The Official Movie Thread

I think you read too fast there CF, your inner-Mort came out. I said nothing about black representation. But you have to find it funny that the studio, with legitimate reasons, put a female and a black male as leads for this new trilogy. Meanwhile women are still represented in the film, blacks and other non-whites are not. It's kind of funny where the PC police find fault and don't. The stormtrooper storyline has more at fault than anything else, it's really weird how they justified his character arc. I wonder if any progressive-ist film critic will see the "re-naming of a black man" the same as the Christian renaming of slaves in early America. That'd be a fun read.

Dude her character is ridiculous. How does she boss that dude around to get the droid in the beginning? She's all alone and somehow has some authority on this planet? :lol: Then she knows more about ships than Han Solo, especially his ship, because she scavenged old parts on a destroyer or whatever it's called? It's all this silly techniques to make her seem that she's everything in the film, except in physical load bearing capacity. I find that funny, it's not misogynistic to say "How can this woman know so much about wiring and ships when she's been landlocked on a desert her whole life?" But to you, maybe it is. But you also enjoy the loops in logical thinking, that she was trained to a master Jedi at age 5 at skills of the force and the lightsaber and after ~10-15 years she can retain that skill like riding a bicycle :lol: I mean come on man, you don't really believe this do you?

Come on man, Rey clearly won that fight. If the earth didn't split there the whole trilogy would have ended. You can say that he was wounded, but he wasn't showing any signs of it hurting him, instead he kept punching himself to get more amped up or whatever. I think he could have lost an arm and been able to beat Fin and Rey quite easily, but I guess that's ridiculous. You don't find the grandaddy complex hilarious? I've never heard that before. His uncle is the greatest hero in his time period but yet he's drawn more to his evil grandaddy? How many bad ideas did they throw in the trash before they took that one? :lol:

Why should Rey be composed? She's a complete novice. And he's taking it easy on her, because he thinks he can convert her (limited direction there and really just threw that at the audience quickly). She becomes composed by this awkward 5s eyes closed thing and then suddenly remastered herself? That was weird as well. I can't think of any signs that Rey was affected about his inadequacy of being Vader except when it was measly brought up by Rey pre fight. I would agree if you said the part where he killed Han but that fight scene? Ehhh He wasn't acting erratic or doing anything that would have shown signs of that.
 
Isn't that Pullman's last line? Good flick of ol Craven though. Have you seen Spoorloos? (Euro version of The Vanishing that we stole and made slightly worse)
Its not his last line but its the most well known line of the film. Its the tagline on the poster.

The original Spoorloos is a classic, absolutely terrifying film. One of my favorite Dutch films that's not directed by Paul Verhoeven. Why Sluizer opted to bastardize his own work is beyond me.
 
Pre-Christmas Euro-kink that will probably appeal to nobody but fuck it I've got nothing else going on at the moment:

The Whip and the Body
(Mario Bava, 1963) - One of the greatest Italian horror films. Its an S&M romance that's also a gothic ghost story as well as a murder mystery. That's quite the mixture but it works wonders. Neither element cancels out another, all work hand in hand to create something truly unique. The late, very great Christopher Lee in one of his best roles despite the dubbing. He's actually not in the film all that much which makes his limited screen time all the more imposing. His aura is felt throughout the enter film though.

Bordel SS (José Bénazéraf, 1978) - Adult/nazisploitation hybrid that does something amazing by potentially alienating both factions of viewers that would typically gravitated towards this type of film. Go in it for the porn and you’ll grow bored very quickly. Those who watch it not necessarily for the porn but for the nazisploitation sleaze expecting something along the lines of an Ilsa film are also probably going to be a bit let down and perhaps even bored by the sex breaks as well. Pure polarization. Pretty ambitious film for its type with really good production values, authentic WWII era uniforms and military vehicles and a great score too boot. Exactly the type of political (s)exploitation film that only a loon Bénazéraf would be audacious enough to make. Full review here.

Gradiva (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 2006) - The final mindfuck from a world cinema master. Fragmented editing, dream logic, sadoeroticism and Delacroix. As inaccessible as it may seem to mainstream audiences, this is actually one of ARG's more "user friendly" works although its still bound to frustrate the hell out of many. Personally I never want any of his films to end. Its so easy to get lost in this worlds he creates and if Morocco wasn't already exotic and mysterious enough as it is then this film will make it seem like a portal to another dimension. For what my opinions worth, this comes with the highest recommendation for the more adventurous viewers on this board.
 
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Doctor Glas (Mai Zetterling, 1968) - Incredibly odd, sexually frustrated Swedish psychodrama that at times begins to occupy that grey area where it would be understandable to refer to it as an "alternative" horror film. The film isn't exactly fast paced but there's little to no breathing room in the sense that immediately after the opening credits you're whisked into the disturbed headspace of the titular character and stay there for the next 80 minutes while Zetterling employs heavy use of surrealistic fantasy sequences and blink and you missed them cutaways. Its all very delirious and at times unnerving and the fractured editing lead to many a "what the hell is going on" moments which is precisely the point. Fascinating film.

