read the book? 

So John Carpenter's self-made synth theme from The Attack on Precinct 13 from the seventies ended up in ... Xenon 2 megablast! I wondered where it was familiar from! Kickass tune. I remember it from the pc speaker before I had a soundcard.
The original Amiga version seems to be best on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6jNosHmHG8 

yeah, but to be honest, I didnt care much for the book either so that probably explains my reaction. 

Perfume

Very, very odd. Good in parts, but mostly odd (not least being made by Germans, set in Paris with a more or less entirely British cast). I'd rate this the canonical surrealistic fish out of 10.

The Golden Compass

Fuck me, this was bad. I really like the books, but the movie was very disappointing. It makes you realize how good the Lord of the Rings adaptations were, even with their flaws. Don't bother/10.

Iron Man

I really enjoyed this, despite or quite possibly because of the really stupid bits. Have a laugh/10.

I am Legend

It's hard to say what I'd have thought of this if I hadn't read the book. Probably: "This is pretty good, but wow is it a lot like 28 days later". Instead of: "Hm, I'd never really thought of how much 28 days later (and lots of other movies) ripped off I am Legend... WTF THEY DICKED WITH THE ENDING!". Probably worth the rental/10. 

Big Nothing (2006)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488085/

Watched this for featuring Simon Pegg (not expecting much as it is not one of "his" movies though). It is less of a comedy than it is a black drama thriller something. Nothing that shifts up the mood. Very nice images, soundtrack, acting, etc. Really really dark (I underline this). David Schwimmer is kind of one of those hip "generic introvert noir" guys like Clive Owen, I like those!

Sure a recommendation if you like black humoured films or anything I just blabbered made you interested. 

The Wrong Man (1956) - Most people say Rebecca is the most unhitchcock Hitchcock film, but I put my hand up for this one. Sure, the plot is similar to numerous hitchcock films, Henry Fonda's character being incorrectly mistaken for a wanted man, but the verite approach taken here (with a supposed true story) is completely different to any other Hitch movie.

It's still a well polished affair, despite no real Hitchcockian moments, mainly due to Henry Fonda and Vera Miles putting in excellent performances.

7/10


Robocop - Hadnt fully seen this before, it's another sly litlle black humoured film from Paul Verhoeven that's a lot of fun. It also surprisingly works dramatically, quite a task when the most you can see of the main character is the bottom half of his face.

7/10


Pierrot Le Fou (1965) - I find Godard frustrating, even when he's at his best, and this is no exception. The first 50 min or so are close to some of the best cinema I have ever seen as Jean Paul Belmondo's character runs off with his babysitter (played by Anna Karina) and their subsequent road trip becomes Godard's mouthpiece for anything and everything he wants to say about life, war, politics, and even his failing relationship with his wife (also Anna Karina). It's bizarre, disjointed, fearless and utterly brilliant.

However, it just cant keep up with its own desire to burn through as many ideas as quickly as possible whilst breaking almost every rule of cinema. The second half is not quite as engrossing and that makes the pretentiousness all the more noticeable.

Karina and Belmondo are magnetic all the way through though and make sure it never sinks under its own weight.

7.5/10


Wings of Desire (1988) - The plot and central idea are quite simple, the film follows two angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) as they float over the skies of Berlin observing and listening in on the lives of the city�s inhabitants, with Damiel becoming convinced over the course of the movie that he has to experience human life rather than just observe it. The same idea was tackily remade as City of Angels.

But Wim Wenders' original is a much more meditative, improvisational film that lies somewhere between the works of Andrei Tarkovski (who is one of the people that movie's dedicated to) and Wong Kar Wai's recent stuff.

I dont think its entirely successful, it's a bit too disjointed and some scenes are grossly overlong, but its definitely ambitious, original and interesting and when it all clicks together, quite touching.

7-7.5/10


The Last Picture Show (1971) - brilliant movie set in a small town in Texas and focusing on the friendship between two young men (Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges). In doing so, it manages to work in a number of well written characters and their relationships and is a showcase for what is possibly the best piece of ensemble acting I've come across. There is not one weak link here and everyone involved, even in the tiniest role, puts in a high class performance.

Its also beautifully written and shot and is one of the great debut films in history (from Peter Bogdanovich).

