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Films, TV Shows & Books By Guillermo del Toro

SPOILER WARNING - DISCUSSION OF MOVIE DETAILS

Just saw the film on DVD today. It was so-so in my opinion but I guess I wasn't impressed. The actng was mostly good, the atmosphere I found too depressingly dark to be enjoyable, the pacing too slow most of the time. I especially disliked the graphic brutality and could have done without the frog puking it's guts out. The story itself was interesting because we don't know whether Ophelia made up the fantasy world or not. I don't know if her using the chalk to create a door to her brother's room really happened or not. I think she may have just known that the door would actually be unlocked and created an appropriate fantasy around it. The ending scene when she died depressed me the most, as one isn't sure if her final vision of herself as a princess is just a dying fantasy or actually real. Tat's the exact same fear I have about people who report near death experiences. All in all the movie gets a 3 out of 5 from me. It's obviously a quality piece of filmmaking, but too dark and gruesome at times. I think that element didn't need to be so explicit.After all the real world is bleak enough.
 
It was beautifully made, sure, but I would have liked to have seen either a Spanish Civil War tale or a fantasy, I don't think they were successful mixed up together.
 
gncxx said:
It was beautifully made, sure, but I would have liked to have seen either a Spanish Civil War tale or a fantasy, I don't think they were successful mixed up together.

That sums up my feelings too.
 
Only got around to seeing this about a month ago. I couldn't fault it at all; I thought it was a great film. Simply beautiful.
 
Yeah, I liked it too. But thought Devil's Backbone was better.
 
I thought I'd posted here - I watched it on DVD when it came out in Blighty and thought it was very good.

I know some people above were concerned about the mix of real/other worldly events but I thought it was well balanced and (like a lot of his previous films) showed the magic that lurks just under the real world.

Devil's Backbone might be better but it is a close call and they are both damn fine films.
 
I still haven't seen it but it's on Film Four next week at 9pm Monday 17th Dec repeated Sunday 23rd and maybe some other times.Check your listings.
 
After all the raving about Pan's Labyrinth, am glad to see that I'm not the only person who remained unconvinced. It came out when I was pregnant and having gone super squeamish about movies (which meant my entire DVD collection apart from father Ted was unwatchable) I thought I'd avoid this until spawning.

I was very annoyed by hyperbole that it was "packed with strange beasts" when really there were only 3 fairies and 3 creatures (if you include the stupid frog) and one of those was a total Clive Barker rip off. It just wasn't rich enough. Would hate to think of del Toro trying to hard but that's what it felt like.

*maybe little spoiler below*

Devil's Backbone is one of my fave movies ever (altho watching it last week, the effects are looking more dated now), and Cronos had its moments, even Hellboy was a great romp, but Pan's Labyrinth was just flat. I wanted to love it but it never seemed to get going. Ofelia was a great actress, and at least Frederico Luppi turned up at the end, but the Captain was tediously sadistic, the trials of Moanna half-arsed (was very fed up when she was told she'd blown it, only to be given another chance to enable the movie to finish) and the other world aspect never seemed fully explored.
 
From what I saw, couldn't say I was impressed after all the hype and I'm no Clive Barker fan either.
 
It wanted me to download quicktime to watch it. They're not so keen to have people watch it.
 
Searching for a suitable thread I decided it better to revive this old thread than start a new one. Anyways I've just seen the trailer for Guillermo del Toro's new picture Crimson Peak, which looks quite intriguing. It's got a release for October 16 2015.
Quoting from the wiki synopsis, ''Set in Cumbria, in a crumbling mansion in a largely rural and mountainous region of northern England in the 19th century, young author Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) discovers that her charming new husband Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston) is not who he appears to be''.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Peak

 
Edith Cushing?! Will there be included in the cast a Fred Lee, Jenny Lugosi, Bert Karloff, Betsy Price, etc?

Anyway, the trailer looks OK, but I usually find myself wishing I liked del Toro's films better after I've seen them. Nice to hear he's back doing the ghost stories, anyway.
 
Has anyone else seen this? There don't seem to be many showings about. The only showing in our local cinema was in the IMAX which unfortunately makes me feel ill. There were fewer ghosts than I expected although there was a far amount of gore. I do believe there were plenty of nods to well known horror films and directors.
 
That was the only screen that was showing it at our cinema for some reason. As to why it makes me ill I don't know. Usually it's sweeping camera work that makes me want to hurl. But IMAX seems to have the same effect. I know when I went to the massive BFI IMAX they warned that you might feel nauseous and I thought 'oh great I feel nauseous at normal films I've no hope'.
 
