Five Foreign Horror Films for Halloween

Rather than do a regular single movie this week, I'm going to re-highlight 5 horror films that have previously been recommended here. Of course, none of these are Hollywood films. The title links for each movie, go to the full writeup I did for it previously. Those also contain links of places to get the movie.

Night Watch
This Russian Film from 2004 is a dark modern fantasy, think Underworld. It's the first film in a trilogy. The second one, Day Watch, is also on DVD in R1. The third film has not yet been filmed.


Gwoemul
Also called The Host, this is a Korean monster film from 2006. This had one of the best looking monster's I've seen on film.


Let the Right One In
This one is from Sweden, and is a downright disturbing film. It may be a love story between a vampire and a human, but it is not like a few things to come out of Hollywood recently. It has also won a lot of awards while it was on the festival circuit.


Dante 01
This is a French film by the same Director as The City of Lost Children. It came out in 2008. It's a space thriller, and has had pretty mixed reviews.


¿Quién puede matar a un niño?
This 1976 Spanish film translates to Who Can Kill a Child? An English couple visit an island and find that there are only crazed children on it.

The Call of Cthulhu

With Halloween coming up, I wanted to highlight the best film adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft film out there.

The Call of Cthulhu is a silent film from 2005. It was filmed as a silent film to mimic the films of the 1920's (when the story was written). It was produced by Sean Brannery and Andrew Leman (who also directed). The film was well received at the many Film Festivals that it attended. The official site has a full list of awards.

Official Synopses:

The Call of Cthulhu is HP Lovecraft's most famous story. It is the only story to feature the celebrated monster Cthulhu and in many ways it encapsulates the ideas that went on to permeated Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The film follows the story's three-part narrative construction, and it moves from the 1920s to 1908 to the1870s and back, as the story does. The story embodies HPL's nihilistic world view, his cosmic perspective, and his sense that mankind is doomed by its own insignificance. And it's a pretty good globe-trotting adventure story.

Spoiler Warning) In the story, a dying professor leaves his great-nephew a collection of documents pertaining to the Cthulhu Cult. The nephew begins to learn why the study of the cult so fascinated his grandfather. Bit-by-bit he begins piecing together the dread implications of his grandfather's inquiries, and soon he takes on investigating the Cthulhu cult as a crusade of his own. As he pieces together the dreadful and disturbing reality of the situation, his own sanity begins to crumble. In the end, he passes the torch to his psychiatrist, who in turn hears Cthulhu's call.

Official Site
imdb
Wikipedia
Youtube
Amazon.com
Netflix

So, I missed a Couple Weeks.

I've been a little bit slack on updates these last 2 weeks because my wife had a baby. A little one named Ivy entered the world on October 8th of 2009. So, I've been pretty distracted lately.

I'm going to go back to the voting mechanic in November. With Halloween coming up, I'm going to do something special for these next two weeks.

No Recommendation Monday October 5th

There won't be a movie recommendation this week. Personal life intervenes. Again, if you want to be a regular contributor where you pick the movie, let me know.

Flammen & Citronen

Flammen & Citronen is a Danish movie from 2008. It was written and directed by Ole Christian Madsen. Lars Anderson also shares writing credit. At a production cost of roughly 46 million kroner, this is one of the most expensive danish movies to be made so far. In addition to winning Best Film at the Zulu Awards, this film won 8 other awards and had 15 nominations on the festival circuit.

Synopsis lifted from official site:

Copenhagen 1944. While the Danish population hopes for a swift end to the war, freedom fighters Bent Faurschou-Hviid (23), a.k.a. Flame and Jorgen Haagen Schmith (33), a.k.a. Citron, secretly put their lives at stake fighting for the Holger Danske resistance group.

The fearless and uncompromising Flame is a confirmed anti-fascist and dreams of the day when the group will assemble and openly launch an armed counterattack at the occupying power. The more sensitive family man, Citron, used to work primarily as a driver for Flame, but now finds himself becoming more deeply involved in the group's work.

