DVD's and Films You Have Watched Recently

[Egg Shen]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2Well, I didn't expect this to be as good as it is. I absolutely loved the start of this. To say I was pretty shocked by it would be an understatement. The ending isn't as good as the original, and I'm not sure that there was any need for it to be done the way it was done, but everything up to that point sure was enjoyable.

yeesssss...TCM 2 is definatly an acquired taste, considering its directed by the origional's director Tobe Hooper this comes off as somewhat of a spoof, and that's how it was intended, i recently got the Special Edition and they say they intentionally tried to make a comedy (Bill Mosely rules as Chop-Top), having said that it's amazing that this was ever put out at all, the film was dogged by made production and shooting problems. If you liked the film pick up the region 1 special edition, the doc. on there is superb.

I havent seen TCM 2 but i think that documenatery's on the Special Edition of the original, and it's superb. The "making of" the first movie is great too.

nah it's a different doc. this one is specifically about the 2nd movie.

[Mr. Seven]

Until now, Elephant, Gus Van Sant's wretched abortion of a film, loosely based on the Columbine high school shootings, was the single Worst Film I Have Ever Seen . I didn't think anything could dethrone it. Surely nothing could be as dull, pretentious, offensive, horribly written, dreadfully acted and horrifically realised as Van Sant's P'alme Dor (yes) winning "masterpiece" . Nothing could reach these dizzying heights. Nothing could make my blood boil and skin crawl as much as Elephant. Right?

 

Tonight I watched a film called Waking Life. It's written and directed by Richard Linklater, he of the excellent 1993 coming of age classic, Dazed and Confused. Waking Life is shot in the style of this year's A Scanner Darkly (also by Linklater) and if you don't know what that's like, it's basically really bad animation, like a bad abstract painting come to life and then falling into a puddle, making all the pretty colours flow and distort and just randomly vomit across the screen. It's a disorientating effect, one which induces headaches at will.

 

 

 

See that? That's UNIQUE. So it must be good right? Guess again.

 

As for the plot of the film. Uh, a guy gets hit by a car and gets stuck in a dreamworld where he has random, in-depth, "deep", pretentious and philosophical conversations with complete strangers, one of whom, after his rant about how fucked up the world is, douses himself in gasoline and sets himself on fire. This was a visual representation of what I would rather have done than continue watching this esoteric piece of shit. But continue on I did, as I was admittedly morbidly curious to see where it was going. In the end, it went absolutely nowhere. More conversations followed. Here's some examples of the dialogue:

 

"On really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion."

 

Read that aloud. This film is not a comedy. You are not meant to laugh at this. You're meant to feel a deep connection to this fucking drivel, so you can identify with it's core message. Whatever that may be.

 

"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving."

 

These characters just say these things. These conversations are just randomly started like this. There is no direction. NOBODY FUCKING TALKS LIKE THIS. It's like Linklater and his buddies got stoned whilst reading Kafka or something and Rich decided he needed to take his message to the public. The people who find this stuff important, who actually relate to these random parables of nothingness, are people who don't deserve to wake up in the morning. Ugh. One more exchange:

 

"Excuse me."

 

"Excuse me."

 

"Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"

 

 

My words cannot do this film justice. It's both enriching and depressing. In a way, it made me feel good, mostly because I know that I while there are times when I can be a bit of a pretentious cunt, I will never, ever, reach the levels of the people involved in making this expressionist propaganda. Modern art fucking sucks. The depressing thing is that the guy who wrote this abortion is a success. C'est la vie.

 

Oh and if you're still reading, I do actually urge you to see this film once. Myself and my friend laughed hard and often. Just don't pay a single cent for the pleasure.

[Miamivenis]

Until now, Elephant, Gus Van Sant's wretched abortion of a film, loosely based on the Columbine high school shootings, was the single Worst Film I Have Ever Seen .

Damn! We have (or should I say had) something in common.

[ukedge87]

In response to Mr Seven's hatred of 'A Scanner Darkly' which I haven't seen but might shed some light on it for you.

The depressing thing is that the guy who wrote this abortion is a success. C'est la vie.

It is based on the book by Phillip K Dick, aka the guy who wrote Minority Report and Bladerunner. He was a genius, but a visionary. To simply tear apart his work is perhaps a little bit due to a lack of foresight.In regards to the dialogue - yeh it sounds fucked up. But isn't it about a cop totally off his tits on drugs throughout the whole film. Isn't the whole film (i.e. the use of animation and weird events/ script) meant to just reflect a drug inducded trip and communicate this to the audience.Just some thought.

[Chest Rockwell]

I think he was talking about Waking Life, not Scanner Darkly.

Edited November 8, 2006 by Who has called me Hage?

