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I enjoyed it as a kind of spaghetti western approach were everyone’s a bastard (though I suppose Carpenter may have been aiming more for Peckinpah.)
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Jul 3, 2022 01:20
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Big Scary Owl posted:Dawn of the Dead (1978) is an immensely entertaining movie, I had a huge grin on my face throughout most of it while watching. It's great to see how (mostly) genre-savvy the characters are already when it's the second movie in the franchise. Now I know where Dead Rising stole its setting from. Hell, they even use the ducts like they do in this movie! There's a lot of humor in the movie too like early on when they were taunting the zombies to distract them, and the scene where the raiders are just having fun with the zombies and throwing pies in their faces was hilarious and it's totally something you'd see someone come up with nowadays. The characters were great too and now the female lead is actually more proactive! Though I wonder why Roger just started acting like a goddamn lunatic, it's like he had a death wish or something after that close-encounter with a group of zombies in the truck. Maybe the blood infected him somewhat? Or maybe it was just shock? In any case, always remember: overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. Stephen turning into one of them and going into their own hideout was both terrifying and sad. And not sure why Peter had to wait until the last moment to get into da choppah but otherwise everything they did made a lot of sense. They even actually secured the mall! Good thing it wasn't as infested as it could have been or it would have been a nightmare. The gore was great too! In the first movie I wondered what color the zombies were since I watched it in black and white but I didn't expect them to be blue-ish. Also the actor who played Roger later discovered he was obscure European royalty and is now hella rich
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Jul 13, 2022 08:32
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Turbinosamente posted:Arena (1989) Who the gently caress bankrolled all those prosthetics and sets? That could not have been cheap! That said this is a boxing movie in space, it might even be a rip off of one of the Rocky sequels I don't know. Kinda wish there was more time to develop characters beyond brief archetypes, maybe if this was a TV series instead? Still an enjoyable turn your brain off scifi sports b movie but probably too by the numbers for an MST3K-ing. TBF a lot of the props and decorations are from other sci fi movies and shows.
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Jul 16, 2022 03:34
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Meet Me In St. Louis- Man, Halloween in the 1900s was hardcore. Very good movie overall but the Halloween segment just towers over everything else. Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 07:05
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DeimosRising posted:https://vimeo.com/189640044 Sadly this clip doesn't include the revelation that the child ties a dummy to the streetcar track to try and make it derail.
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Aug 3, 2022 03:48
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Three Thousand Years of Longing is a nice, sweet romantic fantasy. From some of the critical reactions I was expecting something really dense and impenetrable but while the structure is unusual it's not hard to get. Has a few flaws because of said structure being a bit weird but it's engaging and visually sumptuous and there's some stuff worth chewing on.
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Sep 2, 2022 03:33
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Mantis42 posted:
It played to me like a ghost story, people trapped in repetitions of their past while losing any sense of context, but whether they're literal ghosts or it's a metaphor is one of those things it never budges on. It worked for me on that level, that sorta eerie, languid, beautiful atmosphere, even if it's hard to sustain over 90 minutes. Also I feel like the director was just interested in the fact that with a movie you can record the passage of time and what if you had people frozen in time, repeating it, going over it, etc.
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Sep 23, 2022 05:02
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Famethrowa posted:it's very good and you don't feel the length much but it did not need the holocaust plot to be included at all I disagree, I think it's part of the overall themes- the witches' school is a parallel to leftist organizations like Baader-Meinhof and those firmly believed Germany had not fully rooted out the fascists in their midst, or had a proper reckoning with their past.
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Nov 11, 2022 04:22
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Fallen Angel: I always get the impression from classic Film Noir that in the 40s and 50s it was really easy to just be a drifter. Like some of it has to be dramatic license but you'd just wander in and get caught up in a web of sex and intrigue. Anyway this one's kinda good. They have to make a hard pivot to turn the protagonist from a convincingly amoral idiot to someone who can redeem himself but that may be the subtle religious theme. Was John Carradine ever young?
