Saw “Reality Bites” on cable yesterday. I paid attention to it mainly because of the premise, which was really nice: Elizabeth Bathory’s trick of bathing in the blood of female virgins to retain her youth works, and she had survived into the present day. She assures herself of a supply of said virgins by embarking on a career as a high school sexual abstinence advocate, traveling from school to school and encouraging young girls to remain sexually chaste so she can harvest them.
So I was hoping for a brilliant little parody of abstinence counseling in high schools combined with supernatural hi-jinks, which was kind of what I got except for the “brilliant” part: all of it was kind of predictable. It was EXACTLY what you’d expect someone with generally liberal sympathies to come up with, very by the numbers and not all that insightful about the impulses that lead to sexual chastity or sexual promiscuity. Still, a fun little horror romp, just not really worthy of 90 minutes of an adult’s full attention.
Dead Reckoning, a 1947 film noir with Bogart and a Bacall wannabe by the name of Lizabeth Scott. In fact, she was promoted as ‘the next Bacall’, but she really didn’t have the acting chops. She died in January of this year. Bogie did a good job in this film, but there are better films in the genre.
Indeed. AAMOF, there are much better films in this genre starring Bogart.
At the time “Dead Reckoning” came out, I’m pretty sure that Bogart and Bacall were either living together or married. I doubt that Lauren Bacall would have stood still for Lizabeth Scott making more films with Bogart while Bacall was actually going to marry him. That kind of stuff just would not fly in 1947.
My wife hates horror and disturbing movies and recently she and the boys were out of town so I binged. I recently watched:
Martyrs - A disturbing film no doubt. Sort of like Hostel + Christianity. Not for those of weak constitution but an interesting angle on the genre.
Insidious - I heard this was a great haunting movie but I wasn’t that into it. Too poltergeist for me, plus the big baddie was good for the smash cut scares but when shows for an extended period was kind of hilarious. It was ok but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.
Sinister - Another ghost movie that also has elements of snuff films to it. I found this to be much scarier and disturbing than Insidious. Despite some of the plot weirdness I feel it’s the far superior ghost film.
Last House on the Left (remake) - It was weird seeing Ricki from Garfunkel and Oates and Burt from Raising Hope in these roles but for a remake it was good. It toned down some of the ridiculous elements of the original and made some of the scenes much more visceral and horrible. The very end was a bit contrived and not great though.
Mysterious Skin - Not a murder mystery or a scary flick but more one that shows some of the impacts to the lives of people who are sexually abused as children. Hard to watch at times but also very very well done. I would highly recommend this one. But also - not for those with delicate sensibilities. Of all the films this one had the greatest impact on me.
My wife and I both went to see “Grand Budapest Hotel”. We both liked it very much. Wait! We didn’t go see it in the theater! We rented it from one of those damned “boxes” you find in grocery stores these days. But we still liked it.
I’ve become pretty picky about the movies I’ll go watch very possibly because I don’t feel like plunking $14 down on something that’s gonna SUCK so I haven’t gone to watch too many movies in recent years. When I do, though, it’s usually late in the year when many movies that have Oscar aspirations come out. With that in mind in recent years I’ve gone to see:
Skyfall, Up, Up In The Air, The Princess and the Frog, Argo, Flight, Lincoln, and, most recently Birdman. Oh, I also went to see The Nut Job in deference to my wife on her birthday either last year or the year before. Generally speaking I’ve gotten kind of turned off to animated films (maybe just because I’m reaching - if not already in - middle age) but I liked The Princess and The Frog. Up was okay, but I liked The Princess and The Frog better. Skyfall was fine if you like Bond movies but I don’t think it was anything special (although it had Javier Bardem playing the villain and he does a fine job of that!). I remember liking Argo (phuch yerself!) but there was a little too much “Hollywood” in that movie for me to give it a top grade. Of the ones I listed I probably liked Lincoln and Birdman the best although I thought Denzel Washington did a fine job in Flight (in fact I think in many other years he would’ve been deserving of a Best Actor award at the Oscars but after watching Lincoln that year I had a hunch that Daniel Day-Lewis was gonna take that award). The Nut Job? It was okay. Nothing special, in my view (at least I didn’t leave the theater early as I did when attempting to watch Gladiator a few years earlier).
Didn’t drive in to work yesterday with all the snow - ended up browsing Netflix and found the movie “Chef” with Jon Favreau, he also wrote and directed it.
Loved this movie. Highly recommended. It won’t win any Oscar awards but it was well made and very entertaining.
Gone Girl was fantastic. Glenn Close no longer holds the title of most fucked up psycho-revenge chick portrayal. Rosamund Pike was chilling.
Last night, we watched** Inherent Vice**. Still have no idea what that was about. I really wanted to like it, but all the best scenes were in the trailer. Not really funny at all. To call the plot convoluted would be an understatement.
