The Last Movie You Watched?

The Saloon
3921

[quote=“Starblack, post:3919, topic:1923”]Had my second viewing of Glauber Rocha’s amazing Antonio das Mortes last night, the first time on DVD.

Black God is the better film overall, but this is a singular and striking experience in its own right - a Third World Western with revolutionary intent.[/quote]

Nice take on Rocha film Starblack, I guess you said it all.
A little understanding of Brazilian “Sertão” culture, much different from the Carnaval stereotypes we are use to, helps to understand a little better these films, of course Rocha was using this unique culture to get through is political message, in a way no different than some Italian directors made with their Zapata SW. Like I once said I think I’ve seen all of Glauber Rocha films, they are not easy viewings, being his first works much influenced by Godard and the more radical part of the so called “Nouvelle Vague”, to be honest I prefer Antonio das Mortes to Black God (Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol), its after all a less radical viewing but I haven’t watch this films in a long time, anyway as you said it Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, may be the better film.
Mauricio do Valle did have a curious career, best known both in Portugal and Brasil for his participations during the 80’s in Soap operas (one very good Roque Santeiro, that one even I saw it) did appeared in some International films Like Belmondo’s Le Marginal, and even Pornochachadas as they call it in Brasil to soft core flicks Emmanuel style but normally with more humour.

3922

It’s difficult to picture Antonio wrestling with soap-opera issues rather than grimly stalking the sertão - “I’m having a baby, Antonio, and you’re not the father - it’s Lampião’s!” [Cut to a close-up of Antonio’s shocked face, then he whips out his rifle and shoots her dead. Hey, maybe that’s why he was such a dedicated cangaceiro-killer.]

I’ll try to see all of Rocha’s movies at some point, though they’re not that easy to get hold of. Somebody has uploaded The Age of Earth to YouTube - I’ll probably watch it there, since the DVD is very expensive to import to the UK.

3923

Well to be honest soap operas The Brazilian ones I mean back in the 70’s and mid 80’s had actually some very good quality, they were based in books of great writers like Jorge Amado Gabriela , or were the writers themselves doing the scripts, being still only a few made by year, they could use the best actors several coming from the Cinema Novo days (for instance Jose Lengwoy that appears In Herzog Cobra Verde), I remember in particular Roque Santeiro, and also O Bem-Amado (both written by the very talented script writer Dias Gomes) this last one having a fantastic base plot, of course there were several sub-plots, but the main one was about the story of a mayor from a Brazilian country-sided city, located at Bahia and his ultimate aim to inaugurate the city’s cemetery, since until that time all townsfolk had to be interred in other cities. For to some unusual reason, no inhabitant of the town died since the cemetery was built by the Mayor. So the Mayor, in an act of despair, decided to hire a renowned professional killer (known as Zeca Diabo something like Joe Devil, a very SWnesque type of character I can assure you) for that he killed someone and finally the cemetery would be inaugurated with pomp and circumstance. Of course in the end the mayor gets to be the first client, they were actually very funny and political very political to be honest, dealing with several strong issues (corruption, violence, human rights etc) and making strong social claims, and very critic to the institutionalized powers of the time (both Brazil and Portugal at the time had the particularity of being very new democracies, to be correct Brazil was not even a real one at the time). But with time and more channels, meaning more competition more less talented actors and writers, those products lost quality and became a sub product , but those first were no shame to any one, by the contrary I would see them again.

3924

Kaidan Yuki Jorou aka Ghost Story of the Snow Witch 1968

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Holy shit, what an awesome movie. My trek into classic Japanese Horror continues with this gem of a movie. If you are thinking of getting into it, this might be the one to get the ball rolling. This movie has some of the best imagery & cinematography I’ve ever seen.

[size=24pt][font=courier]THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS…uh, I mean…SPOILERS![/font][/size]

Legend says that a witch roams the local snowy woods. When she is seen by humans, they all die! Pretty horribly. 2 local sculptors search the snowy country side looking for a special tree. The tree they will inevitably cut down to carve a a statue for the Shogun. Upon finding this tree, they are haunted by the snow witch while they sleep. The apprentice is spared with one catch…never reveal this incident to anybody ever or she will be forced to kill them man.

Without giving away too much, the witch morphs into human form to pursues the apprentice & marries him. Her true form remains unknown until the climax of the movie which features one hell of a downbeat ending.

The snow witch is filmed beautifully & is truly eerie to watch. The snowy scenes add a great atmospheric level which makes this a truly beautiful movie to watch. Definitely a must see! 10/10

3925

Interesting, I…I. I have never ventured into this genre but this film certainly looks like it’s worth a watch for sure.

