Rate the Last Film You Watched

The Invisible Man (1933)
"An invisible man can rule the world. No one will see him come. No one will see him go."

James Whale's adaptation of the HG Wells novel has all the hallmarks that would come to define the titular character: madness, obsession, voyeurism, cruelty, and a touch of dark humour. Buried under bandages for much of the movie, Claude Rains gives a magnetic performance with only his voice and body language as a scientist who turns himself invisible, unaware that the serum also causes insanity. In the early part of the film he rides the line back and forth between sympathetic and abhorrent. Even later on there are dark touches of playfulness mixed in with his more vicious acts.

A whole range of techniques are used to portray the invisibility scenes, all the more impressive for being such early examples of some of these effects. The only place where the movie falters is in a rather underwhelming final confrontation.

Hollow Man (2000)
"It's amazing what you can do when you don't have to look at your face in the mirror anymore."

Setting aside the thought-provoking satire that Paul Verhoeven injected into his earlier SF movies, this has more in common with his sleazier contemporary 90s movies like Basic Instinct. Like that one, this is primarily a slasher movie/thriller, albeit one told mostly from the villain's perspective. In so doing, the movie practically revels in the power fantasy as Kevin Bacon's egomanic scientist descends through a series of increasingly depraved crimes. I guess it's for the viewer to decide if Verhoeven is testing them to see at what point they detach from playing along with the villain, or if this is just a simple exploitation movie. It doesn't help that most of the other characters range from unsympathetic to downright unpleasant, so it's hard to root for anyone.

Regardless, this remains a visually inventive movie with effects that have aged well. Special mention goes to the scene where someone blows smoke in the invisible man's face, giving us literal smoky Bacon. Viewed in the context of Verhoeven's other SF movies though, it's not in the same league as Robocop, Starship Troopers or Total Recall.

The Invisible Man (2021)
"He controlled me long before he controlled you."

If Hollow Man was a lurid attempt to explore the basest fantasy of invisibility, this is the thematic antithesis. Eschewing the villain's perspective altogether, this movie instead focuses on a woman who survived his abuses. Elisabeth Moss plays the former lover of an obsessively controlling scientist. After she escapes his prison-like home, she has mixed feelings upon hearing that he has since died. That is until she starts to feel that he is still around, watching her, and continuing his attempts to control her life. There's no voyeuristic fantasy here; it's all tension and paranoia, and all the stronger for it.

This movie has much in common with the original Candyman, in that the villain isn't simply a killer; his manipulations and violence are a twisted attempt at seduction, trying to isolate and drag her down to his level. Combined with the raw anguish of Moss's performance it makes for a suspense-filled movie that is easily the best invisible man story I've watched.
 
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The Invisible Man (1933)
"An invisible man can rule the world. No one will see him come. No one will see him go."

James Whale's adaptation of the HG Wells novel has all the hallmarks that would come to define the titular character: madness, obsession, voyeurism, cruelty, and a touch of dark humour. Buried under bandages for much of the movie, Claude Rains gives a magnetic performance with only his voice and body language as a scientist who turns himself invisible, unaware that the serum also causes insanity. In the early part of the film he rides the line back and forth between sympathetic and abhorrent. Even later on there are dark touches of playfulness mixed in with his more vicious acts.

A whole range of techniques are used to portray the invisibility scenes, all the more impressive for being such early examples of some of these effects. The only place where the movie falters is in a rather underwhelming final confrontation.

Hollow Man (2000)
"It's amazing what you can do when you don't have to look at your face in the mirror anymore."

Setting aside the thought-provoking satire that Paul Verhoeven injected into his earlier SF movies, this has more in common with his sleazier contemporary 90s movies like Basic Instinct. Like that one, this is primarily a slasher movie/thriller, albeit one told mostly from the villain's perspective. In so doing, the movie practically revels in the power fantasy as Kevin Bacon's egomanic scientist descends through a series of increasingly depraved crimes. I guess it's for the viewer to decide if Verhoeven is testing them to see at what point they detach from playing along with the villain, or if this is just a simple exploitation movie. It doesn't help that most of the other characters range from unsympathetic to downright unpleasant, so it's hard to root for anyone.