8.5/10


Cloverfield - pretty solid little movie even if its best moments are directly derivative of Alien/s. The camerawork is indeed quite annoying in places, its one thing to try and make a Blair Witch meets Godzilla movie, its another to have a character that is an uncoordinated lunatic behind the camera.

But on the whole, its not too bad, and is reasonably thrilling in a number of spots. More carnage next time please.

6.5/10 

Rec is a spanish zombie movie, where people get trapped in an apartment building which has... zombies. It's one of those movies where the whole movie is supposedly recovered footage from a camera that was used by the characters.

It's pretty good. Moves fast, well-edited, feels different than the usual "zombie siege" scenario (everyone's inside, zombies outside.) 

Well.
Scifi with serious attitude, been a long time since that.

Excellent sets. Just fabulous stuff. Who designed the space suits? Nothing felt cheap. Well perhaps there could have been more zero gravity.
Good casting.
Good direction in many senses, had both that realism and also those extreme effects and sense of awe. (A bit too much camera effects imo though.)

But what the fuck. Is there some line in movie director contracts that the scripts have to be fucking idiotic?

The following includes SPOILERS.

The elaborately built suspension of "this is really happening" breaks just too many times: Do we have itty bitty sized spacecraft flying into the sun and having some massive instant effect? Yes. Do we have only one man out of a big crew doing all the trajectory and guidance calculations, and then doing a trivial mistake, costing lives, with nobody checking the work? Yes. Do we run out of oxygen in a huge flying space station in a matter of few hours? Yes. Do we have a rogue leader with a god complex? Yes. Turned partially monster? Yes. Do the supposedly calm and professional very thoroughly picked crew members argue, fight (obligatory machos) and panic (obligatory frail girl) constantly? Well, not all the time, but still somewhat.

At least there were no space aliens or gun fights.

Probably this is as good as it can get as a modern scifi movie, and it still sucks compared to what it could be.

The script. The script. Please. What is it always preventing it from being even remotely sensible? All the countless millions and the innumerable work hours derailed for want of a reasonable even remotely plausible and un-cliched script.

Take for example Risto Isom�ki's "Pime�n pilven ritarit" Finnish novel. It has it's good and bad moments, but overall it is quite similar to Sunshine (predates it by quite a lot though). A crew is sent to deflect an asteroid that is going to hit earth. I can spoil it to you since it's never going to be translated anyway. The craft uses a solar sail and on the return trip they must pass close to the sun. The solar sails rip and the crew must repair them, resulting in quite similar scenes compared to Sunshine, except more believable.

All in all somewhat nice but can't they get a single engineer or physicist to read the script through? It boggles the mind. 

I watched this again the other day and loved it, like you say the sets are absolutely fantastic!

I loved the camera effects used, and the sound effects too are just brilliant.

Yes there are issues with the plot, but imo the film manages to deal with them very well 

I was constantly amazed at how good it looked, especially for a UK film. The spacesuits, yes! Fantastic visual style, they had a slight 1970s tinge I thought.

The thing that let it down for me was definitely the ridiculous space-danger twist at the end. Oh dear. 

its quite good isnt it, even though it rips the 3 big sci fi movies at every turn (Alien, 2001, Solaris). 

Do the Right Thing (1989) - pretty entertaining and amusing film from Spike Lee which centres on racial tensions in some Brooklyn suburb but works mainly because the characters and their interactions are interesting and because its visually inventive.

I don�t think its all that successful on a serious level, especially the last act, which seems not that well thought through. Still, kept me entertained throughout, john turturro and danny aiello are especially good value.

6.5-7/10


Tell No One (2006) - extremely disappointing french mystery/drama/thriller that is just plain silly, relies almost entirely on its plot (which is not very good) and is just poorly made.

Francois Cluzet plays a man who was the number one suspect in his wife's death and becomes the number one suspect again when similar deaths start happening 8 years later around the same place his wife was killed.

By the end, the plot folds back on itself so many times that you stop caring what little you did about the paper thin characters.

Having said all of that, I'm sure there will be an english remake at some point.

3.5-4/10


The Orphanage (2007) - its not only the americans who are currently highly unoriginal and derivative in the horror/thriller genre. This recent spanish offering, produced by Guillermo del Toro, borrows heavily from not only other recent spanish based movies in the genre (eg The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth and The Others) but also from the recent asian horror wave (eg The Ring and Dark Water).