Looking forward to seeing it. I have to say, and it's a not a popular view, but I was somewhat underwhelmed by "Pan's Labyrinth". Sure it looked amazing and had some stunning set-pieces but I felt a tad let down by it. Loved "Cronos", so yeah- up for this :)
 
Crimson Peak was largely what I expected. Beautiful to look at, not actually that scary and a solidly forgettable piece of entertainment. 7/10
 
I read an interesting article that said this was basically a gothic "chick flick" that hasn't found its audience (it hasn't done very well at the box office). For me, I totally admire Del Toro for his ambition, I just don't think he has the perspective on his passion to make a real classic, Pan's Labyrinth was fine, but an awkward mishmash for me.
 
Watch: Guillermo del Toro Picks His 5 Favorite Horror Films

DIRECTOR GUILLERMO DEL Toro has been pretty insistent that people don’t call his new film Crimson Peak a horror movie simply because it has ghosts. But just because his latest creation isn’t a scary movie that doesn’t mean he can’tpick a good scary movie. WIRED asked del Toro to name his five fave horror flicks and what he came back with was a mix of crowd-pleasing classics like Jaws and smarty-arty films, too. However, if you’re looking for Linda Blair on this list, look elsewhere. “I would say The Exorcist, but The Exorcistwhen I was a kid didn’t do anything for me,” del Toro says. “But then I became a parent and it became incredibly scary. So, films change with your age, but those five scared me at the time.” Check out the director’s full list—and hear the story about the time he stayed in a haunted hotel—in the video above.

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/guillermo-del-toro-horror-picks/?mbid=social_twitter

Vid at link.
 
I read an interesting article that said this was basically a gothic "chick flick" that hasn't found its audience (it hasn't done very well at the box office). For me, I totally admire Del Toro for his ambition, I just don't think he has the perspective on his passion to make a real classic, Pan's Labyrinth was fine, but an awkward mishmash for me.

From what I've seen there has been limited showings especially as it's new out. There might be more next week. I wouldn't say it was a chick flicks though it wasn't that romantic (well to me). There was horror but more from the humans than the ghosts.
 
I read an interesting article that said this was basically a gothic "chick flick" that hasn't found its audience (it hasn't done very well at the box office). For me, I totally admire Del Toro for his ambition, I just don't think he has the perspective on his passion to make a real classic, Pan's Labyrinth was fine, but an awkward mishmash for me.

It did reasonably poorly in America yes. As an enigmatic spooky Gothic fairytale set in early 1900s England by a Mexican director always will do. Simple films do well in America. Nothing too edgy or complicated. Lots of big bangs and shouting. Good versus bad, good wins. Something like this is never gonna bust the US box office.

Totally agree with you about "Pan's Labyrinth".
 
It was set in the 1890s (I know it's my fave period) and it started off set in America before she moved to 'weird' England.

But I do get your point it wasn't full of explosions and shouting and the same old same old that a lot of blockbusters have.
 
From what I've seen there has been limited showings especially as it's new out. There might be more next week. I wouldn't say it was a chick flicks though it wasn't that romantic (well to me). There was horror but more from the humans than the ghosts.

The article was making the point that chick flicks don't need to be all about weddings and shopping to appeal to female audiences, which I think is fair enough.
 
Long article on GDT and his ongoing struggle to get HIS visions on to the Cinema screen.

Show the Monster
Guillermo del Toro’s quest to get amazing creatures onscreen.

In 1926, Forrest Ackerman, a nine-year-old misfit in Los Angeles, visited a newsstand and bought a copy of Amazing Stories—a new magazine about aliens, monsters, and other oddities. By the time he reached the final page, he had become America’s first fanboy. He started a group called the Boys’ Scientifiction Club; in 1939, he wore an outer-space outfit to a convention for fantasy aficionados, establishing a costuming ritual still followed by the hordes at Comic-Con. Ackerman founded a cult magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and, more lucratively, became an agent for horror and science-fiction writers. He crammed an eighteen-room house in Los Feliz with genre memorabilia, including a vampire cape worn by Bela Lugosi and a model of the pteranodon that tried to abscond with Fay Wray in “King Kong.” Ackerman eventually sold off his collection to pay medical bills, and in 2008 he died. He had no children.

But he had an heir. In 1971, Guillermo del Toro, the film director, was a seven-year-old misfit in Guadalajara, Mexico. He liked to troll the city sewers and dissolve slugs with salt. One day, in the magazine aisle of a supermarket, he came upon a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland. He bought it, and was so determined to decode Ackerman’s pun-strewed prose—the letters section was called Fang Mail—that he quickly became bilingual.

Del Toro was a playfully morbid child. One of his first toys, which he still owns, was a plush werewolf that he sewed together with the help of a great-aunt. In a tape recording made when he was five, he can be heard requesting a Christmas present of a mandrake root, for the purpose of black magic. His mother, Guadalupe, an amateur poet who read tarot cards, was charmed; his father, Federico, a businessman whom del Toro describes, fondly, as “the most unimaginative person on earth,” was confounded. Confounding his father became a lifelong project.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...0&spJobID=783162947&spReportId=NzgzMTYyOTQ3S0
 
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