What movie did you watch today?

[Comedy Quaddafi]

LOL.

Is the movie May any good?

[Spartan]

May is basically Excision with a more likeable and sympathetic protagonist.

[Y@k Bollocks]

Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I remember when they showed all of them on TV in the 80s and I watched that one and was all...





Decent. Wasn't as blown away by Gyllenhaal's performance as I was with Nightcrawler. Interesting movie though. Based on the Jose Saramago book about the guy who spots his exact double in a film so tracks him down.



Thriller about a corrupt police force in Australia. Looks amazing. A little down by some pretty poor acting, but worth a look.

What else... Lose track of what I have seen and whether or not i've posted about them. Watched recently and loved Her, Birdman, The Rover and Joe.

[zombie]

havent kept up with this topic

watched John Wick and it actually was pretty sick.

not sure what to watch next. I need to watch Gone Girl but I keep putting it off..

[Spartan]

88 | 2015


Another traumatised woman flick for Canadian scream queen Katharine Isabelle that pays tribute to the likes of Memento and The Long Kiss Goodnight and infinitely shittier. The film doesn't unfold in any real chronological order and if it did, it would have displayed a lot quicker how insipid this film really was. Isabelle is a good actress and great eye candy, but there are only so many shots of her brooding and puffing on a cigarette before she becomes tiresome. Christopher Lloyd plays the psycho crime boss and pretty much steals every scene in this movie, but he's hardly in full swing until the very end. That is the best part in the entire film and highlights the potential of what could have been a good small-town crime drama instead of a very poor and ineptly made grindhouse action flick.

A Blade in the Dark | 1983
Decided to revist Lamberto Bava's celebrated neo-giallo after finding myself liking Until Death , and I've got to admit I might have been a little too harsh on this film in the past. Lots of nice Argento-esque scenes in the first half which reminded me of Tenebre. It's still far too long and needs to be cut by about twenty minutes and nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is. I did find it enjoyable this time around, though.

[alpha]

Brick Mansions(2014)- so this is a remake of District B13, if you didn't know. I didn't. Compared to the original the choreography is better. The plot and scenes are almost exactly the same. The dialogue sucks and the Rza is a terrible fucking actor. If you liked the orignal this is worth a watch. This could've been a lot better. Paul Walker does his thing in this movie, and had it been done right he could've been a real action star outside of the F&F series.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Village of the Damned (1960) & Children of the Damned (1964) - I vaguely remember watching these on TCM. The first is a very lean film but its very effective. The second doesn't completely deliver but its a decent followup.

[Tommy Bunz]

You watch the Carpenter version yet?

Dude's in in the hospital with a bacterial infection btw. Hopefully its not too serious.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

No I don't think so, have you? I think I read it's exactly the same almost scene for scene.

Get well soon, Carpy.

[Spartan]

Nah, not quite. It's a dope remake that gets unfairly shitted on, though.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

I was hoping for a lot more philosophical/origin dialogue with the kids but I guess they chose to cut the exposition in favor of mystery

[Tommy Bunz]

Yeah its been a while since I've watched Carpenter's but its solid. Its on par with the rest of his 90's output.
The thing I remember most about it is how oddly bright it is for a horror movie. A large portion of it occurs during daylight.

[ZiekeFons]

fury 2014:
Thought this was a nice flick, somehow more believable than american sniper although the ending was .... hmm
american sniper 2014:
A story with too hollywood/cliches, which made it not believable for me. Not so good
logans run 1976:
love to watch old cheesy movies with dope scenes/settings.. this one was nice, but could've been better if they showed some titties.
nightcrawler 2014:
Really dope flick, acting was good. Liked the un-human feel to it, in some way it reminds me of life now with everyone being buried in their phones internet lifes tv and bullshit.
whiplash 2014:
Awesome movie, reminded me of my teacher when I was studying at a music academy.
Liked how the ending/final scenes turned out to be.
lars and the real girl 2007:
Entertaining movie! Thought it was refreshing to see a movie with so much kindness in it..
john wick 2014:
hated the bitchface of that guy josef.. Acting from Keanu was nice, dope action movie.
her 2013:
This one was mad gay....

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Tokyo Tribe (2014) - Sion Sono is back and this time he made a futuristic rapbattle musical. It's one of his weirdest and more light-hearted films even if there's lots of violence as usual. Sono always ends his film strongly and this is no exception. The movie prob would have been better if I was Japanese but the translators do a good job. This feels a bit connected to his other recent films Himizu and Why Don't You Play In Hell? This one is the weakest for me but still very good.

