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The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) standard possession horror presented as found footage. as is often the case with this type of film the realistic portrayal of dementia was scarier than any of the supernatural stuff. Appreciate it was a trim 90 minutes at least
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Oct 18, 2022 16:37
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Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) is very fun. Non stop jokes so the few clunkers just get breezed by. Only thing that really doesn’t stand the test of time is the obligatory rap break in the ending musical number
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Oct 19, 2022 04:54
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Streaming on Criterion: Blacula (1972) No one acts like a real person and that’s okay, the music and costuming make up for it. Weird that this and Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) are the only vampire media I’ve seen that show the natural exponential growth of the vampire population
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Oct 20, 2022 15:40
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Nosferatu The Vampyre I probably should've watched the OG first, but to be honest I only popped it cause of Adjani. Atmospherically the movie was phenomenal, the long approach to Castle Dracula and the scenes in the town as everything got worse and worse were just fantastic. Acting was all on point, Kinski killed it as the kount, and whoever was playing Jonathan sold his slow descent into insanity as he attempted to escape the castle and get back to Lucy. Only person I didn't like was Renfield, I hate that Crazy Laughing archtype, also he just disappears from the movie at a point. Narratively I think I would've been lost if I hadn't read the OG novel, even if the movie makes a point to change things up. All in all a great time. Coonskin I've never not been impressed seeing a Bakshi film, and this is no exception. I really wish that animation had went in the direction he was pioneering rather than the overly sanitized and cloying Disney direction. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Oct 20, 2022 18:02
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Tetsuo: the Iron Man (1989) this movie kicks rear end, a discordant surreal video tape from hell. Passion can make any budget work
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Oct 21, 2022 04:13
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Jenny Agutter posted:Tetsuo: the Iron Man (1989) this movie kicks rear end, a discordant surreal video tape from hell. Passion can make any budget work https://youtu.be/YK5XgMjORHc
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Oct 21, 2022 04:21
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Creep (Netflix) Found footage horror that's 90% jump scare garbage where the guy jumps into frame going "AAAHHH!!! Haha u scared bro?" Right when you expect the lame M. Night style twist ending to come the movie surprises you by not actually having one at all. The movie really is just 1 dimensional garbage through and through.
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Oct 21, 2022 14:19
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Watcher in the Woods (1980) This scared the crap out of me as a kid. It still has some good creepiness. I think the major failing is that the adult characters didn't seem to have much motivation for keeping things a secret. I guess there just needed to be some antagonistic conflict to keep the non-spooky parts from being completely dull. Apparently there was a remake in 2017? Did anyone notice that?
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Oct 21, 2022 21:00
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That’s the poo poo
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Oct 21, 2022 22:44
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A Man Escaped - The title tells you everything about this one, it's a prison escape film that benefits from it's small scale and narrow focus. Details about how the wooden planks on the door are slotted in a certain way and how it chips when the protagonist tries to remove them feel so true as to not been devised by a screenwriter but to have been something a person actually dealt with once. I don't think I've ever seen a movie quite capture that feeling of what it's like to become intimately familiar with an object while hyperfocused on some task like that, you know what I mean? 8/10 The Firemen's Ball - Reminded me a lot of an Iannucci film. A dry sort of absurdist comedy about these inept old men trying to run what should be a mundane town event and everything going to poo poo. 7/10
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Oct 21, 2022 22:55
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Mama : for a mid tier spooky thriller with some egregious jump scares, it was pretty good. Goth Jessica Chastain sells the whole deal. Somehow Guillermo del Toro put his name on it as a producer
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Oct 22, 2022 17:52
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Berberian Sound Studio: First Peter Strickland film I've seen but loved this despite also never having seen a giallo film before. Enjoyed the oppressive atmosphere of the sound design, and Toby Jones' performance was great. Followed by an in-person Q&A with the director as well! New Religion: Enjoyed this debut Japanese horror film from writer/director Keishi Konto. It is about a mother who turns to sex work after the death of her young daughter, but meets a mysterious client who only wants to take Polaroids of her, and only speaks through a voice box connected to speakers. Inspired by Davids Lynch (and towards the end) Cronenberg, though probably thanks to the budget (apparently under $20k) we never see anything explicit, apart from a few interludes of CGI 'growths' which gradually form into human bodies. I felt it was also referencing the fear of a cult such as Aum Shinrikyo, and the seemingly drone-like actions of its members. Looked great, and another one with good sound design despite the low budget. Sadly I don't think this one has even got a streaming distribution deal yet. Flux Gourmet: Second Peter Strickland film and another post film Q&A. Loved this, much more tasteful than I was expecting - very funny without relying on grossness well, it teased something more a couple of times. Some great performances too, like the head of the sonic culinary group Fatma Mohamed, who went harder during the 'abbatoir' performance than even the director was asking for, Gwendoline Christie of course, and the doctor constantly expecting everyone else to have the same encyclopedic knowledge of Greek poets as him (apparently it's something the actor does irl, and Strickland wrote the part to get his revenge).