It was directed by Russell Crowe who starred in it as well and I don’t think there was a single second in the entire film where his face was not on the screen.
It seems to me that many actors, when given the opportunity to direct, just go nuts and their egos take over everything. I think that is what happened to Crowe on this film.
It was rated incredibly high by IMDB. They gave it 8.0. I wouldn’t have given it even 6.0 for several reasons. First, although I tried and tried, I could not find a version that had English subtitles and the dialog for much of the movie was spoken in Turkish. The only subtitles I could find were Korean. That made it incredibly difficult to understand what was going on. I have no idea why it seemed like all the versions of this film had Korean subtitles. I just kind of lost my mind about this. What the Hell does Korean have to do with anything in a movie about Turkey and the First World War? I thought that was just crazy but it was only the beginning of crazy as far as this film went.
In addition to that, there have been several reviews and news articles that were highly critical of this film. Some of them seemed to suggest that Crowe was more interested in feeding his ego than he was in making a good movie and he actually tried to change history in this movie. I was surprised that so many critics seemed incredibly angry with Crowe for that reason. I was angry just because it was so difficult to understand this movie.
It starts with a lengthy scene showing us how Crowe’s character could find water in some area of Australia that was very unpopulated. But his ability to find water had nothing to do with the rest of the movie and it seemed to me to be boring as Hell as well. It seemed like Crowe wasted about half an hour educating the audience in the art of Water Divination. But that had nothing at all to do with the rest of the movie.
However, many people seemed to like this movie a whole lot and I am often in the minority opinion when it comes to films. So, maybe you should give it a try and see for yourself. After all, a great many people seemed to love this movie.
I’ve become pretty picky about the movies I’ll go watch very possibly because I don’t feel like plunking $14 down on something that’s gonna SUCK so I haven’t gone to watch too many movies in recent years. When I do, though, it’s usually late in the year when many movies that have Oscar aspirations come out. With that in mind in recent years I’ve gone to see:
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That is only reasonable. I just wish more people felt that way. If they did, we would get much better films.
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Skyfall was fine if you like Bond movies but I don’t think it was anything special (although it had Javier Bardem playing the villain and he does a fine job of that!).
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Javier Bardem is an excellent actor. He just sort of came out of left field and so many of his films have been equivalent to “career-making” films that I felt the need to recommend them.
Anyway, I hope you won’t mind if I suggest a few other of his films that I thought were just fabulous.
I first noticed him in, “No Country For Old Men”. What a great film that was!
Vicky Christina Barcelona was likewise wonderful.
The Counsellor was real good too although some people might find it too violent.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
Pretty good sequel. If you like SpongeBob, you should see it. The trailers make it look like it’s all about the CGI superhero versions of the characters, but that’s only the last part of the movie.
Swingers
Smartass struggling Nineties actors channel the Rat Pack. Has some good moments.
Anchorman 2
Not as good as the first, but still funny.
Klown
Gave up on this recent Danish comedy after 20 minutes or so. Had been recommended to me, but really not worth it.
I was extremely happy recently to have discovered a great list of Black and White movies posted in the following thread:
I posted a list of more than 100 such films and RivkaChaya then posted an even larger list.
There were very few overlapping films and I have watched a few from her list that were new to me and most of them were quite wonderful.
But, unfortunately, not all of them were wonderful and I want to tell you about one of those.
The film, Lifeboat (1944) was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and it was produced after many of his excellent films. But I didn’t think it was all that great.
Tallulah Bankhead was outstanding. But the movie didn’t really hang together very well. I suppose you have to watch the film for yourself to get a true sense of it. It was rated 7.8 at IMDB and I thought that was very much overrated.
I suppose you have to keep in mind that it was made during wartime. But I’d very much like to hear what some other people think. I kept asking myself what the story was about and I couldn’t come up with any answer.
I have seen a few movies over the past couple of weeks:
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Good, and surprisingly adult and dark for a kids’ movie. Only complaint was that he basically just gets the girl by showing up. The Atlanteans literally do nothing as they are being robbed of their precious artifact, and the girl also doesn’t fight or anything. It smacks a little bit of White Man’s Burden.
The Gate
A really weird 80s demon flick. I mean, weird! I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be serious or funny. Would not recommend.
Zathura
No matter what anyone says, this is JUMANJI IN SPACE! Fun movie, except for the annoying (admittedly realistic) relations between an annoying, pompous older brother, and a whiny little younger brother. It made me happy to be an only child, I can tell you that. But it spends too long on the brothers’ relationship and less time on the cool shit happening all around.
Hot Tub Time Machine
A sort of fun nostalgic movie. The only thing about this is the nice twist at the end; instead of learning to accept their place in life, something much better happens! Worth a watch, at least once.