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What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

Ken Russell's Altered States, his one shot at a mainstream Hollywood film. I used to quite like it back in the day, but found it rather dull and repetitive this time round. The trippy special effects have dated badly and the plot just doesn't make that much sense to me. William Hurt's character is too much of a self-absorbed prick to care much about.
 
I've started watching The Good Wife, because it keeps getting raves. Four episodes into the first season. It's alright, but its a fairly standard legal drama, though I heard it gets better.
 
Watching the 2nd season of Between the Lines.

Just finished the episode Manslaughter which is as brilliant as it is disturbing. When you are largely fed a diet of the bad guy always getting his comeuppance in the end it is a bit of a shock to see them walk. Especially when they are such calculatingly evil bastards. And when the entire episode is based around the idea that the bad guy has deliberately engineered everything so so that he can get away with it. And when you realise that you in the last few minutes of the episode that the grains of sand are disappearing and the bastard is sitting there with a supercilious grin and the episode really is going to finish with him getting what he wants.

EDIT: As a qualifier I have just started the subsequent two episodes (gave up on the first) which seem to be of a much more melodramatic, convulted tone.
 
The middle of the season is a bit bogged down with torn-from-the-headlines plots (Hillsborough, GEC Marconi deaths, Squidgygate etc), but with the various subplots brewing nicely, it all builds to a fine two-part climax.
 
Watched Bronson last night, was a bit pissed but seemed a good watch and Tom Hardy plays a pretty decent mad bloke. Not as brutal as i thought it might be, fairly grim feel to it mind.

This morning was several episodes of Metalocaplypse which i'd never seen or heard of :D :cool: :metalthumbs:
 
Spoiler in this....


The Killer Inside Me.

















If you like twisted, you'll like this. I happen to like twisted.

I have to admit, this is the only movie I've seen where Jessica Alba is punched in the face until she dies.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
Spoiler in this....


The Killer Inside Me.

















If you like twisted, you'll like this. I happen to like twisted.

I have to admit, this is the only movie I've seen where Jessica Alba is punched in the face until she dies.
Click to expand...

I like twisted, but I don't like The Killer Inside Me.

While I'm not a fan of Jessica Alba's acting ability, I'm not sure how big the market for films about her getting "punched in the face until she dies" is, so that's probably why it's the only movie like it you've seen.
 
Reno said:
I

I like twisted, but I don't like The Killer Inside Me.

While I'm not a fan of Jessica Alba's acting ability, I'm not sure how big the market for films about her getting "punched in the face until she dies" is, so that's probably why it's the only movie like it you've seen.
Click to expand...

I think there's a huge market for upscale violence porn dressed up in art-film attire. There are many examples.
 
Reno said:
List me all those financially hugely succesful "violence porn" art house films then.

Meanwhile I'll continue watching tonight's horror film. I'll be back later...
Click to expand...

No violence in a horror film.... :)

I'm off to a Fiji festival, so I don't have time for a list. But let's start off with To Live and Die in LA, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Crank High Voltage, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction. etc etc etc.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
...basically anything that Tarantino ever did.....
Click to expand...

Johnny Canuck3 said:
No violence in a horror film.... :)

I'm off to a Fiji festival, so I don't have time for a list. But let's start off with To Live and Die in LA, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Crank High Voltage, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction. etc etc etc.
Click to expand...

You really think these films are on the same level as The Killer Inside Me in terms of explicit violence ? Are all of these art house films ? You'd describe all of these as 'violence porn' ?


...and as to the :), I don't think it's a huge secret on here that I'm a huge fan of horror films and that I have no problem with violence in films as such. I just don't think that the Winterbottom film is very good. In fact I'm not a huge fan of that director and find him rather overrated.
 
Reno said:
You really think these films are on the same level as The Killer Inside Me in terms of explicit violence ? Are all of these art house films ? You'd describe all of these as 'violence porn' ?


...and as to the :), I don't think it's a huge secret on here that I'm a huge fan of horror films and that I have no problem with violence in films as such. I just don't think that the Winterbottom film is very good. In fact I'm not a huge fan of that director and find him rather overrated.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'd describe them as violence porn. In some ways, they're a worse form, since many of them blend the violence into comedic moments, so that we find ourselves laughing at outrageous things. At least when Alba is being punched to death, we aren't laughing. Our reaction to the scene is arguably the more appropriate one.
 
Thinking a bit more on this: I don't think there's anything new in something like Killer Inside - arguably it follows a line that includes In Cold Blood, The Boston Strangler, Dressed to Kill perhaps. Hitchcock's Frenzy is also similar, but without the onscreen violence - although in some ways, the suggestion of violence left to the imagination, can be even worse.
 
Maniac Cop - all-action horror film from the '80s. Loved every mad minute of it and can't believe I haven't seen it before. The Maniac Cop himself is a brilliant monster but the real star is good old '80s New York in all its sleazy glory.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
Yes, I'd describe them as violence porn. In some ways, they're a worse form, since many of them blend the violence into comedic moments, so that we find ourselves laughing at outrageous things. At least when Alba is being punched to death, we aren't laughing. Our reaction to the scene is arguably the more appropriate one.
Click to expand...
Then what is pornographic about it?
 
Comparing film violence to porn has always been a lazy kneejerk reaction by those whose interest it is to censor art and entertainment and who have little interest in investigating audience identification and spectatorship further than on the most superficial level. It has also long been used to condemn people who enjoy horror films as somehow being depraved or perverted. If you go somewhere like the horror film festival Frighfest in August, you won't find a more friendly, considerate and peaceful crowd of cinema goers.

The Canuck has now shifted his view on what this actually means a couple of times, which just goes to show how flawed the comparison is.
 
I watched Halloween: H20 last night, which despite flaws is the best of the Halloween sequels, thanks to a great performance by Jamie Lee Curtis, picking up the character of Laurie Strode where she left her 18 years earlier.

Just what is LL Cool J doing in this ?
 
Nothing groundbreaking, but worth a hundred minutes of your time on a wet Wednesday afternoon. Gently mirthmaking.
 
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