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married but discreet posted:That's a neat idea, we could have the exact same setup as this one too. Although is anyone specifically invested in a year? Nobody is going to throw a tantrum over 1986 losing. It's true, but I imagine people will have their favourite film "bundles", or will want a year to win just so a specific film will get a tournament showing. Also perhaps the year they were born.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:40
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Tarnop posted:Future tournament idea: the greatest year of horror
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Oct 5, 2020 20:00
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Tarnop posted:
It's an interesting idea, but assuming we go with rosters of six again 1973 would be pretty much unbeatable. Don't Look Now, The Exorcist, The Legend of Hell House, Messiah of Evil, Theatre of Blood and The Wicker Man.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:04
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*1978 slaps you across the face with a white glove* See! Ripe for drama!
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Oct 5, 2020 20:04
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Tarnop posted:*1978 slaps you across the face with a white glove* Dawn of the Dead, Eyes of Laura Mars, Halloween, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Martin, what's your sixth? E: Magic, maybe?
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Oct 5, 2020 20:08
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It's really hard to top 1980 as one of the best years for horror
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Oct 5, 2020 20:38
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The Legend of Hell House really is enjoyable. I love that drat movie in all it's ghostly perviness.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:45
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1999 
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Oct 5, 2020 20:55
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7 out of 12 of your own ratings are less than 3 stars. 
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Oct 5, 2020 20:56
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Jedit posted:Dawn of the Dead, Eyes of Laura Mars, Halloween, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Martin, what's your sixth? Patrick or The Fury
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Oct 5, 2020 20:57
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Jedit posted:Dawn of the Dead, Eyes of Laura Mars, Halloween, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Martin, what's your sixth? Tarnop posted:Patrick or The Fury Long Weekend, I know there are defenders for I Spit On Your Grave, but I would totally go with Magic and The Fury as well. I've never seen Patrick.
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Oct 5, 2020 21:02
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1980 is loving stacked Altered States Cannibal Holocaust The Changeling Christmas Evil City of the Living Dead Contamination Dressed to Kill Encounters of the Spooky Kind The Fog Friday the 13th Humanoids from the Deep Maniac Motel Hell Nightmare City Prom Night The Shining The Watcher in the Woods
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Oct 5, 2020 21:21
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married but discreet posted:That's a neat idea, we could have the exact same setup as this one too. Although is anyone specifically invested in a year? Nobody is going to throw a tantrum over 1986 losing. I was born in '86, therefore it's the best and spookiest year
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Oct 5, 2020 21:37
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Looks like we need some kind of tournament to sort this all out!
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Oct 5, 2020 21:41
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Seems like making the initial picks would be tricky, since everyone's going to have blind spots. Maybe each person would get to contribute six picks, with each of those picks coming from a different year?
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Oct 5, 2020 21:54
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 TONIGHT! Debbie Does Dagon posted:
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Oct 5, 2020 22:11
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BRACKETOLOGY FINALS TRIPLE FEATURE 
Ken Russell Vs. Takashi Miike, MONDAY, on the 
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Looking forward to this final stream of the tourney Join us Goat! Join us!
