@stiv#7273 Have you seen the Miike remake of Harakiri? What did you think of it if you have? Agree 100% '62 Harakiri is amazing
Harakiri is just the best. Hard to think of another film that blew me away like that one.
@yeso#7280 I actually forgot he made one until I went looking for a trailer! Iām tempted to do a double-header this weekend and see how they stack up against each other. Iāve skipped most of Miikeās 2010s films, because the dude just works so much that itās hard to sort through what he's been doing and find the good stuff.
Would be interesting to hear your reaction on the Miike vers if you would be generous enough to share at some point. It's pretty reigned-in and Palme-aspirational for him which is maybe good or bad depending on your perspective. He obviously put a ton of care into the climatic sword fight, so respect for that.
But yeah the original is a world level masterpiece as you say, so a remake is kind of an odd pursuit in the way he went about it
So many people with great taste! Harakiri is one of my favorite movies as well. I havenāt seen the Miike remake and I donāt think I want to. I actually enjoy a large part of Miike's filmography and even think a few of his movies are extremely good, but I have a hard time seeing what the point of a Harakiri remake is. The original movie feels just as intense today as it (presumably) did when it came out. From what I have understood, correct me if I am wrong, the remake is pretty faithful, but that just makes me question even more what the point even is. If there was some sort of interesting reinterpretation going on I might have more of an interest.
Samurai Rebellion also by Masaki Kobayashi is a really good movie too, although it doesn't quite reach the same heights as Harakiri. If you enjoyed Harakiri I would definitely recommend it. Speaking of Kobayashi I have had a version of The Human Condition trilogy lying around for years, I really should get around to watching it. But the sheer length is pretty daunting.
Yes the remake is not only strictly faithful but also solemnly reverent. The thing is the Miike version is good, so youāre not going to have a bad time with it if you decide to watch it. But itās just kind of this satellite object orbiting the original. I donāt get it, but then again Iām ignorant about both cinema (99% ignorant) and Japanese culture and history (99.9% ignorant) so the subtleties may be lost on me. I thought his 13 Assassins remake had a better balance of āstraightā filmmaking with embellishments of his style.
But yes I would say I'm a fan of good old tornado of creativity Miike as well. His most recent film First Love was really good in the usual vein I thought.
I guess I will re-watch harakiri because I super did not like it! I canāt remember why, I was just left with the impression of a bag of scenes shook together and characters I bounced off of, but uhhhhhhhhhhhhh Iāll give it another go after this thread of praise!
Saw this recently and thought I would share in case anyone is interested:
hard as hell film noir with a maybe $50 budget, in the public domain, and only 67 minutes long, fantastic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TfWhy--6a4
I'll put it on my list for sure!!
BTW I'm doing a "horror movie recommendation per day" kind of thing on twitter if y'all are interested in that sort of stuff.
https://twitter.com/necrosofty/status/1313261373447577600
Iāve watched thirty Dracula/Dracula-related movies since the beginning of October, and it is only now that Iāve seen Draculaās Dog that I wonder if Iāve dug too deep. At least 30 minutes of this 90 minute movie has got to be dogs just barking and chewing on stuff. It takes itself completely serious, but the concept is just so silly that is kind of funny. And it uses the plural Draculas, which always makes me laugh. Mostly it is just boring though. It's on Kanopy if you want to waste one of your monthly checkouts.
@exodus#7450 I second Fulci's The Psychic.
It's incredibly restrained for Fulci, and is maybe the only film of his I can recommend to everyone. I think I like The Beyond and Lizard in a Woman's Skin more, but The Psychic is Fulci just doing a book on your nightstand thriller and knocking it clean out of the park.
I watched Hereditary and Midsommar for the first time and idk yāall! They were beautifully shot and acted but neither of them scared me that much! The last half hour of Hereditary was really intense though and had some spooky moments. Was reading articles about them and people were like "Iāve NEVER been more HORRIFIEDā and āIām still thinking about it MONTHS LATER" and I kinda just donāt get it. Theyāre good! I got them! I just wasnāt that scared.
