The Last Movie You Watched? ver.2.0

Wiener-Dog (2016), directed by Todd Solondz

Loosely held together by its eponymous dachshund, Wiener-Dog, the latest entry in Todd Solondz’s ongoing filmic dissection of really existing capitalism’s alienated and uprooted, disoriented and confused subjects, of “fear, anxiety and depression” in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, comprises four episodes, thematically circling around familiar motifs of the director’s work, such as bourgeois coldness and indifference, xenophobia, substance abuse, the inability to express feelings, physical shortcomings, lack of success, missed opportunities, old age and l’ennui de vivre in general. The third story’s protagonist, the aptly named film school professor Schmerz (pain in German), proposes the movie’s central question: “What if …?” Life’s rhizome as a spreading mass of necessarily bad decisions, rooted in the ever-increasing inability to think beyond Manichaean representations of existence and its possibilities.

Though a step backward from his superb Dark Horse (2011), Wiener-Dog, Solondz’s eighth feature film, is still funny as Hell, literally. And while descending in Hotel Hell’s elevator to the lowest level, we’re subjected to listen to “The Ballad of Wiener-Dog,” who “soldiers on where angels fear to tread.”

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Nice song

Well well

The Fifth Season 2012
Belgium!
Absolutely wierd movie!
Still thinking about what the hell happened in the movie!
Anyone saw it?
I hope u explain it to me! It’s full of symbol!

‘HATCHET’ and ‘HATCHET 2’ double bill.

Last night I watched these horror flics - the uncut versions. Boy, oh boy!

There are certainly enough explicit, downright inventive, and nasty death scenes in these films - courtesy of the backwoodsman serial killer, Victor Crowley character (played by actor, Kane Hodder, from the ‘Friday the 13th’ francise).

Both films are worth checking out, especially if you have a strong stomach!

I will never look at a hatchet, sand-grinder, chain-saw, or boat propeller, in the same way again…

UNFRIENDED (Levan Gabriadze, 2015)

Six friends who are in the middle of a chat session, are surprised by a video that is loaded up by an anonymous person who breaks into their chat. The video was shot with a cellphone, and shows the death of a mutual friend, Laura, who comitted suicide exactly one year ago. The anonymous person calls himself Bernie and when he starts harrassing the six, revealing some of of their best kept secrets, it becomes clear that the game he’s playing is dead serious. Who is Bernie? Why did Laura commit suicide?

Unfriended feels a bit similar to the found footage stuff that has been quite popular in recent times, but the 'action’ is nearly entirely told through the screen of a person’s PC. Instead of fake programs and websites, authentic platforms are used (facebook, skype, spotify, etc.) giving the movie a bizarre, realistic look and feel.

Unfriended was well-received on various horror festivals and subsequently given a theatrical release, eventually making a worldwide gross of $64 million against a budget of $1 million (yes, there will be a sequel). It’s strikingly original and it’s also tense and quite nasty (even if it’s not too graphic), but watching some 75 minutes of multi-screen clicking, copying, pasting and re-sizing can be a bit tiresome. It might have worked better on an even shorter format. Still recommended for horror fans.

7/10

‘CHRISTNOVDECFEST’

At the moment, I’m working my way through a batch of Christmas premieres, on bluray, that I always save up for this time of year. I’ve been doing this for years now, and always look forward to yearly viewings, on DVD, of Christmas episodes of classic comedies such as ‘Porridge’; ‘Steptoe & Son’; ‘Frasier’; ‘The Royale Family’; ‘Morecambe & Wise’; and ‘The Two Ronnies’.

Among the host of Bluray premieres that I’ve watched in the last few days, are:

‘Rush’
‘In the Heart of the Sea’
‘X-Men Apocalypse’
‘Bone Tomahawk’
‘The Salvation’
‘Insidious: Chapter 3’
‘Annabelle’
‘Warcraft’
‘Crimson Peak’

I’m saving the best of the Premieres for the next few days, and these include:
‘Mad Max; Fury Road’ (Christmas Eve)
‘Spectre’
‘Jungle Book’ (the new version)
‘Batman vs. Superman’
‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’
‘Mission Impossible 5’
‘Star Trek: Beyond’
‘Ant Man’
‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’
‘Captain America: Civil War’

Somewhere, in between, I need to fit in a 50th Anniversary viewing of ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’…!!

http://www.devildead.com/giallo/tuodolcecorpo001.jpg

Il tuo dolce corpo da uccidere (1970, Alfonso Brescia)

A giallo with the expected long title, but without the the usual stalkings and black gloves. It’s a suspense thriller with a labyrinth plot, clearly influenced by Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (1955). There are also some similarities to Claude Chabrol’s magnificent La Femme Infidèle, released the previous year.

Giorgio Ardisson is a well-to-do bourgeois (he’s a diplomat) who has bizarre fantasies about subjugating his bossy wife. He then receives an anonymous letter in which he is told that she is unfaithful to him. Instead of killing her lover (like the protagonist did in Chabrol’s movie), Ardisson blackmails the lover - a German doctor with a past (played by Eduardo Fajardo) - into murdering the wife. Things seem to go according to plan, but the point is (you already guessed it) that in this movie nothing is what it seems …

Ardisson is well-cast as the seemingly benevolent husband who might be the cat as well as the mouse in a deadly game of deception; he’s actually more convincing here than in some of his spaghetti western roles. Brescia is a decent genre director, but he’s of course no Chabrol and the similarities to the above mentioned movies do this entry no good. Italian actress Orchidea De Santis (what’s in a name?) is breathtakingly beautiful as the girl Ardisson picks up while trying to erase all traces of what happened, but their doomed romance isn’t properly developed (and there’s not a single erotic scene in the entire movie)

What a title. And two years later, Brescia’s Ragazza tutta nuda assassinata nel parco was released …

Not familiar with that one. Title suggest that it has the budity this film lacks …

One down, two to go. Silliness mixed with geniality in an almost perfect way.

