Movie Recommendations

Cyril Tourneur · Jan 28, 2009

as there is already a book recommendations thread, there should also be a movie recommendations thread; now this is done and here is my first entry...

here's an excerpt...

What was it about 1922? In the same year Nosferatu showed the world how to make a vampire movie and Dr. Mabuse took a near-supernatural journey to Berlin's criminal underworld, a film opened in Sweden that was to become notorious for its bold depictions of torture, madness, carnality, and — most memorably — horrific acts performed by and for bestial, nightmarish demons, including Satan himself. But while Nosferatu and Dr. Mabuse presented their stories as fiction, filmmaker Benjamin Christensen's Häxan appeared in the guise of a documentary, its very realism at the heart of its hypnotic allure and its scandalous notoriety.

Officially banned outside of Sweden for decades due to graphic imagery and an unabashed anti-clerical theme, Häxan has grown into a cinema legend one hears about but rarely, if ever, gets a chance to actually see. Is it true that it displays witches cavorting naked with lusty devils? Is a baby really drained of blood before it's tossed into a stew pot? What's this about women lining up to kiss Satan's bulbous ass? Inquisitional torture? Flying on broomsticks? Hysterical nuns? Sacrilege and perversion? Demonic orgies? Otherworldly monstrosities emerging from between an old crone's legs? And it's a documentary? And is there really a version narrated by Beat generation writer and hipster icon William S. "The Naked Lunch" Burroughs, complete with acid jazz soundtrack?

It's all true. Häxan (pron. "hexen," meaning "witches") was long available only in rare, diminished forms, the most well known being a 1968 re-edit given the title Witchcraft Through the Ages. That edit sports the add-on Burroughs' narration and an anarchic musical score featuring Jean-Luc Ponty. Few versions of either incarnation have been released on home video, but restorations have appeared on VHS through Great Britain's Redemption label and, in 1999, Home Vision Entertainment's pairing of the Swedish Film Institute's restored Häxan and (unrestored) Witchcraft Through the Ages.

Now this infamous curio is finally available on DVD under the Criterion Collection folio. Criterion offers a strikingly beautiful print of the fully restored and re-tinted Häxan and again pairs it with the Burroughs version. Its superb audio track features a new score recreated from the original list of musical cues. Plus, Criterion maintains its reputation for delivering a generous assortment of supportive supplemental material — including an audio commentary by Danish silent film scholar Casper Tybjerg, outtakes and test shots, and click-through selections from the centuries-old documents writer/director Christensen used for his diabolical source material. It's presented in an attractive and mindfully produced package.

and here is a link to get the criterion edition

HÃ¤xan (1922) - The Criterion Collection

Mr. D. · Jan 28, 2009

Thanks for letting us know. I saw the 1968 version (in 1968) and thought that it was very effective. It was still very daring for the time. How does the unaltered version hold up?

Daisy · Jan 28, 2009

Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) features what I regard as one of the finest performances ever given by a screen actor, male or female. Catherine Deneuve is brilliant from beginning to end. She doesn’t simply portray a character going mad; she embodies madness. Below are four clips for those of you interested in watching this tour de force.

Repulsion is the first – and I would say the best – film in Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy”; it was followed by Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976). While those two films are superb in their own right, they lack Repulsion’s sense of bottomless horror (though The Tenant comes close!) Here is a brief synopsis by Robert Horton from the Amazon.com website:

Roman Polanski was still a newcomer to the world of cinema when he unleashed this unforgettable exercise in skin-crawling terror. Repulsion was the Polish director’s first film in English, but that hardly mattered: much of the movie is as wordless (and as weird) as the silent Nosferatu. The young Catherine Deneuve plays a Belgian girl stranded in ’60s London, a shy beauty with no social skills. When her sister leaves their shared flat, Deneuve goes gradually, quietly, completely mad. Her world becomes Polanski's paintbox, as the devilish director distorts reality via a series of surrealistic touches (grasping hands that protrude from elastic walls) and out-and-out murderous horror. Very few films cast the kind of eerie spell that this 1965 classic achieves, and it clearly points the way toward Polanski’s Rosemary's Baby. As with most of the director's work, what is unsettling is not the overt violence, but the terrifying sense of emptiness and isolation, and the boiling unease inside one's own mind.

