Um, sorry. If we had been discussing Fear Eats the Soul, I would've been FASozupow. Late Spring would've made me fasOZUpow. Just the luck of the movie I guess that turned things unfortunately political.
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So, Death Race... I've already forgotten most of it. Better than AVP I suppose, but still worse than his earlier stuff.
Mortal Kombat was a sweet movie back in the day.
I watched it so much the VHS tape stopped working.
I couldn't even finish Pearl Harbor in multiple sittings.
You made the right choice, MadMan.
Yeah Mortal Kombat is good stuff. Years from now it'll be remembered as a cheesy campy cult classic.
The fight scenes were also pretty sweet, if I remember correctly.
Particularly Liu Kang vs. Reptile.
I just watched it a second time and I consider Death in Venice to be an absolute masterpiece. More morbid obsession, fear of death, longing for youth, and visual genius than I ever thought could barely be contained in a little over two hours. Plus hauntingly amazing use of Mahler. I've also seen The Leopard and I really love this guy Visconti.
I have an odd double-bill coming up for the weekend. Visconti's The Damned (aka Fassbinder's favorite film) and Godzilla vs. Mothra. I'll also fit in a second viewing of Vengeance is Mine, hopefully.
That film had the good sense to embrace its camp factor. At some point, Anderson thought he was making meaningful films, which led to Soldier, Event Horizon, Resident Evil, and Alien vs. Predator. All of which suffer from the same enormous flaw: they're humorless.
Obnoxious sound design and boring visuals don't help either, but a little levity goes a hell of a long way.
Between Lost Highway and Gemini, tonight has given me quite a twisted lesson on identity. Both are great films. I'll definitely have to check out some more from Tsukamoto, and as for Lynch, this might motivate me to watch all the Twin Peaks stuff out there finally. I was a bit disillusioned after Inland Empire.
Kudos to the Lost Highway love. Great, gorgeously grimy film.
Just watched One, Two, Three - absolute firecracker of a film, funny and breathless, once it gets through the set-up. Cagney is awesome.
City of God = groundbreaking? Hmm...
Images - Plot is kinda whatever and a good example of the pitfalls of films with schizophrenic subjects, but goddamn if Altman doesn't direct the shit out of it. Worked best when I just tuned out emotionally, and pretended it was a non-narrative film dedication to secluded country homes in autumn - then it really got under my skin.
One of my favorite moments in any film: Horst Buchholz has just been rescued by Cagney and company from the Germans who've been torturing him with "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini". Back at the office, Cagney is shaving. Horst is delusional on Cagney's couch, muttering "itsy... bitsy... teenie weenie..." Cagney looks at him. Beat. Cagney says "Drop. Dead."
Gets me every time. Love that film. Wrote a pretty good paper on its visual style. It got an A anyway.
It's just a good film for export, because it shows exactly what Europeans and Americans want to see about South America - poverty and guns - in a frenetic style that reminded everyone of Goodfellas.
Macunaima and Black Orpheus are ten times more important / groundbreaking for Brazilian cinema in my opinion.
EDIT: I still like City of God a good deal, though.
One, Two, Three is pretty interesting for Cagney's terrificness and Buchholz's awfulness.