• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

A few reviews

Moe_Syzlak

Well-known member
Messages
3,451
Reaction score
1,161
Trophy Points
118
I’m not really a fan of horror movies. I don’t think of The Shining as a horror movie. But I do think it’s a great movie. I suspect people who dislike The Shining or 2001 go into the films with preconceived notions as to what a haunted house movie or a space movie should be. That’s fine and those that dislike the movies aren’t wrong. But I’ve also noticed that there’s also a recent trend trying to discredit Kubrick seemingly based on more modern sensibilities. I don’t love everything Kubrick has done; not by a long shot. But these are two of my favorites so I felt compelled to defend them. Take that as you will.

And if you don’t like those movies you’ll likely want to stay far away from Tarkovsky.
 

mnkykungfu

Well-known member
Donor
Messages
2,279
Reaction score
747
Trophy Points
123
Keizoku-images-c118fd30-4c1b-46fe-925f-3e60f28e9ab.jpg

ケイゾク(Keizoku - 1999)
This is a Japanese series, which work more like British series than American ones. That is, they tell a few episodes and then that's it, the story is done. If it's really popular, maybe they get a sequel series or a movie. This is a really fascinating one for me because it's such an uneven journey with wildly clashing tones.

The first Keizoku ("unsolved cases") series was an unabashed X-Files ripoff. A Tokyo Metropolitan Police officer screws up on the job and is banished to the keizoku department, where careers go to die. Viewers follow the bright new female recruit who requests assignment to the department to make a name for herself by solving these dead cases. While they all seem bizarre and unexplainable, she proves that each one can be solved with good procedural detective work. It was a modest hit.


51wYQ%2BrdfcL.jpg

ケイゾク(Keizoku) 2: SPEC (2010)
This much-delayed sequel series is where this really takes off as somewhat of a remake but also upending expectations. This time, we are introduced through SIT officer (like SWAT) Sebumi, whose own unexplainable screwup leads him to be banished to Keizoku. When he arrives, the sole investigator in the department is a young girl, Toma, who has no social graces and has her arm perpetually wrapped in a sling. Sebumi's re-assignment starts a sudden uptick in new "unsolvable" cases, which Toma is happy to believe are the result paranormal abilities. Sebumi is the sceptic, who insists that muscle and streetwork solve cases over hypothetical deductions. The odd couple interplay is the heart of the series, seeing it through sort of "villain of the week" episodes where Saya basically discovers a new X-man each episode.

I caught this in fits and spurts on TV in Japan, and struggled to understand wtf was going on. The setup is obvious enough, but the names for different abilities (like precognition) are hard to understand, as is all the political and conspiracy theory talk. As the disparate threads introduced each week began to cohere into a complicated story with Hellfire Club-type mutant illuminati councils, I lost the ability to follow the plot. It took me years, but I finally tracked this down with subs.....and it's still not fully explained. A street fortune teller who can really tell fortunes is one thing, but by the end when unspeaking men in suits show up to blow vuvuzelas that teleport people, I was both totally lost and totally hooked.

This is a fascinating watch for anyone looking to get into popular Japanese cinema (not the auteurs) or anime though. The tone, running gags, and use of cultural tropes is like a live action anime. There are some fantastic stylistic elements to it, such as the credit sequences, music, and Toma's Sherlockian crime-solving method. At the end of each case, she uses ink and paper to paint the characters for all the key elements in the mystery. Then she rips them to pieces and scatters them in the air, moving through a cloud of the word bits in slow motion, picking out what's missing to solve the mystery. While the acting can be overly slapstick at times, Erika Toda is a great anchor for the series, and wanting to find out the mystery of her arm kept me watching to the end. While it is somewhat resolved, this teases a sequel film in a post-credit sequence just like later MCU movies. (They did eventually make several, which I'll have to watch to get all the answers!)
 

Hymie

Well-known member
Messages
878
Reaction score
120
Trophy Points
48
I’m not really a fan of horror movies. I don’t think of The Shining as a horror movie. But I do think it’s a great movie. I suspect people who dislike The Shining or 2001 go into the films with preconceived notions as to what a haunted house movie or a space movie should be. That’s fine and those that dislike the movies aren’t wrong. But I’ve also noticed that there’s also a recent trend trying to discredit Kubrick seemingly based on more modern sensibilities. I don’t love everything Kubrick has done; not by a long shot. But these are two of my favorites so I felt compelled to defend them. Take that as you will.

