Last movie watched...

[TordelBack]

... a glistening Patrick Swayze as the philosophy graduate turned best bouncer in the business brought in to clean up the roughest bar in six counties

One more argument for Godpleton's elevation to modhood.

[chaingunchimp]

Yep after the first ever full viewing it turns out that i actually love Road House. Truly brilliant film that I think I'm going to have to add to the DVD collection.

Recently watched a film called War Wolves which despite the exciting premise turned out to be one of the worst films I've seen in a long time, bad casting, bad acting and reeeeeally bad facial prosthetics (which really appear to have been purchased at a pound land somewhere in hell). I know its low budget picture (a lot of my favourite films are) but it's a good example of very lazy film making. Some of transitions just don't make sense and there are several points where scenes vital to the flow of the film take place off screen, leaving you thinking "how did we get to here"! I can only assume they were cut due to budgeting constraints and lower cost alternatives where just never filmed. Truly terrible, rant over

[SmallBlueThing]

Doctor Phibes Rises Again (1972)

I bought this donkey's years ago, along with the magnificent first film- but my old DVD player wouldn't play it. New machine, and finally a chance to watch tonight, as wife had requested a Vincent Price movie.

You've either seen this, or you haven't. So you either know what it is or you don't. Whether you do or not, no attempt by me to sum up its strangeness will be adequate. If you really don't know about the Doctor Phibes films, go here: http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article72.htm. I don't approve of his usage of the word "retarded", but he does a pretty good job of summing them up. And yes, they are that good, and that weird.

I will just throw it open to the forum here, with the following questions: Who do you think Vulnavia is? The article I linked to claims "robot in the first, ethereal spirit in the second". I favour acid-dop-out hippie student and Phibes' sometime toy- hence two entirely different girls in two movies.

And- In a third film, made now, who would you have as Phibes? We settled on Donald Sutherland or Geoffrey Rush.

SBT

[JOE SOAP]

The Dr. Phibes films are right up there with the best. Shockingly under-appreciated.


Some of the outlines/screenplays for the proposed threequels make me salivate but also sad that we'll likely never see them. My favourite is the one from 1981:


Phibes is revived in 1981 and sets sail for New York aboard his 98-foot yacht. The city's diseased squalor is contrasted with Phibes' seafaring Art Deco idyll, replete with Clockwork Wizards, Vulnavia and of course the dearly departed Victoria.
Ensconced in a resplendent penthouse apartment, Phibes plans to resurrect his bride and build a new life in America. His activities rouse the interest of the Wormwood Institute, an elite "think tank of glorious eggheads" led by the 80 year old Hector Seneca Cicero Wormwood. Each of the six Institute members, we learn, leads a "strange private life".
Astrophysicist Bulwark Stanton, the most devious of the group, is obsessed with little girls and keeps a mechanical effigy of one at home. Lester is threatening to disprove Einstein's theory of general relativity at the age of 12; he's champing at the bit to match wits with Phibes. The Smith Brothers, experts in economics and nuclear weaponry, are identical twin transvestites. Wormwood himself wet nurses directly from the tap, laboring under the illusion that such is the key to eternal life.
When the old man smashes Victoria's glass coffin, she dries out and decomposes. Phibes is enraged and vows revenge. He kills off each of the Institute members according to their greatest love; the germ warfare expert Mr. Nim enjoys chocolate, and is summarily transformed into a chocolate statue, etc. Phibes concurrently conducts an urgent search for the essential salts to restore Victora's vitality.


Geoffrey Rush would be a better fit or possibly Ian McKellen?

[SmallBlueThing]

It's such a shame, as you say, that we'll never see that particular script on screen, joe. Even a 'reboot' is unlikely to feature death by paedophilia, unfortunately.

It's an odd starring role, phibes. The movies are well-loved among those who have seen them, and the image of phibes' decayed face even further known through its overuse in just about every large format 'horror films' book ever published. And yet, as an acting role, its so limited by lack of speech and so elaborately camp, that i cant imagine anyone wanting to do it now. Rush could- he's played Price successfully before, but would he. Robert Englund could also do it- but it needs a better actor, oddly, and a more mainstream star. Hugh Grant would be magnificent.

SBT

[Professor Bear]

uneasy attempts to have an American dramatist performing his own martial arts scenes

Swayze was actually a low-budget star who lucked into mainstream success*, so I suspect he knew his way around a fight scene (because he expected to be doing them a lot) even if the odd director he worked with did not coughcoughPoint Breakcoughcough.  If you liked Roadhouse, check out Steel Dawn for his post-apocalyptic ninja chops.