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Oct 5, 2020 22:16
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Franchescanado posted:7 out of 12 of your own ratings are less than 3 stars. Yeah but one of them is Ravenous so it's pretty much a lock
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Oct 5, 2020 22:53
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Gothic vs Over Your Dead Body Two hallucinatory films about psychological fears and paranoia. I think these two films are wonderful examples of my main ideology for creators: allow your creative voice to be strong and distinctive and your stories and details specific; you may not be heard by as many, but those that hear will listen more intently. Over Your Dead Body  This film shares a theme with Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night. "You are who you pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Over Your Dead Body is a film about acting, and the emotional reality actors build for themselves. If you go method and allow yourself, in your performance, to feel the emotional weight of, say, a woman who suffers from having to take care of their child and feels abuse at the hands of their husband, is that safer to our mind, our emotional and psychological existence, than actual abuse? Does someone like Daniel Day Lewis, when staying in character for The Phantom Thread, actually exhibit narcissistic emotional abuse in real life? Is he to blame? Is his partner at fault for staying with him? Miike with this story--which has actors sinking into the roles of a ghost story that involves revenge, abuse, rape, death, lies, deceit--wants to explore the line of reality and fiction for his actors. The theatrical experience, specifically kabuki theater, is such an important aspect to the film, with the characters slipping in and out of performance on an elaborate shifting, rotating stage, in front of a large audience of production staff. Just as the stage rotates to change setting, the film itself, the internal world of Over Your Dead Body, also slides around, contorts, in front of us, bleeding realities and fictions. It is as disorienting as the mind of an actor juggling the realities of a good performance. I appreciate this film. It's haunting, it's clever, it's disturbing, and it's disorienting perspectives make it a puzzling experience. It makes gives me the equivalence of mental sea-sickness. Gothic  I believe Ken Russell is one of the greatest embodiments of the ideology mentioned at the top of this post. I really dig his entire style. He has a strong sense of setting in all of his films. His costuming is distinct while also fitting in with the time period he is working in. He paints wildly with emotion and tone, leaving a lot of room for his actors to stretch out the characters; there is so much room for over-the-top antics, but it always feels real and hysterical in the cinematic world we're in. This also allows for a single scene to have a dramatic line read that directly ties into the film's theme, a comedic moment that works, and then slide into the macabre. His mix of horniness and perversity feels like such gleeful anarchy to what's formal and proper, and it's never judgmental; the systems/societies the characters live in may judge their actions, but his camera does not. So many of his films involve whittling the societal pressures off the characters to see what's really human. How much research has everyone been doing in regards to the directors? If there is a film that is aided by context, it's Gothic. For one, this is pretty consistent with Russell's career-long interest in bizarre fictionalized biographies of historical creative figures that stretch the realities of the past. In addition to Gothic, he also has the films Elgar (English composer Sir Edward Elgar) Mahler (composer Gustav Mahler, of course), Lisztomania (Franz Liszt, of course), Savage Messiah (about the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska), The Music Lovers (19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), Song of Summer (poet & composer Frederick Delius, composer Eric Fenby), and Valentino (silent film actor Rudolph Valentino). In addition to these 8 films (which makes up a 1/3 of his filmography), Ken Russell also has four novels that fictionalize the sex lives of famous composers: Beethoven Confidential, Brahms Gets Laid, Elgar: The Erotic Variations, and Delius: A Moment with Venus. (Russell also has two non-fiction books about himself, filmmaking and the British film industry; Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell and A British Picture: An Autobiography, neither of which I've read, but drat it do I need to.) Gothic comes near the end of his 3rd decade as a director, and after many of his other fictionalized biographical films. I emphasize this, because to me, it shows how intentional all of Gothic is. It's Ken Russell doing what he loves, but in a haunted house and ghostly gothic setting. Gothic is, in many ways, Ken Russell making a Hammer Horror Film; but for me, this is better than most Hammer films. It's funnier, it's weirder, it's sexier/hornier, it's more disturbing, but it never loses any of the earnestness of those films. The eccentricities of the characters are never displayed with irony. There is gravity to their weirdness. As a Literature nerd who's written