DVD's and Films You Have Watched Recently

[ukedge87]

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Edited June 24, 2019 by ukedge87
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[ultimo the great]

Anybody a fan of Dario Argento? I recorded Deep Red (Or Profondo Rosso) over Chrimbo, and watched it earlier this week. For fans of horror/psychological thriller I'd recommend it, and it was far from the schlock gorefest that I was expecting. A subtle, and properly disturbing piece, well shot and (in the main) well acted. Argento is often name-dropped by the modern cadre of horror directors, so he's worth digging out.

I've only seen two Argento's so far, Deep Red and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L'Uccello Dalle Piume di Cristallo) although i'm sure i've seen Tenebrae. I enjoyed Plumagge alot more than Deep Red. You are right that it's more than just a gorefest but i don't go along with some people calling a classic. Reminds me i need to see Suspiria.

The Doll coming through the door is disturbing as hell

Edited January 17, 2008 by ultimo the great

[Mandingo's Donger]

Anybody a fan of Dario Argento? I recorded Deep Red (Or Profondo Rosso) over Chrimbo, and watched it earlier this week. For fans of horror/psychological thriller I'd recommend it, and it was far from the schlock gorefest that I was expecting. A subtle, and properly disturbing piece, well shot and (in the main) well acted. Argento is often name-dropped by the modern cadre of horror directors, so he's worth digging out.

I've only seen two Argento's so far, Deep Red and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L'Uccello Dalle Piume di Cristallo) although i'm sure i've seen Tenebrae. I enjoyed Plumagge alot more than Deep Red. You are right that it's more than just a gorefest but i don't go along with some people calling a classic. Reminds me i need to see Suspiria.

The Doll coming through the door is disturbing as hell

 

Suspiria is by far his greatest moment. Deep Red tells the best story in his films. It has its scare moments but it relys on a good story tp keep you interested rather than over the top gore and stylish set pieces.

[Steveo2007]

I watched a film called Quality Of Life recently for Amazon.I honestly thought it was a good movie but a mate of mine isn't crazy on it.Bout these graffiti artists fall on hard times, one goes in a way to try and improve his life and become legit while the other friend goes down the shitter, quite a clich

[DJ Stevie C]

Alien Vs Predator Requiem.Note: There are spoilers in this review that cover both AVP and AVPR, they are marked in black, read them at your peril! :DOkay. Alien Vs Predator almost killed off my enthusiasm for the Aliens (And predator) films. The whole idea that Bishop was a part of 'first contact' I could deal with, but what happened to him didn't make any sense to me. SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read
Also the idea that the Predators would be stupid enough to carry a corpse onto their ship with an Alien Impregnation just blows my mind.... I also thought the fight scenes were awful (humans and aliens) and that they tried too hard to make it feel claustrophobic failing miserably.AVPR Does its damndest to 'save' the idea behind the movies. And I have to say, I just about bought it.... JUST about.The best thing about the Alien and Predator movies was it's ability to create warm, interesting characters that were sent into a fucked up situation and seeing how they cope with it, as well as having a kick arse bad guy to scare and impress you with just how bad it could be. There is nothing scary about this movie. You know whats coming most of the time. Although it does its best to throw you the odd curveball, you're just ready for them.This film opens up with the Predator ship pretty much right after AVP finishes. Something happens to that ship and suddenly its sent hurtling through our atmosphere down towards a sleepy, but much larger than I'd expected, town. The scenes on earth start off with the first few victims and the emergence of the main baddy SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read
'Predalien' which they try hard to make a badarse.The last Dying Predator manages to send a message into space calling for help and it reaches what I think is either the Predator homeworld or a Colony of them. Not sure which. But it was curious seeing that. :DSo, the Aliens have landed and what lots of fans of the series have asked for, they let rip on rural America.We get introduced to the 'usual' supporting cast, the humans, yes as usual you've got your hollywood 'too clean cut' folks in there but with a smattering of almost normal people which is good. While there is a bit of time spent of them it's not too forced thankfully and we cut bewtween meeting them, the Predator landing on Earth and doing it's own investigation alongside the Police investigation of the missing 'first victims'.And from then on we go from localised to city wide chaos with people trying to survive until we reach the end of the movie.Spoilerific notes below. I'd really recommend only reading them after you've seen the movie.SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read
I'd say they've definatley tried hard to rejuvinate the series here and I think they've come close with a few really bad mistakes. First of all they do some things that don't make sense. The Predator is investigating what's happened, it uses a singularity to get rid of the ship, it takes some kind of bacterialogical agent that dissolves the victims of the Aliens, all pretty cool, and then when the predator meets the cop it decides the cop needs to die which is fine, but instead of dissolving him, it skins him and hangs him up.... What??? Its purely done with 'shock' in mind but it makes very little sense.The other main break in canon is the Predalien. While Alien 3 shows that the Alien will hybridise with what it infects and that's fine, the Predalien is acceptable, what isn't acceptable is now they've changed the Predalien into a creature capable of 'injecting' eggs into humans (though french kissing them ) and it can make multiple chest bursters from one host without needing facehuggers. Now Unless thats how the predators breed that particular nugget doesn't make sense.A lot of the time this film felt really badly like 'Aliens lite'. There are sections of the film that you can directly link with Aliens and say "Hey that's blah blah lite, or blah blah lite" and there was a little too much of that for me. But saying that, the film was watchable, it had some really gory moments, it had some moments that made me laugh out loud and some 'oooooh shit!' moments. It's light years ahead of AVP (And its trying to save AVP all the way upto it's final scene!) and it's definatley a movie I wouldn't mind sitting through again.It's got a real panning from most reviewers, but I don't see why, sure it's no five star classic that you MUST go out and see, but it's certainly not the worst movie ever made by a long way. It's definately worth a watch, even if you want to wait until you can get it on DVD or when its on Sky.I hated AVP. I won't ever be watching it again. AVPR though.... Okay. I can accept it... Just! And I really feared it would completely ruin my love of the Aliens series. It didn't thankfully.

