Last movie watched...

[Mattofthespurs]

Went to see Prince of Darkness in a church the other night.

One of Carpenter's films that I saw at the cinema on it's original release and disliked but have come to love with a great passion.

I saw someone walk out of Jigsaw today with 10 minutes left. I wonder what exactly he was expecting? Some people are just weird.

[Buttonman]

The Handmaiden!

[The Legendary Shark]

A Cure for Wellness. Relentlessly tedious.

[Satanist]

The Death of Stalin - Mildly amusing and quite horrific in equal measure.

[Mattofthespurs]

The Wages of Fear.
I've recently obtained the Friedkin blu ray which is a remake of this movie and took the opportunity to view Clouzot's original first thanks to the wonderful recent blu ray release from the BFI.

What a joy this film is! It's two and a half hours long, in French, released in 1953, and in black and white and is an absolute triumph.

Probably the best film I have seen this year. Looking forward to watching the re-make now but can't possibly expect Friedkin to top Clouzot.

Highly recommended.

[Dandontdare]

I loved Death of Stalin- I think a few people were disappointed it wasn't a rip-roaring laugh fest, but there's only so much lolz you can get from tyranny and mass murder. I thought it was, as Satanist says,  both funny and horrific. Favourite line was from Stalin's daughter lambasting his doctors - "you're not old, and you're just made of hair and YOU - you're not even a man, you're a testicle"

[darnmarr]

'The Stalker'
Beautifully shot post-apocalypter from 70's Soviet Russia. Much of the existential intellectual elements went over my head, I've no doubt,- and - it moved at at a pace that makes BladeRunner2049 seem comparatively breakneck.
Looked it up subsequently on wikipedia to discover that all the original footage perished and that they had to completely reshoot every frame in Talinn Estonia... in a place so toxic that a lot of the crew may have died as a result of filming there; nothing like authentic misery to give your post-apocalypse that ' edge'.

I honestly wasn't surpised.

[darnmarr]

... the princess bride ..

Did you go to see it in Cineworld in Dublin?
If so, are you going to see Predator next month?

Alas I'm based in Limerick Citayy and, as-you-know- ' tis a tidy step from Stabsville to the Big Potatoe...

[JOE SOAP]

Looked it up subsequently on wikipedia to discover that all the original footage perished and that they had to completely reshoot every frame in Talinn Estonia...

I believe it was the footage from first half of the film and there's debate about whether it was a defective batch from Kodak, incorrect development, incompetence or sabotage – but the scrapped footage has a greenish hue.

https://cinephiliabeyond.org/unique-perspective-making-stalker-testimony-mechanic-toiling-away-tarkovskys-guidance/







"Stalker had problems. The picture's fate was strange somehow. There was this producer Gambarov in West Berlin. He had the world distribution rights to Tarkovsky's films and supplied him with the Kodak stock which was scarcely available in those days. For Stalker he sent some kind of new Kodak film that had just been introduced. Georgi Rerberg was then the cameraman on Stalker, he'd photographed The Mirror for Tarkovsky. But then the disaster struck. The artesian well at Mosfilm broke down and they had no artesian water needed to process the film. They didn't tell us anything but the material sat unprocessed for 17 days. And film which is exposed but not processed loses quality, it loses speed and it otherwise degrades. In a word, the whole material for the first part ended up on the scrap heap. On top of that — here I'm repeating what Andrei himself told me — Tarkovsky was certain the film was swapped. This newer Kodak which Gambarov sent specifically for Stalker was stolen and in some way or another ended up in the hands of a certain very well-known Soviet film director who was Tarkovsky's adversary. And they gave Andrei a regular Kodak except that nobody knew about this and that's why they processed it differently. Tarkovsky considered it a result of scheming by his enemies. But I think it was just the usual Russian sloppiness.

