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Fortean Films

Saw The Conjuring 2. Godawful, it was. What a weird depiction of 70s Britain. I wonder how Mrs Hodgson would have liked to see her neat little council house presented as a cavernous dump. One of the sons wouldn't shut up about biscuits, because Brits are obsessed with them, obviously. And the whole haunting was about those fundamentalist nuts the Warrens, natch, a couple who spent two days (if that) in Enfield while Grosse and Playfair were there for a year. An absolute joke.
 
True Stories, by David Byrne (rel. 1986)
Have a deep affection for this film and its soundtrack.

Setting:
Virgil, Texas, United States of America, 1985 (or somewhere nearby)
 
skinny said:
True Stories, by David Byrne (rel. 1986)
Have a deep affection for this film and its soundtrack.

Setting:
Virgil, Texas, United States of America, 1985 (or somewhere nearby)
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I hadn't heard of that one .. it looks pretty good, sort of like an early SLACKER ? ...
 
skinny said:
True Stories, by David Byrne (rel. 1986)
Have a deep affection for this film and its soundtrack.

Setting:
Virgil, Texas, United States of America, 1985 (or somewhere nearby)
Click to expand...
I hadn't heard of it either, until the RedLetterMedia guys did a recent look back at it -

 
I confused it years ago late one night with 'Stop Making Sense' the Talking Heads concert film and spent the whole ninety odd minutes wondering when Talking heads were going to start playing and that it was the oddest concert film I'd ever seen.

Much later I reverse confused it telling Mrs. Heckler that we should watch 'Stop making Sense' as it was a really quirky movie by David Byrne. At least Talking Heads did play some tunes that time.
 
Saw True Stories on TV back in the 80s, it's OK and makes you wish Byrne had pursued filmmaking. But for a 90 minute tribute to US small towns and the tabloids they love to read, it's a bit one note. Well, it's a musical, it has lots of notes, it's just that you get the joke within about five minutes after which it has nowhere to go. Music's good, though (TH played the songs on the soundtrack LP, not the film).
 
skinny said:
One you might not have seen before.
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I saw this a couple years ago and thought it was great. I have an interesting BBC Radio 4 interview with her which was included in an old Radio 4 documentary about L. Ron Hubbard, very interesting hearing her talk as she was very rarely interviewed filmed or recorded in later years. Spencer Kansa's book on Cameron, Wormwood Star, The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron is highly recommended.
 
Swifty said:
I hadn't heard of that one .. it looks pretty good, sort of like an early SLACKER ? ...
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It's just an essential Tex-ishness in both, I think.

Gratified to see the greeting I've tried to describe elsewhere so accurately rendered at the 1:00 mark. :p
 
Ulalume said:
the greeting
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"Well heeeey".

A huge part of the Coen Bros' appeal is their closely scripted focus on local vernacular and the intonation that goes with it. Fargo must be such a laugh for the rural Minnesota locals. Raising Arizona is similarly endearing without being mocking. They really celebrate the uniqueness of each community. David Byrne does that in True Stories. Really well.
 
Only he gives a bit of a mock in the way he says "special Ness". Would love some more D Byrne in cinema.
 
For mine, Texas is a very special part of the world. A hugely contested domain, geographically, historically, politically, culturally and spiritually. Seems to me the essence of something we all, in the modern world, can relate to. There's an entire paradigm of the west in that one state alone. A must see during my future road trip across the continent. Frontier people still.
 
skinny said:
For mine, Texas is a very special part of the world. A hugely contested domain, geographically, historically, politically, culturally and spiritually. Seems to me the essence of something we all, in the modern world, can relate to. There's an entire paradigm of the west in that one state alone. A must see during my future road trip across the continent. Frontier people still.
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Well, you'll certainly be welcome. :) We get quite a number of Australians passing through. To see what's interesting about the place, you have to look close, though. Past the stereotypes. The weirdness is underneath.
 
As is so often the case. We, online, are showing that bit of underbelly the F2F world doesn't get to see. Same in film. The reveal is so interesting. Were I to get across the water, I'd be a long time in Austin - sister city to my own.

Any good Fortish films featuring Austin? Let me see now...
 
I wasn't sure where to post this trailer but Tsui Hark has rebooted 'Monkey!' I can't wait to watch this .. Monkey, Pigsy and Tripitaka all together again :clap:

 
Loved Monkey as a very young teenager. Even painted a broomstick black with white tips.
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skinny said:
Loved Monkey as a very young teenager. Even painted a broomstick black with white tips.
449316240_640.jpg
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I used to pretend to pluck a hair from my head and blow on it and wave it around a bit then throw it to summon my own army like Monkey did .. it's no wonder I never got laid ..
 
lol
I never thought of you as a normal dude. Stay strange. We're all a little bit melodramatic, even as grups.
 
