Cinema and Movie Thread: flickering images

[Amentep]

Yeah the alternate ending is probably too long; watching the version for the director's cut it feels very repetitive (which I've heard some people debate whether Oz would have really used all that footage).  While the original film  ending keeps to the idea of the Broadway ending, the original Broadway version is substantially different as well -

Spoiler

Broadway ending has Patrick, Chiffon, Ronnette and Crystal return to the shop after Seymore is eaten.  Patrick takes the cuttings and Chiffon, Ronnette and Crystal sing about these cuttings leading to other Audrey II's getting people to feed it blood for promises of money, then a bigger Audrey II appears and like the original Corman film it flowers with the heads of the characters its ate (Seymore, Audrey, Mushnick, Orin).  The heads end the show singing a warning to not feed the plants.

***

For my part, I finally got around to watching New York Ninja.  While it was fun, it was pretty obvious IMO that the film they put together misses parts of what the original plot was which was pretty unfortunate and makes for an overall weaker film than perhaps it should have been even with its super-low budget nature.

[Amentep]

 

[Keyrock]

The second part of my late 80s Bruno Mattei double feature is arguably his most famous film:

Shocking Dark (1989) - This film's alternate title is Terminator 2 and while there is just enough Terminator knockoff present to not make that flat out false advertising (which would be par for the course for low budget Italian cinema) I'd say this movie is 90% blatant Aliens knockoff and 10% Terminator knockoff. You've got the Colonial Marines Mega Force sent on an investigation and rescue mission into a "water purification plant" in future ruined Venice where they are faced with essentially sahaugin rather than xenomorphs. While she's no Jenette Goldstein, Geretta Geretta as Ersatz Vasquez is the most memorable character in the movie. Her over the top attitude and foul mouth are a joy. The members of Mega Force get picked off one by one as they go deeper into the facility and discover the true plans of the evil Weyland-Yutani Tubular Corporation, hilariously told in a James Bond villain exposition scene where the villain details their evil plan for no reason whatsoever. The ending is *chef kiss*

 

Ersatz Ripley and Ersatz Newt are about to die as the facility's self destruct is counting down when they stumble into a time travel pod and at the last minute travel back in time to non-ruined Venice. But oh no, Ersatz Burke, who is a secret cyborg (there's your Terminator) also traveled back in time from another time travel pod and is trying to kill them until Ersatz Ripley throws a remote control at him which send him back to the future (?) somehow????????? I don't have enough question marks on this keyboard.

Really fun B movie with terrible acting, borderline passable action, cool monsters, and some legitimately solid cinematography. A must watch for any fan of crappy but fun movies. Easily one of the best Aliens knockoffs.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

Peppermint Soda (1977). The hilarious, somewhat depressing, much higher budget, awkward teenaged version of the aforementioned The Pupil. Instead of a small orphanage of Italian girls being rather miserable with life, it's an entire French girl's school of them (though the film predominantly focuses on two sisters, their respective social groups, and their relationship with each other). It was very French/10, but also quite enjoyable (especially at the scale that this was depicted - so many students in such a huge school!)...well, except for one of the main supporting cast turning into a Nazi as well as the girls being preyed on by creeps, but what else is new?

Quote

Diane Kurys had no prior directorial experience, saying prior to the film she had "never held a camera or even taken a still photograph." She conceived of the idea for the film when she "began thinking that there are a lot of films about adolescent boys, since most directors are men, but there are very few films about girls in high school and how they're raised. I decided to make this film out of my own memories." Kurys added, "But I didn't want to make adolescence a happy time. I wanted to show that it's difficult to be a 13-year-old girl, to want something desperately even if it's only a pair of pantyhose and to have nobody understand you."

Kurys received partial funding for the film through a grant program, in addition to the support of Gaumont. Kurys said, "[Gaumont] were very skeptical, as you can imagine, but at that time I had such energy and conviction that they finally said, 'Maybe she's crazy, but let's give her a try.'" Kurys drew on her own experiences as a young adolescent, setting the film at the same lycée she attended and partly basing the characters on her real-life sister and herself.

I don't know what's going on here, but I like the cut of their jib.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

It was very French/10, but also quite enjoyable

couldn't help but think what it would be if not french.

korean: there would be extreme bullying and a revenge plot.

japanese anime: would have no real plot but there would be at least one scene at the beach, and possible one at an onsen. the school cultural festival would figure prominent and one character would likely have an inexplicable pet 'bout which nobody would comment.

german: the important aspect would be it would be black and white. there would also be a whole lotta symbolism fans o' the film would pretend to appreciate.

polish: same as german but a whole lot darker.

english: distilled, the movie would be ninety minutes o' uncomfortable shame and embarrassment... and that would be the comedy take on the subject matter.

american: actors (likely pro models) too old to be high schoolers do their best to pretend being average american teens navigating cliques/heart ache/drugs/teen angst/etc.

