Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

Metal Movie double feature last night:

"The Mentors: Kings of Sleaze Rockumentary" (2017)
The rise, fall and rebirth of the infamous "rape rock" combo fronted by the late, legendary El Duce is retold in this entertaining documentary which traces the band's history through vintage interviews, photos, and clips, which are just as tasteless, silly, and offensive as you'd expect from these guys. A guilty pleasure.

"Lords of Chaos" (2019)
Dramatized re-enactment of the story of Mayhem, the group of anti-social Norwegian teens whose goal was to create the darkest, most evil Black Metal band ever. Over time, a bizarre game of "I'm more evil than you" one-upmanship develops between band members, which leads to a series of church arsons and eventually, murder. Great performances by Rory Culkin (yes, Macauley's brother) as the doomed Oysten "Euronymous" Aarseth and Emory Cohen as Varg "Count Grishnakh" Vikernes. I'm sure the movie is riddled with historical inaccuracies that Black Metal purists would be able to pick apart, but as an outsider viewing it simply as a drama, "Lords of Chaos" is a compelling watch.

[lester1/2jr]

Raw - recent, somewhat hip cannibal movie that hits all the right foreign film/ independent movie notes. If I'd seen this at the Coolidge corner theater my freshman year of college I would probably think it was the greatest movie ever. As for now, I enjoyed it and mainly appreciated that it's crazy and weird. The director knew they had a good concept and could have just phoned it in but instead took chances and made it more colorful and memorable.

The plot is a vegetarian girl goes to veterinary school, starts eating meat, and becomes a cannibal. Joining her in this is her equally sort of hot older sister, who is also a student and helps guide her through the bizarre hazing rituals they for some reason have there. european type rave scenes, bisexuality, and dark family secrets soon follow

4.5 /5 nice one

[Gabriel Knight]

THE INTERVIEW (1998)

A duel between a suspected murderer and a detective pressed by people who want results. But whose skin is really wanted.

Fantastic film starring Hugo Weaving before he went big with MATRIX. It reminds me a lot to 12 ANGRY MEN, in which most of the movie is dialog and happens inside a single room. Superb acting, very moody music, and the plot keeps you guessing enough for the duration of the film.
The ending leaves you wondering about what really happened not only inside that room, but also with the events that led to that meeting. It has a high rewatchability factor.

One thing tho, they have extremely thick accents, so for someone who isn't native english speaker like me, subtitles are mandatory, hehe. Check it out! 9/10

[Rev. Powell]

Raw - recent, somewhat hip cannibal movie that hits all the right foreign film/ independent movie notes. If I'd seen this at the Coolidge corner theater my freshman year of college I would probably think it was the greatest movie ever. As for now, I enjoyed it and mainly appreciated that it's crazy and weird. The director knew they had a good concept and could have just phoned it in but instead took chances and made it more colorful and memorable.

The plot is a vegetarian girl goes to veterinary school, starts eating meat, and becomes a cannibal. Joining her in this is her equally sort of hot older sister, who is also a student and helps guide her through the bizarre hazing rituals they for some reason have there. european type rave scenes, bisexuality, and dark family secrets soon follow

4.5 /5 nice one

The director has a new one coming out soon about a woman who has sex with a car. Looking forward to it.

[Dr. Whom]

Raw - recent, somewhat hip cannibal movie that hits all the right foreign film/ independent movie notes. If I'd seen this at the Coolidge corner theater my freshman year of college I would probably think it was the greatest movie ever. As for now, I enjoyed it and mainly appreciated that it's crazy and weird. The director knew they had a good concept and could have just phoned it in but instead took chances and made it more colorful and memorable.

The plot is a vegetarian girl goes to veterinary school, starts eating meat, and becomes a cannibal. Joining her in this is her equally sort of hot older sister, who is also a student and helps guide her through the bizarre hazing rituals they for some reason have there. european type rave scenes, bisexuality, and dark family secrets soon follow

4.5 /5 nice one

The director has a new one coming out soon about a woman who has sex with a car. Looking forward to it.

Would that be Titane, which won the Palme D'Or at Cannes? I'm planning on seeing it one of these days.

[zelmo73]

The Ring (2002) - Horror film set around the premise of an urban myth about a videocassette (!) that kills the person that watches it within seven days of viewing it. Said person receives a phone call from a little girl that tells them that they will die in seven days.

This movie has its silly moments (it's always raining in Seattle; like always) and a ton of plot holes (what if you watch the cursed videocassette and there are no phones around for the little girl to call you and tell you that you are going to die?) but it manages to keep the creepy factor consistent throughout the film. This movie follows a similar path that Candyman (1992) took and keeps the audience in a constant state of gloom and doom, which works extremely well in this sorry day and age that we live in where horror films seem to always try to inject some cheesy comedy into the script which spoils the horror factor for us. Imagine if comedy was inserted into such modern horror film classics such as The Shining (1980) or The Thing (1982) to understand my point. While the plot surrounding the creepy ghost girl and how she came to be gets a tad convoluted the more that is uncovered, to the point where I started to stop caring about what happened to her; The Ring (2002) clocks in at just under 2 hours and is evenly paced enough that it never becomes boring. The acting is pretty decent and everybody puts on a convincing performance; even the little boy whom I initially found annoying because his role was an obvious rip from the same page as the "I see dead people" kid from The Sixth Sense (1999) but his role isn't overplayed and the kid is not a bad actor at all.

