What movie did you last watch?

[AlKilyu]

Haute Tension (High Tension). EPS and I stopped by the videostore up the street and they had a copy, and I wanted to see it uncut.

I LEGALLY saw a movie that is in the theaters at home. :roll:

There is a LOT of talk, most of it bitching, about the ending. Well, this is coming from someone tired of the recent fad to tack on a surprise ending on most movies as of late: I liked it. It's not that hard to accept, and like Fight Club or Sixth Sense (and UNLIKE Living Hell....oooh if I ever meet that director IRL I am gonna kick his balls) you can go back and see they planted little, albeit very little, hints towards the end.

Two French college students drive to the country home of one of the girls. They get their late, get ready for bed almost immediately. The girl whose home they are visiting is upstairs taking a shower, while her college roommate, who has a secret crush on her and just viewed her from outside, has retired to her bed to listen to her CD player and masturbate.

That's when the killer drives up and knocks on the door, and that's when all heel breaks loose. The visiting roommate manages to see and hear the killer decimate her friend's family, all the while avoiding his attention. Her main concern is getting her friend, who has been sparred and tied up on the bed by the killer while he goes to finish off her little brother, out of their safe.

What follows is her attempt to chase down the killer and his truck, and rescue her friend.

It's aptly named, 20 minutes into it the tension starts and is held rather well. A local film critic says to fully enjoy it, you should turn it off at 56 minutes (or walk out of the theater) I say nay, stick around.

The killer is played by Philippe Nahon, who has appeared in Irreversable (another uncomfortable French film) and The Butcher/I Stand Alone (which is SO uncomfortable, and violent and cruel and horrific, that right before the grusome finally the movie stops and a message blinks on the screen for 30 seconds warning you just how bad it is going to be) so it's safe to say if he is in it, it's going to have gnarly violence. Well either the violence has been overhyped or I am that accustomed to violence that it IS bad but doesn't phase me.

I'd reccomend this as a horror film, but not the kind that a group of teenage girls would rent at a sleepover.

And for God sakes, avoid the other two movies I mentioned that the killer has been in...you people aren't ready!!!

[Panther]

Hitch. It's funny, but I'm only ever going to watch it once.

[Pathogen.]

Incubus. Written & directed by Outer Limits creator/occasional original Star Trek writer Leslie Stevens. The only horror flick ever made where the dialogue is spoken entirely in Esperanto! Even in that weird language, William Shatner is still a lousy actor! Truly the Keanu Reeves of his day!

[pitseleh]

I saw Factotum at the local movie theater. You know, the one abot Henry Chinaski, or Charles Bukowski if you will. Directed by Bengt Hamer, who is norwegian, and starring Matt Dillon as Chinaski. Good casting, that, and the movie in general is blessed with a well-acting cast who maintain the tension throughout, and don't over-play the relatively sparse dialogue.

I'm a big fan of Bukowski, so I just had to see this.

The pacing makes it unsuitable for the most action-hungry film buffs, but along with the vague and grittily poetic dialogue it males for a sober, kinda, heh, zen-like film, if that's possible with so much drinking involved.

It was funny though, as only a slice of social realism about an alcoholized, horse-playing, oft-fired working stiff can be. Bukowski's books make me laugh so hard, but on film the laughter kinda catches in your throat a bit more, seeing the degradation Henry Chinaski must face. Plus there was only like seven people there, so I didn't wanna LOL like a crazy pervert.

The fucked-up relationship dynamics depicted sometimes felt almost romantic despite their inherent base in hopelessness and spite. Gross, but brilliantly played out nonetheless.

Good hour and thirty minutes (or was it longer?).

ps: Nice to ^see^ you, eyesofatragedy!

[AlKilyu]

Black Cadillac.

This movie is based on supposed real events that happened to the director in his youth.

Three college age chums stop by a local party bar on their way thru Wisconsin. Two of the three "get lucky", but the angsty, smart-allecky third, who bears a nasty scar on his face chases off a potential date by telling a false version of how he got the scar. This leads to a big bar brawl that they win but get out of town before the locals regroup, and from there on out they are stalked by someone(s?) in a 1957 black Cadillac.

Along the way they pick up a deputy whose car is dead (played by the always fun to watch Randy Quaid) and try to survive the night.

Who is in the Cadillac? Why are they after them? Will they make it out alive? Well the last question can somewhat be answered, as someone lived to tell about it.

It's a direct-to-video flick that you, like I, can find on your local Blockbuster shelf.

[soggypicklemuncher]

I've been wanting to see Haute Tension since I first heard about it a couple months ago, and a week or two ago it finally started showing in the U.S. under the name High Tension. I find it rather sad that someone actually felt there was a need to change the name to English; are Americans really perceived as being so stupid that they wouldn't understand what haute tension means? I mean I completely believe that a considerable number of people wouldn't know, but that doesn't warrant a name change in my book, and anybody who even took one year of French in junior high could explain it to them.