And if you don’t like those movies you’ll likely want to stay far away from Tarkovsky.

Not enjoying the films doesn't mean I don't "get" them, I completely understand what Kubrick is going for in the films, but for me there's a disconnect between the intention/message and enjoyability factor. For me, Kubrick was great until 2001. With 2001 and all his subsequent films, he went for a style over substance style that wasn't very enjoyable to me. I do not deride him for his choices nor the films, but purely for the enjoyment I get from the films he made after Dr. Strangelove which just don't entertain me. They are proficiently made and technically magnificent, but they lack the entertainment factor I look for when dedicating myself to watch a film.

I enjoy films from all decades from the 1920s until today, and enjoy nearly every genre of cinema. I feel like discrediting films as simply being crticised from a "modern sensibility" is unfair, especially for films like 2001 or The Shining, both of which were given poor critical reviews and receptions upon release. They eventually found their audiences, but I think it's clear neither film was made with the intention of appealing to a mass audience (which rarely happens in studio films in this day and age, unfortunately).

For what it's worth, I don't really classify The Shining as a horror movie, rather as a character study of psychosis and home isolation can drive people insane. Likewise, 2001 is more about the history of man and his search for answers. In both cases the films succeed at their job, but neither is a satisfying experience for me as a viewer. I envy those that can enjoy these so called classics, though I'm perfectly fine with not liking the films as I am with you enjoying them.
 

Moe_Syzlak

Well-known member
Messages
3,451
Reaction score
1,161
Trophy Points
118
Not enjoying the films doesn't mean I don't "get" them, I completely understand what Kubrick is going for in the films, but for me there's a disconnect between the intention/message and enjoyability factor. For me, Kubrick was great until 2001. With 2001 and all his subsequent films, he went for a style over substance style that wasn't very enjoyable to me. I do not deride him for his choices nor the films, but purely for the enjoyment I get from the films he made after Dr. Strangelove which just don't entertain me. They are proficiently made and technically magnificent, but they lack the entertainment factor I look for when dedicating myself to watch a film.

I enjoy films from all decades from the 1920s until today, and enjoy nearly every genre of cinema. I feel like discrediting films as simply being crticised from a "modern sensibility" is unfair, especially for films like 2001 or The Shining, both of which were given poor critical reviews and receptions upon release. They eventually found their audiences, but I think it's clear neither film was made with the intention of appealing to a mass audience (which rarely happens in studio films in this day and age, unfortunately).

For what it's worth, I don't really classify The Shining as a horror movie, rather as a character study of psychosis and home isolation can drive people insane. Likewise, 2001 is more about the history of man and his search for answers. In both cases the films succeed at their job, but neither is a satisfying experience for me as a viewer. I envy those that can enjoy these so called classics, though I'm perfectly fine with not liking the films as I am with you enjoying them.

I specifically said anyone who doesn’t enjoy these movies isn’t “wrong.” But it’s clear that the enjoyment is coming from the desire to be entertained in a more traditional sense. Which is exactly what you claim these movies fail to do. I would agree to a large extent. I don’t find 2001 a movie which I can put on and enjoy time and time again. But that’s not what the intent was. I enjoy 2001 for what it is and attempts (which we’ve seen on this site before) to streamline the movie to make it more of a thrill ride do, in my opinion, miss the point. Which is not to say that it can’t still be a worthy goal and a fun exercise. But it is a akin to editing Friday the 13th to be a Rom Com.

My point was merely that there a lot of Kubrick backlash out there lately, not just on this site. That is understandable, IMO, because for a long time Kubrick has been held up as almost the benchmark of filmmaking perfection, which I think is also over the top. I think the. Jupiter & Beyond part of 2001 hasn’t aged particularly well, for example. I don’t think 2001 is a perfect film, but when the criticism is aimed at intentional decisions without acknowledging that they are, in fact, intentional then I think your criticism is open to rebuttal. Too slow and deliberate is, by itself, not a valid criticism of 2001 in my opinion.
 

skyled

Well-known member
Messages
241
Reaction score
37
Trophy Points
33
Spotlight - 2015
Movie about the Boston Globe's research into Catholic priest child sex abuse in the Boston area. It's very well done and maintains strong pacing throughout. It spends almost the entire time following the reporters as they dig for evidence. It gives you real appreciation for reporters that do actual investigative journalism, like a police detective. It reminded me of some recent articles by Glenn Greenwald where he ridicules journalists during the Bush and Trump years for their so-called fact checking where some DOJ hack will leak a false story to the New York Times and they'll report on it, and then the same guy leaks it to the Washington Post and the Post is now able to "independently verify" the original NYT story. These guys from the Boston Globe didn't work like that, even when it seemed like all of Boston was against them digging any deeper.