papers on Frankenstein, which I would say is one of my favorite (or at least one of the most influential) novels, a druggy haunted house film about the infamous "night" Lord Byron, the Shelleys and Dr. Polidori all decided to write ghost stories, which would inspire the writing of Polidori's The Vampyre and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is extremely My poo poo. That the resulting film is a nightmarish horror comedy just absolutely solidifies it as a favorite of mine. Both Gothic and Over Your Dead Body deal with fact and fiction bleeding the lines of reality, but while OYDB does so with original characters in a fictional play, Russell uses Historical Fiction. For me, twisting and confusing the actual past is a new dimension of distortion which fascinates me. (Pynchon is my favorite author, for example.) Ken Russell's portraits of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley may seem like grotesque caricatures, but are they? Nina Darnton, film critic, 1987 posted:Julian Sands, who portrayed the idealistic, romantic George Emerson in James Ivory's ''Room With a View,'' plays Shelley, but his character is not one that is easily recognized by the poet's present-day admirers. Mr. Sands plays Shelley as slightly schizophrenic, tormented with fears and devils, suffering from wild drug-induced hallucinations. Lord Byron is played by the Irish actor Gabriel Byrne as close to demonic. All of these specifics details, true or not, all add to Gothic's main theme, which is wonderful to consider with this challenge: Why are we intrigued by Horror? Why do we challenge our fears? The fears of the characters that are explored are surprisingly ordinary for a film where conjured spirits can possess, where a person you admire may have demonic ties, where vampires might try and feed from you. Mary Shelley, or most sympathetic character, isn't afraid of The Nightmare overlooking her sleeping step-sister, she is afraid that the love of her life is adulterous, that the pain of losing a child is an infinite pain tearing her relationship apart, that great men are capable of great evil, that morality can be forgotten, that defying God creates irreversible sin. Dr. Polidori only fears the attack of a vampyre because he fears eternal damnation, whether in this life or the afterlife, by a God angry at his closeted homosexuality; his repression has him performing self-mutilation and reaching for poison. Lord Byron is seemingly a shell of a man, a hedonist, a libertine, embracing complete anarchy of the human spirit to feel any charge of Life. His creativity is dwindling, his life is passing him by, his exile is driving him mad; his greatest fear is that he will unleash something from his mind that he cannot control, and it will destroy him, or that a karmic retribution is lying in wait for him. Claire Clairmont is a singer. Her life ended two years after music could be recorded. Surrounded by writers and poets, whose existence and creative works could exist in print for the rest of humanity's existence, any and all of her performances are lost once the people who hold her in their memories forget or pass away. She exists in relations to those around her. To Lord Byron and Percey Shelley, she is a lover, a muse, and possibly a mother to one of their children if they so choose; to Mary she is a sister. Everyone around her is someone. The one character who is defined by her relationships becomes possessed by a spirit; she loses her identity and is a vessel for someone else. At the end of the night, Mary Shelley sees the deaths of every character, both poetic and historically accurate. Curious about the idea of reincarnation, or defying death with resurrection, she is forced to see their mortality. In the morning, sun glowing, a picturesque picnic laid out, fresh tea brewed, each of the characters are happy, healthy, glowing (does laudanum have an afterglow like shrooms? I can't imagine it so), smiling and laughing. By facing their fears safely (as the film hilariously posits), their Life is reinvigorated, their souls are more grounded, their mortality is understood greater, and their creative spirits are inspired. Is there a more apt analogy for a fan of Horror fiction? Gothic is wonderfully optimistic about humanity. Villa Diodati dissolves from 1816 to 1985. A boatload of tourists approach the banks, with a guide over megaphone telling us that the events of the visit we watched inspired great works of Literature. The tour guide's voice is perfunctory, and the facts he shares are rather bland, something you'd hear in school. "This is where Frankenstein was inspired, folks." Russell seems to be saying with a wink, that a simple fact like "The Shelleys and Lord Byron once spent the night here and wrote ghost stories" holds within it whole worlds of humanity hidden away by time, that even creatives considered genius, were flawed, gluttons, drunk and stoned, perverted, and fragile, full of fear. I'm easily voting Gothic here. (Fun fact: Mike Southon, the cinematographer, was DP on three Air Bud movies.) Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Oct 6, 2020 |
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Oct 6, 2020 15:09
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I just bought Altered States: Autobiography of Ken Russell and A British Picture: An Autiobiography. 
