What films have you watched this week?

[Baseley09]

The sax in Commando is inspiring.

[rmoxon]

Commando doesn't really have a typical 80's soundtrack, in fact Commando is a great film and holds up well to this day to be fair. A lot of 80's films struggle with their age though, even more so than older films, and it's quite often down to not just the soundtracks but how the music is used in the films.

[JazzFunk]

Youre right it does define the film, and it turns it into what is a great little thriller with a good plot and some brilliant set piece kill scenes into a strange oddity. And yeah, you're right, what the music does work as a pre cursor to the glitzy soundtrack of eighties movies in general. But then that's not a good thing as generally a lot of 80's soundtracks are intrustive and tacky, which is not what you want from the music in a horror thriller. In fact it's not what you want at all. The Embaressing movie soundtracks of that decade are just one of the many reasons why the 80's are known as the decade of cheese.

Moxo, you know you're the only one thinking that? Would you rather have Elmer Bernstein orchestral stabs in a film full of neon, shiny, and white clothing?

80s slasher music is often divine, and serves the purpose of making such films feel firmly of a set era, a time when everything was a bit naive and skewiff and kinda cool. Plus, I love vintage synths and they often have the capacity to be far more effective in creating tension (see Escape From New York, Day Of The Dead etc.)

You're clearly babbling, Moxon. Foaming madness.

PS: The 'decade of cheese' for me was the period between 1975-1985, I only started loving baths when I reached the age of 11.

[rmoxon]

Moxo, you know you're the only one thinking that? Would you rather have Elmer Bernstein orchestral stabs in a film full of neon, shiny, and white clothing?

80s slasher music is often divine, and serves the purpose of making such films feel firmly of a set era, a time when everything was a bit naive and skewiff and kinda cool. Plus, I love vintage synths and they often have the capacity to be far more effective in creating tension (see Escape From New York, Day Of The Dead etc.)

You're clearly babbling, Moxon. Foaming madness.

PS: The 'decade of cheese' for me was the period between 1975-1985, I only started loving baths when I reached the age of 11.

I'm not the only person thinking it at all. Well maybe I am on here with the Bizzare things that get said by some people, but even upon release the music in Tenebrae was either a love or hate thing for critics, some liked it, some thought it completely ruined the film (an opinion I agree with).

The 80's is a decade that was very much about excess (you know, big hair and all that) and the use of music in many films was no different. Yes you can point out films that had great soundtracks form the decade, like you can for any other, but it doesn't alter the fact that a large portion of them have aged badly due to the use of their soundtracks as well. In most cases though it has to be said that this wasn't down to Scored music so much as the overbearing use of pop and rock tunes that were used in alot of films during the 80's.

Now it has to be said that having aged badly does not always ruin the enjoyment of a film. But it certainly never helps things.

[Dogg Thang]

It was the best of times (Day of the Dead), it was the worst of times (Nightmare on Elm Street).

[PaTaito]

some liked it, some thought it completely ruined the film (an opinion I agree with).

On that note...

[monel]

I thought Commando was very much an 80's film with an 80s soundtrack. I love the synth soundtracks in many films too, they take a lot of films to another level for me.

[buster_broon]

Agree About commando

The old steel drums were big about then and it features heavily In The soundtrack that tied in with a Tropical island made it a little better

[JazzFunk]

^It's also nice how the music to Commando shares similarities with the music from 48hrs, another excellent, tropics-style score from James Horner, both really nice examples of early 80s action fodder.

So, just watched Lakeview Terrace. Wish Sam L. Jackson took on more meatier roles, such as this, where he shines, he's a f*cking marvel in this. Excellent thriller about a moneyed mixed-race couple who move in next door to a bitter, racist black cop, a *true* "neighbour from hell". It follows some of the conventions of similar films (ie. Cape Fear) but the racial subtext and subtle handling of everything makes it a film with more brains than most of its ilk. Probably helps that Neil LaBute directed it, this is class, I was riveted throughout. Great!

[koopatroopa90]

Lakeview Terrace made my girlfriend and I seriously angry when we watched it!

[JazzFunk]

^Care to expand? Same thing happened with The Love Guru with me and the ex, one of the final nails in the coffin it was, for us!

[QualityChimp]

Blade Runner: The Final Cut

As a film and sci-fi fan, it's probably a bit of a surprise that I've only seen this once before when I was a teenager.

I remember being a bit underwhelmed by it at the time, but that's possibly because it's regularly called one of the best films ever made and a benchmark for science fiction.

Having recently read the book, I thought it was worth a revisit.

Visually, this film is stunning. As the camera drops down into the busy street and we see Deckard waiting to eat at a diner stall, I was drinking in the fantastic sets. It's pretty consistent throughout and only the odd shot of a screen not being flat-panel is the only thing that particularly dates it. In fact, it felt like Tron Legacy where they'd put a young-looking Harrison Ford into a modern film! All of it was fantastic and I was blown away by how little it has aged.

I could gush for ages about the advertising billboards, the clothing, the props and the sets. Such meticulous detail was astonishing.

