Saw these few over the weekend:-

Santa Sangre

Have seen this before yoinks ago. Loved it absolutely last time. Now that I have the hindsight of watching other Jodorowsky films, perhaps some comparisons can be made. Santa Sangre is probably the most straightforward Jodorowsky movie, with a linear plot and bereft of overkill surrealism and has few Christian images. As it's a collab with Claudio Argento, Dario's brother, it also uses similar motifs from Dario's work, making it into a kinda splatterhouse arthouse mix. Jodorowosky still has a fixation with the gruesome and the deformed, and some images here are still pretty baroque. It has lovely salsa music also, although the entire film is not as feverish as The Holy Mountain or as rife with Christian symbolism as El Topo. Contains an amusing interview with the Man also.

Jubilee

Got this in a two-fer with Sebastiane. Thought might just as well give Jarman a try but this is a pretty limp-wristed portrayal of the punk explosion, probably due to the effette acts featured, more than anything. The characters are mostly shot verite. The time travel portions with Queen Elizabeth 1 has some pretentious goobledygook which sounds poetic sometimes (but only sometimes). The performances are vacuous, with early Adam and the Ants (before the burundi beats), Toyah Willcox (boring) and Wayne County (ok-ish but performed karaoke). The only bit interesting musically is the synth-poppish "Rule Brittania" by Jordan which mocks the vulgarity of nationalism. An anarchic future where there's not much anarchy. And the open T-Shirt by Vivienne Westwood (mocking this film) just shows that despite what punk is about, it was still rife with homophobia and racism.

Sebastiane

A bloody gay movie. Supposed to be factual and free of hagiography, this is just a romp of well-oiled male bodies and homo desires under the hot sun. Shows nothing of the epiphany that made Sebastian a Catholic Saint, but instead just concentrates on rebuked lust and repressed longing. Thought it was gonna be full of the striking images as in the first few minutes but non.....

Dracula (1931)

Surprisingly entertaining. There's a constant eerie silence in most of the scenes, which gives an unsettling creepy feel to the entire movie. Bela Lugosi plays it straight and gives off an intense and effective performance. I'd still wager it is outshined by Nosferatu, as this neither had its vibes or atmosphere. Tod Browning's Freaks is the better movie, I would think. Contains the Spanish version as well, which is generally regarded as technically superior, with its tracking shots and better special effects.

The Ten Commandments (CGI animated movie)

About identical to the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille epic, trimmed down and simplified. Contains similar dialogue in some scenes. The graphics aren't that good, looking rather blocky and not very life-like. In fact, they looks like cutscenes from a PSX game. And this was done in 2007. Way way behind the times. If you can't up the ante on that epic movie, why bother anyway? I had more fun with the more traditionally animated "Prince of Egypt". Still, Exodus is one of the most interesting Biblical stories.