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Oct 6, 2020 16:10
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The Devils easily beats As The Gods Will, and Altered States beats Ichi for me, but this one I thought Miike had in the bag. But drat, what a post. I'm going to have to reconsider my vote ONCE MORE.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:07
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married but discreet posted:Altered States beats Ichi for me I'm glad I am not alone. I really loved Altered States, I'm probably going to watch it again before Halloween.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:28
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A Ken Russell film needs to be seen more than once. That may be a big ask for someone to "get" something these days, but it's still true for Russell, and I'd say Lynch, and even a lot of Miike's films. It's interesting that our two finalists are filmmakers who are stylish, obtuse, push the boundaries, and seem a little crazy when looking at their projects. Sam Raimi's a great horror director, but his movies are so much more fun and light on the surface than, say, The Devils.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:34
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Harlan Ellison posted:Gothic is loopy and fatally flawed and an aberration. Yet I treasure this film. So may you. If you, as am I, are out of your head... you will cleave to this tortured bit of cinematic epilepsy because it is ALIVE. It is yet another crime of passion committed by Ken Russell, and his sort of berserk creativity has fallen on such hard times in this age of Reagan and yuppie sensibility, that simply to be exposed to the ravings of an inspired madman is cathartic. I came away from GOTHIC with my soul on fire... The final assertion of critical judgement on GOTHIC is not whether or not it is good, or whether one likes it or not. The undeniable truth of GOTHIC, as in all the work of Ken Russell (an artist who is either so mad or so foolhardy as not to care if he wins or loses), is that it is palpably ALIVE. It is riot and ruin and pandemonium. But it will have you by the nerve-ends.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:26
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Gothic might be alive, but Julian Sands spends the whole film trying to kill it stone dead. With a better actor in the Shelley role this would be an easy round for me. If he was in the company of other mediocre or terrible actors then maybe it wouldn't be so noticeable. But alongside Byrne and Spall he's just completely out of his depth, and the film asks us to see a good portion of what's happening through him.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:34
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Welp misread the matchups... So yeah ignore my take. Both those movies were dope tho.
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Oct 6, 2020 20:48
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With As the Gods Will done, I'm through the full set for this round. As the Gods Will vs. The Devils This isn't my favorite of Russel's, but it's enough to beat a lazy manga adaptation (detailed thoughts over in the Challenge thread https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3941760&pagenumber=27#post508697922). Gods could have been something special with a better script and some really vicious editing, but what we actually got has no interesting characters and is almost two hours long solely because it's full of the tedious poo poo and bad pacing low budget anime wallows in to pad runtime without paying to draw something new. And I'm mad at it for making me say so many mean things about a movie where a man's sincere love of parsley becomes a serious point of interpersonal conflict under the watchful gaze of a snowboarding polar bear, but here we are. Over Your Dead Body vs. Gothic Gothic was my first Ken Russel and in many ways is still my favorite. Unfortunately I agree with Tarnop - Percy is by far the weakest link and we spend way too much time with him. Over Your Dead Body is a much less interesting story, to me, but so is drat near everything. As a movie, it's miles ahead - the shots of the revolving set alone make it an all time great in my book. This one is a tough matchup but point to Miike. Ichi the Killer vs. Altered States This is by far the toughest one for me to decide. What I'd call mid-tier work from both directors, but also both movies that mean more to me than they should on quality because of life circumstances when I first saw them. I think I have to give the nod to Russel - fewer spots that drag on a rewatch and wilder ideas narrowly edge out Tadanobu Asano's performance as Kakihara. I can't say I'm happy giving the balance of my votes to Russel - as much as I love him, I feel like the small body of qualifying work should be more of a handicap and Miike's got half a dozen movies not even in the tournament that could have taken any of these, but that's the game we're playing. Consistency is king here, and for good or bad you have to give consistent to Russel.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:41
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As The Gods Will vs The Devils I absolutely hated most of Miike’s movie. There is no specific criticism, it just comes off as a very faithful adaptation of whatever anime/manga source material this might have been based off. Unfortunately I absolutely can’t stand the conventions of anime/manga storytelling and characters, and this is about as closely adherent to those as it gets. Did anyone ever have any doubt as to who would last until the end and who would die? As I said in the stream, the movie (like a lot of Japanese cartooning that I hate) is clearly made for not particularly smart (or sensitive) teenagers, and while I’m neither smart nor particularly sensitive, I’ve still outgrown the target audience. Sadly I’m also not lucky enough to still somehow like it (I really don’t want to come off as a douche, everyone likes what they like). I liked the Ice Bear segment because not only was the stop motion-esque creature interesting to look at, the conceit of the game also allowed for a minimum of character development, which wasn’t something the rest of the movie provided. The Devils made me think of Terry Gilliam movies with more horny. That’s good. I vote for it. Ichi The Killer vs Altered States Ichi The Killer is also based on a manga, but it’s so gross and shocking and energetic in a way that you generally don’t see in a movie very often. I respect that. It’s really not my thing either, it’s hard to watch. And I like Dead or Alive better. Altered States is the best representation of scientists as real people that I’ve seen on screen. What’s even second, Prince of Darkness? I wish I had been as cool of a grad student as Dennis Dun. Instead I just ruin my relationships through the academic lifestyle like William Hurt does. Gets my vote. Over Your Dead Body vs Gothic Aaah I love Fran’s effort post in favour of Gothic. I love Gothic. The setting, the characters, the story. The ending! It’s a unique fever dream with one of the most banging horror soundtracks ever. But Over Your Dead Body is an assault on my eyes, it’s absolutely gorgeous, I had to constantly rewind so I could see what was shown to me once more. The rotating stage, the colours, the mood of it all. Style over substance, my vote goes to Miike.
