list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Grosse Point Blank mentioned on the previous page is definitely one of my favorite John Cusack dark

^^ I've pretty much seen most his films including The Raven (which I enjoyed).

^^I did a quick Wiki check and it is a Stephen King story.

Saw the Werner Herzog remake way before the 1922 original. Even more so than the 1979 remake, it is peculiar how Nosferatu can take a loose adaptation of a novel written by an Irishman and make it so characteristically German. I'm starting to wonder how much of the nightmarish visual style characterizing German Expressionist horror films of that era, from the grotesquely caricatured performances over creative use of lighting/shadow to the exaggerated makeup/prop/set design, are results of having to work around the extreme technical limitations of the era making any relative realism difficult in the fantastic genres. Even then, there's some photography I imagine must have been very impressive on a technical level for the 1920s, and the result being that it's one of the most genuinely eerie old horror films I've seen in a long, long while... and horrifying on some profound level of modern civilized humanity's consciousness.

I think it's how it plays up Count Orlok as the personification of everything modern civilization presents itself as having conquered: Feudal tyranny, epidemic diseases like the black plague, occult superstitions that here are presented as turning out to be true... this film really plays like some half-remembered hazy nightmare.

Dean wrote: Mr Turner. It began, the wife made a pot of tea, we watched some paint dry, <span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">I ate a portion of lemon soufflé,</span><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"> the wife fell asleep, Timothy Spall grunted and gruffaloed, I </span><span style="line-height: 1.4;">fell asleep, the end credits rolled, we woke up. </span>

Remove the wife and lemon soufflé from the above post and you have my exact opinion of Mr. Turner.
Wow....and to think that I had such high expectations for this flick. One of my fave British painters - one that foresaw impressism by quite a few years, and it still had nigh on zero excitement throughout it's running time. Instead the focus was on everyday life, awkward sex with the maid and all the dull info on painting.
What a disappointment!!!

This was supposedly seen as one of Hitchcock's lesser films when released back in 1958, but there's a reason why this is so revered today: Everything from the film obviously has a lot of work, from the camerawork and performances to the plot developing the characters as well as its use of central themes. Even small details things like the juxtaposition of the nature scenes with modern city life, the possibility of one character having inherited an ancestor's neuroses and small visual details or the constant references to characters' and locations' historical past... you really get a sense of insanity, violence and past sins bubbling up to the surface beneath the fragile surface of modern civilized humanity. This is something that again is incorporated in how the protagonists' personalities break down, as well as the final twists that keep piling up after the halfway mark following that central pattern in structure.

If there's one issue I have with this film, it's how abrupt the climax resolves the story's central conflicts and in some cases leave hanging but I think in some cases that might be part of the point.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - April 03 2015 at 14:12

I've been thinking of catching up to the rest of the Hitchcock canon, but after that one and Nosferatu I feel like taking a break from any movies too disturbing.

I've already seen that one a long time ago. It's more The Birds or perhaps Rope that I wanted to see next. (with Strangers on a Train I'd prefer to read the book first)

Has anyone seen The Grand Budapest Hotel? I found it delightfully twisted. Great performance by Ralph Fiennes, as usual.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Somehow one expects wonder and magic in a Tolkien adaptation.   But the affection Peter Jackson showed for the material and characters in the Rings films and vaguely seen in the first two Hobbits, is noticeably missing here.   And after years of other high fantasy flicks of varying quality, this one just sorta fades into the background leaving little residual flavor.   Five Armies has its moments now & then but not enough to salvage the ponderous pace.