Something I noticed, which isn't necessarily a complaint, is that very little time is spent examining the motivations of the victims or the abusers. After the kids are molested the first time, why did they keep going back? Was it blackmail, bribery, threats? Why are so many priests abusers? These questions aren't really explored in the movie, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, because it makes the audience want to explore on their own to find out for themselves. It's both frustrating to not be fed the answers, as if there are any easy answers, and invigorating because the movie actually makes you want to learn more.

Ghost World - 2001
Two best friends and social outcasts graduate high school and now must figure out what to do with the rest of their lives as they meet strange characters and slowly drift apart. I think this one and Lost in Translation are spiritually connected. They're both about feeling lost and alienated, they're both rather slow and meandering, and both are sporadically very funny. I especially liked the scenes in Enid's art class.

Wolf's Rain - 2003
Anime series about a pack of wolves in a post-apocalyptic/nuclear winter future. The wolves can change into humans and there's a mythology that says wolves will open the door to Paradise. The show is dragged out, and features 4(!) recap episodes in the middle of the series. Too many episodes are just the wolves wandering through some generic wasteland complaining that they're hungry. There's some interesting stuff in the backstory about Nobles who can use alchemy, but it's not really elaborated on. However, the soundtrack is by Yoko Kanno and it's fantastic. It's not really much like her work on Cowboy Bebop, more symphonic like in Macross Plus, and some acoustic stuff like certain tracks on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I'm always amazed at how her soundtracks are made up of full songs, even though only some 30 seconds of the song will actually be used in the show.
 

mnkykungfu

Well-known member
Donor
Messages
2,279
Reaction score
747
Trophy Points
123
I am a big fan of Yoko Kanno and you're right. Didn't realize she did Wolf's Rain, which I always got confused with Wolf Brigade.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Army of the Dead (2021)
Despite this being incompetently directed, shockingly overlong, horribly shot, dumbly written and nonsensically plotted, Zack Snyder still somehow manages to make a moderately fun Zombie-Heist movie. Just switch your brain off and try to ignore the laughable political commentary and the basic fact that a Zombie "outbreak" which has been successfully and completely contained is not actually a threat any more and concentrate on the splatter gore madness. If you thought Snyder was bad at directing and writing, then you should see how bad he is as his own Cinematographer... and nice visuals were formerly his one saving grace. He's chosen to shoot the entire film with the shallowest depth of field imaginable. 95% of the film must be out of focus. Occasionally it works like a broken clock, when we share a character's POV, and the camera's point of focus naturally lines up with our own point of interest in the frame. But a lot of the time we are given an equal "two shot" of the actors and randomly one is in focus and the other is a blur because they are standing a couple of imperceptible inches apart. Or worse still we cut from a close-up of an actor in focus, to a different angle featuring the same actor blurred out, when that is where our eyes naturally go. It verges on headache inducing eye strain. Free from the nominally "family friendly" DC superhero universe he's been working in for the last decade, Snyder returns to his troubling dual obsession with writing "strong female characters" but needing to also have them be threatened with rape. Apparently a subplot about women being raped by zombies to make zombie babies was removed from the movie (the implication is still in the movie though). It's unclear if this was because Snyder had an attack of good taste, or Netflix overruled him. Tig Notaro was the definite comedy highlight (just as she was in the otherwise dreadful 'Star Trek: Discovery') and her green-screen insertion into the film in post-production was near seamless.

 

Gaith

Well-known member
Faneditor
Messages
5,785
Reaction score
291
Trophy Points
123
Freaky (2020)

freaky.jpg


Perhaps only legal considerations stopped this from being named Freaky Friday the 13th, as that's when it's set. A meek high school girl (Kathryn Newton) is about to be murdered by a generic slasher-movie serial killer (Vince Vaughn), but, due to lightning and magic, they end up switching bodies. Comedy and scares! Sort of.

