Movie talk

Oh, Persona is on Film4 tonight. I am going to watch the hell outta that movie.

American Psycho > Rules of Attraction > Informers > Less Than Zero.

I saw it too and really liked it. I heard they cut out 41 minuets out of the movie though which I think could have really helped.

I just watched a film called Come and See, it's kind of like the Russian equivalent of Apocalypse Now. It's about how badly the people of Belarus were treated by the Germans during WWII and it easily one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. I actually think I have post-traumatic stress disorder just from watching it. Good though!

Come and See is absolutely fantastic! It's from the 80s.

Yeah, GobbleGobble is right, it's from the '80's. It does seem strangely obscure though, I only heard of it from an otherwise pretty dopey article about over-rated arthouse cinema . I can't recall ever hearing it mentioned in any discussion of great war films or Russian cinema. I think it must have something to do with how truly harrowing it is, it's certainly not an easy or pleasant watch.

Come and See is truly amazing. Shocking and horrific but I highly recommend finding it and watching it.

and then afterwards you can say "I went and saw Come and See!"

This looks like it could be interesting, comparisons to Gus van Sant and and Haneke are a good sign. Sounds like a cross between Elephant and Benny's Video.

That does sound good. Those are two people whom I hope I will be compared with at some point in my career.

I just watched an old French noir film called Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, directed by Louis Malle. It was pretty good, a little far-fetched but otherwise a damn good crime-flick. The score was awesome too, I love me a bit of Miles.

This might be interesting, I saw a documentary about those projects, it was all pretty mental.

Last night I saw a movie called The Hurt Locker, it's awesome. It's about a bomb disposal squad in Iraq. Everyone should see it.

that 'youth in revolt' looks really funny.

I went to see some horror films this weekend at Fright Fest. I've just emailed this to aicn and copied it here. There aren't really any spoilers, basically TRICK 'R TREAT was fun, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE was sick, I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW was interesting and THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL was amazing.

TRICK 'R TREAT: written and directed by Mike Dougherty (writer of X-Men 2 and Superman Returns). It opens with a scene of a couple returning home to take the Halloween decorations down, then it features four intertwined stories taking place on Halloween: a father being pestered by his son for help carving the jack o'lantern while he has more pressing business to attend to, four girlfriends out to party and find a guy for the virgin of the group, a group of kids heading out to the site of the local ghost story, and an old recluse who has a strange little visitor. It seemed to lose its momentum in places but the rest was so good and so much fun it more than made up for it. It looks fantastic and has some awesome comic book style opening credits. A perfect mix of humour, scares and homages, Trick 'r Treat is now added to my list of films I rewatch every Halloween.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE: written and directed by Tom Six. Two American girls are travelling through Europe and their car breaks down one night in Germany. They walk to find help and stumble upon the house of Dr Heiter who invites them in...and then forces them into becoming part of his experiment. The doctor is a surgeon renowned for separating siamese twins, yet his dream is to create a human centipede by grafting a chain of people mouth to anus. That sounds pretty sick but think about it a little more and you realise the feeding process will pass from the front end to the back end, so you know you're into seven shades of wrong right here. I admit I only saw this out of curiosity and didn't expect anything more than a disgusting story and some gore, but it actually holds itself throughout with a mixture of tension and humour, and Dieter Laser is simply amazing as the doctor. Six is currently working on a sequel which he said will make this one look like Sesame Street.

I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW: documentary directed by Sean Donnelly. An insight into the lives of two individuals Jeff and Kelly who have been fans of the pop singer Tiffany since her 80's heyday which has developed into obsession and, in Jeff's case, stalking. Jeff suffers from Asperger syndrome and is a genuinely likeable guy with a positive outlook on life. Kelly was born intersexed and after being brought up as a girl and then a boy now lives her life as a woman. While they both suffer from some serious mental health problems, it makes for some really funny moments but that's not to say the situation is funny, and it is very sad and quite disturbing at times. I guess they are still working on getting rights for the music as there were a few silent scenes and no music. It seemed to end rather abruptly but nonetheless was an interesting film.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL: written and directed by Ti West. A cash-strapped college student replies to a 'babysitter wanted' ad to find all is not as it seems at the large house in the country. It features the leading lady Jocelin Donahue, the awesome Tom Noonan (Manhunter, Monster Squad) and the fantastic Mary Woronov. West was inspired by the 'Satanic Panic' era during early 1980's America and the film is filled with such incredible attention to detail (amazing opening credits, authentic 80's clothing and props etc, and a dance scene to The Fixx's 'One Thing Leads To Another') that you think it was made 25 years ago. The film is a real slow-burner which increases the tension to breaking point and when it eventually kicks off it does so with style. Best film of the weekend, this is the one I'll be telling everyone about.

pound for pound, Auto-Focus might be the most disturbing film I've ever seen. It's set in such a "normal" world and all these bizarre things play out as being run of the mill or average. And there is absolutely nothing average about any of it. God, I hope there isn't.

A few weeks back I read some fairly good reviews for a film called Taxidermia which sounds quite interesting (here and here) and now it's on TV tonight. It must be one of those rare cases when something gets released here before it gets to the cinemas in the states.

Oh, and reviews of The Road are starting to appear since it was screened at Venice last night-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/03/the-road-adaptation-cormac-mc...

I think Trick r Treat is out on dvd in October...basically Warner have had it on the shelf for two years and still don't have any plans for a theatrical release which is a real shame. But yay for dvd.

No idea for Human Centipede. I don't know if it's even been through the censors/classification yet, but the director seemed hopeful because even though the story is mental there isn't really any nudity which seems to be the thing they normally crack down on (no pun intended).

