The Foreign Language (Non-Hollywood) Movies Thread: Seen any good ones lately?

[valance_the_hunter]

Le Cercle Rouge is a masterpiece 

No doubt…that was an engrossing couple hours.

It's great that they have so many of Melville's movies on instant watch, next on my list is Bob Le Flambeur.

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

Saw a few mins of The Bothersome Man last night and what I saw was kinds creepy but I liked it. I recorded it so I'll try to watch the rest tonight.

Finally saw this in full. Holy shit, that was a pretty good Twilight Zone type movie. It doesn't really give you much though in the way of explaining what the eff was happening. It's up to you to attach some sort of meaning to it all.

The guy getting repeatedly run over by the train was fucking brutal. But he just won't die!

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

Been a while since I posted on this thread.

I saw Memories of Murder recently and that's a cracker of a movie. By the end I was devastated. Good stuff.

I also watched Tell No One not too long ago. It was apparently Michael Caine's fave movie of 2006. It wasn't bad but movie of the year? C'mon son! Step Up came out in 2006, did he not see that?

I think there were a couple more but my mind is blanking out at the moment.

A Town Called Panic - An absolutely hilarious little bit of business that's pretty hard to capsulize, but I'll try... Horse, Cowboy and Indian live together in a house.  It's Horse's birthday, but Cowboy and Indian have forgotten all about it.  They decide to build Horse a barbecue pit, but they don't have enough bricks.  So they attempt to order 50 bricks through Briquenet.com and inadvertently order 50 million bricks, and from there, hijinks ensue.  This is a French language stop-motion animated film that's just absolutely insane, but entirely watchable and re-watchable.  I've already seen it twice in the last week and I hope to see it again soon.

Saw this a while ago. Soooo much fun! I wanna watch it again.

[john_k]

Summer Hours is the best foreign language film I've seen in a while. A look at the Americanization of a French family as their matriarch prepares to pass and the horror of modern life geographically pulls the family apart. Heirlooms are appraised, facades are erected, and stories fade away. High recommendation and it's streaming on Netflix.

I checked out Norwegian Wood and thought it was a stinker. It felt like a clumsy mumblecore attempt. The scenes, actors, costumes, and cinematography were lovely- but the characters came across as melodramatic, dumb, and unsympathetic. The sex scenes were nearly as jarring and clumsy as in the Watchmen movie.

[Jeppe]

I checked out Norwegian Wood and thought it was a stinker. It felt like a clumsy mumblecore attempt. The scenes, actors, costumes, and cinematography were lovely- but the characters came across as melodramatic, dumb, and unsympathetic. The sex scenes were nearly as jarring and clumsy as in the Watchmen movie.

Have you read the book? If you had, how did the movie compare to it? 

[john_k]

Have you read the book? If you had, how did the movie compare to it? 

I didn't read it; my wife read a Mandarin translation. She thought the movie was a terrible interpretation of the book and was quite disappointed. I'm judging it only as a movie.

There are a few undefined fixtures in the background (student protests) that I was really drawn to but they exist only as set dressings.

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

I saw The Raid (or The Raid: Redemption) last week. Fun ass Indonesian action movie. I'd like to see more, I think they might do another.

We won tickets to The King of Pigs at the Sydney Film Festival so we saw that last night. It's a Korean animated movie. What a F'ing dark movie that is. I feel bad for any couples who went to that screening as their first date.

[the other mike]

I saw The Raid (or The Raid: Redemption) last week. Fun ass Indonesian action movie. I'd like to see more, I think they might do another.

We won tickets to The King of Pigs at the Sydney Film Festival so we saw that last night. It's a Korean animated movie. What a F'ing dark movie that is. I feel bad for any couples who went to that screening as their first date.

if you like the raid,  the director and the lead actor did an earlier movie called merantau (available on netflix instant). it's plot is more like ong bak; country boy visits city in search of something and kicks many asses along the way. its beautifully shot, but the martial arts aren't as distinctive as raid or ong bak. still worth your while to see, IMO.

i still say you guys should see war of arrows (also on netflix), if you can. you'll agree a hawkeye movie can be frikkin' great if you put your mind to it.

also watched cell 211 (aka celda 211). a prison movie set in spain. its about juan, a prison guard on his first  day on the job. a freak accident knocks him out, and when he wakes up he finds that he's in te middle of a full blown prison riot. in order to survive, he need to pretend he's a convict too. really gripping, really suspenseful. available on netflix but only as a DVD.


-mike

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

if you like the raid,  the director and the lead actor did an earlier movie called merantau (available on netflix instant). it's plot is more like ong bak; country boy visits city in search of something and kicks many asses along the way. its beautifully shot, but the martial arts aren't as distinctive as raid or ong bak. still worth your while to see, IMO.

Sounds good, thanks! I'll have to check it out. Same with War of Arrows and Celda 211.

[Koete]

I'm spending the month going through (almost) the entire filmography of Akira Kurosawa, one film a day.

[Ryan 'gobo' C.]

I've been devouring them at Fantasia this year, so far the highlights are

Juan of the Dead
Space Battleship Yamato
The Kick
Wrinkles

I've got high hopes for Love in the Buff (seeing that tomorrow), since it's the sequel to the awesome Love in a Puff.

[the other mike]

I've been devouring them at Fantasia this year, so far the highlights are

Juan of the Dead
Space Battleship Yamato
The Kick
Wrinkles

I've got high hopes for Love in the Buff (seeing that tomorrow), since it's the sequel to the awesome Love in a Puff.

how'd ya like yamato? i really, really liked it! the sight of a 'real' yamato firing the wave motion gun is a sight to behold.
i thought the last sequence in the planet isn't as good as the rest of the movie.
a
i also think those leather jackets are the shit!


-mike

[Ryan 'gobo' C.]

It was awesome, some of the best space battles I've ever seen!

[Jeppe]

Last night I saw Miike's Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai. It was beautiful and low-key, but oh so relentlessly depressing.

[leafinsectman (Dan)]

It was awesome, some of the best space battles I've ever seen!

I've seen about 10 mins of it. I needs it!

[Ryan 'gobo' C.]

Love in the Buff was fantastic, if you can see Love in a Puff and Love in the Buff do so. Great series of movies.