Recommend a movie

10 posts

Bulan The Khazar

Reposing this (posted on phora) just in case anyone here doesn't read there...




I Stand Alone (1998)

Seul contre tous (original title)

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Watched this one last night and all I can say is WOW.

Definitely deserving of an 8+ rating. I suspect it's rating was lowered some by viewers who were turned off by it's violence, brutality, and shocking nature.

This one is most definitely a must see. You will not regret it.

It is very disturbing, yet very thought provoking, and amazingly well-filmed, directed, and acted.

After it ended I sort of just sat there for a good 20 minutes trying to digest it.

It also made me cry once or twice, which is rare for a movie to be able to do. It is more a work of art than a film, in my opinion.

Cornelio

^^ Gaspar Noe is awesome.

"Irreversible", also by him, is a fantastic take on the utter meaninglessness of existence. It also has the longest and most detailed rape scene I have seen. Monica Bellucci being raped = best film of the 00s.

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Cornelio
Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson, 2012

Wes Anderson is like Woody Allen: a quirky, godless pedophile. Tenenbaums was excellent, but he is starting to repeat himself. I enjoyed this one somewhat, but I can perfectly foresee a not so distant time when his works make me sick. 2 thumbs up.
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The Searchers
John Ford, 1956

What a great movie.
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The Tin Star
Anthony Mann, 1957

Catched this one on late night tv. I hadn't heard about it. Henry Fonda is awesome as a mercenary who teaches Perkins the secrets of the trade. The latter is also great as a young and insecure sheriff who is willing to put his life at risk to preserve justice.
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The Magnificient Seven
John Sturges, 1960

Didn't like this one. A group of elite mercenaries who are willing to risk their lives to protect some scumbag beaners for no pay at all? Not believable. The original (The Seven Samurais - Akira Kurosawa) was utterly superior.
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Bulan The Khazar

Thanks for the recommendation. I added this to my library and watched it last night.

Definitely not as good as I stand alone, but I enjoyed it.

I also masturbated furiously during the rape scene. I hope that is ok.
Drieu
Definitely check out Anthony Mann's other films. He's the equal of Howard Hawks and I probably prefer him to John Ford. Like Hawks, he excelled in both noir/crime films and Westerns.

Among his best Westerns are:
Winchester '73 (1950)
The Furies (1950)
Bend of the River (1952)
The Naked Spur (1953) - my personal favorite, stars Jimmy Stewart in a rare villainous (though really more of an anti-hero) role.
Man of the West (1958)

His noirs to check out are:
T-Men (1947)
Raw Deal (1948)
Reign of Terror / The Black Book (1949) - set during the French Revolution.
Side Street (1950) - reunites the Farley Granger / Cathy O'Donnell fair from They Live by Night .
The Tall Target (1951) - this more of a crime/suspense film than a noir proper. It's about an assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln.

His later epics such as El Cid have their defenders as well, but I have not seen them.
Stars Down To Earth

A must-see film that combines horror and tragicomedy, I rewatched it yesterday and recommend it to all Salo-dwellers:

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The book was slightly better (aren't they always?), but the film was also a good satire of the brutally competitive nature of Japanese middle-class society and the adults vs. yootz generation struggle.

Meh, he's been disappointing lately. Seul Contre Tous and Irreversible were good stuff, but his last flick (that psychedelic one set in Japan) was pointless and boring as fuck.
Drieu
:thumbsdown: Lots of people say this, but it only applies to books that were good in the first place. There have been plenty of mediocre pulp novels whose films adaptations have greater artistic merit. Many Hitchcock films, for example.
Trajan
Hunger (1966)

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Roland

Hunger, a novel which is rich in psychological depth but rather lacking in conventional narrative -- that is to say, 'objectively' nothing really interesting takes place except within the subjective frame of the narrator -- poses considerable difficulty to cinematic translation, as a medium which is chiefly visual and external. Much of its profundity and humor comes from the protagonist's self-commentary, as he contemporaneously reflects on his starving mania, a desperation which provokes him to actions that, when viewed from the outside, seem absurd. And so I would imagine that, to someone unfamiliar with the novel, this adaptation would be equally inexplicable.

Director Henning Carlsen has condensed Hamsun's first masterpiece into a terse bit of social realism, like Bergman crossed with Vittorio de Sica. Traces of Hamun's irony shine through here and there, especially in the protagonist's odd dealings with the street fauna of Cristiana; however, Carlsen has chosen to emphasize the bleaker aspects of the original novel, and so his protagonist lacks the wry self-awareness of Hamsun's version. Nevertheless Per Oscarsson's performance is compelling -- one can readily sense the neurotic tension brimming below the surface, just waiting to erupt, as when he accuses a senile man on a park bench of not believing his grandiose and nonsensical fabrications (invented for no particular reason, it seems). Oscarsson apparently studied under Bergman himself, although his acting is thankfully not quite as stoically understated as one would expect of a Bergman devotee.

If this review seems conspicuously vague, it's because there is not a single scene that is not taken directly from the novel. Aside from several dream sequences (filmed in disorienting overexposure, another Bergman influence), Carlsen's Cristiana should seem familiar to Hamsun readers. Personally speaking, Carlsen's imagining hewed very closely to my own as I read the original novel.

Although I can't really recommend the film to those unfamiliar with Hamsun, there is enough here to make it worth experiencing for fans of Bergman, Bresson, et al. The pacing is tight and closely tied to the novel's narrative, so while there's not many surprises, it also never seems to drag or wear out its premise. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: and a half :thumbsup: .
Cornelio
Dolls
Takeshi Kitano, 2002

Another deranged work by Kitano. This time he tones down the mutilation a bit to focus more on the inner lives of the characters, and on the lush japanese landscape with its vast array of colors, forms, and scents (yes, scents, WHAT). Three stories, all with an unhappy ending, as it should be.
Trajan
Winter Light (1962)

Best Bergman I've seen so far. This is a placeholder until I cobble together a decent review.