3926

[size=12pt]Edge of Sanity /size Gerard Kikoine

This one was quite a surprise, it was by chance that this one arrived to my knowledge, since I never heard of it before. I do know a few things about Kikoine most of his films are French porno flicks from the 70’s and 80’s, didn’t know he did some mainstream/straight works at the end of his directing career. I’ve heard a few stories about the making of those French porn films of the 70’s cause one acquaintance (someone that works in my cousin French company of film sets construction) worked as an electrician (at least was what the guy told he was) in the production of some of those films, and from what I’ve heard most of those directors considered themselves legitimate directors in between jobs, just waiting for their big break
This must have happened to Kikoine doing a film produced by MGM (they have the movie rights at least), and we’re talking of a big production with some money involved (filmed in Hungary, some nice sets) and with Anthony Perkins, which even if being in the decline phase of his career was no John Doe that’s for sure.
And yes, not being a masterpiece the film does delivery the goods, set in Victorian England what we have is an adaptation of the Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde story mixed with Jack the Ripper. After a bad experience our Dr Jekyll (Perkins) accidentally ingests some vapors from alcohol mixed with cocaine (yeah ;D) and becomes a very troubled (sex maniac, killer, pervert, you name it) Mr Hyde.
Kikoine makes the films very graphic with lots of blood, nudity (very sleazy flick) but also very cinematographic, visually stunning with a very dark and Gothic feeling, but not artificiality created, if I make myself understand, but what really surprised me was the development of Perkins character, very well made. On the low side we have the rest of the cast that wasn’t able to follow Perkins (which was rather difficult I guess), and the plot is pretty basic the director bet all on the image, also and not that I’m really caring, but I think the film gets a little uneven, with all the sleazy parts and a bit too much gore too, but its a Kikoine film after all.
On the acting side we have Anthony Perkins doing what he did best, freaking bloody killer lunatics, I guess the man was already over being typecast, there was no other type of cast for him, the rest of the actors are not that good, the actress tried to go along, South African born actress Glynis Barber (of Dempsey and Makepeace serie fame, a very successful one in Portugal, as far as I remember) was another surprise (on the cast part, not on the acting), and she does an effort to go along but… better job by Sarah Maur Thorp, as one of the prostitutes that our “hero” as a crush (let’s put it that way) on.
In the overall this film was a total surprise for me, if you take in account the roots of the director (or maybe not, who knows? maybe 70’s porn was a good cinema director’s school), visually is very good, I’ve seen one soft core flick from the man, and I stooped after the first 20 minutes really boring boring pretentious stuff, so I was sincerely surprise.
Great performance from Perkins and I mean not regular, real great. If you guys like those 80’s slasher flicks ( like I do, just no imagination these days, only remakes of flicks from that period, or from of Asiatic ones), this is a nice and different take on the genre (a very European one), if you forget the bad and easiest path type of plot, and also the more or less bad acting from the rest of the cast, this actually ain’t a bad flick.

3.5 stars 4.5 for Perkins

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If you love Horror & the great imagery of early Asian cinema you absolutely have to!

3928

The Sicilian Clan.

Entertaining and stylish crime / heist film, with a cold streak thrown in for good measure. Everyone looks so cool in the film, and the cops are always that one step behind.[font=times new roman][/font]

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[quote=“ENNIOO, post:3928, topic:1923”]The Sicilian Clan.

Entertaining and stylish crime / heist film, with a cold streak thrown in for good measure. Everyone looks so cool in the film, and the cops are always that one step behind.[font=times new roman][/font][/quote]Great film, beautiful Morricone score too.

3930

Straight into Darkness (2004) Jeff Burr

A real surprise to me this one ended up to be, a high-quality film coming to me from nowhere, the director is best known for is horror slasher flicks (Night of the scarecrow, Leatherface and others) but this goes way beyond that type of films, it’s a very different war film, and not like Dog Soldiers for instance here the terror is very real, to be honest is not quite terror is more like pure war madness filmed with in terror film style, I won’t be surprised this one would the best work from the director.
The story starts when somewhere in Europe two G.I. deserters (one a real sleazebag and the other just tired of the war) escape from the M.P., and end up in what seemed an abandoned old house, it ends up that the house is inhabited by mental and physical handicaps orphans and ran by a strange couple that incredibly have trained the orphans for guerrilla warfare, to make things worse, the house kept a valuable secret inside, several works of art were hidden inside by a group of German soldiers as collateral for after the war, and with the war ending (did it already end?) they came back to collected it.
Very well filmed, some great cinematography, also with strong character development, we can see and understand the German soldier motivation, only the children didn’t deserve much attention in that part, in the only major fault of the movie. But apart from that there’s great tension building, some cool art comics inserts (I thought the story it was based in some comic strip novel from DC or something, but no it was written by Burr himself), like I said before the movie was a pleasant surprise for me.
The acting was also great even from the kids, apart from Canadian actress Linda Thorson who once replace Diana Riggs in the Avengers series, I didn’t know any of the other actors or at least remember them form anything.

In conclusions a very good film that kept my attention till the end, a unique story well put into the screen full of tension and action, one of those unknown films that really deserved more recognition.