I'm also afraid that it's been dubbed, in which case I'll wait until it comes out on DVD. Does anybody know whether it was dubbed or kept in the original French when it was released in the U.S.?

Oh yeah, I guess I should say what movie I've actually seen, heh. Tonight I watched about 20 minutes of The Eyes of Laura Mars and then fell asleep, not because it was boring but because I was exhausted. I'll probably watch it again tonight when everyone else is asleep. The last film that I actually finished and stayed conscious for its entireity was the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I was watching for the first time believe it or not. I remember asking to rent it when I was around the age of 13 but my mom said something about it being perverse and wouldn't let me. I guess I could have gotten her to let me see it last year or even the year before, but I didn't really think again of seeing it until a few days ago.

I thought it was a fun movie with catchy songs. I still get one stuck in my head at least once a day, but it's happening less frequently day by day.

And I never knew Tim Curry was ever that sexy! :shock:

[Granny-like_the_apple]

Originally Posted by soggypicklemuncher

I find it rather sad that someone actually felt there was a need to change the name to English; are Americans really perceived as being so stupid that they wouldn't understand what haute tension means? I mean I completely believe that a considerable number of people wouldn't know, but that doesn't warrant a name change in my book

Generally if a foreign film comes to an English-speaking country, then the title changes, end of story. You think that "a considerable number of people" not understanding the title of a film doesn't make a translation a reasonable solution "in your book"? It's a fucking business, dude. Think. Your book isn't going to make any money if you're going to alienate half the population before they've cracked the cover,

It could also be because France is a big pussy. This is America, we don't need no stinking Frenchies! (No offense to hot French men-we do need you, especially at my college. So... call me!)

[Pathogen.]

EYES OF A TRAGEDY: "Lady Death"? The movie? This is a joke, right?

[Deadhymn]

Tis' NO joke.

[Loy]

OK, here's part of the "I saw at SIFF" thingsy-

"Me And You And Everyone We Know"-the film that opened SIFF this year was not only not crap (which every other opening film has been), but was by far the best film of the festival. Seeing it a second time (I saw a preview screening before the festival) made me realise exactly how amaising this film really was.

See, the film is about an artist who falls for a guy who has just separated from his long-time wife, and is trying to make ends meet for him and his kdis. It's also about his sons discovering sex. It's also about a couple of girls who are also trying to figure out sex, love, and the whole thing.

However, the bare boned-story does nothing to convey the emotional complexity that Miranda July expresses through these ever-intertwining souls. The film shows people who are trying to figure out their place in the world, and whilst there are some parts that would have become queasy exploitation fodder for others, in the hands of Miss July, they become tender moments of truth that touch the soul in a way that's nothing more than transcendent.

There's plenty of praise being heaped upon this film right now (it has won major awards at Sundance, SIFF, and Cannes), so I'll cut this short-"MAYAEWK" is a film that makes one fall in love with film and the world around them. After I saw it, I was afraid to speak about the tenderness I felt towards the world around me, until I looked over, and saw another person who was feeling the same thing as me. We didn't speak, but our eyes expressed the awkward emotions, and that was more than enough. "MAY...." is by far the most heartfelt film I've seen since "Rushmore", and anything I say about will always fail to convey the power of the film.


"Grizzly Man"-At first, I though I was going to owe Werner Herzog a drink (I swore that I was going to buy him a drink the moment he makes a film that leaves me indifferent). I mean, it's about this extreme ecologist who hangs out with bears in the wild, and believe me, he's such an annoying fuckhead that you can't wait until the bear eats him (which is how he died).

Then, there's a part when Herzog says something to the effect that the longer a camera runs, the more of yourself that you accidentaly expose. And the guy starts talking about his relationship problems....his problems with alcohol....with relating to the world around him....and all of a sudden, he becomes something otehr than this annoying fuckhead. You realise that underneath all the labels created (by both us and him), he is a person, and once that realisation hits, you start seeing more and more of what it is we have in common.

Then you start respecting him for what he was doing. and the respect grows so much that the tape of his death (he had a video camera running at all times in the wild, and when the bear attacked him, he didn't have enough time to remove the cap, so the sounds were recorded).....well, Herzog breaks down after listening to it (Herzog broke down....I mean, this is the guy that made "Aguirre" and "Fitzcaraldo", for fucks sake). He's sitting with the guys friend, listening to it on a pair of earphones, breaks down, then tells his friend "you should never listen to this tape. Burn this tape, and never listen to it". She tearfully agrees, and by this point, so do we. In other words, we have gone past the freakishness of this guy, and accepted him as a person worthy of all our respect. In other words, I was not left indifferent. I was awed and moved in a way that I would never have expected. In other words, Herzog has shown himself to be not only one of the best film-makers in the world, but an ever-growing one.

