Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

Neighboring Sounds: Very impressive Brazilian drama set in a middle class Brazilian suburb. Brilliantly scripted and well observed this is a film that has a ring of authenticity running right through it thanks also to the fact that it is also well acted and shot. The film itself is a detailed look around at this environment and the complex relationships that exist between the characters involved. It takes its time to tell its own story at a slow but suitable pace which unfortunately culminates in a very abrupt and slightly disappointing ending but up to then I really can’t think of any aspect that I didn't enjoy. A real surprise and very much recommended despite feeling somewhat unfinished. Some won’t like the steady pace up to then but I loved it.

7.5/10
 
The Houses October Built
A found footage style film about a set of friends who go on the search for the ultimate extreme haunt experience. I am not the biggest fan of this type of filmmaking but films like this show that there is still room for creativity in the genre. The found footage style actually helps heighten the tension and isn't annoying as it is in most films. The story was pretty good with some truly eerie characters and scenes and there were a couple of moments that really made me jump. The acting was average except one bearded dude who was actually pretty decent. Definitely worth a watch, especially if you are a horror fan 7.5/10
 
Annabelle took an age to get to the meat of the story and wasn't very scary when it did. Not awful by any means, but the Conjuring is the benchmark for me and this falls quite a bit short. The great thing about the Conjuring was that there was no let up in the scariness. It was just bang-bang-bang with the scary moments all the way through the film without any respite. Horror films need to learn from it and not have big long build ups of 15-20 minutes before having one or two minutes of terror, followed by another long build up. Unfortunately, Annabelle's scary moments were pretty much all in the trailer. 6/10
 
Has anyone seen The Babadook? It's reviews would suggest it's The Godfather of horror films.

Plus it's Australian so it would be nice for us to get it right for the first time in a while.
Yeah I've heard/read great stuff about it, definitely looks like it's worth a watch. Haven't seen it yet though.
 
Has anyone seen The Babadook? It's reviews would suggest it's The Godfather of horror films.

Plus it's Australian so it would be nice for us to get it right for the first time in a while.

You lot have had some not-awful films out over the last few years tbf. Red Hill, Wolf Creek, Daybreakers, Tomorrow When the War Began, the one with the lass who likes drilling holes in guy's heads, lots of people also really rated The Rover- even though all those people were wrong.
 
You lot have had some not-awful films out over the last few years tbf. Red Hill, Wolf Creek, Daybreakers, Tomorrow When the War Began, the one with the lass who likes drilling holes in guy's heads, lots of people also really rated The Rover- even though all those people were wrong.

I think it's safe to say we have very different tastes in films. One of the worst things I've ever seen.

Talking of Aussie films, I watched 'Two Hands' again the other night, nice little film that.
 
Has anyone seen The Babadook? It's reviews would suggest it's The Godfather of horror films.

Plus it's Australian so it would be nice for us to get it right for the first time in a while.
I've followed this one for years when the original trailer came out and finally seeing it at the weekend so will let you know how it is. From what I read, it's apparently a slow burning psychological treat so can't wait...
 
I think it's safe to say we have very different tastes in films. One of the worst things I've ever seen.

Talking of Aussie films, I watched 'Two Hands' again the other night, nice little film that.

Rose Byrne :drool:

Yeah I've heard/read great stuff about it, definitely looks like it's worth a watch. Haven't seen it yet though.

When I was in Paris in August there was a lot of advertising for it, considerably more than here in Australia.

You lot have had some not-awful films out over the last few years tbf. Red Hill, Wolf Creek, Daybreakers, Tomorrow When the War Began, the one with the lass who likes drilling holes in guy's heads, lots of people also really rated The Rover- even though all those people were wrong.

Can't say I enjoyed any of those films other than Red Hill. Animal Kingdom, Snowtown, Samson and Delilah, Beautiful Kate have been the outstanding films of the last ten years. Slim pickings though.
 
I didn't have a beer for a week after I first saw Wake In Fright. It's the outstanding Australian film.
Watching that film drunk was one of my greatest movie experiences, like, ever. A real heart of darkness ride.

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Snowtown is excellent, I guess Wake in Fright is sort of 'newish', in a way.

What's 'newish' about it, exactly? It's well old. It's my favourite Aussie film as well fwiw. I was blown away by it.

Some recent AU films I liked were 'The Rocket' (set in Laos but Aussie made), and 'Mystery Road' which has it's flaws but has a lovely feel and look about it.
 
What's 'newish' about it, exactly? It's well old. It's my favourite Aussie film as well fwiw. I was blown away by it.

Some recent AU films I liked were 'The Rocket' (set in Laos but Aussie made), and 'Mystery Road' which has it's flaws but has a lovely feel and look about it.
It was lost for decades and re-released a couple of years ago.
 
It was lost for decades and re-released a couple of years ago.

Always thought that whole 'lost film' schtick was just a promotional tool for the DVD release to be honest. It was more forgotten than lost, but yes, I see what you mean now.

Edit: Now I've actually bothered to look it up I see you are indeed correct! It was lost for a good 10 years.
 
Interview: "Wake In Fright" Director Ted Kotcheff

Parents should never have to bury their young, and artists should never outlive their greatest works. Fortunately for Canadian director Ted Kotcheff, his masterpiece, the 1971 dramatic thriller Wake in Fright, survives despite a near-death experience. The negatives of his critically lauded but financially disappointing film received an incineration death sentence decades after copies of it disappeared and everyone involved in its production lost track of it. Saved by the efforts of a devoted few, and given the Cannes Film Festival's "Cannes Classic" title by department head (and longtime fan) Martin Scorsese, the story of a man discovering his inner beast in the wild Australian Outback has finally received the recognition that it deserves.

How does a film, especially one as good as Wake in Fright, nearly get lost forever?

