Movie Thread

[kiwi_2005]

I watched some reruns over the weekend

'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' Execellent movie. The Nurse Ratched

District 9

Bladerunner - um seen this back in the 80s loved it, come 2011 thought it sucked real bad - to slow for me this time round, I fell asleep half way through.

Outlander - A man crash lands on earth during the Iron Age bringing him a alien predator known as Moorwen. The outlander forms an alliance with the primitive fierce warriors - the Vikings. Not bad as far as Viking flicks go.

[GoldenRivet]

The wife and I watched Iceman - i hadnt seen it since i was a kid.

its a mid 80s flick about a team of arctic scientists conducting research for a petroleum company who discover the remains of a 40,000 year old neanderthal encased in ice.

The science team intends to perform an autopsy to determine the reasoning behind his perfect preservation. During the process they discover that his blood and tissues are somehow filled with a naturally occurring chemical that prevents cell damage during freezing. With obvious implications to cryogenic freezing for the space program and medical industry they go forward with the plan when suddenly their equipment picks up trace brain activity, stopping their procedure they elect to attempt to resuscitate the neanderthal - and their resuscitation attempt is a success.

Now that the science team is wrestling with moral and ethical issues, the prehistoric man is locked into the base camp's bio-dome like wildlife refuge until these issues can be worked out. In the mean time, Dr. Sheppard - one of the science team members and expert on ancient intuit civilizations enters the refuge and attempts to befriend and communicate with the iceman.

Despite the iceman's obvious lack of understanding about his situation, and the difficulty encountered in the massive language barrier he begins to show signs of understanding that he is not where he is supposed to be and at one point - tiring of the constant tranquilizing, abduction into the medical ward, examinations and the constant wondering about his own people and family he begs Sheppard to kill him and becomes frustrated, saddened and angry when Sheppard refuses.

As the iceman becomes increasingly desperate to understand his situation - a situation he could never fathom - Dr. Sheppard tries to think of a way to help the iceman find a way out of the confusing and tormenting hell he has awakened into.




its a shame how little attention many good 80s movies get.

Iceman is a very sad, fascinating and thought provoking movie, hitting theaters about 7 years before the remains of "otzi the iceman" were discovered in the otztal alps in northern Italy.

[vienna]

The theater that Tarantino now owns is called "The New Beverly Cinema" (he kept the old name). It has long been a revival theater and almost always shows two different movies each day (a 'double feature' as we older folks call it). I saw the "Das Boot" Director's Cut version there last year and enjoyed the film very much, but I would have loved to have seen the uncut version on full theater screen much more.

I have also had a long time interest in Japanese films and Los Angeles once was probably the nation's best place to see Japanese films on a full size screen. There used to be three theaters affiliated with major Nippon studios here: Toho La Brea (Toho Studio), Shochiku Kokusai (Shochiku Studio), and the Linda Lea (Toei Studio). The Toho and the Shochiku presented mainly classic Japanese films by major directors, although the Toho would occasionally show movies considered to be less artful, 'Zatoichi', etc. The Linda Lea showed triple-features of purely popular films broken down as one 'chambara' (kind of like samurai meet western meets kabuki), one yakuza, and one more film, usually either a 'pink' (a softcore, R-rated type sex farce) film or an over-the-top violent action-thriller that was kind of like a live action manga comic book. These theaters are all gone now, victims of the home video boom in the eighties, but while they were around, I was able to see many, many of the great classic films as they were intended to be seen, on a full theater screen. My most vivid memory was seeing "Kwaidan" at the Kokusai. The theater manager came out before the showing to announce that due to a delivery error, the final sequence would not be shown. This was the famous 'Earless Hoichi' sequence featuring an amazing battle scene shot to mimic the artwork of Japanese block prints. Refunds were offered to those who did not want to see an incomplete film, but only a few people took up the offer. The film is made up of four separate ghost stories and when the third one was nearing its end, quite a few people started to leave the theater. I am one of those people who stays for the end of the credits. Instead of abruptly ending, the missing segment suddenly appeared on the screen. There was a wild rush of people from the back of the theater to reatke their seats and I could even hear some voice yelling to those who had already made it out the front door. The manager later told me the missing segment had made it to the theater just before the end of the third segment and he did not have the time to make an announcement. I felt sorry for those who took the refunds or who left early and were out of the theater out of earshot.

[Gargamel]

Hangover II Trailer is out:

Looks like exactly same plot, but still looks funny. I'll wait till dollar theater though.