More to come.

[dreamydancer]

So my friend makes me watch this movie that she’s been raving about. I believe that Clerks was filmed in the early nineties, but I only watched it last week…….and several times more. How dorky is that?!

Black and white. Nothing much happens. It’s mostly dialogue complimented with clever humor. The movie is so stupid and the acting is just atrocious. Yet I like it.

Dante Hicks is called to work on his day off at The Quick Stop convenient store. He deals with costumers from the annoying to the insane. Don’t forget his silly friend and fellow clerk Randall, the type who closes the video store he works at to rent movies at a better place.

Dante’s love life is in shambles. He sits there floating and can’t seem to find direction in his life. But he still finds the time to talk Randall of nonsense saturated with pop-culture. The day goes from bad to worse.

I never looked at shitty low wage jobs that way before.

“Just because they serve you doesn’t mean they like you.”

[dreamydancer]

Originally Posted by soggypicklemuncher

. The last film that I actually finished and stayed conscious for its entireity was the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I was watching for the first time believe it or not. :

Your first time? Blasphemy!! (joking) That's okay my mom still won't let me rent Beavis and Butt-Head videos. I undersand why because I've never seen cartoon characters act as asinine and mindless as them. It makes me laugh though.

[Deadhymn]

Originally Posted by dreamydancer

Your first time? Blasphemy!! (joking) That's okay my mom still won't let me rent Beavis and Butt-Head videos. I undersand why because I've never seen cartoon characters act as asinine and mindless as them. It makes me laugh though.

I think recently seeing Clerks for the first time is far worse than having missed out on Rocky Horror.

[dreamydancer]

Well, at least I admitted that it was pretty dorky.

[Loy]

More SIFF stuff

"Last Days"-Gus Van Sant has gone through 3 phases in his film-making career. 1.He was the edgye, provocative auteur of such personal films as "Drugstore Cowboy" and "My Own Private Idaho". 2.He was the for hire hack behind such turdges as "Good Will Hunting" and "Finding Forrester". 3.He's an artiste who's mastered a Beckett-like mysteriousness that he conveyed through "Gerry" and "Elephant". "Last Days" (more or less about Kurt Cobain) doesn't so much expand on his new stylistic motifs as much as it's a perfection of form. Eschewing narrative norms, Van Sant instead creates a dream-like haze to wallow his meditation in. It's unique and true to his goals, however, if you're not used to it, it's boring as fuck. Avoid if you require a film to have a lot of cuts.

"Mysterious Skin"-I found an irony in Gregg Araki's new film playing alongside Van Sant's new one. Both Araki and Van Sant were seen as the "bad boy provocateurs" of the New Queer cinema of the late 80s-early 90s. Both made films brimming with an explosive passion and heartfelt urge to expand the boundaries of cinema. However, where Van Sant has made a number of great films (and at least one straight-up masterpiece), Araki's output is more like color-coded pig oaffal. Araki won for best director on this film, and whilst it IS a better-directed film than his past ones, that isn't really saying too much. However, what saves "MS" from stinking as horribly as, say, "The Doom Generation", isn't the directing but the acting. Araki finally found the actors he's been looking for since he started shooting. However, he still has yet to come up with a story (or a way of telling a story) that's as great as they are.

"Strings"-The coolest thing about this film is also it's greatest hinderence-it's all puppets. Like a sub-par Svankmayer moral tale, it plods and plods until eventually, the fact that it's all puppets doesn't grab you anymore, and what you're left with are a few shining moments scattered throughout 90+ minutes of tedium.

"Revolution Of The Pigs"-OK, imagine if Wes Anderson remade "Meatballs" and set it in 1980s Estonia. That's about the only way I can explain this film. It's a lot of fun, and even the political aspect of it (remember, there was this little war that the USSR was going through in Afghanistan at the time) comes about naturally rather than being shoved in there. And you can't help but love any film that pays hommage to Kurt Vonnegut (who, if you didn't know, is the greatest living writer in the world right now).

"Wonderful Night In Split"-Two words-editing table. Get one. And don't watch so much Tarantino. He's a thieving hack, and the influence he holds over your style only proves this. Oh yeah-not all acidheads jump off buildings because they think they can fly, only the stupid ones. And even if they're morons, it's doubtful they'd do it the first time they drop. Also, lose the music. It's grating as fuck, and the band playing it only shows how callow and mechanical bands have become today. See, all my negative points could become positive ones, but only if you weren't making a film to score some pussy.

