FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Fri Oct 15, 2010 3:04 pm

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Summer-S ... kid=438403

Summer School
2006NR89 minutes

After watching an endless string of horror films for his movie-review Web site, sleepy teen Charles (Simon Wallace) can't stay awake during summer school. Even worse, his constant nightmares seem frighteningly close to reality. As the throngs of monsters, murderers and other creepy characters haunt his dreams, our movie-addled hero begins to lose his grip in this dark indie horror flick, also starring Lance Hendrickson and Tony D. Czech.


If you enjoy indie films, you'll love this one. It's a little slow in the beginning but turns out to be a very entertaining movie with a nice twist at the end.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Fri Oct 15, 2010 3:48 pm

Pele'sDaughter wrote:http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Summer-School/70116597?trkid=438403

Summer School
2006NR89 minutes

After watching an endless string of horror films for his movie-review Web site, sleepy teen Charles (Simon Wallace) can't stay awake during summer school. Even worse, his constant nightmares seem frighteningly close to reality. As the throngs of monsters, murderers and other creepy characters haunt his dreams, our movie-addled hero begins to lose his grip in this dark indie horror flick, also starring Lance Hendrickson and Tony D. Czech.


If you enjoy indie films, you'll love this one. It's a little slow in the beginning but turns out to be a very entertaining movie with a nice twist at the end.


I love the Summer School from the 80s, but it's a goofy movie...
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:05 pm

It looks like a lot of fun from the reviews at Netflix. Glad you mentioned it. Surely I saw it back then but don't remember it.

Summer School
1987PG-1397 minutes

When school lets out for the summer, gym teacher Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) can't wait to hightail it to Hawaii with his girlfriend for a vacation. But when the teacher who's supposed to teach remedial English (director Carl Reiner) wins the lottery, Shoop gets roped into the job. The misfit students aren't too happy to be there, either, so Shoop resorts to bribery to get them to come to class and crack the books.


http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Summer-S ... kid=438381
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:12 pm

Pele'sDaughter wrote:It looks like a lot of fun from the reviews at Netflix. Glad you mentioned it. Surely I saw it back then but don't remember it.

Summer School
1987PG-1397 minutes

When school lets out for the summer, gym teacher Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) can't wait to hightail it to Hawaii with his girlfriend for a vacation. But when the teacher who's supposed to teach remedial English (director Carl Reiner) wins the lottery, Shoop gets roped into the job. The misfit students aren't too happy to be there, either, so Shoop resorts to bribery to get them to come to class and crack the books.


http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Summer-S ... kid=438381


Yeah, it's very funny IMO. It's not a movie making feat though.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:19 pm

Here's another one that was a lot of fun to watch.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Kick-Ass/7 ... id=1503584

Kick-Ass
(Kick Ass)
2010R117 minutes

Inspired by his love of comic books, high school student Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) decides to transform himself into a masked crime fighter -- a decision that eventually thrusts the teenager into Internet stardom. Soon, Dave's antics inspire a wave of would-be heroes to don costumes and live out their superhero fantasies. Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Chloe Moretz also star in this comic book adaptation from director Matthew Vaughn.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Oct 15, 2010 6:49 pm

I recently watched The Reflecting Skin and was severely underwhelmed. Imagery was all that movie has going for it. Found "Heartless" to be a vastly better, more mature + complete film.

This might sound like a joke, but Land of the Lost is one of my all-time favorite films. Any excuse to get Danny McBride and Will Ferrell on the same screen is good by me, but there's something so aggressively "Bad" and unhinged about Land of the Lost...well, suffice it to say I've seen it over fifty times, according to my media player stats.

"I Sell the Dead" is a funny, weird, dark and pitch-perfect story about victorian era grave robbers that I think would be enjoyed by 90% of the folks reading this.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:47 am



check out the "phone call from a computer" early in this trailer

and as good as good gets...

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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Laodicean » Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:36 pm

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Moviedrome

Postby madeupname452 » Sun Oct 17, 2010 5:48 pm

This is a useful thread. Here is a handy list from http://www.kurtodrome.net/moviedrome.htm

I have not watched all of these yet - but I use it as a handy resource for tracking down interesting films.