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Oct 23, 2022 03:01
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Raw (2016) this is a cool one, very good performances all around. Some scenes made me a little queasy lol, and what an ending. Wasn’t expecting it to get wrapped up so nicely.
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Oct 23, 2022 04:00
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I watched two zombie movie tonight, one good one and one bad one. The Night Eats The World - This has good reviews but I think it sucked. It basically ends where the first act would end in a better movie. In fact, this basically just the beginning of #Alive stretched out to movie length. It's about a guy trapped in an apartment building surrounded by zombies. For most of the movie he's in very little danger, he doesn't have to come up with any clever ways to survive from day to day like scavenging food from other apartments like in #Alive, he has no other characters to bounce off of, he's just passing time. He only finds his motivation at the end of the story! Guy doesn't even turn the TV on, I don't know why that bothered me but it did. And also I found it funny as hell when he burned all of his old cassette tapes because ~symbolism~ but didn't put out the fire like I assumed he would so 3 minutes later when he returns to his apartment there's smoke everywhere, what a loving idiot. I And considering that he murders a cat out of spite and kills the only other survivor I didn't want him to survive, the zombies should've gotten him. 3/10 Zombie For Sale - Korean movie that reminded me somewhat of another Korean movie, The Host. In both films a downwardly-mobile family centered around a dysfunctional business has to deal with a monster movie plot. In this one, the family locks up an escaped zombie and charges the elderly men of their town money to be bitten as at first it seems to have a rejuvenating effect on them. Of course, it just turns out to be the side effects of a long incubation period and the whole thing blows up in their faces. It's a pretty cute movie with a clever ending that I quite enjoyed and would recommend to anyone who wants a zombie comedy that's original and a little bit more lighthearted. Maybe this should be a 6 but it left my night on a high note so I'll say 7/10
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Oct 23, 2022 08:19
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Under the Shadow (2016) man 2016 was just a good year for horror, this movie is substantially creepy. Takes its sweet time building tension, when it finally lets loose its very effective. Similar vibe to The Babadook (2014) with the monster sort of standing in for maternal anxiety but war-torn Tehran is a much more evocative setting. I was worried when they finally started showing the monster it would be cheap or cheesy but the filmmakers even nailed that. Great movie.
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Oct 24, 2022 03:57
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Stamboul Quest Never before have I seen such a film that's destroyed entirely by the primary male lead. I love Myrna Loy to death, and I figured anything in the Criterion Myrna Loy appreciation station was a sure bet. How wrong I was this mf is the loving worst. He constantly imposes upon her, forces himself into her taxi, and then her train. The idea that a trained spy would ever fall for this failure of a human being is beyond belief. It sucks, it's as racy as a precode film could dare, has some cool spycraft and a great performance from Loy. And this dude, and the awful ending collude to making a lovely movie. 1.5/5 not recced at all. Metropolitan Unlike the Male Lead, I can say I've read Austen and dislike her work with confidence. However, transporting the Austean character into the New York social scene makes for a terribly great film. The ninties really were the peak of films that were just getting people in a room and talking, and this is one of the best examples. Concerning the well to do of Newyorkian society, the conversations are both learned, cultured and totally vapid. What's most impressive is the main lead, whose below the main characters on the social wheel but is still equally as idiotic, just in different and mysterious ways. I'll certainly be checking out the thematic sequels even if I continue to avoid Austen
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Oct 24, 2022 04:32
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Dragon Inn - Thought I saw this before, even included it on my list of recommended martial arts movies, but I was confusing it with The Black Tavern, so I had to remedy that. This film is like if John Ford directed a wuxia movie. Not as good as King Hu's more famous A Touch of Zen but still quite enjoyable. Watching his work, which is so masterful in scope, always gives me the ridiculous thought of "Wow, they made a big screen adaptation of a Shaw Bros movie". Sounds silly but the reuse of sets and pedestrian cinematography, a side effect of their factory like creation, makes them come off like TV compared to something like this. The more minimalist fight choreography compared to proper kung fu films actually works here in a way that was a little underwhelming in Zen, the quick and decisive sword fights shot in wide made it more akin to a samurai flick, which felt appropriate to the tone. I just wish there was a bit more going on under the surface. 7/10 Detour - Atypical film noir about a guy lying his rear end off to himself and the audience. Short as gently caress, too, which always adds a point to the scoreboard. 7/10 Paris, Texas - The climax of this movie is two people talking over a speaker for like 10 minutes and it's more gripping than any half billion dollar superhero fight scene. Movie-rear end movie, you love to see it. 10/10
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Oct 24, 2022 09:13
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Hunt: Complete and utter poo poo.
