Random 10: Random Films for Comment

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Continuing from Random 10: Random Films for Comment - Week 7 (with yet another bonus ten for your enjoyment)

1968. Hear My Song, 1991 (dir. Peter Chisholm)
1459. Epidemic, 1988 (dir. Lars von Trier)
938. Chimes at Midnight, 1965 (dir. Orson Welles)
1265. Detour, 1945 (dir. Edgar G. Ulmer)
3696. Scanners, 1981 (dir. David Cronenberg)
2007. The Herd, 1978 (dir. Yilmaz Guney)
4526. Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave, 1995 (dir. Nick Park)
1736. Gap-Toothed Women, 1987 (dir. Les Blank)
1526. Fantastic Voyage, 1966 (dir. Richard Fleischer)
755. Bride of the Monster, 1955 (dir. Ed Wood)

Nice.

Btw, stop being such snobs and visit the ILF Random 10. Really.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 3 October 2004 12:37 (twenty years ago)

Detour: that one's truly great, a good example of an early cinematic use of the unreliable narrator. The story itself is already quite cynical and fatalistic (even for film noir), but once you start to think whether the protagonist is actually speaking the truth when he tells his tale, there's a whole new level to it.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 12:45 (twenty years ago)

It's also incredibly short and was filmed in something like six days. It's not hard to find a cheap DVD of Detour; I guess it's public domain. I really hated the woman in it (as a character, not the acting).

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 3 October 2004 12:47 (twenty years ago)

Well, that was the point of the character, wasn't it?

(SPOILERS)

Do you think the guy killed the woman? Because it definitely looks like it, once you start to suspect his story; the "accidental-strangling-on-a-phone-chord" explanation sounds quite uncanny.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 12:52 (twenty years ago)

I posted on your ILF thread too, by the way.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 12:53 (twenty years ago)

Thanks, man.

Hmm...it's been a while, but I want to believe that he is a victim of his circumstances. Which includes his stupidity and desperation. Either way, he's guilty. But if you make it all premeditated and whatnot, you lose much more dramatically for what you gain. I do believe that he subconsciously wanted to kill her, likely even fantasized it. But I don't think that in that moment he was conscious that he was doing so.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 3 October 2004 12:57 (twenty years ago)

Scanners: works better than most of Cronenberg's flicks, because the script is solid. Cronenberg usually has great ideas, but his sense of plot structure kinda tends to gets lost in the way. After Dead Ringers and The Fly probably the third-best Cronenberg film I've seen.

(x-post)

You could be right, but perhaps he lies even to himself, thinking it really was an accident. That phone-chord thing just seems too improbable to have happened accidentally.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 13:01 (twenty years ago)

Chimes at Midnight -- Welles at his fattest and also his best. This movie is filled with more solidly great moments than, I think, Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil combined.

Scanners -- I haven't actually seen this since I was a kid. I remember being bored out of my skull at the time, but I would've been even more bored back then by Videodrome.

Bride of the Monster -- This was the foundation for one of the better MST3K episodes.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 3 October 2004 13:33 (twenty years ago)

Bride of the Monster: I actually fell asleep while watching this. The entertainment value of Ed Wood's films is kinda overrated, despite some funny moments they're mostly just boring.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Damn Tuomos - two good comments in a row that I agree with. Yes, Wood's films most certainly are overrated as entertainment. Don't you find yourself getting the joke after the first five minutes and then just sitting there twiddling your thumbs? I agree with your comments re: Cronenberg too, although Scanners is pretty dire and Videodrome and The Fly remain his best works. Oddly, I thought eXistenZ was an A+ film from Cronenberg possibly because it was his most blatantly commercial. I wish he'd do more things like this instead of the boredom of 2002's Spider.

― Mad Mike, Sunday, 3 October 2004 13:46 (twenty years ago)

I didn't like Existenz that much because it's basic idea had already been overused in sci-fi for decades; "then they woke up, and it was all just VIRTUAL REALITY? Or... was it?". At least Matrix (which came out around the same time) had the decency to mix some nice action scenes with the premise.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 13:56 (twenty years ago)

*ahem*

http://www.archivodefamosas.com/fichas/raquel_welch/crimsonghost-racquel-welch-voyage-041104-02.jpg

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Sunday, 3 October 2004 14:29 (twenty years ago)

I can't see your pic...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 3 October 2004 14:42 (twenty years ago)

I knew it wouldn't let me do that.

It was any more than a statement that Raquel Welch was quite fetching in Fantastic Voyage. Stating the obvious, once again.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Sunday, 3 October 2004 14:50 (twenty years ago)

FWIW

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Sunday, 3 October 2004 14:59 (twenty years ago)

I have to agree that eXistenZ was vastly underrated and Spider massively overrated. Plus, Don McKellar cameos always rock.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 3 October 2004 20:47 (twenty years ago)

ewww!! you are obviously not a canadian

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 4 October 2004 00:30 (twenty years ago)

What's the big deal?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 5 October 2004 12:16 (twenty years ago)

I will make a new resolution. each week, your film lists, I'll endeavour to watch as many as available.

― cºzen (Cozen), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 14:20 (twenty years ago)

the funny thing is if you live in canada you can't go to the store for milk without mckellar's mug grinning at you from somewhere--there's practically a don mckellar cameo every day! thus the funny (if you don't live in canada, this probably makes no sense)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 5 October 2004 15:42 (twenty years ago)

Thus the funny

I must use this phrase often, and randomly.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 5 October 2004 19:58 (twenty years ago)

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Random 10: Random Films for Comment - Week 8