I think The House Of The Devil is out in US cinemas October but I'm not sure. And I don't know about UK release. Fucking ace though.

The doc was good but not really worth going out of your way for.

Here are five clips of The Road

http://www.traileraddict.com/tags/the-road

Trick r treat looks good. I loved Halloween themed horror movies. Did anyone see Halloween 2? I thought it was miles ahead Rob's first remake.

That's looking like it could be pretty good, even though it won't be quite as unrelentingly dark as the book it will still be a close adaptation.

I saw a strange film last night, it's called Franklyn.

It's a mix between drama and fantasy. The storyline was so-so but it looked great, especially considering the low budget.

A friend of mine just got us tickets to go see Moon on Friday night with a Q&A with Duncan Jones, I'm really looking forward to seeing it again and the Q&A should be cool.

Last movie I saw was a Mexican movie called Sin Nombre. It was really good. It follows two characters who are trying to better their lives. One is a Honduran girl who seeks out to get to America. The other is a MS gang member who wants to turn over a new leaf with the love of his life. Their stories come togtehr when they are on a train (freight train) making it's way through Mexico towards the US border. One of my favorite movies of 2009.

Watching all this 9/11 stuff today, I'm surprised no one's made a movie yet that just takes place with firefighters running up the stairwell. Like the entire movie takes place in the stairwell.
Seems like it would be perfect for one of those faggy conceptual indie filmmakers. Cheap to make, all you'd need is some fireman costumes, a smoke machine and you could just film the same two flights of stairs over and over.
And yet here we are, eight years later, and no stairwell movie.

I've outlined a script that takes place entirely within a tent.

Gerry TWO: this time, they sit perfectly still...

Saw 500 Days of Summer recently - what a crock of shit! I really do not understand why it's received such good ratings, it was a gruelling task just sitting through it.

On a happier note... I watched Sin City again last night. Frank Miller you beautiful, beautiful man.

Yeeeah, go BBC2!

I'm kind of interested in seeing 500 days of summer, it's gotten some mixed reviews. Did you know the guy wrote it as revenge against his ex-girlfriend?

Hell yes!

No way, really? Well he must have truly succeeded then; I'd be pretty damn offended if I was her, that someone would 'dedicate' such a dreadful film for revenge.

Yeah, there's an article about it here.

I think tonight I might watch Resident Evil on E4.

Ah, thank you!

I've rinsed Resident Evil - seen it far too many times. I think I may settle for Sleepy Hollow, on Film4.

Yeah, I've never seen Resident Evil so I'll give it a watch even if it's a bit rubbish. I noticed Death of Mr Lazarescu is on later tonight, I might record that.

As far as films based on video games go, it isn't bad. Silent Hill is by far the worst video game to film I've ever seen.

Is Death of Mr Lazarescu also on Film4? That films won quite a few awards, hasn't it?

I dunno, I thought Silent Hill was kind of alright as game adaptations go. I mean, you ever seen the Street Fighter movie?

Yeah, it's on around one o'clock. I think it did get a fair few awards, maybe something at Cannes.

Naw, I haven't seen Street Fighter. Is it an animation?

Ah, I may see if I can stay up and watch that. Unfortunately, I'm not blessed with Sky+ ;(

Damn I'd like to watch Death of Mr Lazarescu but have so much work to do and no recording facilities, grr.

No, it's live-action and dreadful.

Also, I have a feeling they made a live-action version of Mario. I can't imagine that was any good.

I got a hard drive thing in my DVD player. It's cool because Film 4 shows some pretty good arthouse films late at night. Taxidermia was on last week, but I've yet to watch that. If you can't watch it tonight you could probably catch it later in the week, they normally show those sorts of films at least twice.

I saw a trailer for the new Clooney film "Up in the Air" which looks really promising, fantastic camera work, and has that "OMG we want an Oscar" vibe:

....and I finally caught a trailer for the new Bruce Willis movie Surrogates, which I thought from the posters looked pretty dumb, but definitely has an interesting B-Movie fun feel...

In other news, I saw 9 last night and was underwhelmed...

It's alllll on youTube...I dare you to watch the whole thing.

I read a few reviews of that recently, it sounds pretty good. I think it's by the director of Thank You For Smoking and Juno (which I never realised were from the same guy).

Not one of Dennis Hopper's better ones. They made Koopa human!!! Oh and the animated street fighter movie WAS AWESOME. The live action is only awesome for its cheese value.

If all Hollywood is going to do is remake films, the least they could do is remake The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

I decided tonight that from now on, whenever i see a great actor or even a good one take on the horrible movie or shitty sequel, that I am not going to instantly turn my nose up at them.
For however bad the movie is, they took that role so the movie could be made and it gave all those behind the scenes peons a chance to collect a paycheck.
As long as they give a good performance and don't look like they just showed up and read some script, they are okay in my book!

i watched the newest rambo earlier. there was no real plot but there was tons of violence and gore. it was satisfying.

The next Rambo script involves Rambo heading to the northwest to fight some sort of government-created Bigfoot monster. It's supposed to be more like Predator than any Rambo movie.

I believe he's basing the whole thing off a novel he optioned a while back
http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/huggins-hunter.htm

Could be good times. Or it could suck. We'll have to see how the Expendables does first.

yeah it seems like he's trying to reinvent himself as a b-movie director type like tarantino and rodriguez like to do. rambo was fun though.

I have a movie called 301/302, and another called The Pacific & Eddy. I'm not sure which one I'll watch first tonight, but I'm about to go for a walk to grab some coffee, so who knows, I might go nuts and watch both!