mrbasehart's Film Challenge! - COMPLETE

[mrbasehart]

Okay, the final push! The challenge should be completed this week!

Tales from the Hood is a horror anthology movie from the mid 90s that really has nothing to recommend.  The plot is framed by some gang members entering a funeral parlour and being told some scary stories by the sinister undertaker.  There are 4 in all, and are all bad, poorly thought-out and executed derivative knock-offs of a million other stories.  There's the one where a vengeful spirit comes back to kill the ones who killed it, the one where a vengeful spirit kills the person who's disrespecting a sacred place, the one where a kid is being beaten up by a monster in his closet, and one where there are some people who don't realise they're dead yet.  Race does play some part in most of the stories, but it doesn't add anything new or interesting to them.

[mrbasehart]

Tromeo and Juliet is a film I'd seen bits of before, and been intruiged by its punkish take on the Shakespeare play, so the excuse to watch it for the challenge was welcomed about as much as any Troma film can be.  The film's actually quite faithful - the whole "two star-crossed lovers" thing, the secret marriage, the duels, the visit to an apothecary - it's all pretty much there, just given the Troma treatment, combining lewd and crude humour with some outrageous gore effects.  Hell, I liked it.  It's actually funny in places, has some decent performances and Lemmy from Motorhead plays the narrator.  Troma's best movie? I haven't seen better from them.

[gojikranz]

Tromeo and Juliet is a film I'd seen bits of before, and been intruiged by its punkish take on the Shakespeare play, so the excuse to watch it for the challenge was welcomed about as much as any Troma film can be.  The film's actually quite faithful - the whole "two star-crossed lovers" thing, the secret marriage, the duels, the visit to an apothecary - it's all pretty much there, just given the Troma treatment, combining lewd and crude humour with some outrageous gore effects.  Hell, I liked it.  It's actually funny in places, has some decent performances and Lemmy from Motorhead plays the narrator.  Troma's best movie? I haven't seen better from them.

no love for toxie?  tromeo is a good one though.

[mrbasehart]

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a feature length anime movie based around the long-running series of the same name.  It concerns a group of intergalactic bounty hunters who stumble upon a plot by a crazed ex-soldier to infect the world with a virus that he is immune to.  The bounty hunters are Spike, an instinctive, somewhat morally ambiguous character who's our hero; Faye, a busty, tomboyish woman who really doesn't do a whole lot; and a small support team with Jet, the pilot of their HQ and Edward, an adorably cute Japanese...girl? whose specialises in computers.  The movie doesn't particularly cater to those of us who aren't overly familiar to the fiction of Cowboy Bebop and as such leaves the characters in the movie a little thin, which when you consider a running time of 2 hours, is a little disheartening.  The action is very well animated and staged though, from a quick introduction in a cornershop with some thugs, to the final rooftop confrontation, it's impressive and thrilling.  It does rather fudge the bad guy though, giving him some ludicriously overblown and meandering monologues, and the ending is far too rushed.  Pretty good, nonetheless.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a feature length anime movie based around the long-running series of the same name.  It concerns a group of intergalactic bounty hunters who stumble upon a plot by a crazed ex-soldier to infect the world with a virus that he is immune to.  The bounty hunters are Spike, an instinctive, somewhat morally ambiguous character who's our hero; Faye, a busty, tomboyish woman who really doesn't do a whole lot; and a small support team with Jet, the pilot of their HQ and Edward, an adorably cute Japanese...girl? whose specialises in computers.  The movie doesn't particularly cater to those of us who aren't overly familiar to the fiction of Cowboy Bebop and as such leaves the characters in the movie a little thin, which when you consider a running time of 2 hours, is a little disheartening.  The action is very well animated and staged though, from a quick introduction in a cornershop with some thugs, to the final rooftop confrontation, it's impressive and thrilling.  It does rather fudge the bad guy though, giving him some ludicriously overblown and meandering monologues, and the ending is far too rushed.  Pretty good, nonetheless.

The biggest issue, I suppose, with the movie is that it's really more a long episode than an actual movie. Though fans (yours truly included) still dig it.

And yes, Ed is a girl. Don't think too hard about her.

[mrbasehart]

