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Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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Hawkmumbler

FREDDY GOT FINGERED

Rewatched this twice in the last few weeks and its still the perfect level of absolute vulgarity and strangely, unexpectedly layered gags. I despise the term "ahead of its time" as it generally says a lot more about the critic than the material, but Tom Green strangely understood the shift in taste from sitcom comedy to abstract, often uncomfortable humor without any real rhyme or reason for the sake of vulgarity.

I genuinely love this movie, its fucking hysterical.

pictsy

Session 9

I really wasn't expecting much from this film.  It is certainly one of the better films I've watched this month.  It is one of the best haunted house (even if it's set in a mental hospital) films I've seen to date.

The setting carries a lot of the heavy lifting being, iirc, an actual abandoned mental hospital that they did very little set work to.  It's disrepair and overall look gives an almost terrifyingly beautiful aesthetic to the film.  It's creepy as fuck, too.

The central ambiguity and mystery plays out nicely throughout and it gets most of it's tension through character interaction and uncertainty.  I think it does a very good job in this regards.  There is a notion that the ending is ambiguous and I get why but very much disagree.  We are all but literally told what is going on.  What is going on, what is being said and the context it is presented makes it very clear.  Sure, minutiae aren't entirely clear but that's largely irrelevant.  It doesn't matter anyway because the film doesn't benefit from being ambiguous, take from it what you want.

Overall a decent film with some good tension and nice horror moments that has some appreciable visuals.  If you like the psychological horror or haunted house thing, I'd recommend this one.

pictsy

Hatchet

I went into this with low expectations (pretty standard approach at this point) without knowing anything much about it on the recommendations made to me on this board.

Did I do something to hurt you guys?

Jokes aside, the film is pretty crap.  A lot of choices were made in the production of this film and I question almost all of them.  Amara Zaragoza's acting is terrible.  The conceit is stupid.  Victor Crowley has a terrible design.  The comic relief is not funny.  Parry Shen's character is confusing.  Joel David Moore lacks any level of charisma.  The running around in circles was boring.  The motivation was weak.  The lore is poorly developed.  It is mean spirited.  It's a bad Friday the 13th knock-off.

Okay, okay.  Some positives.  After all, it's not the worst film I've seen (which coincidently is a terrible slasher film).  I liked Joleigh Fiore in this and her sniping with Mercades McNab (of BtVS, Angel and Addams Family Values fame) was decent and the absolute highlight of the film.  I rooted for those two to make it to the end.  You can imagine how I really started loosing interest once they were killed off.  Okay, trying to stay positive.  It's nice to Richard Riehle and Patrika Darbo get work... I've seen them in other things.  Umm.  It's a very 2000's film but it's not the worst example of it.  It's not Hostel.  It only goes on for 80 minutes and five of those are credits.  So there, it's not 100% terrible.

Anyway, I gave it a go and I do appreciate receiving recommendations.  I think it is worth sitting through the occasional stinker if I get to see some gems and I've had more gems recommended to me here than stinkers.


Barrington Boots

Hmmm. <removes Hatchet from his 'to watch' list>

Train to Busan is one of those films that's great, but such a psuedo-traumatic watch I couldn't ever watch it again. Unlike, say, Army of the Dead which I would never watch again for other reasons.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

milstar

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 20 October, 2021, 02:23:30 PM
FREDDY GOT FINGERED

I genuinely love this movie, its fucking hysterical.

Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Hawkmumbler

Sorry to hear about your bad taste bro.



MISHIMA A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS

Pretty sure I wrote a more in depth review further down the thread but it bares repeating, this is a perfect movie. Schrader has crafted the perfect fusion of biopic and adaptation into a life of anthologies dedicated to simply one of the greatest writers who ever lived.

CalHab

Is Mishima available on a streaming service? I remember hearing about it years ago in Peter Biskind's book but I've never seen it anywhere.

milstar

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 21 October, 2021, 11:16:24 AM
Sorry to hear about your bad taste bro.




Hawk, loving an idiotic film like Freddy is better example of bad taste.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: CalHab on 21 October, 2021, 12:05:27 PM
Is Mishima available on a streaming service? I remember hearing about it years ago in Peter Biskind's book but I've never seen it anywhere.

According to Letterboxd its available to stream on Amazon Prime US so potentially on UK Amazon also? If not I can heartily endorse the Criterion Blu-ray, worth the price of entry for the documentary narrated by John Hurt alone.

