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 LordofHats wrote:
In a Violent Nature

This is an interesting idea for a movie.

Slasher flick but you follow the movie monster, not the victims for nearly every step of the film. And I'll give them credit. It's an interesting idea. Bold.

But the plot suffers horribly for it, turning the film into one long 'follow a guy walking menacingly around while he kills some kids.'

I wish the movie endeavored to do something more creative with it. Tell an old-fashioned story in a new way rather than just follow the killer around between gory kills. Or maybe tell the killer's story even. For the life of me the movie alludes to the movie monster having feelings and stuff, but I couldn't tell you what they're supposed to be or why they aren't just the usual shallow excuse for a slasher film to explain some gory murders.

The gimmick is cool. It's kind of neat to watch for that alone but the movie otherwise makes a bold choice and proceeds to do nothing with it.

Just finished it.

Could’ve been 30-40 minutes shorter and nothing would’ve been lost. A shorter run time would’ve helped it, I think. There were times about 1/4th into it where I increased playback speed to 1.5, sometimes 2. I love me some nature shots, but it got old fast.

It also had some of the most tropey horror movie victim tropes that I’ve ever seen.

Sting (2024)

Alien spider creature feature.

A mindess horror flick that brings nothing new to the table, but these kind of movies are what I grew up on, so I had to check it out. I suppose it was fun, definitely more fun than In a Violen Nature detailed above. It didn’t take long for gak to hit the fan in this movie, which I appreciate. Also, the eponymous creature Sting is a Hobbit reference, which I loved.

Yeah, I may have to watch Bullet Train at some point. It kinda sounds like fun.


I actually bought a film on Amazon Prime. I feel like a bad person. And was instantly punished accordingly. For years I've been looking for a cheap second hand copy of Chungking Express on DVD, never found one. I'd watched the film many, many years ago and remembered it ever since (it got me to like California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas. The song always made me think of the film.). So I saw it was on Amazon prime for like three Euros and I got it. Sound is perfectly okay on the original language audio track, on the German dub it's all messed up. Music and background noises are horrifyingly loud compared to the dialoge. I'm aware that this is a thing they do now for some silly reason and that modern TV sets can fix that somehow. My PC can't, or at least I haven't found a way to do it yet. Very annoying, but a rockin' film.


12 Angry Men (1997)

I love me some 12 Angry Men. I greatly enjoy the Sidney Lumet version from 1957, I like the German TV film from 1963, but so far I'd never heard of the 1997 version by Friedkin. Same old story (and thus endlessly rewatchable) and a very fun cast with Jack Lemmon in the main role (not too impressive, but the character isn't supposed to be. The more reduced this one's played I think the better), William Petersen, Tony Danza and Tony Soprano. Technichally it's James Gandolfini, but he's playing Tony Soprano really. It's amazing. For Gandolfini's performance alone and the nice feeling it evokes it's worth a watch. The story of course is untouchable to this day. Friedkin kinda placed it in the 90s, and added to the racial element a little bit by turning one of the roles into a Nation of Islam guy with the hat and bowtie and all. It's not badly done though I thought. They did not go with the Holocaust thing though, which was a good choice. Very relevant in the 50s version, not so much in a film sat in the 90s. Instead there's been some subtle twists with several of the characters, which is really interesting to see if you're familiar with the other versions especially.

Watch It. Watch all the 12 Angry Men all the time. It's a classic, it's timeless, it's about democracy and civil society and so on. Great play, endlessly rewatchable. And with that cast, it adds another layer. Highly recommended.

Definately watch bullet train if you can handle a bit of the old ultraviolence. It is stupid and adorable and a great slice of fun.

Scare Package (2020)

A horror anthology comedy, which feels kinda antiquated in itself with all its comedic references to horror classics, citing tropes and so on. There's some funny bits in there, several jokes that land flat, and a bunch of really cool practical effects. Feels like a labour of love by people who care, but aren't very good filmmakers or actors. Either way, it's not bad at all. I was thinking if this was one to have on at a halloween party or something.

