Sword of the Beast is a well-made little anti-samurai film that accomplishes quite a bit with its brief runtime. The underlying narrative setup surrounding our hero unfolds very well and at a surprisingly brisk pace, giving the progressively larger and larger cast plenty to do without feeling like they're being stretched too thin. Director Hideo Gosha has a great eye for exteriors, and I did like how each of the character arcs were accompanied by their own recurring visual motif, such as the emphasized distance between the husband and wife that enter the film about halfway in, and the bandits often being shot while obscured by the environment. Brutal, frantic but satisfying sword fights are on full display here, but the film has bigger things on its mind than being mere entertainment, especially with how much of a downer it turns out to be. It's not extraordinary, but it's so rock-solid that you hardly mind.
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Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| July 2015
- Thread starter Charles Foster Kane
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George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
The Guest - ☆☆☆ and a half.
First half of the film is really engrossing thanks to the mood, acting and soundtrack. It really takes a U-turn halfway through (and stumbles a little for it), but it is still enjoyable and rather intense. Soundtrack is consistently great. Dan Stevens oozes cool (and crazy). Action is well shot. Cinematography is... decent. This film is basically half The Terminator and half Terminator 2, though it still veers towards the former. Really reminiscent of John Carpenter.
First half of the film is really engrossing thanks to the mood, acting and soundtrack. It really takes a U-turn halfway through (and stumbles a little for it), but it is still enjoyable and rather intense. Soundtrack is consistently great. Dan Stevens oozes cool (and crazy). Action is well shot. Cinematography is... decent. This film is basically half The Terminator and half Terminator 2, though it still veers towards the former. Really reminiscent of John Carpenter.
Messofanego
Banned
The Wonders
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Saw this at Curzon Bloomsbury. Really liked it. Had a quiet elegance to it. Family of beekeepers faces financial struggles, so the daughter signs up for a competition that will pick the best farm, basically Farm's Got Talent. Dad is very traditional and distrusts anyone not from farms. The triangle of father/daughter/new boy was a bit predictable, where father gets a bit jealous when his overprotective relationship is threatened. Some genius panning shots, like two people sleeping in a cave and when the camera pans above they're dancing (not just shadows) but as it pans down they're still sleeping.
Worth watching just for the main girl Maria Alexandra Lungu's performance.
First time I've seen Monica Bellucci in a non-english film. She was alright, played the role of a TV presenter for that reality competition.
Penultimate panning shot was a real hit to the gut. Life is tough, man.
Saw this at Curzon Bloomsbury. Really liked it. Had a quiet elegance to it. Family of beekeepers faces financial struggles, so the daughter signs up for a competition that will pick the best farm, basically Farm's Got Talent. Dad is very traditional and distrusts anyone not from farms. The triangle of father/daughter/new boy was a bit predictable, where father gets a bit jealous when his overprotective relationship is threatened. Some genius panning shots, like two people sleeping in a cave and when the camera pans above they're dancing (not just shadows) but as it pans down they're still sleeping.
Worth watching just for the main girl Maria Alexandra Lungu's performance.
First time I've seen Monica Bellucci in a non-english film. She was alright, played the role of a TV presenter for that reality competition.
Penultimate panning shot was a real hit to the gut. Life is tough, man.
BaronLundi
Member
Yeah 100% the accent, I wasn't confused the whole time but like I said it took me out of the film for a moment. It was a pretty damn enjoyable film for the most part though.
yeah lol, movie's spectacular but the accent work is dreadful. I think only Peter Firth and Tim Curry at least give a decent try
SpaceHorror
Member
I don't think I'm capable of the words that could really do Harakiri justice, but this was basically me for a bit over two hours:
Holy shit.
I think I'm going to finally watch this tonight.
Fancy Clown
Member
I don't think I'm capable of the words that could really do Harakiri justice, but this was basically me for a bit over two hours:
Holy shit.
Sheeeeit, that good? Been on my watch list for a while.
I don't even want to say anything even slightly important about it, as going in blind is the best way to approach it. I can say it's masterful filmmaking from beginning to end from a technical perspective, and the performances are uniformly great, but that's all I would leave it at.