When their immediate superior, Aksel Winther, orders them into action against two German Abwehr officers, events start to get out of hand. Flame engages in conversation with the talented and intelligent Colonel Gilbert and for first time, Flame calls the soundness of the order he is about to execute into question. Something feels terribly wrong.

Furthermore, when suspicion turns to his girlfriend, the beautiful and mysterious courier, Ketty, Flame begins to spot the outline of a different and mostly hidden agenda. Can Ketty be trusted? Can Winther? And who really works for whom? While their doubts gnaw at them, Flame and Citron come to feel that they are on shaky ground. Desperate, disillusioned and with a sense of having been betrayed by their superiors, they decide only to trust each other and concentrate their efforts on getting to the much hated and feared chief of the Gestapo, Hoffmann.

The film is based on actual events and eyewitness accounts from some of the people who experienced Bent Faurschou-Hviid ("Flame") and Jorgen Haagen Schmith ("Citron") at very close range.

The DVD for this movie has not yet been released in Region 1. It is out there if you want to try the more nefarious ways to obtain it.

imdb
Wikipedia
official site (has trailer with subtitles)
Netflix

Something New

I think the big flaw of having polls for this site, is that to really vote, a person has to watch four or five trailers and select the best one based on that. It is also entirely possible that people are picking based on the Title of the movie, or voting for ones they've seen before. I think this committee process is a bit flawed and doesn't serve well the purpose of the site.

Here's what we're going to try. Each week, the movie selection will be turned over to one person. I'll rotate through contributors so that everyone who is interested gets a chance. If you're interested in contributing, then shoot me an email with your email address. If you have submitted a movie in the past that you think was overlooked in the voting process, and really should be seen, then let me know, and I'll put you in the rotation.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2004)

This week, we're featuring I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. It's a British film from 2004 that was directed by Mike Hodges. For those of you unfamiliar, Mike Hodges also directed Croupier and Get Carter.

Plot Description lifted from Wikipedia:

Academy Award nominee Clive Owen stars as Will Graham, a former London crime boss who has left his former life to live as a recluse in the forest. Haunted by the blood of those he has murdered, Will wishes never to return. But when his brother (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) commits suicide, following a sexual assault at the hands of a volatile car dealer (Malcolm McDowell), Will returns to London to discover the cause of his brother's death and administer justice to those responsible. There he must also face old enemies and a former love, Helen (Charlotte Rampling).

Just a quick warning, this movie does depict a scene of rape. If you're sensitive to that, you may want to skip this one.

imdb
Wikipedia
Trailer Addict
Amazon.com with unbox option
Netflix

No Poll for Sept 28th

There is no poll for the movie choice for Sept 28th. I have something else in mind.

Banilieu 13

This week's recommendation was recommended by Draug. He actually recommended a whole pile of them back in June, I just missed getting them in until recently. This film is a French action film called Banilieu 13 (or District B13). It was Directed by Pierre Morel, and was written/produced by Luc Besson. This isn't really an award winning movie. It's trailer did win a Golden Trailer award for Best Foreign Action Trailer. Don't expect fantastic plot, watch this movie for the stunts and the action. Some critics have compared it to Tony Jaa's Ong Bak.

Synopsis lifted from Rotten Tomatoes:

Both of the leads in the French action flick DISTRICT B13 practice parkour, a kind of urban gymnastics that looks a little like skateboarding without the skateboard, and the pleasure of this short... Both of the leads in the French action flick DISTRICT B13 practice parkour, a kind of urban gymnastics that looks a little like skateboarding without the skateboard, and the pleasure of this short frenetic film is watching the two lithe heroes leap through windows, run up walls, and jump off buildings. Like Jackie Chan, Cyril Raffaelli, and David Belle, both stuntmen-turned-leading-men perform their own acrobatic martial arts sans special effects or invisible wires, and the lo-fi fight sequences pack a gritty punch that is often missing in slick Hollywood fare. The plot involves a futuristic France where the worst ghettos have been walled off from the rest of society, their schools shut down, and the police force evacuated. The people in power simply want to ignore the plight of the disenfranchised, but this becomes difficult to do when the most notorious gang, led by the wild-eyed Taha (Bibi Naceri), gets its hands on a nuclear warhead and proceeds to demand a 20-million-Euro ransom, with the city of Paris as its hostage. Enter Damien (Raffaelli), a one-man police strike force, who has 24 hours to disarm the missile. To help him navigate the war zone of District B13, he springs a vigilante antihero, Leito (Belle), from jail. Leito has personal reasons for taking down the crime lord: Taha has turned Leito's adolescent sister into his junkie pet. As the ultra-athletic duo go up against Taha's gangster army, they repeatedly (and conveniently) lose their guns, and are forced to improvise, thrashing goons with steering wheels, cinder blocks, and their foreheads. The screenplay (written by Luc Besson, director of LA FEMME NIKITA) and the blunt political critique are a bit heavy-handed, but obviously that's beside the point. Lovers of action flicks could ignore the English subtitles completely and still relish the hyperkinetic beauty of the whip-quick combat.

