A round up of weekend film watching.

And just like that its Monday again, this time the weekend seeming shorter than usual thanks to the fact I  had one of the laziest weekends I've had for months: no parties, no raves, just doing nothing apart from watching TV with mates and going out to the shop a couple of time just so we can say that we had managed to leave the house at some point over the course of the days. But it did mean that some awesome films we're watched. Perfect Blue, The Maltese Falcon, Kind Hearts and Coronets, the whole of Elfen Lied, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Dr Strangelove, Millers Crossing, some Paranoia Agent, Yojimbo, some rioting on the news, a few hours of Manhunt (the ps2 game) and 2012, in all its shit drenched, well, shit. I'm probably missing a couple, but if I can't remember them, they can't be that great.

If I had more time on my hands I'd write about each individually, but I doubt that is going to be the case this morning, maybe I'll come back and edit the post later, but if not here's a summary on the best of the bunch.

Dr Strangelove (Or How I Learnt To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb). I actually can't count how many times I've seen this film. Peter Sellers never fails to impress as all three of his characters (I still can't choose between the stiff upper lip Colonel Mandrake and Dr "Mein Fhurer" Stangelove as best performance though). Stanley Kubrick, in one of the best plot rewrites I can think of, decided to change the story from a serious war thriller to a biting satire, and handles it perfectly, keeping the humor so deadpan and dry you'll need a glass of water to keep from dehydrating. From classic lines: "Gee, I wish we had one of those Doomsday machines", to classic scenes: The pilot, cowboy hat in hand, riding a nuclear bomb down to earth as its about to end the world. It's just one of those films I can watch over and over and still find something new to laugh at.

Elfen Lied: Now this is one cracked-out, messed-up, slightly offensive but almost brilliant anime. About a group of humans who start to evolve (I know its cliche-ridden but bear with it) special powers/extensions to the human body, specifically invisible hands which vary in length and number, capable of cutting through objects (or people) due to their vibration at ultra sonic levels, and their persecution by the rest of human kind due to their differences. It is a series which investigates the effects and limits of suffering. Fun times ahead! Every character in the series has suffered some kind of nasty traumatic incident in their past, whether its a murdered family, child abuse or being experimented on by the government from a very young age, resulting in a story that despite efforts to lighten the mood through snipets of humor, is generally very dark and downbeat. I won’t say too much about the actually plot line, as it's definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of anime, but it deals with all manners of taboos, on top of the ones mentioned above, has some nice twists and turns, despite practically giving away the final revelation halfway through the series, and one of the most inappropriate songs playing over the credits I have ever encountered, leading me to believe it had to have been a joke put in by the makers.

Maltese Falcon: People who know me in person (the only peeps reading this I imagine) are probably aware that I'm a huge fan of Film Noirs. I don’t know why. Maybe it because they are products of a long gone era. Maybe I'm a sucker for the Femme-Fatales. Maybe chain smoking in a raincoat down an alley is something I used to get up to in a past life. Who knows. But the point is, Film Noirs are awesome. Maltese Falcon is one of the better known and respected examples in the genre, starring a Humphrey Bogart dripping in cynicism trying to find, amongst other things, an expensive statue named the Maltese Falcon, and encountering murder, dames and crooks along the way. With Mary Mastor as the woman surrounded by danger giving a great performance and John Huston directing like a pro, this a damned good film and one to be watched regardless of whether your a fan of the genre.

Perfect Blue: Back to anime now, with a Lynch-esque surreal tale in which the borders of reality and fantasy are blurred and not much is as it seems. I say Lynch-esque, but surprisingly despite the film being highly influenced by the structure and narrative of Lynch, a kind of inspirational circle takes place as its Lynch himself who ends up being influenced the most by this film. Its pretty much a restructured and easier to swallow version of Inland Empire. Maybe I'm simplifying a little to much, but the similarities are uncanny: Both follow a young female actress who as she acts, looses track of what’s real and what’s not until her life and the film she is working on are indistinguishable. Very surreal, with long sections possibly being nothing more than the main characters imagination, its easy to see where Lynch got his ideas from. As great as the anime is, and believe you me, its an astonishingly assured, intricately plotted psycho-thriller of the highest caliber, I preferred Inland Empire. But that’s no reason to dismiss this film, Inland Empire is a masterpiece from one the greatest visionaries of our time, and seeing as this was the inspiration for said film, it had to have been doing something right. Unsurprisingly it’s not just Lynch who got inspired by this title. Darren Aronofsky bought the American rights to the film for $69,000 back when he was making Requiem For A Dream, just so he could the floating in the bath scene in his own film. Lucky for some I suppose.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man: Are you familiar with the band PiL, Public Image Ltd? Johnny Rotten, post Sex Pistols, adventured into the world of Industrial, taking punk and stretching into something noisier, harsher, darker and a whole lot less human. Metal Box, their second album is said to be one of the high points of the genre, even going so far as to rank 469th in Rolling Stones list of best albums of all time. But, really, the only run in with them which interested me was an EP I found in a charity shop called 'Deaths Disco', a funky avant-garde slice of disco-industrial-something, which if played at 33 or 45, sounds awesome either way. Anywho, I'm blabbling on about this because it ties into Tetsuo: The Iron Man: They are both high points of Industrial. Tetsuo, which has to be one of the most radical, engaging, at times cringeworthy, but always fearless films I've seen for a long while. Made in 1989 with a very limited crew, shot in black and white, and blessed with a genuinely outstanding special effects crew, it follows an unnamed man who inserts metal and mechanical objects into his body, as part of a fetish, the man who runs him over, and the curse layed on said driver which causes him to start growing metal all over his body. Words wont do the film justice, its so reliant on imagery it must be seen to get a clear idea of what its like. Its run time is only an hour and ten minutes, and it was shot in black and white, presumably for artistic qualities rather than censorship as I'm almost positive it never got a theatrical release, reinforcing its 'nothing but arthouse' attitude. All in all, a great film for technophobes the world over.