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Oct 24, 2022 11:19
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Paris, Texas is a drat masterpiece
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Oct 24, 2022 23:47
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Paris, Texas lives up to the promise you see when people rip the visuals for weird sad boy music videos on youtube in a way that Career Opportunities absolutely doesn't
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Oct 24, 2022 23:54
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Jennifer Connelly tho
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Oct 25, 2022 09:04
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Mantis42 posted:I watched two zombie movie tonight, one good one and one bad one. Same. I thought it was expertly filmed, everything looked great, but goddamn this dude.
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Oct 25, 2022 16:59
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how did I go 25 years after its release before seeing The Edge? poo poo's amazing.
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Oct 25, 2022 21:40
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Righting Wrongs - Yuen Biao + Cynthia Rothrock team up joint from the 80s. Pretty good, almost as good as Yes Madam! except for the weak ending. Apparently test audiences are to blame for this, the description of the original ending sounds more appropriate for the characters but maybe the action sucked(?). Highlights: Yuen Biao fighting 3 cars, Rothrock vs Yuen, and the fight against the female assassin. 7/10
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Oct 25, 2022 22:06
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Barcelona Stillman has a real knack for cutting down people without making them totally unlikable. Main dude unironically listens to Carnegie self help and dances like a robo man but you feel his isolation and ennui from his self imposed alienation from society. Fred is a pompous rear end in a top hat who dishes it out, but can't take even the slightest slight and yet you can't help feel he's at least partially vindicated by how annoying his cousin can be and of course getting shot because Spanish Alex Jones keeps spinning him as a CIA asset; a ridiculous assessment he's far too competent to be working for a three letter agency. Even the Spaniards are shown fairly, most movies would make them either wholly good or evil. This film has them be decent people who happen to be just as xenophobic as the American's they hate, and just as receptive of terrible tabloid journalism as the average Trumpist. The film is almost totally noncohesive in purely narrative terms, but the dialogue is so good and the situations it places the characters so interesting intellectually that you can't help but have a good time. I wish I could talk like a mf from one of his films fr.
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Oct 26, 2022 02:45
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Fate Accomplice posted:how did I go 25 years after its release before seeing The Edge? Love watching this and getting unironically pumped up with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin
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Oct 26, 2022 04:13
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Apostle (2018) didn’t have more stuntmen then every other below the line crew member combined so lower tier Gareth Evans
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Oct 26, 2022 04:16
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Fate Accomplice posted:how did I go 25 years after its release before seeing The Edge? Yeah somehow that movie fell between the cracks for most people. Mamet was on a tear - Glengarry Glen Ross, Hoffa, Oleanna, American Buffalo, The Edge, The Spanish Prisoner, Wag The Dog, Ronin... How, I don't know, because boy Hopkins and Baldwin just feast on the scenery like it's a competition
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Oct 26, 2022 17:57
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Just saw Barbarian on HBO Max. An absolute masterclass in advertising, because I was so excited to see it and all it turned out to be was a deflated balloon of a film. Meant nothing, had no tension and used the expectation of something better to detract from how much worse it was getting.