Net_Wrecker
Member
I recognize Harakiri as being great, but it didn't stick with me after I saw it a few years back. I need to rewatch it.
AwesomeSauce
MagsMoonshine
Harakiri is freaking amazing. I made sure to watch it when I had a Hulu Plus.
True Savior
Member
Harakiri is so good that even the remake is amazing.
DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
Kwaidan is not that great. The horror elements are lacking and only 2 of the 4 segments are interesting.
SuperInuit
Member
Harakiri is genuinely brilliant. One of those films which I liked while watching it, but just got better and better and better in hindsight.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Fury Road, blu-ray, Sept 1st, lovely day, etc
Ant-Man (2015) - I wasn't expecting much but it wasn't half bad, about as good Iron Man 2 which is an alright film with a lot of glaring issues. Michael Peña and Michael Douglas are the two bright points of the cast, the micro scenes were very well done outside some weird sun glare in a the few scenes that was probably added in to look realistic but comes across as cheap, the end fight was very entertaining and
. So what the hell was up with the lighting direction of this thing, did this movie have 5 different cinematographers or something? Every scene seemed to look different, it went from bad looking to good often. The humor in this film does not land at all outside a few scenes with Peña, the writing doesn't seem to work at all and Rudd's timing and delivery is completely off.
the trippy quantum realm sequences looked cool
The Falcon fight at New Avengers base added nothing to the film, the fight was not well shot and again the lighting/cinematography bad, the interactions weren't good either.
Michael Douglas de-age looked good though somewhat uncanny, but the sequence like the Falcon one was pretty unnecessary.
Michael Douglas de-age looked good though somewhat uncanny, but the sequence like the Falcon one was pretty unnecessary.
SpaceHorror
Member
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia - 5/5 - A hard-boiled modern western from Sam Peckinpah about a low life piano player who hopes a dead man's head is his golden ticket out of his dead end life for him and his lover. Warren Oates gives one hell of a performance as the low life, Bennie, putting his heart into the ugliness and love that drives the character. The violence is stylized but meaningful, each death weighing Bennie down as he trudges through his bloody quest. There is a bit of humor and touching romance, but mostly it's unflinchingly grim in depicting what people will do to get what they want. The ending asks the question if it was all worth it and answers it violently.
SpaceHorror
Member
Awwww yesssss.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Best Peckinpah tbh
TheKaeptain
Banned
damn right.
Sounds like a personal problem!
I would be the first person to admit that a fair bit of Assassination flew over my head. Steeped heavily in the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the film assumes a more than passing familiarity with the historical context than the opening narration can provide on the part of the viewer. Further muddying the waters is the fact that there are over a half-dozen perspectives that we follow throughout the film, and with the film's propensity for flashbacks to help flesh events out often transitioning back to the present without much warning, you are dealing with what we in the business might refer to as a slippery son of a bitch. Thankfully, the film isn't so impenetrable to the unversed as it is largely focused on one character, or, more specifically, the diverging perspectives of several different people in an attempt to untangle the mess of contradictions that we find him to be. The subject at hand is Hachiro Kiyokawa, a cunning ronin of modest beginnings who has put forth a plan to shift the balance of power in the country's not-so-silent civil war. His already complex personality is continually filtered through those that knew him, know him, or thought they knew him, leading to a wildly varied recounting of who the man is: he can be a convincing charismatic leader or an eccentric schemer bordering on insane, a remorseful would-be pacifist or ruthless killer, and so on. Indeed, the main thrust of the plot is determining where his sympathies ultimately lie in the country's turbulence, as men on both sides of the conflict find their reasons for distrusting the true aim of his plans. The lead performance from Tetsuro Tamba covers all of these conflicting aspects of Kiyokawa's personality in a convincing and engaging way, but the screenwriters make a tricky play to keep Kiyokawa fairly enigmatic. It's the kind of story that isn't so much about explain who this person is so much as it's concerned about explaining why the people that recount their time with him would think the way they do, like a kind of dying feudal Japanese take on Citizen Kane. An already tough film to get into gets even more complex as a result, but it winds up working well as a result of director Masahiro Shinoda (who somehow managed to get this out the same year as Pale Flower) tackling the material with a fantastic visual presentation, ensuring that the editing is precise, even as the flashbacks can disorientate, and staging sequences with a very strong sense of framing, particularly for the shots that rely on long pans. The unrest of the life and times the film depicts seeps into the way it's told, which feels very complementary and would be hard to imagine it handled differently. I suspect I would like this film even more if I hit the books and researched more into the history, so it's hard for me to hold it against the film too much to not have been prepared for its density (amazingly, at just over 100 minutes long, it covers a lot of territory as it is). That does give it an stronger replay value that other films may not enjoy as they engage with the real life history in a less formal and frankly inessential manner. A tough film to recommend for entirely valid reasons, but one I can't imagine I'll regret anytime soon, especially with such a high caliber of filmmaking on display.
