The Official Movie Thread

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The last of Argento's pure giallos I needed to see. Took some tracking down. The plot is utterly ludicrous even compared to Argento's usual standards.

Could've sent you my copy years ago
 
Rolf de Heer has finally returned to directing after roughly 9 years. Here's an article from late 2021 about his new movie The Mountain.

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Sounds super interesting, it's about a character called "BlackWoman" who escapes a desert cage where she was left, and goes on some sort of journey that reads like a weird symbolic road film.

Glad to see he's doing another movie with an aboriginal lead. Coincidentally I threw on his last one Charlie's Country just last night.

In other Aussie cinema news, Robert Connolly's Winton adaption Blueback should be out soon. Same director that did The Dry, for anybody who saw that. This is about a young female environmental activist.

Then there's Ivan Sen's new romantic sci-fi Loveland (aka Expired) that looks promising. He's the indigenous director that did the Mystery Road and Goldstone movies.

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The synopsis:

In the near future, a hired mercenary named Jack lives a lonely and monotonous existence filled with robotic lovers and callous executions. However, everything changes when he meets April, a soulful karaoke geisha. As his heart comes alive for the first time, his body mysteriously begins to break down. Pursued by robotic henchmen, Jack seeks the help of Dr. Bergman, a reclusive scientist who may hold the answers to his dark predicament.

 
I have just finished viewing Sam Levinson's Malcolm & Marie. Woah! A majorly refreshing film that is expertly written and has phenomenal and towering performances from Zendaya and John David Washington.

The film to me was a series of monologues from both characters directing stinging criticism onto each other while also at the same time presenting an insiders view of the film industry and how toxic and one sided it can be. Particular favourite moments for me were when Malcolm is rallying against Marie's idea of authenticity in cinema and he lists out the classic films and directors of a bygone past as proof of success.

Zendaya's performance was a lovely surprise as I only had her small part in Dune and Spiderman: Homecoming to judge her by before watching this. Her ending monologue was amazing.

This film is really a tour de force on the part of Levinson, Zendaya and Washington.

Watched The Power of the Dog after. I have tried to watch this film twice before and could never get past the first 30 minutes. This time round I forced myself and I'm glad I did. A masterful turn in the revisionist western subgenre. Jane Campion has crafted a thought provoking film that confronts and makes the viewer question their understanding of what the "Western Film" was about.
 
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Sweet Bunch (1983) - For a Greek film this feels wicked French. Very Godard, with a wicked nihilistic streak and instances of extremely bizarre humor. Its an interesting film in terms of characterization. Not once does Nikolaidis present any of the main group of characters as "likable" in any way. By conventional societal standards (read that as "boring") they're all basically shitheads and scam artists who get by on ripping off others. Yet the way the film moves along you very quickly grow to love these sociopaths especially as they grow more and more paranoid and by the films climax when it turns into an action film, you're entirely in their corner. This is where Nikolaidis really began to show off his visual flair and his superb taste in tunes is ever present with a soundtrack loaded with solid gold oldies and not one but TWO Black Sabbath deep cuts from Technical Ecstasy.

i was already a budding nikolaidis fan from the three i'd seen, and it's so exciting to jump into each new one because they're always so idiosyncratic and have such tantalising posters, but i watched this a few weeks ago and my fandom has gone into overdrive, i haven't stopped thinking about it. i agree there's some godard in there, some rivette as well, plus there's tons of pop culture references and of course as per the title it's a peckinpah riff too, but it's also completely its own thing. excited to see the wretches are still singing next!

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I watched Gaspar Noe's latest film Vortex in the cinema last night at a special screening where Noe himself made an appearance to introduce the film and then to do a Q&A after. He is usually fairly funny when he does interviews. i think a lot of people think he will come out with deep meaning and philosophical answers but i think really he is a provocateur first.

Vortex I got to say is my favourite of his so far. Simplistically shot with relatively still cameras and an effective use of split screen to emphasise the old couple's coming apart in their relationship symbolically. Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun are phenomenal as the old couple.

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"Isn't this guy dead? Surely he meant to say Asia Argento?"

Nope, apparently Dario is still alive and kicking and acting in Gaspar Noé movies. What a world.
Hahaha! It sure is! and what a fucking performance it was. He was essentially portraying a version of himself but it worked very well.
 
Gave these a watch the other day...


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Kind of puts a different spin on a werewolf movie. It was pretty good, kind of reminded me of an old hammer horror film




And then i checked out some old russian movie that was recently restored called ilya muromets (aka the sword and the dragon)

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Was pretty good too. Some amazing visuals

 
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