The Babadook: another total waste of time.
Oh my God, I so disagree. It didn’t scare me (sadly, almost nothing does), but it was one of the most interesting “horror” movies I’d seen in forever. Very moving until it fudged up the ending a bit. Can’t wait to own it.
I agree. It was very well done with good performances, especially by the actor playing the son.
double post
James Le Gros is great in Living in Oblivion.
I wish to tell you about one of the most bizarre movie going experiences I’ve ever had.
There is a movie called, “The Marine 4: Moving Target”.
I believe it was produced by some man who is a wrestler and who owns some large corporation that now produces movies.
Why was it so bizarre? Well, this movie had no plot. It consisted of 90 minutes of two groups of people shooting at each other with assault rifles while running through the woods.
The equipment they used was very low budget. Most films of this kind use jet airplanes but this film used propeller driven airplanes. Most films of this kind used fancy expensive weapons. But, this film just used one kind of inexpensive assault rifle and one kind of handgun. All in all, it was a real cheap-o film and I could not understand who would have made such a film or why and how they ever figured it would have made any kind of profit.
In any event, I just found the entire experience to be extremely bizarre and vacuous. I went away from this experience feeling empty and strangely … I don’t know what to say.
Would any of you have any idea what the Heck was going on with this POS?
Ex Machina Loved it. The ending is just … yeah.
I recently watched two horror comedies.
Thumbs down for My Name Is Bruce. Famous cult and B-Movie actor Bruce Campbell in a film where the gimmick is he is playing himself. So instead of playing Ashley J Williams (a cowardly jerk), he plays Bruce Campbell (who is a cowardly jerk.)
No real horrific content (gore), no nudity and only a couple of laughs. Rabid Bruce fans will watch it for the references to Evil Dead. Any real film fans would be strongly recommended to watch his infinitely superior Bubba Ho-Tep where, for once, Bruce actually does some fine, straight acting albeit within the context of a comedy horror film.
Thumbs up for SexyKiller (Morirás por ella) Here’s a film I had never heard of and my first thought after watching was “Why hasn’t this been remade?” Then you realise there’s no point to remaking it. It’s perfect as it is.
A sexy female student is an utterly immoral serial killer murdering anyone who gives her even the flimsiest reason to. Being a sexy girl she is never considered as a suspect. A comedic misunderstanding has her dating the pathologist trying to solve the murders. Meanwhile the pathologist is also working on a process to recover the final memories of all the dead victims. Which accidentally creates a horde of flesh eating zombies.
Packed with references to many other films. Breaks the fourth wall. There’s a musical sequence chucked in plus the whole thing is filmed in the bright colours and high contrast of a pop video. It’s gory, endlessly funny and if it lacks originality it compensates by moving so fast its never boring. Spanish with subtitles.
TCMF-2L
Red Army - back in January (or maybe February). A show about what life was like for members of the Red Army ice hockey team. Quite good.
Ex Machina - Just this last Sunday. As one of my co-workers put it: “Creepy and intelligent.”
Interstellar: three hours of really bad science and McConaughey mumbling his lines. Honestly, if you’re going to talk about physics, try to be at least slightly plausible and not say things that a bright 8th grader knows is bunk. “We’ll fire the engines and escape the black hole’s gravity! We need to get rid of some weight first!” That’s like a gnat deciding to avoid being sucked into a jet engine by flapping its wings harder and shedding that pesky dust mote.
Recently watched “Sorceress” (the 1982 film of that name) on Youtube. This is one of the goofiest Big Hair Big Breasts sword & sorcery films ever! It’s like it was written for children (or by children) but eh, let’s throw some sex & nudity in while we’re at it, but do it really childishly. Loved the climactic battle scene with the sneering lion dragon and the flashy blue light and the zombie warriors fighting the sisters, the most unconvincing swordfighters ever. The acting is as wooden as the swords in this movie, and believe me, these actors are not people you want running aroundi with sharp things in their hands. If only MST3K did R rated stuff … this would have been perfect fodder for them.
I am so surprised by this post because I saw:
The Water Diviner & A Most Violent Year and at the time I watched them, I thought I should post about them to warn people off. But then I thought, “No one will ever agree with me on these.”
So pleased to find someone who is not afraid to speak a simple truth like, “The Emperor is not wearing any clothes!”
Well done!
Well, no one would want to watch the silent movie.