First time director Juan Antonio Bayone lacks the directorial skill of his producer and has no sense of storytelling and a very sloppy shooting style. Only the ending is well executed and even that, despite the good execution, does not deliver because its telegraphed far too early.

5/10


I Walked With a Zombie (1943) - firstly, quite possibly the worst title ever for what is actually a good film. Secondly, there is a kind of demented brilliance in taking the basic plot of Jane Eyre, transposing it to the Caribbean and mixing it with a bit of voodoo. The result is an impressive gothic drama made by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton.

Tourneur was a master of using shadows and had a keen sense of ambience, atmosphere and otherworldly eeriness. He uses all those elements to make an ambiguous, interesting film that is quite entertaining.

7/10

Also, I believe the makers of the Saw movies are remaking this in the near future. Given what they have made so far, I'm sure the classiness will be replaced by an all out gorefest.



Sweeney Todd - I dont like musicals generally. My main issues with most musicals is that the songs don�t add to and break up the narrative too much and most of the musicals I like avoid this by integrating the songs into the narrative.

This one still has a few songs that seem fluffy but in general I had no problems. It also helps that the execution is of a very high standard and the lyrics and music are first rate too.

As for the rest of it, its one of Burton's most assured works and another of Depp's terrific performances (not that its Depp alone that works, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman are also excellent).

7.5/10 

I think the cameraman was a bit of a psycho. There was one section in particular where

[SPOILER]
they have to climb across from one apartment building into one that has fallen onto it. They are a few hundred feet up and the guy decides to turn off the camera as he climbs across the roof because it looks far to risky... only he turns it back on moments later whilst still not quite across the roof and with a bit of climbing to do. What a fucktard.

Also, what the hell happened to the monster at the end? It killed that guy and then it seemed to vanish and let the others escape. Maybe I passed out from fright and missed it?
[/SPOILER]

I enjoyed it though. Definitely go see it at the cinema I reckon... might be a bit late though. 

I think they were still dealing with the monster at the end. 

last sound clip is "It's Alive". 

saw a number of things over (my) long weekend, Friday inadvertently turned into zombie movie day :

Planet Terror (2007) - this is more like it, Robert Rodriguez's effort for the Grindhouse double is heaps better than Tarantino's Death Proof. Much more fun, much more extreme and more in line with the sleazy B movies they were trying to emulate.

7/10


28 Weeks Later (2007) - much better than its predecessor 28 Days Later, mainly because it doesn�t self destruct with a lame last act. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's movie is tenser, directed far more tautly and manages to incorporate social commentary without beating you over the head with it. There is a couple of moments of dubious plotting but they are overshadowed by the terrifically mounted suspense moments, of which there are many.

7-7.5/10


30 Days of Night (2007) - good premise, bad film. It reaches levels of stupidity that are just hard to fathom. The only good thing it does is make a great case for never ever combining quick cutting/hand held cameras with open shutter photography. I'm sure the intention was to make the action look more exciting, instead its all just a blurry, sped up mess.

3/10


I am Legend (2007) - did they even have a script for this film? There is zero narrative flow in this, absolutely terrible. And where did all the money go? The CGI is atrocious. Total rubbish.

2/10


Blast of Silence (1963) - rough, experimental and tedious noir film from Allen Barron that is aiming to be gritty, existential and bleak. The basic plot of following around a lone hitman preparing for his latest hit was done much better by Jean Pierre Melville in his classic film starring Alain Delon, Le Samourai. This one has a couple of nice bits, mainly with well written side characters, but is pretty average otherwise.

5.5/10


Stardust (2007) - quite enjoyable tongue in cheek fantasy adventure in the same vein as The Princess Bride, but I enjoyed this a lot more than that one. It zips along and never drags and while it never really takes off to any great heights, it's quite entertaining for most its duration.

7/110


Death of a Cyclist (1955) - Juan Antonio Bardem's great film takes the small incident of an adulterous couple running over a cyclist and uses it to comment on everything from the spanish civil war, the moral decay of society and the fickleness of relationships. And it does all that while still managing to tighten the screws in a Hitchcockian fashion so that the narrative isnt put aside. Theres also a very noticeable F Scott Fitzgerald feel to the world portrayed in the movie which is interesting if you like The Great Gatsby.