Once you've heard the premise, you can pretty much imagine the whole flick. Apart from the flurry of f-bombs and some practical gore effects, this could easily have been a PG-13; there's none of the transgressive sleaziness or weird/offbeat subtext that can sometimes make teen slasher flicks more interesting than their basic concepts would suggest. (There's a hint of #MeToo feminist payback towards the end, but it's pretty much entirely negated by the fact that it's not a woman wreaking vengeance, but instead a man who just happens to temporarily be in a female body.) As for the kills, they're bloody enough, but there's no sense of actual hurt or pain to any of them.

Kathryn Newton seems talented, but she's either playing a movie cliche of a teenage girl, or a slasher with no personality to speak of - disappointingly, there's just about zero exploration of how a middle-aged psycho man might embrace the extra life and sexual/murderous opportunities of the switch. Vaughn, however, is a lot of fun playing a teenage girl; for those who aren't particular fans of slasher movies, his performance is the only real reason to give this a spin.

Grade: C+. An acceptable $4 Redbox blind Blu-ray buy.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
I watched the Theatrical Cut of 'Kingdom of Heaven' at the cinema when it came out and thought it was alright. Then I watched the 50-minute longer Restored/Director's Cut/Roadshow version when it came on DVD and fell in love with that version. I got a little obsessed with rewatching it and then back to the shorter cut as well, to see how much was cut and changed. So much so that I haven't really gone back to it since, not helped by poor availability of a good blu-ray release. After an upgrade to an imported US set I gave it a rewatch and it holds up very well. The CGI enhanced battles and vast panoramas look as good as anything today, helped by a lot of location shooting, in-camera tricks, practical stunts and extras. William Monahan's script is real Shakespearean poetry, full of memorable dialogue and interesting philosophical and political observations. Harry Gregson-Williams' score is gorgeous and even better in the "roadshow" version with an overture etc. The supporting cast is very strong including Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Sheen, Liam Neeson and Alexander Siddig. Edward Norton somehow delivers an unforgettable (but unrecognisable) performance despite having everything but his eyes behind a mask (even those are covered in makeup) and doing a voice unlike his normal one. Almost all the major characters are based on real people and real events. It's been "sexed up" of course but Monahan's script retains enough researched historical detail to make you fascinated with discovering more about this time and place. That's what a history drama should do. The only real problem is the star Orlando Bloom. He has to carry much of the movie but it's beyond him. He's a decent actor but didn't have the range in 2006 to do justice to a character this nuanced, operating in a political context as complex as this one. It feels like a case of "Okay Ridley you can have $130m to make your post-911 religious epic, as long as you cast the kid from 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in the lead". Despite that mperfection, I'd easily place 'Kingdom of Heaven' somewhere in my Ridley Scott top-5.


There is a History Buffs episode on it:

