[quote=“Bill san Antonio, post:11558, topic:1923”]Lady Frankenstein
-I watched this from youtube, quality was shitty and it was obviously heavily cut.[/quote]
I have the Longer International Cut that i got from CG sitting around somewhere in my watch pile. Will definitely give it a go, love Rosalba.
Freudians …
To me psychoanalysis has been superseded, it’s totally out of date. In art it’s a kind of playfulness, we’d better not too serious about it. It can be fun, of course, to chase symbolic meanings in a movie or a novel.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:11559, topic:1923”]Quote Mickey:
"And adjectives “style-over-substance” and “pretentious” are equivalent for me. Style is the artistic core of the film, but the moment style outweighs substance (i.e. the composition and the themes) and the pic derives its value mostly or only from the aesthetic resonance, it becomes pretentious. Some pretentious films are nice to view, but ultimately, they cannot exceed their being pretentious."
I don’t think style-over-substance and pretentious are equivalent, but otherwise I agree with most things you say. It’s hard to separate style and content in an absolute sense, both are essential elements of a work of art, the one cannot really exist without the other. That’s probably what makes you say:
“the moment style outweighs substance (i.e. the composition and the themes) and the pic derives its value mostly or only from the aesthetic resonance, it becomes pretentious.”
That’s more or less my opinion too, most people call this “empty esthetics”
But still this doesn’t quite explain the appeal of a film maker like De Palma. I don’t think movies like Blow Out, Dressed to Kill or Body Double have any real ‘substance’, I’ve never detected any interesting ideas in them. At the same time they’re highly stylised and I enjoy them a lot. Is this experience purely esthetic? I don’t know. The movies may be ‘empty’, devoid of ‘ideas’, they’re manipulative thrillers, visual puzzles, and the esthetics contribute to the effectiveness of the movie. What pleases me, is that De Palma doesn’t suggest any extra intellectual layers, what you see is what you get, and it asks more than enough of your attention (that why you can watch his movies over and over again). This is close to Susan Sontag’s formalism, but I’m not sure if De palma was her cup of tea. Susan was quite pretentious herself.[/quote]
I mean that “Style-over-substance” and “pretentious” are equivalent as far as art-house cinema is concerned.
I haven’t seen many De Palma’s films (only Scarface, Blow-Out and Untouchables), but from what I’ve seen it seems obvious that he is not an art-house filmmaker and his films somewhat fit into genre film category (sorry for my makeshift terminology).
In my view, some genre filmmakers endeavour to elevate their genre films to a “higher” creational level via yielding some distinctive stylistic traits, yet concomitantly remaining in genre formulas. It’s not that their films are not artistically valuable - they just stage movies that are not primarily disposed to implicating any ‘ideas’. In these cases, not the ‘ideas’, but the plot itself constitutes the substance. Apart from being entertaining, such flicks are intended to indulge in terms of composition, aesthetic decor or form, not necessarily heeding the story that much. Therefore, we might arbitrarily call such motion pictures ‘auteur genre films’.
These auteur genre films are frequently stylistically elaborate, even overstylised, but for the sake of magnifying one’s enjoyment and then, the term ‘style-over-substance’ might be regarded even as a positive aspect, for the plot may be solely a secondary factor. In the auteur genre films, it is not necessarily the story that gratifies, but its rendition (I love Drive, but its plot is quite simple, even flimsy - it is the execution that renders the entire opus so prepossessing to me). The story often remains only a guise to embark on an imaginative visualisation which isn’t bad, quite on the contrary.
The most aggressive exemplification of this phenomenon might be Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill (1967) which doesn’t make any sense at all, but succeeds in being fascinating through utilising enrapturing visuals and absurd occurrences.
L’uomo della strada fa giustizia -1975 -Umberto Lenzi
Not too much familiarized with the so called poliziotesschi, a very different different type of films from these last ones, reflecting other times, from the 60’s exuberant revolution period, we end up with the cruel and bitter reality of 70’s.
