Il Mare- Quite good korean film which relies more on mood than anything else. The slow style suits the story but the ending falls into the familiar paradox pitfalls that plague most time travel films. Still worth watching.


Memories of Murder - Excellent film based around the investigation into Korea's first serial killings. Seven and Silence of the Lambs aside, this is better than most serial killer films that come out of the US and is easily one of the more intelligent films in the genre. 

I heard about that one somewhere else, and it looked really good. I'll try and find it now that it has the nitin approval. 

spot on, sham
but rewatching it at home on dvd was kinda boring 

hi 

Korean film by Kim Ki-Duk and its a very low key but enthralling movie for the slowly but effectively built first two thirds. Its an unusual story with hardly any dialogue between the two leads but the writing, acting and cinematography are strong enough to get you into it.

Then comes the last third, which depending on your own point of view, will either make you appreciate the film more or, like me, or will make you wish the initial premise was stuck to.

I thought the last third came off as showy and pretentious while the first two thirds were effortless in their engagement.

Still, worth a watch, chances are more people than not will like the last act more than me. 

The Descent - any good? I used to like the odd bit of horror (well, Hellraiser anyway), but watching Event Horizon scared so many shades of crap out of me that I haven't watched any since. I've heard The Descent is pretty good and quite scary - would it be worth a look as an example of the modern horror film? 

daz posted his thoughts (he liked it) earlier on.

And scared by Event Horizon? Was that sarcasm or seriousness? 

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.