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Nov 14, 2022 22:40
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WtF they made an RIPD 2?
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Nov 25, 2022 05:44
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The Menu is a fun little psuedo-horror. Headlined by two very strong performances by Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy though i think all the cast is pretty solid. The characters kinda threaten to just turn into metaphorical representations of the evils of society at times, but only sometimes, I think on balance it stays unpredictable enough. Also, hey, Judith Light, good work! One minor nitpick, CGI fire still has a long way to go doesn't it?
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Dec 7, 2022 04:42
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I feel like 2's big problem is it kinda crosses the line of what is funny violence in live action, obviously they wanted/needed to be bigger than the first so the gags are more extreme and it doesn't work as well. But it's all relative, as we all know Baby's Day Out was incredibly popular in India
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Dec 26, 2022 06:25
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High Warlord Zog posted:Absolutely. The traps in the first one are all things that might at worst (seriously) injure a person. The traps in Home 2lone are all (very obviously) potentially lethal. And switching the location of the climax from a brightly lit lived in suburban home to a gloomy abandoned dilapidated building does it no favours with regards to the effect they're going for. Yeah the film has a weird dark atmosphere on top of everything.
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Dec 26, 2022 23:43
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Gary’s a child star.
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Jan 6, 2023 00:25
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Babylon: Yeah I really wanted to be in this movie's corner and as smug n stuff says, there are some great sequences. (The whole bit where they're filming a talkie for the first time ever is superb.) It just doesn't come together at all and the finale is so drawn out it had me feeling like Tom Servo at the end of the Batwoman episode of MST3K. And yeah Diego Calva is good but Manuel feels sorta undefined or whatever the film needs him to be at times. It feels like this was a pet project and Chazelle just kept adding stuff to it? OTOH with all the poo poo going on in the movie business I feel oddly encouraged that off the basis of one hit Chazelle was able to get hundreds of million dollars for a vomitously excessive R-rated epic about early Hollywood. It ain't all franchise IPs yet folks!
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Jan 6, 2023 07:18
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The Navy vs. The Night Monsters- Basically what if someone tried to make The Thing From Another World but without any of the atmosphere or tension. Everyone is very painfully slow on the uptake that killer trees are on the loose and while that's understandable at first, it does make for a lethargic pace. It does not help that the killer tree costume was apparently immobile and so the action depends on people walking into the drat thing. More importantly at some point the producer decided to rework the entire film and shoot a bunch of extra scenes where some generals in Washington send airplanes to bomb the monsters out of existence, meaning the final scenes take place without the principals entirely and rely mostly on stock footage (plus some much, much worse special effects footage of even stupider looking killer tree stumps.) Also Mamie Van Doren is there. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Meyers- This is such an oddity, released in 1995, a year before Scream revived the slasher genre. Honestly this is probably better than Halloween 5, it's at least nicely shot. There's some really good use of color! But the story's a mess, and on top of it trying to give Michael Meyers a convoluted origin involving Druidic cults, it was cut heavily before release resulting in a pace that's just nonexistent. Like it's not slowly paced, it's not fast paced, things just happen, occasionally Michael kills somebody, and it lurches along to a climax that makes no sense because it was the 90s and quick flashing cuts are the new hotness. Paul Rudd as Tommy Doyle does a good job looking creepy but has a very strange accent. Donald Pleasance is, well, you can tell this was his last hurrah. He tries, but he has trouble speaking at times, it's sad. You can tell this is from a point in time where nobody knew what to do with slasher flicks, nobody had any ideas for this franchise in particular, this had no reason to exist. Just a weird nothing of a movie.
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Jan 10, 2023 06:32
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M3gan: manages to walk a really fine line where it’s goofy and wild and darkly funny but also still kinda tense. The cinema is alive and well.
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Jan 25, 2023 03:42
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Nah the last book had come out, but they weren't quite done when filming.
