A Zulawski masterpiece
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jriddle73 — 17 years ago(April 25, 2008 10:19 PM)
I really enjoy Shock too!
Great stuff. Bava is the cat's meow.
I am a bit twisted in my tastes. Most 25 year old women dont enjoy films like "Killer" or any Jess Franco and Alejandro Jodorowsky films.
Ha! Perhaps the Understatement of the Decade To Date. Franco has become one of my all-time favorites. I only recently got to see any of Jodorowsky's work, after reading about it for years. EL TOPO is a remarkable movie. I have the AB box set, but that's the only one I've watched so far. What do you think of Jean Rollin?
You must get your hands on Ken Russells The Devils. OMG! You of all people I think would truly appreciate it. To me it is his best film, and Oliver and Vanessa's best preformances. You can find a mostly unedited version of it on Amazon from Angel Digital. Its the best we have to uncut for now. It is far more explicit than the original Warner vhs release.
It's been on my unofficial "to see" list for yearsanything with that reputation ends up there. I've just never gotten around to it.
Crimes Of Passion is probably my second favorite from Russell.
I like Russell's work. I really loved WHORE, ALTERED STATES, and GOTHIC. THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is more of a challenge, but still some incredible imagery. I think CRIMES OF PASSION is about half of a great movie. When Russell stays with Turner or Hopkins, it's excellent. Practically everything with the other fellow is just
awful
the long, long sideshows (a freakshow, at times) about his domestic life sink the movie like a stone for the duration of their running time. In my view, WHORE was much, much better. -
GleamingMemory — 17 years ago(April 26, 2008 05:33 AM)
What??? That scene is in the Region 2 release? Why not in Anchor Bay??? That is totally unfair!! So Anchor Bay lied! They claim that it is "uncut" but it really is not. Liars!! Man, I wish someone could upload the full region 2 scene of Adjani in the subway station on youtube. That was the most powerful scene I have ever seen an actor perform - NO ONE does madness like Isabelle Adjani. I have also heard that there is a frame in this scene missing - where you see two eyes from the monster appear in the blood in the the subway scene. Is that true?
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BeautyAddiction101 — 17 years ago(April 26, 2008 10:53 AM)
Paraffin5:
where you see two eyes from the monster appear in the blood in the the subway scene. Is that true?
I have never seen that.
The Subway scene and sex scene with the "whatever you call it" are a little longer. Its like a total of 3 minutes at the max.
NO ONE does madness like Isabelle Adjani
I AGREEafter I come home from work I have almost managed to beat herbut not yet.
She is my favorite actress. I think she may actually be insane though. All the more reason to love her more in my opinion. -
BeautyAddiction101 — 17 years ago(April 26, 2008 10:47 AM)
to: jriddle 73
I have seen at most maybe 2 of Jean Rollins films.Fascination & Demoniacs come to mind. Though I have been told those arent his best. Its pretty much fantastic garbage. Hmmmit is Kinda porn too sometimes. Im starting to wonder if I am maybe revealing a bit too much information about myself. Im not the next star of Story Of O, my tastes are exclusive to films. I tend to have a rather dynamic imagination so I enjoy many other genres. My passions are not limited to lesbian killers, and octopus fu**ing. Though I did have a boyfriend who in retrospect was a slimey bastard. Which Jean Rollin's film would you suggest I watch?
WHORE is GREAT! I love WHORE. I have that poster in my entertainment room too. I cant say I enjoy it better than C.O.P. though. I love Kathleen turner in that movie and it makes me laugh my ass off. I agree that the story is most interesting between Perkins and Turner, and it certainly makes it's share of mistakes. I will say this thoughout of any film I have ever seenI can identify with China Blue\Joanna most. Except im not a whore, but you can read between the lines. So my affection for her may blind me to the reality of the film.
I bought the region 4 dvd of Whore just to own on DVD. It pains me the tittle says PUTA though.
Yet I know they mean the same thing.
I enjoy Lair Of The White Worm in secret mind you. It is a mess.
Gothic, love it.
Altered States, love it.
Women In Love, love it
Any other great movies I should watch? You seem to know alot about the kind I like. Throw in a few surprises.