I’ve seen a few poliziescos, and even if this one is not particularly good, with anything to remember, its possible to check that it was made by a good director like Lenzi, got character and plot development (with Silva changes through the film), a good pace keeping the viewer interest on the story. Also liked the “twist” in the ending.
The major drawback, was the fact that we have to believe that a heavy character actor, has to play the average Joe normal guy, even Bronson in the Death Wish looks like a real architect turned one man vigilante. Here we are always expecting Silva wipes out everyone in sight from the start of the film.
Anyway a regular watch but on the good half of regular, I’ve seen much worst.
The last interesting vigilante film I’ve seen was the one with Kevin Bacon, some powerful scenes.
The Goonies (1985)
Strangely enough, I waited 29 years to watch this. When the movie originally came out, it sounded to me like a ‘stupid kiddie movie’ (I’m a few years older than the oldest of the ‘Goonie’ child actors). Well, I was sadly mistaken; IMO it’s a highly entertaining movie that easily stands up today, and is better than most current Hollywood family films. A movie that kids or adults can enjoy, whether you have kids or not. Also surprising to me is that there were no boring moments…but I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise after all.
Today: Perfect Blue (パーフェクトブルー Pāfekuto Burū) (Satoshi, 1997). Interesting if slightly muddled anime about a girl losing her grip on reality as she transitions from squeaky-clean bubblegum pop princess to serious, grittier and more adult actress. Murders are happening around her and her television show, Double Bind, which also involves murders. Is she delusional? Is she committing murder? Is someone stalking her? Shades of David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE and of Darren Aranofsky’s Black Swan and, of course, it preceded the pair of them. Starts off a bit sophomoric and becomes bollock-smackingly bonkers in typical anime fashion as it heads towards its climax but there’s a decent psychological thriller wrapped up inside all of that and it ends on a satisfying note.
I like animes (when I’m in the mood for them, which only comes around every so often) but I’m a real novice and I find the whole area rather intimidating. I’ve got Akira, of course, and I’ve also got Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. I’ve got The Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight at the more commercial end of the scale and, up the more family oriented end of things, I’ve got Spirited Away which remains the only Miyazaki film I’ve seen thus far. I’ve downloaded (but not yet watched) Paprika, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance and Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo. I’m probably a bit all over the place with that lot but I’m sort-of just stabbing wildly in the dark, really. Do any of you gringos know anything about Anime? Got any tips?
[quote=“Filmlovr1, post:11565, topic:1923”]The Goonies (1985)
Strangely enough, I waited 29 years to watch this. When the movie originally came out, it sounded to me like a ‘stupid kiddie movie’ (I’m a few years older than the oldest of the ‘Goonie’ child actors). Well, I was sadly mistaken; IMO it’s a highly entertaining movie that easily stands up today, and is better than most current Hollywood family films. A movie that kids or adults can enjoy, whether you have kids or not. Also surprising to me is that there were no boring moments…but I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise after all.[/quote]
Ah, The Goonies. It is probably the movie I’ve seen the most times in my life (it was traditionally screened on national TV every year around Christmas, and I had it on hometape), so it’s obviously my favorite ‘kiddie movie’. I still enjoy it, to me it is better adventure movie than say Indiana Jones or Star Wars.
The Goonies is great fun.
Raiders From Beneath The Sea, 1965… I liked it. The organ-music was brief and harmless. And I thought the bongo-segments were excellently befitting of the Catalina-setting. In a shore-hugging tourist-town known for amateur scuba-diving, among other marina-hijinx, it’s not unusual to see guys-in-frogsuits walking around. -Even carrying spearguns (it’s the 60’s), I’m guessing. The bank-heist concept is simple genius. It could really work today.
The script’s dialogue is marvelously void of melodramatics… " A .45’ll blow a hole in ya, the size of a beer-can. "
-Starring the charismatically understated Ken Scott, who’s a cross-between John Phillip Law and Ian McShane.
