The Official Movie Thread

Nah, I have the Critters franchise on dvd. Not one of those.

 

I knew it wasn't Critters, the only movie with a setting even similar to his description is the first one and nothing like that happens at the end.

Can anybody tell me whether Poltergeist II is really that bad? I've never seen it.

 

Watched Stroszek the other night. Fucking great. Bleak and absurd as hell.

 

i know a lot of people who consider it his greatest. i'll always be an AGUIRRE man myself but it's still outstanding.

 

I'll check it out asap. Tried Heart of Glass last night and didn't think much of it.

 

aguirre and fitzcarraldo are his most acclaimed along with stroszek. alternatively if you want another bruno s one try the enigma of kaspar hauser. the story behind bruno s is worthy of a movie in itself: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Schleinstein

of course, the behind-the-scenes stories about aguirre and fitzcarraldo are just about the most legendary in movie history. herzog is some kind of genius but also a total maniac. kinski... he's mostly just a maniac.

 

What the hell, yesterday I watched Poltergeist II and while the Poltergeist franchise isn't exactly a great franchise, the sequel to me was a lot better than the original.

The first one is a Spielbergian cheesefest, but this second film was actually relatively creepy with Reverend Kane, the cult angle and the native American guy was awesome.

This scene really had an impact on me.



And this was pretty savage and hilarious. 1986 definitely was not muh current year.

 

Got around to watching Franco's 99 Women today after work. I've not seen many 'women in prison' films but I liked this one, it was borderline mainstream/conventional but with that erotic touch that worked quite well, without being full on porno camp.

My kingdom for a cigarette...

 

Funnily enough, there is a French porno version of 99 Women called Les brûlantes with random hardcore scenes spliced into the main movie that was released several years later and its really bad. For starters the jump cuts to the sex scenes are really abrupt and whoever shot the hardcore inserts made no effort whatsoever to cast anyone that even remotely resembled the cast of the actual film. Then there's the hilarious lack of continuity when a lesbian scene in the jail suddenly cuts to a close-up of some hairy man ass and balls laying pipe on a kitchen floor.

That sort of stuff happened all the time though with Franco's movies. Producers and distributors would meddle with the films after the fact and add the porn scenes just to release the films in the adult market to make as much money as they could. Its one of the reasons why his filmography is so labyrinthine, with several of his films existing in multiple versions under an assortment of different titles. Female Vampire (1973) alone has at least 12 different versions.

When it came to the hardcore inserts though, sometimes Franco would actually shoot it himself and when he did the results could be rather interesting. For instance The Obscene Mirror, the French hardcore variant of The Other Side of the Mirror (1973), originally a Spanish production, becomes an entirely different film altogether with Franco completely tweaking the story with the new sex scenes fitting in with the context of the plot. When he didn't have a hand in it though, you got stuff like Les brûlantes. Brutal.

There's also Doriana Gray (1976) where the hardcore/softcore roles were reversed. Originally shot hard, a softcore version was later prepared that suffers from the same issues most of the films with the hardcore scenes added in, namely the awkward jump cuts and Lina Romay wearing a not too convincing wig in order to resemble her look in the original footage. Just another day in the Franco zone.

 

Yeah I raced to wiki as soon as I finished watching the movie and read all about Bruno S. I though it all seemed too real. Also apparently one of the last things Ian Curtis did before he hung himself was watch Stroszek lol. I'm saving The Enigma of Kasper Hauser as it's the only other with him in it. Will definitely check out your recs first, cheers.

 

This is hilarious. In fact I knew about this due to an interview with Franco that was in the extras on the DVD. He didn't mention anything about eventually directing some of the porn scenes himself though but it makes sense to co-opt something that was being done to him by unknown hacks, that's the kind of market opportunism I can respect!

 

I think for some films he might have even agreed to do it before hand as it very well could have been in the contract to deliver two different versions for different markets. By and large though I'd say he figured it was going to happen either way so he may as well just shoot it himself so at least the footage matches up.

He did shoot a handful of XXX flicks that were conceived as such and it always amuses me whenever people slag Franco off as a pornographer its never his actually porn films they're referring to. Amazing how prudish some people still seem to be. I'll not deny that he didn't blur the lines at times, a lot of his movies do come very close to crossing over into full on hard X material, especially in the mid 70's and onward, but there's still a difference.

Unrelated, but I found his hilarious:

 

I still need to see Possession.

God damn Brandon Lee is genuinely hilarious in Showdown in Little Tokyo.
One of the best buddy cop films of all time for me, only a few elements drop it below Commando in terms of action cinema perfection, like why did the spinning wheel at the end explode while Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was pinned to it by a katana? That made no sense.

But then you have genius lines like:

 

Did a family movie night watching MI: Rogue Nation. Easily digestible. Typical MI-ish mask and bomb usage. Nothing cerebral but goddamn it's impressive Cruise is 55, and basically my build (although not physique unfortunately....dude must plank ten minutes a day - I could prob manage 3 if I killed it), and still doing his own stunts.

 

@no country for old wainds @Oblivious Maximus

Considering buying Martin Scorsese's short films collection but I am wondering, how essential is this? Any of his short films highly rated by you guys? I'm whittling down my shopping cart.

 

i think THE BIG SHAVE is pretty well liked but i've never seen much fanfare over his shorts. haven't seen any myself though.

 

The Big Shave is really the only one of his shorts I ever hear anyone bring up.

 

"My earliest sexual memories? Well, I remember, actually, I remember being, like, four years old and getting erections - I think it was my aunt or my mother's sister, and, kind of humping her legs and her shoes under the table. I remember going into my mother's closet and she had these cowboy boots that she wore when it rained, and humping those in the closet. [Laughing] And singing while I was doing it. Singing 'Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so'." - Robert Crumb

Amazing film. Reminded me a lot of a certain forum regular we all know.

 

Despite critics Valerian was a fun ride. Visual orgy of special effects and I love Cara Delevingne's face. I can even laugh off the pro-Syrian refugee message