Perfectly OK.. Could as well have been made many years before that (some time 2006-2010) and just released 2020. I'm sure there's a ton of stuff in there I didn't pick up on because I'm not that well versed in horror films (they do recreate several camera angles, shots, little background things, stuff like that). Features Goldust and Joe Bob Briggs.

The Bikeriders (2024)

Got about halfway through this last night before a thunderstorm knocked out power. I was enjoying it, but Jody Cromers voice/accent drove me up a fething wall and she's the main narrator. Take a shot of your hard liquor of choice whenever she says "you know". If you survive, you are some kind of immortal, invulnerable being.

It details a somewhat benign motorcycle riders club that seems to be descending into an actual motorcycle gang of the criminal sort. Some interesting characters, and the trailers that I've been watching for the past 6 months didn't really give it all away which I appreciate. I'll finish the rest tonight, but so far its an 8/10.

Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1

A decent enough flick, but probably would’ve been better served as a streaming mini-series. Definitely felt disjointed with the 5 or 6 stories being told concurrently.

For me, it moved along well enough, despite being a 3 hour movie. During the height of the pandemic, I must’ve read 8 books about the various Indian Wars in the American west, so the subject matter is of great interest to me. YMMV.

 Easy E wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Highlander


Now to see if the series is available on Tubi.

It is.... and it is still fun.

We tried to find it on Tubi today. No luck, unfortunately.

Ghostbusters Frozen Empire

I really enjoyed this. Well written and the old hands and younger cast members seem to gel really well.

Dan Akroyd seems to love it. The joy of his character imparting knowledge to the kids bleeds over into what feels like a genuine delight at reprising his role.

The young people save the day while the vets are reduced to plucky side kicks. So it’s not perfect.

The Limehouse Golem

A Victorian-era murder mystery that’s right up Mrs Souleater’s alley but not really my cup of tea.

Costumes, atmosphere, etc are good. The way they present the various suspects performing the grisly murders isn’t a new idea but is done well.

However, by at least halfway I was pretty confident that the murder was one of two characters. But without the final confession of the actual murderer I couldn’t see a way that the detective (Bill Nighy) could have told them apart. As the clues all turn out to work by their ambiguity.


Madam Webb

A film that has genuinely prompted me to try going sober again because I bought it on sale while tipsy.

To keep my lengthy criticism and disbelief of this film fairly short - I thought the YouTubers saying mean but funny things about this film were exaggerating things. They actually had to leave a lot of stuff out.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Highlander


Now to see if the series is available on Tubi.

It is.... and it is still fun.

We tried to find it on Tubi today. No luck, unfortunately.

Navigation on those silly streaming websites seems to be generally horrible. I have no idea why they can't just do proper listings of what's available.


I found out that Maverick, the light-hearted Jodie Foster/Mel Gibson wildwest-poker film is on Prime so I listened to that. Always nice. However, it's one of those things - again: ridiculous streaming website practice but I think Amazon is most guilty of that - where they only got the German dub audio for some silly reason.

The Long Good Friday

Bob Hoskins is a crime boss about to go legit, so why has someone started attacking his organisation?
This one is seen as a bit of a British classic, and I would agree, I'm not usually into gangster films (Or the crime genre in general) but this is really good.

Prince of Persia

No idea how this ever got green-lit and looked so good.

Costumes and set designs are great. The plot does what it says on the tin, the actors do their jobs with Jake G being a stand-out, and the action and derring-do is good. It is let down a bit by an obvious and by the numbers plot and somewhat weak resolution.

Perfectly passable family movie night.

I watched Drive again. Always absurdly enjoyable.

I watched Margin Call again. Great film. I like it way better than the other one with Steve Carell.The Big Short. Some of my favourite things of that film include the one middle management dude (my favourice character though) trying to justify his absurd income with his beyond-absurd spendings and how the people who actually understand numbers all come from different backgrounds originally (engineering). The higher-ups just don't understand the tables and numbers and graphs, they have to have underlings explain it to them. Jeremy Irons' hair is just unnerving enough.