[size=12pt]THIS ISLAND EARTH ([/size]1955, Joseph M. Newman)
The earth is visited by aliens looking for scientists who can help them save their own planet, Metaluna. Among the selected scientists are Dr. Meacham and Dr. Adams, who feel flattered, but then discover that the Metalunians have planned to take over earth.
Typical fifties scifi, watchable but not too inventive. It looks good (and Fath Domergue’s looks help) but the standard script is rather predicable.
[font=arial][size=14pt]Play Dirty -1969- André De Toth[/size][/font]
Never really had watch this one, it was on TV from time to time, but only seen bits of it, remember seeing the last 10 minutes, strangely enough the only part I didn’t like in Play Dirty.
Too late the hero also had a similar premise, the civilian with a specific military officer contract to do a civil job for the military, that ends up assigned to do an dangerous mission.
Both films have Michael Caine in common, but Play Dirty is a better film in my view. This was one of the last directing jobs from veteran director André de Toth, which I’m not that much familiarized with, never really have seen many of his films, at least with a critical intension.
In any case Play dirty is a very cynical film, representative of the time it was made, with pure anti war intensions, so very aligned with the political situation of the late sixties and far from the more glorious stuff of the fifties. It seems strange the producers choose an old school director for such a film, and then maybe not, he directed a few noirs, and Play dirty is almost a war noir film.
I liked the story, and character development in it. It’s not the usual war film with 90% action and 10% of the rest, actually for a war movie it’s a very contemplative one, with long scenes and a lot of stuff for the thinking man. There’s one memorable line from Nigel Green character - War is a criminal enterprise, so I use criminals – great line indeed.
I liked the more slow paced style with long scenes but with some action and lots of tension nevertheless. The acting is great from all actors but Caine and Davenport shine in the main roles. There’s a good war story here and good characters to work with.
It was also a curious film for me to watch because it deals with Special Forces units. At the start of WWII the concept we have today of special forces (small specialized units that operate behind enemy lines), didn’t exist in any country, there were first class troops, but those were normally used in conventional operations, like for instance and among others, the newly formed airborne divisions that operate in Crete (for the Germans), D-Day and in Holland (for the allies) suffering lot of casualties in the process. The concept of special forces was really born in the North Africa scenario of WWII with those ragtag units portrayed in film, lead by the charismatic commander David Sterling (he was captured by the Germans in 1943, in one of those behind enemy lines operations, he also regularly took part), the so called Long Range desert assault team, was the unit that lead to the creation of SAS and SBS , the name was actually given by the Germans who though they were dealing with parachuted troops displayed behind their lines, for instance Sterling men during the desert conflict destroyed more airplanes than the Allied air force. After the end of the North African conflict those men from the special units of the LRDAT, that survived death or capture were used in other scenarios of WWII along with new created commando units, they were so successful that the axis forces had wanted dead or alive rewards for some of the mans in those units, David Niven for instance took part in some dangerous missions as a Commando officer. The US created the Navy demolition Group that would later become the genesis of the Navy seals and the Marine Raiders. American officers were motivated by the British exits in North Africa, and use the raiders in the Pacific sending them first before any major invasion by the regular marines, Lee Marvin took part in some of those missions as a raider, and he narrowly escaped death as he was MIA in his last one. After WWII the concept of Special Forces who was never very popular among the high ranks because of their classical military formation, was kept aside until it prove it was a clear need as guerrilla warfare would became the most common form of conflict in the future (none of the special forces of WWII were use in the Korean conflict for instance, but the British would use the SAS in Malaysia).
All this lead to weakest part of the film, the end and the last scenes, the ending was very noir like and too much dramatic I would prefer a different ending, and also far from reality, which was really bad, taking in consideration how close to reality the film had looked so far. The target they initially had, would be a natural target for the LRDAT, something in the middle of the desert, but the secondary one was too far-fetched, they would never attack some heavily defended installation in a city near the coast, and apart from that even with bad communications, they would also know that friendly forces were near so the need for the last attack was totally unnecessary and stupid, yes the director wanted to prolonged the constant cynicism till the very end, but it was a weak decision that clearly spoils a more than decent film.
