[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

The older I get, the less I care about tired slashers like Terror Train. The first slasher film I ever had, and remember loving was MANIAC -- I guess that set an impossibly high standard! Haha. I still love shit like Don't Go in the House, Driller Killer, The Demon, New Year's Evil.. stuff with a extremely weird/dark atmospheres, creative editing, and stuff going on besides "guy going to a dorm and killing people" (the weird psychic link stuff in the Demon, as well as the most unexpected demise of a main character ever; New Year's Evil's superweird vibe, Don't Go in the House's "disco scene" and bizarrely unapologetic flamethrower-to-nude-girl scenes, Driller Killer's brilliant use of sound and color). Without those hooks, they just kinda bore me... On the other hand, giallos still do it for me, because those are usually creative, stylish, and mind-warping.

Slashers are my absolute favorite genre. I think everybody on here knows that. Anyway, I never thought Terror Train was all that great, really. It's pretty so-so. Pretty unforgettable.

[atsonicpark]

They're my favorite horror subgenre. I just got tired of horror in general. But I've seen so many now... I mean, when you've really been constantly consuming that stuff for your entire life, like I have...... I just find myself watching less and less horror films.. just getting less excited by them. I am sadenned by this, but oh well.

Hmm, actually, I guess my favorite genre would be whatever the fuck Slime City, Body Melt, Street Trash, BRain Damage, etc. is... bizarror melt horror I guess.

[ilduclo]

saw Disgrace, the adaption of the Coetzee book with John Malcovitch. dire but well acted and interesting

[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

They're my favorite horror subgenre. I just got tired of horror in general. But I've seen so many now... I mean, when you've really been constantly consuming that stuff for your entire life, like I have...... I just find myself watching less and less horror films.. just getting less excited by them. I am sadenned by this, but oh well.

oh I understand. For the past 10 yrs I'd say 95% of the movies we watch are horror. Which means five years ago we were still finding awesome movies we hadn't seen yet. Now it's like there's maybe 2 a year that we're like really impressed with. So I understand. I wouldn't say I'm "bored" with horror by any means, But I have seen so much of it (especially slashers) that it takes something special in a film to wow me.

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

What a trip!

 

fucked up flick no? when I first heard about a Bad Leutenant remake I was like NO! but Herzog really made his own thing here. I liked this freaked out flick.

[Rob Instigator]

 

funny at times, odd at times. I give it a 7/10. Not bad, but kind of "light" if that makes any sense.

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Bad Leutenant remake I was like NO! but Herzog really made his own thing here.

He never saw the original, and supposedly it's a reboot, not a remake -- as in, if it did well (it didn't, did it?), they wanted to make a whole series out of them. In a way, it was more like a sequel than a remake -- hence the subtitle.

The original is one of my all time favorite films. The sequel/reboot/whatever was okay, I guess. It had some cool scenes. Nic Cage is always entertaining.

[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

Originally Posted by noisereductions

Slashers are my absolute favorite genre. I think everybody on here knows that. Anyway, I never thought Terror Train was all that great, really. It's pretty so-so. Pretty unforgettable.

You're not alone, horror is my favorite genre, and slasher flicks are my favorite type of horror film! Terror Train was nothing too special as opposed to the magic of something like Happy Birthday to Me or Friday the 13th part IV (or even part VII!) - but I wouldn't exactly consider it waste of time, when put on scale with all films, of all genres.

As a slasher, it automatically delivered to my tastes more than other types of films, which must contain a certain uniqueness for me to truly feel attached to them. I have a strong prejudice in favor of horror, it blatantly affects my judgment, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

The older I get, the less I care about tired slashers like Terror Train. The first slasher film I ever had, and remember loving was MANIAC -- I guess that set an impossibly high standard! Haha. I still love shit like Don't Go in the House, Driller Killer, The Demon, New Year's Evil.. stuff with a extremely weird/dark atmospheres, creative editing, and stuff going on besides "guy going to a dorm and killing people" (the weird psychic link stuff in the Demon, as well as the most unexpected demise of a main character ever; New Year's Evil's superweird vibe, Don't Go in the House's "disco scene" and bizarrely unapologetic flamethrower-to-nude-girl scenes, Driller Killer's brilliant use of sound and color). Without those hooks, they just kinda bore me... On the other hand, giallos still do it for me, because those are usually creative, stylish, and mind-warping.

I wouldn't exactly consider Terror Train to be all that tired. Like I said, it isn't the best of the bunch - but it's far from the bottom of the pit where films like Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors; The Creeps, and The Crawlers dwell.