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Soul Boys of the Western World (2014)
I'd heard high praise for this Spandau Ballet documentary but my lack of interest in the band put me off until now. Even if you're in the same camp the skill with which the film is edited makes it worth a watch. Loads of band footage is combined with well chosen archive film to illustrate the places they grew up. Current interviews-to-camera with the band are thankfully never used, keeping things feeling "in the moment". The working class upbringing of the band is a strong theme in the film, which I wasn't expecting. It's perhaps a little over-structured and streamlined, in a rise, fall and rise again type way, which was detectable even to somebody who didn't know jack about what really happened.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Sharpe's Rifles (1993)
The Sharpe TV movies were up there with Bond for me and not just because star Sean Bean played a 00 and Daniel Craig makes an early appearance. Re-watching this in the beautiful HD restoration, featuring panoramic shots of the 'Chosen Men' hiking through the mountains of Portugal and Ukraine, it also reminded me of similarly impressive wilderness footage from 'The Lord of the Rings' and not just because Sean Bean was in that too. What Sharpe lacks in scale and budget compared to bigger Hollywood war movies, it makes up for in gritty realism, there's no FX trickery, it's all in camera and on location. I'd forgotten how initially antagonistic the relationship was between Sharpe and his men (particularly the shear hate he shares with his future best friend Harper) and he's got a lot to learn about being a leader. It's a perfect "origin movie", showing how Sharpe acquires his rank, skills and humility and earns the respect and trust of his comrades. Bean is unfeasibly dashing and heroic as the protagonist but wow Brian Cox nearly steals the show as the intelligence officer Major Hogan. You can see how much fun Cox is having playing the outwardly jovial and charming but scheming Hogan. He's laugh-out-loud funny. That electric guitar score is amazing but the end credits lack the familiar John Tams rendition of the Napoleonic folk song 'Over the Hills & Far Away' which ends every other episode IIRC.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Sharpe's Eagle (1993)
'Sharpe's Eagle'
doesn't have quite the tight narrative progression of 'Sharpe's Rifles' but it's got all the same fun ingredients. This story establishes Sharpe as a legend in his own lifetime. In many of the later movies the words "He's the Sharpe that took the eagle at Talavera" has many an arrogant upper-class officer quaking in fear. The amount of bloody injuries that Sharpe sustains in this story (beginning the episode on a shot of Harper treating Sharpe's wrecked knee with maggots) perhaps gets a bit ridiculous given the state of Napoleonic medicine. Brian Cox is still magnificent as Hogan, what a shame he didn't come back for any of the other films. 'Superman III's Gavan O'Herlihy plays an interesting and complex character, an effectively exiled American officer still loyal to the British crown. That funeral ending with the first outing for 'Over the Hills & Far Away' is beautiful. The song is guaranteed to be stuck in my head for days.

 
Last edited:

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
The official BFI 30th best British film ever made...

Gregory's Girl (1980)
I've heard a few actors of a certain age saying how much they were in love with Clare Grogan in 'Gregory's Girl' so I was a bit surprised to discover that she's barely in it. It's mostly about John Gordon Sinclair's title character's stumbling attempts to woe his school's new superstar female footballer. 'Gregory's Girl' captures a moment where boys are first thinking "I know I like girls but I don't really know what to do about it". The story is told from the boys clueless perspective, with the girls being seen as assertive and confident. This contrast is most evident in Gregory's wise but much younger sister and his delightfully daft male PE teacher. The sweet comedic charm of the characters and tone are offset by the no-budget, on-location, documentary realism of it's look. It's not a total surprise to read that the Scottish accents were re-dubbed for the 1980 American theatrical version (like with the Yorkshire accents in 1969's 'Kes').

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Duck Soup (1933)
'Duck Soup'
is definitely one of the best Marx Brothers movies, one of my personal favourites and still one of the funniest movies ever made. However, it's lack of any real plot, or any romantic heroes to root for (who are there for the Brothers to help) makes it a lesser film than others for me. It's a brief 68-minutes of inspired, occasionally surreal chaos but they work best when their madness is directed somewhere. On the other hand there are no lame song and dance numbers that need skipped over. Groucho gets many of his best lines, delivered at such a rapid pace that it takes many re-watches to catch them all, as he says in the film; "You haven't stopped talking since I came here. You must've been vaccinated with a phonograph needle". Although 'Duck Soup' is a political satire springing from inter-war European dictatorships, much of what it has to say about politics and censorship still hold up; "If any form of pleasure is exhibited, Report to me and it will be prohibited. I'll put my foot down; So shall it be... This is the land of the free!". Is this the first political satire feature film? My young nephews happened to watch the sequence with Harpo and Chico deliberately antagonising a fellow street vendor and they got the giggles. It always amazes me how the humour of these movies (the sight gags anyway) still work for kids 90-years later. The great HD transfer shows up little extra bits of facial humour I'd missed on first 40 or 50 viewings.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Chernobyl (2019)
This is even better on the 2nd viewing. I spotted lots of little subtle looks and meaningful lines I missed first time around. To avoid spoilers I opted to not listen to the weekly podcast by writer/creator Craig Mazin on my first watch, despite people raving about it, but this time I choose to listen to it along side each episode. Mazin goes into detail about what was changed for simplicity, or for drama, what true things were left out because they were frankly unbelievable and discuses conflicting accounts of events and his decisions on which to believe. You get the sense that Mazin intended 'Chernobyl' as his lifelong passion-project, his big chance to take risks, to write as he always wanted, to say everything he's wanted to say, with no concessions to simple "Hollywood" screenwriting cliches. If I had to criticise this modern masterpiece... there is too much crucial runtime devoted to Barry Keoghan's character going around shooting dogs in episode 4. It's the one time when it feels like we aren't experiencing the vast totality of the disaster and are just stopping to focus too long on some fictional character's personal experience (we don't really get to know any other liquidators). 'Chernobyl' is so good that I'll have to stop myself immediately spending another 5-hours watching it for a 3rd time. Patience, give it a couple of months at least ;) .





