A cinema in Melbourne is running a samurai film retrospective at the moment. I've caught a couple so far, Seven Samurai and a double of Lady Snowblood and the first Lone Wolf and Cub movie. I just got back from the '62 version of Harakiri though and holy shit, what a fucking film. Absolutely magnificent. Cinematography was gorgeous, performances and writing were outstanding and the famous bamboo sword scene lived up to all the hype. Such an intriguing film and a really interesting approach to the samurai film and what it says about Japanese culture and society. I've got Rashomon on tomorrow, which somehow I'm yet to see, and that should be fantastic. But yeah, was blown away by Harakiri.

People who have seen X-Men: Days of Future Past: please tell me that the Moody Blues are on this soundtrack.

Regarding Godzilla, I saw it for the second time yesterday has anyone noticed that the skull of the gigantic skeleton in the beginning (the one being explored by Serizawa and his assistant) is very similar to Godzilla's? Though it seems even larger than him. I have a hunch that this is going to play a potential role in the development of the sequel.

Just came back from X Men DoFP and it was awesome. I'll say it's even better than First Class due to the presence of my personal fav Wolverine! The ensemble truly worked, it wasn't forced since it's fully integrated within the story. It was perhaps way to reboot the story and the ending almost made me cry!

Caught RIPD on tv at a friend of mine's yesterday. All I can say is it was probably legitimately one of the worst things ever. Not worst movies. Just things in general.

So, here's the latest trailer from Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles:

I know it was mentioned a page ago but Sinister has probably has the worst ending to a horror film I've ever seen. And I use the term horror very loosely as nothing was notably engaging on any level, apart from some research bits, which should have been the whole film as far as I'm concerned, not Ethan Hawke aimlessly wandering around his new house for an hour, being scared of snakes and scorpions.

I fell asleep during Sinister, and haven't even bothered to watch the remaining hour or so that was left. This was at least a year ago.

Sinister wasn't that bad. I liked the home video-esque portions, and it had some smidgen of originality to it. Ethan Hawke's character was a fucking tool though, I hated him the entire time - that ruined a lot of the film for me.

Watched Videodrome the other day, surprisingly enough it's one of Cronenberg's films I had not yet seen. In some ways it serves as a precursor to The Fly. It was good but not great, very 80's. Probably better to have watched it 20 years ago. James Woods was all right but I can't watch anything with that guy in it without constantly thinking about that outrageous IQ he has, and wondering far too often, 'If he is such a genius, why does he look so stupid?' - really hard focusing on a plot when distracted like that.

Also watched that LEGO movie, and it was great - enjoyed it a lot more than the new Godzilla. Christ, even the Batman in that movie was better than the Christian Bale Batman, which is further proof that pieces of plastic are more emotive than Bale. Everything truly is awesome.

"I only work in black and gray!"

HUGE +1! About generally liking the movie, but especially about that buttcrack of a character. Often the family problems n shit in horror movies strike me as a really lazy halfass way to squidgeon some character development in there, and I still never care about anyone but the cute leading lady. In Sinister, I truly wished Ethan Hawke would be the next victim. Fuckin' hated his ass. What kind of man puts his failing dream ahead of his family?

A man who has fallen victim to lame writing, of course.

Emp mentioned the home video parts with all the murders, and those were the best parts of the movie by FAR for me. Helped that they were silent, save the stupid "ominous" music underneath. As well done as those parts were, imagine how even creepier they would have been had there been zero accompanying score whatsoever.

Yeah, they would have been muuuch scarier silent! But were still cool nonetheless.

The first trailer for The Green Inferno has been released.

http://bloody-disgusting.com/videos/329 ... ands-hell/

I think I'll see it. Roth knows how to do good gory horror when he's not being stupid, and I expect the effects to be practical and disgustingly awesome. Besides, who can turn up a new Amazon cannibal movie?

He's never really made a good movie though. At best the idea of something like Hostel could have worked, if it were tackled in a more somber manner with more drama in it, as opposed to a shitty gore-fest. I liked Cabin Fever OK when I was like 15 or so. But that's really about it.

I hated Cabin Fever. The first Hostel I enjoyed quite a bit, the second one is really awful, and the third one I did a riffing party for with a few friends.

