The Last Movie You Watched? ver.2.0

Don’t get your hopes up Stanton, the scene is very brief.

This is a female James Bond type of film, maybe you might like it.

Last couple of weeks:

-The Great Silence (Corbucci, 1968) - Not a bad picture, you guys should maybe give it a try
-Spider-Man: Homecoming (Watts, 2017) - Liked it, maybe more than any since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 (2004). Didn’t love it, but then I never really loved Spidey. Michael Keaton supplied one of the more memorable MCU villains, though.
-Harakiri (Kobayashi, 1962) - Outstanding period cautionary take of a Samurai seeking to commit harakiri, but not for the reasons his hosts think.
-Kuroneko (Shindo, 1968) - Brilliant period ghost story from Japan
-Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (McKay, 2004) - I love lamp.
-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Newell, 2005) - Probably enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the last installment. “Enjoy” is still a relative term with these, though.
-Onibaba (Shindo, 1964) - Another brilliant Japanese period piece, very similar in tone to Kuroneko, touch of The Twilight Zone about it
-Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 (Gunn, 2017) - Not as good as the first by any stretch but it improved as it went on
-Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (Misumi, 1972) - Terrific! I’d only ever seen Shogun Assassin so it was a treat to finally sit down to the source movies
-Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx (Misumi, 1972) - F*cking insane, but in a brilliant sense. Best LW&C of the three I’ve seen so far
-Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (Misumi, 1972) - Continuing the hacky-slashy madness, crazier than the first pic, slightly more reserved than its immediate predecessor
-Ghost in the Shell (Sanders, 2017) - Much maligned live-action remake but I think it’s a little under-appreciated. Is it as good or as thoughtful as the original? Of course not! Few films are. For me, this one of the better “blockbuster” titles of this year, for sure
-Shogun Assassin (Misumi/Houston, 1980) - I wasn’t going to re-watch this until after I’d seen all of the Lone Wolf and Cub pics but I couldn’t wait. I bloody love it

I think you’re just making films up now. Not unless you mean that Scorsese picture from last year.

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This Wednesday marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, The King. With that in mind, I’m marking the occasion by watching at least two Elvis films every day this week from Monday to Friday (three on Wednesday itself, hopefully). I’m also only going to play Elvis tunes on YouTube, PC, Spotify et cetera over that period. Uh-huh huh! Thangyouverrmuch!

Anyway, I kicked things off yesterday with Kid Galahad (Karlson, 1962) and Flaming Star (Siegel, 1960). For the remainder of the week, I intend to get stuck into:

Today: Love Me Tender (Webb, 1956) and Loving You (Kanter, 1957)
Tomorrow: Elvis: That’s the Way it Is (Sanders, 1970), G.I. Blues (Taurog, 1960) and Elvis (aka Elvis: '68 Comeback Special) (Binder, 1968)
Thursday: Blue Hawaii (Taurog, 1961) and Jailhouse Rock (Thorpe, 1957)
Friday: Viva Las Vegas (Sidney, 1964) and King Creole (Curtiz, 1958)

https://s17.postimg.org/4jcvxorr3/elvis-1111.jpg

Deep Star Six (1989, Sean S. Cunningham)

I bought a box - for € 3,99 - with three underwater-SF-thriller movies, all from 1989, containing this one, Leviathan and James Cameron’s The Abyss, the best known, and most probably also the best of the three (and the only one I had already seen, years ago). I started with this one, because Leviathan is said a) to have a very similar plot, and b) to be a bit better.

Anyway, this one’s obviously an Alien clone, not set out there in space, but down here on the bottom of the ocean. The crew of a military underwater base (I already forgot what they were doing) accidently wakes up a giant sea scorpion belonging to a species that was thought to be extinct. Of course the disturbed monster wreaks havoc among the crew.

The director is best known for the cult hit Friday the 13th, a low budget horror sickie that made a fortune. Deep Star Six has the same cheap, occasionally rather ugly look, but lacks the sleazy fun of Friday movies. There’s hardly any tension until the final 15-20 minutes and this monster is no Jason Voorhees. Nia Peeples is pure eye candy, otherwise: Forgettable. Hopefully Leviathan is indeed better.

2/5

MI GRAN NOCHE - not one of the greatest by de la Iglesia, and not as amazing as EL BAR, but definitely in the batshit category and worth watching. Quite the ensemble cast, too.

Leviathan (1989, George P. Cosmatos)

The second movie (after the disappointing Deep Star Six) of my 1989 underwater-horror movie box. It has a similar setting and premise: a team of scientists working on the bottom of the ocean, discover a sunken Russian vessel that was obviously used for genetic experiments that went horribly wrong. None of the Russians survived the events and now the Americans will have to fight for their lives …

Leviatan has better actors and better sets (it has a quite sophisticated look) and yes, it compares favorably to Deep Star Six, but it’s not a great horror movie either. Tension is built up nicely in the first half, but somehow the movie becomes more superficial - and less thrilling - once the mayhem ensues. Some of the scenes involving mutant monsters are more disgusting than terrifying. That last scene is by the way quite funny: How do you feel? Boing! Much better!

