Fortean Films

[Mythopoeika]

FREAKED .. if you can get over the fact that it's a surreal comedy, Randy 'Star Whackers' Quaid plays the insane owner of a remote swamp land freak show, Keanu Reeves plays the dog faced boy, Alex Winters plays a hideously deformed captive, Mr T (yes, the Mr T) plays the bearded lady .. even Brooke Shields is in it and that's just scratching the surface of how 'Fortean' odd this film is.

If you fancy a crude laugh today, fill your boots. This film is magnificent .. strap yourselves in and enjoy

Thanks, Swifty! Genius. I needed that.

 

[Swifty]

Thanks, Swifty! Genius. I needed that.

I'm re watching it tonight ! .. it's off the scale, as I understand it after the success of the Bill and Ted films, Alex had a heap of cash and decided to spend it making this low studio interference gem .. a beautifully stupid film mate.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I'm re watching it tonight ! .. it's off the scale, as I understand it after the success of the Bill and Ted films, Alex had a heap of cash and decided to spend it making this low studio interference gem .. a beautifully stupid film mate.

Alex lost a lot of money on that film.

 

[Swifty]

Alex lost a lot of money on that film.

I doubt he gave a shit to be honest.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I doubt he gave a shit to be honest.

Probably not. He made such a shed load out of Bill and Ted, he could probably coast along on that for years.
Reminds me of Yahoo Serious, who made a f*cktonne of money out of Young Einstein. He hasn't done much since.

 

[Swifty]

Probably not. He made such a shed load out of Bill and Ted, he could probably coast along on that for years.
Reminds me of Yahoo Serious, who made a f*cktonne of money out of Young Einstein. He hasn't done much since.

I went to the cinema for Young Einstein and remember enjoying it, I'll have to give it another watch.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I went to the cinema for Young Einstein and remember enjoying it, I'll have to give it another watch.

It's a work of Aussie genius.

 

[sherbetbizarre]

FREAKED .. if you can get over the fact that it's a surreal comedy, Randy 'Star Whackers' Quaid plays the insane owner of a remote swamp land freak show, Keanu Reeves plays the dog faced boy, Alex Winters plays a hideously deformed captive, Mr T (yes, the Mr T) plays the bearded lady .. even Brooke Shields is in it and that's just scratching the surface of how 'Fortean' odd this film is.

If you fancy a crude laugh today, fill your boots. This film is magnificent .. strap yourselves in and enjoy

This was nicely timed!

 

[hunck]

Not sure whether it ranks as Fortean but the minor classic of paranoia & surveillance The Conversation featuring Gene Hackman is currently on iplayer for about a month.

 

[GNC]

Not sure whether it ranks as Fortean but the minor classic of paranoia & surveillance The Conversation featuring Gene Hackman is currently on iplayer for about a month.

Featuring the recently late Alan Garfield as one of the surveillance experts - he almost steals the movie from Hackman, no mean feat.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Featuring the recently late Alan Garfield as one of the surveillance experts - he almost steals the movie from Hackman, no mean feat.

Does he love lasagna but hate Mondays?

 

[GNC]

Does he love lasagna but hate Mondays?

Probably less sinister.

 

[hunck]

Sightseers

Darkly comic story of love & serial killing on a caravanning holiday in the north of England. On All 4 for next 20 days.

 

[ramonmercado]

The Silence Of The Marsh: A sort of meta-fiction where reality and invented scenes merge, where it it hard to tell the real from the imagined. A journalist, Q (Pedro Alonso) becomes a successful crime novelist but is still dissatisfied. He sees the corruption around him in his local city, Valencia and decides the march (swamp) must be drained, by any means necessary. Or is he just writing a novel? From the outset this is an extremely violent film as we see a man battered to death, it just turns out to be Alonso at a book reading. We proceed to encounter people being burned to death, shot, struck with axes and stabbed. A confusing film which will leave guessing as well as unsettled. Worth watching though. Directed by Marc Vigil. 6/10. On Netflix.

 

[Trevp666]

Dunno if anyone has mentioned 'Millennium'.

Basically the premise of the film is that far in the future the inhabitants of earth are not reproducing so the human race is dying out.
Scientists (it's always scientists, grrr) build a sort-of-time-machine and they use it to travel back to retrieve people from historical plane crashes, just before impact, so that no-one suspects. etc. I'm not going to give away the spoiler, but it's pretty good.

 

[balding13]

If you are tolerant of comedic gorefests try The Greasy Strangler on All4. It's like a horror version of a Reeves and Mortimer sketch.

 

[Peripart]

Not sure whether it ranks as Fortean but the minor classic of paranoia & surveillance The Conversation featuring Gene Hackman is currently on iplayer for about a month.

An if you enjoy that, Enemy of the State, with Will Smith, is surprisingly good. It has Gene Hackman almost certainly playing the same character as in The Conversation.

 

[hunck]

An if you enjoy that, Enemy of the State, with Will Smith, is surprisingly good. It has Gene Hackman almost certainly playing the same character as in The Conversation.