I went into Cabin Fever expecting a straightforward R rated horror movie with little to no humor. Then it turned out to be the kind of flick where a long haired karate kid starts screaming about pancakes for absolutely no reason. I didn't hate it though.

"Congo"- A kinda sorta favorite of mine, since I've watched it a lot since I was a kid. It's cheesey and often downright dumb, but mostly it's a straightforward, fun adventure movie.

"Quest For Fire"- Another favorite about a Neanderthal trio who must get a hol of fire for their stranded tribe, encountering prehistoric beasts and other tribes along the way. It's a quiet movie, with lots of atmosphere, but the pacing and acting are very good. It's a movie that doesn't insult the viewer by having the cavemen speak modern language for the hell of it. A great film.

"Godzilla vs King Ghidorah"- Finally got a hold of the original Japanese version, and it beats the US cut by 50 miles. The US version's dubbing is among the worst in the series. Anyway, the characters are more interesting than I remembered, and more likable. The first half of the movie isn't bad but just kinda "meh". The 2nd half picks up the pace considerably, with enjoyable scenes with the humans and great monster fights; the music is as solid as always too. Some things don't click though; many special FX moments are just embaressing, the sequences with American soldiers are wince-inducing, and some of the "future" ideas, such as Japan becoming a major economical superpower and buying up continents, is just plain laughable. Still, better movie than I remebered anyway.

^ Love Quest for Fire. My dad showed it to me when I was young. It aired on tv once (no ads!) and he recorded it. I've been a fan since then. It's quiet, atmospheric, at times violent and funny too. And it has Ron Pearlman!!

Have any of you seen Creator, starring Peter O'Toole and Virginia Madsen? It's fucking hilarious. I'm not sure if it was meant to be, but it is. It's about this scientist whose wife has been dead for 30 years, and he's trying to grow a clone of her in his back yard. Just... watch it.

Another little haul.

Finished watching Gattaca a few minutes ago. It was a nice change from the more traditional sci-fi movies I've been watching. If a part drama, part crime film set in the near future about genetic engineering sounds like your thing, I can't think of another movie to recommend. Another one, not a better one, because this is the only movie I can think of that fits that description.

Yeah I recently re-watched Gattaca a couple of weeks ago. It's got an amazing visual style, with its weird 1950s-meets-the-future kind of vibe (distinct from the 1950s vision of the future, as seen in the Fallout games). Many of the ideas, like the twelve-fingered pianist, were quite clever.

However, the plot and character arcs were meandering and nonsensical - the brother turning out to be the police inspector was a silly coincidence that didn't really pay off, and the whole "swimming race" thing was stupid. If you're going to do the same scene twice, you have to change the outcome the second time to show how things have changed over the course of the movie - like the protagonist loses the first time, then comes back as an adult with all the things he's learned and overcomes his inferior genetics to win the second time. Instead, he just beats his brother both times and we learn nothing. Jude Law's character similarly doesn't change at all - he's depressed and suicidal at first because he's paralyzed and can't live with himself as a failure...and in the end he kills himself because he can't live with himself being a failure. It makes no fucking sense. The whole point of the protagonist's journey was to prove that genetics don't determine your destiny, so by rights Jude Law's character should've ended up with a new sense of hope. Instead, nothing happens, nobody changes. The movie is basically just a minor bump in the road on the protagonist's way to getting what he wanted.

Also, about the overall theme of the movie: are there really people out there who think genetics determine everything? It just seems to me like the movie creates this strawman that nobody actually believes and isn't true then spends the whole movie proving that nobody should believe it and it isn't true. I guess it's sort of generally a "no destiny but what we make for ourselves" theme, but it's not very artfully executed.

Anyway, the movie is still worth watching for the visuals and style alone, but I do wish they'd had a better screenplay to work with.

Anyone see that new found-footage Bigfoot movie? I'm intrigued that Bobcat directed it and it's getting really good reviews.

I agree with you about the coincidence that the cop ended up being the brother. It came out of nowhere, and as far as I can remember, there weren't any clues leading up to that sudden revelation, discounting that quick scene where he's switching back and forth between the pictures of the 'valid" and the "in-valid." The second swimming scene was pointless and poorly done, rendering the prior one kind of pointless as well, like you mentioned. That whole sequence was sketchy.