If you haven't seen it, and in memory of John Hurt, I'd very much recommend The Shout, one of the strangest films ever made. It's a largely low-key affair starring Alan Bates as a man who says he spent years with aborigines learning how to shout people to death, among other things...
 

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cycleboy2 said:
If you haven't seen it, and in memory of John Hurt, I'd very much recommend The Shout, one of the strangest films ever made. It's a largely low-key affair starring Alan Bates as a man who says he spent years with aborigines learning how to shout people to death, among other things...
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One of my favourite films, highly recommend it too.
 
Without Name review – heady, psychedelic woodland horror

Lorcan Finnegan’s debut suffers from some predictable plotting, but the eye-popping flair of its spectral sylvan visions is quite something to behold
Thursday 16 February 2017 21.45 GMT

So trippy it makes Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England look like an afternoon at the tax office, Dublin director Lorcan Finnegan’s debut sprig of sylvan-psych makes up for its occasional heavy tread with outstanding photography. Alan McKenna is a middle-aged surveyor with a curdling home life, sent out to chart ancient woodlands in preparation for development. But his surveyor’s pendulum is acting up, he witnesses strange figures in the morning mists, and, when his assistant-cum-lover (Niamh Algar) arrives, it’s clear his spiritual compass is erring, too.
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/16/without-name-review-heady-psychedelic-woodland-horror
 
Ghostbusters (2016)

Oh God I just remembered I watched this over the weekend. I was repressing the memory.

It felt like a first year film student film, "hey lets do a Ghostbusters remake!" with all the enthusiasm, gratuitous high-fives and total lack of script writing talent that idea suggests. Guy with no obvious motivation creates bombs that have no explanation to create ghosts just because.

It could've worked if it had been even 1/10 as funny as the original but just lacked even the tiniest Kraft cheese single sized portion of wit of that film.

The one thing worth watching it for is Chris Hemsworth who raised two of the three smiles from me on watching the film (the third was when the end titles started rolling).

Utter gash.
 
Heckler20 said:
Ghostbusters (2016)

Oh God I just remembered I watched this over the weekend. I was repressing the memory.

It felt like a first year film student film, "hey lets do a Ghostbusters remake!" with all the enthusiasm, gratuitous high-fives and total lack of script writing talent that idea suggests. Guy with no obvious motivation creates bombs that have no explanation to create ghosts just because.

It could've worked if it had been even 1/10 as funny as the original but just lacked even the tiniest Kraft cheese single sized portion of wit of that film.

The one thing worth watching it for is Chris Hemsworth who raised two of the three smiles from me on watching the film (the third was when the end titles started rolling).

Utter gash.
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I liked it well enough, biggest laugh was early on though when the haunted house staffer tells the GBs the man they talked to died twenty years ago and he casually walks up to greet them, etc. I also liked that the GBs were not "feminisations" of the originals and that it seemed to be taking place in a parallel universe to the source (apparently there's a lot of 1970s posters around the place, though I must admit I didn't notice). Not a waste of time for me, but it would be nice if someone had an original concept for once. Feig will never better the brilliant Freaks and Geeks, though, or I'd be surprised if he did, anyway.
 
New film, The Phoenix Witch Project:

OK, it's actually called Phoenix Forgotten, but what a rip-off. However, are the Phoenix Lights a genuine phenomenon? Or are they too made up? Any budding ufologists have an idea?
 
GNC said:
However, are the Phoenix Lights a genuine phenomenon? Or are they too made up? Any budding ufologists have an idea?
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Yep, and probably the most famous filmed footage of "UFO's" ever.... but no-one went missing afterwards :)

 
I recently saw Belladonna of Sadness, perhaps one of the most beautiful and most depressing films around. It's a Japanese animated film done in a psychedelic manner crossed with Klimt and other classic art stylists, about an honest woman's abuse by seemingly everything in existence and yet she keeps trying.

http://www.cineliciouspics.com/belladonna-of-sadness/

 
I can thoroughly recommend the following films:-

Absentia (AKA The Tunnel)

A husband goes missing and is about to be declared legally dead by his wife after seven years with no hint as to his whereabouts. All is not as it seems and there is an incredibly effective supernatural cause underlying everything. I can't go into too much detail because the less you know going in, the more you'll enjoy the film. It is a slow burn though.

Coherence

A group of friends are having a dinner party on the same night that a comet is passing by the Earth and we all know how well that goes. Cue lots of realities mingling and the group encountering multiple alternate universe counterparts. It's pretty well acted and stars Nicholas 'Xander' Brendon, in a role that features some brutally honest autobiographical dialogue.

Creep (2014)

Goes from absurd to disturbed during the 1hr 17min runtime. It is found footage, but don't let that put you off. Mark Duplass is brilliant in it.
 
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