The Kojima and Miller bromance is real.
R100 (2013) - Not sure how to describe it, the plot line for the movie doesn't really scratch the surface of it and tells you the entire film because of how utterly aimless it is, it's like a series of strange vignette's about the same thing and few different things put together. Oddest fucking thing I've seen in quite some time, I rarely laughed but I wasn't bored for a second so I will give it that. Matsumoto seems to make damn strange films.
Messofanego
Banned
Bin Roye
This is Pakistan's answer to Bollywood? By copying Bollywood in being a mediocre sentimental unintentionally funny sexist piece of crap? You know the plot, friendzone unrequited love, mentally deranged woman that only lives for a man's love. No wonder I stopped watching this dreck. What a waste of great lighting, camerawork, production design. I had to laugh at a couple of points, and the audience joined in cause they realised these movies are just so dumb. If you've seen this movie it was at the line
.
Pakistanis should be more excited and proud of that upcoming Dukhtar. You know, the movie that was put up for Oscars and is something that reflects real life rather than more hair sweeping garish melodrama. Put that in 100 cinemas instead.
Still had a good night out in Cineworld Wandsworth cause it's just fun to see all us desis flocking to a place for one thing, selling out screenings. Their hype is admirable.
This is Pakistan's answer to Bollywood? By copying Bollywood in being a mediocre sentimental unintentionally funny sexist piece of crap? You know the plot, friendzone unrequited love, mentally deranged woman that only lives for a man's love. No wonder I stopped watching this dreck. What a waste of great lighting, camerawork, production design. I had to laugh at a couple of points, and the audience joined in cause they realised these movies are just so dumb. If you've seen this movie it was at the line
"Saman's death was inevitable"
Pakistanis should be more excited and proud of that upcoming Dukhtar. You know, the movie that was put up for Oscars and is something that reflects real life rather than more hair sweeping garish melodrama. Put that in 100 cinemas instead.
Still had a good night out in Cineworld Wandsworth cause it's just fun to see all us desis flocking to a place for one thing, selling out screenings. Their hype is admirable.
DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
Batman: Assault on Arkham is alright. The only reason to watch it is for the action scenes. Its very fast-paced, so the characterization is basic. Almost all of the humor falls flat. The music is bad. Seeing the Joker in fist-fights and shoot-outs is really weird.
Insane Metal
Member
Can I talk about TV shows here too? I just finished watching Secrets and Lies and absolutely loved it.
I think there's a separate thread for that in Community (I think?).
Insane Metal
Member
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
I think that's dead.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
The French Connection (1971) - Been meaning to watch this for ages, so I finally got around to it last night. Pretty entertaining but not as great as I've heard people praise it as.
I think it's a good movie, I like it very much. I don't ever see it mentioned anywhere or getting lots of praise though (other than the fact that it won the Oscar, of course) .
lol
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
I thought the bar was 1970. You know because of The Godfather and the American New Wave.
Edit: and how many people can't stand classic Hollywood acting so anything before the change is worth dismissing, even if it's not from Hollywood or if the change wasn't really that drastic or sudden. There have been threads about it here.