Thanks for the recommendation. Will Smith is not one of my fave actors - he always seems to play himself whatever film he's in, a bit like Tom Cruise. Nevertheless, will look out for it.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Thanks for the recommendation. Will Smith is not one of my fave actors - he always seems to play himself whatever film he's in, a bit like Tom Cruise. Nevertheless, will look out for it.

You could say the same about many other high-profile actors.
Clint Eastwood always plays the same dude. Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, etc.

 

[Bigphoot2]

You could say the same about many other high-profile actors.
Clint Eastwood always plays the same dude. Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, etc.

Not like Sean Connery who can play Russians, Spaniards, Arabs and Irishmen.

 

[hunck]

You could say the same about many other high-profile actors.
Clint Eastwood always plays the same dude.

Reck'n so.

 

[tuco]

Not like Sean Connery who can play Russians, Spaniards, Arabs and Irishmen.

Sean Connery could even play multiples such as Ramirez in Highlander who was Spanish / Egyptian with a Scottish accent, amazing !

 

[Bigphoot2]

Sean Connery could even play multiples such as Ramirez in Highlander who was Spanish / Egyptian with a Scottish accent, amazing !

And he can shail shilently under the shea in a shecret Shoviet shubmarine.

 

[Swifty]

I'd count The Wizard Of Oz as Fortean ..

 

[FrKadash]

Has anyone seen this yet? I saw it mentioned in Mark Pilkington's article in FT391. Looks interesting.

edit*
This was meant to go in Fortean Documentaries

 

[hunck]

The Sacrifice

Andrei Tarkovsky's last film is on the All4 player with 11 days left.

A family birthday celebration in a remote house is interrupted by announcement of nuclear war. Features the usual Tarkovsky elements - mystery, fantastic cinematography, slow pacing, philosophical musings, long slow tracking shots etc.

In Swedish with subtitles.

 

[Swifty]

The Ghostbusters crew reunited .. skip to 2:55

 

[Ladyloafer]

Not sure where to put this review, if a Mod can find a better home for it then please teleport it.

Jojo Rabbit: How to describe this film? A serious comedy infused with elements of fantasy? It will have you laughing but the chuckles will die in your throat as you observe the final weeks of the Third Reich in a German town. Pensioners and children are armed with panzerfausts and rifles, "traitors" are hanged, the Gestapo hunt Jews until the very end. These could be scenes from Downfall.

Ten year old Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is an ardent member of the Hitler Youth who has an imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi). This comical Hitler hangs out with Jojo, encourages him in his efforts, comforts him when he is bullied at the Hitler Youth weekend camp. The camp is run by invalided Captain Klenzdorf (Sam Rockwell) along with his shell-shocked assistant Sub-Officer Finkel (Alfie Allen) and the crazed Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson) who has borne 18 Aryan babies for the Reich, a great comic trio. The bullying is by teenage HY members though and Jojo suffers injuries from a premature grenade explosion.

Jojo's mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) appears to be a model Nazi but she is hiding a Jewish teenager, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), and engaging in resistance activities. Jojo discovers Elsa's hiding place and at first his simple nazi ideology is to the fore but they gradually develop a tentative relationship. Elsa showing that she is no victim but someone whose people wrestled with angels and killed giants. Truly great performances by McKenzie and Davis.

The humour ranges from a Tommy Cooper style skit where Rosie plays two parts to Mel Brookes type humour: (i) his slapstick mode where
the imaginary Hitler is hamming, recoiling from a wall in case Jews are hiding in it, (ii) the serious comedy of To Be Or Not To Be when Jojo must fool the Gestapo. But these comparisons don't take away from the genius of Waititi's script, timing and direction.

Writer/Director/Actor Taika Waititi has delivered a comic triumph which literally and metaphorically deposits the nazis in the dustbin of history. 9/10.

I have just got around to watching jojo rabbit, and completely agree with Ramons review. Its funny its sad its shocking.
Also it doesnt have the look of a wartime film. Until the end, this is a smart little german town, untouched by war. Everyones well dressed and its all calm (at least from jojos point of view).
Definitely recommended.

 

[Xanatic*]

There is a film on the way called The Obscure Life of the Grand Duke of Corsica. It's about an architect who takes on a job to build a mausoleum for an eccentric billionaire, on an island which has been hit with a deadly epidemic and is under a state of emergency. Ahh, just the escapism we need.

 

[ramonmercado]

I'm Thinking of Ending Things: Charlie Kaufman's latest film stars Jessie Buckley as a woman going to visit her boyfriend's (Jesse Plemon) parents for Christmas dinner. She's unsure about the relationship and a lot of other things. As they drive through the a snow storm she appears to hallucinate and sees anachronistic objects and buildings. Plemon's parents, Toni Collette and David Thewlis seem a bit eccentric but are warm and welcoming. Things take a strange turn as the parents ages veer from young to extreme old age. This is an odd film involving time slips, clips from Oklahoma and high school students dancing musical scenes. A janitor appears in a school at intervals during the film. A Lynchian mood prevails, far stranger and even more surreal than Kaufman's usual baroque postmodernist style. Written and Directed by Charlie Kaufman. On Netflix. 7/10.