It has it's perks in art direction (i.e. the subtle-eerie costumes, and multi-colored strobe lighting), the writing was clever enough (small neat twists, terrific setting), plus it starred scream queen superstar Jamie Lee Curtis! It's like Prom Night, but not nearly as cool - and without the brilliant soundtrack, or riveting cinematography.

With horror's macabre tendencies, it's a genre that allows for some truly unique art to be created if proper dedication is applied. It's a realm where its' fans are more often willing to suspend their disbelief and go along for the ride - that's where you can really fuck with 'em, and many independent crews, whether they're from the US, Italy, Japan, Spain, France, or wherever seem to go the extra mile to do just that.

[Rob Instigator]

my fave horror movies are not slashers but the kind that make you question reality, and that make you feel like something very very wrong is lurking just underneath the surface of our "real" world. Love that weird shit.

[Count Mecha]

Wait Until Dark rules. Maybe the best Audrey Hepburn movie.

I have a love/hate relationship with the horror genre. It obviously has the capacity to be great and has plenty of incredible movies, The Monster, Nosferatu, The Haunting, Re-Animator, TCM, all of those horror pictures in the 30's, etc. But at the same time, I feel like it's the most oversaturated genre there is. There are just SO MANY BAD ONES. I mean, just look at Sci-Fi's (Syfy whatever) original movies that they're always playing. And it just goes from there, The Chilling, Hollow Gate, Screaming Dead, any number of movies that appeared on MST3K, while some are extremely entertaining on their own, plenty are just unbearable (such as The Brain That Wouldn't Die or Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy) those might be considered science fiction though. And some I feel are only interesting because of how goofy they are. Such as Hardrock Zombies, or Demon Wind. It's a genre I enjoy greatly, but it's also the one I take the least seriously probably.

[Kegmama]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

Haa, I find Salo so silly haha. Even that picture is silly.

the silliness is what i enjoyed. it was totally over the top. haven't read the book...

[atsonicpark]

someone the other day said salo was the best movie ever, and then he went on to say Taxi Driver was the most boring movie he'd ever seen. I said "I try to respect everyone's opinions but that one is terrible."

Then again, the guy also listed a 7 hour Hitler documentary as one of his all time favorits even though he admitted to me privately that he'd only watched an hour of it.

[atsonicpark]

Cube - 5/10

Entertaining and thankfully short, with a cool concept, but the overacting is just horrible.. this seriously has the worst acting I've seen in a movie... because the acting is the movie (there's really nothing else going on except actors interacting and walking around and dying), so we get to spend a long time with the characters. The "conspiracy theory" girl is just horrible, but the autistic dudes takes the cake. I was laughing through every scene with him in it. SO fucking bad. Also, if subtracting the numers gives you the way the cube moves, then the cube would have returned to its original position after only a few moves. Consider any three digit number XYZ. To figure out where the Cube is after three moves, you would add the three moves together. So (X-Y)+(Y-Z)+(Z-X) is where it is after three moves. However, this number is always 0. This means that any individual cube will return to it's original position after three moves. So, the math was pretty laughable too -- and they hired a "math professor" to help write the script? Haha?! Still, for a no budget "horror" film, it was entertaining enough, and certainly way better than Saw and the other "DEATH TRAP" films around. At least it has a neat concept, and doesn't feel the need to explain anything to the audience, which is daring, frustrating, brilliant, and stupid all at the same time.


Also, I had it before, but somebody on fangs sold me Masculin Feminin (8/10), the Criterion version, for $10, so I am giving my old copy to someone else. aNYWay, had a re-watch last night. Let's face it, Godard films can be watched 100 times and still never get boring.

 

Love the 9 minute conversation with Miss 19..

 

Will any director ever have even half as good a run as Godard? Yeah, Giuseppe made 33 great-to-mindblowing films (with only one or two misfires) in 10 years. But Godard.. wow.. My Life to Live, Little Soldier, Pierrot Le Fou, La Chinoise, A Married Woman, Week End, and Masculin Feminin are simply some of the most inspiring, innovative, mindblowing films ever made. Counting his shorts, he made 23 amazing films from Breathless to Week End. In 7 years. Though I much prefer his later work (SLOW MOTION especially -- if you have not seen this film, please do whatever you can to see it!), he only releases like 1 film every 5 years now or something. He was just on such a fucking roll back in the 60's. Damn!



ANYWAY, MASCULIN...