Pennies from Heaven is a film adaptation of famed screenwriter Dennis Potter's tv mini-series about a married salesman looking for both fortune and love in Chicago-era depression.  Played by Steven Martin, the character has an earnestness that belies his pathological ways, as he cheats on his wife (Suspiria's Jessica Harper) with schoolteacher Bernadette Peters.  The thing that may turn viewers off almost immediately is the frequent musical interludes in the movie, where characters mouth the words to songs as if they themselves are singing them.  I'll admit it was tough for me to being with, and the feeling never entirely went away: Brechtian devices are nice and all, but I want suspension of disbelief in my movies, no matter how far they go.  That said, there are numerous opportunities for the cast to show their dancing skills, and it's here that the film shines: Steve Martin is really rather an excellent hoofer, and he's ably supported by Peters.  There's even a standout solo number from Christopher Walken, as a sleazy barfly, who watlzes around a dive bar and strips to the tune of "Let's Misbehave".  It feels a lot like Death of a Salesman, and though it perhaps doesn't carry as much dramatic weight or insight as Miller's play, it's a fine work in its own right.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Pennies from Heaven is a film adaptation of famed screenwriter Dennis Potter's tv mini-series about a married salesman looking for both fortune and love in Chicago-era depression.  Played by Steven Martin, the character has an earnestness that belies his pathological ways, as he cheats on his wife (Suspiria's Jessica Harper) with schoolteacher Bernadette Peters.  The thing that may turn viewers off almost immediately is the frequent musical interludes in the movie, where characters mouth the words to songs as if they themselves are singing them.  I'll admit it was tough for me to being with, and the feeling never entirely went away: Brechtian devices are nice and all, but I want suspension of disbelief in my movies, no matter how far they go.  That said, there are numerous opportunities for the cast to show their dancing skills, and it's here that the film shines: Steve Martin is really rather an excellent hoofer, and he's ably supported by Peters.  There's even a standout solo number from Christopher Walken, as a sleazy barfly, who watlzes around a dive bar and strips to the tune of "Let's Misbehave".  It feels a lot like Death of a Salesman, and though it perhaps doesn't carry as much dramatic weight or insight as Miller's play, it's a fine work in its own right.

Martin was taught by Gregory Hines:

[mrbasehart]

Heh.  That clip's awesome. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is an adaptation by Tom Stoppard of his own award winning play based on two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Confused, unable to tell either what's going on, or even who they are, they stumble aimlessly through the events of the play engaging in word games or rambling on hypothetically about their situation, all the while a sense of dread about their impending doom.  It might sound a little dry and high-brow, and while it's certainly the latter, the script's sense of humour keep it fom the former.  It's frequently very funny in places, with the pair's surrealistic observations on life and the world they inhabit, and with one of them perilously close to discovering something magical - inventing flight, or properly observing gravity for the first time - though fate always denies him.  I didn't prepare for the movie by watching Hamlet, something which I haven't done in a long time, but I don't think it impacted my enjoyment of the movie at all.  It's really not about the play at all and barely even about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (played by Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, both excellent) and more like a game that Stoppard plays, exploring fictional constructs in ways that the original author hadn't intended and probably commenting on the whole business of creation (human or divine) as a whole.

[Courtney]

Okay, the final push! The challenge should be completed this week!

Tales from the Hood is a horror anthology movie from the mid 90s that really has nothing to recommend.  The plot is framed by some gang members entering a funeral parlour and being told some scary stories by the sinister undertaker.  There are 4 in all, and are all bad, poorly thought-out and executed derivative knock-offs of a million other stories.  There's the one where a vengeful spirit comes back to kill the ones who killed it, the one where a vengeful spirit kills the person who's disrespecting a sacred place, the one where a kid is being beaten up by a monster in his closet, and one where there are some people who don't realise they're dead yet.  Race does play some part in most of the stories, but it doesn't add anything new or interesting to them.

I watched that movie during so many sleepovers when I was younger.  I don't know why it fascinated my late grade school / early high school girl friends, but it sure did.

[Tripe]

Ah come on, it's worth it for the line "Welcome to Hell, motherfuckers!" 

Also, great avatar there Court.

[mrbasehart]

Eep! Too match Curry batch!

The Razor's Edge is a modern reworking of the classic Somerset Maugham novel about the lost generation, specifically a group of life-long friends and the impact that the first world war has on them.  Bill Murray, in probably his first straight role, plays Larry Darrell, struggling to make sense of life after witnessing the carnage of the frontlines in France, dropping his upper-class lifestyle and travelling the world in order to seek out a new meaning for his life.  There are more, soapier, things happening in the movie, but easily the most striking aspect of it is Murray's performance and journey, from confusion to serentiy, he is admirably under-stated in a role that a lesser actor could have resorted to histrionics.  The supporting cast are good too, with Denholm Elliot and Bill's father Brian Murray the standouts in a classy production that features some stunning location photography.  I'm not entirely sure the expenditure on the cast or crew can quite get over those soapier aspects though, and in the end it feels a little bit like an upmarket version of Eastenders (Or Days of Our Lives, if you like).   

[Rattrap007]

got one for you. it is on Youtube so you can watch it easily. Student Bodies (1981). it is a spoof of slasher films. Richard Belzer from Law & order voices The Breather, the killer in the movie.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

got one for you. it is on Youtube so you can watch it easily. Student Bodies (1981). it is a spoof of slasher films. Richard Belzer from Law & order voices The Breather, the killer in the movie.

We've talked about this film here many times....   

[mrbasehart]

Yup.  I've seen it. 

[Rattrap007]

got one for you. it is on Youtube so you can watch it easily. Student Bodies (1981). it is a spoof of slasher films. Richard Belzer from Law & order voices The Breather, the killer in the movie.

We've talked about this film here many times....  

one of my favorite jokes ever...