Just watched The Princess And The Frog. It definitely deserves all the praise I've read about it. Facilier is definitely my favorite Disney villain and I found him and his "Friends" legitimately creepy.
It's kind of unusual to have villains with so little interaction with the heroes and with enigmatic background and motives.
HodorLast night, went to a screening of Deaf Mute Heroine. Kung fu craziness from 1971. Helen Ma is the titular heroine, using her mirrored wrist-bands and wicked swordplay to steal valuable pearls from bad guys. Naturally, this pisses a lot of people off, including the madam of a local gambling den. I don’t even know who plays her but she has the most amazing look of disdain.
Anyway, after being poisoned, Our Heroine is taken in by a simple cloth-dyer who nurses her back to health. The two of them fall in love and he decides he wants to save up enough money to marry her. He winds up getting in trouble thanks to his idiot work-mate, who convinces him to spend the boss’ money at the gambling house. Naturally, this leads to the villainess discovering the whereabouts of O.H.
Very, very bloody with some way-out fight scenes, including one in which O.H. fights with a corpse strapped to her back! Features a hilariously inappropriate showdown ending at a beach (one can’t help but wonder, “where has the OCEAN been hiding for this entire movie?”). Nice to see a gender-switch on the old “damsel in distress” thing; in this film, it's the MALE love interest who's useless at fighting and has to be rescued by his fiancée.
Directed by Chinese movie legend Wu Ma, better known for his acting roles (especially as the old Taoist from A Chinese Ghost Story). He also appears as the bald lackey of the gambling house madam.
I watched a french film last night called Farewell. Was really, really, good. And I absolutely loved the soundtrack. I waited through the credits to see who made it.
And then I saw that it was made by Clint Mansell and I was like, "Well, that explains it."
edited 23rd May '11 7:49:04 AM by Pyroninja42
"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."Ballistic Ecks Vs Sever is on TV, and I'm watching it due to boredom and Bile Fascination.
Think I might also make a page categorizing movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Don't Go in the Woods, Wrong Turn and Deliverance. Maybe call it "Backwoods Brutality" or "Hillbilly Horrors".
Last night, watched Paul Bartel’s Private Parts (1972) with a couple of friends. Teenage runaway gets into an argument with the friends she’s crashing with, winds up moving to her weird aunt’s hotel, which is full of freaks. She eventually winds up in a mutual obsession with a creepy photographer guy which ends badly (and strangely). Lucille Benson (as the creepy aunt) and Laurie Main (as the flamboyantly gay Reverend Moon) totally steal this movie. Benson seemed to have a thing about playing people who run hotels, she was also the woman who ran the Susan B. Anthony Hotel in TV’s Bosom Buddies. Laurie Main was a serious case of stunt casting; he was the narrator for the Winnie The Pooh TV specials! Also featuring Stanley Livingston (Chip Douglas from My Three Sons) as a nerdy young locksmith who dates our protagonist.
The plot was compelling and went to strange and unexpected places but part of me wishes there were more of the wacky and strange people who inhabited the hotel.
edited 5th Jun '11 1:12:18 AM by Bananaquit
Finally got to see Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Didn't like it as much as the first, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. There were a lot of laughs, despite the darker tone and legitimately scary moments.
Watched Like Water For Chocolate. Was absolutely not expecting the Magic Realism elements.
Cornered!, pretty much a sleazier, smaller scale version of Intruder. With Steve Guttenberg.
Was admittedly better than I expected.
edited 14th Jun '11 4:57:43 AM by LordCrayak
Billion Dollar Brain
(1967): Ever wonder what a jet-setting 60s spy film directed by Ken Russell would look like? Wonder no more: here's your answer. Michael Caine is Harry Palmer, who gets a mysterious phone call from a computerized voice, assigning him to make a delivery to Helsinki. The Harry Palmer films were conceived as a more down-to-Earth and realistic answer to the escapist James Bond films. That all went out of the window with this one because, you know...Ken Russell. While this follows the spy film formula pretty slavishly: a pretty and enigmatic femme-fatale (played by Françoise Dorleac, who died tragically during filming, and looks more like her sister Catherine Deneuve in this than in The Young Girls of Rochefort, in which they played twins* ), a mad supervillain (Ed Begley as a megalomaniac Texas oil billionaire, who very nearly steals the film in a performance that leaves no bit of scenery unchewed) with an outlandish plot (raising a private army to take on the Commies).
Where it differs from the norm is the plot itself, and the presentation of the plot. The first third of the film is very enigmatic, with all sorts of mysterious things going on in the background, and it requires nearly rapt attention from the viewer. Everything makes sense in the end but for a big chunk of the film it’s almost completely unclear what's going on. It’s no mystery why this film flopped—it's attempt to be a “thinking man’s” film didn't go over well with an audience looking for simple wish-fulfillment. It’s Ken Russell, so expect some rather ham-fisted and obvious symbolism: like the faux-Nazi symbols accompanying Ed Begley’s overheated speech at the midpoint. The Montgomery-Wards logo
has never looked so menacing. (I kid because I love.) Some incredible, memorable shots, such as Caine coming to in a bathtub, buried under a pile of bloody corpses. Not to mention the apocalyptic ending scene, which I will not give away! Also: don't miss the comic “nude” scene in a sauna which surely inspired a similar scene in the first Austin Powers movie.
Also features Oscar Homolka as a Soviet operative who does a damn fine job of stealing every scene he’s in. Ditto Karl Malden as Harry’s double-crossing buddy, Leo. The scenes of the massive titular computer were shot in Honeywell’s facility and will send anyone who remembers the era of keypunch machines and tape drives the size of refrigerators into fits of nostalgia.
All this set to an incredible soundtrack by Richard Rodney Bennett, including featured solos on the ondes Martenot
. If there isn’t a soundtrack album available, there should be!
I finally saw a few movies, like Austin Powers and Spaceballs and i loved them both
I saw Audition recently.
WTF, Miike. WTF.
ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.Just watched Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl the other day. It was okay, it wasn't as good as The Machine Girl, but it was fun if a bit gory (which was expected of course). I don't know if I was supposed to find the "japanese girls that wish they were black" scenes funny or not, I just found them awkward.
Also saw The Crater Lake Monster.
I just wish it had been as creepy as I thought the trailer was when I was younger..
edited 13th Jun '11 6:43:09 AM by NULLcHiLD27
I saw Krull today. I thought it was great. It would have made a much better Dungeons And Dragons movie than the one we got.
Pages Needing Images@ Midnight Movie. Saw that one quite a while ago, I'll give them props for the weapon, strange as it might be, but I was a little disappointed really. Maybe I expected it to be more meta, or maybe the ending left a little to be desired, but either way, the concept was pretty fun.
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