Edited January 20, 2008 by DJ Stevie C

[d-d-d-dAz]

I saw Sweeney Todd last night.

 

I feared that all the 'masterpiece' style reviews it was getting would ruin it for me. I was right.

 

When a film gets those sort of reviews I find it never, ever lives up to expectations and rather than take the film at face value you feel a bit disapointed by the whole affair. It was a very good film, just not as good as it was made out to be. It still has huge, glaring faults and problems that everyone seems to have ignored. For example the sailor boy, whose name i've already completely forgotten, was about as annoying as a stubbed toe. The way in which he belted out that 'joanna' song at every possible oppurtunity made me want to scream, he sang it in such an annoying manner. In fact, all his scenes were fairly useless. He looked as wet as a bathed flannel, and despite acting as if he was terrifically in (irrational) love you never quite believed he had anything more than wind. The scene in the asylum is hilarious, too, as he literally has no emotion.

 

This film's at its best when it keeps its foot on the pedal. When the songs are thick and fast, with a dark sense of humour and an eye on the macabre. The scenes where Todd is trawling the streets looking for customers; the scene where he first gets off the boat at the very start; the first scene in Mrs. Lovett's pie shop and the scene where Mrs. Lovett is fantasising about a life on the seaside are all genuinely fantastic. However, the poignant emotional moments fall horrifically flat I thought. The aforementioned 'Joanna' moments are painful and the 'I-Won't-Let-Anyone-Harm-You' exchanges between Mrs. Lovett and her apprentice is overdrawn and sickly.

 

As a whole, the film is far more graphic than I thought too.

 

I just imagined that the Hollywood remake of Sweeney Todd would be laden with inuendo and suggestion of the macabre (especially with Burton in charge) but no, they really do go for the throat, so to speak.

 

As for the cast, besides the horrific sailor boy it's all fairly well cast.

 

Rickman is great, as usual and Timothy Spall is unspectacular but solid.

 

Helenha Bonham Carter and the boy who plays her apprentice (man, I'm crap with names) are simply fantastic and Johnny Depp would be a revelation, if we didn't already know how good he was. Also, Sacha Baron Cohen's cameo was simply brilliant (and I don't even like the man).

 

Good film, very good. Not great.

[ukedge87]

I rewatched Hot Fuzz again a couple of nights ago. The film is a very good comedy, but the last half feels even more stuck on the second viewing (although it is hugely entertaining). I still feel it is a progressive step from Shaun of The Dead, but watching the film made me wonder if Wright was being wasted on these types of films. He is clearly evolving into a great director, and the comedy film setup might be stemming his true excellent. Watch some of the shots and the clear distinctive feel to it, and tell me that this man couldn't make an amazing thriller or intelligent action film.

[Harvey Dent]

Went to see 2 films over the weekend so heres some thoughts.First up was Sweeney Todd. And unlike the Daz a few posts up, I hadnt really read any reviews, I just knew what it was about, who was in it and it was a musical. I was totally blown away by it, the style, the songs, the story. I loved every minute of this. The casting was especially excellent, every actor perfectly suited for the role they had. Its a good thing Johnny Depp could sing (and quite brilliantly too, I might add) because it would take a long time to find an actor to portray Sweeney Todd as well as he did. I think Depp could convincingly portray a terroists innocense if asked, he turns in stellar performance after stellar performance and its a truely special actor.The second film I saw was Walk Hard. The short trailer I had seen looked average and just a lame shot at the recent musican biopics such as Walk The Line and Ray. However, I was pleasantly suprised with this, the story was well held up by some very funny moments and laced with entertaining cameo after cameo, as you'd expect from this kind of thing. The satirical songs really sound like they couldve been country rock classics and are sang really well by Reilly, who is very good in the lead. This one is nothing really special, or as constantly ball bustingly funny as Anchorman, but its well worth a watch if you get that chance.