"The review of the ruined footage ended in a scandal. Tarkovsky, Rerberg, the Strugatskys, and Tarkovsky's wife Larissa were all sitting in the projection room. Suddenly one of the Strugatskys turned towards Rerberg and asked naively: «Gosha, and how come I can't see anything here?» Rerberg, always considering himself beyond reproach in everything he did, turned to Strugatsky and said: «And you just be quiet, you are no Dostoievsky either!» Tarkovsky was beside himself with anger. But one can understand Rerberg. Imagine what it means for a cameraman to see the entire material turning up defective! Rerberg slammed the door, walked to his car and drove away. He wasn't seen on the set again. Then the cameraman Leonid Kalashnikov appeared on the scene, unquestionably a master. He spent two weeks with us and subsequently he honestly admitted he could not understand what Tarkovsky wanted from him. Kalashnikov left the picture on his own and Tarkovsky thanked him for such an honest, courageous action. And then Aleksandr Knyazhinsky joined us."

From the recollections of the former deputy Chairman of the Goskino USSR Boris Pavlyonok:
"It was obvious that if Tarkovsky was not given the opportunity to reshot the film it wouldn't be made at all. The governing body decided: reshoot the film, give the necessary means (something like 400 thousand roubles)..."

https://people.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Stalker/sharun.html

[Mattofthespurs]

Murder on the Orient Express.

Decent film, decent cast, and if you know the story pretty much as expected with one or two very small changes.

Good production values too (dodgy accents aside) 6/10

[darnmarr]

... they had to completely reshoot every frame in Talinn Estonia...

I believe it was the footage from first half of the film

some sources claim the entire thing was re-shot:
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Norton.html
The wikipedia page claims only the outdoor footage was ruined, and that the idea of two-parter idea was a solution to getting the increased budget to finish it (two films for the price of more than one), but the quoted source for that info from the Russian Cinema Council is, despite being all in russian , obviously a blank page.

There's some talk of Johnathan Nolan, one of the creators of Westworld citing it as an influence- but I don't see it anywhere meself. What I would readily believe, is that it influenced someone who worked on the TV series 'Stranger Things' ... That 'toxic-dust in the air' element from the 'Shadow-Vale' feels very Stalker to me...
Whaddya reckon?

[Mardroid]

1922 on Netflix.

Beautifully shot - really captures the settings of the 1920s well*. It is very faithful to the original Stephen King novella. It has a slow pace, and it is rather grim, but this serves the film well. [spoiler]Despite the awful thing that the main character and his son do - and not to condone the act at all- the character is so very relatable, and the wife, so unlikable, the motive is understandable. It was evil and wrong, and as is stated near the end "there was another way, there always is...", but this character is not a psychopath.[/spoiler]

*Says the guy who was a kid in the 70s and 80s. Okay, it captures well how I imagine 1920s America to be.

[JamesC]

LouisvTheroux: My Scientology Movie

What a strange and sinister organisation. I've seen a few documentaries about Scientology and find them quite fascinating but they're also frustrating because the organisation itself is so secretive. I'd love to know what really goes on and how much the 'Operating Thetans' really believe.
This was good but I kind of felt sorry for some of the actors. I wonder if this will negatively affect their careers.

[Mattofthespurs]

1922 on Netflix.

Beautifully shot - really captures the settings of the 1920s well*. It is very faithful to the original Stephen King novella. It has a slow pace, and it is rather grim, but this serves the film well. [spoiler]Despite the awful thing that the main character and his son do - and not to condone the act at all- the character is so very relatable, and the wife, so unlikable, the motive is understandable. It was evil and wrong, and as is stated near the end "there was another way, there always is...", but this character is not a psychopath.[/spoiler]

*Says the guy who was a kid in the 70s and 80s. Okay, it captures well how I imagine 1920s America to be.

I enjoyed it too.

[Hawkmumbler]

LouisvTheroux: My Scientology Movie

What a strange and sinister organisation. I've seen a few documentaries about Scientology and find them quite fascinating but they're also frustrating because the organisation itself is so secretive. I'd love to know what really goes on and how much the 'Operating Thetans' really believe.
This was good but I kind of felt sorry for some of the actors. I wonder if this will negatively affect their careers.

Still want to see this, Theroux previous two encounters with the cul...sorry, faith, where suitable terrifying.