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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.131.0.116
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:37 pm:   

Amazingly we went to watch this at the Vue Multiplex today, which is the last place you'd expect to find something like this:

At last a Christmas film for all those of us who can’t stand the thought of the usual modern sugary sentimental claptrap that passes for yuletide cinema these days. A low budget picture from Finland that’s managed to get a wider release than one would have expected, Rare Exports dares to ask the question: Is Santa Claus a cuddly old man on a Coke advert or is he in fact a 60 foot tall Lovecraftian demon who delights in tearing naughty children to pieces leaving shrunken wicker effigies in their beds instead of them, has been buried in ice for centuries, and God help us all if he thaws out?

We’re in Lapland. At the top of a mountain a mining company has discovered that there is a block of ice 60 feet square buried deep in its depths, and they’re being paid to dig it out. Meanwhile our 9 year old hero is convinced this is the burial place of the original Santa Claus, a mythical creature far removed from the kindly fat bearded bloke we’re more familiar with. Via a delicious title sequence we get to see old woodcuts demonstrating just how much more interested this Santa is / was in punishing naughty children than rewarding the good. “He tore the naughty children apart,” says one character “until even their skeletons weren’t left”.

I won’t say much more expect that Santa’s elves are some of the scariest bloody things I’ve seen on the screen all year, and the scene of them besieging a warehouse where ‘Santa’ (who is a bit of a cross between Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness and Tim Curry’s devil from Legend but bloody huge) is being defrosted is one of the scariest film moments I’ve seen in a while. Add to that the fact that our heroes are good old-fashioned reindeer hunters who look like rejects from a Metallica tribute band and a nine year old boy with cardboard taped across his bottom so he doesn’t get spanked and this is one very strange Christmas movie. The freezing locations and sense of dread (a scene of a field of reindeer slaughtered by…something at one point is just plain unnerving) reminded me of Carpenter’s The Thing, but most of all I loved the twisted sentiment – peace on earth and goodwill to all, or Santa will tear your face off. Highly, highly recommended.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 05:42 pm:   

Sounds fantastic.

Me and my new woman will have to check that one out.
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Kate (Kathleen)
Username: Kathleen

Registered: 09-2009
Posted From: 86.131.0.116
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 08:38 pm:   

Looks like no one else has seen it. Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RQlikX4vvw
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.209.220.6
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 09:16 pm:   

They loved this on Film 2010 this week. I have to say, it looks excellent.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.181.12.91
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 10:13 pm:   

Never even heard of this, but that trailer (and, of course, the inestimable Lord & Lady P's multiple thumbs-up) makes this look very tasty indeed.
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.131.0.116
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 10:28 pm:   

Seriously chaps - I think you'll love it!
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.132.248.118
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 10:31 pm:   

I've seen it. Fantastic fun. Like a classic, warped children's story. With added old man dangly bits.
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.131.0.116
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 10:40 pm:   

Oh yes I forgot to mention that. This is probably the Christmas film with the most frontal male nudity ever.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.209.220.6
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 11:52 pm:   

Christmas with male full-frontal nudity goes together like curry and naan bread.

Or is that just in the Bacon household?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Friday, December 03, 2010 - 11:56 pm:   

I've been dying to see this for ages...so glad it gets the Lord and Lady Probert thumbs-up.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 12:42 pm:   

I was thinking this sounds good ... but it's the male full-frontal nudity wot clinched it for me.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.132.248.116
Posted on Saturday, December 04, 2010 - 06:03 pm:   

You may not feel that way after you've seen it, Caroline. :-S
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.68
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 10:22 am:   

Oh no - it's all true!

http://christmasxmas.xanga.com/682902600/item/
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.227.164
Posted on Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - 11:33 am:   

>>>Just rearrange the letters of Santa - and you get - Satan.