Colt 45 (2014) - After his films Calvaire and Vinyan the Belgian director Fabrice du Welz has unfortunately been a bit inactive but he finished two films in 2014. This is a short copthriller which was apparently butchered by the producers. The story didn't do much to engage me but stylistically all of the elements were there.

[drizzle]

Hard To Be A God - A scientist from Earth is embedded 'undercover' as a nobleman on an Earth-like planet going through its own Dark/Middle Age, in hopes of observing firsthand a Renaissance that seems just on the cusp of kicking off. But the Renaissance never happens, instead there is a violent backlash against 'bookworms' while the plague and shit ridden Dark Age continues. So the Earth dude slowly goes mad watching this happen because he can't do anything about it.

The best piece of obtuse art-faggotry I've seen in ages, likely one that's gonna snap right into the top shelf pantheon alongside other Russian cornerstones like Stalker, Solaris, I Am Cuba, etc... it's that good. Also perhaps the filthiest grossest thing I've ever seen on screen, the entire cast is caked in dirt and shit for the entire running time, and literally every shot has somebody either bleeding or shitting or throwing up or blowing snot directly into the camera. Somehow the director turns this 3hr parade of viscera into a mindblowing spectacle, on shot by shot basis it's one of the most incredible visual experiences I've ever had in a theater.

It would take a novel-length post to describe everything going here, but there's some good commentary on the movie here:

http://www.avclub.com/review/hard-be-go ... hit-214434" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.villagevoice.com/2014-02-26/ ... ei-german/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hard-to-be-a-god-2015" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If nothing else, just look at the screenshots. The one common thread in every review I've seen is the idea that the director is purposely trying to imply a vision of Hell. Literally every second of the movie is like this, and these aren't even the best samples.

[Spartan]

Tokyo Tribe (2014) - Sion Sono is back and this time he made a futuristic rapbattle musical. It's one of his weirdest and more light-hearted films even if there's lots of violence as usual. Sono always ends his film strongly and this is no exception. The movie prob would have been better if I was Japanese but the translators do a good job. This feels a bit connected to his other recent films Himizu and Why Don't You Play In Hell? This one is the weakest for me but still very good.

Should be watching Why Don't You Play in Hell? this weekend hopefully. Any other recommendable Sono movies released after Guilty of Romance?

[Comedy Quaddafi]

WDYPIH and Himizu are essential. There's also Land of Hope which is a post-Fukushima film like Himizu but more of a traditional drama. There's two more films coming this year.

[Tommy Bunz]

Machete Kills (Robert Rodriguez, 2013) - Thought that there was no way that this would be as bad as everyone said it was but unfortunately I was wrong. Rodriguez is coasting here, its almost like no attention was given to make an interesting story, it feels like he just came up with a bunch of ideas that would make for cool scenes and then lazily crafted a plot around them. One of Rodriguez's main strengths as a filmmaker has always been his ability to create memorable visuals but this seems like a second-rate knockoff of his own style. Its shockingly poorly directed, shot and edited and it doesn't even look like anyone was having any fun making it. This is in the Anchorman 2 school of sequels, just a lazy rehash of everything that made the original great without any effort to actually make a story that anyone cared about. So bad that they had to retell the "Machete don't text" joke twice.


The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014) - Really excellent and one of the strongest debuts by a first time director in quite a while. Genuinely creepy and expertly crafted psychological horror where the scares extend way beyond just the monster itself. Essie Davis puts on an acting clinic as the protective mother of a troubled child, and watching her psyche slowly unravel throughout the film is thoroughly unnerving. My only complaint is that for a movie that slowly builds so much momentum and tension that the ending lacks the punch it deserves.


47 Ronin (Carl Rinsch, 2013) - Another win for Keanu in my book. I'm a fiend for all things chambara so I might be a bit of an apologist here but thought this was a great take on the classic 47 Ronin story. The introduction of the fantasy/mystical elements works well and looks fantastic. Just a lot of fun in general.


Knights of Badassdom (Joe Lynch, 2013) - Another film that has been completely maligned critically that I was hoping to find some redeeming qualities in. The cast is a nerds dream (Peter Dinklage, Jason from True Blood, Steve Zahn and my boo Summer Glau) and the plot is great on paper (LARP'ers accidentally summoning real demons and having to do fight for real). Its not a great movie but not a complete waste of time either.


Satan Met A Lady (William Dieterle, 1936) - This is the other Maltese Falcon remake, made between the original version and the classic Humphrey Bogart version. Its not nearly as good as the others though, mainly because it feels way too stagey and everyone plays their characters way over the top.


