I think it could go fine. The trailers looked quite good even. I could be wrong, trailers don't signify everything, but I'm not going to rule it out yet.

Agreed, and it is not about 'not getting it' (the go-to argument so commonly used). They are simply poor and soulless imitations of quality 80's action films, all the ingredients are there but a lousy wrap-around story comparable to an SNL skit pales in comparison to the greats of yesteryear.This is me watching Pontypool. Didn't expect it to dip so badly after it being rated number 2 in the best isolated horror movies list by denofgeek. I would have taken a boring zombie rehash over that ludicrous big twist (into the wretched depths so commonly found in a Stephen King mini-series, where ideas go to die). I'm beginning to think every modern film with a twist is a sure-fire disaster.

Bullet To The Head is a righteously terrible film. Not terrible as in good, campy or goofy, but just a really a poor film. As for the Expendables series, I really enjoyed the original, and there's things I really like about Expendables 2, but my issue with that movie is the action scenes feel a little too staged and perfectly executed. I always appreciate when action scenes feel a little unwieldy and messy. Examples are Dredd 3D and Safe of unwieldy action scenes where the hero or protagonist always feels like they're on the edge of getting shot to shit/killed/maimed/etc.

Speaking of action movies, has anybody seen trailers for the new Donnie Yen Hong Kong film, Special Identity? It's about time Donnie returned to the gritty, modern day crime era. Yen punching the shit out of anybody I can appreciate, always and every time. *thwack!* *crunch!*

What, it's brilliant. It wasn't reliant on the twist at all, if you could even call it a twist so much as just a good ending. It was very artfully done and was probably the best zombie movie in ages. I think it's very cool.

I remember Blitz being the better of the two recent "single syllable Statham movies," but that could have just been because it co-starred the exquisitely gorgeous Zawe Ashton, who stands at the absolute forefront of my current celebrity crush list.

Anyone here watched Blitz? It's on Netflix.

That hallway hammer fight scene in Oldboy is definitely one of my favorite scenes in the history of movies.

And wow, Zawe Ashton looks way sexier with short hair than with that awkwardly 90's haircut she had in Sherlock.

And not to get WAY off topic here but she... she was in Sherlock? O_o How did I. How did I not recognize her?

Maybe because she has an Elaine Benes circa 1992 haircut in it?

Funny Games (US)

Christ. Funny Games (US) is one of the dumbest movies of all time. What a moronic piece of poorly thought out, ill-conceived, exploitative trash. It's 'The House on the Edge of the Park' (which wasn't ever very good) for the Justin Bieber generation. Pretty much zero redeeming factors here, along with some of the shittiest dialog and acting I've seen recently. I'm aware that it's a remake, (but i heard that one was very similar and hence very likely trash as well- I mean let's face it - it's very unlikely the Americanisation of *this film* in particular is the problem here, but the retarded concept) and I had put off watching this flick for ages because it seemed it had a good chance of being retarded, and I've now confirmed my suspicions. Ugh, and that friggin' ending couldn't have been any tackier. The film makes barely any sense and seems like it was written by a 14 year old; the psychopaths' referring to each other as "tom" & "jerry" and "Beavis" & "Butthead" along with the "randomness" of that awful "death metal" music throughout the movie, and that cringeworthy "deep" conversation on the boat about the "material and anti-material universes"; Just a non-stop cringefest. I'm sorry but i can't imagine anyone enjoying this except spoiled idiot brats of the #swag generation.

Some parts of the expendables movies were enjoyable. I really enjoyed van damme in the second one. Bullet to the head was nothing like either of the expandable movies, the only thing was they both starred Sly.

By far one of the worst movies I've seen, it's a slow build up to nothing and then the twist comes and makes the movie a parody of itself.