Of the horror stuff I've watched this year for the first time I still think It Follows and The Witch are my favs.
@sabertoothalex#7561 I also preferred both It Follows and the VVitch to the Aster films, though, like you I also liked them.
And this is not an "intelligent" criticism of Midsommar: but I just do not find Scandinavian people frightening in any way. Just did not work for me sorry.
@MichaelDMcGrath#7558 Yeah, āthe only fulci I can recommend to everyoneā is exactly it. Just a well-made thriller with horror leanings. I like the beyond a lot! havenāt seen lizard in a womanās skin, I'd better get on that.
stressful shift at work today so going to practice self care by hate-watching the aaron sorkin chicago 7 film
@yeso#7680 I anti-recommend this film
@yeso#7688 saw it pop up on Netflix or whatever it's on last night and immediately thought āThey finally did it, they made the worst conceivable filmā.
Last night a couple friends and I watched Mikadroid: Robokill Beneath Disco Club Layla, which if nothing else boasts the single greatest movie title I have ever heard in my life. It actually surprised me a lot - the basic premise is that an old WWII killer cyborg comes to life and escapes from an old laboratory hidden in the parking garage beneath a nightclub, and it starts killing anyone in sight. I was expecting Friday the 13th meets The Terminator, and there definitely is that, but it also has a lot of really restrained, somber moments. The two leads independently have this lonely, inner turmoil going on when they're introduced that you can more or less work out through context clues, and the movie trusts you to just make do with that and never makes you sit through a big, cathartic monologue about their past.
There's some fun, inventive kills mined for really striking shots that stick with you, like when the cyborg shoots up a teen on a skateboard and his friends just hear the shots in the distance, then see him rolling straight toward them out of the shadows, riddled with bullet holes, still standing dead on his board. And there's another one involving a mural on the wall of the garage that I don't want to spoil. And once the action moves into the old lab beneath the garage, there's some great grimy old sets and miniatures, and some honestly pretty ambitious composite shots for what I understand was a direct-to-video production. I love discovering weird, cheap old Japanese exploitation films where the director clearly went way harder than they had to.
There's also some fun cameos from veteran tokusatsu actors, including Sandayu Dokumamushi from the Ultra series, and there's a dwarf extra featured prominently in an early scene who I later found out was none other than Masao Fukazawa, the suit actor for Minilla in the classic Godzilla films!
@MichaelDMcGrath#7690 it's completely lazy and the politics suck ass and are dumb. I suppose I should try and be more articulate for the threadā¦
the film totally sands down any the political dimensions of the trial, and the convictions of those involved into arguments about manners and career ambitions. Manages to make the nixon admin prosecutors look well-intentioned, make SDS look like bland liberals (who are the good guys for this reason), make Abbie Hoffman appear mostly concerned about "respecting the troops," and most "impressively", uses the police murder of Fred Hampton as plot point to truncate and diminish the court's brutalizing of Bobby Seale. None of the actual political arguments are portrayed, and the only one that's articulated apparently belongs to sorkin: rude hippies and scary black people hurt progressive causes because they said swear words. And the point of the trial was the friends they made along the way and taking a moment to recognize the one and only bad thing about the vietnam war: that american soldiers died.
I'm not hung up on historical inaccuracies per se, but the liberties taken in this film are 1) kind of pathetic laziness and 2) blunt any real force the subject matter might have. I mean, bobby seale was bound and gagged in that courtroom for I believe days if not weeks IRL, but the film portrays that happening for like 10 min, and then the prosecution is so moved by the injustice that they have him separated from the case - did not happen, it was of course the defense that did this in reality. Just an ennervating experience spending time with aaron sorkins dumb ego.
and PSA the whole fred hampton doc is available online if anyone is interested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BQqoOwVMtQ
and genuinely looking fwd to checking thi s out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjtGqRXQ9Y
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@GigaSlime#7693 Mikadroid: Robokill Beneath Disco Club Layla
this is how I should be spending my time, thank you
@GigaSlime#7693 I'm gonna watch this mikadroid business tonight so thanks for that.