Cinema Outcasts » Cult

La haine (The Hate)

peter — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:48:11 +0000

Shot in black and white with superb camera angles, a great script, and a great cast. La Haine is a movie that was pretty revolutionary for its time. It predates anything that is happening in the ghettos’ of France today. Matthieu Kassovitz shows us why such a small little film can be so powerful and so effective. Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, and Said Taghmaoui are terrific as three friends all from different backgrounds searching for the meaning of life. As we follow the characters throughout their neighborhood and into the more illustrious part of the city, we begin to realize how ill fated their lives actually are. Vincent Cassel’s character Vinz is a young punk desperately looking to further his hate against authority. Cassel represents the anger in life. Said (also the character Said in the movie) represents the little man looking to rise up to battle his own convictions; And Hubert, my favorite character, striving to obey the system, but because he’s driven over the edge, he develops his own hate in the end. Watch out for the acting by the 29 year old Cassel… It is phenomenal and uplifting. Thank you Frenchie for recommending this one!

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

joseph — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:07:31 +0000

The only live action film written by Ted Geisel (A.K.A. Dr. Seuss), this film is like if Road Dahl had written a version of the Music Man while on shrooms and gave the script to Julie Taymor to direct, and while I haven’t actually seen any of Julie Taymor’s films it seems like the best way to describe this movie. Jello Biafra has said this is one of the weirdest movies he’s ever seen, but as bizzarre as The 5,000 Fingers is, the most surprising thing about the film is the brilliant sense of comic timing of it. I can’t think of a single other movie that has made me laugh so much, at least while sober. Hans Conried, who’s voice you might recognize from about a billion animated films over the past several decades (notably Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in Disney’s Peter Pan), is brilliant as the flamboyant Dr. Terwilliker, an evil piano instructor who turns into a mad, child-enslaving professor in the boredom induced fever dream of a young boy named Bart.

Cría cuervos…

joseph — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:33:06 +0000

Decades before the critically acclaimed Pan’s Labyrinth elevated director Guillermo del Toro from “comic book movie guy” to “serious film maker,” Carlos Saura had already made a film dealing with the subjects of fascism and death as seen through the eyes of a young girl in Spain after the Civil War, and while Saura’s film lacks the visual flair that marks del Torro’s work, it has a maturity and depth that the former lacks. It is the haunting story not of the loss of innocence, but of an innocence that is forced to deal with a tragic reality that surrounds it, and subsequently becomes morbidly ambivalent towards these very “grownup” concepts. Young Ana, the middle sister to three orphaned girls, fantasizes about death as a way of getting closer to her deceased mother, and as a way of escaping the stifling life as the daughter of a late military man in Fascist Spain. The story paints a candid picture of childhood as “interminable, sad, full of fear, fear of the unknown,” but this picture is painted at times with moments of humor and affection. What this film lacks, however, is a cloying quality that most films about childhood have, which makes the sense of loss all the more real and haunting.

Shaun of the Dead

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:06:00 +0000

Tired of zombie movies yet? Well here is one movie that my make you think twice about judging a movie by the presence of zombies in it. Zombies have become like special effects; remember all those movies with tons of big special effects, but no story whatsoever, most zombie movies are like that; however, Shaun of the Dead, is a movie about zombies, it is a movie with zombies in it; to be more specific the movie is a romantic comedy a la Sleepless in Seattle, in a world infested by zombies, and for most of it, Shaun of the Dead is closer from Sleepless in Seattle, than from Dawn of the Dead. The story penned by Simon Pegg who plays Shaun and Edgard Wright, tells about the failing relationship, between, Shaun, a clerk in an electronic store, and Lizzie, the archetype of the girl next door. Is Humanity going to survive another zombie outbreak? Will we find a cure? If you’re expecting to find answers to those questions, you might be disappointed, but you wonder how Shaun will get Lizzie’s love back, then you will probably enjoy this brilliant comedy.

Amelie

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:58:48 +0000

There are movies that come and go in Life and there are movies that haunt you, lingering in a corner of your soul waiting for a moment of sorrow to remind you that if you need them, they are here to make you feel better; Amelie is one of those. It’s not your average feel good movie, it’s a lucky charm, and ode to Life, the kind of movie that goes beyond Cinema and reaches into poetry. Amelie depicts the simple yet unordinary life of Amelie Poulain, portrayed by Audrey Tautou, who lives in a Paris filled with fantasy and colorful, yet adorable characters that makes leaving the world created by visionary director Jean‐Pierre Jeunet, very difficult.

Battle Royale

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:53:24 +0000

Welcome to the dark world of tomorrow, where the Japanese government proclaimed the Battle Royale Act, which is a Life lesson taught to high school seniors; every year a class is taken on a deserted island, and each student needs to survive by killing his classmates, and staying alive. This premise is probably the most sadistic yet brilliant fable of what the world has in store for us… If being in high school was bad enough, this tops it all: it’s time to see the true nature of relationships between classmates, and to settle old rivalries. Brilliantly executed film, with an exquisite Takeshi “Beat” Kitano as the class professor; this movie is really a delectable gore fest, with a cynical sense of humor that not anyone can enjoy.

Scream

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:31:27 +0000

To quote a song heard in Scream: “Save a prayer for the youth of America”, because the mind who brought us a Nightmare on Elm Street and the Last House on the Left, Wes Craven, teams up with the creator of Dawson’s Creek, Kevin Williamson to redefine the slasher movie. To put it back in context, the years leading up to the release of Scream the slasher movie genre almost got instinct due to the predicting storylines and the growing disconnect with the fears of the teenagers at the time compared to what movie executives were believing were the fears of youth. That’s when the master of horror stroke back to deliver a smart horror movie to his core audience, who took the movie that no one really was believing in and turned it into a cult movie for the post grunge era youth. Scream breaks many rules of the slasher genre, and that what transcends it; it takes a master to know what rules to bend or break, Wes Craven is that skillful in his craft.

Romeo + Juliet

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:36:35 +0000

When thinking about Shakespeare’s plays, we imagine fancy costumes and decors drawn in classical music; Baz Luhrmann’s vision is far off from those cliches while being the adaptation the truest to the text. Romeo played by Leonardo Di Caprio will fall in love with Juliet portrayed by Claire Danes, and the two star crossed lover will have a tragic fate in the fair Verona, yet thy old English speaking lovers are living in the middle of a gang war between gun blazing, car hopping Montagues and Capulets, and the soundtrack of their lives range from Radiohead to Garbage. William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, is a labor of love, where every set piece, every frame, every costume, every musical note is put together with care an attention, in order to put a dazzling rendition of the theater masterpiece.

Fight Club

lefrenchie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:28:47 +0000

Let’s break the first two rules of Fight Club, which is not to talk about Fight Club; Fight Club is a mind blowing roller coaster directed by one of the most gifted director of his generation, David Fincher and starring the absolutely brilliant Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. The movie follows Edward Norton’s character through his social and mental descent into an anarchist underworld created by Tyler Durden… Penned by the twisted mind of Chuck Palhaniuk, this controversially yet very esthetic movie will echo when it comes to the uneasiness of leaving in a pre‐formated and apathetic corporate world.