Edit: and how many people can't stand classic Hollywood acting so anything before the change is worth dismissing, even if it's not from Hollywood or if the change wasn't really that drastic or sudden. There have been threads about it here.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
1967 is always the break I've used to separate Classic and Modern Hollywood. Almost single-handly with Bonnie and Clyde dragging Hollywood into the aggressive modern style Europe fancied throughout the 60s, displays of frank sex and violence, anti-establishment morals. I mean, everyone has absorbed Bonnie and Clyde's Godard-influenced editing rhythms and visual bloodlust to the point it looks tame now, but you should read old reviews of it sometimes lol. Between than and The Graduate(also from '67), they really were the starting pistol on the New Hollywood Cinema period. As for the end of it, I know the popular year to pick is 1980, with the masterpiece Raging Bull as the last hurrah and Heaven's Gate as the door slamming shut, but I kinda the symmetry of 1967-1977. There's pre-Star Wars Hollywood and there's post-Star Wars Hollywood.
Just like how there's pre-Fury Road movies and post-Fury Road "movies"
Just like how there's pre-Fury Road movies and post-Fury Road "movies"
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
67-77? Tie it in a bow? Star Wars was definitely a game changer.
God, I love Bonnie and Clyde. And Beatty was so dreamy.
Edit: I know 1967 was when modern Hollywood started, but I mentioned Godfather because I remember someone on GAF saying they can't watch anything pre Godfather.
Speaking of 1967 crime films...
Le Samourai
This was so good. I kind of loved that they spent over 20 minutes just checking out a lineup of suspects and questioning alibis. In 99% of crime films, it would be a completely throwaway, 30-second plot point, but here they pore over it exhaustively. (Also, how insane is it that eyewitnesses would be asked to ID a criminal right to their face?) My only complaint is that Delon's character comes off as fairly inept at his job; his visual badassery is hampered by the fact that he's constantly playing mouse in a giant cat-and-mouse game. That aside, great movie.
Le Samourai
This was so good. I kind of loved that they spent over 20 minutes just checking out a lineup of suspects and questioning alibis. In 99% of crime films, it would be a completely throwaway, 30-second plot point, but here they pore over it exhaustively. (Also, how insane is it that eyewitnesses would be asked to ID a criminal right to their face?) My only complaint is that Delon's character comes off as fairly inept at his job; his visual badassery is hampered by the fact that he's constantly playing mouse in a giant cat-and-mouse game. That aside, great movie.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Honestly, I was in the middle of making a top 100 American films list for that BBC thread like you did, and Fury Road was in the top 30. I know you had it at 0, but I was trying to give it an actual spot, and it was at 30 and climbing.
Fury Road is so good.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Seems fair tbh
Fancy Clown
Member
The Gunfighter: Quite good western starring Gregory Peck and Gregory Peck's mustache. Did the whole literal ticking clock thing two years before High Noon, and it gets bonus points for subverting expectations (if you haven't caught on to the theme and solid character arc for Peck yet). It's more about psycological character drama (with some splashes of mostly subtle humor) than gunfights and romanticism, and is all the better for it. I definitely recommend checking it out some time if you're into Westerns.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
Making a top 100 seems like quite a chore.
I haven't checked that thread yet.
Edit: didn't know JC loved Casablanca so much.
Fancy Clown
Member
It's a madhouse
The Warriors is a fun movie. NY felt like a city on the verge of dystopia, which faithfully reflected the 70s attitude. The colorful and themed gangs were as varied as they were goofy. Every one in the Warriors gets a little burn too, so no one feels extraneous.
A bunch of black gangbangers showing up in tight black tshirts carrying hockey sticks as their blunt instruments of choice made me laugh out loud.
A bunch of black gangbangers showing up in tight black tshirts carrying hockey sticks as their blunt instruments of choice made me laugh out loud.
Net_Wrecker
Member
I don't even know why I tried, I have a hell of a time just making top 10 lists. At some point I had 100 movies there in a rough order, but it never really felt right, and all the damn Mann and Malick movies kept floating to the top, and I was obviously playing favorites with 40-50s noir and sci-fi in general, and "Hmmmm, am I really about to put Contact that much higher than 2001?"......
I GAVE UP. I JUST GAVE UP AND DELETED THE WHOLE LIST
Fancy Clown
Member
"I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle"
CAN YOU DIG IT? I can dig it, I fuckin love this movie.
You made the right call friendo
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