crumbsroom wrote:

Definitely want to see Riddle of Fire.

There’s a nonzero chance you’ll find it insufferable but also a nonzero chance you’ll love it. At the very least, it’s worth seeing for the cinematography.

On the same note, I have a growing urge to check out Aggro Dr1ft when it goes wide, despite hating Spring Breakers and hearing even from fans that there's even less to it. Like, I'm 99% sure I'll hate it too, but that 1% is very tantalizing.

Rock wrote:

Everything I watched during TIFF this year:

https://letterboxd.com/the_rock/list/tiff-2023/detail/

None of these were on my radar, except the Victor Erice film which I couldn't remember the name of.

Close Your Eyes and The Beast have my immediate attention, although the latter's notion of DNA "past lives" has my eyes rolling a little. 

Kill, 100 Yards, When Evil Lurks and Riddle of Fire look fun.  Boy Kills World does not. 

Last Summer doesn't look nearly as erotic as I'd like. 

Spirit of Ecstasy, Working Class Goes to Hell and Rye Horn look like straight-up drudgery (contextless lactation notwithstanding). 

I might like Peasants and Death of a Whistleblower a little better than you did, who knows?

Rock wrote:

Boy Kills World is probably tolerable if you put it on mute.

It looks like one of those movies that has someone singing a well-known pop song in a slow, creepy way.

Rock wrote:

there’s always Taboo. Lol

It shouldn't have to be like this.  Whatever happened to the days of classy smut?  Eugene O'Neil's Desire Under the Pines?  The only film of that was from the 50s when they couldn't show anything.  Why do so many filmmakers see "erotic" and assume it means either soap opera or porn?  We can do better.  I could do better.  Scoot over, French.

Rock wrote:

Rye Horn in fine. I think the visuals help alleviate the sense of misery.

It's just dripping with austerity.

Rock wrote:

Death of a Whistleblower…. See if you can find a trailer first. I was unprepared for the visual ugliness of the movie.

I was intrigued by the subject matter, which I'm led to believe is from a true event?

I can't remember which film it was, but I do find supposedly vintage footage that's clearly shot on modern viideo cameras to be super annoying.  Maybe it was Frankenstein's Army?

Jinnistan wrote:

 

This would have flown right past me had you not delivered the lowdown. When I saw the promo clip on Netflix, I assumed it was just another cookie–cutter vampire thing and didn't give it a second thought. There was no indication that it would be a comedy, and no indication that it would be anything as imaginative as a re–casting of Augusto Pinochet as a centuries–old vampire. No doubt the Chileans "disappeared" under Pinochet turn out to have been his nourishment? 

I promise not to make a habit of this, lest I risk veering from the more cinema–focused nature of this section, but it just so happens that Kings and Generals just released its latest update on the situation in Ukraine... well–made, informative and sobering:




Also it just so happens that "Big Oil, Big Lies and Big Al...," the latest video from my other favorite channel, Just Have a Think – The Climate and Sustainable Energy Channel, features excerpts from Gore's TED Talk I wrote about earlier, in the context of covering this week's UN General Assembly meeting on climate change. But the "Big Al" in the title is not Al Gore; it's the UAE's Sultan Bin Ahmed Al Jaber,  CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and, surprise surprise, president of next week's COP 28 Climate Conference. So, no conflict of interest there. After all, it was only members of his team that were accused of making edits to Wikipedia to portray him favorably as an advocate for green energy while downplaying his involvement in the fossil fuel industry.  

The Just Have a Think channel regularly publishes videos keeping up with the latest developments in renewable energy, sustainability, climate research and climate policy. Humor me as I provide just a few samples of what they're about. I'll imbed three here and just hyprelink a few more to save on processing power:

 








Blue Hydrogen. The greatest fossil fuel scam in history?
A vertical axis wind turbine that doesn't need the prevailing wind!
The insane potential of Pumped Storage Hydropower.
Algae - nature’s answer to fossil fuels and plastics!!
Plastic eating enzymes just got even better! New breakthrough.
News you don't want to hear about the arctic.
 

Jinnistan wrote:

A poignant testament to the awful salvic power of righteous shredding.

8.5/10
 

I just logged in to post about this movie but I see you've saved me the trouble. Good man.  
I had mixed feelings about Army of the Doomstar.