8/10


Beowulf (2007) - on the right track, its about time there was an adult orientated animated film. The execution's not quite there, I havent read the source material but you can tell it�s a great story with interesting themes, not all of which are explored here due to the breezy running time. Still, it's a fairly entertaining movie, albeit a light one, that is much better than the trailers suggested and with some excellently orchestrated action and drama scenes in the second half.

6/10 

Watched this for the second time the other night, the first time I was in a cinema but I was too close to the screen to really do anything other than crane my neck and I couldnt see the movie properly.
I like the film for a few things: it's pretty gruesome, er, the special effects aren't too bad...
Meh. Nope, running out of things I liked about it.
I just think that they skimped out on script (again) and character development. And the monster FX seemed forced. The gory parts were often cut. I prefer the movies from the eighties. The effects are cooler and more believeable because they ARENT done with computers. Robocop, Terminator, Aliens (OK some FX are computers, but mostly just fine set-pieces, good acting and clever screen-play as well as cool props) all were cool.
I dont like so much this shiny over polished computer effects approach we have to movies like that these days. They're just not gritty and dark enough. I dont know... 

the fact that you can see whats going on, whereas the AVP movies (alon with most other recent stuff) are edited at 10 cuts a second with next to no lighting. 

Rocky Balboa - pretty solid till it builds up to a silly climax fight which is very poorly executed. Apart from that, the writing and performances are quite good (save a few monologues which don�t sit well with Stallone's speech impediment).

6/10


Un Secret (2007) � well made movie about a boy in a jewish family in post-war france who learns about his family's past during the war and is forced to deal with the consequences. The story is told in a sequence of flashbacks, flash forwards and dream sequences which, though not hard to follow, do not seem to enhance the audience connection with the central characters.

The story is definitely its strongest point, and even a weak ending which probably worked better in book book form cannot derail it.

7/10


Harry Potter 5 : Better than the last one but still not very good - that pretty much says it all. Standard Potter flick which means there is the usual dodgy acting and scripting, some reasonable visuals and set pieces, but nothing that stays with you once the credits roll.

5.5/10 

Elizabeth : Golden Age - since I was one of the few who thought the first was a pretty poor film, I didn�t have much expectations with this one. And yet it still managed to disappoint.

Its been bagged for being historically inaccurate, but the first one seemed to escape that criticism despite having the same shortcomings. The real problem is that the script is just plain bad almost plays out like a parody of a film like this, the direction is an absolute mess and only Samantha Morton is on the right page as to what sort of tone her performance should be in.

Cate Blanchett puts in probably one of the worst performances that�s ever been nominated for an oscar, abbie cornish is in way beyond her head and clive owen is ok in what is really a thankless role.

3-3.5/10


Fearless (2006) - fairly simplistic morality tale in the form of chinese martial arts period epic, but it works because jet li is amazing in the fight sequences (which are also very well choreographed) and ronnie yu directs well with a restrained style during the non-action moments that allows some of the corny bits to not really come through as badly as they might. There's also some great location photography of southern china which also gives it visual edge.

6/10


Cat People (1944) - classy old school thriller/drama by the Jacques Tourneur/Val Lewton combination that once again had its title greenlit before the script. Tourneur, as usual, does wonders with the camera for his material, utlizing light and shadow brilliantly in two very famous sequences that have been often imitated. The script is also very very good and far from the b movie you expect from the title.

Only some of the dodgy acting holds it back from being a great film.

7.5/10


Devils Advocate (1997) - this was pretty solid for close to two hours despite having keanu reeeves in a main role, some dubious plotting and shameless borrowing from Rosemary's Baby (and also one sequence lifted straight from Marathon Man).

Then it self implodes with an ending that just comes across as the scriptwriters not knowing where to go and ending up turning to pacino for another one of his long recent year rants. Which is a shame because up until then I thought he was actually pretty decent in a restrained yet oddly sinister performance.

6/10


Spider (2002) - excellent film about a fractured mind. Usually in a movie like this, it is difficult to get audiences to connect with the main character. Enter David Cronenberg, who takes you so far into his character's head that you cant help but nod at everything the character says and does.