My only complaint about the film was the very confusing ending and why the "myth" surrounding the videocassette was allowed to continue and perpetuated by two of the main characters in the film, because the movie never really explains why this happens. It seems that it is difficult to give a good ending to horror movies nowadays, and sadly this movie commits the cardinal sin of not knowing where it should have properly ended.

[Rev. Powell]

Raw - recent, somewhat hip cannibal movie that hits all the right foreign film/ independent movie notes. If I'd seen this at the Coolidge corner theater my freshman year of college I would probably think it was the greatest movie ever. As for now, I enjoyed it and mainly appreciated that it's crazy and weird. The director knew they had a good concept and could have just phoned it in but instead took chances and made it more colorful and memorable.

The plot is a vegetarian girl goes to veterinary school, starts eating meat, and becomes a cannibal. Joining her in this is her equally sort of hot older sister, who is also a student and helps guide her through the bizarre hazing rituals they for some reason have there. european type rave scenes, bisexuality, and dark family secrets soon follow

4.5 /5 nice one

The director has a new one coming out soon about a woman who has sex with a car. Looking forward to it.

Would that be Titane, which won the Palme D'Or at Cannes? I'm planning on seeing it one of these days.

Yep!

[lester1/2jr]

if you think about it, the whole movie was really about leftist indoctrination at college campuses

[Dr. Whom]

Of Freaks and Men (1998)

A pastiche of silent melodrama. Although it is shot with sound, it uses much of the conventions of a silent movie, including the text boards and being filmed in sepia monochrome. It is the story of how a pornographer specialising in movies where naked girls get spanked, takes over the lives of two bourgeois families in prerevolutionary St. Petersburg. And there are musical Siamese twins.

It is supposed to be a social commentary on post Soviet Russia. It is pretty bleak and quite sleazy at times, which I think was to be offset by the period/silent movie setting. To me, this was more of a gimmick than a plus.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" (2010)
In order to win his dream girl (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a dorky Canadian slacker (Michael Cera) must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in a series of video-game style battles. Edgar "Shaun of the Dead" Wright's stylish hipster action comedy (based on a graphic novel) is definitely one of the weirdest movies I've seen in a while but it's also a lot of fun. 

[Rev. Powell]

EVANGELION 3.0 + 1.0: THRICE UPON A TIME (2021): The plot defies description, but... angsty teenage mecha pilot Shinji must cope with his guilt over inadvertently nearly destroying the world, and regroup to face NERV and his own father in a final apocalyptic battle. A large portion of this 2.5 hour epic is a post-apocalyptic drama, but there's plenty of visual (and conceptual) fireworks in this series capper that, while remaining obscure in its final half-hour, gives more closure to minor characters and may have more conventional popular appeal than the two alternate endings to the previous series. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Hangman (2015) - There are a couple movies called Hangman, this is the one where it's a guy who lives in a family's attic and watches them and screws with them and so forth.

There have been other movies with this same sort of plot. This one even has the same move of the guy using the peoples toothbrush as 13 Cameras (also 2015) but I liked it. It was a little better than 13 cameras, but not as good as 14 cameras!

It has terrible reviews on IMDB but there were enough positive ones that I decided to check it out and I'm glad I did.

4.5/ 5  Its limited from being great mainly by the straightforwardness of the plot: its just a guy in a families house watching them. He could have messed with the formula a little more. The story is reasonably well thought out and the acting is good too, though. "boringly sick" says one review. is that supposed to be bad?

[FatFreddysCat]

"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood" (2003)
BBC Documentary about the so called "New Hollywood" movement of the late 60s and early 70s, which saw the old fashioned "studio system" fall by the wayside in favor of a new, daring, experimental way of film making led by "auteur" directors like Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, William Friedkin, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas, and more. Based on the book by Peter Biskind, which was one of the best books on the movie biz I've ever read. This doc isn't nearly as in depth as the book but it's still a fun watch full of cool interviews and vintage clips.

"Phantasm" (1979)
A pair of brothers and their dorky friend investigate strange goings-on at the local funeral parlor, led by a mysterious mortician known as "The Tall Man."
I know lots of people dig this movie, but I'm gonna be honest, this is my third try and "Phantasm" still lkinda sucks. The story makes no sense, the acting is terrible. and the pacing is sluggish. In spite of all that, this movie has become a cult classic and spawned several sequels, though I'm still not entirely sure why. I guess it's one of those movies you either "get" or you don't, and I don't. (shrugs)

[Alex]

"Phantasm" (1979)
A pair of brothers and their dorky friend investigate strange goings-on at the local funeral parlor, led by a mysterious mortician known as "The Tall Man."
I know lots of people dig this movie, but I'm gonna be honest, this is my third try and "Phantasm" still lkinda sucks. The story makes no sense, the acting is terrible. and the pacing is sluggish. In spite of all that, this movie has become a cult classic and spawned several sequels, though I'm still not entirely sure why. I guess it's one of those movies you either "get" or you don't, and I don't. (shrugs)

If it helps, think of it as being a dream. It isn't supposed to be rooted in reality and strange things happen because well dreams don't always make sense.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Madman" (1982)
As they prepare to close down a summer camp at the end of the season, a group of counselors make the mistake of mocking local legend "Madman" Marz, a farmer who supposedly went insane and ax murdered his entire family many years ago. Of course, the hillbilly decapitator then magically appears to start whackin' away at them.
It doesn't have an original bone in its body, of course, but "Madman" is a pretty decent "Friday the 13th" knock off - the acting is adequate, the action moves quickly, and it wastes no time getting to the good gory stuff. Worth a look if you're a slasher aficionado.