However, I did find “We’re the Millers” very funny (Couple of years old now, but Jennifer Aniston as a stripper?)
Also “What We Did on Our Holiday” is a great movie if you don’t want something too challenging.
Our MotW was Boy Meets Girl. A non-standard love story, to say the least.
This was a very good movie for the most part. Along the lines of Chasing Amy (one of my faves.) Lots of really good, funny, weird dialog scenes in the first hour. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the story arc, the last half hour had a lot less of this, but I can see that the mood had to shift.
Some really good acting. I was surprised in looking up the actors on IMDb how many of them had long lists of credits. Usually for small films like this many of the actors are “locally sourced” or some such and have few to no other credits.
E.g., the male lead, Michael Welch (who is for some reason listed last at IMDb), goes all the way back to a 1998 Frasier episode where he played a young Niles Crane in a flashback. He also did the voice of Pinocchio in some Disney stuff.
(OTOH, he’s a lot closer to 30 than his character’s age of 21 and it shows.)
One exception in experience is the star herself: Michelle Hendley. First role and so far only released film. Absolutely amazing.
Both did a fine job with subtle Southern accents. OTOH, the 2nd female lead really overdid it. Her character, raised the way she was, wouldn’t have had such a thick accent.
Nice story, generally well done. The writer/director has some experience but he isn’t quite there in terms of polish.
I recommend it strongly if you like the more off beat type of tales.
I just watched The Grapes of Wrath.
This may be old news to most of you but I’ve been anticipating watching this film since it is almost universally touted as one of the best American films ever.
I was so disappointed. There was just so little about it that I found at all interesting. I suppose that to many people it may have been a good history lesson about the tragedy of the dust bowl or at least that period. But I just found it to be boring, boring, boring.
Yes! Great zither theme, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8HQEDhxQvE
I’ve recently seen:
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Very good mix of action, jokes and quiet character moments; a worthy addition to the fast-growing onscreen Marvel Universe. I’d give it a solid A.
The 39 Steps
Hitchcock’s last British movie before going to Hollywood. A great pre-WWII B&W thriller about an innocent man on the run, going from the crowded streets of London to the moors of Scotland and back again.
Kingsman
Fun, clever, action-packed spy spoof. Not perfect, but worth a look.
Safe House
Denzel Washington is a turncoat CIA agent and Ryan Reynolds is the scared young agent who has to bring him in from a South African city, even as a mysterious crew of assassins is trying to kill them both. I saw the twist coming a mile away, but enjoyed it just the same.
I recently mostly watched Gone With the Wind. (I have seen it now and won’t do it again.) The scene with the dress made from the drapes cracked me up. I couldn’t help remembering Carol Burnet in her skit with the curtain rod.
We recently watched a couple of classics on Netflix discs.
Sorry, Wrong Number . My God, how annoying can a woman be? 10 minutes in and I’m actually rooting for the killer.
**
Pillow Talk** What the hell??? The guy is an asshole. He’s a lying, conniving dick who has no qualms at all about screwing over women AND his ‘best friend’. Just because he decides he wants to marry you…HE’S STILL A LYING, CONNIVING ASSHOLE!!! He’s the kind of guy who will cheat on the bride during the wedding reception. And dammit, she deserves the heartache that’s coming for being so stupid.
We saw It Follows…a pretty good horror flick with a morally ambiguous ending.
Avengers: Age of Ultron. Enjoyed it, but there really were too many characters on the screen for them all to get a fair share (most notably Thor).
I saw a documentary “Breaking the Maya Code”, which was awesome.
It was an account of the ultimately successful, decades-long attempt to decipher the Mayan hieroglyphic language.
The various means used to do so (and it was done in little bits and stages) were ingenious; the cast of characters, amazingly eccentric.
For example: one of the key figures in the decipherment was a fellow who had no relationship to things Maya at all - he was a Soviet soldier in WW2, who happened to come accross, in the flaming wreckage of Berlin, a copy of the existing Mayan codices – and became obsessed with figuring out how to read them. He had considerable success - but was ignored because he was, after all, a commie Russian in Stalin’s Soviet Union in the 1950s - hardly a hotbed of Mayan studies (a fact that was, as explained in the show, actually an advantage - as the giants in Mayan studies at the time were both dead wrong and highly influential).
No ancient aliens or mystic crystal skulls were harmed in the making of this film. Or, indeed, mentioned at all. 