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[diamelsx]

Coonskin (1975)

Originally Posted by Rotten Tomatoes

Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic helmer Ralph Bakshi subsequently directed the über-controversial animated feature Coonskin (aka Streetfight, 1975). Bakshi opens and closes the film with a live-action tale that stars Scatman Crothers, Miami Vice's Philip Michael Thomas, Charles Gordone, and Barry White; it recounts the adventures of three African-American men who escape from prison and are later gathered up. In between, an animated tale has animal characters with stereotypically black traits -- Brother Rabbit (voiced by Thomas), Brother Fox (voiced by Gordone), and Brother Bear (voiced by White) -- entering a white-dominated ghetto environment and diverging into different paths; one becomes a crime overlord, the second sells the first out to La Cosa Nostra, and the third establishes himself as a media-exploited sports icon. Completely misread as a racist work upon release, the film actually entails Bakshi's satirical excoriation of bigotry via the tongue-in-cheek use of black urban stereotypes. The director laces the film with profane ghetto dialogue and street slang; though animated, this is not a picture for children. Variety wrote of the work, "Beyond Bakshi's cinematic style, his stories seem haunted by a worldliness that is torn between cynicism and tortured humanism. There is heart in his plots, so superficial putdown is totally absent. What is present [is] the evidently sincere empathy of a social surgeon." The legendary Albert S. Ruddy (The Godfather, Cloud Nine) produced.

[Brecht]

The Odessa File (1974)



Trailer

Germany 1963: after reading the diary of Solomon Tauber, a Holocaust survivor who committed suicide, journalist Peter Miller (Jon Voight) begins to investigate the alleged sighting of the former SS Captain Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell), known as the "Butcher of Riga". Determined to find Roschmann, Miller visits Simon Wiesenthal (Shmuel Rodensky) in Vienna who informs him of a secret organization of SS veterans called ODESSA. Miller is kidnapped by the Mossad who persuade him to infiltrate the ODESSA group posing as a former SS officer himself.

Not a particularly good film and I doubt the book by Frederick Forsyth is much better. Voight's performance wasn't convincing either. The ending came as a surprise, not because of a well-thought plot twist but because it looks like it was taken from another film. All things considered, The Odessa File isn't a bad movie but a rather mediocre (political) thriller.

[OldSchool47]

"The Endless Summer"



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-O9P9mz7hE

[Sir Honkers]

What We do In The Shadows. A New Zealand vampyre mockumentary. Best Vampyre film ever! Played dead straight and really funny. Last night my missus said, 'is this and He Never Died', the only two movies ever made...I think so because they're all you watch.'

[MaxJoker]

A woman utterly pissed off by life (Melanie Lynskey is as ever thoroughly convincing , brilliant , beautiful and somebody I`d gladly marry) finally has enough when her home get`s broken into and the only few possessions of any worth she has are stolen.
The police aren't bothered.
In fact nobody is bothered.
So she sets out to track down her things.
With the help of a terrifically stupid wannabe vigilante neighbour (Elijah Wood). Only their tracking leads them into real trouble.

Too right I recommend it

Netflix has scored another watchable blinder

[Brecht]

Flawless (1999)



Trailer

Walter Koontz (Robert De Niro) is a homophobic cop who lives in a downtown apartment building. Apart from some noise pollution caused by a group of drag queens, he lives a happy and worriless life. One night, the building is stormed by the local thug Mr. Z (Luis Saguar) and his minions who're looking for a guy who stole their drug money. After hearing gunshots upstairs, Koontz takes up his gun with the intention to help but suffers a stroke on his way up. He wakes up with the right side of his body partially paralyzed. Since his speech abilities have been damaged, Koontz is advised by his therapist LeShaun (Kyle Rivers) to take singing lessons because they reportedly helped other patients. Initially reluctant, Koontz asks his transsexual neighbor Rusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman) for help.

Given the circumstances, De Niro's and Hoffman's perfomances are flawless. Same, however, cannot be said for the rest of the movie. It pretends to be a comedy-drama but is really just a mishmash of predictable events and stereotypical characters. Apart from a few good lines, Joel Schumacher's Flawless fails to deliver a serious plot with carefully studied characters. Only Hoffman's performance saves this picture from being considered a total garbage.

[Brecht]

Chronopolis (1983)



Trailer

Chronopolis is a city in the skies, inhabited by immortal but jaded beings who spend most of their time constructing weird objects. That's pretty much the entire plot.

This surreal and experimental animation film is very impressive visually but it's very difficult to follow the story, if there is any.

[trailmaster]

These are two of the Netflix movies that I watched on Thursday. The first one is Deepwater Horizon which is the name of an American oil derrick off the southern coast of Louisiana. The movie is based on a true story that happened in 2010. It stars Kurt Russell, Mark Wahlberg, John Malokovich and others. Tells the story of a derrick which was built over a well dug by BP(British Petroleum), but two of the experts played by Russell and Wahlberg are unhappy that the well has not been pressure tested before the oil is to be extracted. The derrick itself seems to be unstable, and eventually against the wishes of Russell and Wahlberg the go ahead signal is given for the plug to be opened and the oil to begin to be extracted. Right away there is big trouble. A tremendous amount of pressure in the amount of over 3,000 psi comes up with thousands of gallons of mud from the well, then methane gas and oil come up too at that pressure which causes a massive explosion that kills 11 workers and the entire derrick is aflame and 210 million gallons of crude oil spill into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Eventually most of the other workers are rescued. It was reported that this was the worst oil disaster in American oil drilling history. The movie is just a little more than 90 minutes. The first hour is the best, becuase this shows Russell and Wahlberg desperately trying to explain to the BP executives that the well must be pressure tested first before any oil can be extracted. This is standard policy on all oil wells whether they are on land or in the ocean. The film was not well received by American audiences, and it failed to show a profit. I was expecting more action , but once the explosion happened there was just a lot of scenes of flames everywhere and men screaming and trying to get off the derrick.

The second film is Inferno starring Tom Hanks as Symbologist Robert Langdon in the third film from writer Dan Brown who also wrote The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons which also were made into movies. This time Langdon is trying to find links to the wherabouts of a hidden cache of super virus that a mad billionaire played by Ben Foster has hidden somewhere and intends to be unleashed to an unsuspecting world which will kill 95% of the population (his method of controlling the over population of the world). I did not like the book or this film. It is much more complex than the other books and movies. It actually seems kind of ridiculous at times. The movie did however make a big profit worldwide, but was blasted by the critics.

[MaxJoker]

This ,



Gets a 99 percent rating on rotten tomatoes
Not that I've always agreed with that sites ratings (Such as them dissing Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure ). Yet here I sort of to a point do agree. Isn't a perfect movie (What film is ?) nor an original tale (How could it ?). Only has a sweet spin on a recognised plot. Acting is flawless , suspense smooth plus the direction crisp and tasty



A chap stays the weekend at his girlfriend`s parents "Isolated" house in the woods.



Exactly , what could possibly go wrong

[ballyhoo]

starring Robert Downey Jr, with Charlie Chaplin's real life daughter
Geraldine portraying his mother. a good movie and an interesting
story. I didn't know that much about Chaplin outside of his "Tramp"
shorts, and that he had many wives. he was quite the film-maker.