I'm more apt to believe that the real Jerome still wanted to kill himself, though. Vincent mentions early on that Jerome was designed for a role like a navigator, but that he lacked the desire. I think he even tells him that at some point. Jerome has the right genetic makeup, but not the drive that Vincent has, which is something you can't engineer. He solidifies his fate, so-to-speak, when he swaps roles with Vincent, the boy who was supposed to die young from a heart disease. If you want to get symbolic, Jerome's lack of heart drove him to his suicide, fulfilling the death Vincent was fated for in a figurative way. And when he does die, it's with that silver medal around his neck, which we now get a close-up of and see it's for second-place in swimming. The symbolism is blatant--Jerome is "second best" in his relationship with Vincent. He never acquires the drive he needs to survive, but squanders his chances of ever getting that drive by exchanging his identity with Vincent's. It's a sacrifice. It doesn't outright serve any message against genetic superiority, true, but Jerome's suicide fits his character and fits the plot. I can't blame him for not wanting to waste away in his house for a year, alone, anyway. At the very least, it's a good reason to sync the firing up the incineration chamber with the launch of the rocket!

I think the film is getting across that eugenics will become widespread and ingrained in society if developments in genetic engineering allow for human perfection. If anyone could have a genetically superior child (not just people with "positive eugenics"), who wouldn't? The technology's high probability rate for success (as compared to a natural birth) and the genetically modified children's tendency to outperform and outlive children who were born naturally would encourage further genetic discrimination. I could definitely see it happening. It's not a problem now, but if the technology is introduced, it could be.

Edge of Tomorrow was the best video game movie I've ever seen.

But forreal. Check it out. It's basically Groundhog Day: Starship Troopers Edition (only where the bugs are replaced with the mechazoids from The Matrix/Crysis), but it's good fun for what it is and packs more action in it than any of the franchises I've alluded to so far (even Crysis, you say? Especially Crysis.). Plus, it uses its gimmick wisely: it's a backbone from which to build its story, as opposed to a one-trick pony ala most Christopher Nolan films. (Speaking of: calling it now. Edge of Tomorrow outstrips Interstellar, hands down.)

Unfortunately, the ending is... uh... less than impressive. Thankfully, the movie survives because the whole damn point is the journey; not the resolution (oh hey, another tick against all-things-Nolan!).

All-in-all, a highly recommended junk sci-fi action film.

I also keep hearing that it's good, which is totally surprising. Might have to see it...

I'm about 45 minutes into The Dirties, that cinema vérité school shooting movie that Kevin Smith endorsed. and I'm really, really digging it. It looks real, the acting is great, and the handheld style works a lot better here than it does in most found footage movies. The movie's doing the Project X thing of never really acknowledging the cameraman yet he's still very clearly a guy that's there. It's also giving a reason for the camera to always be on, aside from the protagonists being cinemaphiles shooting a movie.

The main guy sounds a LOT like Seth MacFarlane though. That's a little distracting at times.

Dude, you'd fucking LOVE it. Well, maybe not the forced and arbitrary romance bits between its two leads (it's not that the romance is bad, exactly, it's just that it doesn't need to be there and feels committee-inserted rather than organic to the story), but everything else is basically the best of sci-fi Japanese concept art fused to fairly western storytelling (which is humorous, because it's supposedly based on a Japanese short story) and VERY western money. Pretty much every second of the film milks its massive budget for every cent it's worth.

But yeah, for my money it'd be a rexxz-approved movie for sure. Let me know your thoughts when you see it!

My buddy asked me to see Edge of Tomorrow last night but I stayed in because I thought it would be crap. Guess I have to check it out, I'm kinda excited now!

Raze - "It's The Hunger Games meets Fight Club, but with women!"

Three actresses from Grindhouse are in this gory tale of a group of women who get kidnapped and forced to fight to the death, bare handed, in a dirty circular pit. I didn't really have high hopes for this, and after a promising start it quickly began to annoy me. Scenes did not flow smoothly at all from one to the next, so I wondered if I was watching a planned 2 hour movie chopped down to 90 minutes. Characters were introduced faster than I could learn their names or start to care about them. And at least one character who seemed like she'd be important just disappeared for a while. The ending wasn't very satisfying, either.

