Movies you've just watched

[BIL]

Rewatched the four REC films, now that the series is hopefully done.

REC (2007) Raw power minimally refined. Blunt, terrifying contagion horror with videogamey conciseness and escalation. Reaches seizure pitch before plunging into a nightmare on film. Easily worth its ~70min runtime unless you violently despise found footage. Best of the series by some distance on account of sheer intensity and simplicity.

REC 2 (2009) Despite my aversion to direct horror sequels, I appreciate this one a lot more now. The edge is gone, but it adds some borderline-surreal wrinkles to the scenario its direct sequel REC 4 sadly ignored totally. Great performance by the priest dude - I knew he couldn't be anything but a native English speaker with his blistering delivery of the movie's best line.

"NOOOOOO! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

REC 3 (2012) Apparently people hate this for ditching the found footage, or some shit. I wasn't keen on it at the time for the same reason I like it more now: it's a turbocharged Demons fan film, and it knows it. Despite its popular billing as "horror comedy" it is, like Demons, mercilessly cruel and does its formidable inspiration one better by having protagonists worth caring about.

Good-looking movie, with a couple of stunningly beautiful shots. One, an almost ethereal reunion in a rainstorm, is not only visually splendid but an impressively vital, moving take on the ancient "zomg, its my former loved one as zombie" standard.

REC 4 (2014) Hoo boy, this one took a dive in hindsight. Random zombie flick on a boat. Precious little in common with its categorically superior direct predecessors or the third's bracing departure, and with nothing of interest to contribute. It does at least keep the tradition of lean runtime. Monster effects have vigour, and it's hardly the worst horror sequel (or horror movie), but after the series' blistering start, mediocrity almost seems a fate worse than shit.

FINAL SCORE: like every horror series ever, the original is better read as stand-alone. But the second and third films acquit themselves pretty well, and the utter nadir of the fourth is still at least watchable. After 3's sensible change of venue, I wish the series finale would've returned to the powerfully channeling setting of el edificio and developed the reality-tampering bent started in the second film.

Return of the living Dead - so awesome I watched it twice in two days.

Word word. Kind of movie you want to rewatch before it's even over. Masterfully irreverent yet terrorising horror comedy with an impeccable soundtrack.

Did you ever convince that friend of yours to check it out? ^_~

[system11]

I actually watched this a couple of months ago - Arrowstorm put out a fantasy film called Mythica which was Kickstarter backed (I picked up the BR release). While they use Kevin Sorbo as an advert, he's really just a cameo and instead you end up following the store of four adventures played by an unknown but likeable and capable cast. The effects were in places not great given the budget (camera angles used to keep things off screen for example), in others surprising given the budget, overall I found the film much better than expected.

It's the first part in a trilogy, I mention it now because they're running the Kickstarter to fund production of part 2.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ar ... evin-sorbo

[Skykid]

Return of the living Dead - so awesome I watched it twice in two days.

Word word. Kind of movie you want to rewatch before it's even over. Masterfully irreverent yet terrorising horror comedy with an impeccable soundtrack.

Did you ever convince that friend of yours to check it out? ^_~

Yes, she watched the day 2 repeat and enjoyed it, but kept telling me it was genuinely scary rather than funny. The cultural rift means she can't identify subtle humour, I've found - it needs to be really obvious like Slither (almost slapstick basically).

So the likes of "send more paramedics" was lost unfortunately.

For me it was a wonderful zombie revelation. Brilliantly made by O'Bannon; regularly hilarious, all 80s fun and a very interesting cast. The opening credits tracking shot in the meat locker is amazing too.

Shortly after I watched the feature length 'making of' on youtube. Some of those guys have aged well.

[Skykid]

An American Werewolf in London... Again.

Landis' best piece of work, still the archetype for a perfect tightrope walk between humour and fear, to the point where it's almost a sole definition - there is no other movie that strikes the balance with such perfect subtlety, although interestingly Joe Dante came almost as close with The Howling.

Watching this always reminds me of yet another Roger Ebert high profile blunder. Unquestionably the most overrated film critic in the history of the arts.

[drauch]

Yeah, agree that it's his best work by far. Love Return of the Living Dead too, of course. I enjoy the second one quite a bit as well. It's certainly not as good, but still fun.