 Sigur wrote:

I watched Margin Call again. Great film. I like it way better than the other one with Steve Carell.The Big Short. Some of my favourite things of that film include the one middle management dude trying to justify his absurd income with his beyond-absurd spendings and how the people who actually understand numbers all come from different backgrounds originally (engineering). The higher-ups just don't understand the tables and numbers and graphs, they have to have underlings explain it to them. Jeremy Irons' hair is just unnerving enough.

"Please, speak as you might to a young child, or a golden retriever" says the guy responsible for taking the first big brick out of the foundations of the global financial system.

I think about this movie constantly. Great performances all around.

Iron's rant about the cycle of finance through history at the end is iconic, imo.

Popeye

The batgak live-action musical starring Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall.



I vaguely remembered seeing it as a kid, and vaguely remember feeling confused by it while the adults around me all seemed bored, disturbed or angry. Since my son is really into weird old movies, this came up as a suggestion and he (being a fan of the cartoon) insisted we see it. So we did.



When you think “Robert Evans production” and “cocaine” this is the movie you’re thinking of. It’s a glorious mess of amazing production design, muddled storytelling, brilliant yet overly-choreographed vaudeville action, and truly awful musical numbers, that overstays its welcome a good 15 minutes.

Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall shine as live action cartoon characters. All of the background characters sell hard. Sweet haven feels like a fever dream shanty town, with constant busyness and cross-chatter filing the background. (Subtitles are a must.)

If you love ambitious failures, watch it.


Crocodile Dundee

A charming time capsule of a movie.

Furiosa (2024)

Finally gave this a watch. Not as good as Fury Road, but thoroughly entertaining and didn’t deserve to bomb as hard as it did.

In the same conversation as Popeye, we discussed another weird flop of a film. And we had to see it.

Howard the Duck

When you have Star Wars money for cocaine.


Most 80’s kids movies loaded up on the trauma. This one went another direction: disturbingly raunchy. Yes, this film has that infamous human-duck seduction scene…it also has duck boobs and a painfully long bath house/brothel scene. If you’re thinking “that doesn’t sound like a kids movie”, you haven’t seen Tim Robbins in it.

Still, I can’t hate it. The film has some impressive special effects in the expressive Duck suit, the Dark Overlord*, and Lea Thompson’s hair. Jeffrey Jones slays it as the monster. And the concert finale almost makes me forget all the film’s flaws. It doesn’t quite stick the landing like Streets of Fire, but the song “Howard ..the Duck” still pops into my head regularly.

Watch it if you want to see a bizarre flop almost as ill-conceived as Mac and Me and weirder than Bob Hoskin’s Super Mario Bros that still manages to have some endearing moments.


*The Dark Overlord effects are the main reason why I saw this film so many times as a child. If you love stop motion monster effects, find the scene on YouTube. you won’t regret it.

The Boy And The Heron

An attempt by Studio Ghibli to recapture the whimsy of some of their earlier films, and it sorta works.
The animation and artistry is on point, but the writing is a mess, the story is all over the place, pretty disjointed and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

But overall not a bad film, I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of Ghibli's output.

@Bobtheinquisitor: Funny thing is that I think I've don't even seen that film in full ever. But I'll stick up for it, because it's different. It's bad, but at least different. And features early 90s Lea Thompson. AND it's better than the Tyrannosaurus Rex one with Whoopie Goldberg.

@aku-chan: Haven't seen it, I'm sure it's good and very pretty.

I watched more things on Amazon Prime. 14 seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is good fun. It kinda reminds me of Seinfeld crossed with South Park. I tried to watch American Ninja 1 and 2, but Amazon's sound levels are all over the place. They try to counter that by offering "Dialogue Boost" on some things, but that's also a very crude tool. Remarkable how this tech giant (which should be split up ) doesn't manage to get it right. I watched an episode of King of Queens, and somehow it feels like the whole thing is slowed down a bit? Not sure, maybe I'm wrong, but it's weird.

I watched Dredd, it was pretty much exactly what I expected, and as such very nice and enjoyable.