Most the actors were great in it, but I thought Rutger Hauer has never been better in his entire career than he was in this (even Salute of the Jugger and the Lurpack ads!). Roy Batty is emotionally frail but also a very threatening antagonist that seems unstoppable. Obviously, the speech is perfectly delivered.

I'm not sure if anybody can clarify, but are the Tyrell Corporation still making replicants to go to off-world colonies? It seems a big place to run if they're not allowed to make replicants anymore!

The differences between the novel and film are quite big, but the film works better with it streamlined and there's a lot of talk of gods and fake animals in the book that reduce its focus quite considerably. Cutting all that out made for a better story, I felt.

Ultimately though, I still came away feeling a little underwhelmed still. Visually, the film is practically flawless and amazingly well thought out, but I felt the story had pacing issues and plodded along as we see lingering shots of Deckard mournfully playing his piano and swigging booze. You can argue that he's a vague character because they purposefully wanted to ask the question if Deckard is a replicant too, but to me, it just meant that he was a bland character that had very little for the viewer to attach on to. In the novel, he's obsessed with "keeping up with the Jones'" by having a real animal, trying to keep his unstable wife happy and questioning his faith. I guess the film is trying to question the difference between humans and replicants and as Deckard kills more of them, he becomes more inhuman and as the replicants become aware of their mortality, they embrace life and what they find important.

I'm also not a fan of the Vangelis soundtrack. The synth sax score may reflect its film noir roots, but to me, it made the chase with Zhora, for example, seem a little flat. so, I personally, found it to deduct from the action, dated the film and made many sequences seem dreary. Sorry!

I was also very aware of the whole argument about Deckard's humanity. On one side you've got Scott saying categorically that he's a replicant, then in the other corner, you've got Dick, Ford, and (original screenwriter) Fancher saying he isn't. Also there's the arguments that the film was re-cut to add this element that wasn't in their in the first place and once a story is in the public domain, it's open to interpretation from the audience free from the confines of what the writer may say - "Death of the Author".

The added dream sequence with a unicorn is the main argument for Deckard being a replicant and when Gaff leaves an origami unicorn, it shows he knows about Deckard's dreams, so they too must be implants. To be honest, every time Gaff appears on screen, he's usually making some kind of origami, so it was probably inevitable that he'd make something in Deckard's dreams eventually!

It doesn't matter which side of the fence you sit on though, I think the master stroke is the ambiguity that lets the viewer decide.

It's a lot like in Total Recall, where the director has recently claimed that the whole adventure to Mars was a figment of Quaid's imagination and he's actually in Rekall all along!

Has anybody else heard this theory...

[Atticus]

Has anybody else heard this theory...

Nice words about Blade Runner. It's about time I watched it again.

[charlesr]

I second that! I love Bey Logan's kung-fu commentaries too.

I saw a film that I'd recorded off Film 4 a few weeks back called Cypher, even though I knew nothing about it.

It's a science fiction thriller from 2002 starring Jeremy Northam and Lucy Liu. Northam plays a recently unemployed accountant that wants to start a career in corporate espionage rather than work for his father-in-law. The espionage company send him on various errands to spy on their competitors, but a chance meeting with Lucy Liu's character leads him down the rabbithole as she reveals not everything is as it seems!

Before long, you're not sure if Northam is an agent, double-agent or who he is at all. You've got to stay sharp to follow the twists and turns. There are a nice selection of futuristic paranoia ideas thrown about and they do well with the restricted budget with helicopters, secret bases and spy cameras by the end.

I'd probably have enjoyed it more if I'd have watched it in one go and followed a little more closely, but it was still a nice mix of images and storyline. If you like paranoid thrillers with a hint of sci-fi, this could be worth checking out.

This is on netflix US so I gave it a go. I really enjoyed it.

[buster_broon]

Had a bit of a resident evil day yesterday

resident evil damnation
Starts off pretty slow picks up in the middle and becomes pretty decent when the nemesis eventually appears, CGI animation is top stuff as always with these type of resident evil movies just a shame most of the film is ho hum and only really in the last 3rd it picks up especially the nemesis and lickers

resident evil retribution
Seems an easy pay cheque for Mila every year phone wes Anderson and churn out one of these but they seem to make money so I guess they will always be around, the series of movies are a big let down compared with the games and are pretty much hit and miss, but saying that I did enjoy the last outing because it seemed to take alot from resident evil 5 especially wesker and how he moves in the film. Anyway back to this one, it really could be resident evil special edition because every actor who has played a part in Any of the movies seems to make an appearance, the story is set directly after the tanker in the last movie and moves to an underwater installation in the Russian sea, this installation is run by the red queen and is a training/test bed for viruses (this one is la plaga) and its about Alice escaping going through regions in the installation (suburbia, New York, Japan etc) overall a let down as usual but one of the worst in the series and I found the last one much better and the stand out point in this movie is the actress who plays Jill valentine - that is how Cosplay really needs to be, she is just incredible