"Godzilla-Final Wars"-the one I was waiting for the most, and whoever gave Al those negative reviews is...well, just blind. "FW" is, for my money, the best Godzilla film since the original, and the fact that it's probably the last one makes me sad. However...what a way to go. The director (the guy who did the over-hyped "Versus" and the underknown awesomeness known as "Azumi") has a true love for the rubber-monster films, but rather than camp it up, he pays homage to them (and figures out how to get over his biggest weakness as a film-maker, which is his editing). Yes, all the monsters return (and I mean ALL the monsters) for some big big battles (the loudest cheer from the audience came when the big guy beat the living fuck out of the american Godzilla, providing a multi-layered "fuck you" to gentrification fans the world over), but this time around, the human fight sequences are just as much fun and jaw-dropping.

"Hole In My Heart"-This is Lukas Moodeyson's "Salo", and not just because it's a break from his more humanistic films ("Show Me Love", "Together"), but because it's the most fucked up disturbing thing to show on screen in a long time. It's about an amateur porn shoot, and the further into the shoot, the more inhibitions go out the window. However, Moodeyson isn't just shocking the audience. He has a philosophical agenda behind the degeneracy (it can be seen as an attack on reality TV, the exploitative nature of film, and thus culture, on male/female dynamics, on homophobia....oh, the list goes on), and this is what moves Moodeyson to the same realm of film-making genius that's occupied by Nagisa Oshima and David Cronenburg (I'd throw in Martin Scorsese as well, but Scorsese's....well, he's more of a theologean than a philosopher. However, I'd put Scorsese as the most Christian film-maker ever).

"Three...Extremes"-three short films by Takashi Miike, Chan-Wook Park, and Fruit Chan. Strangely enough it's the least acclaimed director (Fruit Chan) that made the strongest of the three films. Warning-if you see this in a theatre, you might not be able to hear the entire thing, as the number of people walking out in disgust will make the door fly open and slam shut throughout.

"Banlieu 13"-now THIS is an action film. It's an update of "Escape From New York", but it's French and full of chop-sockie fight scenes that are just as breathtaking as "Ong-Bak"s. (If this sounds strange, get this-the style of fighting, which involves many types of body movements and wall climbing, was actually created by one of the actors. One person next to me kept wincing throughout the scenes, and it turned out he was an aikido black belt who was watching the film for tips on his own style of martial arts). This film just fucking rocks.

"Howls Moving Castle"-it's Miyazaki, so it's great. However, it has the feeling of "Miyazaki's running out of steam". Considering that "Spirited Away" was supposed to be his last film (he was producing this one, but became the director when he was unhappy with the first rushes), that might not be too far off the mark. Not as great as "Nausicca" or "Spirited Away", but definately worth your time (and millions of miles better than most of the crap called "anime")

"Layer Cake"-I have a love for the old Michael Caine gangster flicks, and so does the maker of this film. He's got almost everything right except for one thing-he doesn't have Caine, or an actor who can ooze the same type of sad ammorality. Worth a rental, but not a night out at the theatre.

more to come.

[Gothic.net]

Bubba-Hotep, but it was unbearbly slow. Did anyone enjoy this one?

[Selena]

Last movie --> Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Great movie.

[Solumina]

I know, I've seen it three times

[Eizenat]

I wached "Ghost ship" some hours ago. The film is not bad but I am especially happy that I watched it. Why? Because I thought I was doomed not to finish it ever. I've watched the first ten minutes about 20 times and every time something happened and I had to stop. Don't you think that there is a kind of curse in this story? I wonder what I had done and to whom I had done it.

The music of the film is also very good.

[tekno_suicide]

The last movie I watched was Anchorman. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly suggest you check it out. It's hilarious.

[Panther]

Sin City.

Damn I love that movie. *Wants to have a personal clone of Rosario Dawson, now*

[Star of Blight]

Originally Posted by Panther

Sin City.

Damn I love that movie. *Wants to have a personal clone of Rosario Dawson, now*

Funny enough, I just got a chance to watch that for the first time last night. I really have to say I was impressed, I was expecting some mindless action film that tried to be different (as it was presented in black and white).

But the storytelling, not to mention the artistic delight really suprised me. I honestly couldn't believe when it was over...rarely do I get so into a movie that I completely loose track of time. Nice, very nice.

[Soul_Immortal]

Constantine...

[MrMaelstrom]

I watched Feardotcom last night and let me tell you: what an utter piece of crap.

Good story idea, but lousy plot, bad acting, bad directing and even worse cutting and editing.

Positive side: good photography. I think it was the same dude who shot the Beautifull People music video for MManson, as the aethetics of the thing seems very similar to me.

[MrMaelstrom]

For fucks sake, Loy, post more often. Maybe then your posts won't be so long (like I never go on rants).

Good reviews though.