Stake Land (Jim Mickle, 2010) - Loved the fuck out of this nihilistic road movie about a post-apocalyptic vampire world. It looks really awesome for a relatively low budget film and I loved the atypical and diverse vampires and the crazy religious cult members that inhabited its world. I love a movie that isn't afraid to go to really dark places and you never really know what it is going to happen.


Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013) - Late pass on this one but goddamn this was great. This really channels all the right spots in my inner-film nerd. Refn is truly a master of the visual medium and its pretty amazing how much depth he gives Gosling's character despite the fact that he barely says anything in the entire movie. Kristin Scott Thomas's turn as the petulant matriarch is deliciously fascinating and the police officer is one of the most chilling villains of the past few years.


Altman (Ron Mann, 2014) - Very well made documentary on one of my favorite directors, Robert Altman. It's less of a biopic and more of a overview of his professional career and his influence in cinema. You don't really get a good portrait of the man besides the fact that he was a workaholic who put movies above his family but you do get an excellent tour through his entire filmography and a lot of the actors who played a role in his best films show up to show their respects. A must-see for Altman fans.


The Heroic Trio (Johnnie To, 1993) - Being only familiar with Johnnie To's crime sagas of the last 15 years, this took me completely by surprise and was absolutely nothing like I suspected.
This is one of the most over-the-top kung fu films I've seen, its borderline silly at times even but I still enjoyed the fuck out of it. The plot makes fuck-all sense. Three women with superpowers team up to fight evil, except sometimes some of them are evil and fight each other and one of them can turn invisible and is stealing babies for the devil? I still don't really understand what the fuck happened but there's so much crazy shit going on all the time that it doesn't matter. Lots of fantastic action sequences with lots of crazy wire work and the grand finale is batshit insane and tons of fun.


The Core (Jon Amiel, 2003) - Was in the mood for something dumb and mindless. Mission accomplished. Truly one of the most preposterous plots of all time. I have a feeling that when we are older we will look fondly upon the CGI shitfests of the 90's and early 00's the way that people view Harryhausen films and the adventure films of the 50's now. Would actually make for a fun double bill with the original Journey to the Center of the Earth.


Bwana Devil (Arch Oboler, 1952) - This had been a bit of a holy grail for me ever since I learned that someone had filmed the Man-eaters of Tsavo story before (the other version is the extremely underrated Kilmer/Douglas movie The Ghost and the Darkness). Its not available on dvd or the internet anywhere so I was shocked to stumble upon it on Netflix. This also has a note-worthy role in film history, as it was the first ever color film shown in 3D. The movie itself is good, not great, I probably enjoyed it as much for the novelty as I did for the story but its solid and I was impressed how much they were able to film using real lions.


LA Takedown (Michael Mann, 1989) - Finally got around to watching this and am really glad I did. I knew that this was the movie that was remade as Heat but I was surprised at how little Mann changed for the big screen version. It hits almost all the same notes as the Pacino/DeNiro version and is surprisingly well-made for being a TV movie. The only thing that holds it back really is that the lead actors just can't compare, but they do a fine job and the supporting cast is great. Michael Rooker is in this and I really enjoyed seeing my man George Mason from 24 in the Waingro role. This also has a slightly different take on the ending and its arguably a more suitable end to the story. Certainly in the upper-echelon of made for TV movies.

[Tommy Bunz]

Hard to be a God sounds awesome, shame the director died before it was even released.
Is it just me or does it seem like Russian directors tend to do their best work when they are senior citizens? Seems like that is a thing.

[Spartan]

Why Don't You Play in Hell? | 2013


I had fun.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

The Boston Strangler (1968) - This is a good serialkiller procedural. Lots of splitscreen action. Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda are pretty good in their roles.

[drizzle]

Gone Girl - Surprisingly watchable although I wouldn't say I outright liked it. Fincher's gift for procedurals saves this and makes it worth a spin, but it's just too convoluted and melodramatic and implausible to take seriously as a psychological drama/thriller. Fincher is the right guy to unfold events in a way that keeps your interest, but he's the wrong guy for the material itself, too serious and too restrained in tone. This shit is wacky as hell and Tyler Perry seems to be the only one who realizes it, everybody else is moving with tightly clenched assholes like this is based on THE great american novel and not ludicrous plot-twist porn for midwestern housewives to read on vacation.