4 stars

3931

Re viewed Emperor of the North.

Entertaining depression set one, all about the battle of wits between two men and a train.

3932

Recently I have revisited:

Team America: World Police - the best over top puppet movie of all time
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth - Not as great as the first or even the 2nd but having Pinhead running amok in NY creating his own private army is fun.
Howling V: The Rebirth - One of my favorites and the best Howling movie after the original.

3933

Si può essere più bastardi dell’ispettore Cliff? (1973) Massimo Dallamano

Keeping the faith on Dallamano’s rightly deserved hype on the forum, and also after Phil words about it (which clearly meant this was a film for my personal taste), I decided to give at go to this one and glad I did it, pretty cool film.
Where we see the capacity of a above average director is when he’s able to turn a pretty normal script into a cool well made film, this is obviously one of those cases, the movie is full of class and style. I think its no blunder to say that this film and others of the kind from the same period, were an influence on the more recent British gangster films, there are indeed in my view some similarities.
Anyway I think Phil already said all just a few notes

  1. one the most cool car chase scenes put into screen that I’ve seen (in the Lebanon mountains) and why You may ask, well it had a Citroen DS (frog mouth as we call it in Portugal) my dad had one of those, sadly it was destroyed in the end
  2. I’m starting to believe that this all thing about the British bad weather is nothing than a myth after all, the ladies are most of the time in beach mode, at least at the time the film was made, lots of skin but with real class (a big difference for a film like the French Sex murders, just to give an example of thing well and badly done)
  3. If you are on the gangster line business be careful when the Phone, Water or Electric company start to make holes near your place, be aware very aware.
  4. the film got some of the most … I missing the words here, I’ll say killer funny bunch of criminal I’ve seen, Mama the Turk (Patricia Hayes who I finally recall from A fish called Wanda, after a long …where I’ve seen her) surely can be put in that category.
  5. Ivan Rassimov character is pure SW he acts like if he a mixed of Sartana with Blondie, of course the director in the end reminds us that this is not a SW, and real SW cowboys never fall in love.

In the overall a very cool nice to watch well made film , with a very nice jazz/swing mode soundtrack, Dallamano really was a [size=14pt]above[/size] average director, if you don’t believe it watch this film, and take note of the scene where one thug is doing some scrabble eggs now that’s a different angle.

4 stars

3934

You probably mean an above average director …

I have only seen Bandidos and what Have They Done to Our Daughters. Can’t say that I spotted much talent in it. Bandidos was good, but not great (When I first watched it in the 90s it was only another mediocre Spag then). Daughters has a boring crime/thriller plot with some silly splatter scenes and some well done nudity, which betrays the “message” of the film. That’s if there really a message was intended.

But somehow after having read all your posts about Dallamano, I’m interested to watcjh a few more.

3935

Shit your right, thanks Stanton got stop doing all at the same time

3936

"Phantasm 2 " hadn’t seen this one in a while but still pretty good.

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[size=12pt]Quelli della Calibro .38[/size] (1976, Massimo Dallamano)

Still in Dallamano mode, I watched this thriller, Dallamano’s last movie. He died shortly after completing it (in a car incident). Often called his most violent film, this is an erratic, confusing genre mix. Basically it’s a film of a personal vendetta. A police captain loses his wife to a crime ring and starts fighting crime with the help of his Special Squad of dirty cops, all armed with .38 hand guns. His major opponent, a crime boss called the Marsilian, fights back, even dirtier, by using terrorist methods to blackmail both the police and the citizen of Turin.

The violent antics of the Italian crime thriller are mixed with a visual style that owes a lot to Melville, Ivan Rassimov trying to be and look as cool as Alain Delon. The film is well-made, but Dallamano clearly overplays his hand, and those terrorist bombings (an allusion to the so-called Years of Lead, a period in which ultra-left and ultra-right-wing paramilitary groups used terrorist attacks to destabilize the country) are rather tasteless, and don’t make much sense in the context of a crime thriller. There have been persistent rumours that the mafia had a hand in the proces (some say they poked up the fire with their own bombings), but Dallamano isn’t interested in any possible political angle.

I just read that the night club singer is played by a young Grace Jones (I didn’t recognize her)

3938

Machete

Finally sat down and watched this last night. Enjoyed it alot. LMAO. Hope the promise of two more movies is true. Would actually like to see Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again. ;D

3939

I need to rewatch some of the Phantasm flicks. It’s been awhile and I always liked 'em.

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[quote=“Hoover Valentine, post:3939, topic:1923”]I need to rewatch some of the Phantasm flicks. It’s been awhile and I always liked 'em.[/quote]yes, they don’t make a lot of sense but at least they are original and entertaining. i watched the third one “Phantasm 3, Lord Of The Dead” last night, again a while since i had seen it, but remember it was the weakest of the four, on seeing it again i thought it was just as good as the others.