' this monkey farm now Frankenstein.....

  10. #1330
    Webmaster Neil's Avatar
    Administrator

    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    nr London
    Posts
    16,282
    England
    Baby Driver: 7/10 - Some good aspects, but too much of it feels clunky and self obsessed and self important.
    Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
    -Carl Sagan

  11. #1331
    Rising
    Member

    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    1,458
    United States
    Rain of Fire (a.k.a. Holocaust 2000) - 1977: Obviously inspired by 1976's The Omen, but with Kirk Douglas instead of Gregory Peck as the unknowing father of Satan's Spawn. Unlike The Omen films, though, the ending of this one is unclear and therefore disappointing.

    From Beyond the Grave - 1974: the last of those "Amicus" horror anthology films popular in the 1960s-70s, features a solid cast of veteran actors (Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, David Warner, Ian Bannen, Lesley-Anne Down, etc.), but the stories themselves are generally weaker than the previous Amicus horror anthologies, like Tales from the Crypt(1972) or The Vault of Horror (1973).

  12. #1332
    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
    Zombie Flesh Eater

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    6,302
    Undisclosed
    Been in the Cyclades for a few weeks, so haven't seen much film. But I did catch War for the Planet of the Apes at an open air cinema - with greek subtitles - and I watched So Deadly, So Perverse online at the hotel one night.

    I dug the former. The protagonists are all apes this time around. I grew up on the Planet of the Apes films and I think this reboot series has been tremendous. A friend of mine joked about how everything has to be so dark and gritty these days. But Planet of the Apes has always been dark. There's not a single Apes film with an upbeat ending.

    The latter, an early giallo by Lenzi, was entertaining in it's numerous twists and turns. It's more focused on the threat of murder and jet-setters conniving than latter, post-Argento giallo which almost always feature a murder investigation by some form of amateur detective. Pretty nifty theme:



    On my vacation I read Michael J. Koven's "La Dolce Morte" on giallo in which he divides the genre into "Argento-like Giallo" (my word, not his - his is more complicated), "Suspense giallo" (as this one would qualify as), "Poliziotto" (where the protagonist is a cop) and "giallo fantastico" (supernatural giallo). From that aspect, this would be a Suspense giallo.
    Last edited by EvilNed; 23-Jul-2017 at 07:22 PM. Reason: fdsdfs

  13. #1333
    Zombie Flesh Eater EvilNed's Avatar
    Zombie Flesh Eater

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Posts
    6,302
    Undisclosed
    Here's a few more;

    The Perfume of the Lady in Black
    A gialli-type psychological thriller. Sorta. It's trippy and a lot of people tend to categorize it as a giallo because of it's intertextuality to other giallo. Actors, props, sets, plot and set pieces are all very giallo like - but there's no real murder mystery in here. For fans of the genre, yes. Also for anyone who want to see an italian knock off of Polanski's Repulsion.

    Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
    Rainer Werner Fassbender's classic. Simple in it's plot, but not in it's style. A young immigrant worker from Marrocco and an old german lady strike up a relationship. Despite not being french, the genre itself is very french. Stylistically I can see where Wes Anderson and a lot of other quirky directors got their cues from.

    Dunkirk
    I liked it. A 110 minute stressful tale of survival on the beaches, in the sea and in the air. There's little heroism and the germans are barely ever seen. It's all Stukka bombers from the sky, torpedoes from the sea and far away machine gun fire. Most of the time, our "heroes" aren't even armed to fight back. It never lets up either. There's no calm in the storm. Just full on stress.

    Jaws
    Classic. What hasn't been said? It's a great film.
    Rewatching it now some 42 years after it got released I have to say some of the music is dated. Not the theme song, but John William's has a tendency to compose rather light hearted adventure film and slap it onto anything. It doesn't really jive with the pictures of extreme gore whenever the shark attacks.

    The Killer Must Kill Again
    1975 giallo based on the old Lenzi plots of backstabbings and betrayals. There's murder, but mystery is replaced by suspense. Really one of the best gialli I've seen. Also I'm surprised this isn't quoted more often as one of the gialli that starts to border on slasher. Bay of Blood and Torso all have that proto-slasher feel, but this one goes one step further and even introduces a Final Girl...

  14. #1334
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
    Super Moderator

    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    The Mandatorium
    Posts
    24,165
    UK
    The Stanford Prison Experiment
    A fascinating based-on-a-true-story film set in the early 70s in which college students are paid to be part of an experiment where some of them will become guards and some will become prisoners. It's terrifying to watch how easily some of the 'guards' slip into their roles in the worst possible way, even someone who scoffs at the idea of being a guard from the outset. Cracking performances throughout featuring a whole range of up-and-comers. Definitely a must-watch.

    A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
    It got a lot of press a while back as "the first Iranian vampire movie". Visually it's stunning with beautifully composed high contrast black and white images, but narratively it's a bit languid. There's some very cool moments dotted about and the titular vampire is intriguing, but we learn only a very small amount about her. Anyone looking for gore or meaty vampire sequences will be disappointed. There's things I really quite like about it, but generally I don't think it quite clicked with me.