 

(that really should've been the cover of the criterion version)


...is perhaps his most leisurely paced film of his early period. No music to speak of, really, aside from a reoccuring hit pop song, sang by the star of the film (and "# 6 in Japan!"). Unlike most Godard films of this period, the tone is oddly cold and self-important... there isn't a lot of absurdity or humor.. I can see why critics didn't like this film at the time, as it feels a bit aimless in places, and is very static at times. It lacks the visual flair of a lot of his films (keep in mind the film before it was his most colorful and inventive work up to that point, Pierrot Le Fou). It feels unfun and, perhaps, unimportant. But I love it for precisely those reasons.. the whole film is dark, but not in an obvious way, it's very subtle. The whole film is quiet except for random bursts of violence and LOUD gunshots. Note the opening scene, which is broken up with a sudden 10 second scene ending in a gunshot. The camera is more content to kind of sit still and observe, and all the characters are quite flawed and even a bit dumb. Godard was really trying to show how naive everyone was/is. That interview with Miss 19 -- I mean, what director does this stuff? 9 minute conversations with characters that have nothing to do with the rest of the movie, talking about events and topics that aren't covered elsewhere in the movie. It would feel like such a random scene, if it wasn't the most compelling and genius part of the movie. Also, gotta love the movie within a movie scene -- again, a good 5 minutes of screentime is devoted to a completely unrelated segment. Yet there's just something about the nonchalance and patience of this movie that really makes it one of my all time favorites. The scenery is beautiful, Jean Pierre Leaud proves himself to be one of the best films ever (his acting in La Chinoise and Joy of Learning is absolutely incredible, as well, and he's the only reason to watch any of Trauffaut's duller films).

"Kill one man and you're a murderer. Kill thousands and you're a conqueror. Kill everyone and you're a god."

This film has a look to it unlike most of Godard's films, mainly because it was one of only ones from this period without Godard's usual cinematographer. Love the natural lighting and grainy black and white look. Absolutely captivating film, and the Bob Dylan reference is hilarious. He's a Vietnik? A beatnik overly interested in the Vietnam War.


Curtain rod.

[The Earl Of Slander]

 

So I saw the original play this is adapted from twice recently, and read it, because it totally blew me away. Truly extraordinary piece of writing. But this... frustrated the hell out of me. It's such a shame, because it comes close to being fantastic, and Thompson's performance is fucking amazing. I'm amazed she didn't win anything for it. But as an adaptation of the play, I can't help but feel the Nichols just missed the point somehow. Although, sure, the main character is dying of cancer, and that's the bulk of the action, I didn't really view it as a play that was as much about cancer as this ended up being. Just in all the editing choices, especially in the second half, they highlighted the 'oh the horror, she's really ill' stuff over the whole intellectual/John Donne related stuff. I don't know, I would probably have thought it was great if I didn't know the play, and it was still really powerful, but I just ended up finding it a bit lame and movie of the week, which the play wasn't at all...

[atsonicpark]

 

 

 

 

DOUBLE SUICIDE - 8/10

[atsonicpark]

Me and the old lady are going to watch Sin City (she's never seen it but she loved Machete) and Tracey Fragments before school today. While Tracey... is sorta pointless, I love some of the weird visuals in it..

 

Has anyone seen Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face)? Curious about this scene:

 

d/l'ing now..

[Count Mecha]

Eyes Without a Face is amazing. Did you want to know the gist of the scene or...?

[atsonicpark]

Oh, no, Count Mecha, I guess I was just curious who was a fan on here. It looks right up my alley... supposedly, it's "atmospheric" and "haunting". Some of the screenshots look a bit like Bergman's "Persona" (one of my all time favorites). So, I can't wait. Feel free to tell me anything you like about it, though -- I'll probably watch it in a few days, but I always love reading your thoughts on films, Count Mecha, as a lot of your views are similiar to mine (though I seem to recall you not being too into El Topo, which I find baffling -- that's simply one of the greatest films ever, a true work of art.. and for Jodorowsky to pull all that stuff off -- the editing, cinematography, acting, writing, producing, directing, composing, all in the middle of nowhere with a budget of like $200,000 -- makes the film all the more special, unique, and mindblowing. Truly one of a kind, from the heart, and one of the few films that gets better and better with every watch!)

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

Also, I had it before, but somebody on fangs sold me Masculin Feminin (8/10), the Criterion version, for $10, so I am giving my old copy to someone else. aNYWay, had a re-watch last night. Let's face it, Godard films can be watched 100 times and still never get boring.

 

Love the 9 minute conversation with Miss 19..