[Adam G]

Sympathy For Mr VengeanceI thought it was ok. But i think i was probably expecting too much, because i'd seen Oldboy before. It had it's momments but seemed to drag a little in places. I was also very tired while watching it so, i will try to watch it again sometime.

Do you have the subtitles file for that movie?

[Andy Shoes]

I watched Return Of The Killer Tomatoes on Zone Horror last night and absolutely loved it. I was a little unsure of it at first, but it was a really funny film. Stopping the movie halfway through, due to not having any money had me in hysterics, and the Pepsi logos appearing from then on were a nice touch. Definetly reccomend it.

[Chest Rockwell]

I used to watch the cartoon "Attack of the Killer Tomatos" all the time... I only found out much later that they were spun-off from films..Funny stuff though!

[Mr. Seven]

Just some thought.

Here's another. Read what I wrote.

[OI OI SAVELOY]

Until now, Elephant, Gus Van Sant's wretched abortion of a film, loosely based on the Columbine high school shootings, was the single Worst Film I Have Ever Seen . I didn't think anything could dethrone it. Surely nothing could be as dull, pretentious, offensive, horribly written, dreadfully acted and horrifically realised as Van Sant's P'alme Dor (yes) winning "masterpiece" . Nothing could reach these dizzying heights. Nothing could make my blood boil and skin crawl as much as Elephant. Right?

Studied this film in film studies and i actually quite enjoyed it. Have no idea why but it the long pauses reminded me of the tv show "Royale Family" and i just found it quite entertaining in a less conventional way.Just thought id point out that he used non actors and all dialogue was improvised so that would explain the bad acting and would mean it wasnt horribly written. I suppose it is an aquired taste though.And to add to this thread, the last film i saw at the cinema was BORAT: cultral learnings blah blah. Well im into comedy films, and was a fan of the Borat character since the very beginning and after seeing the trailer i had been waiting to see this film for months. As soon as i started reading all the positive reviews i was even more stoked for this film. I went with my mates who had already seen it once and was slightly worried them saying how good it was would leave me dissapointed. How WRONG i was. This film was so funny i dont think anybody could ever do it justice by writing down their thoughts on it. There was some scenes where i literally lost control of my laughing and had not done so since "Team America: World police" and beleive me when i say this film blows that one out of the water.Great mixture of scripted and improvised material which comes off really well. I'm glad they didnt go the same route as the Ali G film becuase it's peoples genuine reactions to Sacha's characters that make them funny and this is what makes Borat work. Even the scripted scenes (one hotel scene in particular) was literally guy bustingly funny.A definate go see, thumbs up from me. The only downside i can see to this film is people milking it for all its worth. I have already heard "High Five" more than i ever wanted to. Edited November 8, 2006 by Romford_Hoop

[RCD]

'The Warrior King'Oh my god this movie rocked so much. Plot wise it's basically the same as Ong Bak but the fight scenes are 100 time better. The more Urban setting of Sydney creates some interesting fights & the fact there's actually english spoke in this film helps a great deal more.

[BionicRedneck]

Until now, Elephant, Gus Van Sant's wretched abortion of a film, loosely based on the Columbine high school shootings, was the single Worst Film I Have Ever Seen . I didn't think anything could dethrone it. Surely nothing could be as dull, pretentious, offensive, horribly written, dreadfully acted and horrifically realised as Van Sant's P'alme Dor (yes) winning "masterpiece" . Nothing could reach these dizzying heights. Nothing could make my blood boil and skin crawl as much as Elephant.

I take it you've never seen "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" as it's every bit as shit as Elephant, only it's actually scripted, which makes it all the more insulting. Gus Van Sant really is a useless cunt. He's only trumped by Larry Clark in terms of cunts who somehow seem to garner critical acclaim.

[Mr. Seven]

Meh, Kids and Bully were ok. Clark is a total scumbag though. Van Sant made an embarrassing shot for shot remake of Psycho and yet he still gets work. He made a film where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's brother wander around the desert for an hour and a half, exchanging about a dozen lines to one another, and yet he still gets praise. I don't get it.

[BionicRedneck]

Kids is probably my least favourite film of all-time. "Look! Kids swearing every 30 seconds, taking drugs and having sex! How 'hard hitting' and 'gritty'". Dogshit. And, IIRC, Van Sant was involved in the production of it which only makes him more a knob.

[Murtz]

'The Warrior King'Oh my god this movie rocked so much. Plot wise it's basically the same as Ong Bak but the fight scenes are 100 time better. The more Urban setting of Sydney creates some interesting fights & the fact there's actually english spoke in this film helps a great deal more.

This is the same film as Tum Yoong Gun (sp?) right?.. If so.. then yeah.. its awesome!