...and yeah, Ebert sucks. He holds quite a high opinion of himself and many of his reviews seem completely arbitrary and almost contradictory towards some of his others. Can't believe the dude at one point helped write sexploitation/comedy films with Russ Meyer, yet shits all over anything else similar; hell, he probably condones that stuff now, even. Sometimes he can write excellent reviews that come from the heart of a film fanatic, yet other times it's some of the most pretentious drivel I've ever read. Well, he's still loads more tolerable than Leonard Maltin with his team of ghost writers.

[Skykid]

Yeah, agree that it's his best work by far. Love Return of the Living Dead too, of course. I enjoy the second one quite a bit as well. It's certainly not as good, but still fun.

...and yeah, Ebert sucks. He holds quite a high opinion of himself and many of his reviews seem completely arbitrary and almost contradictory towards some of his others. Can't believe the dude at one point helped write sexploitation/comedy films with Russ Meyer, yet shits all over anything else similar; hell, he probably condones that stuff now, even. Sometimes he can write excellent reviews that come from the heart of a film fanatic, yet other times it's some of the most pretentious drivel I've ever read. Well, he's still loads more tolerable than Leonard Maltin with his team of ghost writers.

Hey Drauch, happy to be back talking film with you again.

Well Ebert's dead so I doubt he condones anything these days. Nothing against the man, but I spoke about him the same when he was alive as I do posthumously: I find the majority of his reviews to have either misunderstood the work or lauded praise on utter trash. Not entirely educated then, but perhaps that typifies the movie going masses he was catering to.

I'll have to get on ROTLD2, forgot about that.

[drauch]

Indeed! Welcome back to the land of the living.

Hahaha, don't know why I wrote all that in the present tense. Didn't even notice. One of my "favorite" things he wrote was in regards to Lynch's Blue Velvet, criticizing Lynch as being a misogynist and a horrible director for Isabella Rosselini's part: "degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film"

There's a video of it where Siskel confronts him and basically says he's an idiot that didn't understand the movie, and that she is a paid actress, not a forced slave. What a goober.

[Skykid]

Indeed! Welcome back to the land of the living.

Hahaha, don't know why I wrote all that in the present tense. Didn't even notice. One of my "favorite" things he wrote was in regards to Lynch's Blue Velvet, criticizing Lynch as being a misogynist and a horrible director for Isabella Rosselini's part: "degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film"

There's a video of it where Siskel confronts him and basically says he's an idiot that didn't understand the movie, and that she is a paid actress, not a forced slave. What a goober.

Lol wow, that's one Ebert boob that went over my radar... Possibly his most calamitous too. Blue Velvet is probably my favourite Lynch movie.

[Vexorg]

Furious 7: ****

After watching a number of movies in this series, I've come to the conclusion that the protagonists in these films are superheroes whose power happens to be an infinite supply of cars. The main issue this series has is that it's gotten so over-the-top that they have to keep coming up with more and more ridiculous stuff in every film. It's a pretty standard formula by now: Throwaway plot, generic villain with a big-name actor, lots of cars, and about three or four big and increasingly ridiculous action set pieces. Overall I enjoyed it, but much like some of the other films in the series I thought they had a bit too much downtime in between the action scenes that could have been trimmed. Is'a pretty standard turn-off-your-brain-and-enjoy-it flick. Looking forward to seeing it again when it comes out on home video so me and my Fiancee can snark about all the ridiculousness.

[lilmanjs]

Voice of a Murderer
I really was hoping this would end like Jackie Chan's movie Crime Story where you got a happy ending, but instead nope. Kid is kidnapped and the phone calls start later that night with ransom demands, and other things. Wife calls police, and then things spiral out of control. Based on a true story I was hoping that they'd take a little liberty for the ending but didn't. I have no clue if they've found the guy as they mention he's still walking free and time has run out on legally prosecuting him. Mind you this is back in 2007, but still such a sad movie.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Blanche (1971) (not to be confused with the 2002 French movie of the same title). That's one pre-exploitation Borowczyk picture and, despite all of its shortcomings (such as barely existent music), pessimistically cruel at that.
Doesn't matter if whoever acted as Blanche



was wooden beyond belief (I mean, the English dialogue in The Beast was porny, but THIS takes the cake). It's one must -see movie for... a certain kind of a viewer.

