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Films II : The Filminator


Bob
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On 17/06/2022 at 14:13, mmmark said:

The Sadness. Pretty grizzly film that follows a woman and her partner as they attempt to meet up and survive a mutation to a pandemic that’s making people not only act violently but fulfil dark desires. It’s very gory and has excellent practical fx.

 

8/10


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I watched this. 

 

Spoiler


You didn't mention the eyeball stuff 😕 

 

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I watched Blonde last night, it's a biopic of Marilyn Monroe (on Netflix). Apparently it hasn't been reviewing well but I thought it was pretty decent. It's got a few problems, it's way too long being the first thing, I ended up watching it in 2 parts which might have helped.

 

It's really heavy handed in some scenes too, I won't say what here because spoilers, and I have to admit I didn't know much about Monroe going in, so maybe these plot points are common knowledge, but either way there's bits where it comes across more as dumb than arty or chilling. There's a couple of bits where they pull back from things, like, there's a scene early on where Ana De Armas gives a good performance in an audition (as Marilyn obviously), then there's an almost exact scene later on where they don't show the performance. It's the same point twice, that Monroe could act when given the chance, and she was constantly underestimated, but them not showing the performance made me think it just wasn't good enough for the reaction they wanted.

 

I'm also not sure how much of the story is just bullshit. Seemingly she had a pretty shitty childhood, but some of what she gets up to feels a bit like the darkest guess work. There's also this disconnect between what Marilyn does and how naive she comes across, how much of that is de Armas just having that innocent look to her I don't know, but there's some things where she seems massively surprised by what's happening when to get to that point you couldn't possibly be. If I was giving the benefit of the doubt I'd say they were going for a Perfect Blue disconnect between her and the public version of her, but if they are they really don't land it, although there is a scene with a mirror that's basically lifted from Perfect Blue so who knows

 

Anyway, it's really bleak. I wasn't expecting that, but again, I didn't know anything about her going in

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Recently I watched a bunch of stuff

 

Discovered the giallo genre, which I didn't really know about before and watched Suspiria (1977) and Deep Red (1975). Difficult for me to say what I think, cause I feel like the whole point of these films must be how they look, the soundtracks and the supremely excellent and hilarious murdering that goes on in them (as opposed to the story and acting). Probably not going to convert me to italian slashers or anything like that but I'm always up for trying different things, so long as people's eyeballs are left intact.

 

Watched two spooky films with a dinner party premise, Coherence (2014) and The Invitation (2015). Out of these two I slightly preferred The Invitation cause of all the misdirects even if it ends up in a fairly predictable spot. Coherence is the more clever of the two tho, similar to Primer if you've seen that. 

 

Watched something called Possum (2018), a british horror film that looks like everything stinks of mildew. It's properly creepy and really got me at some points, but somehow ends up feeling too long even at its relatively meager run time (think it's around 1hr 20 minutes). 

 

Finally watched Cure (1997). Kind of a j-horror tinged detective thriller. This was quite excellent, I'll leave it at that in case people haven't seen it. Preferred it to Pulse, the other film I watched by the same director

 

Lot of this stuff is on Shudder. 

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On 30/09/2022 at 19:23, DANGERMAN said:

I'm also not sure how much of the story is just bullshit.

 

Apparently a lot. From what I understand it's an almost fictional retelling of her life based on a book about her that took a lot of liberties to strengthen the drama. Not sure how I feel about this without having seen the movie or read the book, but at the same time the idea behind it doesn't really motivate me to pick up either and become informed.

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The Wailing (2016)

Korean horror mystery about some murderings. Very twisty and very well acted, a little hard to follow how it all ends though. I think it relies a lot on cultural knowledge of how spirits and shamans are understood to operate or something. Might watch it again sometime cause it's a bit of a puzzle working out how the reason behind some of the character motivations.

 

Speak no Evil (2022)

Oof, not one for generating the happy brain chemicals. Bad time, no good, puke-inducing want to curl up and cry kinda film. Premise is a couple on a Tuscany holiday get an invite to visit strangers in the Netherlands, and so it goes. Reminds me of Spoorloos, or The Vanishing to give it its English name. Proper European bleak misery-fest where good manners are overrated. Enjoy on Shudder.

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I didn't think much of The Wailing at the time, I can't remember why though. I started watching Speak No Evil the other day too but was doing something else at the time so turned it off until I could give it my full attention.

 

I watched a film called The Invitation, but a different film called The Invitation than what's been mentioned. Also a dinner party, but this time old money rich. A struggling American artist is contacted by her long lost cousin who informs her she's related to some rich old family, and they arrange to meet. She's then invited to a wedding back in England so the rest of the family can meet her, then spoilt rotten because she's the only woman in the family. Obviously it takes a turn but I won't spoil what

 

It's alright, I did almost turn it off a few times, so it's a very slow burn

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Watched a couple of new movies on Netflix.

