Movies, Flicks, Films, Videos, cinematography

[GekkoP]

THE WHITE STORM: warming up while waiting for Far East Film Festival. Sort of Benny Chan's BULLET IN THE HEAD. Lately Hong Kong cinema is finding again some of its pure uniqueness. This film and the recent Dante Lam efforts are really good signs that HK cinema is still alive. And my love for it too.

[rhowaldt]

Nymphomaniac I: fucking awesome. a great story, a great way of telling a story, so many great ideas in there, and as always with Lars von Trier his stuff is philosophical as fuck - that last bit literally this time :)
probably the best story in a pornfilm ever ;)

wish it wasn't 23.23 here, or i'd watch Nymphomaniac II right after.

[ivanovnegro]

^ Have to see this one. A bit skeptical.

[GekkoP]

We all love IT-related movies, don't we? Here we go, for free: https://archive.org/details/insecurity

[ivanovnegro]

^ Thank you. Sounds interesting.

[rhowaldt]

just saw Carnage. it is adapted from a play, directed by the original playwright and Roman Polanski, has Jodie Foster, John C Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz, and is set just in the one couple's home. it is quite cool, i heartily recommend it if you like good acting and some good laughs (but no, it is not a humor film or anything).

[kexolino]

Saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the cinema yesterday, and it was pretty dang good. The action scenes were epic, the acting, well, pretty good, although I wasn't a fan of every character, but mostly cool, and most importantly to me, many jokes from Spider-Man. The new movies definitely do more justice to Spider-Man, than the first 3 did.

I've been a fanboy ever since, I dunno, I was 5, so I know quite a bit about story and so on, and IMO they fucked up 3 original movies tremendeously. Not listing all the flaws, but it's enough to know that Spidey needs to be cracking jokes, and these movies were way too gloomy. (The only good thing in those movies was J. K. Simmons as Jameson, IMO.)

[bones]

I've been a fanboy ever since, I dunno, I was 5, so I know quite a bit about story and so on, and IMO they fucked up 3 original movies tremendeously. Not listing all the flaws, but it's enough to know that Spidey needs to be cracking jokes, and these movies were way too gloomy. (The only good thing in those movies was J. K. Simmons as Jameson, IMO.)

Agreed, the first three were hosed, way too gloomy, and Spidey does need to be cracking jokes. And J. K. Simmons was a perfect Jameson.

[GekkoP]

Ok, back from Udine's Far East Film Festival. I watched about 40 movies but don't ask me to write about every single one of them. Here are some of them.

My top favorites:
- BLACK COAL THIN ICE, Diao Yinan (CH)
- THE MIDNIGHT AFTER, Fruit Chan (HK)

My "I liked them a lot":
- AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT, Derek Kwok (HK)
- UNBEATABLE, Dante Lam (HK)
- MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT, Lino Brocka (PH)
- GOOD MORNING, Ozu Yasujiro (JP)

My "I liked them a lot but not as much as the ones above":
- THE TERROR LIVE, Kim Byung-woo (KR)
- THE ATTORNEY, Yang Woo-seok (KR)
- ABERDEEN, Pang Ho-cheung (HK)
- GOLDEN CHICKEN$$$, Matt Chow (HK)
- FROM VEGAS TO MACAU, Wong Jing (HK)
- PEE MAK, Banjong Pisanthanakun (TH)

My "I liked them but I could've lived happily without them":
- DYNAMITE FISHING, Chito Roño (PH)
- HELLO! JUNICHI, Ishii Katsuhito/Kawaguchi Kanako/Yoshioka Atsushi (JP)
- THAT DEMON WITHIN, Dante Lam (HK)
- THE JOURNEY, Chiu Keng Guan (MY)

My "I hated them":
- THE RAID 2: BERANDAL, Gareth Huw Evans (ID)
- TAMAKO IN MORATORIUM, Yamashita Nobuhiro (JP)
- BILOCATION, Mari Asato (JP)
- MAY WE CHAT, Philip Jung (HK)
- TINY TIMES 1, Guo Jingming (CH)
- SOUL, Chung Mong-hong (TW)

Once back home, I watched GALAXY QUEST cause I needed a good laugh and something not from the Far East and NIGHT TRAIN, cause I'm writing about Diao Yinan and this is the only one I hadn't watched yet.

[ivanovnegro]

Impressive list.

[wuxmedia]

yeah, great list.
just watched 'moonlight kingdom' Very nice.

[GekkoP]

WARMING BY THE DEVIL'S FIRE: this Charles Burnett film is part of the real good dvd boxset "Martin Scorsese presents The Blues". I bought the boxset years ago but somehow forgot about what I had still to watch. Only Warming By The Devil's Fire was left behind and to my eyes it is by far the best film in this boxset.

[GekkoP]

THE DOUBLE: I appreciated this second Richard Ayoade's (ever watched The IT Crowd?) effort. SUBMARINE wasn't of much interest to me, but this sort of black comedy with hints of Welles, Scorsese, Polanski, Hitchcock, Melville (Ayoade said so, but the influences are just there to be seen) works well.

[GekkoP]

ROBOCOP: the recent remake. I was very skeptical about this cause I really love the original one. Indeed it is a decent film, not very related to the fist movie but better than what I had thought.

[ivanovnegro]

^ Really? If you say so, maybe I reconsider. At least I know the director but I really thought this new one has to be pure shit.

[GekkoP]

^ I only watched it because of the director, to be honest. I was really pissed when I heard about the remake cause I couldn't see the point in a project like this (though this could be said for almost any remake, but please don't get me started).
It differs heavily from the original RoboCop. Less violence, less black humor and no US-action spoof whatsoever. Also, Nolan's influence is clearly visible. To some, this is good. To me, not that good. But Nolan did set a kind of standard in this genre.

I forgot I also started watching I, FRANKENSTEIN. I lasted 15-20 minutes. I had to remove that goth crap before it was too late.

[ivanovnegro]

Less violence, less black humor, ok then, nope. :D

[wuxmedia]

I'm feeling your potential remake rant, with music too. 8)
If they take the story/tune somewhere else then ok, a scene for scene remake.. why?

[GekkoP]

^ It's just lack of good ideas ;)

THE IMMIGRANT: I'll go so far as to say this is the real James Gray masterpiece. Phoenix's in top form.

[GekkoP]

THE LONE RANGER: surprisingly good.