What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[BFTD]

Cannibal Apocalypse (DVD) - a group of soldiers return to Atlanta from the Vietnam War with an inescapable case of the munchies.

My son heard about the notorious Seventies Italian cannibal movies a while ago, so we watched a few (sans the horrible animal cruelty scenes), but I just remembered that I'd forgotten this strange curio, which combines a heady mix of weirdness and tedium. It feels like they'd really wanted to make a zombie film, as there's an odd notion that the urge to eat other people is transmitted through biting, yet they only seem to take a quick bite before getting bored and moving on. It's generally quite dull though, with a lengthy tedious siege scene early on, before degenerating into a slow-moving chase between our hungry heroes and the authorities - it feels more like a heist flick gone wrong than a horror film.

It does have a few memorable moments though, including genre favourite "John Morghen" getting a big hole blown through his torso, and a cop ripping off and eating a colleague's boob - when discovered, his commanding officer says, "good God son, put that down"  

I'd never actually watched my DVD copy, so I was annoyed to discover that the American R-rated cut had been submitted for classification here in order to guarantee it would be accepted. It removes some of the more outre gore moments which, let's be honest, make up a large part of the experience of watching these things.

Dawn of the Dead (Blu-Ray) - zombies, shopping mall, you know the drill.

I noticed a resonably-priced set of this on Blu-Ray containing three different prints of the film and extras, so figured it was time to expose the kid - he knows of DotD because apparently there was some kind of legal action after the game Dead Rising came out, as it's pretty heavily based on it. We watched the 'Cannes Cut', which is supposed to have more footage than the North American release print, although I didn't particularly notice anything new so I guess that's the "American" version I'd always seen.

It's as much of a period piece as Night of the Living Dead now, and the special effects that were superb for the time aren't going to be convincing anyone, but the Goblin score improves with age, if anything - at turns menacing, otherworldly, and ridiculous. The opening third showing the world falling apart from a narrow viewpoint is masterful, and everyone's familiar with the consumerist satire than follows. Not sure if it really works for young people now, but I still love it.

Flightplan (DVD) - aircraft designer Jodie Foster boards a flight with her young daughter, only for her to go missing during the flight. Where could she be?

An interesting idea for a thriller, but the implementation could've been better. One of those stories that relies upon the mystery of whether there's a huge conspiracy going on, or if the answer is more straightforward than it seems, and I lost a bit of interest in the final third after the reveal - the suspension of disbelief just disappeared quite quickly. However, it's a decent watch if you catch it on TV/streaming and you're in the mood for this kind of film - just don't expect it to stick the landing particularly well.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (DVD) - synopsis here.

Part of the never-ending, "you've never seen <x>? I have failed as a father" shitshow that no doubt many of us are familiar with. The boy finally wanted to see it, so I couldn't say no. Frankly, I probably enjoyed it less this time than any prior viewing, but I've seen it dozens of times and it's still one of the greatest comedies ever - a lot of entertainment can be had from noticing how they gleaned comedy from their lack of budget. I think the fact that Terry Jones is away now too, and I probably won't watch it again before more of the crew dies, possibly took a bit of pleasure away this time, although I still love the balls of just ending the film before (expensive) catharsis and leaving the audience sitting in the dark listening to organ music.

The boy was surprised by how much he liked it, and I caught him cracking up a few times, although he was a bit disappointed that the moose never showed up. I particularly enjoyed that he was caught out by the Dentist on the Job intro and accused me of putting the wrong film on  

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Kingdom of the planet of the apes.
Solid.
A top 5 movie franchise. Miles above your Star Warses, Mission Impossibles, Alienses, Jurassic Parkses.


Now all we need is a musical. 

 

[KnightswoodBear]

10 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Kingdom of the planet of the apes.
Solid.
A top 5 movie franchise. Miles above your Star Warses, Mission Impossibles, Alienses, Jurassic Parkses.


Now all we need is a musical. 

 

I've been watching the originals on Disney +.  It's definitely a law of diminishing returns with them.

I've watched "Planet", "Beneath" and "Escape" so far.  It's been a while since I watched "Conquest" and "Battle", but from what I remember they're pretty shit.

[BFTD]

The Apes films are always entertaining, even when shit.

I saw Conquest of the Planet of the Apes when I was wee and thought it was the original Planet of the Apes until I was an adult, so was a bit confused when I finally saw the Charlton Heston film. It's one of those futuristic films that mentions events from dates that are in the distant past now, and there's a part of my brain that's still a wee boy and flips out when confronted with the fact that we live in a year far, far beyond the "future".

[Fullerene]

42 minutes ago, BFTD said:

The Apes films are always entertaining, even when shit.

I saw Conquest of the Planet of the Apes when I was wee and thought it was the original Planet of the Apes until I was an adult, so was a bit confused when I finally saw the Charlton Heston film. It's one of those futuristic films that mentions events from dates that are in the distant past now, and there's a part of my brain that's still a wee boy and flips out when confronted with the fact that we live in a year far, far beyond the "future".