The awesome:
The music is amazing as ever, which should come as no surprise. Brendan Small's still got it, and it doesn't hurt to have Gene "The Machine" Hogland on drums. While most of the music is the kind of infectiously catchy extreme metal for which Dethklok is known, interlaced with healthy doses of cinematic score, some moments dip into territory that hearkens back to the classic analog synths of 70s-80s scifi/horror.
Likewise, though Metalocalypse has always been about the splatter and the occult, the sequences and images in Army of the Doomstar take a step deeper into the familiar and beloved stylings of 70s-80s slasher/scifi/occult cinema, both in reaping the benefits of those tried–and–true chops, and on occasion, in unmistakable reverent homage. It works.  
The visuals are mindblowing, taken to a whole new level from that of the series. Army of the Doomstar is pure psychedelia from wall to melting, bleeding wall. I kept thinking this movie would be great to watch on acid.  

The not–so awesome:
This is far less of a comedy than any of the previous Metalocalypse stuff, and of the few jokes, fewer of them are funny. That's a stark departure from the Metalocalypse tradition. Don't get me wrong, some of the jokes are funny, but they aren't the strong point for Army of the Doomstar. 
Having taken the more serious route, I felt the movie tried too hard. Aimed too desperately at the heartstrings. It makes uncharacteristic attempts at sentimentality that feel forced into the overly saccharine. It tries to play the graveness with a straight face that just doesn't suit it, coming off at times like late–era John Carpenter. 
I don't know if I have any business expecting character continuity from something like Metalocalypse, but there was a disorienting disconnect between the characters we know from all the previous installments and the characters as they're presented here. Maybe that's asking too much; maybe I should accept what Matt Groening & Co has called "flexible reality" a kind of deliberate de–prioritizing of continuity in favor of whatever works for a laugh or a plot device in their imaginary animated world. It's great when it works, but since Army of the Doomstar is structured to be a culmination of a plot arc spanning several installments, to the point that viewers will have trouble understanding what's going on if they haven't seen all the preceding material, it was distracting when the characters seemed exceedingly out–of character.

Speaking of which...

When I realized how lost I was at the beginning of Army of the Doomstar, having only seen seasons 1–3, I stopped the movie and paid to watch the preceding Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera. But when I started watching that, it became instantly apparent that Doomstar Requiem was picking up where season 4 had left off, and that I had again missed some important plot developments that were vital for understanding what was going on. So I turned that off and tried to find a way to stream season 4. The clock was ticking for me to complete all this Dethkramming before the expiration of my 48–hour Army of the Doomstar rental on Prime, and I was up to the challenge. Do anything for Dethklok.
Alas, I was unable to stream season 4. It's supposedly available for streaming on Prime, but not for me; a message I've never seen before appears beneath the video description, "subscription is not supported on this device." I have no idea what that means. I couldn't get Justwatch to work for some reason, but I probably wouldn't have splurged for the HBO Max subscription or the Apple TV subscription at that moment anyway. So I decided to cheat and find a way to read the plot synopses for season 4 so I could understand Doomstar Requiem so I could then understand Army of the Doomstar. Well, bless all the good folks upholding the "no spoilers" rule as sacrosanct, but their diligence meant I couldn't get a clear answer. I got enough of a gist to bridge the gap, though. Toki got kidnapped, and some shit was finally revealed about the prophecy that the show has been peripherally alluding to all along (with no hint of follow–through anywhere in seasons 1–3, which is all I'd seen). Apparently in my absence the decision had been made to commit to an actual plot arc while I had been away. 
So, good enough. With all the cliffnotes I could scrape together, I was ready as I was gonna be for...



