[WraithApe]

 
Hana-Bi - 9/10
 
Review.

 

[tdockweiler]

Magnificent Seven - 6.5/10
 
Up until the very last part this was hovering right around an 8 or so. I actually kind of liked it.
Once you get to the last battle it just goes way downhill for some reason. There is a specific type of gun they used in this way too much.
I really get sick of movies with stupid heroics where they risk their life and ending up committing suicide just to save the day.
I think that must be in the Hollywood template they use for every movie. Actually I think FOX does this the most.
A lot of it is just way too predictable (especially the very last scene).
 
I usually hate remakes but this one actually isn't terrible. I think it's pretty good overall.
I HATED the original and found it painfully boring.
 
I'm ashamed to say I didn't know what role Vincent D'Onofrio was playing in this movie until I looked it up

He's the big guy Jack Horne in the movie. Hard to believe. Somehow I confused him with another actor I really like. Oops.
 
One stupid part is how generic the scene where they got the native american man to join up with them.
It's basically like "Want to come kill some evil guys?" Sure sign me up!
 
BTW the best actor in this is easily Ethan Hawke. One of the most underrated actors there is.
 
Oh and i'd rather see this kind of movie over anything Marvel produces. They're the worst thing that's happened to Hollywood.

 

[Hutnicks]

Well it doesn't take much to best Marvels crap really, DC's latest effort is in the same boat.
 
 I am a big Denzel Washington fan but have shied away from M7 redux as I find the original to be superb. Even given McQueens aping. It was an elegant film that did not disrepect Kurosawas original work. I do not think hollywood can do that anymore.
 
 On remakes. True Grit did well. The decision to use the dialogue as written in the book made it almost the equal of the original. One of the few films where you can watch the two back to back and appreciate the times and influences on the directors and actors. If you had reviewd M7 in that same light I would be all in. As it stands my suspicion is it was cobbled together to counter the "diversity" debacle currently still flowing downhill from the oscars.

 

[mutabor]

   
I am a big Denzel Washington fan but have shied away from M7 redux as I find the original to be superb. Even given McQueens aping. It was an elegant film that did not disrepect Kurosawas original work. I do not think hollywood can do that anymore.
 
 If you had reviewd M7 in that same light I would be all in. As it stands my suspicion is it was cobbled together to counter the "diversity" debacle currently still flowing downhill from the oscars.

 
The Magnificent Seven ( 2016) is entertaining but absolutely Hollywood-ish movie. The key reason of redoing it is like of a recent remake of Ghostbusters. In the latter it was about changing gender of protagonists ( new concept of all female cast and women empowerment expansion in different directions). In M7 it's about ethnically diverse cast with a black actor as the main protagonist ( like in Django Unchained). 
 
The Duelist ( 2016, Russia) 9/10
 
Major Russian movie of the year
 
Russian ( and also Soviet) cinema doesn't suit ( is incompatible) to English speaking world. The only reason why some Russian movies reach British and American shores - authority of European festivals ( Cannes, Berlin, Venice etc) which are considered as capitals of world auteur cinema. Only those Russian movies become known in narrow circles of viewers which win prizes at prestigious European festivals. English world respects European festivals that is why it buys Russian movies which succeed at them. There are some world class auteur Russian directors who weren't lucky to win anything in Europe. They are ignored. There were such cases when a Russian movie Banishment won 'best actor' prize at Cannes and it didn't get distribution in USA. The actual reason ( in my opinion) is that this movie was censored ( was not allowed to be distributed).
 
So The Duelist in my opinion is a movie which will be consciously ignored by English media and which won't get wide distribution ( straight to DVD distribution avoiding movie theaters). It's not about politics ( The Duelist has nothing to do with politics - its 19th century drama). Russian world and its problems, its values are not interesting to English world and even offensive. Russian worldview is straight forward, politically incorrect, raw and that is why hostile to English world mentality.
 
Deepwater Horizon ( 2016) 6.5/10
 
The second hour was a headache because of constant micro-explosions overpowering everything else. A straightforward disaster movie. Was glad to see Kurt Russell.

 

[Zojokkeli]

   
The Duelist ( 2016, Russia) 9/10
 
Major Russian movie of the year
 
Russian ( and also Soviet) cinema doesn't suit ( is incompatible) to English speaking world. The only reason why some Russian movies reach British and American shores - authority of European festivals ( Cannes, Berlin, Venice etc) which are considered as capitals of world auteur cinema. Only those Russian movies become known in narrow circles of viewers which win prizes at prestigious European festivals. English world respects European festivals that is why it buys Russian movies which succeed at them. There are some world class auteur Russian directors who weren't lucky to win anything in Europe. They are ignored. There were such cases when a Russian movie Banishment won 'best actor' prize at Cannes and it didn't get distribution in USA. The actual reason ( in my opinion) is that this movie was censored ( was not allowed to be distributed).
 
