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

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milstar

Highlander 2 is somewhat salvageable if you decide to watch Renegade Cut. Theatrical version is a failure on biblical level and not less annoying.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Funt Solo

Highlander's definitely a cult thing that's mostly enjoyable because of the high cheese factor:

- Music by Queen
- Being gross: e.g. licking nuns
- The Scottish guy sounds French
- The Egyptian / Spaniard sounds Scottish
- Great quotes ("I came in disguise!", "My name is Conner McLeod of the Clan McLeod...")
- The death-by-duel montage

Remaking it would only expose it's weaknesses. There can be only one!

(And all the sequels are pish.)
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

milstar

Speaking of quote, the a-hole cop who arrests Connor/Russell Nash then teasing him in the precinct "Where are you from, Nash?", "Are you fa**ot, Nash"? "You went down to garage for blowjob, but you didn't want to pay for it" gets me every time. In addition to the exact beginning of the scene where the cop stares at Connor/Nash, then looks away admonished when the latter stares back.

Reportedly, the man whom Kurgan throws out of the car with the old lady is Frank Dux, on whose supposed exploits is made Bloodsport, with JCVD.

As for the Highlander direction, I can that it's not everyone's cup of tea. Mulcahy made his name in the music industry, shot many iconic videos (I love Wild Boys for Duran Duran), but I give him credit for having flair for visuals and editing. About a year ago, I watched his debut film - Razorback. True, it's very cheesy, style dominates the substance, but I gotta say it's one of the better Alien/Jaws rip-offs. Beautiful scenery too. And quite inventive nightmare sequence I gotta add.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Funt Solo

Yeah, I have a lot of time for Razorback.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

I, Cosh

Maybe I mentioned it here but I watched Highlander about a year ago with my partner. Her first time. Not mine.

We both loved it.

For me, it's a decent script elevated by Lambert's weirdness and Mulcahy's flashy direction. One of the main reasons it's always interesting to watch is because it is so stylised. Fashion's change with things like that, obviously, but Mulcahy has a visual imagination and flair way beyond what most other directors of sci-do B movies then or now. This sensation you are experiencing is called The Quickening!

Shout out for the effects as well. Because it was done in the cartoon style to start with our doesn't really look dated.

Maybe there's another factor though. There aren't many other big, daft genre movies made in or about Scotland. Fire me and my teenage mates, this was just as big, rewatchable and quotable a movie as Aliens or Robocop.

Never seen Razorback but Mulcahy also directed Extinction, which is the one entry in the Resident Evil series that you could squint and call a legitimately decent film.
We never really die.

Tiplodocus

A lot of our college motorbike club got drafted in as extras because of their long hair and beards. They played in both clans; running down one hill in the morning then the opposite one in the afternoon. I was short haired and clean shaven, as always, at the time so missed on that gig.

I can't remember much about Razorback apart from enjoying it when I saw it... But that was thirty years ago.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: I, Cosh on 06 June, 2021, 04:14:23 PM
Never seen Razorback

You probably should. It's incredibly stylish for its micro-budget and, as I recall, an awful lot better than you might expect for its basic Jaws-with-a-giant-feral-hog premise.

Somehow, I've never managed to see Mulcahy's Shadow... I've been meaning to for years, but never quite actually managing to do it.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

milstar

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 06 June, 2021, 06:14:48 PM
Quote from: I, Cosh on 06 June, 2021, 04:14:23 PM
Never seen Razorback

You probably should. It's incredibly stylish for its micro-budget and, as I recall, an awful lot better than you might expect for its basic Jaws-with-a-giant-feral-hog premise.

Somehow, I've never managed to see Mulcahy's Shadow... I've been meaning to for years, but never quite actually managing to do it.

Tbh, I find the premise a bit ridiculous in Razorback, but then again, the design of the mutant boar pays it off, despite appearing in the film just a handful of minutes. But, the climax is where I say that Mulcahy's direction comes to full expression. I remember in just a two-three minutes, there is cut every 3 seconds. As for the budget, I read somewhere it was the highest budgeted Aussie film up to that point (5 mil wasn't thrown away).