In the original film, some actors were made up to look like chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans while others just plain humans.

At meal breaks, the chimpanzees sat together as did the gorillas and the orangutans.

Make of that what you like.

[BFTD]

44 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

In the original film, some actors were made up to look like chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans while others just plain humans.

At meal breaks, the chimpanzees sat together as did the gorillas and the orangutans.

Make of that what you like.

Seems to be a fairly common observable phenomenon.

[KnightswoodBear]

3 hours ago, BFTD said:

The Apes films are always entertaining, even when shit.

I saw Conquest of the Planet of the Apes when I was wee and thought it was the original Planet of the Apes until I was an adult, so was a bit confused when I finally saw the Charlton Heston film. It's one of those futuristic films that mentions events from dates that are in the distant past now, and there's a part of my brain that's still a wee boy and flips out when confronted with the fact that we live in a year far, far beyond the "future".

The endings of the first 3 are all pretty bleak

Spoiler

"You blew it up!"

Chuck nukes the entire planet

Zira and Cornelius and their baby (but it isn't really) get shot to death and she throws the weans body into the sea

I can't mind how the other two end, but I'm hoping for less infanticide

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, KnightswoodBear said:

The endings of the first 3 are all pretty bleak

  Hide contents

"You blew it up!"

Chuck nukes the entire planet

Zira and Cornelius and their baby (but it isn't really) get shot to death and she throws the weans body into the sea

I can't mind how the other two end, but I'm hoping for less infanticide

Aye the end to Part 2 is quite something. You're past the worst of it, put it that way.

At least none of them end with Marky Mark going "whaa?!" as Abe Lincoln becomes a monkey.

[BFTD]

The Pyramid (DVD) - quasi-found footage flick about a bunch of archaeologists who investigate an Egyptian pyramid found hidden underground.

I remember liking this a bit more the first time round. It's really quite dull, and I think the final third took me by surprise, but knowing what's coming just removed any enjoyment. It doesn't help that the CG was really poor at the time, and it looks even worse now. Also, James Buckley's in it - I hadn't seen The Inbetweeners originally, but I have now, so the whole film comes off as Jay's bullshit story about how he spent his summer holidays.

[accies1874]

43. La Chimera - Cinema

Three days, a rewatch and a deluge of notes in my phone later, I'm still equally fascinated and puzzled by this. Dunno where to begin. Maybe with Josh O'Connor's class suit? The shifts in aspect ratio? The range of music used? Arthur's mysterious past? The fluid approach to genre? They all (OK, maybe not the suit) result in the film feeling like it's divorced from reality despite only having very, very brief flashes of otherworldliness such as characters growling at a pivotal moment or an isolated incident of someone speaking directly to the camera. It's like a dream or a trance; so much so that I got startled by someone behind me getting up to go to the toilet.

One of the main reasons I wanted to see it again was to try and have a better understanding of its ideas - I even tried learning more about the Etruscans ffs! I wish I could say that I left with some answers, but that's part of the fun of the film. Gender roles, capitalism, spirituality and the convergence of the past and the present all play a big part but in a logical way that links them together, taking the term "soul searching" to new levels. It's hard to say that I loved something when I've not got much of a grasp of it, but I was seriously engrossed in La Chimera and am tempted to delve even deeper into it - though I'm afraid that will just throw up even more questions.

44. There's Still Tomorrow - Cinema

Woohoo, 50th cinema trip of the year.

I was hooked right away, even if it did lose me a few times. What hooked me was the film opening with Delia waking up to an almost comical backhand from her husband before performing chores around the house while classical music plays. I couldn't wait to see where she went from there as it felt like the opening of a fairytale. While that fairytale never truly materialises in the typical sense, it still tells the story of generational revolution mostly within the confines of an apartment, making it feel quite stagey (though not necessarily in a bad way). I didn't find it as funny as a lot of others did in the screening, but there's no denying that the dinner scene and a scene of mourning got chuckles out of me, and the rhythm of the editing in conversations made it all flow very nicely which added a bit to the humour. It also has one of my favourite endings of the year - a perfect conclusion to all that came before.

[BFTD]

The Revenge of the Living Dead (DVD) - psuedosequel zombie comedy from the writers of the original Night of the Living Dead and Alien. A zombie toxin is released into a graveyard in Kentucky, and...well, you can imagine the rest.