[Skykid]

Paul

Actually surprisingly entertaining for a movie that uses a tag team duo synonymous with director Edgar Wright and copycats his style to some degree. Movie references abound, and often pretty funny.

Dead Heat

I don't know if I should feel guilty for getting some enjoyment out of this, but it happened. Most of the jokes fall kind of flat and the delivery is misjudged, but... reanimated zombie criminals being fought by reanimated zombie cop with a 12 hour window before his skin rots off and a firm tongue in cheek angle certainly has some win.

Literally worth it for the scene where two zombies machine gun each other almost at point blank range and just soak up the bullets. It was like A Better Tomorrow Part 2 on acid.

[GaijinPunch]

Withnail and I

Everyone should see this. I have Danny now, when Super Hans needs a day off. That movie made me almost as happy as seeing Skykid post in OT again.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Whitnail and I is tainted by the off-screen narration (as is any other movie cutting corners this way). I could stand it in The Sexual Life of the Belgians, where it was generic (wildlife film), but usually it's a major fly in the ointment.

[GaijinPunch]

"You can't bring a good man down."
-Flavor Flav

I could live w/ the narration.

[Skykid]

Withnail and I is perfect.

Furious 7

Nah.

Disappointing. I admit to the F&F series being something of a guilty pleasure. I know all that's bad, but I got something out of the tits, ass and fast cars to a hip hop beat in episodes 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 - with 5 being the best.

This one just went wrong. Some of the stunts are incredible, especially considering no CG for the majority, and it's even got Tony Jaa. But it completely misfires everywhere else.

The characters are poorly defined, mainly because they lack proper interaction with each other. Diesel is basically a loner: he's either on his own chasing Jason Statham the whole time - who's as fucking rubbish as ever, incidentally - or saying sweet things to an ageing Michelle Rodriguez. Paul Walker barely has any dialogue with him, which makes the heartfelt ending less convincing. The dialogue generally is embarrassing, cringeworthy.

The plot is a mess: it's a stupid plot with another random other plot shoehorned in the middle that introduces several useless characters who do nothing except but detract from the screentime meant to be dedicated to the existing cast. It's impossible to follow, but at the same time there's nothing to follow.

The action is ridiculous by the end. It was so cut cut explosive my mind kept wandering and I needed to keep reminding myself "oh yeah, I'm watching a movie. Should probably try to keep at it."

But really there is very little to see. It's become just a completely generic, totally unremarkable action movie, like all the rest, a blur of cuts and noise. I wasn't feeling cars, cast, or audio. There were a few hot asses in there though.

The main thing I was thinking the whole time is why Kurt Russell isn't in more movies.

[system11]

"The Pyramid" - 2014

Some archeologists discover a strange 3 sided pyramid mostly buried while on a dig, and obviously they end up going inside, like fools. Given the small cast I thought this was pretty effective even if some of the acting was a bit suspect. Drags for a bit in a couple of places but the latter half of the film really delivers in the 'simple entertaining horror' department and honestly I think saving the FX money for that part was definitely the right thing to do because you get a good look at what's lurking down there in the end.

I don't really want to say more because part of the plot was quite interesting, definitely a new idea.

[options]

Prometheus

decided to watch this after hearing my Aliens franchise-loving coworker rant about it every time we talk movies. now I understand his frustration.

but even aside from its failure as a prequel to the originals, it's bad all by itself. none of the characters were memorable or care-worthy (especially since people we're supposed to believe are experts in their respective scientific fields turn into idiots at the first sign of trouble.) that, and the pacing of the whole film just seemed ...off. particularly disappointing when that was one of the 1st Alien's strongest points.

so apparently they're making a sequel to this and an Alien 5?

----

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

basically Scientology through the eyes of ex-members who've managed to escape its grasp (sometimes literally). just as creepy and bizarre as you would expect. good watch.

[GaijinPunch]

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
basically Scientology through the eyes of ex-members who've managed to escape its grasp (sometimes literally). just as creepy and bizarre as you would expect. good watch.

This one reminds me I need to weep for humanity on a regular basis.