Regardless, this remains a visually inventive movie with effects that have aged well. Special mention goes to the scene where someone blows smoke in the invisible man's face, giving us literal smoky Bacon. Viewed in the context of Verhoeven's other SF movies though, it's not in the same league as Robocop, Starship Troopers or Total Recall.

The Invisible Man (2021)
"He controlled me long before he controlled you."

If Hollow Man was a lurid attempt to explore the basest fantasy of invisibility, this is the thematic antithesis. Eschewing the villain's perspective altogether, this movie instead focuses on a woman who survived his abuses. Elisabeth Moss plays the former lover of an obsessively controlling scientist. After she escapes his prison-like home, she has mixed feelings upon hearing that he has since died. That is until she starts to feel that he is still around, watching her, and continuing his attempts to control her life. There's no voyeuristic fantasy here; it's all tension and paranoia, and all the stronger for it.

This movie has much in common with the original Candyman, in that the villain isn't simply a killer; his manipulations and violence are a twisted attempt at seduction, trying to isolate and drag her down to his level. Combined with the raw anguish of Moss's performance it makes for a suspense-filled movie that is easily the best invisible man story I've watched.

Have you seen John Carpenter's Memoirs of an Invisible Man? I just rewatched that recently and it holds up really well :)
 
After watching some of Lethal Weapon 4
over Christmas, I desired to see the original. I realised that I only have a VHS copy. So of to the charity shops.

I surprised myself by not fast forwarding.
A great watch that nicely balanced the drama and comedy. Much more serious than the sequels.

10/10
 
Hong Kong things again

Private Life (1987)

An early starring role for Joey Wang, seeing her as a winner of the prestigious Miss Hong Kong beauty paegeant whose misplaced trust in a nightclub owner leads her into a life as a high-class call girl, only for her to end up framed following the murder of a client. By and large, it's a slightly tepid melodrama that feels like an excuse to get Wang on screen in her swimsuit, but it does confirm her as a serious acting talent - she carries an often thankless role with remarkable dignity and pathos.

Hard to Kill (1992)

Not to be confused with the Steven Seagal movie of the same name, this low-budget quickie from Phillip Ko (also on villain duty) sees a Hong Kong cop (Robin Shou, later of the live-action Mortal Kombat) dispatched to the Philippines to track down a notorious drug smuggler, only to be paired with a goofball local copper that no-one takes seriously (Lee Chun-Wa). Nothing amazing and the copy we watched was a hilariously rough VHS rip, which did not help matters, but this is actually okay for what it is. Everyone is clearly trying, Lee Chun-Wa is surprisingly endearing and Yukari Oshima is airdropped into the last third of the movie to lend the action some extra flair. It's a shame she wasn't in it from the start, but hey ho. Simon Yam is also here for like two scenes, maybe he had half an hour to fill in while waiting for his dry cleaning or something.

Hard Boiled (1992) [rewatch]

The time was that I would have died on the hill of this being John Woo's best movie, but I would like to reframe that slightly. In terms of pure action, it's hard to think of anything that can top this one; it's absolutely the purest, most distilled essence of everything he'd done up to this point. On balance, however, I think I've come around on A Better Tomorrow having the more memorable and engaging story.
 
Hard Boiled (1992) [rewatch]

The time was that I would have died on the hill of this being John Woo's best movie, but I would like to reframe that slightly. In terms of pure action, it's hard to think of anything that can top this one; it's absolutely the purest, most distilled essence of everything he'd done up to this point. On balance, however, I think I've come around on A Better Tomorrow having the more memorable and engaging story.
I watched this one so many times in the 90s. Has it ever had a good BD release anywhere? I ended up opting for the UK DVD instead several years ago because I'd heard that the BD looked worse no matter which region it was.
 