Ligeia · Jan 28, 2009

The film centers around a family of farmers, who are part of a religious community in West Jutland. In addition to the devout Morten, the father, there are his three sons: Mikkel, the eldest, who has no faith; Anders, who wants to marry the daughter of Peter (Ejner Federspiel), a tailor who refuses the marriage because of Anders' (Cay Kristiansen) religious beliefs; the third and youngest son is Johannes, who has lost his mind and believes himself to be Jesus Christ. Morten (Henrik Malberg) considers his religion (the 'Glad Christians' of Grunttvigism) to be about "life" and accuses Peter's faith (the 'Inner Mission') of being concerned with "death".
Inger (Birgitte Federspiel), wife of Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen), is in the late stages of pregnancy; her difficult labor ends with a stillbirth. The doctor inconclusively debates with the pastor whether his science is more important than the pastor's faith in successfully saving Inger's life. Inger though, dies suddenly, the physician having left only moments before. Johannes goes missing, cannot be found, and it is feared his life may also have ended. Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) was not taken seriously in his self-belief, but returning during the laying to rest of Inger, his reason now restored, he is able to heal the rift between the two different families.

The last scene is literally a miracle...

Ligeia · Jan 28, 2009

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Joe Bonham (Bottoms), a young American soldier hit by a shell on the last day of World War I, lies in a hospital bed. He is a quadruple amputee who has also lost his eyes, ears, mouth and nose. He remains conscious and able to reason, however, rendering him a prisoner in his own body. He tries to communicate to his doctors, via morse code, his wish that he be allowed to die, or put in a freak show as a demonstration of the horrors of war. In the end, however, he realizes that the Army will grant neither wish, and will simply leave him in a state of living death.
As he drifts between reality and fantasy, he remembers his old life with his family and girlfriend (Kathy Fields). He also forms a bond, of sorts, with a young nurse (Diane Varsi) who senses his plight.
.

Ligeia · Jan 29, 2009

Lars Lindstrom lives in the converted garage behind the house he and his brother Gus inherited from their father. His pregnant sister-in-law Karin's persistent attempts to lure him into the house for a family meal are usually rebuffed, and on the rare occasions he accepts, their conversation is stilted and he seems eager to leave as soon as he can. The young man finds it difficult to interact with or relate to his family, co-workers, or fellow parishioners in the church he regularly attends.
One day Lars happily announces to Gus and Karin he has a visitor he met via the Internet, a wheelchair-bound missionary of Brazilian and Danish descent named Bianca. The two are startled to discover Bianca is in fact a lifelike doll Lars ordered from an adult website. Concerned about his mental health, they convince Lars to take Bianca to Dagmar, the family doctor who is also a psychologist. Dagmar diagnoses Bianca with low blood pressure and advises Lars he needs to bring her in for weekly treatments, during which she will attempt to analyze him and get to the root of his behavior. She explains that this is a delusion of his own creation and for his own reason and purpose, and she urges Gus and Karin to assist with Lars' therapy by treating Bianca as if she were a real woman....

I know it sounds disturbing but in fact it's a sweet movie on loneliness and love.

Ligeia · Jan 29, 2009

Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) is an overworked mother of two children, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her brother, Frank (Steve Carell), is a scholar of French author Proust and a homosexual, temporarily living at home with the family after having attempted suicide. Sheryl's husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a Type A personality striving to build a career as a motivational speaker and life coach. Dwayne (Paul Dano), Sheryl's son from a previous marriage, is a Nietzsche-reading teenager who has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of becoming a test pilot. Richard's foulmouthed father, Edwin (Alan Arkin), recently evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin, lives with the family; he is close to his seven-year-old granddaughter Olive (Abigail Breslin).
Olive learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant that is being held in Redondo Beach, California in two days. Her parents and Edwin, who has been coaching her, want to support her, and Frank and Dwayne cannot be left alone, so the whole family goes. Because they have little money, they go on an 800-mile (1,287-km) road trip in their yellow Volkswagen T2 Microbus, and that's when real fun starts!