This is a lot more entertaining than it has any right to be, starting with the premise that NotLD was a fictional story based on a secret military toxin that brings the dead back to life. Some of it was delivered to a body parts supplier by mistake in the Sixties (d'oh, those military fools), and has been sitting in their basement ever since. Naturally, it stays sealed in the containers without issue  

It comes across like a modern spoof of the Eighties that was actually made at the time, with a group of "teens" consisting of stereotypes who wouldn't want to be seen dead together (but are), and completely random gratuitous full-frontal nudity from Linnea Quigley through most of the runtime (hey, who doesn't feel the need to strip off in cemeteries). There are some genuinely amusing lines and scenes (send...more...paramedics), outshining a pretty threadbare plot essentially involving a serious of bad decisions made by idiots in a couple of locations, and it's quite happy to break the then-established conventions of the zombie film.

Been a long time since I saw this, so I'm impressed that it stands up so well. I guess being so ridiculously anchored to a time period pays off sometimes. I've never seen the sequels, so I might need to remedy that.

[MSU]

075 The Kingdom of the Bathroom of the Planet of the Apes -- I saw the first of the new collection, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, on release and remember being relatively bored by it. I think Dawn came and went and I couldn't muster up the energy to go see it, and I have no memory of War existing whatsoever. So I'm not exactly a die hard fan of the series, but I'd heard enough positive buzz about this and comparisons to Silo that got me interested. I don't think I've missed anything by skipping two of the previous movies and I ended up kinda enjoying this despite it doing quite a bit to turn me against it.

The talking apes use a cadence that is utterly believable but it becomes an enormous pain in the ass the longer it goes on. The CGI while impressive in lots of places, fails to sell many of the more complicated sequences and nothing at all has any heft as it jumps about the screen. And the storyline definitely gets a bit ploddy in the middle and the Silo stuff wasn't really what I was expecting.

That said, I thought the religious/authoritarian metaphor worked more or less in the shape of Proximus, I thought Freya Allan was good as the sole human surrounded by apes although her wardrobe confused me, I liked the footprint of humanity being reclaimed by nature, and the action sequences were pretty thrilling. I don't know that it's enough to get me to fill in the blanks, though. 6/10

Edited May 19 by MSU

[velo army]

Kingdom of the planet of the apes.

I love this series mainly as I like being in the futuristic world claimed by nature. A lot of the "hero's journey" beats are there early on which was pleasing. The ambiguity of Freya Allan's character lent intrigue and interest to.her activities and the film did well here. The main antagonist doesn't show up til much later and I felt the storyline got going far later than it should.

Satisfying ending and genuinely thrilling fight scenes. The fact that Caesar dies in the previous film means that you know the heroes in this series can die. It gave everything some high stakes. The big silverback lad was scary too. I liked him.

7/10.

[MSU]

 

076 Back to Black -- Cockney songstress says words that go on to appear in songs, gets tattooed, takes drugs, and then dies. 4/10

[BFTD]

On 20/05/2024 at 13:43, MSU said:

076 Back to Black -- Cockney songstress says words that go on to appear in songs, gets tattooed, takes drugs, and then dies. 4/10

This is part of why I hate biopics. Mark Kermode's often mentioned one about The Carpenters in which someone says Karen Carpenter looks chubby and they have her say, "chubby? Hmm". They're all full of the laziest scriptwriting imaginable.

They remind me of those Viz newspaper articles where some bloke had shagged a bunch of famous singers and all their interactions would be song lyrics  

[Arch Stanton]

Did a John Carpenter "Double Feature" tonight.

Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York.

Superb electronica from JC in both soundtracks, and other shared features are Charles Cyphers (who appeared in several JC movies) and Frank Doubleday, who played "White Warlock" in AOP13 (he shoots the little girl) and the effeminate spiky haired sidekick in EFNY.

Regarding the girl in AOP13, this is her current pic on IMDB.

 

[Arch Stanton]

Still awake so "They Live" is next.

Features another JC regular George "Buck" Flower.

[BFTD]

8 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

Still awake so "They Live" is next.

Features another JC regular George "Buck" Flower.

I've been meaning to expose my son to more Carpenter, as he saw a couple of his films recently and really liked them. He might have the strongest filmography of any director, and over multiple genres; even his poorer late-stage work like Ghosts of Mars are still very entertaining. Obviously, The Thing is the greatest film ever made.

They Live has aged incredibly well and has inspired an entire generation of internet conspiracy theorists  

[Arch Stanton]

Just finished "They Live".

"Hey what's wrong baby?"

A superb 90 minutes.

[Arch Stanton]

I'm not a spiritual person. Far, so far from it.

So why do I think Starman is JC?s best movie?

Well, it's a multitude of things 

At the deepest level it's a Jesus allegory in that a man dies, is resurrected, performs some miracles and ascends to a higher plane 3 days later. There's also an "immaculate conception". f**k that.

However, on a face value level, it's a fantastic mix of sci-fi, road trip and, above all, a love story.

Jeff Bridges is incredible in his portrayal of the alien. Karen Allen is an able foil. 

The special effects are of the "animatronic" type and are both  creepy and convincing. 

The final scene, and the brilliant soundtrack would bring a tear to a glass eye.