Finally, took long enough to find Daz's comments.

Anyone else got any??

And yes, I'm serious, myself and a friend saw it in the cinema and although were we both blase about violence, horror etc etc, it freaked us out no end. In fact I had to go home and play Quake for 6 hours solid before I could sleep =). Yeah so some film buffs might be "whatever" about it, but I've been somewhat vindicated that whenever the subject of scary films is raised online amongst the supposedly unshockable gaming/internet community, EH always gets mentioned as something that freaked people out. So, there :P 

It was a weak movie, plot wise, but I agree, it was also pretty damn scary. 

yeah, it really was scary, at least until about the halfway mark. Then it got really silly. 

loved it, just fucking loved it.
C'mon it has a Jaguar automobile converted into a hearse!! Bud Corts' character 'Harold' is phenomenal, spot on, all that and a bit more.

there's also quite the underlying story that is explained only after putting together a lot of the details maude gives about her life/past.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0067185/ 

Harold and Maude does indeed kick much ass. Probably in my top 20 or so... 

I saw this movie in a theatre when it came out in 1998.

It's called "I Stand Alone" in USA and is directed by Gaspar Noe.

It's a picture of a french butcher. I hate when the plot is exposed so I just say that you should watch it. (to all people over 18 and mentally stable). It's quite brutal, but that's not the point in it. It's also not beautiful at all. I still think it's highly worth watching. I haven't seen other movies quite like this although several have tried to do that kind of stuff after this movie's success, but they have missed the point and just ran on violence. I think it tries to portray a person's mind, where movies are often really bad at.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157016/ 

I thought I may as well make Bergman's most famous film my second viewing of his work. This was very impressive, I cant quite put my finger on what aspect(s) of this I liked, but on the whole this was extremely well made. A little more understatment in some bits would have made this even greater. 

very elemental about that movie. 

The Interpreter - Not a bad film, but just not very good either. It's competently made, acted and directed but is never really involving, mostly due to a bland script. All involved have done better. 

I found to be good, but focused too much on character development and not enough on the more interesting political side... it could have carried more of "a message," as opposed to tragedies involving specific people.

Of course, political messages don't survive too long in the media without some interesting personalities to communicate it :) 

a Graham Greene or an Ayn Rand who can orient their art around a political credo without killing the art. Le Carre for one is one who couldn't. His early works like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold took place in a political
milieu but were not at all ideological, and they were damn good, but his later works suffers from trying to be politicaly relevant.

Except for documentaries, I prefer the guilds of Hollywood to stay far away from politics because they often don't have enough awareness of history or social reality to know what they are talking about, like the Robert Redford movie Havana which casts the ousted dictator Batista, a black man in life, as a blonde haired, blue eyed villian (Kaufman, the director, sincerely did not know).

Documetaries are a different story. Fahrenheit 911*, Waco: Rules of Engagement, Atomic Cafe, all were worth seeing (even if you think Moore is a punk, like I do, the movie is still worth seeing). 

well I didnt mind the character building stuff, that was actually done well, but the thriller aspect of it was non-existant. There was zero suspense and some rather truck sized plot holes.

Graham Greene was demonstrated well in the recent The Quiet American. Captured the political aspect well despite apparing to be about 3 characters and their experiences. 

Under Suspicion - Overdircected, badly scripted and terribly scored thriller with Hackman, Freeman and Bellucci. Only saving grace is semi-decent performances and a stunning looking Bellucci.


Amores Perros - Outstanding.

Mexican director Alejandro Innarritu hit a home run with 21 grams but this, his first film, is similar in theme and style but perhaps better orchestrated. Its very confronting and at 154 min, a little too long, but one that is very hard to forget. 

Contempt - This is one of the more uninvolving things I've seen in a while and I wouldnt recommend it to most people. But, if you're into ideas, this is well worth a watch because there's definitely quite a few neat ideas and concepts on display here.

As for the film itself, theres an extended conversation sequence much like the one in Breathless which is just as good, but apart from that there's nothing more to really like.

Worth watching for ideas (and brigitte bardot), but not really for the film. 

The old soviet version is good (it's color so seventies). Natalie Bondarchuk is amazing. The movie is a bit long and slow and some "artsy" scenes don't really fit but overall, it's a mind-moving experience. It is somewhat faithful to the book, but it's mostly ok in that aspect, which is rare.
Recommended.

I haven't completely seen the new hollywood version, but from the first half, it seems they've missed quite a lot of points in general feeling, although it gets better with time.
No comment.

I've read the book twice, first when I was maybe seventeen and now later as twenty-something. It felt very different on both times. On the first time, I couldn't identify with the psychological problems of the characters, while on the latter time it's scary how much similarities one finds in one's own life and actions. 

I just got a hold of both the other day and intend to see.

Is Stalker the game based on the film/book ? 

This is from the Stalker website:

Q: What inspired the creation of the game?
A: Quite a few things, deliberately or not, have an influence on developers. Speaking about computer games, we can say that the "three whales" which have inspired the developers of "S.T.A.L.K.E.R" are "Elite", "Daggerfall" and, of course, "Fallout". The Zone's atmosphere is based on Strugatsky brothers' book "Roadside Picnic", and the movie "Stalker", directed by Tarkovsky, based on the Strugatsky brothers' script. 

have you read the strugatskis' book stalker? It clearly inspires the game. Some effects seen in the dx9 demo are directly from it. 

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3143249

And it looks like 9/10 times he's blaming some part of the industry for his film failures than himself. 

Phait, that has got to be one of the most hilarious things that I have read in ages. There is a whole lot of finger-pointing and excue making going... YOIKS!

That is an example of denial on parade. 

Be good lads and add an "s" in that last post of mine... would ya'?

No excuse in spelling sexcues worng wryte? 

Kagemusha - Big, epic scaled film from Kurosawa that is very similar in style to Ran. In fact, a lot of it seems like practice for Ran. It's not quite the masterpiece that Ran is, but on its own is quite a good film. Quite overlong at 180 min, it sometimes gets a bit too bogged down, but is a refershing change from the modern hollywood epic.


Heavenly Creatures - The movie that put Peter Jackson on the map, even though nobody really knew who he was until LOTR.

It's easy to see why, its an inventive look at a disturbing true story with impressive peformances. However, I thought a lot of it was overdirected and many scenes could have done with more understatement/subtlety. The last 20 min are lyrical in their simplicity, and chilling in their effectiveness. More of the movie could have done with that sort of direction.


Down by Law - A strange, raw, familiar and languid film from Jim Jarmusch. Gloriously shot, extremely moody and impeccably acted with some clever humour, it's hard not to like even though there is absolutely zero plot. 

Ready?
http://www.impawards.com/2005/doom.html

Christ... 

Rififi - French film noir by Jules Dassin and a pretty good one. Well made and acted, the only thing that stopped it going into the very good - great category was the fact that noirs have cool dialogue and in this case, it didnt have the same impact since I was reading it rather than hearing it.

The Innocents - Gloriously gothic and filled with atmosphere. But the script (I understand its adpetd pretty well from a book) is not that great. There is zero mystery and barring one or two scenes hardly any suspense. And the ending (or rather the execution) is very silly. Pity, because it's well made, acted and shot.

Also, its influence on many films, especially The Others is easy to see. 

I've had one or two courses of french at high school, and it's surprising how much you understand out of movies if you have the text there to help you out. I don't know if you speak much french, but if you don't and like that movie stuff, I'd recommend taking a few courses so you get the basics. After all a lot of english and latin words are the same as in french so it's easy to deduce what they speak, and you learn some more if you have your native language text and the original speech there.