 

Luckiest Girl Alive - Mila Kunis stars as women traumatised by events from her past and her rumoured involvement in a mass school shooting. It was pretty bleak, hard hitting and quite compelling.

 

Do Revenge - A much more light hearted take on getting your own back, with a few twists and laughs on the way. This felt like they were trying to make a new theme of 'Cruel Intentions' (esp. when Sarah Michelle Gellar makes a short cameo) and it was decent enough once it got going.

 

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I watched the new Hellraiser yesterday and quite enjoyed it. It's somehow managed not to look cheap despite it probably having no budget, I suppose it helps that the other world seems to just be corridors and box rooms, so it's all about how they dress that and the prosthetics

 

It's probably not as good as the original, but I think it's better than the first sequel which is the best of the sequels I've seen

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Watched The Lighthouse (2019). Hmm, I dunno. It's like Melville meets Lynch or something like that. Whole lotta wanking in this film. I struggled with the audio balancing of The Witch but oddly enough was able to follow the sea ramblings of this quite well except for one scene I had to rewind and turn subtitles on for.

 

As for what it's about

 

Spoiler

It does the cinematic fave of having characters with similar/same names, obscured identities blending into each other. Leading to a sense of constant misdirection as to who or what is actually real. Very Persona, another B&W film with 4:3 aspect ratio (and it has a cock in it)

 

So I guess I prefer to just stick it in the realm of allegory. I ended up reading some stuff online that suggested allusions to greek myth are all over it, in particular Prometheus. That sort of stuff annoys me a bit cause I know about a lot of that but I'm not inclined to look for intertextual allusions when I'm watching a film and that sort of thing can really go under the radar and leave you a bit driftless. I guess it's there tho, the dude ends up getting his liver picked out by birds on a rock like Prometheus, cause he coveted the light or some shit like that.

 

Probably best just to take the story as being about a man tortured by previous deeds and unable to escape, ultimately punished for what he did. Whether it's directly or due to  cycles of self-abuse/deprivation/paranoia, I dunno. It's probably supposed to be watched more than once but it's slightly too long for my liking to consider doing that anytime soon

 

I'm not sure I liked it that much really, but I loved how it looked and sounded. It's one of the few 'dark' looking films I've watched recently that doesn't get absolutely murdered by online streaming bitrate, it looked good on itunes.

 

I'll just add tho that I thought both Defoe and Pattinson were great in the film, Pats still doesn't really get the credit he deserves for his post-Twilight career. He's someone I want to watch more films with him in.

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House of the Devil (2009). On Shudder (I use a US VPN to watch shudder stuff btw so no idea if it's on UK/Ireland as well). A very self conscious throwback to a 70s style horror. You'll notice right away by the freeze cuts in the opening credits. It looks the genuine deal, so it's convincing enough. But it just really emulates the form of a movie of that era and doesn't really do anything interesting beyond that. Really not worthwhile imo.

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Not a throwback, the real deal lol. Actually a bit disappointing given the legacy but still cool to finally watch this influential film. Ended up reading some stuff about it after the fact, the actress at the

Spoiler

end getting her finger sucked actually got her finger cut for real in that scene.

Also they wore the same clothes for weeks without changing/washing. 70s movies are fucking weird.

 

Antichrist (2009). Ouch *cross legs* 🪵🍆💢🤕

 

Videodrome (1983). Feel like you could remake this film again for modern times, wrt its reflections on overly stimulating people with sex and violence in media. Really lost track what it was trying to say by the final half hour or so though. Weirdly reminded me of Don Delillo's White Noise, which is a book not a movie (but I think it is getting a film soon?), in terms of how enraptured people are by TV in it. edit yes there is a movie out this year https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/31/white-noise-review-venice-opener-is-a-blackly-comic-blast

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3 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Videodrome (1983). Feel like you could remake this film again for modern times, wrt its reflections on overly stimulating people with sex and violence in media. Really lost track what it was trying to say by the final half hour or so though. Weirdly reminded me of Don Delillo's White Noise, which is a book not a movie (but I think it is getting a film soon?), in terms of how enraptured people are by TV in it.

 

Existenz was a kind of retelling of Videodrome but videogames by Cronenberg himself so there's that I guess 

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1 hour ago, HandsomeDead said:

Existenz was a kind of retelling of Videodrome but videogames by Cronenberg himself so there's that I guess 

I think Cronenberg has had another new film out in the last few months that also covers similar ground, but isn't meant to be that good

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14549466/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_2

 

sounds like the same film he's been making most of his career to be honest...

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My actual thoughts on it are the extreme scenes towards the end short of shout over every other well crafted bit of story-telling to that point, and wield its narrative metaphors like a child running with scissors or something. It doesn't quite work for me. 

 

I love Melancholia tho, the only other Von Trier film I've seen. A film I still think about a lot. I think next I will try to catch that old TV series he did, it's called 'The Kingdom' in english I think and they're bringing it back for a season 3.

 

 

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