Turns out I was nowhere close to ready for how epically awesome Doomstar Requiem was gonna be. It's a one–hour nonstop ride, and I do mean non–stop. With barely a hint of transition, one scene begins before the previous one gets a chance to close, and with all the dialogue presented in musical form, true to the title, each song blends seamlessly into the next such that the whole thing plays like one continuous musical piece, flowing like the sequential movements of a symphony — a very metal symphony — each subsequent segment picking up the dramatic power from the last, raising it to ever–climbing heights with each seamless passing of the torch, never once losing momentum. I found myself several times dismissing the impulse to stop and tell somebody, "Dude, Doomstar Requiem is fucking epic!" I was so impressed. I can't say whether this was a factor in my mixed reaction to Army of the Doomstar, but it shouldn't have been. Doomstar Requiem is just so tight, so compact, maybe owing to the nonstop flow of the rock opera format and the 1–hour runtime. There's just no room for any lulls. It hardly takes a breath, it just keeps burning along like a meteor.  
There were points in both Doomstar Requiem and Army of the Doomstar where I stopped to rewind and rewatch with the captions on because the dialogue was unintelligible, dialogue that sometimes turned out to be significant. Then I would turn them back off again, because captions are fucking annoying with their excessive TMI, something that has always bothered me. No matter how deaf a motherfucker is, I doubt they need to read "sound of footsteps" during a shot of walking feet, nor "rain falling" when its raining, nor "guns firing" when there's a shootout taking place in frame. And I dunno because I'm gratefully not deaf, but does anybody need captions to display a couple of musical quarter notes whenever music is playing? Especially in a movie about a BAND? And I know not all people are born deaf, but what the fuck? Does a deaf person need to know when music is playing? Certainly not if they're deaf from birth and have little or no concept of what music is or what effect it's supposed to have??? And I dunno, I guess one could enjoy Metalocalypse without any connection to music, I guess.
But I digress. I think all has been said that needs to be said, here. Oh wait, there is one more thing, and I realize I've contradicted myself, because just like Army of the Doomstar, Doomstar Requiem looks fucking amazing. Vivid, psychedelic visuals permeate the entirety of the production in a pure feast for the eyes. Just as I did with Army, I several times noted that Requiem would be great to watch on acid. And in both cases, that statement would be true even with the sound off. So I was wrong to doubt. Even without the benefit of hearing, these two would make for a very satisfying double–feature. With or without acid. But what an incredible double–feature it would be for an acid trip. 
I'm gonna find a way to watch season 4. Maybe then I'll understand what that whale was all about. 

Finally getting around to this one, a cult item that tends to get pushed into the "so bad it's camp" category, but is also just oddball enough to make it plausible that there is actually some self-aware sense of humor involved.  Personally, I lean toward the latter, and maybe that's aided by a great side cast of especially self-aware oddballs like Ray Wise, Michael Pollard and Clancy Brown.  Is this a case where these guys decided to take the opportunity of an amateur director and shit script to deliciously chew the scenery?  Who knows?  Writer/director Doug Campbell has gone on to a prolific career making some hilariously basic titled cheapie TV exploitation films for conservative housewives (my faves are the "Stalked" series - Stalked At 17, Stalked By My Neighbor, Stalked By My Doctor, Stalked By My Mother , etc), so the possibility that he's actually just a moron who sincerely felt a film like this was high intrigue is not easily dismissed.  All I really care about is that I had a good time and laughed plenty, and I feel safe in assuming that David Lynch did as well.

I had thought that either Rock or crumbs had posted this film in the Youtube thread.  Maybe it was one of the ones already taken down, or maybe it was posted elsewhere.  Anyway, the current available Youtube clip doesn't look good enough to bother with.

8/10
 

Here's a batch of Rock-worthy reviews....

Taboo - the original.  One of my primary problems with pornography is its focus on functionality.  Gotta get to business, and things like atmosphere or characterization are just obstacles to the spew-delivery vehicle.  This film doesn't waste that much time either, but they do afford Kay Parker some pathos to play with.  And her mature yet firm body doesn't hurt any.  More importantly though, the sequence, much more prolonged than most porn would allow, with Paker being spied on in the shower and trying on some sexy knickers in her mirror is a great example for how much more exciting and satisfying a scene can be than, as John Cleese would say, just "careening for the clitoris".  The difference between waht is porn from what is legitimately erotic lies in this attention to tension and anticipation, which, unfortunately, is anathama to much of the genre.

Rockin' With Seka - quite naturally enough.  Seka, of course, has her charms, but this is another example of a functional vehicle that lays out a thread-bare story (stewardesses!) with vapid characterization.  Again, cynically, it's not supposed to matter.  And when I criticize pornography for being "cheap", it has less to do with the actual production values (as meager as it can be) of poor lighting and sound and a lot more to do with a neglect for aesthetics.  The flesh is supposed to be aesthetic enough, I guess.  There are a couple of moments here which allow some semi-inspired Seka compositions - another shower scene, a hot tub in the sun, a nightgown silhouette - which are admirably superfluous.

