Blockbuster Video's Staff Picks: Movie of the Week Thread 1/31

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Imp Zone > Blockbuster Video > Blockbuster Video's Staff Picks: Movie of the Week Thread 1/31

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

I think a fun idea for this forum would be doing a movie of the week, since movie of the month is too infrequent/you don't need 30 days to discuss a single movie. So im going to post a new thread every Tuesday to kick off the week! Most likely I won't watch the movie until Friday anyway, and people can offer up suggestions and ideas for future weeks. For now Im just going to pick movies i havent seen and were probably going to watch regardless. That said, here's the first Staff Pick:

Cure (1997)

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cinematography by: Noriaki Kikumura
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123948/

From IMDB: "A frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done."

From a review by Tom Mes: "Cure is a horror film in the purest sense of the word; its ability to unsettle the viewer is second to none. In it, Kiyoshi Kurosawa unleashes a shadow. It is the shadow of apocalypse, an apocalypse which is not seen or heard, but sensed. And it's creeping ever closer."

Sounds creepy! Ill have to turn the lights down for this one! Cure is available on Filmstruck and by googling Cure 1997 Torrent.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 01:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 18, 2024 06:40

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

discount cathouse posted:

sounds good OP - i will watch it after i have watched a movie by some skandinavian filmmaker that i need to watch to impress a girl on OKcupid. Namaste.

e: it was Kaurism�ki

I hope the girl is impressed.

I'll be watching this either Thursday or Saturday most likely.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 03:49

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

Srice posted:

I'm gonna stop being lazy and finally start up that Filmstruck trial, for this.

Filmstruck has a pretty good selection, and since I only ever used Hulu for criterion's digital catalogue I just swapped subscriptions.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 22:47

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

Watching this now.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 17:13

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

it was really great, and the ending had me thoroughly chilled. ive got a bunch of screengrabs and gifs ill post later once a few more people have watched it, along with some more thoughts on specific scenes.

but for now ill say that I loved the way hypnosis is channeled via close ups in this movie, where the drastic cuts from the languid long take handheld work that makes up most of the film really mirror the total break from reality it inflicts on sad japanese people. i also just love close ups of natural elements that can't be directed, like they do with dripping water, flickering flames, billowing cigarette smoke, etc. SHots like that are often lent an otherworldly treatment in the form of slow motion and such, and it was cool that that idea and fascination became a element of the narrative as the movie unfolded.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 19:30

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

Utilizing long takes works so well for this story since handheld long take camera work is an accepted short hand for reality and blending that into hallucinatory scenes makes the viewer so unhinged. It was pretty amazing and I hope more people here watch it! I've got some good screen grabs and gifs to share

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 03:47

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

https://webmshare.com/play/nGzMr

https://webmshare.com/play/8yogL

Image Gallery:

http://imgur.com/a/KWlFm

GIF Gallery:

https://imgur.com/a/AQYmf

Edit: I usually use mixtape.moe for hosting WebMs but something's funky right now/I think the website is close to dead so Im having a little trouble finding a good replacement at the moment.

In Training fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Feb 5, 2017

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 23:37

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

This bit in a essay I read today struck out to me because it describes perfectly the central aesthetic choices of Cure:

Siegfried Kracauer posted:

The familiar. Nor do we perceive the familiar. It is not as if we shrank from it, as we do in the case of refuse; we just take it for granted without giving it a thought. Intimate faces, streets we walk day by day, the house we live - all these things are part of us like our skin, and because we know them by heart we do not know them with the eye ...

[Films] alienate our environment in exposing it. One ever-recurrent film scene runs as follows: Two or more people people are conversing with each other. In the middle of their talk the camera, as if entirely indifferent to it, slowly pans through the room, inviting us to watch the faces of the listeners and various furniture pieces in a detached spirit. Whatever this may mean in the given context, it invariably dissolves a well-known total situation and thereby confronts the spectator with isolated phenomena which he previously neglected or overlooked as matter-of-course components of that situation. As the camera pans, curtains become eloquent and eyes tell a story of their own.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2017 21:37

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 18, 2024 06:40

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

New thread can be found here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3809160

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 23:15

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Imp Zone > Blockbuster Video > Blockbuster Video's Staff Picks: Movie of the Week Thread 1/31