I finally got to watch the 2005 remake of the 1953 original War Of The Worlds from Steven Spielberg and it was quite good. Both films show the era when they were made, the 1953 version has all the typical social problems of the 50's.
 
From Beijing With Love (1994)

Stuck in the rural backwoods of mainland China, drunken reserve secret agent and expert butcher Ling-Ling-Chat (Stephen Chow) is over the moon when he's suddenly dispatched to Hong Kong in search of a valuable tyrannosaurus skull stolen from the Chinese government. Unbeknownst to him, however, he is being set up as the fall guy by a corrupt superior, and the field-operative assigned to help him (Anita Yuen) is also trying to murder him at every turn...

With my only other experience of Stephen Chow being Kung Fu Hustle, a film I was kind of medium on, this came as a pleasant surprise - it's a much broader comedy than I was expecting and it feels so uncannily close to The Naked Gun that I half expected Leslie Nielsen to make a cameo appearance (quick, what's Cantonese for 'Surely you can't be serious?')

The typical HK tonal whiplash does rear its head during an unexpectedly brutal robbery scene in a jewelry store, but if you aren't put off by that, this is a frequently very funny film, if one with little to it beyond the rat-a-tat series of gags and set-pieces.

The Time Masters (Les Maîtres du temps, 1982)

After a young boy's parents are killed by giant hornets on a far flung colony world, a family friend attempts the long journey through space to rescue Piel from the wilderness, dragging a pair of deposed royals and a sage old hermit along for the trip. A French animated film making extensive use of background art by famed sci-fi illustrator Moebius, I'd wanted to see this one for a long while, but honestly, I found it pretty disappointing.

The design of the alien worlds is genuinely impressive, but, despite an interesting conceit with the other characters talking to and trying to guide or hinder Piel through the use of a radio, the story consistently fails to build any sense of suspense about what might happen, or indeed engage us with the characters in any way that might make us care. The ending is sort of neat when it roles around (it may also have been pinched for a certain Hideo Kojima game), but I was so uninvested in what was happening by that point that it didn't really mean anything to me.

The art will likely be of interest to hardened Moebius fans, but otherwise there's little here that doesn't feel like it's been done better elsewhere, most notably in Moebius's own comics or even the later French series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea.
 
Possession (1981)

Intelligence agent Sam Neill quits his job and returns to his home in West Berlin to try and save his collapsing marriage to dance teacher Isabelle Adjani, but is unable to fathom her self-destructive behaviour. At first he blames her new-age lover, but the further he digs into her private life, the more it seems as if the explanation may be far, far stranger.

Everyone in this movie looks so ill. By all accounts, it was absolute hell to make, and it really shows on screen. Hardly a scene goes by where the two leads don’t seem absolutely overcome with violent emotion, egged on by the swinging, leering camera and the omnipresent reminders of the Cold War happening just a few feet away from their apartment. If anything, I think it might be too overwrought; it’s taken to such extremes that I found it near impossible to really empathise with what they were going through or feel any emotional connection to these characters. Even during the famous scene of Adjani going through a complete nervous breakdown in a subway tunnel, all I could think about was how hard it must have been for her as an actor, not as a character.

It’s certainly a powerful experience and a film I’ve thought about quite a bit in the days since watching it, but I still don’t quite know how to feel about it.
 
I finally watched Top Gun after all these years and it was actually a decent movie, I'm not a Tom Cruise fan-I prefer Tom Hanks who can actually act instead of just emoting in front of the camera. I watched the first 2 episodes of Anne Shirley and decided to rewatch the 1985 CBC and PBS coproduction of Anne Of Green Gables filmed at Prince Edward Island which aired about the time my daughter was 6 years old. She watched the first episode and fell in love with the series. It had been so long since I last watched it I'd forgotten how fantastic it was.
 