Have a go at my little rant. I am slowly losing my appreciation of film. Last movie I have really enjoyed was The Experiment (the Adrien Brody one, I've yet to see the original). Hollywood is too busy making remakes and sequels, while the underground just tries to cobble together a bunch of boring, pretentious bullshit masquerading as art. Too many movies that people enjoy fall flat in my opinion, especially horror films, which have been reduced to who's the most offensive (for example A Serbian Film, which I've no interest in seeing) or paranormal shit (which isn't scary at all and people should stop pretending it is). Whatever happened to atmosphere and genuine creativity is beyond me.

There are always patches of bad movies, and these days we get a lot of low-brow appealing tripe, but I always find movies to enjoy. You can too and so can anyone who claims to be disillusioned with movies.

Movies are just like music in that you have to do some digging in order to find great material. Sometimes the best stuff is on the surface, but more often than not it's a movie that you had to search around for that's the most gratifying.

^^^ Well who says you need to watch new hollywood or independent films? There are tons of incredible films from the 60s, 70s and 80s waiting to be watched.

And yeah modern horror tends to be pretty pathetic and transparently trying way too hard to be shocking. Based on what I've seen.

Horror movies this year have been shit. I thought Conjuring was the best one, but I saw You're Next the other night and thought it was awful. Yeah, it had 2/3 good kills, but the rest was stupid and cliche.

@Funny Games
The dialogue and acting is meant to be that way because they're playing a game, they've been and done it countless times and are simply repeating what they've already said. By this point in time I'm sure they would be phoning it in.
It made complete sense to me, they have control of their surroundings while others don't, what's so brain busting about that?
I really don't get what you're referring to here? The film is an exact copy of the 1997 original so there's literally nothing in common with tweens or whatever you're refering to. Wait, are you making a shallow assumption that because one of the main characters has a waved haircut that it's marketed for them? I don't even understand how this could be a legitimate argument against the movie. The movie isn't intended to be liked, it's meant to show a horrible situation with no saving grace. It's torture what's happening to them and it's that torture you have to sit through, because just like in the real world some killers get away with their crimes whether you like it or not. It truly seems you missed the boat with the intentions of the movie. I don't see people getting all ruffled about Megan is Missing and we all know how that ends.

volutetheswarth literally just wrote everything I wanted to write... only since he wrote it, it's actually good.

I also feel the cliche "It's the blah blah blah for the [insert fad] generation" ship has sailed, unlike the cliche "I feel the [insert object of ridicule] ship has sailed" which is still totally novel and has many years left in its... sails.

Most of what you say is a gross generalisation, although I do think most horror and comedy films these days tip over into bad taste. The love of blood and all things covered in it seems to have sky-rocketed especially with movie posters. It seems to have become a wildly popular and tolerated fetish. Regardless, I've seen countless bad movies but I've never thought to raise my hand and say I quit, because this isn't free tv we are talking about, we have total control over what we watch. You'll eventually see some good movies and you'll get over it, but having that high and mighty attitude to film, where you never even tolerate something that you don't like because of a few bad eggs, isn't the best approach if you want to find good films.

So... What you're saying is things are as they've always been?

Agreed. It's so tired at this point and Funny Games does not incite such labelling even on a superficial level.

It's wonderfully ironic too, because the whole movie is Haneke's pointed attack on American pop cinema (and culture at large). This is why he chose to remake the film for US audiences; so we'd see what a torrid state our entertainers had forged for us and at least see the error of our ways if not outright try to fix it. As was not unexpected (probably even by Haneke himself), by and large, the only people who truly liked (or, dare I say, "understood") the film were the arthouse crowd. He tried to bring in mass appeal by casting Naomi Watts and getting master photographer Darius Khondji to shoot it but... alas.

Yet still. A message isn't lost just because it doesn't reach its intended audience.

Tim Black of Spiked (note: not affiliated with SPIKE TV) goes much further into the film than I have. Anyone who disliked Funny Games (either US or GER) would do best to read it before they dismiss it entirely.

EDIT: How many here have seen Cache? It's in in my top 5 favorite films of all time. The only Hanake film I didn't much care for was Time of the Wolf.