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Jan 25, 2023 08:21
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The Heroic Trio: I'm not sure I was fully prepared for the sheer amount of... whatever this movie is. It's good but it's a lot.
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Mar 7, 2023 09:22
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checkplease posted:Ha yeah also just watched Heroic Trio. It’s a bit convoluted for a while though it all simplifies out to heroes vs villain by the end. Last 30 minutes was a lot of fun. There’s some crazy stuff like the straight up murder of child soldiers and that poor train driver. Some of the art direction and the blending in of Wuxia and superhero tropes makes me wonder if the filmmakers were influenced by Burton's Batman and Dick Tracy and the whole little wave that followed that. (Wouldn't be the first time, there's one film I can't remember the name of that's literally just Wire-Fu Superman.)
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Mar 7, 2023 22:33
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3 Women- And here I thought Images was Altman's only horror/thriller. This has a really interesting sense of something being off throughout, you're never sure exactly where it's going, the music is nice and eerie, and they found someone to paint some genuinely freaky-looking murals everywhere which is good. Duvall's incredible here. Also there's a bit where she clarifies that her dress is an English mustard yellow while her car is more of a French mustard color and that may in fact be the most 1970s dialogue ever written.
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Mar 31, 2023 07:02
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Bound: Okay yeah this rules and I'm not sure why I didn't catch it before. All three leads are so good, and I love the elements of comedy in just how desperate things get. Caesar loving moving the carpet over the pool of blood. Also having Gina Gershon play basically the classic rugged film noir protagonist, just as a lesbian, is just powerful as hell.
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Apr 18, 2023 05:06
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Renfield feels kind of like a script that got filtered through a lot of studio notes- so much of the cops/gangsters subplot is so drat stock it could have been from 1993- but Hoult and Cage are both really good and there are some fun parts apart from that. Like it may be worth it just to see Cage as Dracula because he so clearly Gets It, with a performance that actually evokes Lugosi without copying it. (Similarly Hoult actually does Dwight Frye’s laugh a couple of times.) I feel like it could have been better but I can appreciate what it manages to do.
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Apr 21, 2023 01:57
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Nightmare Cinema posted:You see the theatrical or reconstructed version? The Code was in a weird place by then- in ‘52 the Supreme Court had actually ruled that movies were protected by the 1st Amendment, but there was still obscenity law to worry about, and the studios had the HUAC stuff and wanted to look like they were keeping their nose clean. But you see a lot of movies pushing things where they can, Anatomy of a Murder is also a good example of “they wouldn’t have made this ten years earlier.”
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Apr 23, 2023 18:41
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Yes, Madam! A bit surprised that the movie isn't really that focused on Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock- they do most all the action, yes, but a lot of the running time is devoted to a group of low-tier criminal brothers getting caught up in a murder and conspiracy. Once you get past that slight disappointment though it's a pretty solid example of the psuedo-comic modern martial arts movies that were dominant at the time. The action scenes are great and both women do some ludicrous stunts, and the ending is a classic example of just dropping a bomb on the audience and then hastily cutting to credits (another Hong Kong tradition).
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May 15, 2023 07:31
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I remember seeing the movie as a kid, thinking it was a big deal, but also being very curious as to why all the women in it died horribly.