Speaking of post-dubya ninjas, I watched 1975's The Ultimate Warrior, which I had never heard of before spotting it on Youtube, which no-one seems to care to delete, such is the regard in which it seems to be held.  It's actually a pretty decent Yul Brynner vehicle where he plays a nomadic bruiser in post-apocalyptic 2012 (?) New York who's employed by Max Von Sydow to defend a budding community of farmers from terrifying overlord "The Carrot", and it's written and directed by Enter The Dragon and Game of Death's Robert Clouse, though there's not much in the way of memorable scraps as Brynner is really only convincing at handing out bullish wallops or jamming a penknife in someone's guts to get the job done.  He is literally the worst hero possible, tasked directly with the safety of four people throughout the film, all of whom end up dead within minutes, including a baby - and babies never die in these films, so that gives you an idea of how useless he really is.  Then again, this at least gives you the impression that there's something at stake as he can fail at any minute, which isn't something which happens a lot in these kinds of flicks as the hero's usually an infallible chess-master thinking three moves ahead, but Brynner's Carson is entirely reactive, playing the whole thing by ear and it's only afterwards that it occurs he's maybe not so much a ninja master or something but an unhinged transient traumatised by his experiences in the wasteland, making the final shot of him [spoiler]absconding with a weakened young woman and her newborn infant[/spoiler] terrifying rather than poignant.  Readers of the The Road may at that point be thinking of a certain kebab.
Still a fun watch, though.


* Dirty Dancing, the charming story of a romance between an adult and a 15 year-old, was a no-budget straight-to-video movie that hit it huge in a contractually-obliged theatrical run that was supposed to last a week at most but was extended when video pre-orders broke the 1 million mark.

[SmallBlueThing]

Abbott & Costello Meet The Mummy (1955)

In which our hapless heroes become involved in murder, theft, the search for ancient gold and the horror of a walking mummy (eventually).

Six years on from '...meet frankenstein', the guys are that bit more polished- or maybe so polished the sheen is wearing off. Im not sure which, only that their slapstick made the kids howl with laughter, the wordplay amused me and the music, costumes and dancing entertained my wife. If it all seems laboured to you, rest assured there's a fantastic extended gag right at the end involving a dinner suit and snake charming that's better than anything that precedes it- even if the upshot of the movie is 'arabs: dont worry that the west wants to plunder your cultural heritage! Open yourselves to tourists and turn your history into cabaret, and all will be well!', but i admit that's a purely modern perspective and not one that's at all relevent.

My favourite thing about this was, despite being listed in the credits as playing (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) two named characters, both stars blatantly refer to each other as bud abbott and lou costello throughout, seemingly sick of the pretence. There's also far more playing to the camera and knowing looks than in '...meets frankenstein', with the fourth wall being smashed down almost as often as those of the sets, as costello runs screaming from another scare.

A few things to look out for: there's a great acrobatic dance sequence near the beginning which would make those arses from britain's got talent green with envy at the, er, talent involved. And, for a light comedy, some of the dessicated corpses abbott stumbles into along the way are disturbingly lifelike. Someone backstage knew their egyptology.

SBT

[Van Dom]

Broke my cinema-drought by going to see Sadako 3D last night. Hmm. Had mixed feelings about it. I'd been looking forward to it a LOT but sadly it didn't meet expectations and I was a little bit disappointed. Though that could be due to missing out on a couple of plot details (it was in Japanese with no subtitles so I was relying on my Japanese ability to get me through it - the majority of it I could follow just fine, but when they started getting into the explaining of stuff, everyone was talking so fast I kind of lost it).

As a 3d film, it is absolutely brilliant. This is some of the best 3d I've seen, infinitely superior to anything I've seen on a cinema screen in Ireland. It was exceptionally bright throughout, and the film-makers really had fun with getting as much out of the medium as possible. I mean, look - Sadako is MADE for 3D. What is her 'thing'? Crawling out through tv screens/monitors etc in a "3D" fashion to enter the real world. Seeing that come to life in actual 3D was pretty damn cool I have to say. And boy did they make sure you got a lot of it. TV screens, computer monitors, mobile phone screens, digital advertising billboards, vending machine digital displays...if it had a screen, that bitch was sticking her arm, hair, head or whole body out of it, and it was very effective and cool. They really went to town on the 3d, there seemed to be something coming at you every 2 or 3 minutes....