HA! Good Fun!

[Bartimaeus]

Well, those are incredibly offensive and damaging stereotypes of foreign film, but I was laughing out loud by the time I got to the German one, so I think it's okay. I did groan from the American one, but because you're unfortunately completely correct with that one, and that combined with really a host of other related and also unrelated issues really makes the majority of American teenage-focused cinema/TV very unbearable for me. Although Peppermint Soda was indeed very French/10, I probably undersold how much I enjoyed it: I think I kind of loved it.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

El Conde (2023)

Holy ****ing ****, Netflix put out a movie that's not just good, but ****ing fantastic? Unbelievable, but it's true.

The long and short of it is that it's a black and white surreal satire where Augsto Pinochet is a 200+ year old vampire who has dedicated his eternal life to stopping every revolution, but now he wants to die and his kids want his money. That synopsis will spoil nothing for you, the film is very weird, beautiful, sounds incredible, and is overall one of the best experiences I've had this year. I can not recommend this enough.

Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023)

Another standout, but for different reasons. If this is the end of the Venture Brothers then I'm ok with that, it's not as great as a final season would have been but all things considered it's a good way to go out. Maybe Warner Bros will come to their senses and let Publick and Hammer do more, but with Zaslav burning down HBO's catalog for a tax write off I'm not going to hope for anything. I can't recommend this to anyone who hasn't seen Venture Bros, but if you have and still haven't seen this you need to watch the movie.

[Sarex]

17 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

El Conde (2023)

Holy ****ing ****, Netflix put out a movie that's not just good, but ****ing fantastic? Unbelievable, but it's true.

The long and short of it is that it's a black and white surreal satire where Augsto Pinochet is a 200+ year old vampire who has dedicated his eternal life to stopping every revolution, but now he wants to die and his kids want his money. That synopsis will spoil nothing for you, the film is very weird, beautiful, sounds incredible, and is overall one of the best experiences I've had this year. I can not recommend this enough.

Damn, you kind of undersold it on the weird aspect. Fun movie overall, if a little slow at times. Some scenes got drawn out a little bit too much for my taste.

Fun fact, the name vampire originates from the Serbian word vampir which is how we call them.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Sarex

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

Damn, you kind of undersold it on the weird aspect. Fun movie overall, if a little slow at times. Some scenes got drawn out a little bit too much for my taste.

Fun fact, the name vampire originates from the Serbian word vampir which is how we call them.

I think that if I accurately described the movie no one would believe me, so I thought I would let yall be surprised.

[Amentep]

Liked the trailer for El Conde, looking forward to see it...someday.

[Gromnir]

On 9/19/2023 at 11:53 AM, Sarex said:

Damn, you kind of undersold it on the weird aspect.

...

is kp, so our assumption were "weird" were the flick's most outstanding quality. am not having seen el conde, but given kp approval our starting point is the belief the movie makes naked lunch and un chien andalou feel tame in the comparison.

slight hyperbole. slight.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 hours ago, Amentep said:

Liked the trailer for El Conde, looking forward to see it...someday.

Someday you'll be very entertained or very confused, perhaps both.

[Amentep]

 

[Keyrock]

Vinegar Syndrome also just put up pre-orders (at a discount) for The Prophecy Trilogy. I have fond memories of watching those movies waaaay back in the day and I'm 100% snapping that up.

[Amentep]

I've actually never watched them. Heard they were fun, but never got around to watching them.

[Bartimaeus]

Barbie (2023).

I was told to expect feminist proaganda, but instead I got a movie that just tries to have a discussion about societal issues affecting not just women but also men (...though obviously especially women) coming from an interesting perspective. It's not the greatest or nothing, it's not really my thing to be so on the nose and accomplish it via toys, but it was alright.

Horrible country music being the ultimate representation of patriarchy was pretty hilarious, though.

[LadyCrimson]

Finally got to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

Much better than the 2nd one, although the end action/heroics/fights etc. became a little ridiculous - and over-extended - even for GotG. Very video-gamey. And the CGI of Groot's new look didn't come off that well, imo.  Still, mostly entertaining/fun, for the the series. The first one is still the best one.