Moviedrome is (or "was") a BBC2 series where a cult movie (but what is cult?) was introduced before it was shown. Moviedrome first showed up in 1988 when cult director Alex Cox hosted the introductions (he didn't choose the movies though). Cox hosted Moviedrome (shown every summer) till 1994. In 1997 the show returned from the dead with movies chosen and introduced by Mark Cousins (known for his work at the Edinburgh Film Festival).
The reason for this page is simple: with a Moviedrome film your chances are slightly higher than 9/10 that what you’ll get to see, will be a very interesting movie. A Moviedrome film will always be "special". In the Cox era Alex Cox described the selection as oddities and gems; Mark Cousins described his choices as "movies you won't forget".


1988

The Wicker Man
Electra Glide in Blue
Diva
Razorback
Big Wednesday
Fat City
The Last Picture Show
Barbarella
The Hired Hand
Johnny Guitar
The Parallax View
The Long Hair of Death
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The Fly (1958)
One From The Heart
The Man Who Fell To Earth
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
One-Eyed Jacks

1989

The Man With The X-Ray Eyes
Jabberwocky
D.O.A.
The Thing From Another World
The Incredible Shrinking Man
California Dolls
THX 1138
Stardust Memories
Night of the Comet
The Grissom Gang
The Big Carnival (Ace in the Hole)
Alphaville
Two-Lane Blacktop
Trancers
The Buddy Holly Story
Five Easy Pieces
Sweet Smell of Success
Sunset Boulevard

1990

Assault on Precinct 13
Brazil
Get Carter
Goin’ South
Dead of Night
The Terminator
The Honeymoon Killers
Ulzana's Raid
The Loved One
An American Werewolf in London
Yojimbo
A Wedding
The Phenix City Story
Walk on the Wild Side
Il Grande Silenzio
Quien sabe?

1991

The Beguiled
Vamp
Knightriders
Something Wild
Carnival of Souls
Badlands / The Prowler
Performance
At Close Range
The Duellists / Cape Fear (duels)
The Music Lovers
Manhunter
Hells Angels on Wheels / Rumble Fish (gangs)
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
Solaris
Mishima

1992

Mad Max II / F for Fake
Dead Ringers / Rabid (Cronenberg)
Inserts
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Les Diaboliques
La Strategia del Ragno
Escape from New York
Alligator / Q - The Winged Serpent
Wise Blood / The Witchfinder General
Lolita
Play Misty For Me
Walker
Tracks
The Day of the Locust / The Big Knife (Hollywood satires)

1993

Darkman
House of Games
Escape from Alcatraz / Un condamné à mort s’est échappé (prison)
The Hill
Cry-Baby / Lenny
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) / Romance of a Horsethief
Gothic/ The Navigator
The Terminator
Get Carter / Week-end
Rebel Without A Cause / 200 Motels
Django / Grim Prairie Tales
Run of the Arrow / Verboten! (Fuller)
The Long Riders
The Big Combo
Face to Face
Requiescant
Qué he heche yo para merecer esto?
Carrie

1994 (Alex Cox's final year)

The Andromeda Strain / Fiend Without A Face
Talk Radio
Carnal Knowledge
Coogan’s Bluff / The Narrow Margin
The Harder They Come
Salvador
The People Under the Stairs
Halloween / The Baby
Carny
Girl on a Motorcycle / Psychomania (motorcycles)
Race with the Devil / Detour (keep death on the road)
Rope / 84 Charlie Mopic (experimental filming)
To Sleep with Anger / Le Mépris
Excalibur / Nothing Lasts Forever
Naked Tango / Apartment Zero (Buenos Aires)
Major Dundee / Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah)
Kiss Me Deadly

1997-1998

Scarface
Westworld / Demon Seed (futuristic)
The Fly / Society
Exotica
Blue Collar / American Gigolo (Paul Schrader)
Dazed and Confused / La Vie Sexuelle des Belges (growing up)
The Girl Can’t Help it / Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana (music)
The Warriors / La Haine (gangs)
Spanking the Monkey
Logan’s Run / Fahrenheit 451 (future)
The Fog / Darkness in Tallinn
Storyville / Ruthless
Vanishing Point / The Devil Thumbs a Ride (road movies)
Targets
Liebestraum
Bad Timing
The Conversation
All That Heaven Allows / The Reckless Moment

1998

Trespass
Shaft / Force of Evil
Funny Bones
Cat People
The Killers (1946)
Caged Heat
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Carrie
Léon / Le Samourai
El Patrullero

1999

Clockers
Ed Wood / The Body Snatcher (B-film)
Prêt-à-porter
Videodrome / Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Carlito’s Way
The Osterman Weekend
Mommie Dearest
Johnny Guitar
Branded to Kill
The List of Adrian Messenger
One-Eyed Jacks