I haven't seen the US version of Funny Games. Since I found the original really unsettling and thought-provoking (in a word: good), I figured there weren't no reason to possibly sully the experience with a shot-by-shot rehash with high-profile American actors. I think I'll leave it alone and just stick to the initial version.

I guess I'm probably one of the only other people here that's seen Caché. Only once, though, and I've been meaning to revisit it. Haneke is fucking rad. No matter what he does, even if I "like" it or not, he inevitably gets my mind going more consistently than any other director. He always finds a way to twist something inside, on some subtle, subversive level, that awakens a psychological or moral argument that genuinely feels valuable. It's called content, people .

Speaking of Haneke, I just got Amour in the mail. Excited to check it out!

Hey darkie, you ever catch Iñárritu's Biutiful?

I liked Funny Games (US) as well. Who'd have thought there were so many spoiled idiot brats of the #swag generation on one small metal board? Haven't seen any other Haneke besides that and Benny's Video, which I didn't like all that much.

Yeah, I know they can't all be bad, but I haven't found a niche I enjoy like I have with metal and gaming for example. I haven't seen what I like in cinema recently, in fact most of it seems to move away from what I believe should be. It's not like I haven't seen cool movies over the past few years, it just seems like what I enjoy is being replaced with what I dislike most. I guess DeathRiderDoom has a point, I haven't seen many films earlier than 1980, so I'll see what's what.


I read a similar argument defending the film before (maybe even the same one but I can't remember) and I disagree entirely. Surely you can make good art with your message, the message cannot be conveyed at the expense of the art. If you value your message so highly over your art, write an essay.

@volutetheswarth

1. Fuck your sooo deip. i nevar hrd of dt b4. Are you fucking kidding
me? that was the piss-poorest effort at creating unease i'd ever seen.
Your average giallo would slaughter that for weird, uneasy dialogue
without even trying. Not even John Saxon's sexy charisma can hold
the strange vibes back

2. I'm sorry but I'm still laughing. Fuck yor deip, bro.

3. I fucking LOVE your assumptions in this! who the FUCK are you?
You sound exactly like one of my film industry buddies fucking with
me. LOVE IT. Is this Jimmy? Is this Matt?!
I love how you out of the clear blue sky assume i hated
the movie coz of the guy's haircut. Yor a deep guiy n i hoep i dindt
offand u. da movie iznt intndtd 2 b lieked. "It truly seems you missed
the boat with the intentions of the movie." LOVE THAT. Let me
stop right here, holy shit. DEAR LORD. You are a genius, and you got me,
friend. You watch deep films like Funni Gaimz nd i dnt. Sorry, guy.

Funny Games sucks. Caché, on the other hand, is ACTUALLY tense, uneasy, and interesting. It alao contains much less laughable main performances.

I saw it during its first run at our local pseudo-arthouse theater, actually! It was certainly Iñárritu's best film since Amores Perros (I thought 21 Grams and especially Babel were pretty terrible, but I also can't stand ensemble and "nonlinear narrative" films, so that's probably why), but there still wasn't a whole ton for me to latch on to. I'll have to check it out again sometime. The only scene I remember clearly was that surreal club scene; freaky stuff.

While we're on the "have you seen" subject, have you seen Jan Švankmajer's Lunacy? Unsettling, delightfully weird Czech film with simply the best integration of stop-motion animation in a live action film I'd seen since Eagle Vs. Shark. You gottsa see it.


Alcohol + Laundry list of fallacies + A shitty, out of touch attempt to ape the YOLO genners = the worst forum post I've seen in a while

Congrats, I guess.

DRD, just a reminder that the language of the forum is English

I kind of want to see Funny Games now, just so I can participate.


Have you seen others of his? I'm a pretty huge Svankmajer fanboy. Alice and Faust are pretty much must-watch movies if you want to get into his output, though the dubs are pretty bad. Dialog is very sparse though, so it's not such a big deal if you get stuck watching a dub. I just love his focus on visuals to create surprisingly complex stories, and as a big fan of stop-motion animation in general I just drool all over his frequent use of it. He also has tons of great short films, my favorite being the Food trilogy. You can watch it in its entirety on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvjzMuIs9lY
Breakfast is the best, but the others are good too. Great way to spend 16 minutes.