This approach will probably put off a few people because through it the movie enters some dark and uncomfortable territory but its an unarguable display of great filmmaking skill and writing. Cronenberg is aided by fantastic performances from Ralph Fiennes, playing a mentally impaired man grappling with his past as a child, and Miranda Richardson, playing key roles that shouldn�t be given away.

7-7.5/10


Funny Games (1997) - tries to have its cake and eat it too, and almost succeeds. Michael Haneke's effort has a go at the audience for treating violence as entertainment but presents a catch 22 situation by making a disturbing, confronting movie that is also just very compelling to watch. The quality of the filmmaking is too good for the attempt to talk down to the viewer in having a part in whats happening on screen.

Its also been remade (shot for shot) by Haneke for US release.

6.5/10 

Coup de Torchon (1981) - dark french comedy/drama by bertand tavernier set in french owned west africa in the 30's. Phillipe Noiret plays a small town's ineffectual local constable, who accepts condescension from his superiors and from other rich french occupants until he realizes that he can use his position to gain vengeance with impunity, resulting in him starting to kill everyone who previously regarded him as a fool.

Its excellent, slow burn stuff with Noiret quite effective in the main role and getting good support from Isabelle Huppert and Stehpane Audran. Tavernier juggles the different tones of his movie quite well, changing from light hearted mundaneness to outright bleakness to existential dilemma with ease.

The movie also has a neat circular narrative, opening and closing with a similar scene, but with markedly different meaning which effectively highlights the change in the main character over the course of the film.

7.5/10


The Devil is a Woman (1936) - fun little movie from the Josef Von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich collaboration that is not amongst their best work together but is still reasonably entertaining throughout. Dietrich plays her usual unattainable vamp character but is also, as usual, quite a screen presence and she carries the lightweight script along with Von Sternberg's great visual skill.

6.5/10


Drunken Angel (1948) - the best thing about Kurosawa is that even his more minor films are streets ahead of what most other filmmakers can produce and that is certainly the case here. This one is nowhere near his best work, it has a few narrative problems with distracting subplots and Toshiro Mifune is not as convincing as he would become in his later collaborations with the director, but as a whole, its still quite an excellent movie.

Takeshi Shimura plays an alcoholic small town doctor in post war Japan who starts to treat a young Yakuza (mifune) with TB and realises he wants to cure more than just his physical sickness. What follows is a borderline great look at Shimura's character's success and failings and how he deals with each.

Even in an early work such as this, you can see numerous flashes of the brilliance that would follow, and that combined with Shimura's performance raises it to quite a watchable level.

7-7.5/10


The Banquet (2006) - a very loose adaptation of Hamlet in the wuxia style seen in recent times in Hero, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower. I liked 3 of those and House still had its moments despite being shoddy overall.

This one, unfortunately, is just lame. As far as its source material is concerned, it deviates so far from it that it should not even have called itself an adaptation. Its an overlong, tedious affair with no characters that are anything more than cardboard cutouts and amalgamations of various shakespeare figures (eg Zhang Ziyi plays some sort of strange cross between Gertrude, Lacy Macbeth and Ophelia).

This leaves a capable cast with nothing to do except wear the intricate costumes and parade around the impressive sets. Even the fight choreography is average, some smaller scenes coming off pretty well but the larger more complex ones just being a mess of slow motion wirework.

4.5/10


Suddenly Last Summer (1959) - pretty good adpatation of Tenessee Williams' play by Joseph L Mankiewicz, the material comes across better than in something like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn put in strong performances and although the whole thing is very stagey, Mankiewicz does enough visually to draw attention away from it.

Quite a strong script plot and dialogue wise, although most of it probably came from the source material.

7-7.5/10 

Indiana Jones 4 - it's good. Not as good as 1 and 3, but much better than 2. Shia le Bouf was surprisingly fine but the main reason it works is Harrison Ford. He slips back into character easily and the whole thing's a fun ride with nods and winks to a lot of 50's films, even if it's a little too preposterous compared to the earlier films. The action scenes are mostly first rate.

7/10


Bug (2006) - I'd read this was a return to form for William Friedkin which understandably, and anyone that's seen The French Connection and The Exorcist would agree, had me looking forward to it.