 

Will any director ever have even half as good a run as Godard? Yeah, Giuseppe made 33 great-to-mindblowing films (with only one or two misfires) in 10 years. But Godard.. wow.. My Life to Live, Little Soldier, Pierrot Le Fou, La Chinoise, A Married Woman, Week End, and Masculin Feminin are simply some of the most inspiring, innovative, mindblowing films ever made. Counting his shorts, he made 23 amazing films from Breathless to Week End. In 7 years. Though I much prefer his later work (SLOW MOTION especially -- if you have not seen this film, please do whatever you can to see it!), he only releases like 1 film every 5 years now or something. He was just on such a fucking roll back in the 60's. Damn!



ANYWAY, MASCULIN...

 

(that really should've been the cover of the criterion version)


...is perhaps his most leisurely paced film of his early period. No music to speak of, really, aside from a reoccuring hit pop song, sang by the star of the film (and "# 6 in Japan!"). Unlike most Godard films of this period, the tone is oddly cold and self-important... there isn't a lot of absurdity or humor.. I can see why critics didn't like this film at the time, as it feels a bit aimless in places, and is very static at times. It lacks the visual flair of a lot of his films (keep in mind the film before it was his most colorful and inventive work up to that point, Pierrot Le Fou). It feels unfun and, perhaps, unimportant. But I love it for precisely those reasons.. the whole film is dark, but not in an obvious way, it's very subtle. The whole film is quiet except for random bursts of violence and LOUD gunshots. Note the opening scene, which is broken up with a sudden 10 second scene ending in a gunshot. The camera is more content to kind of sit still and observe, and all the characters are quite flawed and even a bit dumb. Godard was really trying to show how naive everyone was/is. That interview with Miss 19 -- I mean, what director does this stuff? 9 minute conversations with characters that have nothing to do with the rest of the movie, talking about events and topics that aren't covered elsewhere in the movie. It would feel like such a random scene, if it wasn't the most compelling and genius part of the movie. Also, gotta love the movie within a movie scene -- again, a good 5 minutes of screentime is devoted to a completely unrelated segment. Yet there's just something about the nonchalance and patience of this movie that really makes it one of my all time favorites. The scenery is beautiful, Jean Pierre Leaud proves himself to be one of the best films ever (his acting in La Chinoise and Joy of Learning is absolutely incredible, as well, and he's the only reason to watch any of Trauffaut's duller films).

"Kill one man and you're a murderer. Kill thousands and you're a conqueror. Kill everyone and you're a god."

This film has a look to it unlike most of Godard's films, mainly because it was one of only ones from this period without Godard's usual cinematographer. Love the natural lighting and grainy black and white look. Absolutely captivating film, and the Bob Dylan reference is hilarious. He's a Vietnik? A beatnik overly interested in the Vietnam War.


Curtain rod.

I decided to quote this since I just edited it, and we're on a new page. Figured some Godard freaks would like to respond... anyway.

[Count Mecha]

Haha oh I see. I can't say whether or not you'll be into it or not as I'm really horrible at gauging anyone's enjoyment in a movie other than my mom (I got her pegged).

I'd say those adjectives effectively describe that film. I'd say it's almost a serene movie. It's not very jagged or chaotic, with the exception of the end. The scenes have a really calculated and calm flow. Which really helps for when it wants to be horrifying or chilling, which it can be any moment it wants to, but it chooses to be sparingly which is fantastically done. Haha, so it's kind of like you're watching the film on it's terms (you want something scary to happen son? Just hang on, we'll get there). But it doesn't do this in a way that the movie drags. Really it's a great film about cosmetic surgery. They should re-release it to today's audience where alot of people seem really invested in facelifts, botox, breast implants and all that other stuff. Yeah, I think that'd be pretty cool.

Here's the thing about El Topo, I LOVE the middle of the movie, where he goes on his quest to kill the four gunmen of the desert. That whoooole section there, blows my skull apart, it is flat out amazing. But the beginning just wasn't there for me, and neither was the third act in that town. Oh! Although, I did also really enjoy those bits in the church, particularly the russian roulette bit. That part felt so true! So yeah, I loved maybe 45% of it. I'm going to watch it again relatively soon, because hell, why not? I should.

But yeah, I like reading your thoughts too, largely because 90% of the time it's about stuff I don't know about. And I really admire that element of obscurity. I also enjoy how out of left field you can be. Like being totally into Freddy Got Fingered. Which don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool movie, just seems like a step away from alot of the other movies you're into.

Masculin Feminin looks fun. Here's a pretty big admission from me. I haven't seen any Godard yet. Hah, I rented Breathless twice from the library in college and didn't get to watch it either time because of school. What do you think would be a good starting point for me?

[a-p a. niemi]

Louis Theroux: A Place for Pedophiles