2000

Blood and Wine / Plein Soleil (nouvelle vague directors)
Rumble in the Bronx / Clubbed to Death ("guilty pleasures")
The Killers (1964) / On Dangerous Ground
The Underneath / The Hitch-Hiker (film noir)
Walkabout / Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg)
White of the Eye
The Last American Hero
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Sat Oct 23, 2010 6:45 pm

Hot Tomorrows Review
By Paulene Kale

Hot Tomorrows is an extremely low-budget film, written, directed, produced, and edited by Martin Breast; it was shown at the 1977 New York Film Festival and will play at the Entermedia Theater in New York this month as part of the American Mavericks series. Breast made this seriocomic movie, with macabre musical numbers, for $33,000, plus some deferments. If economyt dictated the use of black-and-white stock, Breast turns this to his advantage in stylized film noir effects. It's a typical young-filmmaker's film, in the sense that it's film-obsessed, nut Breast's obsession takes a baroquely original form: to him, old movies--Hollywood musicals, in particular--are memento mori. His hero, Michael (Ken Lerner), an aspiring writer from the Bronx who is living in Los Angeles, is sorrowfully in love with Laurel & Hardy and the other dead entertainers whom he watches on the screen. Michael's childhood friend Louis (Ray Sharkey) is out visiting him, and as they pal around Hollywood on Christmas Eve--the glum intellectual Michael suggesting Oliver Hardy, and little Louis, who just wants some action, suggesting Stan Laurel--everything they encounter reminds them that life hangs by a thread. Each reminder has a quirky unexpectness--from a radio announcer's predictions of holiday traffic fatalities to a cadaverous combo at the Paradise Ballroom, with a mock-Dietrich vocalist (Marie Elfman) singing the mournful "Jonny," and a man (Danny Elfman) singing "St. James Infirmary." There has never been a movie so comically centered on death in life and life in death. Breast writes easy, naturalistic dialogue that comes across as a series of riffs; whatever the characters start to talk about, death always enters in, and the impossibility of avoiding the subject gets funnier all the time--like a good, broad burlesque-house joke.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:07 pm

Assassination of Jesse James
Mulholland Drive
Flame and Citron
Black Book
Beetlejuice
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Wonder Boys
The Believer
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Towelhead
The Talented Mr. Ripley
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Sun Oct 24, 2010 2:30 am

justdrew wrote:

check out the "phone call from a computer" early in this trailer


another gem: early on this movie shows the now long gone radioactive fluoroscope machines that used to be in some shoe stores for fitting.

I'm currently convinced this is a likely inspiration for some of Sarfatti's stories. and/or this reminds us that there were early electro-mechanical speech synthesis equipment going far back before modern computer methods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Dollar_Brain

Plot
The unnamed protagonist travels to Helsinki to deliver a package after receiving instructions from a mysterious mechanically operated telephone message. On his arrival the protagonist discovers that the message was from 'The Brain', a one billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter.

Midwinter is using The Brain to organise his own intelligence agency and private army which will soon start an uprising in Soviet-occupied Latvia in an attempt to end Communism in the Eastern bloc and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West. After discovering this, and also the fact that the package he delivered contained a deadly virus, the protagonist must stop the virus from falling into the hands of both the Soviets and the madman billionaire - and prevent a nuclear war between the superpowers in the process.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Twyla LaSarc » Sun Oct 24, 2010 2:45 am

Picnic at Hanging Rock.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:13 am

if you've not seen this series, "you must you must" it's truly something special.

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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby stefano » Fri Nov 19, 2010 6:15 pm

I just watched A Prophet, a French prison movie by Jacques Audiard, the story of a young guy who walks into jail as a nobody and walks out as the boss six years later. It's one of the best gangster movies I've ever seen, like the Godfather, with that kind of character development and respect for film as a medium. To tie it in with the Peter Watkins thread - it's not at all a kind of cheaply manipulative, made-for-the-evening-slot movie: it's 2 1/2 hours long and the only music is blues or rap tunes at times when dialogue is superfluous. And much of the film is extremely subtle, some significant thing is shown through a window in a corner of the screen for instance, or over the shoulders of the characters in the foreground. I also liked that the dialogue is in three languages (French, Arabic and Corsican), with the change in the prison reflecting other changes in France. Like there's a bit about the change from francs to euros that Audiard doesn't dwell on too much, but it's there.

Highly recommended!

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