CARAVAN TO VACCARES (Le Passager - 1974, Geoffrey Reeve)

In Cold War days an American adventurer is asked to bring a Hungarian defector to his family in the US. The defector, a scientist, was smuggled to France (in the caravan from the title) by Hungarian gypsies on their way to an international festival in the South of France. Lots of people (including secret services and gangsters) are interested in the latest discoveries of this scientist, so nobody can be trusted. Who is this sexy photographer the hero picked up after her car broke down? Is she helping him or hired by a third party to thwart his plans?

The film was based on a novel by Alistar Maclean*, who often used this idea of the hero thrown into the middle of a deadly game of international crime and espionage (Fear is the Key, Puppet on a Chain, When Eight Bells Toll). The intrigue is typical Cold War stuff, full of double-crossings and false flags. Most of the time you have hardly any idea what’s going on, but eventually you’ll realize that you’ve seen it all before.

Never mind, if you like these type of convoluted (but brainless) adventure yarns, this is a decent time-passer, and if you don’t, you probably won’t bother. David Birney (best known for his work on stage) looks a little out of place in this context, but a 28 year old Charlotte Rampling (in her first appearance after her breakthrough movie The Night Porter) dominates every scene she’s in (and yes, she goes the full monty). Officially the movie was filmed on location in the South of France, but some scenes inside the bullring were most probably shot across the border with Spain: as far as I know, the bull is never killed in bullfights held in France. The famous flamenco guitarist Manitas de la Plata makes a guest appearance as a gipsy king.

* Maclean originally wrote the story in the form of a script, but later (when the planned movie was cancelled) turned his writings into a novel that was picked up by a new producer and turned into this movie.

THE SHALLOWS (2016, Jaume Collet-Serra )

A survival horror thriller about a woman, a shark and a seagull. Blake Lively is a young woman from Texas who goes surfing in an isolated lagoon, deep down in Mexico, all alone (her surf & travel companion decided to date the good-looking guy from the night before) and remains longer in the water than the two guys she accidently meets in the lagoon. The moment the two guys leave, the shark attacks … and Blake is stranded, along with a wounded seagull, on a tiny rock, some 200 yards from the shore …

This movie was one of the surprise hits of last summer. It was called the best shark movie since Jaws and some even suggested it outshone Spielberg’s classic. I don’t think that’s true, this is no classic, but it’s an entertaining nailbiter nonetheless. Blake lively turns in a very good performance and this seagull was a neat idea. The scenes on the rock were basically shot in a tank, but the material was mixed with scenes shot on location (in New South Wales, Australia and on Lord Howe, a volcanic island) and the results are very convincing. And of course Blake Lively looks great in a bikini.

Not dissimilar to Jaws, The Shallows becomes less gripping once the shark starts behaving like a real character (obsessed with killing the protagonist) instead of the barely visible menace in the dark water. But it remains watchable throughout; What the movie probably does best, is creating this feeling of desperation of a person who is so close to the shore, yet so far from safety. In some scenes you almost sense the fear of the central character.

7/10

Let’s start a new thread going. Post what you are watching with a small pic if possible. I will start. Here is the two up next for me.

I merged your post into our existing movie viewing thread. You might as well throw what you are going to watch here also. In fact we already have a “What are you watching tonight”-thread but no one has posted in it for five years so the need probably isn’t there :slight_smile:

A Charles Bronson Classic!

I just finished my DVD of Super Fuzz. What a great movie.

THE WOODS (2006)

Not to be confused with the recent Blair Witch sequel ‘Into the Woods’. This one pays homage to Dario Argento (in particular his classic Suspiria) with a story about a wayward teenage girl who is sent to a secluded boarding school after setting her parental home ablaze. The school isn’t exactly a safe haven and when girls start dissapearing (their bodies have turned into dry leaves, as if they were swallowed by the woods), our heroine realizes that those stories about evil spirits dwelling between the trees might be true …

The first half plays more like a coming-of-age story with some horror influences and works quite well, but then the movie takes a turn towards the supernatural with a series of rather implausible plot twists. The editing is a little capricious, with some truly jarring transitions, but otherwise it’s definitely well-made and well-acted (Patricia Clarckson plays the witchy headmaster). It’s also filled with often hypnotically beautiful imagery, but in the end all this hocus-pocus doesn’t seem to make much sense. Could serve as a good litmus test for those who prefer style over content.

5/10

Watched it a few days ago and I wholeheartedly with your words. Probably the most moving Phillip Noyce film there is out there. Wonderful performances by the three girls, especially the older one. The vastness of the landscape can only inspire awe. Australian cinema at its finest.

The Naked Face (1984) - Michael J Lewis composed some stunning scores, this has some of the best suspense music… Rod Steiger is hilarious as a pissed off police detective, and good casting of Roger Moore.

Saw it earlier this week, a passable mystery/crime flick that could have been better with a more original ending. Spot on regarding Roger Moore, but I felt Gould was kinda miscast.

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