Kylie -
jriddle73 — 17 years ago(April 27, 2008 12:37 AM)
I have seen at most maybe 2 of Jean Rollins films.Fascination & Demoniacs come to mind. Though I have been told those arent his best. Its pretty much fantastic garbage. Hmmmit is Kinda porn too sometimes. Im starting to wonder if I am maybe revealing a bit too much information about myself. Im not the next star of Story Of O, my tastes are exclusive to films. I tend to have a rather dynamic imagination so I enjoy many other genres. My passions are not limited to lesbian killers, and octopus fu**ing. Though I did have a boyfriend who in retrospect was a slimey bastard. Which Jean Rollin's film would you suggest I watch?
FASCINATION is my all-time favorite Rollin. Brigitte Lahaie (another astonishing screen face), decked out in riding cloak, taking out the bad guys with a long scythe. Most excellent! It seems like a series of paintings come to life, or a literal adaptation of a very good comic. I liked DEMONIACS, too, but that one is a lot more divisive, as Rollin tends to be (people don't just love him or hate himthose who love him all love him differently). I liked NIGHT OF THE HUNTED, which seems to be a minority opinion among Rollin buffs. If Nicholas Ray mated with David Cronenberg, their director offspring would probably produce something like NIGHT OF THE HUNTED. I don't care that much for THE LIVING DEAD GIRL, which also seems to put me in a minority. It's a fantastic idea, often done quite well, but its severely compromised by producer interference. LIPS OF BLOOD is probably my second favorite, and it's probably more representative of the rest of his work. If you decide to pursue Rollin, that's probably where you should go next. Rollin, like Jesus Franco, is a poet of lurid romanticism, but his emphasis is much more on the "romanticism" than the "lurid" (unlike Franco, who can do it all).
WHORE is GREAT! I love WHORE. I have that poster in my entertainment room too.
That it doesn't seem to have a larger following is rather shocking to me. It's one of the few movies in the history of the medium that managed to generate a great deal of controversy in its day while reaping very little benefit from that controversy.
I cant say I enjoy it better than C.O.P. though. I love Kathleen turner in that movie and it makes me laugh my ass off. I agree that the story is most interesting between Perkins and Turner, and it certainly makes it's share of mistakes. I will say this thoughout of any film I have ever seenI can identify with China Blue\Joanna most. Except im not a whore, but you can read between the lines. So my affection for her may blind me to the reality of the film.
I really like the movie myself, but I do think it's so strikingly uneven in the way I described it that it looks like two different directors who never met shot the different parts of it. When I first saw it, my immediate impression was that this was a great movie that came up too short for a feature, and someone decided to shoot some lousy, improvised inserts to pad it out. All of the Turner and Turner/Perkins stuff is great. GREAT dialogue. The PSYCHO riff at the end? Priceless.
I bought the region 4 dvd of Whore just to own on DVD. It pains me the tittle says PUTA though. Yet I know they mean the same thing.
Ha! A small price to pay for having it on disc. I just made a disc out of my old VHS tape. It will serve until some distributor gets on the ball. I'd like to hear Russell do commentary on it, and, last I heard, he'd fallen on hard times, and could probably use the dough.
I enjoy Lair Of The White Worm in secret mind you. It is a mess.
Really uneven as a movie, but filled with striking images. Amanda Donohoe rules the show.
Gothic, love it.
Altered States, love it.
Women In Love, love it
Haven't seen that last one. It's one of Russell's first, right?
Any other great movies I should watch? You seem to know alot about the kind I like. Throw in a few surprises.
A few random good picks, comin' right up. I'll probably come up with some (or many) you've seen, but probably not all. Give me guidance:
CRASH
Not that POS that won Best Picture a year or two ago, but David Cronenberg's study of a group of car-crash fetishists.
CEMETERY MAN
Love and death and being trapped in a horror movie as existential crisis. Great dialogue.
HARD CANDY
Saw this one only recentlya great little movie about a would-be internet predator who, pursuing his latest potential prey, finds the tables turned on him.
EUGENIE DE SADE
Jesus Franco flick with stunning Soledad Miranda as the stepdaughter of a Sadean murderous mastermind who has raised her from an infant to be his perfect companion in life and in crime.