[Skykid]

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
basically Scientology through the eyes of ex-members who've managed to escape its grasp (sometimes literally). just as creepy and bizarre as you would expect. good watch.

This one reminds me I need to weep for humanity on a regular basis.

I met an American guy here who saved me having to watch such a movie. Scientology took hold of his mother and ruined his life. He was really like a prisoner undergoing hardcore brainwashing. I couldn't believe his story, it was stranger than fiction: like a bleak sci-fi dystopia.

Scary stuff.


Evolution

Haven't seen this in a long time. Ivan Reitman knows comedy well enough to make this entertaining, and the three-tier team up of Duchovny, Orlando Jones (who basically owns the movie with his constant womanising and self-referential racism) and Sean William Scott is likeable and nicely balanced.

Only problem with this movie is the same I identified first time around: the pacing is weird. It has everything it needs, but still seems to end really abruptly. The finale doesn't seem like the finale for some reason - but it is. And that Head & Shoulders ad at the end... what were they thinking?

Snatch

No idea why I watched this again. Curiosity maybe. Still entertaining, although elements have dated slightly from the post-decade 90s 'cool' it once weilded. As capers go, it's still very engaging, if some of the dialogue is a little overbaked and forced (Vinny Jones comparing guns to cocks and talking about precipitating ballsacks is really cringeworthy) but mostly it's good fun. The black trio who rob the bookies are still the best of the bunch, since their discourse is always so amusing.

"Too tight? You could land a fucking jumbo jet in there!"

This and Lock Stock remains the only films where Jason Statham is passable (passable I said - still can't act for shit) because he's in his element as a hairy East End underworld goon... cos that's what he is.

[neorichieb1971]

Glad you watched ROTLD Skykid. It was me who suggested it remember based on your criteria. I am planning a ROTLD movie night sometime soon just to introduce it to more people. Strangely it doesn't get any air time on TV like most other movies do.

Another one of my fetishes is "The people under the stairs". It too has a comedic value and shouldn't be taken seriously. I thought it was well done.

[Skykid]

The People Under The Stairs - bam, that's the one to watch tonight! Haven't seen that in ages. Gimp gear and a Terminator laser sight.

[emphatic]

The People Under The Stairs - bam, that's the one to watch tonight! Haven't seen that in ages. Gimp gear and a Terminator laser sight.

That's a cool movie, all right.

[GaijinPunch]

Well Ebert's dead so I doubt he condones anything these days. Nothing against the man, but I spoke about him the same when he was alive as I do posthumously: I find the majority of his reviews to have either misunderstood the work or lauded praise on utter trash. Not entirely educated then, but perhaps that typifies the movie going masses he was catering to.

I walk in front of the Chicago Theater Monday through Friday to get to the nearby Divvy bike station, and see the star on the sidewalk devoted to him on each trip. And on each trip, Skykid pops into my head. Do have a depressing existence or what?

[Skykid]

I can't believe they gave him a star.

[Xyga]

Never seen Legend so I though I'd go directly with the DC since it's supposed to be the 'right' version.

But is it even worth the 15~20 bucks the BR is going for ?

No VOD here...

[Mischief Maker]

I actually prefer the theatrical cut of Legend.

The plot (such as it is) makes more sense in the DC, but all due respect to Jerry Goldsmith, the Tangerine Dreams soundtrack of the theatrical cut makes for a more dreamlike experience, which is the best way to approach such a trifle of a film.

[Xyga]

I actually prefer the theatrical cut of Legend.

The plot (such as it is) makes more sense in the DC, but all due respect to Jerry Goldsmith, the Tangerine Dreams soundtrack of the theatrical cut makes for a more dreamlike experience, which is the best way to approach such a trifle of a film.

Dunno, I saw Ladyhawke some time ago and I was facepalming violently at every scene with the cheesy synth, which IMO make the film worse.
80's fantasy is all about cheese I know, still...

[GaijinPunch]

I didn't know Tangerine Dream did the soundtrack. So they actually took it out of the Director's Cut?

[Mischief Maker]

I didn't know Tangerine Dream did the soundtrack. So they actually took it out of the Director's Cut?

Yeah, the original score was by Goldsmith and they put that back in the DC.

Ladyhawke's score was just awful, synth or no synth.