So The Duelist in my opinion is a movie which will be consciously ignored by English media and which won't get wide distribution ( straight to DVD distribution avoiding movie theaters). It's not about politics ( The Duelist has nothing to do with politics - its 19th century drama). Russian world and its problems, its values are not interesting to English world and even offensive. Russian worldview is straight forward, politically incorrect, raw and that is why hostile to English world mentality.

 
What would you say are some worthwile Russian/Soviet movies? I've seen some of Tarkovsky's works and Leviathan, and enjoyed all of them. Russian movies don't get much attention, so it's harder to come by them.

 

[Lunatique]

 
 
The Neon Demon - 8/10
 
Having seen three of his previous offerings, I've come to regard Nicolas Winding Refn - like many others I suspect - as something of a pedlar of style over substance. In this film, he takes the mantle and runs with it, seemingly on a bloody-minded mission to prove his critics right by not only conforming to type but displaying absolute mastery of it. In doing so though, he's made his most alluring and captivating film to date in my view.
 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

The fourth wall is almost brought down by the vacuous fashion designer's assertion "beauty is not everything, it's the only thing". At this point, wholesome (but equally vacuous) Dean asks Jesse if she wants to go, presuming, along with the audience, that having been confronted with such a blatant admission of style over substance she will assent. "If you want to go, go" she replies with casual disdain.
 
By this point though, Jesse has undergone a transformation that began with the discovery of a wildcat in her apartment - her totemic power animal - culminating in the ascension to power on the catwalk and the triangle of mirrors: a transformation from prey to predator.

 
It's not a film without parallels - there are echoes of Black Swan and American Mary. Inland Empire too, but only superficially; I don't think for a minute Refn's films have Lynch's depth or complexity. The closest parallel to my mind, is Starry Eyes, but The Neon Demon is less direct in its retelling of the classic Faustian pact and less conformant to genre. Refn himself has said the film is about the "insanity of beauty", and I can see what he means - it strongly recalls Suspiria, not just stylistically but also in its descent into madness, moving from the hyper-real into the realm of magical realism towards the end of the film. The campiness and OTT genre tropes start to ramp up by this point too and that will turn a lot of people off but I see it as Refn's playful nod to his Giallo inspirations and a bit of fan service for the horror crowd.
 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

The nature of 'The Neon Demon' is never defined but could refer to the inherently destructive potential of beauty as currency in an increasingly image-obsessed world. As soon as Jesse begins to take ownership of her image and assert her power, she finds herself ambushed by forces that would destroy her if they can't control her. Ultimately, her beauty is a curse.

 
When all is said and done, this is still a Refn film and Refn in full-on provocateur mode at that, so inevitably the best thing about it is its visual style - eye-popping colours, dynamic lighting and camera work and immaculate mise en scène. Together with a stormer of an electronic soundtrack and crisp sound design, it makes a huge sensory impact that even the film's biggest detractors would be hard pushed to deny.

I just watched this movie recently and your review is spot on. For me, it was a 7.5/10.
 
I think for a lot of people, the occult element is what divides those who enjoyed the film and those who didn't. For fans of horror (especially with psychological elements), they probably ended up liking the film. For those who thought they were just watching some arthouse film about the loss of innocence in the world of high fashion, they probably were turned off by the occult element, and the whole final act probably caused a lot of people to walk out of the theater. Here's my take on the ending:

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

[size=1em]The cannibalism was when the movie turned from merely dark to taking on full-blown occult horror. [/size]
 
[size=1em]The three conspirators couldn't control or possess Jesse, so they chose to devour her, which served three purposes: 1) To get rid of her so she stops stealing jobs from under their noses 2) To destroy her because if she can't be possessed, then she must be destroyed 3) To literally steal the power of her beauty and make it their own, through witchcraft ritual.[/size]
 
[size=1em]It's the final scene that is the most disturbing and mystifying to most people who didn't "get" the movie's ending scene. To me, what happened was that in order to be able to "contain" the power of Jesse's beauty, the person would have to be beautiful enough physically and strong enough psychologically, and Gigi was neither beautiful nor strong enough to contain Jesse's aura (Gigi openly admitted to having lots of plastic surgery, so she's not a natural beauty), thus throwing up what she couldn't digest and absorb. But that's not all--Jesse's power was so strong that even in death, she couldn't be contained and drove Gigi mad.[/size]
 
[size=1em]Sarah, who is maybe objectively more beautiful and more volatile in temperament, was able to fully absorb Jesse, thus taking on Jesse's mystical power of beauty, to the point that the photographer who was enamored by Jesse earlier now felt that same mysterious pull from Sarah.[/size]
 
It's unclear what Ruby gets out of the whole ordeal. Perhaps her dealings in the occult grants her wealth and success, and that big mansion actually belongs to her (she probably lied when she said she was house-sitting for someone), and she attained it through black magic, and Jesse's likely not her first victim. Not too sure about her last scene when blood flowed out of her under the full-moon. Maybe there's a specific spell/ritual in the world of the occult that explains this? 
 