    Quote Originally Posted by EvilNed View Post
    The Killer Must Kill Again
    1975 giallo based on the old Lenzi plots of backstabbings and betrayals. There's murder, but mystery is replaced by suspense. Really one of the best gialli I've seen. Also I'm surprised this isn't quoted more often as one of the gialli that starts to border on slasher. Bay of Blood and Torso all have that proto-slasher feel, but this one goes one step further and even introduces a Final Girl...
    Sounds good! I want to see this one. Hopefully Arrow or 88 will get around to it some time soon.

  15. #1335
    Feeding shootemindehead's Avatar
    Member

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Dublin
    Posts
    4,062
    Ireland
    'Hacksaw Ridge'

    A film of two halves that tries to channel 'Full Metal Jacket' too hard and fails to capture the brutal and honest nature of conflict, either on a personal level or a military one. Unlike Kubrick's film, Gibson layers on the sugar so thick in the opening section that it could rot the teeth out of your head. He presents a view of Desmond Doss's pre-war life that's coated in schmaltz, even though it's far from idyllic - Doss' father (a very good Hugo Weaving) endlessly relives his Great War days lamenting the loss of his buddies, while taking out his frustrations on everyone around him. Even so, Andrew Garfield's character waltz's through much of the first hour in a happy, goofy, haze that only Hollywood could conjure up. Perhaps that's what Gibson was going for as an effort to present a contrast of salad days against the realities of war. But, it's far too heavy handed to be taken seriously.

    His relationship with the future Mrs Doss is as cheesy as it gets, too. From their meeting to when he heads off to war, there isn't a single thing about it that rings true on any level, other than the fact that the characters are based on people that existed. Garfield and Palmer do well enough in their roles, but nothing they're asked to do rises above the level of a cheap paperback.

    It takes some sitting through.

    Thankfully, Gibson eases with the "Christian" messaging where he could easily have gone overboard. Doss's religious convictions disallows his ability to bear arms. Yet he still "wants to serve". So, he enlists as a corpsman to administer aid to the wounded on the battlefield. However, corpsmen are also required to complete basic training, which leads to much "drama" in the training section of the film. Doss comes in for much strife from his Sergent Major - an out of place Vince Vaughn who tries his best R. Lee Ermey impression but isn't up to the job - and his company commander (a completely worthless Sam Worthington) who want him out of their unit, so much so that it ends up leading to a court martial. "Thankfully", a senior officer steps in and says Dessie doesn't have to hold a rifle if he doesn't want to, an event that has been prompted by a fatherly intervention which is supposed to act as a redemption of sorts for that character, if sending your boy off to the horrors of war can stand in for a "redemption".

    With great relief, all of that claptrap gets jettisoned around the half way point and we're shipped off to Okinawa in 1945. There's just enough war left for Doss to do his best and the film goes some way to making up for its dreadful first act. But even so, amid all the slow mo carnage and practical gore effects, it's hard to really believe in Gibson's depiction of war, because there's too much beauty in the frames to feel any real horror. Japanese soldiers are immolated in CGI flames and run slowly toward the camera, but it's hard to feel anything, because we're too busy studying the image. People are shredded by gunfire and blown into the air. But, it's all numb. Gibson tries hard to shock and in some cases he does, but fails too many times elsewhere. Mel wants to grab the viewer and rub their face in his bloody special effects and tell them that's what war looks like. But his depiction of war is covered in so much Hollywood gloop, and lacking in any stark harshness, that none of it feels realistic.

    In the end, though, Doss does his bit and manages to get 70 odd wounded men off of Hacksaw Ridge, after his unit are forced to retreat from an attack. He prays to God to help him save "just one more" and he continues until he his unable to, due to wounds he endures himself at which point the film ends with some short interludes from the real man himself.

    Desmond Doss's actions on Okinawa are certainly worthy of respect and it's difficult to believe a lot of what transpires on the screen actually happened in real life. But, these actions are presented in a very overblown way and at times are rendered in a laughable Zack Snyder style slo-mo that reduces these actions to a comic book level. It's difficult to describe without seeing the film, but there is a very real sense of embellishment to the true life events, as incredible as they already are. Nothing ever feels real in Gibson's film, from the beginning minute to the start of the credits and Gibson is a filmmaker of good caliber too, which makes it all the more disappointing. 'Braveheart', for all its mangling of history, remains a thoroughly entertaining picture, 'The Passion of the Christ' is the greatest film about Jesus ever put to screen and his last effort - before shooting his mouth of in a drunken outburst about Jews - 'Apocalypto', was one of the finest films I've watched. But he misses the mark in 'Hacksaw Ridge' too often. There are still some decent passages here and there, but one has to wade through deep pools of Hollywood swamp water to get to them.

    It's a real pity that 'Hacksaw Ridge' fails on the levels that it does and ends up portraying a fantastic story in a very average way, because somewhere in there, there is a great film trying to be seen and Doss himself is a pretty remarkable man, with feats that deserve telling. There's certainly a good film out there worthy of his name, but 'Hacksaw Ridge' isn't it.

    5/10
    I'm runnin' this monkey farm now Frankenstein.....

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •