What Emmanuelle Movie Did You Just Watch?

[IggytheBorg]

Part of the PC Police's problem with v/h/s wasn't only the gender of the victims, but of the killers. They would have you believe that this is misogyny as well because it paints women in a bad light as being capable of committing horrible crimes. A seeming no win situation; they can't be victims, they can't be killers. . . what role are women to have in a horror film? As you may recall, I expounded on this subject at great length in Iggy Horror Thread XII: Is Horror Misogynistic? Peruse. . . if you dare.

[Martin]

V/H/S 2 is a million times better, if only for the Indonesian part by the dude from The Raid. Fantastic.

[Abraham Smashington]

Bad Neighbors - ......... Well Dave Franco and The Efron were pretty great but Rogen and Byrne had like zero chemistry and were caricatures at best, and bad ones to boot. Rogen and Efron were pretty good in the scenes they shared but meh.

I loved this flick. Byrne was hilarious in my opinion but Efron fucking killed.

[Abraham Smashington]

The misogynistic bullshit in regards to VHS is just that. Bullshit.

[B_Metal]

I loved this flick. Byrne was hilarious in my opinion but Efron fucking killed.

I liked Byrne, but her and Rogen were no match, not chemistry wise. Plus I know it's a movie but come on everything they did was stupid. But yeah Efron was great.

[Abraham Smashington]

I dunno, I kind of love that movie.

"Look, I'm wearing a choker!"

[B_Metal]

Don't get me wrong, there's some funny in it. I laughed quite a bit. But Rogen's terrible in this. Like my wife said, the rest of the movie is funny enough to make up for Rogen/Byrne's portions of the flick. When the two of them are alone the funny leaves for me.

[Matt]

Saw a couple of good movies over the Christmas vacation in Florida (we hit the AMC theater in Downtown Disney for a change of pace).

UNBROKEN:
Really good. A very solid film that is surprisingly well directed by Angelina Jolie. My only real complaint is that the really interesting stuff about his story after the war is reduced to a few title cards. That's unfortunate, as thematically all of that stuff is really necessary to his story of personal redemption.

THE IMITATION GAME:
Excellent from beginning to end. I get the complaints about the fact that his homosexuality and what happens to him is kinda glossed over, but I also feel that it was the correct choice for the movie that was made. The tragedy of what happened to him is still there, but it's a counterpoint to the brilliance of what he achieved instead of the main focus. There's another movie to be made about homosexuality in that time period; this isn't it.

[Captain Russ]

Solomon Cocaine.

A modern Golan/Globus sort of film where nothing is nearly as good as it could be and the redemption that is central to the character is presented in the dumbest fashion possible.

Fell asleep at one point due to how little I had been invested in the proceedings. I went back and watched what I missed and came to the conclusion I should have just napped through it instead.

A shame when you have a great antihero type in your lead actor and you give him shoddy material to work with (which Purefoy tries his damnedest to spin it into gold) and even shoddier set pieces. I hear people in some circles appreciate the fight scenes being economic and driven by the character's lethal swordsmanship, but it was all blocked so terribly and cut in the strangest parts that it makes me think they didn't shoot enough coverage for any of it.

Fuck man. This was Conan 2011 type horseshit. Small budgeted shite. The state of it is enough to make you want to stand up and shout. *Steel Dragon starts playing*

[IggytheBorg]

I was very disappointed with that one, too. I love the character Solomon Kane in the stories and comic adaptations I've read. But this movie just missed the boat completely. This should have been more of a gritty, "realistic" adventure tale with overtones of horror, not an over the top SFX spectacle. The African vampire story line would have been the place to start, if you ask me. I'm trying to think of a movie that fits the bill as an archetype they could have followed, and I'm kind of drawing a blank. This could possibly have spawned a new (albeit somewhat narrow) subgenre. Which could have been filled in by Lovecraftian types, and series heroes like Harry D'Amour, Repairman Jack or Odd Thomas. Or - dare I say it - Not-Keanu-Constantine.

[Captain Russ]

The tone I was looking for was more akin to the sort in Black Death or even Neil Marshall's Centurion.

They took themselves seriously and had great moments of suspense and/or supernatural horror at the edges of their frames.

This was a low budget Van Helsing in its tone. Not necessarily camp, but definitely going for the "more VFX equals better you twats!" school of thought.

[Captain Russ]

Hud.

Damn fine film with a really solid cast of characters, filled with the sort of familial strife you'd find in a Shakespeare tragedy.

Seeing Paul Newman in his prime as a less the lovable rogue and more the realistic fate of one so inclined to pretend to be as much in a dead-end farm town was sobering to say the least.

The dialogue is filled with with a grudging knowledge of what is coming to the Bannon ranch.

The patriarch in Mel Douglas is one of the saddest portraits of man at odds with the times I've seen in years.

What never gets talked about with these sorts of films, unless you're into the minutiae of the medium, is the blocking in the scenes. Ritt just nailed the right balance and inbalance of the screen when it needed it. The placement of the characters, their body language, just tells you so much about these people that you wouldn't need a line spoken between them (and really, it's like pulling teeth for a couple of them to even say as much for the majority of the running time that didn't have some venom to it).

The sound too was something else, especially when those quarantine signs get nailed onto the posts. That sound of a ranch without its livelihood, with nothing but those nails being driven in and the wind bustling, was an elegant way of handling the moment when everything turns; not with a knockdown drag out fight or some grand gesture but just a ghost of something passing through.

Not sure why I was sitting on this one for so long, but it felt like the right sort of afternoon to take in a really good film.

[Captain Russ]

Oh, and not to leave her out, because she's pretty much the heart of the film, is Patricia Neal as Alma.

Tough. Wise. Caring in all the ways that the three Bannon men are not. When she leaves it is to the detriment of the men she took care of, because they sure as shit couldn't do it on their own.

She did a hell of a job.

[Matt]

I remember HUD being one hell of a good movie. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[Anderson]

Hud.

Damn fine film with a really solid cast of characters, filled with the sort of familial strife you'd find in a Shakespeare tragedy.

Seeing Paul Newman in his prime as a less the lovable rogue and more the realistic fate of one so inclined to pretend to be as much in a dead-end farm town was sobering to say the least.

The dialogue is filled with with a grudging knowledge of what is coming to the Bannon ranch.

The patriarch in Mel Douglas is one of the saddest portraits of man at odds with the times I've seen in years.

What never gets talked about with these sorts of films, unless you're into the minutiae of the medium, is the blocking in the scenes. Ritt just nailed the right balance and inbalance of the screen when it needed it. The placement of the characters, their body language, just tells you so much about these people that you wouldn't need a line spoken between them (and really, it's like pulling teeth for a couple of them to even say as much for the majority of the running time that didn't have some venom to it).

The sound too was something else, especially when those quarantine signs get nailed onto the posts. That sound of a ranch without its livelihood, with nothing but those nails being driven in and the wind bustling, was an elegant way of handling the moment when everything turns; not with a knockdown drag out fight or some grand gesture but just a ghost of something passing through.

Not sure why I was sitting on this one for so long, but it felt like the right sort of afternoon to take in a really good film.

Ritt never gets the respect he deserved, because when he was peaking...the whole system changed underneath him.

The Hud through Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a 1-2-3 punch that few directors in the 60s could match. That being said, Ritt was too much of a journeyman. By the time he pegged down a style and finding a rapport with the actors...we were full-on into the Film School Brat years.

If you liked Hud and want to see Ritt continue to kill it, pick up Conrack.