I’m just as astonished as you are. People have worked so hard to create the negative, spent a lot of money—how could you discard it? That’s a valuable asset. But it happens a lot more often than you think. My experience is not an isolated occurrence.

What happened in your case?

In 1971, I finished making Wake in Fright and it was released in Australia. Critics gave it very good reviews, but the audiences didn’t show up. I think people were offended by the unsympathetic depiction of the Aussie male. It did lukewarm business.

Then it went to Cannes and the French loved it. They love films with men dealing with existential stress. The only place where the film had commercial success was in Paris; it ran for nine months.

When it came to America, distributed by United Artists, they didn’t believe in the film at all. They didn’t think American audiences would come see this film, so they opened it, with no publicity whatsoever, in one small theater on the East Side of Manhattan on a Sunday night in a heavy blizzard. And guess what? No one came. [Laughs.] They said, “We told you no one would come.” I always loved American distributors for their self-fulfilling prophecies. [Laughs.]

When pictures don’t succeed, no one cares if the negative gets lost. No one worries about it because they think someone else will and it will exist, but they’re wrong. There were no prints in existence and 25 years went by.

How were the negatives of your film eventually recovered?

Some of the critics who liked the film originally asked the Australian producers for a copy to show in film schools, and they had no copies, so they tried to find the negative. They couldn’t find it in New York, couldn’t find it in London, where it had been processed, and couldn’t believe that it disappeared. It seemed to have disappeared totally. He hyperbolically described it as a "national disaster."

Another 10 years go by, and this time, Tony Buckley, who edited the film, made it a personal challenge to go and find it. At his own expense, he flew from Australia to London to check with the people who had processed it. They said they sent it to America but couldn’t remember where. He went to Dublin, where he’d heard there was a print, but that wasn’t true, and then he went to New York.

He took all these trips over two years and finally he tracked it down to a warehouse in Pittsburgh. There were two huge boxes full of Wake in Fright negatives and soundtracks. On the boxes, in big red letters, it read: FOR DESTRUCTION. He ascertained that if he’d arrived a week later they would have been incinerated and no longer existed.

What condition were the negatives in?

They hadn’t been looked after for 35 years and they were ripped, torn, faded, damaged. Another person who loved the film worked in Sydney at the Deluxe film laboratory and he set about digitally restoring the film, which took him two years of his own time. He digitally restored the film frame by frame and produced the most amazing print of the film, much better than the one that we had originally in 1971.


What were your emotions when you thought your film might have been lost?


No one told me that the negative was lost. They didn’t dare. They only told me after they had found it. I’m glad, because I would’ve lost all of my hair, and I haven’t got much left. [Laughs.] It would’ve been a knife in my back.

Acting drunk and acting crazy aren’t easy, and there’s a lot of both in the film. How did you and your cast manage such realism?

Chips Rafferty, who played the town policeman Jock Crawford, was an Australian film star, and obviously he does a lot of drinking in the film. He pours a whole pint of beer back and orders another one, repeatedly. The first day we’re shooting, he tastes the beer and says, “Ted, this is fake beer! This is non-alcoholic!” I said, “I may do six to seven takes of every setup. Are you gonna drink 20 pints a day?” He said, “You leave it to me, but I can’t drink this fake beer. I just can’t make it credible. I want real beer.” I said OK. He’d drink at least 20 pints every day, never got inebriated, and never slurred a word. His countenance didn’t change at all, from morning to night. It was amazing! Australians drink so much, their whole system just hardens.

Now, my friend Donald Pleasence, he could act all of it, but there was one scene, after the kangaroo hunt, where his character Doc Tyden drinks a lot of whiskey and makes a philosophical speech and afterwards goes crazy and smashes up the front of the pub with a chair. Donald said, “Ted, I don’t think I can do this scene sober.” I said, “Come on, Donald! You’re one of the greatest actors in the world! Of course you can do it sober.” He said, “You need that mad, demonic quality, and it’s so hard to act that. I need alcoholic inspiration.” I said, “Just do it.”

We shot the scene [sober] and the next day I looked at the dailies and I apologized to Donald. I said, “You were absolutely right. You need to drink for this scene.” [Laughs.] We re-shot the whole scene. That’s the only scene he played drunk. It’s an amazing performance. He knew how to use the alcohol as fuel for that madness.
 
So after 35 years he arrives the week before the film is going to be incinerated. It's either an amazing story or a clever marketing trick.

Love the part about playing that one scene drunk. Now that I can believe. I want to watch it right now but I'm too scared to on my own in the dark.
 
Anyone seeing The Babadook this weekend? currently on 97% from 30 something reviews on RT. Reviewers calling it terrifying. I'm so intrigued by it :lol:

Planning on seeing it Tuesday possibly.
 
Has anyone seen the film about FIFA with Gérard Depardieu, Sam Neill and Tim Roth? It's meant to be terribly bad, we're wondering whether it could be a fun film to watch after the Clasico tomorrow with a few drinks.
 
Anyone seeing The Babadook this weekend? currently on 97% from 30 something reviews on RT. Reviewers calling it terrifying. I'm so intrigued by it :lol:

Planning on seeing it Tuesday possibly.
Had my eye on this one for a while so will be watching it tomorrow. Can't wait!
 
Fury:

An interesting war film which focuses on the gritty and horrible side of war, although Brad Pitt borrows a bit of Aldo Raine at some points which I found a bit amusing. It has some cliched characters and the build up to the climax was a bit cheesy, but it just about gets away with it. Even Shia Lebouf didn't annoy me!

There are a couple of very good scenes, a tense dinner scene and a tank battle being particular highlights. Overall It kept me absorbed and tense, so I'd have to say that I enjoyed it.

If you like your war films, you could do a lot worse.