I'm probably making it seem like I hated the movie, which I didn't. It was watchable, it just could have been better with another script revision or two. Including a better ending.

Is "edge of tomorrow" a phrase that's ever written in the original graphic novel? I know the original name is All You Need Is Kill, so I'm curious why the change... beyond it having "kill" in the title which may hamper box office performance.

Edge of Tomorrow: I went into the movie with the notion that it'd be a weird concoction of Source Code + Oblivion and some other scifi movies. I was pleasantly surprised with everything that it had to offer. Even the comedic timing of some of the scenes were perfect. Basically, what darkeningday said to the tee.

Regarding the ending, this post sums it up pretty well.

I too enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow, to my surprise. I have a question though.

We have free tickets to go and see 22 Jump Street tonight, it's an advance screening.
The first one [21 Jump Street] was pretty funny so I have high hopes

I remember dreading the first one because the trailer was so terrible. Still haven't actually seen the whole thing, but from what I've seen of it it actually looked pretty funny. I'm still not really a Jonah Hill fan, but Channing Tatum proved with what I've seen of that movie and Magic Mike that he's MUCH better at doing comedy than serious stuff.

He's quite a watchable dude I reckon, White House Down wasn't too bad with him in it.

I watched five minutes of it(where the terrorists first invade and not a single drop of blood) then turned it off. I hate watered down action movies.

Antiviral - 4/5

Pretty nasty, imaginative horror/sci fi about a future where people voluntarily get sick with diseases contracted from their favorite celebrities. It's really quite well done and takes its idea seriously, pushing it way further than some other movies would. I like that it's constantly surrounded in this miasma of unease and darkness - I felt sick watching it, which is not the put down it would usually be. I also liked that, of the made-up celebrities in the film, you never really HEAR what they're famous for. Their faces have become more important than what they actually did. It also doesn't go over the top in making the future seem totally ruined and decrepit - we only get a small portrait of life and it's the shallow tabloid culture that already exists today. Caleb Landry Jones does a good job as the lead. Set against a backdrop of white and silver clinical surfaces, he races to stop the infection slowly killing him. Recommended for horror fans - it's brutal as fuck, twisted and nasty, and also smart.

The Collection - 0/5

Worthless garbage for idiots obsessed with gore. There's no real story here and I really can't see why anyone would enjoy something like this. Pure inbred tripe from that tool who made the recent SAW movies. I feel bad for even giving this the time of day. Like literally afterward I felt like I shouldn't have even bothered - something that doesn't always happen to me.

The Fault in Our Stars - 4.75/5

Beautifully done adaptation of the John Green book. It's a teen love story sort of calling back the greatest ones from the past, but adding a new dimension of tragedy to it. At times the dialogue from the book sounds unwieldy when coming out of real live peoples' mouths, but the undeniable passion and soul of this story really bleeds through, and overall it's a much deeper story than many of its contemporaries could even dream of. The overall arc of the story is masterfully done, with director Josh Boone proving he has a real feel for how to convey a strong, emotional narrative. The acting is fantastic, with Shailene Woodley giving the best performance all year so far as the lead - if she doesn't get an Oscar for this it'll be criminal, as I actually like this performance better than I liked the character from the book. While I think the fact that it's a "Young Adult" love story will drive people off, it shouldn't, because this is one of the best movies all year and I think it will end up on my Top 10 once the year is done.

Heights - 3/5

Weird drama about a bunch of people in New York navigating relationship problems. Elizabeth Banks does a great job as the lead, and there are some other good performances, but overall there are too many different stories going on - it kinda dilutes the sense of where the movie is actually going. Not much is really said here outside of "sometimes relationships don't work out."

Summer of Fear - 3.5/5

Part of a "20 Horror Movies" DVD I got months ago - this is really more like a suspenseful drama, as it unfolds a tale of a family on the lake meeting a charismatic young man who isn't quite what he seems. The acting was pretty good actually, and the story, while not always captivating, followed a clear narrative and was overall enjoyable for what it was. You've seen this kind of thing done before, but I do like that there isn't any pandering here and it just gives you a no-frills, well told story. I really think this was marketed wrong though, as it isn't a horror movie despite being on this DVD and having a cover art more befitting of a generic supernatural slasher flick. I guess the promotional material wanted it to ride some kind of wave it didn't really fit into.