Well it is and it isnt. It is in the sense that his adaptation of the 1996 play about two people feeding off and fueling each other's acute paranoia is suitably tense and foreboding and has very good performances from Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon (reprising his stage role). It isnt in that the source material just doesn�t appear to lend itself to film at all.

Due to the nature of the material, the whole thing heads into a frenzied and hysterical state for its last half an hour and requires a distance between the happenings and the viewer to not appear extremely over the top. This is obviously possible on stage but unfortunately on film the lack of distance between the happenings and the camera/viewer causes unintentional disconnect and believability.

4/10 

Prince of the City (1981) - the last of Sidney Lumet's great films and although it covers similar ground to Serpico, the execution is completely different. The screenplay is a model of how to tell an intricate, complex story containing a lot of information without overloading the audience through ceaseless exposition. It has its flaws, the movie lacks Lumet's usual economy and overstays its welcome at 168 min but it's quite forgivable given the other fine qualities on display.

7.5-8/10


The Barefoot Contessa (1954) - bit of a mess narrative wise, it doesn�t seem to know whether it�s a Sunset Boulevarde lite attack on Hollywood or a less fantastical version of the Cinderella story. But Joseph L Mankiewicz writes good dialogue and Bogart and Ava Gardner lap it up in entertaining performances. It's also brilliantly shot by Jack Cardiff.

6/10


Lifeboat (1944) - unfortunately its more a WWII propaganda movie than a Hitchcock film. The premise is based on John Steinbeck's story of a ship sunk by a U-Boat and before you can say 'microcosm of society' a variety of different sorts of survivors gather on a lifeboat (with one of them possibly being the captain of the U-Boat that sank them). Its technically brilliant, Hitchcock makes great use of the limited space, but despite his attempts to breathe life into it, it never once veers of a very predictable path.

5.5/10


Crash (2004) - I had only seen certain (terrible) scenes before but, well, as a whole movie, it's actually not all that bad. In fact, it's probably in the decent category. The problem as usual is with Haggis' script which is way too heavy handed and contrived for the most part. But there's definitely some good bits, mainly due to the uniformly solid acting, that make up for some of the truly awful scenes that go way overboard in attempting to manipulate the viewer.

6.5/10


Suzhou River (2001) - sort of like a homage to Vertigo done in a Wong Kar Wai style. It's definitely interesting with most of the movie shown from the point of view of or narrated by a never shown character who seems to blend a story he read about in the newspapers about the death of a young girl (who sort of looks like his new girlfriend) and what may have actually happened. Solid stuff but I didn�t like the ending which rang a bit hollow and was a bit of a stretch credibility wise too.

6,5/10


Monster (2003) - above average film with an excellent performance from Charlize Theron. The filmmaking is a bit sloppy and amateurish, as is some of the writing, but Theron makes almost every scene work with a very layered and subtle performance that avoids scenery chewing and makes you understand her character to an extent even when you don�t agree with her actions.

6-6.5/10


The Brood (1979) - his most recent work aside, its difficult to properly describe the plot of a David Cronenberg movie without sounding like you're making it up. But in short this one's a bizarre, twisted, sometimes brilliant look at the idea of manifestation of negative emotion (rage/pain) in physical abnormalities.

Certain scenes have not aged well due to their execution being a bit amateurish but others are still quite capable of messing with and sticking in your head. And that�s really what being a horror movie is all about.

7/10


Hotel Rwanda (2004) - this is going to sound harsh because it's a story that definitely deserved to be told and Don Cheadle is great in the main role, but unfortunately this is just a bad film.

Writer/director Terry George has no idea about narrative, pacing or characterisation so the whole things is barely held together by Cheadle's excellent performance and the general power of the story.

4/10 

that I'm really enjoying this decade's take on things vaguely Western... Deadwood, The Proposition, Carnivale, The Assassination of Jesse James, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, 310 to Yuma, and there's still a few coming up too. I could never get into old westerns because of the good guy/bad guy cheesiness of it, but historical settings, sinister atmospheres, and R ratings go well together.

Saw Bug a while ago for lack of something better to rent - not that good, but the main actor's paranoia was pretty amusing, with his rants about the CIA and so forth. Like when he brings up the "sound card" thing - I laughed at that. 

an older western that would fit well with those you listed is the The Wild Bunch (my favorite western).

As for more recent stuff, also check out The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada (2005).