Zetterling has quickly become one of my favorite directors. A former actress turned director, she's probably best remembered for the notorious Night Games (1966), which became instantly infamous due to it pissing Shirley Temple off so much she quit her position as a director of the San Francisco Film Festival when the rest of the board refused to ban it at her request. The judges at the Venice Film Festival had to see an exclusive private screening after the police shut the theatre down. For a film with such a history its mysteriously missing a good release. John Waters screened it during his "Films I Wish I'd Made" series in NYC no too long ago. Zetterling was a pretty amazing person. Her autobiography All Those Tomorrow's is a great read and can be found pretty cheap on Amazon. Gives new meaning to the term "brutal honesty". Plus her second to last acting role was for Nicolas Roeg! She was the grandmother in The Witches (1990)!
 
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The Line, The Cross & The Curve (Kate Bush, 1993) - Ever the outside the box thinker, rather than simply film videos for the songs choses as singles from The Red Shoes album, Bush instead chose to weave a narrative around the videos, writing, directing and starring in this short film/music video hybrid. Its nuttier than a Payday bar with the only possible comparisons being perhaps some of Ken Russell's music based films like Mahler (1974), Tommy (1975) and Lisztomania (1975), minus the cocks of course. Even some of Bush's most loyal fans have a difficult time wrapping their heads around this but really it works, mainly due Bush's visual design giving all the videos their own distinct personalities. Even if you're not familiar with Bush's music but like things offbeat then this is worth seeing. I think the whole things up on YouTube but it really should get a DVD release. Not sure that'll happen anytime soon though. Bush herself has since referred to it as a "load of bollocks". A classic case of own worst critic. Would you like to know more?

Tricked (Paul Verhoeven, 2012) - Been wanting to see this for a while and the wait was more than worth it. For those who don't know, this project came about in an interesting way with the first 3 or 4 pages of the script posted online and it was left up to the public to finish it with Verhoeven crafting the rest of the film around the submissions he got. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker that could spell disaster but with a master like PV at the helm it became some of the most fun 55 minutes one can spend in front of a TV screen. Very playful black comedy with a seriously barbed sense of humor ala Showgirls (1995) and there's even a gross out gag involving vomit and a floating tampon that harkens back to Verhoeven's Turkish Delight (1973) days. Fans of other black comedies like Killer Joe (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014) should take right to something like this. Admittedly the 55 minute run time does lead to somewhat of a what could have been situation had it been 20 minutes or a half hour longer but for a mini movie its just perfect.
 
Finally getting around to re-watching the old Star Trek films after almost 20 years.

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And now this, another classic that I haven't watched in fucking YEARS.

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Anomalisa is "available" on the Web. I'd love to see it in a theater, but that's not going to happen in a barren shithole like Peoria, IL. I'm going to watch it this afternoon, and probably five more times before the week is over.
 
Anomalisa is "available" on the Web. I'd love to see it in a theater, but that's not going to happen in a barren shithole like Peoria, IL.
I feel your pain. When the rare occasion arises when a new film that I want to see actually gets a theatrical run I can bet money on it never playing anywhere close to here and that's even with a yearly festival. The one time I was proven wrong was when Polanski's last one Venus in Fur played for literally one night. Naturally I found out about it days later.

Dream (Kim Ki-duk, 2008) - Kim is one strange fucker. He also happens to be one of the greatest, most consistently interesting filmmakers working today. Like a lot of mavericks, he's looked upon as a pariah in his home country. The South Korean censor board hates him. Dream is one of his more, uh, "laid back" efforts compared to some of his more full-on films like The Isle (2000), Real Fiction (2000), Bad Guy (2001) or Moebius (2013) although he still finds time to have his characters shove sharp objects into themselves. Kim's always had an eye for surrealistic imagery and flirted with the fantastique but with Dream he goes into full-blown fantasy. In true Kim fashion, its a very poetic and symbolic film and one that actually uses dreams in a way that doesn't feel as if it had been done a million times before in other films. It dives into strange territory almost immediately with little to no skepticism from the characters which was refreshing. Very funny and even sweet at times with two excellent leads who have a natural chemistry which makes the inevitable misery they suffer (a constant Kim trait) all the more affecting. It also doesn't hurt that lead actress Na-yeong Lee is unbearably adorable.
 
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so I went and saw The Hateful Eight at a proper 70mm showing as part of the film's roadshow. Received a special book and everything. I went into the film knowing only it was a western directed by Tarantino.

Loved it. The film is absolutely beautiful. It's stunningly shot, especially the outdoor scenes. Ennio Morricone provides one of his best scores in YEARS. The film itself reminded me a lot of Reservoir Dogs.

Also, thank FUCK for the intermission. Had to pee like a motherfucker
 
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Anomalisa is "available" on the Web. I'd love to see it in a theater, but that's not going to happen in a barren shithole like Peoria, IL. I'm going to watch it this afternoon, and probably five more times before the week is over.

let me know what the quality's like! this and HIGH RISE are both opening the same week here in march and part of me wants to just go see both in one go but i doubt i can make myself wait that long. also i'm planning to post my best of 2015 list by the end of this month and don't wanna omit it. it sucks being a) british and b) not a professional film critic
 
The quality of the version I saw was just fine. I don't know how you'll feel about it, but I thought it was perfect. Easily Kaufman's least Kaufman-esque movie and far and away the least insane, but it resonates all the same.