Affleck does great tho, he's perfectly cast to his irl persona as a kinda-dim inherently a little sleazy good looking dude trying to be something better. It's almost like Eminem in 8 Mile levels of playing yourself. Wish more time was spent on his subconsciously voluntary dependency on/subservience to Amy and his decision to stay at the end, which is by far the most interesting part of this whole thing but you know... gotta shoot more scenes of her 'plotting' instead so fuck all that noise.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Razorback (1984) - Overall this is a venerable pigflick with some fantastic scenes. You get rooshooters, sweaty outbackguys drinking beer, a hog who can tear a house apart and a vengeful swinevigilante wrapped around a story about an American animalrights activist and her husband. That didn't work entirely well for me and the pig itself looks a bit dodgy at times but the really goodlooking and creative filming made up for that.

[jazzmatazz23]

I was excited to see Starred Up, from the good reviews, but I must have not understood something. Why was this movie good? It was about a kid that had a bad up bringing with major anger issues that beats people up.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Why do people like The Godfather? It's just a movie about a family full of criminals.

Race With the Devil (1973) - This turned out to be a very decent mix of backwoods terror and a roadmovie. The scene with the rattlesnakes in the RV is even better than the one in Kill Bill 2, for me. The final chase is quite spectacular too.

[Y@k Bollocks]

Why do people like The Godfather? It's just a movie about a family full of criminals.

[Spartan]

Race With the Devil is a classic.

Reflections in Black | 1975
Sleazy, dull and well beyond the levels of misogyny you would associate with seventies gialli. Some hilarious quotes hidden in this, though: "A photo of a beautiful girl in the nude is always a pretty sight, but not so when that beautiful girl is dead." and this absolute gem, "From now on, try to keep your impulses to the bedroom and supermarket please." Watched this twice in the hope it might have clicked for me - no such luck.

John Wick | 2014
Satisfying action flick with moody Keanu. As much as I enjoyed it, the film kind of played it too safe in certain areas and could have been way better than the finished product.

Disconnect | 2012
Another one of those six degrees of separation type flicks with an online theme. Morons might find it rewarding seeing how the characters' lives intertwined, but this shit was dull. Only watched it because Paula Patton was in it, tbh.

The Raid 2 | 2014
Top film of last year. Wanted to see if I felt the same way about the movie after all the commotion died down. Still awesome after multiple viewings.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For | 2014
Other than the main storyline, the rest of the supporting stories were significantly lesser in quality. That didn't stop it from being fun. Actually think this might be Rodriguez's best film since the first one.

Libido | 1965
Written and co-directed by Ernesto Gastaldi, I'll go as far as state that this early and obscure giallo might have been just as influential to the genre as Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much ever was. With only a cast of four and one prominent location, the film makes superb use of its limitations and is full of plot twists right up until the end titles. Without ruining it, Argento's Deep Red pays homage to this film in a major way.

The Antichrist | 1974
Italian Exorcist rip-off featuring decapitated toads and goat rimming. Despite the high production values (for its time), I struggled to find this particularly engaging. Some cool in-a-previous-life scenes which borrow heavily from Ken Russell's The Devils, but that's about it. Mediocre at best.

High Plains Drifter | 1973
My fave Eastwood western post-Leone. Love the whole eerie vibe throughout. Watched this on blu-ray and it looked fucking incredible.

Quatermass and the Pit | 1967
Probably the best Hammer flick sans Lee and Cushing. Absolutely adore how the whole plot unfolds into some deep revelation for potheads - a bit like Horror Express.

Layer Cake | 2004
Least pretentious of all the mockney gangster flicks of the 2000s - it's not ashamed of being a middle class crime drama, so I appreciate its honesty. Daniel Cragface is a cool dude. Sienna Miller is edible, and I have a weird thing for Sally Hawkins - so I'm all in. Not a particularly amazing film, but ok to chill to.

Fast & Furious Five | 2010
Still an awesome film. Don't think I'll ever tire of this.

Cold in July | 2014
Don't understand the hate for this film. Jim Mickle is on some Peckinpah shit with his latest offering. Already made a thread about this film somewhere.

New Jack City | 1991
About as dated as Silly Kid's jokes, yet infinitely more entertaining.

Gone Girl | 2014
Good thriller that got swept up with way too much undeserved hysteria. Might return to this after the dust has settled. I liked it, but motherfuckers overrated it hard.

[alpha]

never heard of LA takedown. Gonna have to look for that.

[zombie]

finally watched Gone Girl

didnt "get " the ending

unless it was simpler than I am thinking.

[Tommy Bunz]

Red 2. Here is my review:





Fin.