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May 17, 2023 01:58
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Bogus Adventure posted:Here's a map of Kyoto, Japan. See if you can spot something... Sir this is a Don Quijote
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Jul 19, 2023 19:32
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Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One: The plot is engagingly loopy enough to be a good backdrop for a lot of fun chases and impressive stunt setpieces, even if it sometimes threatens to fall apart. Was glad to see Hayley Atwell in an action role again, and Pom Klementieff also gets to kick rear end a lot. Honestly it's worth seeing for them. But also I like how it treads into Metal Gear territory with its story of a rogue AI threatening to hack the planet, and the angle that no government, especially not the United States, can be trusted with access to it. The Magnetic Monster: Found this one on Amazon Prime in a version that looks less like VHS and more like those pre-DVD attempts to put movies on CD-ROM. Picture quality aside, this film by Curt Siodmak (writer of The Wolf Man, Donovan's Brain, and F.P.1 Doesn't Answer) focuses on a team of science police hunting down an unstable isotope that if left unchecked could destroy the world. It's a very low key science-fiction movie, with a "monster" that's just some atoms gone wrong, stripping away much of the metaphor of this kind of film. The story probably would have made more sense as a book or radio play, there's a lot of talk, and there has to be because it's a very low budget movie and it'd be hard to render things in visual terms even if it wasn't. They try to keep it moving, though, and it does come together in a pretty cool climax that makes extensive use of stock footage from the silent German film Gold. An interesting novelty. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Oh, so this is where Marilyn became Marilyn. Like this is where the icon/image comes from, the entire persona that she's associated with- sexy and funny and you can't quite tell how much of the ditziness is a put-on because she knows how to deploy it strategically. But of course there's also Jane Russell, whose performance is pretty great too; she honestly gets most of the laughs, her comic timing is dead on. The story kind of lurches around and not all the songs work, but of course Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend is there and that's definitive. You watch this entirely for the two leads and they overdeliver. (Looks nice too, one of the great Technicolor-means-every-color-as-big-as-possible movies.)
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Jul 24, 2023 09:25
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70s disaster films didn't even pretend to be serious about the human tragedy, it's just "Man that poo poo blowed up real nice didn't it?"
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Aug 9, 2023 23:31
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Gaius Marius posted:Waterloo Didn't Napoleon kinda turn the Revolutionary government into, well, an autocracy with himself as sole leader?
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Sep 11, 2023 18:42
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Johnny Mnemonic: I'm not sure this movie 100% works- I could follow the basic story but the hectic editing doesn't really draw me in either to the action or the characters, and I can see fragments of subplots and deeper material floating around like they couldn't quite figure out how to make it all fit together. Reeves is uneven too, he has some good moments and the character's supposed to be a little stiff I guess, but he hasn't quite got it down. But still, it's impossible for me to dislike a film like this, full of insane weird moments and so sincere in its attempt to bring cyberpunk to the masses. Also Dolph Lundgren is a violent Jesus freak assassin and Takeshi Kitano also graces us with his presence. Dina Meyer is a cute alt bodyguard! The whole thing's gaudy and garish in a way I kinda miss. Bottoms: I'm glad a pure goofball comedy like this is finding an audience. Happily sacrifices plot and character in favor of the funniest take, like it's not completely bereft of these things but you can tell the filmmakers have priorities. Fortunately it is very funny, well-acted, and loaded with blink-and-you'll-miss-it gags and details. And also, yes, who figured out that Marshawn Lynch was a good comedy actor? How did he end up in this movie and why does he fit so well?
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Sep 19, 2023 09:46
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In Training posted:Spring breakers isn't really a vibe movie either. Its got a pretty clear narrative told in just a more uhh music video-kind of way. I'm not sure having a clear narrative necessarily disqualifies it, indeed a simple story can be to the benefit of a "vibe movie" since it means you have to spend less time focusing on it, people will just get that it's happening.
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Oct 12, 2023 00:40
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To recycle what I said in the Criterion thread, the one problem with Josie and the Pussycats is that it came out before musicals started to be seen as viable again, so while there are songs and they're really good, they're kinda pushed to the background. A version of it as a proper musical a la Stardust Brothers or Phantom of the Paradise would have been amazing.
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Dec 21, 2023 20:16
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Dr. Yinz Ljubljana posted:To say nothing of the fact that the majority of the original music is by 90s alternative superstar Kay Henley of Letters to Cleo As well as the late Adam Schlesinger, of Fountains of Wayne and Crazy Ex Girlfriend.