I watched the first three episodes of The Boys. First off - I didn't read the comics, so I'm sure some things are on the source material's side, some on Amazon's side. The show is also kinda what I expected, though slightly less annoying, but it might get there. The humorous bits are bad. The casting is good. Homelander is really good, but might turn out to be used too bluntly. The dweeby main dude (god, I hope he doesn't turn out to have superpowers. That would undermine the whole show's point. Funny thing is that the show seems to know so, so there is hope.) has an unnerving face, the blonde lady is doing a good job with a character who's VERY reliant on tropes we've seen very often. Karl Urban is good as a character people can ledge on to, because who else would they. The graphic violence is unnecessary. I know, maybe I sound very old, but it's that mix of 'showing everything' and 'loads of CGI' (wich some notable exceptions I think). Just feels rather self-serving. Funny thing is that the whole affair feels a bit dated, on every level. Maybe it's because the comicbook was made a while ago.

It does tackle 2 important things which point out why comicbook super heroes are problematic - the fact that if you got a small group of Herrenmenschen (especially combined with that whole showbusiness and economic interests stuff in tow) it IS a problem for any society, and of course the outsourcing of national or civic security to those people. If this was a film, they'd be able to get that across much swifter and more concise I'm sure, but it's a streaming service, they turn anything into a tv show and muddy things up with characters and backstories and twists and turns. Because you gotta watch something whilst doing the ironing.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

It’s up on Amazon, and I’m prepared to be charmed.

@Sigur, it certainly is different.

Personally, I think that’s a big part of why it is so hated. It’s not a good movie in that it is wildly inconsistent in tone and character, doubles down on jokes that don’t land and has pacing issues—but it is nowhere near the worst movie of the decade or even the year it came out. I think a lot of people have a problem with “weirdness” in movies. When they see something different enough from the usual conventions, it makes them uncomfortable, and they interpret this as the film being bad.

A recent example from my life is Hundreds of Beavers. It’s a brilliantly executed comedy, but it is weird with a capital WEIRD compared to mainstream movies. My son and I loved it, but my wife hated it. She was uncomfortable, almost phobic, throughout the whole movie. Some of it is the costumes and the violence, but from her description her main issue with the movie is that she kept thinking “WTF is this?”.

Howard the Duck is the kind of movie that makes people think “WTF is this?” a lot.

Mansion of the Doomed. Aka The Terror of Dr Chaney, Massacre Mansion, Eyes, Eyes of Dr Chaney and House of Blood

A film in which a transplant surgeon with revolutionary ideas on eye transplants goes completely hatstand off the deep end when his beloved daughter loses her sight, and sets about stealing eyeballs to put her right.

Not only does Mr Surgeon look a bit like Charles Bronson, but pinching the eyes of Lance Henrikon is frankly below the belt. He needs those.

Anyways his surgery kinda works, as in he pops the new (well, second hand) peepers in his daughter’s bonce and she’s able to see. For a bit. Because tissue rejection and that. But he’s also kept the unwitting donors alive, promising himself that once he’s cracked it he’ll in turn sort out their peepers and they most definitely won’t want to kick his brainy if demented head in for stealing their eyes in the first place.

Oh and then it steps up a gear or twelve when he reckons the eyes of kiddywinks would be better.

Previously banned under the Obscene Publications Act, this is genuinely much better than I’ve made it out to be. It’s not overly gory and not especially sensationalised. The acting is pretty good, the “oh no I’ve got no eyes” makeup is basic but effective.

In terms of genre? Despite being pegged as an exploitation movie, I’m put in more of a mind of Italian Giallo, probably because it relies more on atmosphere than gore.

As with many such films banned during the Video Nasty panic, this is surprisingly tame. You can absolutely see why it revolted some, but its not a tawdry Torture Prawn bit of nonsense.

The Hobbit movies.

Despite suffering from "more is less" syndrome it remains a fantastic fantasy trilogy in its own right and a solid adaptation of the book. The first two films - Unexpected Journey, Desolation of Smaug - almost cover Tolkien's book, while Battle of the Five Armies famously brings to life an epic battle that's only briefly described at the end of it.

Less is more...but then again I'm only delighted for any opportunity to return to Middle Earth, when its this good. Roll on December and The War of the Rohrirrim!