Cyril Tourneur · Feb 5, 2009

The "Dirty Dozen" of Italian Exploitation cinema

dm · Feb 8, 2009

Double%20Feature-Curse%20of%20Demon-Night%20Demon.jpg

An adaptation of M.R. James' story Casting the Runes. The movie also reworks the central occultist as a caricature of Aleister Crowley.

This is another good psychological/occult horror flick from the 1940's.

I love Haxan in it's original and reworked forms. The 1960's reworking is great because of the additional W.S.B. material.

g · Feb 8, 2009

g · Feb 8, 2009

Jeff Coleman · Feb 9, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swmrFOFp-Wo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko2axueZrlA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw5VRn721Z8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdGmcqS3or4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ3zvOuFvu8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TErOa9VUZgw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcLpzZSFYGI

Cyril Tourneur · Feb 9, 2009

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (Polish: Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą) is a 1973 Polish film directed by Wojciech Has. It is an adaptation of Bruno Schulz's story collection Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą). The film won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1973. It is also known as "The Sandglass" in English speaking countries.

here's a short scene...

here are some more scenes... (don't want to post all these youtube links)
YouTube - festungpolen's Channel

and an essay

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium essay

Jeff Coleman · Feb 9, 2009

When I saw Cyril Tourneur's recommendation of The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (a film I didn't know existed until now), I was reminded of the film The Saragossa Manuscript, which I watched a few years ago and loved. It turns out that they were directed by the same person.

Jeff Coleman · Feb 9, 2009

Terror%202000%20-%20Intensivstation%20Deutschland.jpg

"If a Keystone Kops film were written by William S. Burroughs, peopled with characters from George Grosz by way of Russ Meyer and directed in a style that suggests Jean-Luc Godard on speed, you would have a movie with the style and mood of 'Terror 2000.' "

- Stephen Holden

The rest of Stephen Holden's review is here: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A04EEDD1031F93BA25752C1A962958260

I highly recommend Terror 2000. I don't know if it is out on dvd yet, but it is worth tracking down a vhs copy if it seems like the kind of thing you would like. Terror 2000 is my favorite movie starring Udo Kier.

The trailer (in German):

Jeff Coleman · Feb 9, 2009

I should mention that the review of Terror 2000 I linked to eventually panned the movie.

Near the end of the review Stephen Holden wrote: "Spoofing Nazis is a tricky business, since treating hatemongers as absurdist buffoons makes them seem harmless. The social climate that 'Terror 2000' addresses is anything but benign. That's one reason why 'Terror 2000,' despite its frantic style, has no satirical bite. It is a shapeless, hysterical mess."

I guess this shows that I am not on the same page as Holden. I don't really care whether Terror 2000 succeeded as a social commentary or not. I am interested in the gradual breakdown of the character Peter Korn, as he gives in to and embraces the ugliness everywhere around him and within him, and his relationship with his counterpart Jablo. The plot about the murder of the social worker and the rise of neo-nazism seemed to be in the background, serving to build the hysteria that drives Peter Korn.

I have trouble explaining why a certain work of art appeals to me.

What I want to say is: maybe Stephen Holden missed the point? Or maybe, there is just not much for him in Terror 2000, but there is more for me, and maybe you?

Here is another critically panned movie I love:

Jeff Coleman · Feb 10, 2009

The American Astronaut

Ligeia · Feb 22, 2009

In the hands of experimental Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi, the tale of seven "unmarried" young high-school girls who, during a school break, travel to a spooky, remote hilltop house to visit the reclusive, mysterious Aunt of one of their fold only to be consumed one at a time by the Ghost-House/Aunt in increasingly novel ways, is escalated into a spastic, phantasmagorical confetti burst of avant-garde techniques and tonalities. Not a minute goes by without some kind of imaginative and spirited experimental visual manipulation or interjection; from kaleidoscopic color schemes, to frame and time altering collage montage, to wild, high-concept mixed media integration (animation, mattes, props, sets, etc), to mini-movie injections (lovingly parodying/mimicking everything from silent film stylistics, to romantic fantasies to obligatory action scenes). Any and all workings of the film form are here incorporatedly warped; from imagery and editing to music and sound to content and presentation. Even the sketches of characters and their respective performances by the actors are hemmed in time with the overall off-the-wall configuration. (Example: Each girl is intentionally drawn with their stock personalities (the musician, the over-weight eater, the athlete, etc) novelly paraded in gleeful iconic irreverence.) The moods and tones of the film are equally melodic in their own discordant tangential way; seamlessly walking the line between comedy, horror and the deadpan aloof. It all adds up to a whole lot of fun. Where else could you see a girl eaten by a piano, an upright Bear helping cook dinner at a roadside noodle-stand or a man turned into a pile of bananas because he doesn't like melons!? With all its packed in candy-colored confections and novel door prizes, "Hausu" is a cinematic surprise party all in one.