Still more than average stuff, great soundtrack, great photography work with good use of the Almeria landscape, and great acting, so apart from the last 15/20 minutes a really first-class film
re: PLAY DIRTY
Not a bad movie, but I preferred Too late the Hero.
As said it’s a rather cynical and contemplative movie, so the rather slow pace didn’t bother me, but I didn’t like the protracted sequence with the men trying to pull their trucks uphill, it breaks the narrative vertibrae of the film. I did like the ending.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:11572, topic:1923”]re: PLAY DIRTY
Not a bad movie, but I preferred Too late the Hero.
As said it’s a rather cynical and contemplative movie, so the rather slow pace didn’t bother me, but I didn’t like the protracted sequence with the men trying to pull their trucks uphill, it breaks the narrative vertibrae of the film. I did like the ending.[/quote]
Too late the hero starts better and ends better, but the second section of the film when they have to go back, wasn’t solved in the best of ways by Aldrich, but its a good film of course. Actually I liked the scene with the trucks, establish a point between the two men, and is a small homage to another great film A cold one in Alex
Red Hill (2010)
Not bad, enjoyable Australian semi-western with some nice suspense towards the end.
Le Captain/Captain Blood (1960)
Jean Marais is in top form in this enjoyable and entertaining swashbuckler. Perfect for a lazy sunday afternoon.
Mindscape/Anna (2013)
Absolute garbage…predictable, cliche, and just not entertaining. The acting wasn’t that bad though.
King Rat 1965)
Good war film with excellent performances from the main characters. Don’t know why i had not seen it before, i’m glad i did.
[quote=“Lone Gringo, post:11574, topic:1923”]King Rat 1965)
Good war film with excellent performances from the main characters. Don’t know why i had not seen it before, i’m glad i did.[/quote]
Absolute classic film to me.
Gatling Gun- My favorite Robert Woods film. 9/10.
Ruthless Four- A nice slow western, with a nice pace change around 40 mins in, with some fine performances by all four of the cast. Roland’s little dance before the first shootout is just brilliant. 9/10
I saw a post on this thread just a couple of days ago - it seems to have gone now - about the Japanese Unforgiven remake, Yurusarezaru mono (Lee, 2013). That was a film I was really looking forward to when it was first mentioned on here some time ago but it slipped my mind altogether, so when I saw that post it reminded me, so I acquired it and watched it today. Stunningly beautiful film, and of course the story transfers perfectly from 19th century America to 19th century Japan. It was a bit of a pain because I had to use subtitles that had been taken from a set of Indonesian subs that had been run directly through Google Translate which made for some truly mindbending dialogue, but fortunately Yurusarezaru mono is a very faithful retelling of Unforgiven so I wasn’t lost at any point. It’s not quite as good as Unforgiven imho but then again Unforgiven is one of my top 10 favourite movies of all time, of any genre. I shall definitely be purchasing Yurusarezaru mono as soon as it becomes available. Recommended.
Yeah, that was me. I wanted to modify the post but I ended up deleting it by mistake. I had a little bit too much knob creek, too lazy/drunk to re-post, said fuck it. But you summed it about right, good film.
;D
[size=12pt]Soldier -1998 - Paul W.S. Anderson[/size]
Not a “good” film, but I liked, where could it go wrong. a simple story (similar to Shane in the beginning), got a almost mute Kurt Russell, lots of shooting , minimal dialogue, and I even confused Jason Isaacs with Timothy dalton, and yes Gary Busey didn’t make it, and ast but not least Connie Nielsen, to be perfect just a few nudity from here, but Ok we got lots of shooting around. The option for conventional guns for a sci-fi film was …well fun, lasers don’t have half the fin as bullets
So the fun factor prevails here a nice time spender, and the scrip cames form the same guy David Webb Peoples, who made the script for Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys or Unforgiven just to name these three.
let’s put it this I had more fun with Soldier, then I had watching Twelve Monkeys
