The 'Recommend an obscure film' thread!

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I love Studio Gibli, but didn't really care that much for Grave of the Fireflies. .

It's not part of the ghibli collection in Japan for some reason, it's a warner brothers release. I think one of the other ghibli DVDs has a making of on it though.

BTW has anyone got that comp of ghibli ads and vids? It's well a rip off, not long at all and no ghiblis episode one as hoped. I know we all wanted the museum shorts but it's fair to say that was never going to happen.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

That's fine as well, but what Miyazaki is saying and how he says it is what lifts his films above most animation for me.

Just because you watch his films for the entertainment value alone doesn't mean there isn't more to them.

i don't watch his films for the entertainment value alone and i have had long discution about meaning in certain anime but i do think that meaning without entertainment is pointless and that it is the entertainment value and beuty that makes or breaks a film

but the main point is ... "they deal in metaphors" is not a reason to like or dislike any piece of animation ... some of the best moment of anime i have seen have often just been for the hell of it

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Must be the film and no I don't like the style. I don't think I like clamp at all. I saw the first ep of that chobits thing on line and it was utter shithouse. Crap slow story usual sexual refs for the girlfriendless geeks.

actully i think clamp just like doing "sexy" drawings ... they do a hell of a lot shonen ai and shojou ai stuff as well as the robot girlfreind stuff so it's probably just their style more than a marketing plot

the story isn't that special but the ride isn't bad .... it's more entertainment with a bit of a love story than anything too serious ... in fact i find that clamp tend to concentrate more on the art and bit of human interaction than any main overarcing story

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

actully i think clamp just like doing "sexy" drawings ... they do a hell of a lot shonen ai and shojou ai stuff as well as the robot girlfreind stuff so it's probably just their style more than a marketing plot

the story isn't that special but the ride isn't bad .... it's more entertainment with a bit of a love story than anything too serious ... in fact i find that clamp tend to concentrate more on the art and bit of human interaction than any main overarcing story

I just didn't like it. I'm not overly judgmental on the goddess/robot girl comes out of your tele stuff, but I just found it slow and boring.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

yeah not a lot happens throughout

it's entertianing in a way and it has some laughs but a thrilling rollercoaster ride it is not

 

[Uncle Fester]

The Experiencer & The Moon and the Sledgehammer

Has anyone else seen The Experiencer by Michael Kohler and Brian Helweg-Larsen?

Broadcast when Channel 4 first started and never repeated. No mention on the internet or in film reference books.

A journey through the subconscious - very strange, like a nightmare on film.


Another one of my favourites is the documentary The Moon and the Sledgehammer about a family living in Sussex, no running water, gas or electricity. They run a removals firm and build steam engines and boats.

Filmed in 1971. At the time the film was made, they probably came over as naive and uneducated, but now their observations about the environment and society seem bang up to date and more relevent than ever...

 

[brokenyolk]

i've previously criticised this film on urban, on the grounds that the scene where one of the men has to "put his hand into his dead (mumified) mother's vagina to see whether it's wet or dry, whether he'd get good luck or bad" came across to me as kind of insulting (perhaps amplified by the director's real-life antics as 60's "spoof cult" leader,
and the fact that he *boasted* about how the "rape scene" in El Topo was *real*, and that he scarred the actress for life, etc... ), but on re-watching the film i didn't react the same way at all- perhaps the fact that i last saw it at the tender age of 16 had something to do with it...i didn't bat an eyelid now.
don't care about his IRL preferences at all, as long as his films are good!

I'd stick with your initial reservations on this one - it's such a male film - however I do enjoy it's complete beyond 'out-there' bonkersness.

your fave scenes pale into insignificance for me compared with the frogs and lizards re-enacting the conquest of mexico on the model boat.

 

[DaveCinzano]

The War Game

Whilst we're on the subject of Watkins, is La Commune worth watching?

 

[r0bb0]

Biancanieves - a silent Spanish film based on the story of Snow White. Very lovely movie I watched with a Spanish lady.