Lucem Ferre

Are you sure it's not Chris Christie?

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The Batlord

Chris Christie would be the slug demon.

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Guybrush

Both the movies, comics and Clive Barker do Pinhead a disservice in my opinion. Some years ago, I read the Scarlet Gospel by Clive Barker in which Pinhead is a (very powerful) free agent, more like in the movies. It's fun and gory, but Pinhead is basically just an evil entity after power. His motivations are entirely bland. They do this in the comics too and it's such a cliche.

The hell in Scarlet Gospel is more similar to the Divine comedy variety and features an angelic lucifer rather than the labyrinthine afterlife overseen by Leviathan (which is just a small part of hell or one of several hell realms).

I much preferred the earlier version of Pinhead and the cenobites and the realm they inhabited. I much prefer them in service to something higher than them. Their god, Leviathan, is an enormous geometric construct, entirely unfathomable and so much more original than your angel/demon/monster. The duality of pain/pleasure, this perverted idea that the Leviathan's labyrinth could be a heaven to some, is interesting. It's cool how they parallell the labyrinth to the folds in the human brain. Leviathan creates these cenobites, like the Channard cenobite, for somewhat mysterious reasons that we don't quite understand. This vision altogether felt so much more fresh and orginal than what it evolved into.

So that's my probably unwanted Hellraiser rant

The third movie may be acceptable for the curious who are prepared for the downwards trajectory. We do get the CD player cenobite and the pathetic Pinhead totem, which I guess is unintentionally a bit like the lackluster Stonehenge from Spinal tap. Fourth movie and on, it's free falling.

I liked it a lot! My wife liked it even more and wants to watch The Remains of the Day which is on netflix here.. Another Merchant Ivory movie with similar casting. I'm definitely game, but I need to wait a little while before I try to digest more Thompson / Hopkins love drama

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Something Completely Different

Lucem Ferre

Yeah, they were supposed to explore that much further in the movies but were too afraid of getting completely decimated by the ratings system. Like it was supposed to be a whole lot of bdsm stuff exploring the relationship between pleasure and pain.

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MarianneBritt

Panic Room by Forest Whittaker. May favourite this 2021. Its an old film though.

YorkeDaddy

So the trailer for Marvel’s Shangi Chi came out today and it kind of made me realize that I really like the vibe and style of martial arts films even though I’ve barely seen any. It reminded me a lot of Kill Bill which is an all-time favorite so I want to explore this genre a bit more. I wasn’t even aware that there’s a name for Chinese martial arts films called “Wuxia”. I’m probably gonna start with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which I’ve never seen but is probably the most well known, but I’m wondering if anyone else here is familiar with genre and has some other essentials

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9-Time Winner of MusicBanter's "Most Qualified to be a Moderator" Award

The Batlord

I,m at work right now so can't give a detailed thing but I'm not the biggest fan of the type of martial arts movie Crouching Tiger is (the flying swordsman subgenre) as they rely heavily on special effects and wire stunts a la The Matrix. The two I really do like are Once Upon a Time in China and Hero, both with Jet Li. The former started the genre and has more traditional martial Arts and the latter is just a gorgeous visual feast.

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YorkeDaddy

Good place to start at least, it will be interesting to compare and contrast the styles to see which I like better. I'm not necessarily for or against the flying swordsman style but I imagine a more grounded style will work better for me. We'll see

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9-Time Winner of MusicBanter's "Most Qualified to be a Moderator" Award

The Batlord

Best place to start is relative. If you're curious about the campy old school stuff then Shaw Bros. Studio movies are the standard and you'll basically be playing Find the Wu-Tang Sample. Executioners from Shaolin was my first and still favorite, but 5 Deadly Venoms is great and so is Drunken Master, Jackie Chan's first starring role and way different for what he'd become known for.

For something more modern Bruce Lee is the obvious first step as his movies were at least some of the first to step away from the camp of earlier martial arts movies to something more visceral. He only has a few so that's easy enough but Enter the Dragon is his classic.

After that I'd say Jet Li picked up where he left off. Fists of Fury is amazing and has quite possibly the most bombass fights I've ever seen. Stay away from his American movies as Americans just suck at martial arts fights but Kiss of the Dragon is the exception and ****ing rules.

Tony Jaa is great for more modern stuff. I believe he's a muy Thai fighter which is pretty unique in martial arts movies so you get a lot of high kicks and aerial awesomeness. Ong Bak: Thai Warrior is just brutal and The Protector is a masterpiece but you'll want the Thai version as there's an English dub that's been edited and ruined.

And I'm sure you've at least heard of The Raid but it's possibly the best martial arts movie ever and the fight scenes are bonecrushing.

That's good for now I guess.

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Lucem Ferre

IDK I always considered Drunken Master quintessential Jackie Chan not much different for him than Rush Hour or Rumble in the Bronx.

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