The only other Svankmajer film I've seen is his short film Jabberwocky because it was included on one of the CINEMA16 short film DVDs I picked up a while back. It was... weird. Really, really weird. And probably revolutionary for its time. But. Weird.

I've always meant to dig deeper into his filmography. I'll try to watch Faust in the coming weeks.

Yeah me too, it looks like something I'd absolutely hate, but if so many people say it's so meaningful, eh, must at least be worth a cursory viewing.

Addendum Re: Funny Games: that "awful 'death metal'" in the movie is none other than John's Zorn's Naked City project. I actually first learned about that band through this very forum; haven't seen their name come up recently, though.

Thanks for reminding me of Lunacy, donniedarko, I'd idly put it on a mental list of things to see a long time ago and then forgot about it. Will do.... You still haven't seen Der Freie Wille yet, have you That fills me with #angst, because I'm one of those #swagkids. Haha, DRD's tantrum up there was just embarrassing.

I liked Time of the Wolf pretty well, but I remember feeling like its arc was kind of blunted and that it could've been developed more in terms of story/drama... Like a lot of Haneke's stuff, though, I haven't seen it in a while and my memory of the details is a little hazy. Anyway, it was an interesting take on the post-apocalyptic vision that took a different tack. It had a kind of stage play vibe that painted it in a bit more of an "objective" light and made it a bit more dispassionate than some of his other works, I guess.
Benny's Video and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance were also quite interesting pieces, clinical but weirdly visceral at the same time. I think Code Unknown is his only one that always left me a bit neutral... interested and drawn in, but not necessarily left with the feeling that I was much affected in the end.

Oh fuck I totally forgot about The Seventh Continent. Jesus christ, that movie ruled so hard in the most understated way possible.

Just...don't watch the remake, you guys. Watch the original first. I can see why the remake would turn people off. At least with the original you've got a veil of 'anonymity' over the characters and the Hollywood factor won't skew things.

Haneke makes movies with an intellectual point to prove. There is one correct analysis of what you see (his) and if you can't, good luck to you. I can't stand him and I don't know why he doesn't write essays instead. He does seem to be improving though, The White Ribbon and Amour are much better than his old stuff.

The problem with that in the film wasn't the music but the way it was used. I mean, "look here are some teenage psychopaths - let's have them listen to metul." That was offensive to metal music, and seriously cringeworthy. I mean how about that scene that's all so original and edgy where the lead psychpath has the wife tied up downstairs and is all "oooh, let me put you on some music" and then -woops - it's METUL - she doesn't want to hear that - LOL - in an oh so original "oh he's a psycho, but he's doing a whole look i'm polite" routine. That shit made me wince, hard.

I dunno who John Zorn is but that stuff sounded like some powerviolence/grind sorta stuff. Not my thing, but have a problem with the way it was used to contribute to that joke of a film.

What the hell is wrong with The Piano Teacher?


Is it available in Region 1? If not, I guess I'll be forced to "steal" it. #shudder #shockandawe #hashtag

I haven't seen it and won't anytime soon. I'm just not interested in his dry and analytical style.

Oh and failsafeman/Empyreal:

You guys have pretty different tastes, but I really don't see you enjoying that film at all, man. Think 4th rate impression of American Psycho. It's one of those films that's a complete waste of time. It doesn't really have anything to offer besides trying to be edgy. Actually, fuck that - go watch it. I'm quite queen to hear both of your opinions.

Oh my god. My sides. My fucking sides.

If you honestly think Hanake occupies even the same constellation as counter-cultural, faux-punk, 'finger-painter with vomit' not-really-writer Bret Easton Ellis I just... well I don't think there's any reason in discussing this with you any further.