Quote from: milstar on 21 October, 2021, 12:17:19 PM

Hawk, loving an idiotic film like Freddy is better example of bad taste.

Show me on the doll where Tom Green hurt you...

repoman

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 20 October, 2021, 02:23:30 PM
FREDDY GOT FINGERED

Rewatched this twice in the last few weeks and its still the perfect level of absolute vulgarity and strangely, unexpectedly layered gags. I despise the term "ahead of its time" as it generally says a lot more about the critic than the material, but Tom Green strangely understood the shift in taste from sitcom comedy to abstract, often uncomfortable humor without any real rhyme or reason for the sake of vulgarity.

I genuinely love this movie, its fucking hysterical.

it's a joy.  I love it.

milstar

Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Hawkmumbler

Rip Torns best performance. Pure surrealism.

pictsy

It Follows

Sexually transmitted ghost?  Is this film trying to say something?  If it is, I actually missed it because it does come across as pretty straight forward.  It's a decent film.  It kind of burns slow, has very nicely framed shots and builds a lot of tension with relatively little effort.  There are some almost cliche techniques utilised in this film, but it's not aggressive and distracting.  And yeah, it does follow.  And it's really creepy.

Also, here is a film with an actual ambiguous ending.  I like it here.  I think it works in the context of the film.  Keeps it all unsettling.  It's good, because no catharsis is offered in this film.  Exposition is kept to a minimum.  Although, when I think about it I wonder how they know as much as they do.

So yeah, pretty decent.  One of the better films I've watched so far this month.

milstar

Freejack

I've seen Freejack a long ago. I think I was still in elementary school then, and I guess it entertained me enough then. In the present times, I was only mildly entertained. And only because of Mick Jagger's the best worst roll. Plus, the Scorpions' end tune. And the sequence in Anthony Hopkins' mind is mindblowing, quite close actually to space-time traveling sequence from 2001. The plot is paper-thin; all interesting, but chewed-up ideas why the society is fucked up, are left aside. Yet, chewed they are, I wished that film dealt more with socially intriguing ideas, such as transferring one's mind into another body. Emilio Estevez and Rene Russo make a very unlikely couple. [spoiler]And I wished that film ended on an atypical happy ending route (Anthony Hopkins surviving in Emilio's body - that would make everyone's happy, right?)[/spoiler]
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

pictsy

Hellraiser

I'm doing it!  I'm invested and I'm doing all the Doug Bradley Hellraisers.  Wish me luck as a retread some old ground and finally watch 6, 7 and 8.  The last time I watched all the Hellraiser films there were only 5, but I did rewatch the first more recently.  And I didn't enjoy it that time around.  Much like an experience I had with The Crow I was disappointed once I saw the tattered edges and fraying stitches.  Having a better understanding of the films failures it was nice to revisit this film once again.  I adored it as a kid and was really drawn in with Franks resurrection and the Cenobites.  I actually felt a little nostalgia for that experience.  The Cenobites are imposing, threatening and intimidating but don't do a great deal themselves.  The real horror is with Frank and Julia.  The whole thing is really melodramatic and Andrew Robinson is fun to watch, as ever.

Some of the effects are a real mixed bag.  Some are charming, some are goofy, some are excellent and some are terrible.  The setting is weird.  I'm not entirely sure this film is explicitly set in England.  Just looked it up and it was originally intended to be in the UK, but New World convinced Barker to set it in the US and he did overdubbing for some of accents.  I was going to mention some of the dubbing was bad, so this is probably the reason why.  OK, well, I'm holding it against the film because it is just confusing.

The house being the main setting is a problem for me too.  The house design is not good for filming and the limited shots and angles become very noticeable through their constant repetition.  I also found it difficult to keep track of the geography of the shots which had a negative effect on the flow of action.  These are the major reasons I had a bad time watching it the last time because it just looks cheap and amateurish.

Overall I had a good time.  It is engaging.  The pacing is good, the story is interesting, the lore and world-building has a lot of intrigue.  It is very aggressive in it's BDSM representation and I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing.  It's certainly something that all the sequels I watched couldn't get right if they even bothered to do so.  I don't know why, it's pretty clear in the film "Demons to some, Angels to others".

Looking forward to watching Hellbound tonight.  It's been about twenty years and I'm curious how much of it I remember.