The cream of the crop, the nuns buns, the dogs bollocks
First up is Female Trouble, John Waters trashy classic from the '70s,
which in equal parts disgusting, gorgeous, hilarious and cringeworthy.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072979/
Following closely in Divines footsteps we have....
CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE
The previously banned '80 video nasty with enough gore to satisfy the baddie from Ichi the Killer and enough shitty ridiculousness to keep Noddy smiling.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080379/
Taking it back to 60's (though I think it's set in the 50's) France for a bit of nouvelle vague now with A Bout De Souffle or Breathless as its known over here. Despite having a trailer thats dated quite badly the film holds up nicely! Does Jean Paul Belmondo have a single shot in this film without a cigarette in his mouth?
Hong Kong triads next, it was a close call between this and Election but Infernal Affairs takes the bicckie.
Kicks the poo out of the American remake (The Departed) and that was a pretty good film, so it must be doing something right. And its got Eric Tsang as the bad guy, and he's just awesome.
Beware of the MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
A Stephen King story about machines and electrical appliances going psycho trying to kill people, directed by Stephen King (uh-oh) in the mid 80's, with music by AC/DC, and some of the finest unintentional humour I've seen in a while. Long live B-Movies!
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue.
Bringing it closer to home now with a nice video nasty made in '76 (I think), but not getting a release for a while afterwards. Zombies, morgues, and Manchurians make a very entertaining mix in this campy, low budget horror flick. The script is so bad they had to have been trying to make it that way.
Lupin III Castle of Cagliostro, while its not technically Ghibli (because Ghibli wasn't even a studio at this point) it's still a solid feature film debut for Hayao Miyazaki, showing some true potential for the years to come.
Haven't updated this for a while, oh well I'm here now. Lets see, whats been on the plate this month?
Casablanca! Watched it again for the first time in about a year, what an awesome film. There's just so many lines which are timeless.'' Of all the gin joints, of all the towns, of all the world, she walks into mine.'' ''Round up the usual suspects.'' As always Bogey is just way too cool, along side Bergman who is completely stunning, great support cast, a brilliant script... A true classic.
The Jungle Book! Stands alongside Alice in Wonderland as personal favourite disney flick, one of the greatest soundtracks ever put to a film including such legends no less than Louis Prima! That guy is amazing! And so under rated now days. Anywho, a nice story, lovely artwork, awesome tunes and a huge dose of nostalgia. A pretty nice combo.
How bout a bit of Sunset Boulevard? A film made in Hollywood that is a no holes barred look at the way the industry uses up and throws away its stars once they have seved their purpose. With an incredible performance from Gloria Swanson as the legendary silent film star Nora 'I'll be up there again, so help me!' Desmond, Billy Wilder directing and a script to die for, it remains a classic amongst classics.
I don't know how many times I've seen this film, but it remains brilliant time and time again. Choi Min-sik is as amazing as ever, the story is sprinkled with some awesomely dark humor, and despite what people say I liked the ending/twist. Probably my favourite of Park Chan-wook's vengence trilogy.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. What an awesome film. Bob Hoskins finding himself in a series of crazy homages to classic sadistic cartoons from the 40's/50's/60's, whats not to like? For my money its the only film to beat Space Jam in the live action animation mix.
Time for one of my favourite Hitchcocks now: Rope starring James Stewart. Based on a play and groundbreaking for the way its filmed and edited, its a series of 8 minute long takes all edited together to seem like it runs as one long whole without cuts. Brilliant acting, writing, directing and camera work to die for, look into the making of to see just quite how much of a technical achievement this film really was.