Chernobyl: Abyss aka Chernobyl 1986 (2021)
This new Russian made Chernobyl disaster movie turned up on Netflix just after I'd rewatched the HBO/Sky mini-series. Danila Kozlovsky directs and casts himself as the hero with the brilliant Oksana Akinshina (from 2020's 'Sputnik') as his estranged lover. The concept of it being about entirely fictional characters sounded dubious. It does start very strong with an interesting outsider perspective on the disaster, giving us a flavour of what everyday life might have been like in Pripyat. The FX and production details aren't too far off the celebrated mini-series and the relationship between the two main characters is well played and believable. As the disaster escalates it unfortunately becomes increasingly preposterous, finding endless excuses to somehow have Kozlovsky's character at the center of nearly everything. No explanation is given for the "accident", or any blame apportioned, with one character saying "does it matter" how this happened? Er, yeah just a bit.

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1968)
Mick Jagger's
idea of doing a "far out" circus film for the BBC incorporating Rock band performances, elderly actual circus acts, improvised shenanigans and him as the costumed ring-master probably sounded brilliant when he was high, less brilliant when he was coming down during the shoot and faintly embarrassing when he was stone cold sober in the editing booth. The film was never broadcast as planned in 1968 and only got released in 1996, then given a stunning 4K remaster in 2019. The most common rumour I'd heard for it being shelved was The Rolling Stones being upstaged by The Who (which they are), although Brian Jones' death soon after is one of other possible reasons. The good news is that the 12 performances by The Stones "and friends" are all fantastic... I was even digging Yoko's number. My highlight was Taj Mahal's gritty version of 'Ain't That A Lot Of Love. The "groovy" circus linking material is bad and it's made worse because you can see from their puzzled eyes that everybody knows it's bad... except for Pete Townshend who is laughing at the whole thing. Most, if not all the songs from the film have officially been put up on youtube in 4K. So you might be as well just watching those rather than the actual film, although my curiosity to finally see this 60s period oddity in-full was well satisfied.




 

ArtisDead

Banned
Messages
3,590
Reaction score
3,519
Trophy Points
143
The Mercedes Killer by Maniac

I had the very rare pleasure of seeing this edit, not only before it was actually released but… drumroll…before watching the series that it was based on, Mr. Mercedes.

Sure, I was familiar with the premise…based on a work by the one and only Stephen King, the story centers on Bill Hodges, a man who left his native Ireland (love that accent) as a teenager and became a cop in the small town of Bridgton, Ohio. After several years of service, He’s now retired, divorced and his daughter hates him. He’s also an alcoholic haunted by a crime he wasn’t able to solve before he retired. Someone stole a Mercedes and used it to drive into a crowd of people waiting for the doors to open at a job fair, killing sixteen people (including an infant).

Two years after the murders, the killer decides to reach out to Hodges and taunt him. The viewer knows the identity of the killer immediately.

That’s all I am going to spoil.

I will say this…this is one whacked out story. I guess that’s why Maniac wanted to take a stab at it (pun intended). It has mystery, horror, sex, incest and masturbation (to his mother, no less and then-to his crime). This guy’s crazy is completely off the chain.

This edit may be as close to perfect as an edit of a television series into a long movie may get. Anjohan may have Game of Thrones down, but there can be no dispute that Maniac has horror down. I watched this coming off of a binge watch of his Hannibal edits. I had high expectations after watching those and reading a few reviews of Mr. Mercedes season one.

I truly felt like I was watching one of Stephen King’s long horror movies. However, this was more a psychological horror than blood and gore (although it is there…in spades). I felt the disturbing cat and mouse game that was being played out as if I was involved. I also felt both-the protagonist’s pain and desire for closure and the antagonist’s torment and desire to unleash the beast-equally.