This week we went with three W’s.

Wayne’s World

The classic comedy about two local access TV stars almost selling out. It still holds up. We’ll have to watch the sequel, too, if only for Gordon Street.



Wizards

The weird-ass cartoon that is weird and ass.

Okay, so my son enjoyed it way more than I did. It has a lot of reasons to like it, being a very, very 70’s animated fantasy. It’s also predictably terrible, being a very, very 70’s animated fantasy.

If you find modern animated films annoying because they often cast live action actors who know Jack about voice acting, you might be surprised to find out how much worse ‘voice acting’ was in the 70’s. Casting Ray Romano, ScarJo and the guy who played Frasier’s brother would have tripled the quality of the voice work in Wizards, as harrowing as that sounds. Black wolf and the narrator were good, though.



The Warriors

Come out to playyyeyyyayyyy!

Still the greatest gangland action movie ever made—can you dig it? Calling all boppers to hang with that real live crew from Coney. *Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.*

We saw the original theatrical cut. Apparently the director’s cut inserts comic book art in between the chapters. I’ve heard it ruins the flow of the movie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

It’s up on Amazon, and I’m prepared to be charmed.

So…did it charm you?

Oh yeah, The Warriors rules. Walter Hill's films of that time are so full of motion and liveliness; extremely modern film which is always fun to watch.

Yeah, his early films all seem solid. Looks like 48 Hours is going on the list!

Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

It’s ok. Quite charming, but not much to it.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Yeah, his early films all seem solid. Looks like 48 Hours is going on the list!

definately.



Phantasm (1979)

Horror classic which I just got to see now. It's a cut version too, because to this day the uncut version is banned in Germany, and streaming services don't care to make exceptions for Austrian laws (where it would be perfectly fine to watch uncut as far as I know). Oh well.

This is the first of the Phantasm series of films, of which there are just four, the latest one having been released in 2016 IIRC.

The film circles around a 13 year old boy, his older caretaker (after the parents died), who also happens to be a pop singer, so he has to get back on tour and plans to leave the boy behind with his aunt or something. We get treated to the dude singing a song, which evoked Pod People vibes. Either way, this sense of impending loss on the boy's side hangs over the whole film, and adds a pretty interesting layer to this whole story. Basically the boy sees an undertake, The Tall Man, being weird. And pretty much right from the get-go we get loads of scary dream-like scenes, with a bunch of cool effects.

Good film, a classic, part of horror film canon and so on, so Watch It.. It's not super scary, it's not annoying.

Deadpool and Wolverine. Not going to win any awards for depth of story, but it was good fun.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

It is a modern MI movie. If you enjoyed the last few you'll enjoy this. Not as strong as Fallout but definitely up there. Incredibly well shot with amazing stunt work and set pieces. The antagonist being a more subtle existential threat is certainly interesting, though I'm not sure I am completely sold on it. If you liked the others or just like well made action/adventure give it a watch.

 Sigur wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Yeah, his early films all seem solid. Looks like 48 Hours is going on the list!

definately.



Phantasm (1979)

Horror classic which I just got to see now. It's a cut version too, because to this day the uncut version is banned in Germany, and streaming services don't care to make exceptions for Austrian laws (where it would be perfectly fine to watch uncut as far as I know). Oh well.

This is the first of the Phantasm series of films, of which there are just four, the latest one having been released in 2016 IIRC.

The film circles around a 13 year old boy, his older caretaker (after the parents died), who also happens to be a pop singer, so he has to get back on tour and plans to leave the boy behind with his aunt or something. We get treated to the dude singing a song, which evoked Pod People vibes. Either way, this sense of impending loss on the boy's side hangs over the whole film, and adds a pretty interesting layer to this whole story. Basically the boy sees an undertake, The Tall Man, being weird. And pretty much right from the get-go we get loads of scary dream-like scenes, with a bunch of cool effects.

Good film, a classic, part of horror film canon and so on, so Watch It.. It's not super scary, it's not annoying.

The Phantasm series is great, it's just a shame each film brings up more questions that they never get around to answering.