The Shadow came to be visually imaginative as other Mulcahy flicks and Alec is on the spot in the role, but somehow that movie never rose above an average pulp actioneer for me.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Funt Solo

The Terminal - remove your faculties and swim around in the warm cocoa fuzziness of this gentle comedy where Tom "Vladivostock" Hanks Mr. Beans his way through a Kafkaesque nachtmare (but one that's fluffy like a marshmallow).

Or ... be disturbed at the idea of being trapped in a consumerist hell (where Micky-D burgers are shown as something that can halt starvation, as opposed to something that has almost no nutritional value whatsoever) and used as a plaything by an uncaring bureaucracy. Also - playing ethno-Russki is, what is that, west-washing?

Women are alien targets for men to own, often speech-unseen. Deffo failing the Bechdel here. Would you like to get engaged and then quickly married to someone who is too scared to speak to you but has been pestering you via an intermediary for nine months? Viktor is eventually saved by Amelia, who gets him his papers by prostituting herself to the married man who "owns" her.

The Barfinal, more like!
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: Funt Solo on 06 June, 2021, 10:21:25 PM
The Terminal

Based on a true story, no less, of a former Iranian man who assumed the role of a long lost British Raj while stranded in de Gaulle airport while he existed in legal limbo for decades, of his own free will after a point.
A terribly sad story of mental illness I really don't think the movie succeeded in capturing.

milstar

Blade Runner 2049

Well, it's not a secret that I am not one of the biggest admirers of the original Blade Runner. But I admit I admire it in several aspects. That's why I am not going to elaborate detail on the sequel because more or less, all sentiments I have about the first film, I dare to say for this one. Yes, I think 2049 is pretty successing successor to the original. Visually, thematically, even music score is done in the mould of the original, with several cues repeated here. And like in the first film, I find the pacing very slow, and the theme "what it means to be human" too philosophical for me. And yes, this one also drops a few hints on Deckard's humanity. But yeah, this may not be a sequel that everyone asked for, but I gotta say, it's definitely a sequel that is worth seeing, if not for the narrative, then for brilliant scenery (albeit, a bit depressive for my taste), camerawork and the editing. I can only say i was worried on how the movie might end, whether Gosling would join replicant resistance group, or letting Wallace taking Deckard away, but I gotta say, I am satisfied with the conclusion. Ryan Gosling plays...well, Ryan Gosling, with his endless stares into distance, laying emotionless (I think he already did this movie before and it's called Only God Forgives). But of all the actors, I retract what I said about Jared Leto, ever. He steals the movie, Harrison Ford still shows some flair.
Perhaps history won't remember 2049 in the same vein as 1982 Blade Runner, but who knows? One thing also is shared by both movies; scarce luck at the box office.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

wedgeski

Quote from: Funt Solo on 06 June, 2021, 01:38:27 AM
Yeah, I have a lot of time for Razorback.
Same. Great film, beloved of my dear old dad.

Barrington Boots

Just to buck the trend here, Highlander is total tosh. Awful acting from almost all the leads (Sean Connery in particular totally phones it in: Clancy Brown is pretty excellent though) and a mind-numbingly stupid plot. If you don't like Queen (I don't) then it's got nothing going for it in my opinion other than the fact that it's not as bad as the sequels which are even worse.

Razorback is WAY better.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

wedgeski

Quote from: Barrington Boots on 07 June, 2021, 09:41:15 AM
Just to buck the trend here, Highlander is total tosh. Awful acting from almost all the leads (Sean Connery in particular totally phones it in: Clancy Brown is pretty excellent though) and a mind-numbingly stupid plot. If you don't like Queen (I don't) then it's got nothing going for it in my opinion other than the fact that it's not as bad as the sequels which are even worse.
If you dislike Queen, I don't think there's *any* way to enjoy Highlander!

milstar

Quote from: wedgeski on 07 June, 2021, 09:33:08 AM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 06 June, 2021, 01:38:27 AM
Yeah, I have a lot of time for Razorback.
Same. Great film, beloved of my dear old dad.

If I can credit movies for making important decision in my life, then Razorback is guilty for turning me into a vegetarian. That and Jaws for never swimming in an ocean.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.