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Oct 6, 2020 23:44
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Its a tough round for me, not just because October has begun and I really want to use my time watching new stuff rather than rewatching stuff I didn't like the first time but also because... I really didn't like these two. I get why people do like them and I think they're both talented but its definitely a case of the presiding taste of our crew veering differently than mine. So I wanna be fair and give them a shake, but I also really don't want to rewatch them. I gave As The Gods Will a watch because that was the only new one to me and I threw in Gothic since I needed a double feature and Gothic was the Russell film I was most interested in rewatching. I sorta want to rewatch Over Your Dead Body but then I'd be compelled to rewatch Devils or Altered States. And its too soon for Devils and I just have no interest in rewatching States. So I'm gonna do my best here. As The Gods Will vs The Devils I think I enjoyed As The Gods Will for all the reasons people hated it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not a fan. But while most of Miike's stuff has an element that I really like and engages me and then his whole thing kicks in and annoys me and takes me out of it, this is like ALL thing and its so absurd and cartoonish that I just never take it seriously. The moments he even tries to toss in character development or gravitas are almost now the complete 180 annoyance to me trying to make me care about this stupid, juvenile thing. Is it good? No, not really. But its a spectacle that kept me more or less entertained. Even if once again I ended a Miike film rolling my eyes. The Devils is probably a better film. I should give it a rewatch and I do intend to at some time. But its too early for me to rewatch it after my first time and give it a fair shot. The first time I went into it with expectations it would be much more scandalous and supernatural than it was. What I got was a pretty Catholic 201 movie. And like, it was probably a good one but my expectations were all out of whack and I think I’d still have my first impression in play if I watched it right now. But feeling is really that I just wouldn’t be impressed for the same reason. Maybe I’d appreciate the style more and Russell certainly paints a pretty picture, but I also don’t think I “feel” him much at all. So I think I might vote for the stupid movie. Dunno. Ichi The Killer vs Altered States I’d say I hated Ichi but I didn’t care that much. It was stupid and juvenile like As The Gods Will but not actually interesting or good at anything as far as I’m concerned. Its easily the most I’ve been unimpressed by Miike. It felt like everything that doesn’t impress me about him concentrated. It was one long eye roll. If you told me he made it when he was 13-years-old I’d be kind of impressed. When I read that Eli Roth sees him as one of his biggest influences I imagine Eli is talking about this movie. I do not like Ichi the Killer. I do not like it on a train, I do not like it in a plane. I didn’t really like Altered States either but I didn’t dislike it either. Again, I don’t really get Russell and don’t get as much from his style of frantic hallucination imagery and symbolism as others do. But it felt like there was more substances to this one and better performances. I may not get what Russell’s doing but I kind of respect what it is. So I’m giving him this one pretty safely. Over Your Dead Body vs Gothic Tough one, maybe. Over Your Dead Body was SO long ago I really should rewatch it. I THINK I liked it. But I rewatched Gothic and… I still didn’t really like it. Again, pretty, visual, frantic, lots of stuff swirling around. I get why people like it. But it does very little for me. Which is a shame because I love the concept of that night and the idea behind it. I just don’t think i like Ken Russell. So like… I’m leaning towards Over Your Dead Body because I think I liked it? I gave it 3 1/2 stars on Letterboxd. Again, I should rewatch but (a) I don’t want to rewatch a dubbed version and (b) I’d like to get more familiar with the play at the core of the story to pick up better on the themes. Either way I think its gonna get my vote over Gothic so…
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Oct 7, 2020 02:13
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I don't get grossed out by movies very often, but Ichi The Killer had me cringing for 2 hours. I can pick up that a movie in which the title raises from dripping cum might have something to say about toxic masculinity and have a pitch-black sense of humor, but the only time I laughed was when Kakihara politely accepts his termination from the Yakuza syndicate. Deeply unpleasant movie; very interesting. The PS2 era CGI blood didn't age too well, did it? I'd be interested in seeing a different exploration of an unfulfilling love story between a masochist and a sadist. Blue Velvet kinda does that. I dunno. Maybe I don't want that. I was tempted to vote Ichi, but it's just not much of a horror movie to me. It's horrific, yes, but it's ultimately just a violent Yakuza dramedy with a love story. Altered States got my vote.