...which is pretty much the reason why, as an ordinary, everyday movie - its pretty mediocre. Take the 3d out of this and....you aren't left with very much more than a typical Hollywood teen-slasher type flick, with people running around the place being chased by someone/something which keeps popping out at them. Yes, there are a lot of 'jump' moments (I admit to jumping during this a lot more than I usually do at this kind of film) BUT those jumps are nearly always down to the absolutely DEAFENING trumpet blast that accompanies the 'reveal'..... It's the sudden blast of music that makes you jump, not the actual 'events' themselves, which aren't really that surprising. The story SEEMED a bit flimsy - I can't fully comment, as I didn't catch EVERY single word of explanation for the events, but I got 90% of it and based on that and filling in the blanks with what was shown, it doesn't seem to make any sense. There are a lot of really dumb plot holes as well (just as one example, although Sadako can only manifest in this world by coming out through some kind of digital screen, there's one part in the movie where a character is standing on the edge of a roof - and Sadako's arm literally  reaches in from the side of the screen to grab her and try to pull her off. So the arm was just apparently coming out of thin air? This was dumb, especially since the character was holding a mobile phone and they could have had Sadako reach out of that.) Most annoyingly of all though, the deaths aren't particularly interesting, with most of them occurring -annoyingly - offscreen. We don't really get to see much. There's certainly no gore, apart from in one little scene. I guess they were marketing this at the teenage dating crowd though, so what can you do. They don't do ratings here in Japan but I would say this one is little more than PG, possibly 12s.

Overall, I had a good time while watching it. Lots of jumps, fantastic use of 3D, and a very cool end sequence which I can't talk about. (Not the very, very end, which was weak, but the big action sequence leading up the very end). I will say one thing - CGI Sadako is nowhere near as good as "real-actress-walking-funny" Sadako. The CGI is great in this, and very realistic, but you still can't beat good old-fashioned reality.

I would definitely recommend seeing this IN 3D. I don't usually do that, as I'm not actually a big 3D fan, but as I said at the start, this movie and character is made for 3D and needs to be seen that way. Without the 3D, I'd imagine it would be a fairly pedestrian experience.

[DeFuzzed]

uneasy attempts to have an American dramatist performing his own martial arts scenes

* Dirty Dancing, the charming story of a romance between an adult and a 15 year-old, was a no-budget straight-to-video movie that hit it huge in a contractually-obliged theatrical run that was supposed to last a week at most but was extended when video pre-orders broke the 1 million mark.

I had no idea! About the straight-to-vid thing, but when you put the adult and 15yr old thing like that, that sounds remarkably sleazy too. I thought she had at least reached the age of consent. I'll blame my ignorance on the fact I watched it years and years ago. During puberty.

Into the Blue - Jessica Alba, Paul Walker. Clothing optional. Drugs. Treasure. Pretty sea scenes. Unbelievably pretty people, like, stratosphere. Watch on a hi-def huge screen with the sound really low and just enjoy.

[judgefloyd]

Men In Black III - good fun but not awesome.  I don't feel compelled to quote from it or tell my mates to see it.  Jermaine from 'Flight of the Conchords' was fun as a villain (I could have sworn it was Tim Curry at first), Josh Brolin was good as a young Tommy Lee Jones, and Will Smith was exactly the way he is in every film of his I've seen.  Lots of clever jokes but nothing exhilarating. Me I wanted to see Iron Sky but I was overruled

[Spikes]

Doctor Phibes Rises Again (1972)

I bought this donkey's years ago, along with the magnificent first film- but my old DVD player wouldn't play it. New machine, and finally a chance to watch tonight, as wife had requested a Vincent Price movie.
SBT

Excellant films, i havent seen these in ages so im gonna watch the first one tonight.
Always loved Theatre of Blood (1973) which i always felt fitted in nicely with the Phibes films.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg73nPNSKh0
Distrubing and deranged stuff these films, no wonder they freaked me out as a kid.

[Professor Bear]

I don't feel compelled to quote from it

"For future reference, just because a black man is driving a fancy car, it doesn't mean he stole it.  Although, yes, I did steal this car - but not because I'm black."

The Light At The End Of The World, based on a story by Jules Verne, is a family matinee of the old school, by which I mean there's a mere three nightmare-inducing onscreen deaths and only the one gang rape.  Kirk Douglas' character seeks solitude in a lighthouse because he has a terrible habit of shooting his best mates dead, but pirate captain Yul Brynner hijacks the place and uses it to scuttle and rob passing ships.  The stage is thus set for a battle of the ages betwixt Spartacus and the King of Siam - AND ONE MUST PERISH!
It's good fun, but for a kids' flick remarkably bloody and grim, and even has a bit where the comedy foreign sidekick is strung up and has strips of skin pulled off his chest with a giant hook, which even in Hostel 8 and Saw XIII times is pretty strong stuff, as is the rape/exploding of Samantha Eggar's flighty piece.  It's worth a gander before they find it and remake it, I think.

[M.I.K.]

And- In a third film, made now, who would you have as Phibes? We settled on Donald Sutherland or Geoffrey Rush.

Given Phibes mechanically stilted way of speaking, it'd probably be entirely possible to have all the dialogue done by Price himself, constructed from old recordings of his voice, having Phibes sound pretty much identical to the way he does in the first two films.

[Beeks]

I just watched Paddy Constantine's directorial debut Tyrannosaur

It was uncomfortable viewing at times and although good..it didn't live up to the hype that surrounds it