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Dec 22, 2023 09:36
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Now thinking they should have shot it like an Italian film where everyone is obviously dubbed
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Dec 25, 2023 04:53
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Rebel Moon: All in all a pretty solid space opera, with a strong central story and enough fun bits along the way to keep it engaging. Starts a little slow and the main villain is a little dull (not so much his performance as the fact that every scene of his is ask questions, kill someone dramatically), and I will say I was slightly disappointed by all the major characters being human. (You figure there'd be something to do with the noble robot knight order but I guess that's for Part 2.) Still once it gets moving it delivers all the hot lasers-and-spaceships action you expect. My needs are simple.
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Jan 10, 2024 04:52
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Gaius Marius posted:Opera No.1 Hal Hartley I remembered this aired on Comedy Central's short-lived "Musical Shorts" program hosted by Debi Mazar. It's quite fun but back then I wasn't familiar with Parker Posey or her co-star. I still remember quite a few of the lyrics too.
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Jan 12, 2024 22:51
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To me it's a great illustration of the idea that nobody should have that much money. Nobody can *use* all that money. It's vomitous in the excess it shows, there's just no end to it and it makes Jordan an absurd, risible figure. It's basically a black comedy.
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Mar 26, 2024 09:41
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Deal of the Century: Notable only as a bump in Friedkin's filmography; he apparently did this film as a pinch hitter when the original director was busy making Risky Business, and there's not a lot of his style here, though it's competently made at least. The international arms trade was and is a ripe subject for satire, but this feels less like everyone lost their nerve and more like they didn't have a strong take on it to start with- the script goes all over the place and it's the lack of focus on anything that really does it in. Of course the story being about an advanced fighter drone is at least prescient, and the sequence of it malfunctioning at a big press conference is probably the strongest part- you've got a team of engineers slamming on the air conditioning to stop an annoying hum and then taking the drat thing apart while they try to figure out what even happened, and it feels like the actual sort of poo poo that goes wrong with things like this. But the rest of the film veers from understated comedy to wacky goofy antics in a way that suggests nobody knew what to do. And of course, there's Chevy Chase, who I guess was trying to push at his limits a little but doesn't succeed; he's still Chevy, and his specific breed of glibness is close to but not quite what the part of an amoral arms dealer needs. Just a very odd little misfire- you wonder why the studio even bothered. Freddy Got Fingered: I was expecting either a masterpiece of anti-comedy or the worst poo poo imaginable, and so... it's not really either. With some of the initial shock value blunted (there were some shots I turned away from but I have seen worse), it feels like Tom Green was poking at the bounds of the "idiot manchild annoys everyone" comedy subgenre and maybe trying to twist it to an extreme, but it doesn't quite get there. That or his stuff just naturally works better in the candid camera approach of his show rather than against scripted characters. Of course by this point it just looked to critics like the natural endpoint of an explosion of bad taste comedies- as with the 80s slasher boom they were just sick of this already. The cast is actually pretty good (not just Rip Torn and Julie Hagerty, but I also like Marisa Coughlan as Gord's rocket-and-BJ-obsessed girlfriend) and I was never actively bored, some bits even work as a weird twisted story of how being a creative person is frustrating, but it never quite comes together.
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Apr 27, 2024 01:35
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Smile: Bounced hard off this one. The lead performance is really nice, the cinematography is generally quite pretty, but it's a pure scare vehicle and every scare is too telegraphed to have much impact when it comes. Every scene is just a setup for the main character to freak out about something and for other people to be skeptical and it got old quickly. Maybe the central image of just "people smile at you weird" isn't compelling enough on its own, maybe the plot's too literally About Trauma, maybe the other characters are too broad. It just felt like very generic, boilerplate modern horror, down to the inappropriately upbeat pop song at the end- which doesn't have anything to do with anything, I think it's just one they could get the rights to. The basic story's kinda like The Ring but the Ring has a spooky ghost girl in a well coming out of a TV and this has... well there's some good horror imagery near the end but I'd checked out by then. Maybe this worked better in a theater.
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Apr 29, 2024 04:55
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