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Oct 7, 2020 13:08
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I just watched Altered States (tried to do it after the stream on Monday but fell asleep in front of my computer), and I can't remember the last time I was so annoyed, frustrated, and disappointed with a film. On paper this should be my thing. I love body horror, I love hallucinogens, I love films about the weird side of academia, but I spent 3/4 of the runtime wishing it would just shut the gently caress up and end. I don't think Ken Russell is an especially self indulgent filmmaker, so I'm going to assume the source material is at fault here, but I can't imagine anything more masturbatory than 100 minutes of a narcissist hallucinating his way up his own arsehole.
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Oct 7, 2020 18:05
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So it says voting ends today, but does it? Do we get results tomorrow? What time do the votes get cut off tonight?
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Oct 7, 2020 18:19
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The most important thing, which everyone has apparently overlooked, is who would you gently caress, marry, and kill of the primary casts. Let's start juicy with the kills. Clearly I'm killing Eddie of Altered states. As suggested I will try to give Altered States a rewatch before voting, but the one glaring flaw in the film for me was Eddie. He is emotionally unavailable to the extreme, he is a disruptive ethnotourist, he constantly puts the lives of those he works with at risk, and he is a terrible husband and father who does not earn the redemptive love offered to him in the finale. In short he is a miserable person to share the runtime of a film with, and I'm not saying you can't have characters like Eddie as leads, or stories like his, but you should expect people like me to be turned off. The idea that women should wait in the wings and then swoop in once the tortured egos of men need a pat on the head, is frankly insulting. Seeing as there are six films, there are two opportunities to kill. My second kill will be Kosuke of Over Your Dead Body, who is the poster child for fuckboys everywhere. Similarly to his character in the play, he is a narcissist who abuses the women in his life, seeing them as merely stepping stones to greater opportunities elsewhere. First he uses his relationship with Miyuki to score a role in the play, before quickly beginning an affair with a younger model, and in turn using her to attain a job from her wealthy father, mirroring the events in the play. Where OYDB goes right where AS goes wrong, is that Miike presents the fuckboy unambiguously as a fuckboy, and allows us the brutal thrill of ultraviolent closure. OYDB might possibly be my favourite film in this bracket, not for the reasons stated, but simply because it brings theatre to life in such a beautifully elegant and dark way. On my first watch I actually didn't like the contemporary moments, and they are a stark contrast from the period setting. After a few re-watches however the two stories have melded together seamlessly for me, much as they do for Kosuke/lemon in the last act. Now who to gently caress. This should come as no surprise to anyone who watches the streams, but I would break a hip loving my IRL boyfriend Takeru from As the Gods Will, or perhaps better known as the psychopath who turns up and starts stabbing people with a big sword. He is the very definition of dreamy. He, much like the film, would probably strike some people as an odd choice to like. As someone in the chat pointed out he would indeed break my neck, I appreciate that there maybe speedbumps in the relationship. That's why I've placed him as gently caress. He, much like the film, oozes charisma and a certain joyful destructive brutality though, which I find compelling. I absolutely agree with the complaints that the film is anime bullshit. Similarly I dont have an inexhaustible tolerance for this nonsense. As an aside, one of my earliest memories is watching a subbed copy of Akira on VHS and my Dad being aghast, whilst my Mum offered "Well, at least they're reading". I think that rather than being a negative however, the anime bullshit is overwhelmingly a positive addition to the film. Miike has delivered unto us an unpolished look at the genre, which embraces its flaws as an integral part of what makes it so enjoyable. Take for example the gentleman on the television who looks like Dr Robotnik, there's no reason to include him other than as a love letter to the madness which exists within the pages of serialised Manga. Similarly you might argue that Takeru is a one dimensional irredeemable monstrous psychopath, but it is his tropiness that makes him so compelling, and surely as horror fans broad tropes are things we can get behind. What would the slasher genre be without the repetitive predictable nonsense? And after all, you can't spell "one dimensional irredeemable monstrous psychopath" without "redeemable". My terrible