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Oct 27, 2022 00:42
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Hellhole on Netflix. Is the title literal? yep. This is a very dark movie, as in lighting. Actual monasteries aren't this dark. You couldn't deliberately design a space this dark. I used to work in an industrial dark room and it wasn't this dark. The ending could have been really fascinating. It could have been a pretty unusual spin on the whole satanic cult genre. Could have been, but they just couldn't resist the tropes. They had the budget for the visual effects (which were admittedly good) and they had to use them. Still, I really wanted to see the aftermath of nothing supernatural happening. That would have been a movie worth saying more about.
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Oct 27, 2022 04:25
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Finally saw Bodies Bodies Bodies. It was in a theater, and I'm actually pretty glad because even if you hate the endless prattle of zoomer arguments and Twitter buzzwords it is a very very pretty movie. My favorite boy Conner O'Malley shows up but he only gets one line and it isn't even said in a funny way
mutantIke fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Oct 27, 2022 |
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Oct 27, 2022 05:02
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The One where evil multiverse Jet-Li kills the alternate versions of himself so that he can gain their energies and become The One™, and all that's left is just another good version of Jet-Li that is also multiverse-powered to stop him. It is complete and utter shlock and it is also amazing. Is there a movie that is more early 00s than this? Bullet time, a soundtrack with Disturbed and Papa Roach and the dumbest greatest VFX.quote:I am Yulaw! I am nobody's bitch. You are mine. I want a loving sequel drat it
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Oct 28, 2022 19:12
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Tokyo Gore Police - why do we even need gore police? why not gore mental health services or gore housing for the poor? just like the limbs of the monstrous engineers, the tokyo police department has been severed from the body politic - privatized - and mutated beyond recognition. like robocop, the true horror is neoliberal capitalism and our alienation from our own institutions. that said, it doesn't fully come together as satire but it's great halloween fun. 7/10
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Oct 28, 2022 20:43
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Just got out of Tár. Amazing. Cate Blanchett devours the entire movie. Her character, Lydia Tár, is what would happen if Garth Mahrenghi was a female composer/conductor. Just an absolute nightmare of a pretentious shitbag and it's mesmerizing to watch.
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Oct 28, 2022 21:03
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Also just got out of Tár. Incredibly funny movie. One of the best "punchline endings" I've ever seen. Definitely worth seeing in a theater so that you don't fall asleep in the very slow second hour
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Oct 29, 2022 06:02
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Tár and Top Gun Maverick are the two front runners for best movie of the year.
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Oct 29, 2022 06:07
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OLD : the Beach What Makes You Old For as much as people dunk on the movie, it's pretty good. One super gross moment when the one kid gets another one pregnant when they're technically 6 years old and then their baby dies so if you're squeamish about that or some pg-13 style violence, maybe avoid.
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Oct 30, 2022 20:50
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All Quiet on The Western Front I think some folks will take exception to some of the additions they made to the text, but overall i felt it captured its spirit very well. A few scenes were incredibly difficult to watch, as you might expect given the source material. overall was extremely impressed, somewhat surprised its not getting more attention
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Oct 31, 2022 00:19
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Somehow had never seen A Bout De Souffle/Breathless until now. Corrected that. It's funny how a movie that at the time was considered shockingly transgressive of the accepted rules of cinema with its jump-cuts and handheld camera and improvised dialogue and amoral protagonists now feels like... an indie film. Belmondo's Michel is an interesting character though, setting out his stall as a selfish piece of poo poo right from the start yet gradually becoming semi-sympathetic as he realises that as cynical and uncaring as he thinks he is, love is going to do him in just as it did Romeo. Glad I finally caught up with it.
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Oct 31, 2022 13:19
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| # ? May 23, 2024 18:35 |
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The Last Days of Disco It's a much more put together film than Barcelona is, but I don't have that nostalgia for Disco, borrowed or real, that it's target audience had and because of that parts of it fall a bit short. I do like seeing the development of time between this movie and Metropolitan and the returning characters, even if they crowbar them in a little awkwardly. Really though despite having a stunning soundtrack and just as sharp dialogue I just didn't vibe with this movie as much as the last two. Wilson's character is an all time piece of poo poo though. Alice really went through it in a way that the other two protags didn't
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Nov 1, 2022 03:28
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