A curse on that cunning Satan with his clever wordplay!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.197.179
Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - 11:45 pm:   

Just seen Rare Exports – wonderful. It's like John Carpenter's The Thing set in Moomin Valley: a deeply Scandinavian blend of the mawkish, the comic, the poetic and the weird. Just adorable.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.111.137.29
Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:30 am:   

The Moomins...I'm on board for that.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.176.103.153
Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 12:51 am:   

Isn't Amy a Moomin fan? That may bring her back here!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 04:57 pm:   

This is on in my local arthouse cinema for £3 next Monday... I'll be there and no mistake!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.180.200.78
Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - 12:21 am:   

It's dire! After a great starts it grinds to a halt while also feeling far too rushed at the same time.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.150.44
Posted on Monday, March 04, 2019 - 12:49 am:   

I haven't even heard of this. I'm always amazed by how much human effort goes into films that I've never heard of.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.147.183.89
Posted on Monday, March 04, 2019 - 03:10 pm:   

Yes...it kind of undermines the whole desire to worry about what we create. Maybe that explains a bit of creative moribundity currently going on...
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.19.67.190
Posted on Wednesday, March 06, 2019 - 12:16 am:   

Yes, I find it makes me feel that there isn't an audience for my work. One of the most profound things you said ages ago, one I keep coming back to, is that in the past (I think you were talking about the '70s) there was less of everything.

I'm really enjoying older films on blu ray. HD is a revelation, like we've been watching films through cataracts all this time. I watched (and enjoyed) BABETTE'S FEAST from the '80s and remembered what it was like when there was a more general audience who would go out and see that kind of thing in the cinema. They weren't pandered to. I just figured out why I disliked the '90s so much - it felt like the time when the scales tipped and the idiots took over.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.147.183.89
Posted on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - 12:23 pm:   

Yes, I agree. I think we got too fond of fun films of the eighties. Took them seriously. Which we sort of should, but also shouldn't. I used to go and see arthouse films a lot before my kids came along, or I stopped being on my own. Now I watch more Disney and Pixar films than almost anything else. If I don't, if I watch something more serious, I have to put up with the psychic black hole that is my son sat next to me on his phone for three hours. It does affect things.
I remember once putting a film on while family and friends were round (they all said they wanted to watch it). I looked up to see if they had smiled at some moment that had just happened but found I was alone; they were all looking at their phones. Sad thing is, now I'm the oddball for thinking that was a sad thing.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.150.15
Posted on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - 11:06 pm:   

Yes, this Marvel juggernaut must stop. I'd say we're living in Murdoch's world now (Rupert, not Iris): infantalized, anti-intellectual, post-modern.

This guy gives a fantastic talk about the three parts of the brain a piece of art (especially a film) can pander to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhG3PJPx4Sk
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.150.15
Posted on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 - 11:07 pm:   

Don't be sad, Tony! That's not even a trite thing to say. Try, as much as you can, to see the things around you that make you happy.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.147.183.89
Posted on Thursday, March 14, 2019 - 07:08 am:   

Thanks...
I am glum right now. MY autistic son is 24 and lives here. He has bad hygiene but is very intelligent but also kind of lectures you about things he's said before. He's on Facebook ALL day. I struggle to get him off. It is getting to me. Also, I realised me and my wife never really had much in common. Beliefs, maybe, but nothing fun. Also she has this nature where she opposes what you say quite a lot - I think in a way trying to be healthy (I am quite gloomy), but i do wish she'd moan WITH me sometimes. Sometimes I just need to moan. But I have no friends, and my attitude, when I see them, is to push them even further away for not seeing each other enough. To be honest, all my friends have only been my wife's friends. I wouldn't know them in real life anyway. I find people hard.
This sounds like I'm one of those miserable people who sap out your will to live, and really I'm not. I'm honestly fun to be around. So I've been told. Even my wife says that.

