Chopping Mall
Chopping Mall was my first blog, which I started way back in 2009. It was dedicated exlcusively to ridiculous and terrible films, which I watched a lot of back then. (So much time, so little work!)
I’ve resuced the posts from oblivion, to be preserved here for …uh… whatever.
It’s a pretty clunky process getting them out of blogspot (XML export, eww) and into here, so there may be a few formatting issues.
Island of the Fishmen aka L'isola degli uomini pesce
Well, it’s been a while since I wrote (or watched, for that matter) anything as gloriously silly as Island of the Fishmen. Whilst I have seen it before, it was only once and somewhat over a year ago, so I thought this re-imagining of Dr Moreau’s isalnd was ripe for another watch. And what a (ahem) treat it is!
It opens as you might expect a tense serious monster film to: the sea is still, several injured men look silently at the camera and a gull screeches overhead. Something has gone very wrong here, but we just don’t know what! Maybe this will be, despite the name, a slow-building tense affair, all hinted-at flashes and unsettling curiosities….. OH WAIT, NO! MONSTERS HAVE ARRIVED!
Banning the Human Centipede II
A day or two ago, the UK’s national organisation of stopping-you-watching-things, the BBFC, announced that they had rejected The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) as a work too depraved to be released in the UK, a film that couldn’t be salvaged by any measure of cuts, a story that would corrupt and damage our all-too-fragile sensibilities.
In one word, this is ridiculous.
To explain why, I’m using this post to write out three of the reasons I believe this. Namely, that 1) this move reveals awkward things about what we do and don’t accept, 2) that the evidence upon which we base the ‘dangers’ of watching bad things is pretty slim and 3) that censorship simply doesn’t work.
Why You Should Watch The Tunnel
A week and a bit ago, The Tunnel, an indie Australian horror film was released for free online. The creators have taken a daring approach to film distribution, attempting to cover the $135,000 production cost of their film by selling individual frames on their website, releasing a deluxe DVD and organising a couple screenings. A lot has been said already about this side of the project so… let’s ignore it all together and focus on the actual film.
Cannes ban von Trier...
Oh dear, oh dear, Lars von Trier has certainly upset the Cannes-folk, hasn’t he?
Does anyone really not see how ridiculous this is? Has anyone who does insist that it was a very serious issue actually seen/heard the video? He preceded the comments by pointing out that his next film was a four hour long hardcore porn film starring Kirsten Dunce. With no dialogue.
This man is bored. This man is bored of the dull routine of press conferences and he rambles off on a provocative wander. He clearly has no idea where this ramble is going and laughs at himself throughout. So you don’t like the humour? Fine, I can’t say I’m wild about it either, but the “von Trier is a Nazi” headlines that everyone has been churning out just seem like willful media aggression. Which is pretty pathetic.
Cannes 2011
So Cannes 2011 starts tomorrow, everyone’s favourite round-up of often pretentious, frequently over-serious and yet still usually fantastic film. There’s almost no point getting too excited about any of the films on the actual bill because, months down the line when they actually get a release, the interest usually wears off before I get to actually see them. So I’m taking a fairly laid-back approach to it this year, mostly just reading the occasional review or summary. Or I might read everything I can find. We’ll see…
The death of cinema?
So I’ve been meaning to write this for a few days now. Shame it’s taken me so long…
As reported in the Guardian and many other places on Sunday, several big-name directors have joined the cinema industry in attacking movie-industry plans to shorten the amount of time between the cinema debut of a film and its home availability, by making video-on-demand (that’s streaming) films available as little (?) as two months after the film’s release.
European Post-2000 Horror
Rather splendid zombie, by ‘scabeater’, under a CC-by-nc-nd licence
So… after the brief but exciting burn-out that was the intensive Argento-fest in March, it’s time to move to a bit of a new project. This one, rather than the as-much-as-possible-in-a-week format, will be somewhat more drawn out, allowing me to do other stuff in between. Like eating. And sleeping.
The project plan is to watch more Horror. Specifically, Horror from Europe (this is not a slight on the rest of the world, honest! I’d just like to see more Euro-Horror). Even more specifically, European Horror from the last ‘decade’. I’m taking decade to mean Y2K onwards, so perhaps should better say the project’s full name ought to be: 21st Century European Horror.
Suspiria
SUSSSSSSSSPIRIA! On a great big screen!
Last night, after a week of Argento film’s, I got to see his spellbinding masterpiece Suspiria on a cinema-screen in the National Media Museum as part of the Bradford International Film Festival. I’d obviously wound myself into a bit of a frenzied excitement about it through the week and it certainly did not disappoint.
Every time I hear someone say they choose to watch films at home rather than at the cinema, mostly due to all the other film-goers, I think to myself “You’ve just been going to the wrong films with the wrong people!”. Last night’s audience had almost all seen the film before and sat in captivated silence, tittering nervously at the occasional gentle comic moments and - even before fun - audibly anticipating oncoming moments of horror. If a bad crowd can ruin a film, a great crowd can make one. Not that Suspiria needed any help in that respect…
Argento Week's FINALE!
Of course, all that Dario Argento film watching wasn’t just for fun, it was all to build up to the fantastically exciting screening of Suspiria tonight in the Bradford International Film Festival. It’s hardly going to be worth me reviewing it - I love the film so much already a review will probably be just a string of superlatives and smiley faces - but I’m hoping that, given the big screen treatment, I’ll find even more to love about it!
Cat O' Nine Tails
So here we are! Last night’s film, which was number 7 and brought my week of Argento films (before Suspiria tonight) to a close, was Cat O’ Nine Tails, another one that I hadn’t seen before. I was, I must say, pleasantly surprised. It falls, again, into the giallo camp more than the horror side - although they all show elements of both - and, being another very early film I must admit I didn’t expect as much fun as I got.