kennelco film diary

(1984) dir. Douglas Cheek
viewed: 10/30/08
Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.
Need I say more?  Well, it’s funny but this movie with such a humorously exploitational-sounding title was a common point of reference for jokes for friends and myself in the 1980’s, but to be honest, I don’t think I’d ever seen it.
The film is a little surprising, actually.  [...]

(1961) dir. Jack Clayton
viewed: 10/26/08
An elegant and stylish adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents certainly has a well-earned reputation as on of the better “ghost story” films of the genre.  Shot in black-and-white by cinematographer Freddie Francis, the film uses the lush English country estate very effectively, with an eye [...]

(1979) dir. David Cronenberg
viewed: 10/28/08
As I was watching The Brood, I had several moments of deja vu, but I don’t think that I’d actually seen it before.  Some parts seemed more familiar than others.  It’s early Cronenberg, when he was still obsessed with the body and disease and grotesqueries.  Not necessarily his best, but still [...]

(1978) dir. Brian De Palma
viewed: 10/27/08
I’ve seen quite a few of Brian De Palma’s films over the years, but The Fury wasn’t one of them.  I queued it up as part of my Halloween horror-fest for this year, though it turns out to not be so much a horror film but probably something that dips [...]

(2007) dir. Stuart Gordon
viewed: 10/26/08
From director Stuart Gordon, proud cult filmmaker of such B-moive gems as Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986), comes a horror/thriller flick inspired by one of the most gruesome and inhumane real life events of recent years (and that is saying something).  It’s the story of an assistant in an elder [...]

(1995) dir. Emir Kusturica
viewed: 10/24/08
Epic, grand, funny, and rich, Underground is a fascinating and highly entertaining perspective on the experience and history of Yugoslavia going into and out of WWII, via Communist Party resistance, and into the Cold War and after.  From the opening sequence, the character of this rollicking, almost Surrealist comic film plays [...]

(2008) dir. Louis Leterrier
viewed: 10/22/08
Marvel Comics, which now produces its own films, has hit the cinema hard this year, harder every year, it seems.  But in bringing back The Incredible Hulk, rather than working from its 2003 flop, The Hulk, directed by Ang Lee, they kind of did a re-boot.  Now it’s Edward Norton as [...]

(2007) dir. Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret
viewed: 10/20/08
Jellyfish is an Israeli film, written and do-directed by Shira Geffen and co-directed by her husband, writer Etgar Keret.  It’s not something that I would normally have necessarily stumbled on, but earlier this year I did stumble upon Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), directed by Goran Dukic, which was adapted [...]