taste in men continues to my next gently caress choice, Kakihara of Ichi the Killer. I doubt I'll have much more luck than Ichi in satisfying Kakihara's enthusiastic urges, but I'm foolish enough to try. Both Takeru and Kakihara have an impish mischievous charm which I can't resist, in fact it occurs to me now that they'd make a fantastic couple. Terrifying, but fantastic. That impish charm continues through the rest of Ichi, as seemingly every moment is crammed with cartoonish levels of ultra-violence and mayhem. I can appreciate that this perhaps isn't to everyone's taste, but the whole film just hits a delectable sweet spot for me. Moving quickly on to the married category, and I'm sure you can work out by process of elimination that I would choose Granier of The Devils, and Gabriel Byrne's Byron as my future hubbies. Both characters are from Ken Russell, and both have that mischievous streak which I like so much. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Both are also suffused with a hidden depth and soulfullness by Ken, which radiates the promise of a warm embrace, even if they may leave me soon after for another. Ken has such a talent for creating beautiful, flawed romantic heroes, and I can do nothing but respect his craft. So there you have it, my votes, as they stand. I apologise for the weird horny posting, but sometimes being weird is exactly what I need to shake away the writers block. And if it wasn't clear enough, The Devils, Ichi the Killer, and Gothic have my support. Gothic wins on a knife's edge though, and it is absolutely Fran's excellent post which helped sway me.
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Oct 7, 2020 19:48
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God if this came down to Lair of the White Worm or Audition I don't know how I would have voted
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Oct 7, 2020 20:09
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Horny...is allowed? gently caress: Uh, you know, everyone in Gothic? Lol at anyone who would not accept Mary Shelley irl or in any of her movie depictions, as their rightful wife before the Lord, smdh Kill: The entire cast of As The Gods Will, except for Parsley Boy.
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Oct 7, 2020 20:10
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Burkion posted:God if this came down to Lair of the White Worm or Audition I don't know how I would have voted I would have gone with Lair of the White Worm, personally. It's gleeful, it's weird, it's playfully horny, it has a sexy snake woman donning a strap-on summoning a giant snake dragon demon thing, there's elaborate folk music choreography. Audition is more disturbing, but Lair of the White Worm has it's credits rolling before we even get to Audition's torture, according to Dr. Runtime.
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Oct 7, 2020 20:14
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I would probably vote Audition. There's a lot to like in Lair, but it doesn't have nearly the same depth of storytelling as Audition. I will also take piano wire girl over sexy snake ladies with strap-ons, which I know is completely against character for me.
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Oct 7, 2020 20:29
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:I will also take piano wire girl over sexy snake ladies with strap-ons, which I know is completely against character for me.  It's like I don't even know you anymore.I do wonder if Eihi Shiina had problems getting dates after Audition became popular.
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Oct 7, 2020 20:31
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Franchescanado posted:
If anything she probably had issues not getting date offers
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Oct 7, 2020 21:29
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:Let's start juicy with the kills. Clearly I'm killing Eddie of Altered states. As suggested I will try to give Altered States a rewatch before voting, but the one glaring flaw in the film for me was Eddie. He is emotionally unavailable to the extreme, he is a disruptive ethnotourist, he constantly puts the lives of those he works with at risk, and he is a terrible husband and father who does not earn the redemptive love offered to him in the finale. In short he is a miserable person to share the runtime of a film with, and I'm not saying you can't have characters like Eddie as leads, or stories like his, but you should expect people like me to be turned off. The idea that women should wait in the wings and then swoop in once the tortured egos of men need a pat on the head, is frankly insulting. This expresses my problem with the film much more eloquently than my credits-still-rolling angry post. If Eddie had been decapitated in a moment of squirty-ketchup glory instead of welcomed back with open arms, AS might have redeemed itself.
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Oct 7, 2020 21:44
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