Shit. I read an Anne Tyler book I have in front of the computer to fill the time when it starts up and I've realised all my phrasing and syntax here comes from her. Crazy. Are we really so spongey?
Even that is hers.
(She's a great writer.)
We went to see Ms Marvel - I mean CAPTAIN Marvel yesterday (it bugs me because they've ignored the first Captain Marvel, a man, who was a very nice chap who died of cancer in his human form, and also ignored the 'Ms' Marvel, which was her original title. See? Autism). It was incredibly so-so. I slept and missed a plot turn, though I'd seen it coming anyway. I honestly think if the film vanished/got wiped it'd be like that Mandela effect, in a few years nobody'd notice, just a few who people would laugh down. There are lots of films like that. Read Pauline Kael's old movie review books (nasty as she was her reviews are thoroughly gripping) to read about films you will have trouble finding the existence of now. It's actually really uniquely sad.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.147.80
Posted on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 02:29 am:   

Hmm, if your wife stopped trying to help you and let you just go in the direction you go in emotionally, what would happen? Would it break you out of being locked in a position of opposing each other's world views? Would it give you complete responsibility and control of your own attitude? Just wondering, because I noticed that when people stopped trying to help me and just let me get on with it, because ultimately it is my life, after a wobble I got much better.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.147.80
Posted on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 02:39 am:   

I find it poignant, but also exciting that there can be amazing works of art that we can still discover. I just got into Satyjit Ray - THE LONELY WIFE and THE BIG CITY. While I'm not a philistine (I just watched ROBINSON IN RUINS!) with the best will in the world, I lower my entertainment expectations when watching a black and white subtitled film from the '60s, but both of those Ray filmshave scenes that make me cry every time I see them. They felt like Spielberg to the point that I thought he must have been influenced by Ray (whose camera dollies are Spielbergian). And it turns out there IS an alleged (oblique and controversial) connection through the script for E.T.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.147.80
Posted on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 02:40 am:   

"Sometimes I just need to moan."

If you let yourself do that, and she let you do it too without opposing it, what would happen?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.147.183.89
Posted on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 07:39 am:   

I think I learned a lot during my big bike ride. Just me. But...my wife found me places to stay and would send me messages telling me where I had to find them. Actually, she found one, I found two. But it still helped.
God, the sense of adventure doing that was amazing you know. Three days alone. So many great memories. I was like Hannay in 39 Steps.
I saw a Ray film! Yes, he's excellent. But Spielberg link; Truffaut found him dull, was very verbal about it, and yet Spielberg liked HIM. I have a box set of Rays. Must watch them.

A tree had fallen in the night in a little wood near us during all this wind. Sounds like nothing but was so catastrophic; it has totally blocked a little path I used to get round the wood. You have to walk a slightly different way now. Another fable, of sorts. It will be ok, things happen we can't foresee, and it is tragic. All three things are true.
Ian McShane says the right are only seeming to rise, that they are scared people making a big noise because they know they are actually dying out. I think I agree with him. I love that Lovejoy is wise.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.147.183.89
Posted on Friday, March 15, 2019 - 07:42 am:   

BTW I hate big, heavy moaners. I have met only a few but have been horrified by them. They literally could have solved their problems in the time it TOOK to moan.

Can I say, I'm so glad you dropped back by here. It's so calm, no random outsiders barging in just to shake things up for the sake of it. I feel kind of alive again. And it IS comforting having all that rubble of old conversation around us. I love it. It's ghostly and beautiful.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.132.148
Posted on Monday, March 18, 2019 - 10:14 pm:   

I'll see how I get on with the rest of the Ray's, but 2/2 so far is promising.

Well done on the bike ride! I had a bit of an adventure of my own in Jordan a few years back. It was a group tour but I broke away near nightfall as hiked around Petra, hoping I wouldn't get lost. Lots of dramatic climbing and stuff and I made it. Not my usual scene at all!

Ian McShane on Game of Thrones: “You say the slightest thing and the internet goes ape,” he says. “I was accused of giving the plot away, but I just think get a f---ing life. It’s only tits and dragons."
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.132.148
Posted on Monday, March 18, 2019 - 10:16 pm:   

And thanks, yes, it's a very strange but now comforting environment, now that the echoes of the shouting matches have died away.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.153.107.212
Posted on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - 01:12 pm:   

You mentioned Jordan! Sounded amazing. Seeing a desert is incredible. You feel something inside you defragment.
I get so pretentious. :-(
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.86
Posted on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - 04:05 pm:   

It's a good word!

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