Ligeia · Feb 22, 2009

In this ravishing film of mystical beauty, master animator Kihachiro Kawamoto’s tour de force adventure tale tells the story of a young noblewoman in 8th-century Japan who leaves her home to follow the apparition of an executed prince.

The Book of the Dead takes place as Buddhism is being introduced to Japan from China. Iratsume, a woman of noble descent, becomes obsessed with this mysterious new religion. One night, in a rapturous trance, she sees a luminous vision that she believes to be the Buddha, compelling her to leave home and journey to a sacred temple. Once there, she sees Otsu, a young prince who was executed 50 years earlier. While Iratsume mistakes the prince’s spirit for the incarnation of the great Buddha, the ghost mistakes Iratsume for the last woman he saw at the moment of his death. As an act of great devotion, she decides to make a giant shroud for the prince to heal his soul, after which he begins to haunt the young woman and those around her. The pair embark on an impassioned battle of wills, one longing for the material world, the other striving for the spiritual.

This strange story of otherworldly romance is the work of stop-motion animator and puppet-maker Kihachiro Kawamoto, a former student of the master Czech animator Jiri Trnka. Already a legend in his own right, with The Book of the Dead he has created an intricately detailed magnum opus, a summation of the themes explored in all of his work: the transience of existence, the ambiguity of human behavior, and the search for perfection and beauty in an imperfect world.

One final note for animation buffs: The film also features work by the acclaimed Russian animator and director Yuriy Norshteyn, who was involved in The Book of the Dead as a “guest animator.”

Odalisque · Feb 22, 2009

I've just posted one of my Amazon reviews to another thread. It's reminded me that I gave five stars to this film:

Nude On The Moon [1960] [DVD]

Dvd ~ Marietta
Price: £16.59

Availability: In stock

Possibly the worst film ever made -- but a lot of fun, 24 Jul 2008

I'm not sure that it's possible meaningfully to award stars to this film. The only possibilities are one or five stars and, since the other two reviewers have opted for one star, I've gone for five.

This may possibly be the worst film ever made -- I think that it's worse than "The Wild Women of Wongo". And yet... I've watched it three times, and enjoyed it more each time. There are so many open mouthed moments. The most audacious may be when the astronauts are on their way to the rocket launch site. They drive past a cinema showing another Doris Wishman film. The younger one says that he'd been to see the film the night before. When his older companion sensibly suggests that he should have had an early night, the reply is "It was well worth it!"

En route to the moon, the earth is mirror imaged. Landing on the moon, they find large chunks of what they say is pure gold (it doesn't look much like it). But the sensible older astronaut says that it may be reduced to "worthless dust" during their return voyage to earth. (Leaving me wondering what forces capable of reducing gold to "worthless dust" would do to human bodies.)

The Moon turns out to have a population of girls wearing knickers and head antennae, but no bras. (No one is actually nude, but this was made pre- Trade Descriptions Act.) What was presumably still risque in 1960 is now just silly. But silliness has its place.

Included as an extra is a cosmic striptease short, which is at least as jaw-dropping as "Nude on the Moon" itself. Well worth watching.

The whole package is a lot of fun and has given me more hours of viewing pleasure than most of the DVDs I own. On reflection, it is worth five stars.

I might add that one of the people to whom I've shown this film (on DVD) is the TLO's own beloved Des Lewis. :drunk:

No one has yet (on Amazon) voted the review to be helpful.

:drunk:

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