The other Seka I watched a couple of months back, Ultra Flesh, shows a lot more creativity than that, although some of it - generalissimo orgies, midgets, penis lazers - are not exactly aesthetic per se, but I appreciate the effort to bring something novel to the table.  The sci-fi scenario is half-baked, naturally, but it reminds me of that same year's Galaxina, a mainstream film that wasn't really porn but probably should have been, and this stresses this strange segregation that the X-rating has imposed.  Crown International was a low-budget studio, but a palace of wealth compared to the Valley start-ups of porn.  It doesn't make a lot of sense for a low but respectable budget film like Galaxina which can afford decent set designs and effects, a silly script but actual humor, and a Playboy playmate to star, and not bother to throw some actual sex in the mix.  Why not?  Because of this arbitrary barrier between what's supposed to be socially acceptable.  I want a Goldilocks porn (not literally), which could manage to balance these things.  But now that a porn production can occassionally muster a significant budget, the cynicism remains that discourages creativity and humor.  Ice Pirates is another potential candidate for a film that wouldn't have been hurt by including a little sucking and fucking.

The Tale of Tiffany Lust - Another silly story (housewife!) that's redeemed entirely by the sparkling talents of Dominique Saint Claire.  There's one scene here which is another example of the unorthodox.  Most of the film is typical suck-and-fuck, but there's a hot sauna scene with two women scissoring, but the scene is shot in steamy slow motion.  It's supposed to be a fantasy, which, I guess, allows the camera to transcend the mundane nature-documentary visual tropes of typical porn, but it's also easily the sexiest scene in the film.  It's a clear reminder of how just a little aesthetic creativity can elevate a sexy scene, even if it lessens the rest of the film by comparison.




I re-watched Peter Medak's The Men's Club the other night.  It's a perfectly respectable film, with a mostly vintage cast of prime testosterone (Roy Scheider, Harvey Keitel, Frank Langella), a psychologically intelligent script (from Leonard Michaels), a handful of terribly attractive actresses and plenty of mature sexiness.  It's a ideal example of the kind of film that would make a superlative pornographic movie, if pornos didn't have this perceived allergy to respectability.  Another dogma of porn is that it's intended to cater only to the adolescent and sexually inexperienced, which is why so much if it remains extremely juvenile and surface'level, even though it's obvious that pornography has a more mature and experienced audience, or at least could and should but such an audience is not catered to.  For this film, even if we concede the requirement of body doubles (but little Harvey is always welcome), all of the material is already evident.  This was the promise of the NC-17 format, but, unfortunately, the cross-clutchers and the Blockbusters conspired against us.

A couple of other recent watches to conclude my point, both of which are from the director Ugo Liberatore, who is clearly not a top-self Italian filmmaker.  Both films have exactly the same allure, lovely ocean locals and beautiful women, and neither of them are worth much at all without explicit sexuality, so it's to their shame that neither has any.  The Sex of Angels has a good opportunity, with three young ladies luring a hot young bod aboard for a surprise LSD orgy at sea.  How can you fuck that premise up?  By not having any sex, barely any nudity (a couple of topless scenes) and a misguided understanding of how LSD actually works (it doesn't cause 'blackouts' like alchohol).  Mix in some shitty dialogue and you got yourself a complete waste of time.  Bora Bora is somehow worse, because it has even less sex and debauchery, some Jon Stewart look-alike (Corrado Pani) constantly kvetching and self-pitying, and apparently no plot whatsoever.  The only positive is that it provides an opportunity to see the breasts of Haydee Politoff (La Collectionneuse).  (I'm not being a pig to Politoff, I'm being generous to the film.)

So why couldn't these films just have taken the extra step and gone full sexcapade?  Why haven't any enterprising porn auteurs taken the step to create more arousing and intriguing scenarios for their sex romps?  Why can't we live in the best of both worlds, rather than in the mutually dissatisfying carousel of soft-core repression and hard-core hedonism?  I implore.
 

Also, did you watch Rockin’ With Seka because the director’s name is Ziggy Ziggowitz Jr?