2+ / 5

In the last week (and in addition to the Elvis pics I mentioned above):

Twilight Zone: The Movie (Landis, Spielberg, Dante, Miller, 1983) - Haven’t seen this in decades, I got talking about it to my son and thought he might enjoy it so, on it went. And yes, he bloody loved it
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril (Saito, 1972) - Pitting Lone Wolf and Cub against a female assassin who likes to go topless when she kills. Of course!
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (Misumi, 1973) - More knifey-swingy mayhem wherein Lone Wolf has to execute a sequence of assassins in order to reveal a bigger message leading to his real intended target
Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell (Kuroda, 1974) - Last of the LW&C pics and in fine spag western tradition (they’re a lot like spags really), this is the “snowy” one, with everyone and everything - including the baby cart - on skis

Over Saturday and Sunday, I elected to treat myself to a bit of a sharkathon. My eight favourite fishy-bitey pics, watched in order from least favourite to most:
Deep Blue Sea (Harlin, 1999)
Bait (Rendall, 2012)
The Shallows (Collet-Sera, 2016)
Jaws 2 (Szwarc, 1978)
47 Meters Down (Roberts, 2017)
The Reef (Traucki, 2010)
Open Water (Kentis, 2003)
Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)

Then, today: Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997) - Wonderful bit of animated fantasy storytelling. I’d never seen it before, thought it was excellent.

Keep them comin’, those sharks and their movies.

Another surpsrise hit from the deep, 47 METERS DOWN to be precise, with more sharks than anybody could ask for:

http://sg-movie-reviews.blogspot.be/2017/08/47-meters-down-another-shark-surprise.html

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The indestructible @upbruckner, his son and I went to see Atomic Blonde tonight. Quite a bone-crunching hard-hitting flick…

Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet. I totally forgot Bud Spencer was in it.

totally useless part of the movie, too :wink:

I’ve always thought that it must have been a some sort of a joke. You know… Argento telling people “I’m gonna make a movie with Bud Spencer as a God” :smiley:

His scenes just took me out of it.

Good giallo, but not as good as I remembered it.

Ikiru - 5/5

Mira (Fons Rademakers, 1971)

The movie that made a star - and a sex symbol - out of Dutch actress Willeke van Ammelrooy, and it’s easy to see why.

The story is set in a Flemish town in the first years of the 20th century, where the locals oppose the construction of a bridge over the Schelde river that would connect their town, situated on an island, to the main land. Van Ammelrooy is the local vamp who sleeps with the leader of the resistence group as well as the architect who’s building the bridge.

Some aspects (mainly Hugo Claus’ dialogue lines and some of the acting) haven’t aged that well, but thanks to a remastered DVD (a real beauty) the film looks even better today than it did back in 1971, when I saw it in cinema. And Van Ammelrooy was quite a sexy thing in thise days.

7/10

Baby Driver :red_car: :clap:

American Made. Not bad, another in a series of narc-ish movies. Better than The Infiltrator

Over the last couple of weeks:

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Takahata, 2013) - a gentle and wondrous tale. Not as awesome as its stablemates Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke but stunningly beautiful, maybe the most uniquely animated picture I’ve seen
https://s26.postimg.org/ucy707tgp/0951c5b3c7be04fbdf868ef006775413.gif
Train to Busan (Yeon, 2016) - Terrific bit of zombies-on-a-train action from South Korea.
Death Note (Wingard, 2017) - I’d been looking forward to this American remake of a considerably more complex Japanese manga and anime series, but with some trepidation. How could so much tale be successfully reinterpreted and fitted into a 100-minute picture? Well there was plenty to enjoy but it also felt rushed. Is that because I’ve seen and thoroughly enjoyed the 27-episode anime series? Would I have been lost if I hadn’t seen the show? I don’t know. I’d be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who sees this picture without having any previous experience of the Death Note franchise.
Nightcrawler (Gilroy, 2014) - wonderful picture, seen it many times now. Best as part of a triple-bill alongside Drive (Refn, 2011) and Collateral (Mann, 2004), although on this occasion I watched it on its own
Future Shock: The Story of 2000AD (Goodwin, 2014) - Well actually it wasn’t the documentary itself but an uncut, 80-minute interview with former 2000AD editor Pat Mills, one of many such extras on the Arrow blu-ray
Seoul Station (Yeon, 2016) - The animated prequel to Train to Busan, although tbh it has absolutely nothing to do with the live-action picture besides the initial premise of a zombie outbreak in South Korea. Nevertheless, it’s still a bloody good movie
Pacific Rim (del Toro, 2013) - fantastic kaiju action featuring some horribly clichéd characters spouting utter nonsense. Still, fantastic kaiju action!
The Car (Silverstein, 1977) - Actually, I watched the commentary on the Arrow blu-ray, with director Elliot Silverstein in hilariously uncooperative mood. I somewhat recommend The Car but I highly recommend that commentary
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean, 1957) - I’ve owned this movie in one form or another for fourteen months but, incredibly, I’d never seen it. Ever. Pleased to have finally righted that wrong, a very entertaining picture
The Fly (Cronenberg, 1986) - A high water mark for the master of body-horror? Maybe. A career best from Jeff Goldblum as the doomed Brundlefly, for sure

My men will not be doing manual labour!

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