Dark City (1998)

In a noirish retro-futuristic city, an amnesiac man (Rufus Sewell, ‘we have young Michael Keaton at home’) wakes up in a hotel room next to a dead body, with no recollection of who he is or what he’s doing there, only to be hastily pursued by his wife he can’t remember (Jennifer Connelly, given nothing to do), the authorities who suspect him of being a serial killer, and a group of deathly pale strangers, who seem very interested in his scattershot memory.

I’d been interested in seeing this film for a long time, having often seen references to it as part of that run of reality-questioning sci-fi we got at the end of the 1990s, and had built it up in my mind as a more mystery-focused precursor to The Matrix. Which I suppose technically it is, but it’s also so painfully lightweight and unengaging on a human level, that I think calling it a mystery seems generous. It’s certainly great to look at, and you can sense its influence on what came later (most notably Inception), but there’s very little to it otherwise. It’s a film of clever ideas that never felt developed into anything I’d have found satisfying.

If I’d seen this when I was 12, I’d probably have really enjoyed it, but coming to it now, I’m just disappointed.

Repo Man (1984)

Aimless suburban punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) is Shanghaied into a new life as a car repossession agent after a chance encounter with aging grifter Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), but finds that a life spent getting into tense situations might actually suit him, especially if he can get his hands on a mysterious old Chevy Malibu with a suspiciously high price ticket on it.

This is one of my favourite movies, and I was pleased to get a chance to revisit it with some friends last week. It’s a great hangout piece, full of amusing little gags and sketches, but there’s also a surprising amount of substance to it behind its anarchic exterior. What struck me most on this viewing is how much it feels like a coming of age movie; despite the teasing and the hazing, Otto undeniably finds a new family in the eccentric repo office, all of whom (for better or worse) try to impart their wisdom, only for him to suddenly discover their limitations as the gang tears itself apart at the prospect of that one big score.

The ending falls a little flat for me, but I think this is still a great time all the way through.
 
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I’d often seen references to it as part of that run of virtual world mysteries we got at the end of the 1990s
If you went into Dark City already knowing roughly what it was about, then I could see why you might be disappointed. It came out at a time when the Megazone 23 twist was still fresh. I still think it's one of the best examples of it.

I love the oppressive atmosphere of it. There's a lived-in, Heavy Metal-esque texture of grime to its world that was already rare by the 90s.

Which version did you see, the theatrical cut with the opening narration that spoils the entire story or the director's cut without it?
 
Godzilla vs Biollante

Via the recent Criterion release. When I see a title beginning with "Godzilla vs" my expectations are immediately set to Kaiju fights where Godzilla must overcome a new foe that rivals him, but actually this one defied those expectations. In fact this is more in line with a more traditional Godzilla movie where humanity must overcome the terror of an unstoppable Godzilla. I won't spoil anymore but this was an enjoyable movie. It still retains a bit of the Sci-Fi quirks that prevailed during the Showa era of movies but that kind of adds to the charm.
 
Which version did you see, the theatrical cut with the opening narration that spoils the entire story or the director's cut without it?
It was the director’s cut I saw, yeah.

I’m probably being a bit hard on the film really - if I’d gone into it with no expectations, I’d likely have enjoyed it more, it’s just that I was hoping there’d be more meat on its bones, so to speak. It has such a strong and interesting cast, but it feels like most of them are there purely to create a certain look, rather than do any serious character acting.
 
Ms .45 (1981)

Having survived a sexual assault that leaves her with a body in her apartment and a cheap handgun, Thana, a traumatised young deaf-mute woman (Zoë Lund) finds herself attacking the men she encounters on the streets of New York, in this faintly notorious revenge thriller from Abel Ferrara.

Derided by critics on its initial release, most likely for its graphic violence and the oft-fetishised sight of its main character in a nun costume during the finale, this proves a surprisingly nuanced and well acted character study, with an astonishing central turn from Lund, wordlessly conveying every moment of Thana’s failing struggle to deal with her experiences. I think it does embrace its exploitation-movie trappings a little too enthusiastically towards the end, but this is a smarter and more effective film than it has any right to be.
 


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