Random 10: Random Films for Comment

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Continuing from Random 10: Random Films for Comment - Week 26

3195. On Dangerous Ground, 1951 (dir. Nicholas Ray)
4516. The Unholy Three, 1925 (dir. Tod Browning)
1084. Contact, 1997 (dir. Robert Zemeckis)
1119. Cria!, 1976 (dir. Carlos Saura)
994. The City of Lost Souls, 2000 (dir. Takashi Miike)
2034. The Hellstrom Chronicle, 1971 (dir. Walon Green and Ed Spiegel)
364. The Assam Garden, 1985 (dir. Mary McMurray)
3997. Spartree, 1977 (dir. Phillip Borsos)
323. Architekten, 1990 (dir. Peter Kahane)
1676. For a Few Dollars More, 1965 (dir. Sergio Leone)

Have at it!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

Don't be shy, give ILE a try!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

hey i just rented City of Lost Souls! maybe i'll comment in a few days...

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

Contact - seriously underrated Zemeckis. All the special effects crap used for nostalgia's sake in Forrest Gump, namely using real people who interact with the fictional characters, actually hits home here. The explosion always bring a dead chill up my spine, maybe because the Challenger disaster is something embedded in my early childhood memories. Foster sometimes isn't given enough to work with here, but overall I have no truck with any of the acting in the piece. The movie is vastly better than the book, IMHO, which gets too bogged down in freaks and geeks, has a maudlin backstory that makes David Morse's one look like the least in melodrama, and a horribly odd ending. On the other hand, the film wrought Jenna Malone onto the acting world, which while not the apocalypse, surely isn't a good thing either.

For a Few Dollars More - maybe the weakest of the trilogy. The same goddamn guy playing the villain. A slightly more ridiculous story. Van Cleef works better with Eastwood than semi-against him. I dunno, I need to watch again.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

Contact is indeed uderrrated even if i feel it implicitly stacks the deck in favor of a cozy version of faith--it invites us to condescend to Foster's character a bit too much.

― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

Girolamo & Ryan--both OTM re: Contact.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

Few Dollars More is better than the first. K Kinski as a hunchback!

I can't remember all of the "lack of sexual chemistry" jokes re Jodie & McConaughey in Contact. Suckola.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 January 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

City of Lost Souls -- undoubtedly not Miike's best or maybe even second or third best film he released in 2000 (the best would be Dead or Alive 2: Birds), but damn, ma'am, that's a strange way to serve up a molotov cocktail!

Contact -- eh. yeah, the movie for me seems to lose its steam after the grand guignol disaster that is the first attempt to shoot into the wormhole... especially what with the deus ex machina way the second multi-trillion-dollar construction is introduced.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 24 January 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

wow City of Lost Souls was pretty good! i dont really understand what happened at the end though...

chickens doing matrix-style martial arts, ping pong matches to the death, michele reis, bizarre brazilian martials arts? who can say no?

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 27 January 2005 04:14 (twenty years ago)

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Random 10: Random Films for Comment - Week 27