VENUS IN FURS
Another Franco with a gang of rich degenerates being pursued by a woman they apparently murdered playing S&M games, and a jazz musician whose stuck in the middle.
VIDEODROME
Another Cronenberg, this one a signature film with the most excellent James Woods as a sleazy cable operator whose mind is manipulated by a sinister conspiracy. Definitely a -
monty-57 — 17 years ago(November 05, 2008 03:52 AM)
Another one to add to your list:
Jess Franco's SUCCUBUS (1968). Makes a nice companion piece to POSSESSION. It's also about a "possessed" woman, it doesn't make a whole lotta sense if you take the plot at face value and it was also filmed in Berlin! -
jriddle73 — 15 years ago(January 01, 2011 05:07 AM)
Another one to add to your list:
Jess Franco's SUCCUBUS (1968). Makes a nice companion piece to POSSESSION. It's also about a "possessed" woman, it doesn't make a whole lotta sense if you take the plot at face value and it was also filmed in Berlin!
A gem, to be sure! I'm not sure it really works as a "companion piece to POSSESSION, but it is a somewhat similar theme, and a damn good movie.
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/ -
jriddle73 — 12 years ago(December 20, 2013 04:41 PM)
A great movie, to be sure. Not sure how it ties into POSSESSION, though.
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/ -
Spallone_Spikane — 15 years ago(February 11, 2011 10:16 AM)
Zulawski is now one of my top 5 favorite directors. Another Horror film he made that was sadly overlooked was Diabel (The Devil). That film is evil incarnate. The print for the Polarts dvd is of course terrible, but you should check it out nonetheless. Mondo Vision has the rights to release Diabel, and if you know Mondo Vision, you know that they will do justice to the film. The problem is that they will release the film sometime in 2013. Oh, well.
Mondo Vision is planning on releasing On A Silver Globe this year! Amazing! And I haven't even seen the film yet! -
jriddle73 — 13 years ago(May 19, 2012 11:02 AM)
Yes.
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/ -
deRider84 — 13 years ago(July 03, 2012 08:36 PM)
This film is a curious little oddity, but most certainly not a masterpiece by any stretch of imagination. For one thing, the acting is simply awful. Adjani gives one of the most annoyingly grating performances of all time. She either screams or throws herself about like a lunatic in every scene she's in, showing all the range of a baboon in heat. Sam Neil isn't much better, veering as he does between bewilderment and insanity and back again with absolutely nothing in between.
It doesn't work as a horror due to the utter absence of suspense, but neither does it work as an effective marital break-up drama, lacking the gravitas and subtlety needed for such an undertaking. The dialogue is embarrassingly inane and provides no insight whatsoever. Furthermore, there's no arc or pacing of any sort. The characters are as hysterical and nutty at the start as they are at the end and we never develop any empathy or understanding for them. 127 minutes is far too long to expect us to put up with such ridiculous histrionics. I can see how the film may have actually benefited from the wholesale cuts in the American version.
Another big problem is that it's not well photographed and its visuals are extremely bland. There's no effective lighting or contrast, and for all of Zulawski's odd angles and restless camera-work, its aesthetic remains exceptionally plain and off-putting. There's simply no atmosphere of any sort. It looks like an average TV movie.
It's kind of frustrating, because there are some good ideas floating beneath the surface. The doppelganger concept is interesting and the monster copulation and subway miscarriage are appropriately icky and surreal. -
jriddle73 — 13 years ago(July 07, 2012 09:23 AM)
That's the sort of review that could only happen in the era of Fox News, when everyone suddenly feels entitled to their own reality, whether it has any connection to actual reality or not.
On this other Foxworld, in this strange other version of POSSESSION, Isabelle Adjani's work "is simply awful" and "one of the most annoyingly grating performances of all time"; in the real world, the performance earned her best actress honors from both the Cannes film festival and the Caesar Awards (the French Academy Awards). On Foxworld, this version of POSSESSION "looks like an average TV movie," which means television in Foxworld is a
hell
of a lot better than in the real one; in the real one, the film put director Zulawski in competition for the Palm D'Or at Cannes, the festival's highest honor. I feel sorry for the people in Foxworld; by being there, they've managed to miss a great movie.
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/