In hindsight, Jesse's sexual past was questioned early on by Sarah in the club's bathroom, as if the three girls were trying to figure out if she was a virgin suitable for sacrifice, and when Ruby made sexual advances and Jesse admitted to be a virgin, that seemed to have sealed her fate, because right after, Ruby drew a strange symbol on the mirror with lipstick, likely the beginning of the ritual to sacrifice her.
 
Another clue that foreshadowed the ritual was when Sarah saw the cut on Jesse's hand from the broken mirror, and instinctively lunged at her and tried to lick/drink her blood. This tells us it's something she can't control and is ingrained in her, likely due to dealing in the occult for a long time and having done sacrifices many times in the past.

 
There were some interesting symbolism in the film too:

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

The beginning shot of the film showing Jesse with fake blood and pretending to be dead in a photoshoot, was a foreshadow of her demise later in the film.
 
When the photographer Jack, slathered gold paint all over Jesse, it was as if she was being anointed by a powerful figure in the industry as "the golden child," the new superstar in the world of fashion. 
 
After the photoshoot, Jesse discovers the cougar in room, and it symbolizes her beauty's awakening power, and how destructive and dangerous it is, able to wreak havoc on her own life.
 
Her nightmare of Hank (the apartment manager) forcing a knife blade down her throat in a sexual manner, and then waking up to the noise of someone raping the under-aged girl next door, foreshadows the pending danger coming for her just around the corner, in the form of Ruby's uninvited sexual advances and Jesse's death. 
 
I'm not too sure about the visual motif of the triangle shape. The mirroring motif seems to symbolize the Narcissus myth, but why the shape of a triangle?
 
There are a few Youtube videos that explains what each person thinks The Neon Demon is about and its use of symbolism:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+neon+demon+explained

 

[WraithApe]

Into the Forest - 5/10
 
My first film of this year's London Film Festival. If I were being charitable, I'd say it was a very, very low key version of The Shining... the increasingly unhinged father figure, the boy with a 'gift' and the remote setting. The trouble is, it never gets out of first gear. There's no real tension, no plot to speak of, and though it flirts with darkness it's never consummated; the film just drifts along to a fairly unsatisfactory conclusion. Possibly the filmmakers were going for more of a mood piece or a subtle character study based around ambiguities of perception (what was actually real, and what was imagined on the part of the father and of Tom respectively), but it doesn't really work whichever way I slice it. Had it not been for the fierce A/C, I think this would probably have put me to sleep. On the plus side, there's some nicely shot forest scenes and the acting was decent all round, especially from the two kids.

 

[mutabor]

   
My first film of this year's London Film Festival.

 
Decided to google info about LFF. The first headline which pops out:
 

 London Film Festival to focus on diversity
 
The BFI London Film Festival will launch later with a film directed by a black woman opening it for the first time.
Amma Asante's A United Kingdom, about a British woman falling in love with an African king, stars British actors Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo.
Festival director Clare Stewart said her selection better reflects society at a time the film business is seen as being too white and male.
The industry needs to be "mindful of audiences", she told the BBC.
The LFF will feature the European premiere of slave drama The Birth of a Nation, about Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion.

 

 BFI London Film Festival: Key films
 
This year's line-up includes 245 fiction and documentary films. 

Gala features include Damien Chazelle's musical La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone

 
I see the same set of films which were talked about at Toronto FF. Pre-Oscar buzz continues?
 
Looking forward how WraithApe boasts about watching La La Land - the most PR-ed movie at the moment.  

 

[WraithApe]

 
Looking forward how WraithApe boasts about watching La La Land - the most PR-ed movie at the moment.  

 
You'll be waiting a a long time for that, pal. Don't you know me at all by now? You really think I would go and watch a frickin musical? 

 Especially one with a crap title like La La Land.
 
LFF has always had diverse programming. This is nothing new - it has a tradition of showcasing world cinema. They're just putting a spin on it to look like they are sensitive to the current climate. Whatever parallels you might want to draw, it's not even on the radar of producers and distrubutors looking for pre-Oscar hype in the same way TIFF is. There are very few red carpet galas; it's far more low key than that.

 

[mutabor]

  LFF has always had diverse programming. 

 
I see there are a lot of programmes like Dare, Thrill, Experimenta etc. covering all directions.
 