imdb
Wikipedia
Trailer on Youtube
Rotten Tomatoes 80%
Netflix (with instant)
Amazon.com (with on demand)

My Winnipeg [trailer]
Flammen & Citronen [trailer]
Tesis [trailer]
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead [trailer]
Mýrin [trailer]

Nói Albinói

I'll let Iceland Bob introduce this movie:

Nói Albinói (eng: Noi the Albino) Directed by Dagur Kári and Starring Tómas Lemarquis. the film is about Nói (Le Marquis) a 17 year old who lives with his Dad and Grandmother in a remote fishing village in Iceland. He is different form the others in that he is both albino and Bald. He is also very intelligent but bored out of his skull. All Nói wants to do is escape the village to see the world but can´t seem to get out of a Rut. that is until a young girl arrives from Reykjavik. Can Nói get both the girl and the freedom he craves?...

The film was released in Iceland in February of 2003. It recieved 20 awards and 12 nominations at various film festivals. The full list is on imdb.

imdb
Wikipedia
trailer
Netflix
Amazon

Movie Selection for Sept 14th

Banlieue 13 [trailer]
Kidô Keisatsu Patorebâ: The Movie [trailer]
Repo the Genetic Opera [trailer]
The Queit Earth [trailer]

Time After Time (1979)

"H.G. Wells Races Through Time To Catch Jack The Ripper!"

Time After Time is a 1979 American Sci-Fi film. Written and directed by Nicholas Meyer, it stars Malcom McDowell as H.G. Wells, and David Warner as Jack the Ripper. Nicolas Meyer also directed what are arguably the two best Star Trek Films (II and VI).

Time After Time won 5 awards and was nominated for an additional 7. (full list) The day that this post goes live is the 30th anniversary of it's release to American Cinema.

imdb
Wikipedia
NY Times review from 1979
Netflix (includes instant watch)
Amazon.com

Poll for September 6th

Tesis [trailer]
El Día de la Bestia [trailer]
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead [trailer]
Nói Albinói [trailer]
Leningrad Cowboys Go America [clip]

Diva (1981)

Our movie this week is a French film, Diva. It was directed by Jean-Jaques Beineix, and is based on a novel of the same name by Daniel Odier. The film did not do well, when it was released in France, but the American release saw success. The film eventually won four awards at the César Awards (national film award of France.)

It was re-released to American theaters in November 2007, and has been touring the country ever since. I could not find a listing online of when and where it is showing, so you'll have to keep an eye on your local indie movie theater. You might even try calling the box office to see if it's coming any time soon before renting/purchasing this.

I lifted the summary for this one from IMDB.

Young Parisian mail courier is content with his bohemian lifestyle, his circle of friends and listening to opera, particularly one exceptional American diva who refuses to be recorded. So enamored with her, he makes an illegal tape of her at a concert. But when the tape is confused with one implicating a police chief with the mob, he must use all his ingenuity to survive. Particularly notable for its stylish New-Wave production values and extended motorcycle chase scene. Written by Stewart M. Clamen {clamen@cs.cmu.edu}

imdb
Wikipedia
official site
trailer on Rialto Pictures' site
Amazon.com
(not available on Netflix)