Edited January 21, 2008 by Andy Of Deth

[Finbar]

I watched a Greek zombie-movie called 'Evil' the other night. Found it randomly on Lovefilm and it was bloody hilarious (pun fully intended). It's a somewhat tounge-in-cheek gorefest that fits somewhere between Bad Taste and Dawn of the Dead and it had my flatmate and I howling with laugther.

[chokeout]

Watched Death Proof on Sunday night, Really enjoyed it but I can see how its divided people, considering QT was marketing it as a slasher on wheels there

[Mr_Danger]

Watched No Country for Old Men the other night and have to say for the most part i enjoyed it a lot. It was quite interesting comparing it to Blood Simple and seeing how much more accessible the Coen's films have become over the years, whether thats a good thing though i am not sure as it doesn't have that feel that your watching the twisted vision of Joel and Ethan as much as there other films does. It does has the quirkiness and the excellent character actors but just feels like its missing something.

 

Being a Goonies mark it was great to see Josh Brolin putting in a great performance and also an honorable mention for Kelly Macdonald who i spent most of the film trying to remember where i had seen her from and not once did i consider she was a Scot. Tommy Lee Jones was Tommy Lee Jones but without a doubt the film belongs to Javier Bardem who the brothers give the best quirks and is chilling as the man sent in to tidy up the mess.

 

I won't go in to too much detail on the ending but for my money the final 3rd was lacking and i expected more, the Coen's clearly did it on purpose and i understand why they put in the ending that they did but

I wanted a big fuck off showdown, and after being teased with it for the entire film i was extremely let down when it didn't materialize,

but as i said they do it on purpose and u guess you could say im missing the point but thats just my opinion.

[Mr. Seven]

I quite liked The Devil's Rejects. I found it quite clever, and this is coming from someone who absolutely despised House Of 1000 Corpses.Finally got to see No Country For Old Men and.... I loved it. We need more simple films, and by that I mean ones with no need for countless contrived revelations that exist purely to shock the audience at expense of the story. The acting was naturally fantastic, and the lack of a soundtrack didn't once bother me. Everything worked really, the film has so much more bubbling underneath the surface than most will realise.As for the ending? Well I liked it. It's entirely faithful to the novel, so don't go attaching credit/blame to the Coens for coming up with it. It's refreshing to see a film play against type, and it worked. 2008 has 11 more months to produce a film as good as this. Will it?

[DEF]

I quite liked The Devil's Rejects. I found it quite clever, and this is coming from someone who absolutely despised House Of 1000 Corpses.Finally got to see No Country For Old Men and.... I loved it. We need more simple films, and by that I mean ones with no need for countless contrived revelations that exist purely to shock the audience at expense of the story. The acting was naturally fantastic, and the lack of a soundtrack didn't once bother me. Everything worked really, the film has so much more bubbling underneath the surface than most will realise.As for the ending? Well I liked it. It's entirely faithful to the novel, so don't go attaching credit/blame to the Coens for coming up with it. It's refreshing to see a film play against type, and it worked. 2008 has 11 more months to produce a film as good as this. Will it?

I agree with you on everything up until the ending. That film IS freaking amazing anyway but after the film I got up and saw a fairly full audience slowly stand up and say is that? I thought everything was absolutley gripping up until the ending, which sadly dropped me to the point where I was bored/uninterested. Which was a real shame as I loved the rest of it more than any other film of 2007 (I think). But having said that its absolutely worth it anyway, everyone should see it. But it does have a marmite ending.

[DeanoTheGame]

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End - A bunch of stereotypical characters, but some awesome gore, sweet make-up effects and some unpredictable, surprising deaths. Just an all-around fun movie. Oh, and who doesn't love a film where Henry fucking Rollins blows up an old man?

 

8/10

Edited January 23, 2008 by DeanoTheGame

[ukedge87]

I caught Ferris Bueller's Day Off the other day, and given it's cult status I was expecting much of the teen comedy. And it was quite good. It made me laugh in parts, but seemed undeserving of it's cult status. Am I the only one who found Matthew Broderick smarmy, smug and unbearable as Ferris, only balanced out by the brilliant Alan Ruck as Cameron. The plot works well enough but seems to be building up and up, and then totally fizzle out. The film is nice and warm, and funny in parts, but how it became such an iconic 80s flick I don't know.