It was an immersive experience made perfect by the hyperspeed pace and sledgehammer impact of the editing. I don’t believe that I will even bother watching the series now. How could I, after such an experience? (I’m scratching my head thinking that I may go back and watch it again after everyone goes to bed to see if I missed anything). By the way, don’t be shocked to find an easter egg hidden in the movie on the sly.

All things considered, if you are into psychologically disturbing cat and mouse games with a taste of blood and gore, this nearly perfect edit is a must see.

Well done! Two thumbs very enthusiastically held high.
 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
The "never seen" before marketing and subtitle of this wonderful concert documentary "When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised" (referencing the late-great Gil Scott-Heron song) is literally a lie because the concert was actually televised (many hours of it, more than in this new edit of the footage) and it being sold as equivalent to "The black Woodstock" is also a bit of a stretch because it had about a 10th of the audience as that other 1969 mega concert. Those needless exaggerations aside, it's true that this deliriously joyful footage has been criminally neglected for years and was a cultural event that should have been more well known. Director Questlove opts to mix the footage of the 1969 'Harlem Cultural Festival' free park concert with interviews with the performers, audience members and historians, to discuss what it meant and explore the historical and political context in which it took place. This approach keeps the film moving at an electric pace and the commentary is fascinating but it also means we only get to see perhaps an hour of uninterrupted footage (out of about 40 hours). I wanted to see every second of Sly and the Family Stone's set and something as magical as David Ruffin's performance of 'My Girl' should have been shown in full. I'd buy the hell out of a big boxset with all the footage as a bonus and a soundtrack vinyl! The blazing colours of the restoration and upscaling of the 50-year old videotapes is incredible, I thought it must have been 35mm at first. God bless them for maintaining the 4:3 image and even revealing the edges of the tape to show us every last available pixel of the musicians. Watch 'Summer of Soul', it'll make your life better :) .

 

TM2YC

Take Me To Your Cinema
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
14,869
Reaction score
2,379
Trophy Points
228
The Riots 2011: One Week in August (2021)
A feature-length BBC documentary on the 10-year anniversary of the "London Riots". On my way home from work I passed some shops that were being smashed and looted at the time, it was scary stuff and this film took us right back. It was a little frustrating that the film-makers seemed to focus a lot on a few provocative interviews with idiots who had no remorse, saying things like "Afterwards the police came round and arrested people just for stealing stuff. Can you believe that?!?", or talking about how they went to the shops the next day for food and had completely forgotten they'd trashed the place a few hours before. There must have been people who regretted what they did, or turned their lives around and had something positive to say. The most powerful testimony and period footage was of Tariq Jahan, an unbelievably brave and dignified father whose son was killed by rioters. Activist Stafford Scott offers some sage analysis of the context. It's often a tough and bleak 88-minutes to watch. The film clearly lays out how and why the violence first flared up but it could have gone deeper into the human psyche and the breakdown in societal cohesion to explain how it got so bad, so fast. Are we always living near the tipping point of total anarchy and we just don't know it?




Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)
This is one of the funniest documentaries I've ever seen. Every anecdote and opinion is cut with comedy timing. It helps when the interviewees are as enthusiastic and witty as Quentin Tarantino (who has an encyclopedic knowledge and adoration for "Ozploitation"), Barry Humphries, George Miller, many other exploitation auteurs and several acid tongued film critics. It's even more entertaining and engrossing than Mark Hartley's other two exploitation retrospectives 'Machete Maidens Unleashed!' and 'Electric Boogaloo', if such a thing is possible. I was already familiar with a lot of the films (and their reputations and historical significance) from David Stratton's comprehensive 'Stories of Australian Cinema' series, although I've seen few of them and Stratton was definitely not celebrating the movies. It was amusing that everybody interviewed couldn't wait to offer the opinion that Hong Kong action star Jimmy Wang Yu (who came over to appear in the 'The Man from Hong Kong') was the biggest ar**hole they'd ever worked with. If you aren't offended by endless shots of violent explosions, blood gushing everywhere and copious nudity (including a pendulous full-frontal of John Holmes) then this documentary will really cheer you up! I must put films like 'Razorback', 'Dead-End Drive In', 'Mad Dog Morgan', 'Long Weekend' and 'Stone' on my watchlist.

 
Last edited:
Top Bottom