Comments for Flicker Fusion

Comment on Where the Devil are Ken’s films? by mancheeros

mancheeros — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:34:52 +0000

yes it would be wonderful to see an uncut version of The Devils on DVD. since no one has mentioned it above, i’ll give a quick mention to Gothic. this is one of Ken’s most accomplished films and hugely underrated. it has all his trademark visual imagination and some fine performances. happily this is available on DVD, so i would urge anyone who hasn’t yet seen it to check it out…

Comment on Will Hammer Rise from the Grave? by mancheeros

mancheeros — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:46:54 +0000

Lovely to see mention of Quatermass and the Pit, one of my favourite British sc-fi films, and amusing to see that old poster again with the lovely Barbara Shelley foregrounded in that provocative way. one could get completely the wrong end of the stick about what kind of film it is from this poster…. having said that, i’ve been trying to imagine who might bring off a fascinating remake should the film ever be reinvestigated. it would certainly have to a director who understood ‘Britishness’, all that stiff upper lip control in the face of potential catastrophe. the closing sequences of the film, with the horned beast shimmering large in a fiery London sky, are moments when Hammer was capable of evocative art. there really is only one man who could possibly capture the spirit of the old film and reinvent it with bags of style and modern menace. that man is Ken Russell.

regards
mancheeros

Comment on Fincher’s First Adult Movie? by mancheeros

mancheeros — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:15:36 +0000

I have to agree with David Thomson’s misgivings about Zodiac. watched it the other night and found it a lumbering, sluggish beast with just occasional moments of gripping tension and very little in the way of imaginative art direction and cinematography. it clocks in at 158 mins, so is long by any standards and certainly outstays its welcome. the acting is mediocre to say the least (e.g. Elias Koteas, an actor with real presence in Egoyan’s Exotica and Cronenberg’s Crash, is given nothing here to sink his teeth into) and the diction is so poor at times as to be incomprehensible; Robert Downey Jr is the worst offender with his mumbling, chain-smoking journalist. the look of the film is also disappointing; a rather hackneyed desaturated 70s murkiness with all the usual attention to sartorial detail, from bushy sideburns to wide lapels. since ‘the end’ is a foregone conclusion Fincher needed to try harder to sustain interest in the telling of the tale. the understated aspects of the film (routine police work, etc), merely become nondescript. sadly, Zodiac has none of the near-grandeur, memorable visual style and top acting (Pacino vs De Niro) of Michael Mann’s Heat, that other epic of police detection.

regards
mancheeros

Comment on Where the Devil are Ken’s films? by andie macdowell naked

andie macdowell naked — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:28:53 +0000

andie macdowell naked

Comment on Horror Double Bills & Me by Greg

Greg — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:08:55 +0000

forgot to mention that i too have the dennis gifford book you mentioned ‘a pictorial history of horror movies’ in my collection. i bought it way back then. a classic book i have is called alan frank’s horror movies: the movie treasury. its a fabulous book first published in 1974. i bought it when those double bills were on and as each season was announced i would look the movies up to see write ups and also if you were lucky a still from the forthcoming film. its usually available to buy on ebay for about £5 and it remains my favourite horror movie book to this day. i strongly recommend it to you. cheers
greg

Comment on Horror Double Bills & Me by Jim McC.

Jim McC. — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:45:55 +0000

Goodness, I agree with every word, and all these memories. I even had the same book, and read it all the time - though in my case I always think of Der Golem along with Giorgio Moroder from the summer of ‘77! I can go back further to “Don’t Watch Alone” in 1970, when I was allowed, as an enthusiastic 8-year-old to watch the classic Universal Horror films for the first time - my favourites being a split between Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster, and Lon Chaney Jr’s Wolfman. In these days of DVDs, I have managed to find most of them again, but I wish television would repeat their summer double bills!

Comment on Bond is back. Again. by Connery

Connery — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:02:03 +0000

Connery

Good to know …

Comment on Shooting the Past: This is England vs Quadrophenia by Roy Stafford

Roy Stafford — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:04:06 +0000

I haven’t seen Quadrophenia since its initial release in 1979, so I can’t really comment on its representation of the mod lifestyle. However, I think it is a little unfair to compare the two films in terms of ‘authenticity’. Quadrophenia was intended as a straightforward commercial picture exploiting (by The Who themselves) a fantasy rock opera. There shouldn’t have been any expectations of historical accuracy (though I’m sure diehard mods have always had criticisms). Shane Meadows’ film was a labour of love — a ‘personal’ evocation of a period that was immensely important to him. It’s a great movie and I look forward to watching it again on DVD. I’m also thinking I’d like to see Quadrophenia again — it’s worth remembering that it came out when British Cinema was in fairly desperate straits and it proved to be an entertaining diversion for those of us just a little bit too old in 1979 to join in the punk/new wave explosion.

Comment on Where the Devil are Ken’s films? by Ken Weldon

Ken Weldon — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:20:34 +0000

It’s very sad that Russell himself may not live to see his masterpiece ‘The Devil’s’ released in the version he intended on DVD.

Comment on OK, Do Something with Grindhouse! by David Malcolm

David Malcolm — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:11:04 +0000

The bisected DVD release state side (which is bound to case the UK postman a few issues with the amount of imports that’ll be ordered online) claims that the missing reel is returned to PLANET TERROR. Yet Rodriguez did not even shoot the missing reel. I agree that they over shot the mark on run time for commercial consumption but i loved all 3hrs and 11 mins of it and i’ve watched it numerous times. I hope they do another and it’s a TRIPLE bill!