[Bartimaeus]

Alice (1988).

Super cool visuals and incredibly creative live-action take on Alice in Wonderland, combining many practical and stop-motion effects in a pretty awesome way to create a surreal and creepy adventure. Unfortunately, I kind of hated it, mostly because every time any character talked, it would cut to these gross close-ups of a mouth saying the dialogue.

The stupid bastard who thought that literally every even momentary piece of dialogue should hard cut to and from this disgusting mouth should have their own sheared straight out of their skull. I got so aggravated that every time I even thought a character might possibly speak, I automatically started closing my eyes. It was miserable.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Mad God (2021). Well, cinema was a mistake.

I don't think you'll ever see a more vile visual masterpiece of a stop motion film. Strongly recommended to @PK htiw klaw eriF if he hasn't already seen it. It was hard to look away except for when I had to cover my eyes.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

Looking forward to Mad God whenever I get around to it.

[Sarex]

15 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Mad God (2021)

Such a strong anti capitalism/consumerism message...

Spoiler

But for real wtf is this movie even about, expect being strange. I got the whole war motif and time running out, but even then the whole movie is incoherent.

Spoiler

But hey I watched the second half of the movie in stop motion too...

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

After Yang (2021)

Colin Farrell plays a dad trying to fix his daughter's sibling robot in a future with clones and other utopian techo stuff.

It's very melancholy, so much so that I was very sad after watching it. Definitely not something you want to watch when you're feeling down. That aside, it's a very good film, kind of like the inverse of the Liam Neeson "dad detective/soldier" films where the dad kills lots of dudes to rescue his kids. It's very meditative and slow, with focus on family dynamics in the near future and memory. I dug it.

19 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Strongly recommended to @PK htiw klaw eriF if he hasn't already seen it.

I wanted to watch it a while ago but forgot about it with everything else going on, thanks for reminding me about it.

[Gromnir]

On 9/24/2023 at 8:54 PM, Bartimaeus said:

Mad God (2021). Well, cinema was a mistake.

 

I don't think you'll ever see a more vile visual masterpiece of a stop motion film. Strongly recommended to @PK htiw klaw eriF if he hasn't already seen it. It was hard to look away except for when I had to cover my eyes.

we were interested, but somebody with similar taste in flicks to us saw it and told us mad god woulda' been an intriguing visual spectacle if it were edited down to twenty minutes... or less. for our friend, mad god were too much shock value w/o enough substance to carry it for a feature length offering. 

we will likely see it eventual, but am not a dedicated fan o' grotesque horror and if am unwilling to put up with james joyce being conscious obtuse, then is almost zero chance we will will grant phil tippett more leeway.

HA! Good Fun!

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

we were interested, but somebody with similar taste in flicks to us saw it and told us mad god woulda' been an intriguing visual spectacle if it were edited down to twenty minutes... or less. for our friend, mad god were too much shock value w/o enough substance to carry it for a feature length offering. 

we will likely see it eventual, but am not a dedicated fan o' grotesque horror and if am unwilling to put up with james joyce being conscious obtuse, then is almost zero chance we will will grant phil tippett more leeway.

HA! Good Fun!

There is a story and theme to the film, but it is minimalist and rather impressionistic, and yes, I think you could work through the same ideas in a smaller time frame...but you'd take away both marvel and gravity that it would have if you did so too much. Rather than "it should have been twenty minutes", I would personally say that it probably would've been better off at twenty minutes less from its run time of 1:23: tighten up the pacing and cut out some of the of the indulgently gratuitous fat, and I probably would've gone from an "it was really neat and imaginative" to a less reserved "I actually rather quite liked it". Especially because anyone who knows my tastes in TV and film should know that anything which could even be vaguely called "impressionistic" would not normally fall under my wheelhouse: I'm all about comprehensible characters and dialogue and fully understanding what I am watching, and Mad God offers very little in any of that. I think for KP's "Eraserhead"-addled brain, it will probably be quite sublime, but for me...well, yeah, it was definitely neat.

12 hours ago, Sarex said:

But for real

The opening scene shows a particularly noteworthy event in mythological history while reading a passage from Leviticus, which I took to kind of inform the audience for understanding the story and themes, but it's still definitely a bit loosey-goosey and up for some level of individual interpretation.

[Amentep]

Asylum asylums an upcoming movie but...it doesn't look bad...?

 

 Also, movie awards are at low ebb so Golden Globes adds blockbuster and stand-up categories