In Dare section there is a movie 
 

[size=15.08px]Staying Vertical[/size] French provocateur Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake) returns with this surprising tale of fathers, father-figures, shepherds, wolves and sexuality.

 
I've watched "Stranger by the Lake" about a gay finding partners beside a lake. Interesting how French directors despite covering hot topics about sexual minorities in the end create a decent art project which is interesting primarily by its art. In English language films there is often very strong social agenda and artistic part is pretty bland. 
 

Guiraudie’s slyly subversive contemporary fairytale touches lightly on issues like creativity, parenting, tradition and modernity, desire and death, birth and rebirth; painterly yet extremely explicit (think Courbet’s L’Origine du monde), elliptical yet digressive, frequently funny yet haunted by the prospects of failure and melancholy solitude, it revels in the unexpected, contradictory and uncategorisable. The title itself is suggestive of its multilayered metaphors. Defiantly original, unrepentantly odd. 

 
Sounds like his previous movie Stranger by the Lake.

 

[vwinter]

Into the Forest - 5/10

My first film of this year's London Film Festival. If I were being charitable, I'd say it was a very, very low key version of The Shining... the increasingly unhinged father figure, the boy with a 'gift' and the remote setting. The trouble is, it never gets out of first gear. There's no real tension, no plot to speak of, and though it flirts with darkness it's never consummated; the film just drifts along to a fairly unsatisfactory conclusion. Possibly the filmmakers were going for more of a mood piece or a subtle character study based around ambiguities of perception (what was actually real, and what was imagined on the part of the father and of Tom respectively), but it doesn't really work whichever way I slice it. Had it not been for the fierce A/C, I think this would probably have put me to sleep. On the plus side, there's some nicely shot forest scenes and the acting was decent all round, especially from the two kids.

Almost surprised this hit a 5 on that

Looking forward how WraithApe boasts about watching La La Land - the most PR-ed movie at the moment.  

Curious case of mistaken identity?

 

[WraithApe]

  I just watched this movie recently and your review is spot on. For me, it was a 7.5/10.

 
I don't do decimal places 

 Rounding up, I'd say we had a pretty similar reaction to the film. Also based on your review, I guess we were struck by a lot of the same things.
 

 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

I'm not too sure about the visual motif of the triangle shape. The mirroring motif seems to symbolize the Narcissus myth, but why the shape of a triangle?

 
I hadn't thought about the myth of Narcissus, but now you say it, it makes perfect sense!
 
The triangle is certainly a shape associated with the occult. The symbols of the triangle and pyramid are big in Illuminati symbolism and also in Witchcraft. The pentagram is composed of three interlocking triangles and the hexagram two, so you could say the triangle is a fundamental occult symbol. There are many different interpretations, depending on the belief system, but a common one is of a gateway of some kind. On occultist maps for instance, the triangle is used to represent spiritual gateways or areas of demonic influence. In ancient languages, such as Greek and Phoenician (delta and daleth respecitvely), the triangle symbol represents a doorway or gateway.

 

[Lunatique]

 
The triangle is certainly a shape associated with the occult. The symbols of the triangle and pyramid are big in Illuminati symbolism and also in Witchcraft. The pentagram is composed of three interlocking triangles and the hexagram two, so you could say the triangle is a fundamental occult symbol. There are many different interpretations, depending on the belief system, but a common one is of a gateway of some kind. On occultist maps for instance, the triangle is used to represent spiritual gateways or areas of demonic influence. In ancient languages, such as Greek and Phoenician (delta and daleth respecitvely), the triangle symbol represents a doorway or gateway.

I thought about that too, but what didn't make sense was how the triangle was in the fashion show on the catwalk. As far as we know, the fashion designer was not part of the coven, so was that just a coincidence? And what about Jesse dreaming of the triangle? Was it a premonition? 

 

[Lunatique]

Mad Max: Fury Road 
9/10
The entire movie is like a tightly choreographed dance of kinetic machine and flesh, perfectly performed, with a stunning creative vision that's so visceral and startling. This is not your run-of-the-mill dumb and loud action movie--it is visual poetry with violence as its syntax, desperation as its cadence, and human being's need for hope and redemption as its diction.
 
Sicario
8.5/10
This excellent film about the war on drugs has one of the most intense scenes I've ever seen (the highway shootout), and the score accompanying the entire sequence was so effective, with its sinister and slow-burn progression that really amped up the dramatic tension.
 
(I watched them a while back, so they weren't the "last movie I watched." Not sure if that's a strict rule in this thread.)

 

[WraithApe]

Originally Posted by Lunatique /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
(I watched them a while back, so they weren't the "last movie I watched." Not sure if that's a strict rule in this thread.)

 
I've always taken it literally myself, but I doubt anyone's going to jump down your throat if you don't